Friday 2 February: British democracy is sick when an MP is threatened for pro-Israel views

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

522 thoughts on “Friday 2 February: British democracy is sick when an MP is threatened for pro-Israel views”

  6. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) list
    SHORT & SWEET – BUT NOT VERY PC – 3
    The Grim Reaper came for me last night, and I beat him off with a vacuum cleaner.
    F*ck me, talk about Dyson with death.

    Did you hear about the fat alcoholic transvestite?
    All he wanted to do was eat, drink and be Mary.

    Paddy says, “Mick, I’m thinking of buying a Labrador.”
    “F*ck that” says Mick, “have you seen how many of their owners go blind?”

    A man calls 999 and says, “I think my wife is dead.”
    The operator says, “How do you know?”
    He says, “The sex is the same but the ironing is building up!”

    I was in bed with a blind girl last night and she said that I had the biggest penis she had ever laid her hands on.
    I said, “You’re pulling my leg”

    I’ve just had a letter back from Screwfix. They said they regretted to inform me that they’re not actually a dating agency.

    I spent £40 on eBay last week for a penis enlarger. Just opened it and some bastard has sent me a magnifying glass!

    I saw a poor old lady fall over today on the ice!! At least I presume she was poor – she only had £1.20 in her purse.

    My girlfriend thinks that I’m a stalker. Well, she’s not exactly my girlfriend yet.

    I woke up last night to find the ghost of Gloria Gaynor standing at the foot of my bed.
    At first, I was afraid…then I was petrified.

    What’s the difference between Iron Man and Iron Woman?
    One’s a Superhero and the other is an instruction.

    An old lady is being examined by the Doctor. He asks, “Have you ever been bedridden?”
    She says, “Yes I have and I’ve been table ended and back-scuttled a few times too!”

    Went for my routine check-up today and everything seemed to be going fine until he stuck his index finger up my arse! Do you think I should change dentists?

    A wife says to her husband, “You’re always pushing me around and talking behind my back.” He says, “What do you expect? You’re in a wheel chair.”

    1. “I spent £40 on eBay last week for a penis enlarger. Just opened it and some bastard has sent me a magnifying glass!”

      Better than a microscope!

  8. West must ensure Russia loses or face attacks by dictatorships, warns Shapps. 2 February 2024.

    The West must ensure that Russia is defeated in Ukraine or risk being attacked by dictatorships such as China, Grant Shapps has warned.

    The Defence Secretary said “regimes who do not believe in democracy are watching” the war in Ukraine and could launch attacks on Western states if they think they have “run out of puff”.

    In an interview with The Telegraph, he said Britain was “living in more and more dangerous times”, and revealed that Army recruitment had more than doubled last month amid growing fears of a confrontation with Moscow.

    The comments are sceptical to say the least. There seems to have been a sea change in opinion. I can remember that I used to post on the Spectator and then be swamped. Now I am beginning to look like a moderate!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/02/01/west-must-ensure-russia-loses-face-attacks-dictatorships/

    1. Our (ha ha) ‘Defence Secretary’ is a prize idiot. If I’ve worked out that Russia doesn’t intend invading Europe and just doesn’t want to be threatened by NATO (think USA and the Cuba Crisis, October 1962) Then the man is as thick as shite in a bottle – to use a Glasgow expression.

    2. €50Bn to keep the killing going. I am rather sickened by the enthusiasm of the EU to fund war rather that do some good with the money.

    3. Johnny Four-Names seems oblivious to the fact that he serves in a regime that does not believe in democracy. He never gives numbers regarding recruitment, just burble such as ‘numbers are the highest for six years’ or, as above, ‘more than doubled’. Doubled from what? Two is the double of one.

    1. Good Morning Elsie

      A tricky four today

      Wordle 958 4/6

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      1. Beaten again

        Wordle 958 5/6

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  11. British democracy is sick when an MP is threatened for pro-Israel views

    Well David Amess was murdered and others have been stabbed for the way they voted and nothing happened.

    1. People are holding up Mike Freer as some kind of lantern of democracy. He didn’t even have the courage to mention David Amess or to denounce the Channel invasion.

  12. How this appalling, gormless creature got any form of employment at the Beeb is scandal enough. That she should rise to “a senior level” is a national shame.

    BBC employee called Jewish people ‘Nazis’ and whites ‘parasites’

    Posts made on Facebook describe the UK as ‘bigoted’ and follow the filing of official complaints about anti-Semitism at the broadcaster

    Craig Simpson
    1 February 2024 • 7:39pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/02/01/TELEMMGLPICT000364840965_17068150906710_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf_4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Members of the Jewish community protest outside BBC Broadcasting House in October over the broadcaster’s refusal to label Hamas as terrorists CREDIT: Carl Court/Getty Images

    A senior BBC employee branded Jewish people “Nazis” and white people “parasites” in a string of social media posts.

    The BBC has been informed of statements made online by Dawn Queva, who is a scheduling coordinator at BBC Three, according to her online profile.

    Posts made on her Facebook page include calling Jewish people “Nazi apartheid parasites” that funded a “holohoax”.

    Her posts repeatedly attack white people, calling them a “virus” and “mutant invader species”.

    Ms Queva, whose location is listed as London on her Linkedin profile, also brands the UK “bigoted” and “genocidal” and claims white Europeans are “melanin-recessive parasites”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/02/01/TELEMMGLPICT000364845989_17068180657130_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqH3rAhkMCHQIydbhZW_V-E_QomgEC83Qi3IPeyYJkMRo.jpeg?imwidth=960
    Dawn Queva is a scheduling coordinator at BBC Three, according to her online profile

    The posts come after Tim Davie, the BBC director general, held a “listening” session for staff concerns following the breakout of the Israel-Hamas conflict, which has led some Jewish employees to file official complaints about anti-Semitism.

    Ms Queva’s posts were made under the name of Dawn Las Quevas-Allen on Facebook, but it has the same profile picture as her regular profile, and trade magazine Deadline reports that her identity has been confirmed.

    ‘Synagogue of Satan cabal’
    She previously worked with Disney and UKTV, according to her Linkedin profile,

    Ms Queva’s post made numerous references to the supposed origins of the Jewish people, claiming that they are not truly Jewish, but a “synagogue of Satan cabal calling themselves “JeWISH”.

    One post claims that the Rothschild family “funded their own holohoax”, and another that Israel is attempting to “forcibly permanently sterilise black women without their knowledge or consent”.

    Several of Ms Queva’s many posts refer to Britain as the “UKKK”, in an apparent reference to the Ku Klux Klan.

    Other posts state that white people have disturbed the natural order of the planet, and that they are a “barbaric bloodthirsty rapacious murderous genocidal thieving parasitical deviant breed”.

    Ms Queva has been contacted for comment on her posts.

    The BBC said: “We don’t comment on individual members of staff and we have well-established and robust processes in place to handle such issues. We do not tolerate anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or any form of abuse and we take any such allegations seriously and take appropriate disciplinary action wherever necessary.”

    ‘Everyone here is unhappy’
    The Telegraph recently reported that groups of Jewish employees at the BBC filed grievances over alleged anti-Semitism in the workplace.

    Staff complained about Gary Lineker’s social media use, and the corporation’s coverage of the conflict in Gaza, according to sources at the broadcaster.

    One of at least 22 staff understood to have submitted formal complaints said Jewish staff were “fighting fires all over the place” and “everyone here is unhappy”, adding that concerns about anti-Semitism were “met with indifference or a shrug by management”.

    **********************************
    [Comments now closed]

    Christopher Briggs
    9 HRS AGO
    I can assure her that the contempt she holds me in is reciprocated.
    The difference is I would be arrested for saying it about her.
    The reality is that she is the parasite sucking off our host body. EDITED

    Daniel Chapman
    9 HRS AGO
    Wow! And that’s why I stopped funding to BBC. Disgusting. The BBC should be branded a terrorist organisation

    Steve Adams
    9 HRS AGO
    This disgraceful wretch should be sacked forthwith. That would be “appropriate disciplinary action”.
    Furthermore I am sick to death of the mindless never-ending insults from these people.
    Please just f off to somewhere more to your liking. And make it as far away from this country as possible.
    Just go.

    Philip Andrew Macnamara
    9 HRS AGO
    The BBC will conjure an excuse for her comments and move her to another department.

    Mark Stevens
    9 HRS AGO
    If a white person made these same statements about black people they would already have had the Met breaking down their door and charging them with “hate speech”.
    Any bets about whether that will happen in this case – or whether the Biased Broadcasting Corporation will do anything to enforce their own code of conduct??

      1. There are a few individuals who will say publicly what many of us think but at great cost to themselves. Russel Brand is another.

        1. Don’t be taken in by Russell Brand, KP. The fact that he is still operating is evidence that he is an establishment shill paid to draw out the righteous anger of the people. His massive number of followers probably come from bot farms.

          1. I have never liked his character but he seems to draw together good anti establishment messages and there seems to have been a campaign to drag up his past. I shall note yr view and see what develops.

          2. Re: bot farms and massive numbers of fake followers, James Delingpole had a guest on a few months ago who looked into this sort of thing but I can’t find his name at the moment. I’ll post it when I do.

    3. Ms Queva, whose location is listed as London on her Linkedin profile, also brands the UK “bigoted” and “genocidal” and claims white Europeans are “melanin-recessive parasites”.

      This is when we should seriously examine why and how Covid spread so rapidly here in Europe , yet Africa and Asia remained virtually untouched .

      Has some one been tinkering with our DNA defences .

      1. Melanin-recessive? Logically the opposite of that adjective would be ‘melanin-excessive’, but I would never ever dare to write say or think that.

    4. Don’t be to harsh on the poor woman, she is only trying to fit in with the BBC’s ethos and objectives.

  13. The Gen Z gender gap: why young men are turning their backs on feminism. 2 February 2024.

    Less than half (43 per cent) of young men thought feminism had done more good to society than harm, according to the study. One in six males between 16 and 29 said feminism had done more harm than good, compared with one in 11 females.

    Young men also stood out as the most likely group to approve of controversial social media influencer Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist, and the statements he has made.

    Whatever its effect on individuals Feminism has been a disaster for Western Civilisation. The worst part of it is probably the changes in the Law to enable and enforce it. These have actually disenfranchised Men and promoted Immigration. It has feminised the whole of Society and weakened it. Worst of all is the drop in the birth rate. It has made this Society unviable in the long term.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/01/gen-z-gender-gap-young-men-right-wing-sexist-andrew-tate/?li_source=LI&li_medium=for_you

    1. Andrew Tate is part of the gatekeeper network, whether he realises it or not.
      Feminism has been nothing but a disaster from the moment it was encouraged by the Rockefellers at the start of the twentieth century. Most of its achievements are destructive in the long term, and anything good that it accidentally did would have been far better achieved by a cool-headed look at what really benefits society.

  14. Not “will alter” but HAS ALTERED

    Mass migration will permanently alter Britain

    It’s not just a matter of hospitals and houses. The British way of life could be irrevocably changed

    ALLISON PEARSON
    1 February 2024 • 7:12pm

    Call me old-fashioned, but I rather liked our country when women and children didn’t have acid thrown at them in the street, teachers weren’t forced into hiding with their family for educating pupils about religious tolerance, Saturdays in the capital didn’t feature anti-Semitic hate marches and well-loved Members of Parliament didn’t quit their jobs after being subject to death threats because they spoke up for their Jewish constituents.

    Yesterday was a perilous and dark moment in the history of this democracy. Mike Freer, Conservative MP for Finchley and Golders Green, announced he was leaving politics after being hounded with death threats for his pro-Israel views. A decade ago, a group called “Muslims Against Crusades” urged its supporters to target the man who represents the UK’s most heavily Jewish area. Alluding to the stabbing of Labour MP Stephen Timms by an Islamist extremist, the group told Mr Freer to “let Stephen Timms be a warning to you.”

    Today, Mr Freer considers himself “lucky to be alive”, having learned that Ali Harbi Ali, the terrorist who went on to murder Sir David Amess MP in 2021, had turned up at his constituency office in north London with the intention of killing him. A devastating arson attack there in December followed by an email (calling him “the kind of person who deserved to be set alight”) was the final straw.

    Since the heinous massacre by Hamas of 1200 men, women, children and babies in their cribs on October 7 and the occupation of Gaza by Israeli forces, anti-Semites have been horribly emboldened. As one of the founders of British Friends of Israel, and a signatory to the October Declaration asserting the right of Israel to defend herself, I have had the smallest possible glimpse of what Mike Freer and his husband Angelo have had to endure. Graphic pictures of defiled and mutilated Israeli women and children have been sent to me as a “Jew-loving bitch” who “deserves the same”.

    And yet, perfectly understandable though it is, Mike Freer’s decision to step down is a victory for the zealots who have no respect for the norms of what feels daily like a less and less civilised society. It’s a capitulation to forces against which we need to stand firm if the ballot box is to mean anything.

    But don’t expect the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition to attack the culprits. After lovely, gentle Sir David was murdered, his fellow Parliamentarians could not wait to change the subject from barbarous slaughter to online safety. In the Commons, there was a cowardly stampede away from the elephant in the room. It is a measure of the success of extremist groups that, too often, fear of being seen as Islamophobic now trumps the solemn duty to defend the British way of life.

    Advertisement

    It’s not only supporters of Israel who are at risk. Last November, a mob surrounded the Tower Hamlets office of MP Rushanara Ali after she abstained from a vote on a ceasefire in Gaza (never mind that it was the official Labour party position). A primary school in east London received bomb threats after its headteacher banned pro-Palestine badges.

    Katharine Birbalsingh, the redoubtable head of Michaela Community School, and her staff have faced appalling threats of violence after Muslim pupils were told they were not permitted to pray during the school day. That decision was in keeping with the strict secular ethos which Birbalsingh believes is the best way to bind her multi-faith school together. But the fanatics in the UK demand ever more concessions.

    What runs through these alarming events is a tantrummy defiance, a determination by hardline “community leaders” to get their own way regardless of what custom or the law of the land may say. As long as such people remain an aggrieved minority it is just about possible to keep a lid on it. There are enough of us to speak up for our Jewish citizens and call out medieval attitudes towards women, girls and gay people, and to assist those who want to integrate to do so.

    I think that’s why I found the Office for National Statistics projection that the UK’s population will exceed 70 million by 2026 so devastating. It’s not just that our hospitals and transport system can barely cope with the people here already (although they can’t). It’s not just that we know for a fact that our useless elite are not going to build a town the size of Doncaster every year to provide enough housing (so our young people are going to feel ever more alienated). No, it’s that 92 per cent of the 6.6 million rise – 6.1 million people – will come from immigration, not British people having children. Such a surge would utterly reshape the Britain we love, its culture and even its language.

    Professor Matthew Goodwin points out that, since the 1990s, the share of school pupils whose first language is not English has almost tripled. I have taught English as a second language in Tower Hamlets, and, let me tell you, it will simply not be possible to integrate such a vast number of human beings within that time frame. And that’s if they want to be integrated, which the extremists who have hounded out Mike Freer clearly don’t.

    Five cities the size of Birmingham within fifteen years. Seriously? There is no democratic consent for such demographic change. No one voted for it. Mindboggling “diversity” is being ushered in against the express will of the people by politicians who think GDP matters more than a contented nation and that anyone who objects is “racist”.

    Parliament has the power to stop this, and stop it they must or they will never be forgiven. And they must do so soon. I could cry thinking of the hundreds of thousands who gave their lives in two world wars to protect this precious island, its values, its green places, its eccentricity, its kindness, its humour.

    What did they die for? So we could become some teeming Travelodge of Babel? Call me old-fashioned, but no. We have to protest; we must.

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

    T Donald
    11 HRS AGO
    The betrayal by the Tories on immigration was absolutely unimaginable. They were elected on a promise of reducing migration then proceeded to deliberately send it to triple its highest level under Tony Blair.
    Immigration from countries like Poland, Italy and Spain was replaced with a gigantic influx from India, Pakistan and Nigeria.
    The Muslim population of the UK is now projected to quadruple from current levels by 2050, in large part thanks to the Conservative Party’s immigration policies.

    Richard Baker
    8 HRS AGO
    Reply to T Donald – view message
    I just read the comment above – 2% of our population arrived this year. True and gobsmacking. I personally think it is more than that walking on the streets where I live.
    Society is regressing hundreds of years in the blink of an eye. And the leadership of the country tinkers with vaping , maths o’ levels, and pitiful tax cuts in the face of an impending explosion in public spending. All the while those trying to do something about the problem are hounded out of their jobs.

    2. “All the while those trying to do something about the problem are hounded out of their jobs.”

      And/or prosecuted and persecuted – Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka Tommy Robinson, Katie Hopkins and now Sam Melia for sticking up little posters which say things like ‘reject white guilt’, ‘it’s ok to be white’, ‘white lives matter’ and ‘love your nation’.

      Let us not forget that the On-Line Safety Act is now operating and the 77th will be watching this site, I have no doubt. We may all be flagged as right-wing extremists and potential terrorists already.

    3. …by politicians who think GDP matters more than a contented nation and that anyone who objects is “racist”.

      If Ms Pearson truly believes that politicians are importing mainly Third World people that, both in the numbers and the behaviour she describes in her piece, with the aim to bolster GDP (not GDP per capita, of course), then she is deluded.

      The importation is to create tension, disharmony, unrest etc. with the result of putting violence on our streets. It is a plan, long in the making and now being executed in more haste as many people, having suffered the lies and extremes of political action during the CV-19 years, are slowly beginning to realise that the political class are not their friends, and are, in fact, their implacable enemy.

      Old fashioned true party politics is dead, we have a Uni-party, in reality a coalition of LibLabConGrn. Voting will make little difference, only the rise in the intensity of change for the worse will be perceptible.

  15. Wordle 958 6/6

    A real struggle for me today. But I realised that I could create a word by repeating the use of a consonant already marked as “not in this word today” which in fact enabled me to find one letter which (as it happened) was in exactly the correct place.

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  17. Another terrible week for the Left
    Acid attack nine hurt
    Man gets away with murder
    MP stepping down because of threats
    The mainstream media dancing on a pin head trying not to mention the obvious
    And to top it all, nothing that can be blamed on far right extremism.

      2. Another lunatic from Wastemonster. And still taking the ‘public shilling’. And the rest.

      3. I just wish I could be present when one of our political trash does something like the Maybot, someone like the supposedly conservative MP for West Berkshire/Newbury, Laura Farris, when she ‘took the knee’ in Victoria Park in Newbury in June 2020. Just so I could stand in front of him/her/they/them/xie/xer and say”:

        WHAT THE F___ DO YOU THINK YOU”RE DOING?!

      4. Anyone who does not believe that she is evil, almost as evil as Blair, has no judgement.

  18. Good morning all

    Chilly day, Moh watched the cricket in the early hours , no spoilers .

    The new steering wheel cover that smells of chemicals has now been removed , thank goodness .

  19. Good morning all,

    A cloudy start to the day at Castle McPhee. Westerly wind, 6℃.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/82f60b6277639462829d6a2172a3dd387598e1dad1a9df59664db2c660e52676.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/01/clapham-chemical-attack-suspect-abdul-ezedi-asylum-seeker/

    Colour me gob-smacked. I wonder if the priest who vouched for his fake conversion feels any remorse or responsibility for his gullibility?
    And what of the woman and the children? Are they his children? If so the savagery of the attack is beyond our comprehension.

    Whiggism. liberalism, leftism, Marxism, call it what you will, is the death of us. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland RIP.

    1. Illegal immigrant, failed asylum seeker and sex offender refused asylum and so converts to Christianity. Asylum granted. Then throws acid over a woman and children.
      Neighbours say he kept himself to himself. Loner.

      Can anyone other than the Home Office see a pattern here? I know i can. Why can’t they?

      1. Because they are all immigrants or immigrant-descended themselves. We have been taken over in all our public institutions.

      2. Notice the suspect had access to a rather splendid car, despite no obvious employment. Wonder also if he troubled himself to get licence, insurance etc?

    2. I can hear the shuffle of paper work from here. As the piles of garbage in Westminster and Whitehall try to cover their tracks. The lies will soon spill forth.

    3. He’s just the sort of person that the Archpillock of Canterbury wants to immigrate illegally and join the CofE.

  20. Good morning all,

    A cloudy start to the day at Castle McPhee. Westerly wind, 6℃.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/82f60b6277639462829d6a2172a3dd387598e1dad1a9df59664db2c660e52676.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/01/clapham-chemical-attack-suspect-abdul-ezedi-asylum-seeker/

    Colour me gob-smacked. I wonder if the priest who vouched for his fake conversion feels any remorse or responsibility for his gullibility?
    And what of the woman and the children? Are they his children? If so the savagery of the attack is beyond our comprehension.

    Whiggism. liberalism, leftism, Marxism, call it what you will, is the death of us. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland RIP.

  21. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e6b9cc4105edd3eb4a2d96bb6d271225bfc09aa0/0_0_1875_1126/master/1875.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=886a0e9114f0355b0a24aa4829539ccd
    Loch Callater, UK
    Fingal, a golden retriever, enjoying the view.

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c819615e3ee4773b6f706f382a4a72cbf72f774a/726_0_3998_2400/master/3998.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=e7e49a8b893daf43fd2123d905fce676
    Utah, USA

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e12b267c97876120c3e20871ff1e914a2d4b7cb1/0_1303_2689_1614/master/2689.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=7e5665dba314d9cb00880cec24502b8a
    Margate Lido, Kent. 10 January

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8ff3f613fed6001c9039c4d983ad5969ccc6b656/0_35_3158_1895/master/3158.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=2359cdbfda95ea7ff36dc1b01dc6fd54
    Colorado, US
    ‘A wild mountain goat along the Spruce Creek trail just above Mohawk Lake

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0bc1f74f27b4edbd06a6d361792e3e52cdc8bedb/0_237_3876_2326/master/3876.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=2cb67e414101e6ca1e6b83639c3da400
    Wirral, UK
    ‘A snowbow on New Brighton beach.’

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5254585b3c4ee653e70d5d7872765748d786d2aa/0_0_3500_2101/master/3500.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=60b5d4f3c4fa32c15e33f6e30fa46b04
    Grindelwald, Switzerland
    ‘A paraglider next to the Eiger mountain.’

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/fa17547c56b57fa94a2525a8c79da94014b4f554/0_605_4032_2419/master/4032.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=a82d50d1c8dc8f99179396d9a8016149
    Firth of Forth, UK
    ‘Ominous looking clouds over the Firth of Forth from Burntisland harbour

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/015edda0776cdb60dadbe713abbdb1ea1b068441/0_159_5777_3467/master/5777.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=7d540ffd1975b7f6b5529c8f41de2313
    Dawn near Oxton, Nottinghamshire, UK.
    About five miles from where I grew up. Never saw it looking quite like this.

    2. Nowhere us safe for everybody. Try being a Kurd in Turkey or even an outspoken opponent of Erdogan.

  24. Good morning all.
    A dull start to the day with a slightly less cold tad over 4°C outside. Not raining and actually forecast to remain dry.

    DT woke me at 4 this morning getting out of bed, so both ended up going to pump bilges. Decided to fire up the Laptop and check the Premium Bonds to find I’ve received 2 x £25s, 1 x £50 and 2 x £100s, a total of £300.
    The DT won a single prize, £5,000!!!
    We celebrated with early morning mugs of tea.

    2. Morning Bob

      Low cloud cover here , and 8c, damp and still.

      Wow and well done re Premium Bonds , nice surprise .

      I have had a handful of bonds for over fifty years, I guess because we have moved around so much , there will be no knowing whether we have won anything?

        1. Thanks Bob, I must admit when there’s never anything forthcoming, the bonds tend to be forgotten about.

      3. There is a website where you can put your numbers in and find out – sorry I don’t have the link. MOH was given a bond in the fifties and the numbers don’t match any more, but we found out what the new numbers would be and checked. Needless to say, we hadn’t won anything!

      2. 3 times in the last 3 years I’ve had zilch – most of my winnings have gone to Alzheimers Scotland

    6. Disgraceful! And I didn’t get a penny!

      You can buy a new chainsaw – and get thee down to Jules to cut up her logs!

      1. I was interested to learn that the larger prizes DO exist! For years I thought that £250 was the most they paid out!

    3. I hope this will sound the death knell of the EU!

      But the Remainers will still want to rejoin it even if it is no longer there!

      2. …and bear in mind that all EU joiners must agree to join the Euro, so people who claim to be Rejoiners

        actually just want Britain to join the Euro.

  26. Entitled litterers
    SIR – I have picked up litter all my adult life (Letters, February 1).

    The sight and smell of it disgusts me. Its presence is a symbol of societal unhappiness, resentment, laziness and the belief that “someone else can sort out this mess”.

    Witness a football star jettison chewing gum as he is substituted, or the litter discarded in the stands at Lord’s after a day at the cricket, and your eyes burn.

    Sue Leach
    Orton, Cumbria

    Beach litter , country walk litter , minor road verge litter , motorway litter .. railway litter , how and why?

    We need to bring back public service TV adverts to educate the public .

    Here in our large village , we have Wombles who take it in turns to pick up discarded litter .

    1. Dear Sue Leach,
      The problem with sports grounds etc is there never seems to be any litter bins available. But obviously the cartons and wrappings are clear up in house by paid cleaners. But as for our streets beaches and countryside littering is disgusting. There is no excuse or exception for leaving anything behind.
      Or launching rubbish from a car window.

      1. Men with enlarged prostates need to pee more often but there are fewer and fewer public lavatories.

        Now that urination has become a criminal offence the Idiot King, who has sensibly brought the prostate question to the fore, should start a campaign for more pissoirs.

        Those who remember the brilliant TV dramatisation of Clochemerle (Starring Cyril Cusack, Roy Dotrice, Wendy Hiller, Hugh Griffiths and Kenneth Griffiths) will remember how very important it was to the village to have adequate facilities.

        More of these is what we need!

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ab322c1bd6f9a3f22fa355e0f698c5e63c1e4c7f4b3c7b543fa53a2b63e3449a.png

      2. Rubbish from car windows. During the initial scamdemic lockdowns, all fast food joints closed. After three weeks, a local franchise of a global burger emporium was permitted to open as drive-through only. Within hours the local streets were strewn with wrappers and discarded cups, as the customers finished their meals and lobbed their rubbish out of the car windows. It couldn’t be too difficult to either find a bin, or take the wrapping home and put it in their own bin. Sheer laziness.

        1. In all my life I have never thrown a single piece of rubbish anywhere. I did once throw an apple core onto a grass verge because I knew birds would eat it. And some one told me off for that.

  27. Nigel Jones
    Why have Germany’s spies opened a file on their old chief?
    2 February 2024, 6:50am

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/GettyImages-1170862414.jpg
    Hans-Georg Maassen, former head of Germany’s domestic security agency (Credit: Getty images)

    It’s not often that an ex-spymaster is spied upon by his former colleagues. But just that has happened in Germany, where Hans-Georg Maassen, the former head of the country’s internal security service, the BfD (equivalent to Britain’s MI5), has been placed on a watch list for official observation as a suspected right-wing extremist.

    Maassen, who ran the BfD until he was elbowed out in 2018 after appearing to play down the threat of violence from right-wing extremists, is no stranger to attracting attention. In 2021, Maassen said that chancellor Angela Merkel’s immigration policies were ‘fatal’:

    ‘(Germans) simply cannot understand why ever more people are coming into this country even though they obviously have no right to asylum; why we aren’t deporting them and why politicians just put up with the fact that the people here are falling victim to these migrants.’

    This week, Maassen tore up his CDU membership and founded his own political party, the Values Union. The new outfit will join an increasingly fractured political landscape in Germany. For years after 1945, the country was run by just three parties – the centre right CDU/CSU, the centre left SPD, and the Liberal FDP – who often ruled in coalition with each other. Recently, however, this troika has been challenged by upstart newcomers on the right and on the left, the Greens and die Linke (‘the Left’) which arose from the ashes of Communist East Germany’s ruling party, the SED. Most disturbing to the old order, however, has been the rise of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party. Founded in 2013 to oppose the introduction of the euro, the AfD swiftly morphed into a hard right populist party whose main plank is opposition to mass immigration.

    The AfD now commands around 20 per cent in polls, and looks like topping the European parliament elections in three east German states in June. With his new party, Maassen is hoping to tap into this rise in right-wing opposition to the ruling red-orange-green ‘traffic light’ coalition of the SPD, FDP and Greens in Berlin. He seeks to appeal to conservatives in the CDU who resented Merkel’s open doors migration policy, but find the AfD too vulgar and extreme for their taste.

    But the spy chief has clearly gone too far in his rhetoric for the guardians of Germany’s constitutional order who have told his old colleagues in the BfD to open a file on their former boss. This monitoring appears to be in response to speeches and articles by Maassen in which he has accused the government of leading Germany towards collapse and decline with its liberal immigration and asylum policy.

    The spy agency has also accused its former chief of being in close touch with the AfD, and being sympathetic to the ultra-right Reichsburger group, several of whose members are facing trial for allegedly plotting a putsch to overthrow the German state and install a dictatorship. Maassen responded to the accusations by saying that he was being ‘persecuted’ with no substantive evidence. On Twitter, he said the monitoring undertaken by the state shows that ‘Germany is clearly afraid of me.’

    Germany is, of course, especially sensitive to any suggestion of political extremism because of its Nazi and Communist past. Such sensitivity about authoritarianism can itself risk becoming authoritarian, however: when I was a student in Germany at the height of the far left terrorism of the Red Army Faction, or Baader-Meinhof group, even moderate socialists were threatened with a ‘berufsverbot’: an undemocratic ban on taking state jobs like teaching just because of their political opinions.

    Maassen is not the first spy chief to have fallen foul of the German state. In 1954, at the height of the Cold War, Otto John, the first postwar chief of the BfD, vanished from West Berlin and appeared in the Communist-ruled east of the city to denounce Nazism in West Germany. He was then taken to Moscow and interrogated by the KGB. In 1955, John reappeared in West Germany claiming to have been drugged and abducted by the Communists. He was disbelieved and was tried and imprisoned for treason. As John was one of the few survivors of the wartime resistance against Hitler, his imprisonment was embarrassing, and he was soon freed. He spent the rest of his life fighting without success to overturn his conviction. He died in 1997.

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

    Captain Detterling
    an hour ago edited
    ‘Why have Germany’s spies opened a file on their old chief?’

    The article doesn’t really answer its own question, so I’ll have a pop.

    Why? Because western ‘progressive’ establishments would rather exaggerate the symptoms of the disaster they created – and are trying with increasingly obvious desperation to sustain – than admit and address the source of the threat itself – the main cause of so many of our woes.

    They now cannot do anything about mass immigration even if they wanted to: because they’d be forced to admit their approach for the last 20 years has been successively naive, then stupid, then complacent, then deceitful; and always deeply, deeply selfish and lazy.

    They are now finding that, to maintain the pretence they have constructed, preserve their status and keep their flimsy ideology alive, it is necessary to become malicious.

    And they know that turning on one of their own is the best way to intimidate the masses.

    In Britain, politicians have chosen to pretend it’s the complicated paperwork which explains their persistent failure to actually do anything about what they are sort of admitting.

    In Germany, it seems the new ‘progressives’ are getting so desperate that they are increasingly blatant about their methodological debt to their forebears in the Stasi, and are dimming the main bulb, swivelling the desk lamps and ostentatiously oiling the thumb-screws.

    “Guardians of the constitution”? They aren’t even smart enough to guard their own backsides.

    1. Wordle 958 4/6

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

      Me too. ‘Morning, Ped.

  29. Morning all 🙂😊
    Sun peeping out briefly. And a little warmer. Looks like rain.
    My younger sisters birthday x.

    And let’s get the facts in order shall we, British people haven’t threatened one of our MPs for his views on Israel. We all know what has been happening. And Parliament and the Whitehall snivelling serpents need to own up and take the blame.
    ‘British democracy’ has been wiped out by these people. But what actually makes things worse is, they don’t actually give a damn.

    1. If he is racist, then is it his fault?
      Or is his response simply a reaction to what we have been forced to accept over the decades?

      1. Frankly I don’t think that preferring your own culture is racist. Most English people, I suspect, are like me they don’t give a fig for a persons colour as long as they fully integrate. My first cousin is married to a Jamaican and you couldn’t get more English than her even if you tried. She is the sort of person who, I think, is more than welcome in England despite her skin colour.

  31. Reform UK hits highest ever level of support in Red Wall in setback for Sunak. 2 February 2024.

    Reform UK has hit its highest ever level of support in crucial Red Wall seats, according to a new poll.

    A Redfield & Wilton Strategies survey, conducted between Jan 30-31, put Richard Tice’s party on 14 per cent of the vote. That was up by three points when compared to the company’s previous poll conducted between Dec 17-18.

    It is the highest number recorded for Reform since Redfield & Wilton Strategies started its Red Wall tracker poll in March 2022.

    It might just happen!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/02/rishi-sunak-latest-news-red-wall-reform-uk-labour-stormont/

  32. I see that making youngsters play rugby is child abuse.

    What next? Asking them to get out of bed??

    1. It could have been considered child abuse at my school. Standing in a thin cotton T-shirt, shorts and plimsolls in howling gales and driving rain in September.
      After the first year of school was over so was my presence. I went to the library instead. The PE teacher either didn’t care or didn’t notice.

      1. You obviously never played hockey!! 8am Saturday morning on a ‘pitch’ resembling a ploughed field! Red raw knees, bruised elbows and shins and ears like cauliflowers! The only joy was watching Newcastle United reserves training on the next pitch! Aah! The joys of youth! Benny Arentoft was my hero!

        2. Only the girls played hockey at my school. Probably because they thought better of arming the boys with weapons.

          1. I enjoyed orienteering. From the school through a nature reserve then down to the beach for a smoke and a sunbathe.

    2. My OH was the smallest boy in the school when he went there aged eight. He was much too small and light for Rugby, and at least he was able to give it up before it did too much damage. He was much better suited to tennis and athletics. He’s still small and light.

  33. 382754+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Friday 2 February: British democracy is sick when an MP is threatened for pro-Israel views.

    An alternative view is

    Friday 2 February: British democracy is sick when MPs, in the vast majority hold, pro eu anti United Kingdom treasonous views.

    Via the polling station majority vote returning same type WEF cretins to power, the indigenous
    peoples are daily threatened, and are daily suffering ABH / GBH, strongly alledged culling,very strongly alledged serious injuries ongoing regarding health.

    The former I see as gay abandon speak
    the latter as truthful fact.

    In my book many an MP is going to lay legs while the opportunity is there before the realisation shite hits the fan.

  34. Our farmers need to be as bolshie as the French
    Philip Walling: https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/farmers-must-resist/

    BL

    Why are we so very out of step?

    When most of the countries in the EU were in favour of the EU we left it.

    Now that Europe can see just how tyrannical and autocratic the EU is the member countries are becoming more and more anti-EU.

    In spite of Brexit (as they say!) the UK has become the most Europhile country in Europe and when the Remainers finally get their way the UK will rejoin the EU and be the only country in it except for the Ukraine.

    1. I’m not sure the people of the UK have become particularly EU-phile. The PTB have never been anything else.

  35. DT & Self both have fairly large holdings each, maximum for me and a bit closer to maximum for the DT, so we check every month!
    And only 29 days until the March draw results are announced!!

  36. Good morning everyone. Still puzzled as to how several thousand gallons of water could leak into the mains gas supply at Ratby, Leicestershire. What worries me is that no so-called journalist, local or national, seems to have asked that question.

      1. The gas main in our street was replaced when we lived in a city about twentyfive years ago. It had holes in it! Gas must have been leaking out.

  39. Sixteen of the Warqueen’s clients are getting a tax rebate. The tax office disagrees and have fined them so she’s preparing to go to court. HMRC are utter, total morons. They should have no power to levy fines, especially ones accruing interest. When they lose they should pay those same fines personally.

    1. Not only HMRC, but the Post Office and the BBC have the power to levy fines.

      Ain’t Socialism wonderful !

          4. I have two reasonably comfy army cots i could put in the conservatory for you. With a quilt they are just dandy. Saves on a hotel.

      3. The litmus test for these savages is whether sodium hydroxide is more readily available than either sulphuric or hydrochloric acid – other strong acids will do the job. The former is readily available in shops for use as an oven or drain cleaner. I haven’t seen the acids available on shelves of shops that I frequent.

        Perhaps the savages know more than I do when it comes to the availability of flesh disfiguring chemicals?

  43. 382754+ up ticks,

    We continue to get personally scarred up, knifed, shot, allegedly poisonously jabbed,allegedly seriously injured through jab intake via supporting / voting for the mass illegal immigration, mass foreign paedophilia, mass allegedly culling,
    lab/lib/con/current ukip pro eu coalition party,WHY may one ask, is this so ?

    https://x.com/MercianCRoW/status/1753320080186724707?s=20

  44. Fears grow that acid attacks are on the rise in UK after hundreds in the last year and . . . D. Fail

    Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.

    (We would rather not risk being stabbed as we come to work or have the offices burnt down – you will understand of course.)

    1. The bbc have spent hours talking about this as if they are actually surprised or actually sympathetic to the people effected. The people effected are all of us.

  45. My word pay up or die. Water bills are about to rise by as much as 6%.
    The real reason for the increase will be hidden as it will be to pay for the fines from authority against water companies regarding sewage being released into our rivers.
    The authorities take the money in fines and we pay for the damage these disgusting people do to our environment.
    Share holders and bonuses kept in finacial comfort.
    Rip off Britain strikes again.

  46. More than just laziness I think. It shows a lack of social cohesion and utter selfishness. No pride in their behaviour and complete contempt for the environment.

    1. Well, for a start, you can’t tell children how to behave. That would be child abuse, innit? So they grow up not behaving

      1. I was thinking that as I drove home. My dogs are better behaved than many children because I insist on manners and good behaviour.

  52. Moh and I have had a blitz in one of the spare bedrooms .

    Loads of paperwork , letters , photos of long ago relatives , postcards , toy cars , tarnished silver or the cheaper alternative , china and glassware .

    I found a couple of letters to me from a gentleman called Hugh Leach .. he was a tankie , and has written many books .

    I feel so frustrated because amongst all those bits and pieces was a tape of him talking , and an obituary and service for his dead African Grey parrot .. and I don’t have a tape machine anymore . Hugh Leach died in 2015, he was a brave entertaining man who knew heaps about the Middle East .

    I don’t think there is a historian anymore at the RTR Bovington .

    Drat and double drat .

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/12016585/Hugh-Leach-Arabist-obituary.html

    1. The sad thing is that all that memorabilia will be trashed when you and he are gone.

      My Mum’s memorabilia all came back with me but I’m not sure how much got lost when I moved. I still have quite a bit.

      1. I have spoken to our boys and they have both suggested we hang onto a few GGG parents pics to remind them of gene pool and suchlike and an assortment of others ..

        We have a school trunk full of our own photos , and we must sort them out and disperse them .

        We spent some time yesterday remembering and going through stuff , and I guess that is why we had a spat over the newly arrived steering wheel cover late yesterday afternoon , emotions became rather too heightened , especially now we know that we are the next in line to vanish into the ether , so to speak .. and the wheel cover was the last straw , especially as we had to wade through piles of dust laden boxes full of memories , some good some bad .

        1. I have stacks of stuff and have accumulated lots more – it’s hard when you have the hoarding gene. My younger son was interested in the family history stuff so maybe not all of it will go. My elder son is my executor and he told me to leave instructions as to what I want for my funeral, etc. I haven’t done so yet.

          1. Ah , that is something else we have to sort out , thanks for reminding me .

            Decades ago , we asked on of my siblings in SA to be executor , when the boys were small .

            Blimey , we will have to tackle that one .

        2. I have a few boxes of old family photos. I have been busy over the past few winters scanning them into my computer and doing my best to catalogue them (who, where, when). The digital photos can then be burnt onto a CD or DVD. The process is tiresome and time-consuming, but it means that future generations will be able to view these photos (providing the technology is still available!).

          1. If they still have CD players!

            I’ve come to the conclusion that the old-fashioned photo albums are the most durable way of preservation of photos and printed memorabilia.
            I pick out the best of my photos and have them printed into a photo book from each of my wildlife trips.

        3. At least it’s not a red velvet one!

          We’re more than a bit down today; one of my closest friends from my youth who drove Caroline to the church for our wedding in his vintage Daimler has an inoperable brain tumour and was taken from hospital to a nursing home.

    2. Belle. If you search around on line I think you will find people who will convert tape recording to modern formats.

    3. I expect that your deceased car had a cassette player; you could have recorded from that to your mobile phone.

    1. Perhaps they should call the Climate Change Committee the “Impoverish the People” committee.

  55. Who are all these idiots.

    Evening standard……….
    Rugby being played in schools is form of child abuse, says study
    Story by Daniel Keane • 1h

    Rugby being played in schools is a form of child abuse and the game should be banned among under-18s, a study has claimed.

    Academics claim that sports organisations are effectively “grooming” children to avoid the impact of brain injuries associated with playing rugby.

    Schools that have the sport on their curriculum have not sought consent from children who could suffer injuries later in life, according to the study by researchers at the universities of Winchester, Nottingham Trent and Bournemouth.

    The study, first reported in The Times, cites emerging evidence that even a “knock to the head” can contribute to brain damage that can cause dementia or Parkinson’s.

    More than 200 retired rugby players recently brought a legal claim against three of the sport’s governing bodies alleging they suffered brain injuries during their careers.
    Eric Anderson, a professor of sport at the University of Winchester who led the study, told The Times: “Sports for children should not intentionally harm their brains. They should focus on fun, health and social development rather than conditioning them to play elite-level sport.

    “These collisions cause cognitive harm and increase the risk of neurodegenerative diseases and dementia; they are therefore abusive to a child’s brain.”

    He added: “Cultural perception is that striking a child outside of sport is abuse, but striking a child in sport is somehow socially acceptable. We are trying to change that. It doesn’t matter what the social context is, the brain is damaged in both.”

    The study draws the distinction between sports that include physical impact by design, such as rugby, and other sports where collisions occur by accident, such as basketball.

    Dr Keith Parry, Head of the Department for Sport and Event Management at Bournemouth University, said: “Tackle versions of rugby or American football might be fun, but there are no proven physical or mental health benefits in taking blows to the head, compared to safer, non-contact versions.

    “The FA were concerned enough by the dangers of head injury to introduce guidelines to restrict the amount of heading in junior football training. Other, even more injurious sports, should follow and remove intentional collision.”

    A spokesperson for the Rugby Football Union said that rugby was not compulsory in schools and that the organisation worked closely to support coaches with guidance around players’ welfare.

    “Rugby for young people at schools or clubs in England exists in different forms — contact, reduced contact and non-contact. Rugby has established and been at the forefront of concussion and injury surveillance, education and law changes using evidence to proactively manage player welfare,” they said.

    “Playing rugby provides significant physical and mental health benefits along with life skills gained from playing a team sport which has strong values. Against a backdrop of decreased physical activity and a global obesity epidemic in children, we believe rugby has a role to play in keeping people active, healthy and engaged.”

    Register now for one of the Evening Standard’s newsletters. From a daily news briefing to Homes & Property insights, plus lifestyle, going out, offers and more. For the best stories in your inbox, click here.

    Lawyers for the group of players have previously alleged the governing bodies failed to take reasonable steps to protect players from injury caused by repetitive blows and that many now have permanent neurological injuries including early onset dementia, Parkinson’s disease and the neurodegenerative condition chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

    Eric Anderson, a professor of sport at the University of Winchester who led the study, told The Times: “Sports for children should not intentionally harm their brains. They should focus on fun, health and social development rather than conditioning them to play elite-level sport.

    I wonder if Eric Anderson was ever a professional boxer.

    1. Propaganda does more harm to their brains. Strange lot, aren’t they. So kind and caring that they inject kids with substances that give them heart disease, look away when they’re being gang raped, stabbed or having acid thrown at them but reasonable discipline and competitive sports have to be banned. For their safety.

    1. Might it be a good policy move for Richard Tice to declare unequivocally that man-made climate change is a myth and a hoax and that Net Zero is a scam devised by Gates, Soros and Schwab and their useful useless idiots?

      While he is at it he might declare, again unequivocally, that Covid gene therapy is not safe and that the UK will leave the ECHR and get rid of illegal immigration.

    2. Sadly it seems his views have died with him, and his answer “No” to the question if he was hopeful that governments views on climate change might change was all too true. The madness continues and £billions of taxpayers’ money lines the pockets of Net Zero fanatics. Utter madness.

  57. Elton John fiddling with his crutch as his husband David and friends pay homage to Derek (Lobbygate) Draper, the Labour spin doctor and professional thief who died recently, much to the dismay of his left-wing associates in the BBC and main stream press. I hope he is going to be incinerated, burying him would be the equivalent of leaving an open pit of Ebola, HIV and nuclear waste. Goodbye and good riddance.

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/02/02/10/80769959-0-image-a-6_1706870913898.jpg

    1. I knew Derek Draper was very much involved with Blair’s Labour Party but what else was there to know about him?

      1. Brown envelopes – He bragged about doing favours for money but was overheard and shopped. A bit in his Wiki article.

  58. ‘Morning All

    Funny Old World when I was growing up a double stabbing murder in a city would have been headline news for days perhaps weeks,now not so much……..

    Not to mention the acid attacks down at the Bull and Bush on a friday night

    Oh wait……….

    Thanks a bunch you bastards,you’ve destroyed us

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8d059eea9c31f57e9ee061c6335ba6bcce7f1e78f4eed6ed5bdaf5a96201d96f.jpg

    Rest

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5445504cdce95ce75144defd8701d71202d073c33f4aead583981450c89b2153.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f1687c73ca6bf31ec77b25c15cfc11df58ed6f76c723b659e4a5b08bb8b3d1d3.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bb3fc817a6a9b1cfdc2668b13142bdee59037c6c69e1bb8b58c3b479dc298210.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d768d7ce56fd3525ef59db8cda8751c9ee453056243f3b646f1a6236957bad7d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/828a46a97a9074253d19d9ed5815b5be69b9f08a1753b92a325d5b809284e0cb.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f6fbfd04fb90ed67e3c9e2350042585e8fa3193adfef52d5445fb54bd8395f64.gif

  62. We have things we need to change on ours – especially the charities we want to support. Most of the ones I nominated when we made our wills I want to delete and add the ones I support now. But we keep putting off doing it.
    We’re going to a funeral this afternoon – one of our core hedgehog team. Pam died just before Christmas. She’s much missed by us all.

    1. Can’t you just add a codicil and your wills.

      This is from the government website. No expensive solicitors.

      Making changes to your will
      You cannot amend your will after it’s been signed and witnessed. The only way you can change a will is by making an official alteration called a codicil.
      You must sign a codicil and get it witnessed in the same way as witnessing a will.
      There’s no limit on how many codicils you can add to a will.

    2. Can’t you just add a codicil and your wills.

      This is from the government website. No expensive solicitors.

      Making changes to your will
      You cannot amend your will after it’s been signed and witnessed. The only way you can change a will is by making an official alteration called a codicil.
      You must sign a codicil and get it witnessed in the same way as witnessing a will.
      There’s no limit on how many codicils you can add to a will.

  64. The bloke appears to have been raised to sainthood. I’m very sorry for his wife and family, but is this really necessary?

    1. And Brendan Cox emerged as a very sordid man after his murdered wife Jo was canonised.

    1. If AfD supporters are rats on a pile of shit then that’s an acknowledgement that he and his ilk have turned Germany into a pile of shit. Of course they regard the masses as rats anyway. To be experimented on and culled at will. We’re not in their club.

      1. My first thought, Sue when I saw that comment about the pile of shit.

        Unfortunately we have a similar pile infesting Infestedminster and Shitehall.

    3. Dehumanising a section of German society…and utterly convinced that they are saving Germany from a terrible threat…sigh

    4. Couldn’t be more appropriate if applied to the Reichstag itself.

      Rathaus
      /ˈrathaʊs/
      noun
      a town hall in a German-speaking country.

  67. 382754+ up ticks,

    It puzzles me as to how sexual obscenities in the park pubic toilet can change anything.

    We need a Blair-Osborne Act to stop ex-MPs shilling for foreign rulers

  68. It is said that the leaders of that regime enjoyed the irony that their gas chambers used a product which was also used for pest control.

  69. 382754+ up ticks

    Very sad to say but, regarding the majority voters to date we will continue going DOWN the road to reset
    dragging our dead and seriously injured with us unless there is radical change in the voting pattern.

    https://x.com/UnityNewsNet/status/1753401290904772984?s=20

    The next in line to be prematurely dead could very well be you, or a family member, with unity everyone matters.

  70. What do microaggressions have to do with acid attacks? Spiked. “ February 2024.

    Our politicians cannot bring themselves to say that this violent sex offender should never have been granted asylum.

    Easily the most grotesque response was reserved for Newsnight, as is often the case these days. Last night, alleged Tory MP Caroline Nokes and Labour’s Bell Ribeiro-Addy, whose Streatham constituency the attack took place in, were invited by the BBC’s Kirsty Wark to hold forth on… microaggressions. I’m not making this up. After some obligatory throat-clearing about how awful the attack was, Wark suddenly pivoted. ‘I was surprised to hear how many microaggressions that you’ve faced’, she asked a visibly relieved Nokes. Thus ensued a conversation about how men calling women ‘darling’ or whatever puts society on a slippery slope to violent misogyny. ‘It may start with a microaggression, Bell, but it can end up with something incredibly serious’, said Wark. Ribeiro-Addy then began piously intoning about ‘ever-increasing incel culture’.

    I don’t think that there is any doubt that the Political Elites are deranged. They have absorbed the mind toxin of Political Correctness and Logic, Reason; whatever, has been abandoned. Unfortunately Lemming like they are going to take us with them over the cliff.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/02/02/what-do-microaggressions-have-to-do-with-acid-attacks/

    3. 382754+ up ticks,

      Afternoon AS.

      Can it be explained how they continue to find support via the polling stations, are ALL their current supporters to be considered as being criminally insane.

    4. 382754+ up ticks,

      Afternoon AS.

      Can it be explained how they continue to find support via the polling stations, are ALL their current supporters to be considered as being criminally insane.

    5. I’m not sure how many of them are going over the cliff, it’s more like we are being pushed over by them. They may have a few casualties, but I don’t think they will go over to the same extent as the rest of us.

    6. I’m not sure how many of them are going over the cliff, it’s more like we are being pushed over by them. They may have a few casualties, but I don’t think they will go over to the same extent as the rest of us.

    7. My word how stupid can our political idiots get. Now they want more money to look after even more of this ‘human’ detritus.

    8. You don’t have to be some hardline anti-asylum type – convinced that all the people who come here are a walking security threat – to recognise how insanely wrong, reckless and inhumane that [court] decision was.

      …and then…

      Another resident said the woman ‘prayed to Allah’ as she was being treated after the attack. This could turn out to be another sickening twist: a woman and her kids come to Britain seeking a better life and this horror befalls them, all because our asylum system is incapable of distinguishing between those who need and deserve our help and refuge and those who obviously do not.

      Writer Tom Slater walks both ways at once with these contradictory observations. Too much praying to Allah is the big problem and a very large proportion of the population (the white ancestral British at least) will soon take the view that all immigration is bad, at any time from anywhere. When that happens, it’ll require more than controls on the sale of Harpic to keep the streets safe.

    9. You don’t have to be some hardline anti-asylum type – convinced that all the people who come here are a walking security threat – to recognise how insanely wrong, reckless and inhumane that [court] decision was.

      …and then…

      Another resident said the woman ‘prayed to Allah’ as she was being treated after the attack. This could turn out to be another sickening twist: a woman and her kids come to Britain seeking a better life and this horror befalls them, all because our asylum system is incapable of distinguishing between those who need and deserve our help and refuge and those who obviously do not.

      Writer Tom Slater walks both ways at once with these contradictory observations. Too much praying to Allah is the big problem and a very large proportion of the population (the white ancestral British at least) will soon take the view that all immigration is bad, at any time from anywhere. When that happens, it’ll require more than controls on the sale of Harpic to keep the streets safe.

  71. Slithering in to wish you all a wonderful day. I am a trifle inactive at the moment due to basically being cooked. Not that I’m complaining; I like heat! At the moment, though, it’s not dipping below 30°C *at night* in Buenos Aires…

        1. ?La mia tambien? (Sorry, I don’t know how to invert ? nor add an acute accent – they didn’t have personal computers in the school lessons in my day.)

          1. Absolutely! Given that it’s possibly the smallest flat in Buenos Aires, I have to hope that I don’t get all adventurous Nottlers at the same time, mind…

        2. I know, my sweet, it’s just the journey is a bit further than Cardiff…

          And vice versa, as you well know! :ox

    4. Wish I were with you, ashesthandust. I could help you practise your Argentine Spanish. Do you now intend to remain there indefinitely?

  72. S.S. Creofield.

    Complement:
    17 (17 dead – no survivors)

    At 06.24 hours on 2 Feb 1940 the unescorted Creofield (Master Charles Fred Carlin) was hit amidships by one G7a torpedo from U-59 (Harald Jürst), exploded and sank east of Lowestoft. The master, 15 crew members and one gunner were lost.

    Type IIC U-Boat U-59 was scuttled on 3rd May 1945 in the Kiel Arsenal after being decommissioned in April 1945. Wreck broken up in 1945

    https://uboat.net/media/allies/merchants/br/creofield.jpg

  73. Congratulations to The Elite:

    We’ve all been watching various members of The Elite saying how important it is to delay the Post Office inquiry.

    The BBC today announced that the inquiry would be delayed until the Spring.

    By the time that Spring arrives we’re sure that there will be further excuses why it will be further delayed.

    1. If only they did that to the vast waste of money we keep on pouring into the proxy war in Ukraine with no chance of winning and the awful waste of young lives.
      Sort the biggest miscarriage of British justice out quickly or are your all getting your lies in line before the the enquiry. We know what you did you scumbags.

      1. Correction: WE don’t keep pouring OUR money into the proxy war, the scumbags in parliament keep pouring OUR money into the proxy war…

        4. I had a letter from the DWP today saying “the government” was giving me £500 Winter Fuel Payment. I crossed out government and wrote in “tax payers”.

    2. If only they did that to the vast waste of money we keep on pouring into the proxy war in Ukraine with no chance of winning and the awful waste of young lives.
      Sort the biggest miscarriage of British justice out quickly or are your all getting your lies in line before the the enquiry. We know what you did you scumbags.

    3. What a shame they all don’t go down with a fatal disease,………Oh hang on that’s only for the plebs.

  74. Lots of bees buzzing around our kitchen window attracted by our very fragrant Sarcococca. Delightful at this time of the year. Insignificant flowers but bursting with perfume. They’re on the north facing side of the house where they flourish.

    1. And lots of the pilots and navs were trained by little ol’ me.

      I didn’t know Mal Craghill. I think he must have gone through his Tornado operational training sometime after I left which was at the beginning of March 1989, a couple of years before GW1.

      I wonder if he’s one of the ‘awake’ these days and, if he is, what he thinks now of the risks he took on behalf of the globalist predator class.

    1. He must be laughing all the way – I was going to say home but sadly not. How unbelievable is that, our own judge has ruled he can stay here to rape some more and will not be deported. How has the U.K. come to this.

      4. How has the U.K. come to this?

        One word answer: Blair.
        Two word answer: Blair; Brown.
        Three word answer: Blair; Brown; Cameron.

        3. I’d point out that the exact same things are happening in Canada, the U.S. and Australia, amongst others. A coincidence? I think not.

      5. 382754+ up ticks,

        Afternoon VW,

        Sad to say, via the polling stations, many would like to deny that, but in all honesty cannot.

    2. Let him go home and face the music – at the very least cut his willy off and send it back as an unattached package. We can be just as brutal as Sharia.

        1. Without. Do Sharia executioners apply an anaesthetic before removing a thief’s hand?

          Thought not.

    3. If he stays, cut his balls off to ensure he doesn’t rape again. In fact, the whole lot – meat and two veg – can’t be too careful.

  78. The
    A5 calendars are a one-stop schedule of recycling, food waste and
    general household refuse collections from March 2024 through February
    2025, including all the adjustments for Easter, Bank Holidays and the
    festive season.

    The woke council do not like to call it Christmas do they

    1. They’ve been banning St George’s day parades for years.
      But it’s alright to kneel in the road.

  79. Just in from 1½ hours gardening. Out of the wind it was really very pleasant. Positively mild. Removed miles of brambles which were beginning to invade part of the garden, er, less visited!

    Was helped by a brace of cats.

    Time to put the kettle on.

  80. Funny how we can bang up white teenage murderers for half a lifetime (and rightly so) – but can’t do anything remotely like it for, er, the diverse and recently arrived similar…..

  81. 382754+up ticks,

    The tory (ino) party MPs cross over to reform we have a replay on the 2019 actions as in, if it walks like a tory (ino)party member & talks like a tory (ino) party member tis a good bet the peoples have been suckered again, tory (ino) party MK 2 coming up.

    Poll: Reform UK hits highest ever level of support in Red Wall
    Reform UK has hit its highest ever level of support in crucial Red Wall seats, according to a new poll.

    1. That’s why I don’t want Tory defections. Anyone with integrity would have resigned from that party years ago. They’d only go to Reform to save their own arses.

    3. The numbers of illegal immigrants arriving in England by small boats are almost totally dependent on sea conditions.

      Edited for grammar.

    2. My word those idiots can’t leave anything alone.
      They’d go berserk if a white tenor sang Old Man River.

        1. Heavily white. Something to with Dr Freud?
          No where near as good as the original. Stig.
          I hope all you Stevenage people are sending in complaints regarding the doubling of the size of Lower town airport.

  84. “Girls injured in Clapham attack ‘less seriously hurt than thought’”

    Gosh – that’s alright, then. Matey was just carrying out a jape.

  86. Bluddy Bogey Five.

    Wordle 958 5/6
    🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩
    ⬜⬜🟩🟨🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Four here

      Wordle 958 4/6

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

    2. Four today.

      Wordle 958 4/6

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

    4. Just back from Friday early doors pub, but no excuses as I did it at about 1500 hrs.

      Wordle 958 5/6

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

    1. I notice in the report that the judge addressed the perpetrators using their first names, Scarlett and Eddie instead of Jenkinson and Ratcliffe! THIS is highly symptomatic of what is wrong today.

    3. Some one sensible seriously needs to grab this country by the neck and drag it back to where it use to be. Sane and safe to live in.

      1. After the past few years, I can really understand how communism or fascism get their grip on countries.
        Any party that promised the helpless ‘little people’ that it would stop the drift and chicanery that afflicts states throughout the world would be swept to power.
        The Man of Destiny is created by political poltroons.

    4. I don’t like jailing people for motivation. Their actions were bad enough.

      The victim was a victim twice over, once of a teenage castration cult and once of a pair of murderers.

      1. Alberta have just announced restrictions on teen Transgender activities. Nothing drastic it is simply thou shalt not chop before age eighteen and nothing under then without parents being informed.

        You should see the brou de bloody ha that this is causing the liberals. Would you believe Alberta’s trans policy proposal equal to ‘NATO moment’ for LGBTQ2S+ community

    1. A desert island. I’d watch out, if I were them. The Establishment’s been known to test nuclear bombs on them previously…

  90. That’s me gone. A really very nice day. The sort of gardening where one can actually SEE the progress one was hoping to achieve.

    A loaf to make tomorrow – then, perhaps, more in the garden….

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

  91. We’re back from the funeral – never been to the Bristol Memorial Woodlands before but it’s a very nice venue. A simple Christian service with All Things Bright and Beautiful and the Lord’s Prayer. Then upstairs for food while the family members went to the graveside.

  92. Kaypea, if you’re on this evening that chap I was referring to earlier who explained bot-farm generation of fake on-line followers etc to James Delingpole was Alex Kriel from Thinking Slow a couple of years ago.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1711731c98e59d7af24d3df17fbeb27ee6815a9cb3f23f5c63b03a10c29ea3fa.png

    https://odysee.com/@JamesDelingpoleChannel:0/slow:83

    Also nine months ago:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1269bdc99620553861f745e2839bc0185b995c7963e0f9c5de7fc7b1856d93f9.png

    https://odysee.com/@JamesDelingpoleChannel:0/2023-4-12-Thinking-Slow:4

    And one month ago:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/14716c5aaa2a8b6550fdd29404db538a9b25a61a265f15b9a4316224bf3c963f.png

    https://odysee.com/@JamesDelingpoleChannel:0/2023-12-14_Alex-Kriel-Thinking-Slow:9

  93. The West’s humiliating electric car climbdown has begun

    Ambitious plans for an electrification-led industrial revolution are in full-scale retreat

    MATTHEW LYNN
    2 February 2024 • 4:57pm

    France’s President Macron had a plan to make millions of electric vehicles a year. Chancellor Scholz planned to put 15 million on Germany’s roads by 2030. President Biden trumped the lot with a $174bn (£138bn) plan to make the US the world leader. Even Boris Johnson – remember him – had a £1bn plan to beef up our charging network.

    Rewind only a couple of years, and almost every president or prime minister was making electric vehicles the cornerstone of an industrial strategy. And yet, this week we have learned that Renault is abandoning plans to separately list its electric vehicle (EV) and software business, while Volvo is winding down its Polestar electric sports car subsidiary.

    In reality, amid an onslaught of Chinese competition, and falling sales, the West’s electric vehicle dream is quickly unravelling – and we need to relearn all the lessons in why grand, state-led industrial strategies never work.

    It was not so long ago that countries were competing furiously to launch battery-powered visions of the future. With Tesla riding the wave of green demand to become the world’s largest car manufacturer, measured by market value if not volume, and with ambitious net zero targets to meet, they all wanted to make sure they could compete in electric vehicles.

    We would reduce carbon emissions, create many jobs, and shore up our industrial base. Sure, governments would have to commit a few billions – or tens of billions – to make it happen. But it would pay for itself many times over.

    And yet, right now, plans for an EV-led industrial revolution are in full-scale retreat.

    Renault, despite the programme of state support, has this week scrapped the separate listing of its EV unit Ampere, which has been scheduled for the first half of the year. It was a “pragmatic decision” according to the company’s chief executive Luca de Meo, arguing that falling sales for EVs across Europe meant the market was more challenging than forecast.

    Likewise, Volvo announced that it would stop funding its EV unit, Polestar, and might even offload its 48pc stake on other shareholders, including China’s Geely. Last September, Volkswagen said it was cutting production of two of its flagship EV models, while in November, Ford said it was scaling back its battery plant in Michigan.

    It looks like all those “well-paid green jobs” are going to take a little longer to arrive than anyone anticipated. As for the payback on huge sums various governments have “invested” in the industry, it looks like the returns on that money will take a while to come through as well.

    There is nothing wrong with EVs themselves. They are often great as run-arounds for dense urban environments, and as long as the raw materials are sourced correctly, and the chargers are not powered by coal-burning generators, they are probably a little better for the environment than the petrol version.

    If people want them, then that’s great. The trouble with the industry right now is that demand is falling because the vehicles cost far more than anyone expected, and what market there is will be captured by Chinese manufacturers such as BYD that can make vehicles far more cheaply than anyone in the West can. The result? A lot of government money will be wasted.

    There is a lesson in the humiliating climbdown. State-led industrial strategies never work. Indeed, the failure of the drive into EV is a textbook example of everything that goes wrong.

    First, it backs the wrong industries. No one really has any idea what products people might want in five or ten years time, which is why it is best to leave it to private companies and their investors to make their own bets, reap the rewards when they get it right, and bear the losses when they don’t.

    Politicians and bureaucrats are no better at making those decisions, as usually a lot worse. Don’t believe me? Just ask consumers. Hertz in the US is disposing of the 20,000 EVs it bought with great fanfare in recent years, and is replacing them with petrol models, due to lack of demand. Over the past year, figures from the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders revealed a steep fall in EV interest from private buyers.

    Next, the state over-invests. Even if there is a small market for EVs, there certainly wasn’t space for huge new industries in France, Germany, the US, or in a dozen smaller countries. The car industry was awash with over-capacity already, and that was before the Government started throwing billions at electric vehicle plants. All that happens is that prices collapse, and no one makes any money.

    Finally, it distorts the market with subsidies. Governments start out spending a few billion on new EV factories, then they have to start subsidising the EVs so that people actually buy them, then they have to impose tariffs and quotas to stop imports from countries where other government have invested too much.

    Finally, they have to pay out even more to keep alive the factories making a product that no one wants. It’s a vicious cycle, and once it starts it is very hard to stop.

    The one relief for the UK is that our political and administrative class was too inept to pour even more money in, despite the best efforts of the former PM’s Theresa May and Boris Johnson to splurge a few tens of billions into the “race for EVs” and the endless warnings that we risked “getting left behind’”. We will be spared the worst of the pain ahead.

    In reality, the volte-face on the electrification of the auto industry is underway. Major manufacturers have started to pull back, but all the grand projects for battery factories, for shiny new EV plants, and for charging infrastructure, will inevitably be scrapped very soon.

    Billions of taxpayer’s money will have been wasted. We should draw the lesson from that, as bitter as it might prove. The Government never knows what the industries of the future will be – and should leave it to entrepreneurs and customers to work that out.

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

    Tim Taylor
    1 HR AGO
    To plagiarise a comment from another thread (it’s so good):
    Imagine we lived in a world where all cars were EVs, and then along comes a new invention, the “Internal Combustion Engine”! Think how well they would sell: A vehicle half the weight, half the price that will almost quarter the damage done to the road. A vehicle that can be refuelled in 1/10th of the time and has a range of up to 4 times the distance in all weather conditions. It does not rely on the environmentally damaging use of non-renewable rare earth elements to power it, and use far less steel and other materials.
    Just think how excited people would be for such technology, it would sell like hot cakes!

    John Ellwood
    54 MIN AGO
    “Covid ‘vaccines’ are safe”. EVs are the future. HS2 is a good investment.
    We are led by fools.

    david bewick
    58 MIN AGO
    I would love to be around in 2050 when we are at net zero (allegedly) and see that the global warming is still not receding and the head scratching and excuse peddling starts. What fun it will be.

    Fiona Walker
    36 MIN AGO
    Reply to david bewick
    They will blame humans for breathing out CO2.

    1. Just need the law to catch up now and drop all the mandatory switch-over dates they’ve just pulled out of thin air. In the meantime, second-hand car prices are going to go nuts.

      And all this goes back to the Climate Change Act (2008?) Whoever voted for that should be prosecuted.

      1. These were the only MPs to vote against the act. Christopher Chope, Philip Davies, Peter Lilley, Andrew Tyrie,

          1. Only 5. Sir Christopher Chope is currently aligned with Andrew Bridgen on vaccine harms. He seems a sound chap.

    2. Because the Climate Act 2008 is enshrined in law a few years ago I asked our MP if all the targets that were legally binding weren’t achieved who would be prosecuted and would it be a criminal or civil offence. He replied saying, essentially, that the then Energy Minister would go to parliament and say ‘ Sorry chaps and chapesses but we missed the target and they would say oh! that’s a shame and that would be the end of it”.

      1. “We missed the target because I didn’t really know what I was doing”.
        “But it’s everyone else’s fault”.
        Which is usual parliamentary procedure.

        1. They’ll blame the scientists. As they will when they acknowledge that Covid vaccines are causing harm.

          1. Every day more people are being discovered as having had or are suffering from cardiology problems.
            All through the three plus years I suffered after the covid jabs, I lost count of the medical people who agreed with me on the causes.
            Even my gp agreed when I told him I would not have boosters. It probably saved my life. But sadly not all the other victims.

      2. Meanwhile, all the gullible plebs will have spewed out countless zillions on crappy bits of kit. All the architects and supporters of net zero deserve a pitchfork up their nether regions.

        1. Thery are actually putting heat pumps in their home that cost so much more and you will never be warn enough.

      3. I had already understood that that was the essence of the punishment to be meted out if legally binding targets were not achieved. I could scarcely believe it at first but you’ve confirmed my initial understanding. Furthermore, nearly all of those politicians who committed us all to these targets will be either dead or retired come the fateful day. Those left holding the parcel will only be quizzed as to why they didn’t revoke them.

    3. They will blame humans for breathing out CO2.

      The Malthusians at the WEF are already on to that. It’s part of their rationale for reducing global population to 500 million.

      Jane Goodall apparentlly. It’s a pity one of her chimps hadn’t ripped her head off.

    4. If I survive that long I will be 97 (and probably Gaga by then so won’t give a tuppenny….!)

    5. If I survive that long I will be 97 (and probably Gaga by then so won’t give a tuppenny….!)

    6. Don’t worry. The vilage idiot is still pushing EVs as the only way to go. Literally tens of billion dollars given to foreign car makers so that they will build battery plants in Canada so there is no way that Trudeau can change direction without loosing face.

    7. A friend, admittedly a petrol head and Jag fan (he has a ghastly white E, F, or G whatever Type) , recently had a day’s tour of the Jaguar plant up north somewhere and discovered they are totally committed to EV Jags now. It strikes me that Seppuku is now the most popular business goal.

    8. Ford are not building many F150 EV trucks nowadays, it seems that they have a significant lack of EV sales.

    9. And people want governments to take over more things. Whst fools they are as government are THE problem.

  95. The US is a lost cause….

    ”
    3 hours ago

    “Let me get this straight… merely walking through the capitol unauthorized is a felony,” wrote Real Clear Investigations Senior Writer Mark Hemingway.

    “But having public sex in the building, filming it, and putting it online doesn’t merit a public lewdness charge?”

    If only the tourists on January 6 had been having a homosexual orgy, they wouldn’t have faced any charges.”

    2. 1. They don’t want to go to an Islamic country because they know they get better treatment in countries like the UK.
      2. Islamic countries don’t want them.

      Trouble is, as soon as they arrive here they want to turn the UK into a carbon copy of the shit-hole they have just fled from.

      1. They don’t want to go to an islamic country because that would defeat the object of making a kuffar country submit. There’s no point going to a place that is already an islamic hellhole.

  98. Here we have a new definition for conflict of interest.

    The latest Canadian ethics Commissioner has stated that Trudeaus $80,000 free holiday in Barbados is perfectly above board – the gift would have to be “really exceptional,” he suggested, like “a Ferrari,” or “$1 million,” to trigger an investigation.

    So there we have the latest excuse.

    1. “$80,000“?
      He obviously just went for a breakfast morning (and Weetabix at that) then.

    3. There is no strength in diversity/division. There is immense strength in its opposite, cohesion. A diversified society is not a cohesive society, it is a divided society.

  102. Please sign this petition if you haven’t already.

    Review how to turn MHRA into a fully transparent, patient first regulator

    We believe the MHRA should be reviewed. This should include
    its approval processes, its monitoring of safety of existing products,
    its transparency and accountability, and its mechanisms to ensure
    patient safety is prioritised over commercial interests.

    https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/652008

    5. I had to look up what MHRA meant, “The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency regulates medicines, medical devices and blood components for transfusion in the UK.”

    6. Could this be good timing?

      The USA’s FDA is planning on changing the rules on ‘Informed Consent’, Dr Naomi Wolf on The War Room. As I understand Dr Wolf, the FDA is, by using an existing act of Congress, attempting to rewrite the law on ‘IC’. Dr Naomi Wolf, an activist against medical tyranny’, doesn’t understand how the FDA is capable of doing this but the Agency is going ahead.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3f83ff754f5bad1e3c385041cea7c8e46451d702ebee4b21f9703ab9eb824d1f.png

      What of our MHRA?

      I understand, and I’m open to correction, that Informed Consent is protected by Common Law – a Judgement by the Courts.

      From Google:

      What are the four(sic) principles of an informed consent?
      The requirements of an informed consent for a medical or surgical procedure, or for research, are that the patient or subject (i) must be competent to understand and decide, (ii) receives a full disclosure, (iii) comprehends the disclosure, (iv) acts voluntarily, and (v) consents to the proposed action.4 Jun 2020

      Also:

      Judgement in Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board 2015

      What did the Montgomery ruling mean?
      The ruling makes it clear that any intervention must be based on a shared decision-making process, ensuring the patient is aware of all options and supported to make an informed choice by their healthcare professional. The Montgomery vs NHS Lanarkshire case. The history behind the landmark court ruling.

      1. I don’t believe that as patients, we were in possession of all the facts when we were urged to get the jabs. It was consent, but not informed.

    1. Here you are, take your pick:-
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/95c8e74a645a1d58dd3659b65ddb27169c2c50cfb5573093a67554fff9494176.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e8c8e09e22f11d2cb4fedf18f7d6c2877c61c5bc66773e42ea51cd8b298d346.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/db91c1f5a905d1c041541e4611e8e03703c03273fa005d198c2570704976545d.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d55c34dc855c4bb40f8975da7f4314c7e48a7bf30c1e08cc54c0511f7da6a1ca.jpg

    2. Here you are, take your pick:-
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/95c8e74a645a1d58dd3659b65ddb27169c2c50cfb5573093a67554fff9494176.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e8c8e09e22f11d2cb4fedf18f7d6c2877c61c5bc66773e42ea51cd8b298d346.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/db91c1f5a905d1c041541e4611e8e03703c03273fa005d198c2570704976545d.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d55c34dc855c4bb40f8975da7f4314c7e48a7bf30c1e08cc54c0511f7da6a1ca.jpg

    2. Does he not go to the land of Oz at this time of the year to visit his son for 4 – 6 weeks?

  107. I made the mistake of turning on the radio at just after 8 this evening to hear part of ‘Any Questions?’ on R4 (the first time for a long time, I should add). I was subjected to a loud-mouthed female berating Anne Widdecombe over the Tories ‘disastrous Brexit deal’. She was Christine Jardine MP, the Liberal Democrat spokeswoman for the Cabinet Office. Barely 90 seconds was enough. It quite spoilt my evening. What a yob. The bit I heard was about freedom of movement. Her example was the difficulty orchestras have in travelling around the continent i.e. working abroad is now a bit bureaucratic. And to think the Leave voters were described as intolerant and stupid.

    Her view appeared to be that it was a bad deal because leaving could only be bad. NO, YOU THICK SPECIMEN. IT WAS MADE TO BE BAD. That was the point of three years of parliamentary trench warfare.

    Here’s a flattering photo:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d11e6e256bb85124bd7a38757ced3bbb9bdeebe821d929408aa04aab429329ca.jpg

    1. Never listen to Radio 4. Come to that, I barely listen to any radio, other than cricket commentary. I’m spared.

        1. I may have in the dim and distant past when it was the Light Programme. but for the last 40 years or so only R3 when I’m in the car.

          1. Nearly right. The Light Programme became Radio 2. Radio 4 was previously called the Home Service.

            Radio 3 was formed from an amalgamation of the Third Programme and Network Three. Radio 1 didn’t exist.

    2. Good Lord!
      That has to be at least a 10 pinter for the Brompton Stomp “Grab-A-Grannie” Night!!!

    3. Good Lord!
      That has to be at least a 10 pinter for the Brompton Stomp “Grab-A-Grannie” Night!!!

  108. The Dog’s Diary:
    8:00 am – Dog food! My favourite thing!
    9:30 am – A car ride! My favourite thing!
    9:40 am – A walk in the park! My favourite thing!
    10:30 am – Got rubbed and petted! My favourite thing!
    12:00 pm – Milk bones! My favourite thing!
    1:00 pm – Played in the yard! My favourite thing!
    3:00 pm – Wagged my tail! My favourite thing!
    5:00 pm – Dinner! My favourite thing!
    7:00 pm – Got to play ball! My favourite thing!
    8:00 pm – Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favourite thing!
    11:00 pm – Sleeping on the bed! My favourite thing!

    The Cat’s Diary:

    Day 983 of My Captivity.

    My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.
    The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet. Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates my capabilities. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a “good little hunter” I am. Bastards!
    There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of “allergies.” I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.
    Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow, but at the top of the stairs.
    I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released, and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded. The bird must be an informant. I observe him communicate with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe. For now …

      1. They know when they’re well oorf. Some cats do decide to leave and move in with neighbours.

    2. They take the long view, as opposed to the short-termist views of our governments of the last 40 years, or more.

  113. 382754+ up ticks,

    Being of good Muslim standing he can always don the cloak of invisibility, the burka, making him virtually, regarding wrongdoings, invisible.

    Clapham chemical attack latest: Suspect last seen on Victoria Tube line, say police

  114. Evening, all. Happy Candlemass.

    You know democracy is not just sick but dead when the will of the people as clearly expressed in a referendum is thwarted, ignored and eventually overturned.

    1. Went to church this evening. I always blow my candle out too soon. Don’t like the wax dripping through the cardboard holder onto my fingers.

      Just a week and a half till Lent. Ash Wednesday falls on St Valentines Day this year? Love and death.

      Is Oscar still resting?

      1. So did I, but I kept my candle alight until after the Gospel. My halo shines bright 🙂 The priest said, see you all here next week for Ash Wednesday! I must look out my old palm crosses to be incinerated. Oscar is up and down; sometimes he walks okay and other times he’s doing the splits and falling down splat. I’m afraid it isn’t looking good. In the meantime, he’s getting lots of cuddles and treats. The girls in the coffee shop sent him hugs today. Love and death indeed.

          1. Perhaps she said “a week on Wednesday” and it was me getting muddled. I hope it isn’t a week on Wednesday because I’ve got a very busy day on the 7th. I’ve got a lot on my mind at the moment.

      2. We lit a candle for Pam after the service. I didn’t realise it was Candlemass today and I’d forgotten it was Hedgehog Day as well……..but an appropriate date for her funeral.

        1. Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, presentation of Christ at the Temple and the Nunc Dimittis.

          4. Yes, I still say the old version of the Creed. I don’t like “we believe” – how do I know what others believe? I can only speak for myself. Anyway, it’s credo – I believe.

          5. Yes. And do you still turn sideways in the pews? I was brought up as a Christian, but lapsed from church-going years ago.

          6. As our pews face East we stay oriented. We stand and turn sideways in the choir (because they face north and south).

          8. The Lord’s Prayer is the only one I know. By default, it’s my ‘favourite’.

          9. Ah, but which version? I can think of three. One of the perils / advantages of being a church organist is that I pretty much know all the services by heart. Strangely, that doesn’t seem to apply to the clergy…

          10. Look up “Nunc dimittis” or The Song of Simeon – the old man saw Jesus as he was going for his presentation to the temple. The words are beautiful.

          11. Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word.
            For mine eyes have seen thy salvation.
            Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people
            To be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

            Mostly posted from memory (although I hit ‘send’ too soon…)

          13. Thanks, Stephen.

            Regrettably, our choirs are hanging on by a thread. My personal collection has the first three. CfC3 didn’t seem appropriate when we had a four part choir. Now we vary between one and no-part. I bought a shedload of “100 Carols for Choirs” when it was published. We have a vast number of CfC1 between two of the churches, but – apart from the ‘compulsory’ David Willcocks arrangements, there’s very little in there that we use now. I like CfC2. I never rolled it out to the choirs. But I very much like John Rutter’s arrangement of ‘Past Three O’ Clock’ in that volume. It works quite well as an organ voluntary at Midnight Mass, when the choir are safely tucked up in bed.

            Speaking of Rutter, I somehow have two copies of “European Sacred Music”. In my East Anglian days, I atended a choral workshop at Thurston Grammar School, organised by the Bury St Edmunds Bach Choir, and conducted by The Man himself. The first half was dedicated to his Magnificat, which the BBC (no, not that one) were about to perform. The post-interval half was dedicated to Rutter’s latest project, namely European Sacred Music. Edit: Or I may be thinking of his Opera Choruses. ‘Twas a long time ago.

            I also bought a quantity of CfC5, principally because my email to Thomas Hewitt-Jones, asking whether his “What Child is This” was available as an individual score received a reply that it wasn’t. I like Carols for Choirs 5, but our hardly used copies are unlikely to be used again in these godless, post Covid times. It was recorded by Voces8 when my old assistant organist was still with them (why lies he in such mean estate). Edit: the YT recording gets cut off in it’s prime…

          14. I do understand Geoff. Funnily enough I too was persuaded to buy ‘European Sacred Music’ at one of his workshops held one Saturday in Sevenoaks. I think there must have been over 400 people in attendance!

          15. The Suffolk one was similarly well-attended.

            Since True Belle posted Trinity College choir, featuring poor Ann’s nephew at the organ, You Tube keeps offering further content from there. I havent seen James Orford since, but he plays elsewhere in London. I think he may have played at friend Robert’s church in Wimbledon a few years ago for Faure’s Requiem. But I’m not certain.

            Yesterday’s Choral Evensong from Trinity was splendid. There was a full half hour of voluntaries by a distinguished organist from Oxford, before the service.

            I regret that, for the 10 years I lived in Thetford, I never managed to get to the Carol Service at King’s. Mainly because I was at Center Parcs, Elveden, banging carols out on an electric piano for the punters. Our parish had the chaplaincy there.

          17. Good plan. Nowadays, with the A11 bypass, Elveden village is rather more tranquil. SS Andrew and Patrick was one of the churches in our benefice. It has benefited from the likes of the Maharajah Duleep Singh – the last of the Sikh rulers – and several generations of the Guinness family. I’ve met sevaral of the latter.

            Elveden Farms is now an impressive concern. I had umpteen Christmas trees from them when I lived nearby, only to find that the had an offshoot in Old Woking (the family had a property nearby), when I moved to Surrey. But they may have gone somewhat downmarket, now that Iceland sells “Garden of Elveden” produce there.. But I’m not proud – I sometimes venture into the Aldershot branch of Iceland. It’s just across the road from the 520 bus stop. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, a bus leaves for Normandy at 16:30, and stops at the entrance to my small estate.

            While I prefer Waitrose, Morrisons in Aldershot has the advantage of being across the road from the Queen Hotel (Wetherspoons), from where it’s a short walk to the bus. And Iceland is part way there. And Ruddles Best is less than two quid. What’s not to like?

          18. The village itself was (is?) positively feudal. The only privately-owned property was the (former) Rectory, which was owned by one of the Churchwardens. Everyone else kept their heads down, and did as they were told.

          20. It’s beautiful, isn’t it! I went to a little CofE village school and we were taught by Christian ladies. Those words have stayed with me for 70 years.

  115. This Six Nations opener was billed as the World Cup final that never was. A battle between the northern hemisphere’s two genuinely world-class teams. One suspects had it in fact taken place in Paris on the night of October 28, Ireland would not have had such an easy time of it.

    Andy Farrell’s men got their Six Nations campaign off to a flyer at the Stade Velodrome [Marseille, France] starting life post-Johnny Sexton in perfect fashion with their biggest ever win in France, 38-17.

    I am very happy with the result!

      1. In the course of the World Cup there was no team that went through the whole competition unbeaten. England only lost one match – and that was by only one point to the competition winners. A pretty good statistic for a team that everyone said was useless!

  116. Tonight I watched THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM (1967) on YouTube once again and thoroughly enjoyed it. Now it’s my bed time so Good Night, chums. Sleep well and see you all in the morning.

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