Friday 2 October: Danger of the Government feeding on a vicious circle of restrictions

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/10/01/letters-danger-government-feeding-vicious-circle-restrictions/

798 thoughts on “Friday 2 October: Danger of the Government feeding on a vicious circle of restrictions”

  2. All these people that were supposed to have had the virus some time ago are now testing positive for the virus for some reason.

    While none of them show any signs of being sick and have no symptoms.

    1. Angie O’Edema has just posted on yesterday’s Nottle that Trump and the First Lady have tested positive but so far are well. I hope it remains that way, because I can’t see the Republicans putting up a viable “Ticket” in the available time.

        1. What are their rules over self-isolation?

          It might be that Biden counts as a “contact” and has to isolate too, which would be a double whammy for Trump as Joe-bag gets fewer gaffe opportunities.

      1. 324208+up ticks,
        Morning AOE,
        And you agreed ? I didn’t talk to myself for a week after auguring
        and falling out.

        1. I think talking to yourself if OK if you are schizophrenic.
          However I am in one of two minds about it.

          Morning ogga1 (and ogga2) if you are there)

        1. Agreeing with yourself is proof positive you are nuts. Me and my friends all agree on that.

    1. Very cleverly telling you how to avoid being duped by false statistics and bashing Trump at the same time.

      2. Yes, quite easy Bob.

        Many of our MPs have university degrees, and can talk a good talk.

        Unfortunately many of them read Animal Farm at uni. and considered it a really good plan for the future.

        Pity that so many of them openly despise the public!

        1. University degrees are not much of a sign of intelligence to be fair.
          Just means you have ticked enough lefty boxes to get through the course.

          1. I felt one degree under after I got my first degree so I took another one.
            I didn’t go on to do a PhD because I didn’t want to be caught on a plane with a sick pilot and have to admit to being a doctor.

          3. An episode of “HOUSE” showed how Dr House dealt with an in-flight aircraft health problem. He confidently used lies, exaggeration and panic to control the fearful passengers as he wrestled to understand the problem and treat the ill passenger. This tactic has been adopted by our own health minister to control the UK population in the Covid-19 epidemic..

          4. That’s the thing about being a medical doctor – to act in a sufficiently authorative manner as to convince the patient that you know what you’re talking about.

            As a patient I wrestled to understand how the my GP’s treatment was making me so ill.
            When I produced evidence of soomething he had missed he didn’t want to see me any more and played the second opinion card.

          5. The Shipman approach.
            I have to admit that there were several moments during my training – particularly in my third year where, in the absence of sister and staff nurse, you were allowed to take charge of the ward – where a spot of bluff came in handy.

    2. Heyup!
      The rain I reported when I first logged on has, for now at least, ceased.
      If it remains ceased long enough, I may be able to get a start on the shuttering for the retaining wall I finished digging the trench for yesterday..

  6. Morning all.

    SIR – Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, should hear alarm bells ringing from the Conservative Home article by James Frayne on which you report.

    Mr Frayne went on to say: “Ministers have created a vicious cycle of opinion: they’re artificially pumping up support for tight restrictions, then reading the polls telling them the public want tight restrictions, then further extending support.”

    This circularity in the propaganda of fear emanating from the Government has got to be broken. The Prime Minister must use his innate optimism to reassure the public that coronavirus can be lived with and avert the coming economic disaster.

    Michael Staples

    Seaford, East Sussex

    SIR – In his biography of George V, Kenneth Rose wrote that in 1915 Lord Kitchener gave Lord Esher an account of a Cabinet meeting.

    “After a long debate the Prime Minister said to the Cabinet: ‘Please remember that in an hour’s time I have to tell the House of Commons what the Cabinet has decided.’

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    “There was silence for a minute or two, and Balfour said: ‘You had better tell them that the Cabinet has decided it is quite incapable of conducting the business of the country and carrying on the war.’

    “No one having made any observation upon this, the Prime Minister asked: ‘Am I to say that to the House of Commons?’ Upon which, Balfour observed: ‘Well if you do, you will at any rate be telling them the truth!’ ”

    No change in 105 years.

    Timothy Morgan-Owen

    Melbourne, Derbyshire

    SIR – Wednesday’s Downing Street press conference on the pandemic was notable for the lack of up-to-date information on the state of the economy. In fact the Prime Minister did not answer, at all, a direct question from a journalist on the economy.

    There were plenty of graphs on the health effects of the pandemic but a dead silence on the devastation (which includes effects on health and well-being) caused by the loss of jobs.

    Boris Johnson, Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance are assured a pay cheque each month, but many are not. Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, has done a sterling job to support employment but this cannot go on indefinitely.

    Gail Brown

    Kidderminster, Worcesteshire

    SIR – It has taken the Speaker six months to state that the Government is treating Parliament with contempt. Was he self-isolating all this time?

    Duncan Carse

    Launceston, Cornwall

    SIR – We own a second home in Conwy, which we are now, once again, not allowed to visit. We could, however, rent a holiday cottage on Anglesey and drive past our second home on our way to stay.

    Tina Berry

    Worsley, Lancashire

    1. Thank you, and good morning Epi! Very useful for when the click on esc. doesn’t work.

  8. ‘Morning, Peeps. Ted Shorter is spot on:

    Playing Mrs Thatcher

    SIR – The American actress Gillian Anderson says of Margaret Thatcher, who she will be playing in the Netflix series The Crown: “Taking on somebody who is hated as much as Thatcher is a whole other thing.”

    Mrs Thatcher was not hated universally in Britain. Many people, including me, saw her as a brave and capable prime minister, who rescued our country from the clutches of Marxist trade union barons and helped to restore our national pride.

    Might I suggest that Ms Anderson read the history of the period, rather than swallow the normal Left-wing propaganda about our first female prime minister?

    Ted Shorter
    Tonbridge, Kent

    1. Margaret Thatcher was very much a Marmite figure. Her supporters, comprising about 40% of the nation regard her as a messiah, whereas her opponents (and I was one) feel she cynically bribed the working class with the proceeds of sell-offs, and was lucky to govern when North Sea oil was reaching its peak, yet she squandered that wealth and we have little to show for it now.

      Much of what I most loved about my country was wrecked by Margaret Thatcher, who was a cultural philistine favouring a crass materialist boorishness that has created the crass materialist boorishness today utterly incapable of dealing with a national emergency. She also made the Single Market, a Europe-wide collectivisation of the marketplace by global corporates and their overpaid executives.

      1. …..wrecked Grammar schools.

        PS Could have ‘saved’ Grammar schools.
        Antony Crosland did his best to ‘destroy every f*cking grammar school in the country’.

        1. By the time Maggie got to No.10, Crossland’s legislation had already passed the control of abolishing Grammar Schools down to the Local Education Authorities and, as much as she may have wanted to reverse the process when Education Minister, she was not allowed to do it without first repealing the existing legislation.
          Edward Heath however was unwilling to allow parliamentary time for the necessary action to be taken.

          2. And the start of the agenda that continues today: keep them uninformed and uneducated; that way we can control them better.

    3. She is a complete nut case.

      Anderson went through a rebellious stage as a teenager; taking drugs, dating a much older boyfriend, and cultivating a punk appearance (dyeing her hair various colours, shaving the sides of her head, sporting a nose piercing and an all-black wardrobe). She was put in therapy at the age of 14. Anderson listened to bands such as Dead Kennedys and Skinny Puppy. She was voted by her classmates as “class clown”, “most bizarre girl” and “most likely to be arrested”. She was arrested on graduation night for breaking and entering into her high school in an attempt to glue the locks of the doors. She later managed to reduce the charges to trespassing.Wiki

      …Then she went downhill.

      She was married to a bloke called Klotz – but it didn’t last. She wasn’t having two Clotz in one family.

  9. Some GPs should face a GMC panel to explain why they remain for to practice.

    SIR – Laura Donnelly’s report proves that the powers-that-be have failed to take heed of what my wife, a retired GP, wrote to you in a letter published on August 29.

    She said: “Can Matt Hancock explain why he has decided to change our National Health Service into a National Covid Service that only treats one condition? The rest of us suffer and die in silence.”

    I learnt to listen to my wife more than 40 years ago – perhaps Matt Hancock and others should do likewise.

    Lt Col Richard Castle

    Claygate, Surrey

    SIR – A recent experience has made clear to me why non-Covid deaths are increasing.

    I called my GP surgery for an appointment but got no answer, so I went there.

    It was locked and the lights were off, but I rang the intercom and an irate person came to the door and put a leaflet through the letterbox telling me I had to contact them online.

    After a lengthy process, I managed to do this, but was then informed that appointments were not currently available. No means of leaving a message was offered.

    Charles Holt

    London SE11

    SIR – Like Bruce Chalmers (Letters, September 30), I have seen my dentist and hygienist, and also my physiotherapist and chiropodist many times, but GPs are conspicuous by their absence – apart from on the end of a telephone line.

    I also object to having to share personal medical details with a receptionist in order to have a conversation with my doctor.

    Joan Manning

    Barton-on-Sea, Hampshire

    SIR – How difficult can it be to pay for the services of a company that can test all NHS staff regularly?

    The level of incompetence is so high that soon we will be without any other healthcare apart from that which is dedicated to Covid.

    What does Matt Hancock actually do? This situation requires someone who can get things done and not just spout political rhetoric.

    John Williams

    Nuneaton, Warwickshire

    1. I heard Matt Hancock’s speech this morning reiterating the Government’s line that we cannot afford for COVID to let rip.
      Unfortunately when pressure builds that far the only option is to let one out and hope no one hears.
      It’ll create a stink but there are air fresheners on the market.

  11. Morning again

    SIR – John Davies (Letters, September 30) suggests sensible methods of restoring the democratic will of the National Trust’s membership.

    Sadly, it appears that, under cover of Covid-19, both the 2020 annual general meeting and elections to the National Trust Council have been cancelled. This manoeuvre will aid the “London-based clique” that Mr Davies mentions to push through its proposals, which amount to a betrayal of so many of the Trust’s previous benefactors.

    Stuart Middleton

    Salisbury, Wiltshire

  12. SIR – T and S Dredge (Letters, October 1) suggest banning garden bonfires. The smell of an autumn bonfire is one of the few pleasures at this time of year.

    Rob Dorrell

    Chippenham, Wiltshire

    1. It depends what is being burnt and whether it is left to smoulder overnight.

      Dead wood and dry leaves are fine. Green garden waste and plastic are not. Any bonfires should be put out before going to bed.

  13. 324208+ up ticks,
    I do believe in the lab/lib/con coalition
    treachery department covid 19 is tagged as an upperty downer, suppressor / blocker.
    Suitable for any area.

    With NO true, comparable with flu figures
    we may as well be dealing with a plague
    of lemonade drinkers.

    Before the mid 70s big scam take off we had the tonic, “E wants a good tonic”
    We should really consider returning to the days of the “TONIC”, with some haste.

  14. ‘Morning, again.

    Today’s anti-NT letter (treacherous sods):

    SIR – John Davies (Letters, September 30) suggests sensible methods of restoring the democratic will of the National Trust’s membership.

    Sadly, it appears that, under cover of Covid-19, both the 2020 annual general meeting and elections to the National Trust Council have been cancelled. This manoeuvre will aid the “London-based clique” that Mr Davies mentions to push through its proposals, which amount to a betrayal of so many of the Trust’s previous benefactors.

    Stuart Middleton
    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    2. I don’t understand how a song from ‘Carousel’ became LFC’s ‘anthem’.
      I can watch ‘Carousel’ and enjoy it as a frothy American music, until that song when Billy Bigelow sings to his child. Then I tear up.
      (How’s that for not posting a spoiler?)

    3. I now cannot think about this song without also thinking of Yul Brynner.

      Fred Wedlock sang a song about Liverpool’s battle eager football fans who sang “You’ll Never Walk Again.”

  16. Good morning all.
    Dry when I got out of bed and looked through the window, chucking it down by the time I took the empty milk bottle and brought in the full ones!

        1. The Hindoo Chancellor has changed the rules for PBs. In future, you will have to pay NSI £25 a month….

      2. ‘Morning, BoB. Speaking of Ernie…I was going through some old documents of my late father yesterday, and came across some Premium Bond prize notifications dated 2012 (he died in 2011 and his bonds were paid out 12 months later). I thought I should perhaps just check the ‘unclaimed prizes’ thingy on the website. Bingo! I found riches beyond my wildest dreams…okay, it was 2 x £25 but better than nothing. After waiting on the line for 41 minutes I was advised to write in and claim them. No copy of Probate required, either, although perhaps that may not have applied to a prize with a few (useful) noughts on the end.

        1. I’m just going through the rigmarole at the moment.
          When sorting through approx. 147 apparently unused handbags at elderly chum’s house, I discovered 5 x £10 PBs dated November 1965.
          We are now lumbering through the bureaucratic machine as she is too doolally to be involved. Sadly, if she were dead, the system is easier.

        1. I’ve just bought a load for the first time and they’ve just lowered the virtual interest rate to 1% I think

  17. Good morning, all – dry here – as yet. The rain radar shows a great storm centred on Alderney ad moving anti-clockwise. We may not get much (for a change).

    Dr Zhivago continued last night – last chunk this evening. Talk about Memory Lane. Whe I was commuting to Temple tube station in 1969, there was a group of British Legion musicians who played to jolly up the morning. One day, having seen the film, I asked them to play “Lara’s Theme”. and gave them half-a-crown. They played it straightaway. And every morning as I emerged from Temple, they changed from what they were playing to sodding “Lara’s Theme” – Fortunately, in 1972, I got a job which meant using the old Charing Cross station on the Circle Line!

    1. You don’t have to listen to sodding “Lara’s Theme”.

      You could always switch on Gone With The Wind and listen to “Tara’s Theme” instead.

    2. When I first moved to London, I shared a tiny mews house just off the King’s Road with a (rich) friend. Julie Christie lived over the back fence in a far more salubrious street. We referred to the squeaks and squeals that we heard from Julie when Warren Beatty was visiting as “Lara’s Theme”.

  18. Having lied to the Commons yesterday, “Hundreds of thousands will die if pubs don’tr close at 10 pm”, how come Halfcock is still in office?

    1. All they needed to do to discourage night-time socialising without the rush hour of infectious gathering in the streets at 10pm chucking-out time was to announce that nobody would be admitted into pubs after 10pm, but they may leave at any time piecemeal until midnight.

  19. ‘Morning again,

    Another humbling Obituary:

    Group Captain Ken Parfit, Lancaster bomber navigator with the wartime Pathfinder Force – obituary

    Ken Parfit
    Group Captain Ken Parfit, who has died aged 96, flew 29 missions in Lancasters, the majority with the Pathfinder Force.

    Kenneth John Parfit was born in Middlesex on March 20 1924 and educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Barnet. In 1941 he went up to Glasgow University to study Mathematics and Astronomy and served in the University Air Squadron before enlisting in the RAF Volunteer Reserve.

    In 1943 he trained as a navigator in Canada and by the summer of 1944 had joined 61 Squadron. His first bombing operation was against the French city of Caen where German forces were holding up Allied ground forces after the landings in Normandy.

    A few days later his Lancaster was severely damaged over Bordeaux and, flying with one engine at full power and a second providing half power, the crippled bomber managed to reach England.

    After five operations, Parfit and his crew joined 97 Squadron, part of the Pathfinder Force, based at Coningsby. Their first operation was against Rheydt on September 19, when Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC was the master bomber. Soon after the raid was over, Gibson and his navigator were killed when their Mosquito crashed over the Netherlands.

    Parfit attacked synthetic oil plants and the port at Danzig, and he twice bombed the Dortmund-Ems Canal. He “celebrated” New Year 1945, in his Lancaster at 20,000 feet when it was “coned” by enemy searchlights and came under intense anti-aircraft fire.

    He continued to attack oil plants, and on April 18 flew his 29th and last mission of the war, when he bombed the marshalling yards at Komotau in Czechoslovakia.

    After the war in Europe he flew long-range transport flights on Yorks of 246 Squadron until he was demobbed in August 1946.

    After four years of civilian life, he re-joined the RAF and for the next three years served in the education branch. He returned to flying as an instructor at No 2 Air Navigation School at Thorney Island before converting to the Beverley, a lumbering transport aircraft, and joined 53 Squadron in 1957 when he was involved in many overseas exercises over the next two years.

    After serving 18 months in MoD, there was an urgent requirement for a Beverley squadron commander and Parfit left for Khormaksar in Aden to take over 84 Squadron. He made numerous flights supporting ground forces engaged with Yemeni insurgents. The Beverleys also flew regular sorties to the Persian Gulf and to Africa.

    A period in the MoD, where he was responsible for tactical air transport and helicopter operations and policy, was followed in June 1968 when he assumed command of 30 Squadron, one of the first Hercules squadrons, based at Fairford.

    During his time with the squadron, he twice circumnavigated the world. In February 1970 he flew London policemen into Anguilla, in the West Indies, to provide a quick response following a period of unrest in nearby Antigua. In April the same year, he flew British troops into Northern Ireland.

    In June 1974 he was appointed station commander at RAF Episkopi in Cyprus. Within days there was an attempted coup against Archbishop Makarios, the president, and five days later, Turkish forces invaded northern Cyprus.

    Episkopi became a sanctuary for thousands of people, including service families, British tourists and Greek Cypriots fleeing from the north. In addition to providing care for a huge population, Parfit and his staff had to assist in the evacuation and airlift of British nationals.

    Sixteen months after his appointment RAF Episkopi was closed and Parfit left for Ankara to serve on the staff of Cento, where he was responsible for the administration of RAF personnel serving in Turkey. In 1977 he retired from the RAF.

    Parfit then spent four years working for British Aerospace in Saudi Arabia, including two years as the service manager at Tabuk Air Base. He finally retired on May 1982.

    One of his Hercules flight commanders has commented: “Nobody should be considered for a squadron commander post unless they have served their apprenticeship under someone like Ken Parfit.”

    In 2015 he was appointed Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur.

    He is survived by his wife Margaret and by three daughters and a son.

    Ken Parfit, born March 20 1924, died August 24 2020

    BTL comments:

    John Roberts
    1 Oct 2020 8:45PM
    Yet again the obits column provides the best reading in the DT. What a life he led. Well done Sir!

    Neil Punchard
    1 Oct 2020 8:26PM
    He received no honour from his own country which he served with honour.

    Have I missed something?

    2. We take this kind of service for granted. It is expected of us. Somebody said that once.

    2. Morning all. Very kind of the UN to tell us we need to make it easier for even more immigrants to come here, they pose no threat to the indigenes and, in fact, will probably enhance our country every which way. And we must “find other ways in which they can reach our shores”. I just tried to find out how much these people are paid but can’t seem to get an answer. The FAQs offer no help (am I alone in wanting to know their salaries?). Of course, whatever their salaries, it is all tax free as they “work for a governmental organisation.

      And then I read the following:

      “UNHCR relies almost entirely on voluntary contributions”. It then goes on to say “Individual governments and the European Union provide 86 per cent of our budget”. Another 10 per cent comes from individuals and the private sector. Even so, UNHCR typically receives only half the money it needs each year”. These leeches multiply daily and the public has no say in any of it.

    1. Back in the early 60’s there was a popular joke that went…
      “By the year 2000, half the world’s population will be living on the moon”
      “What do half the world’s population have to say about that”?
      “Me no wanna go masa”.

      1. Given our lack of capacity for interstellar travel, wouldn’t that be, “me no wanna go, NASA”? 🙂

  23. Robert Jenrick was on R4 just now. Was anyone listening more attentively than I was.

    He is the Local Government and Housing Secretary of state who has announced a major reform of the 1947 Planning laws, and yet I heard nothing whatsoever forthcoming from the interview about this.

    What is going on?

    1. Well half the country is to be built over with housing for the Immigrants! Hardly a subject to be mentioned in public!

      2. ‘Morning, Minty, and the other half will be covered with solar panels as we are to be here, in and around Flowton in Suffolk. We will lose 242 acres of farmland plus all the other farmland lost because of the need to widen all the single track roads because of heavier (and heavy) vehicle movements.

        The lunatics are truly running the asylum.

    2. They are going to make it easier to build is a simplification of what’s going on. Local control will, in general, be replaced by central planning. Who is surprised?

      1. I cannot get to consult a local planner any more. All I get for my £46 consultation fee is a clarification of the rules, including how they affect the “street scene” (I do not live in a street), or the “local vernacular” (although those making decisions on this do not have a clue what the local vernacular is in my village, and refuse to listen to me when I try to explain it). They must abide strictly to guidelines set out by Whitehall (which originated from George Osborne when he reformed the planning process a few years ago, going over the heads of both the Local Communities Secretary and the PM.

        This was presented as a fait accompli and there was no debate in Parliament, only Statutory Instruments. Osborne, as Chancellor of the Exchequer had the power to tack anything he liked to a finance law, and both houses of Parliament had to pass it without further scrutiny.

        The current Secretary for local communities, Robert Jenrick, is openly corrupt. He was actually caught in the act receiving a bribe over Westferry, and yet no action was taken about his behaviour, and instead was given the go-ahead to make huge changes to the Planning process, presumably ignoring any conflicts of interest.

        Of course it was an abuse of democracy, and actually perverted the course of Parliament, but who is there to see order these days? All the Speaker can do is grumble. The Queen cannot get involved – she rightly knows it is the job of the public to uphold democracy, and if it is failed by the public’s representatives in Parliament, it only has itself to blame.

    1. Rather a shame that the Enfield No.8 .22 rifles that have been retired by the MOD are due to be destroyed. One of them would not only solve a muncjack problem but provide a decent amount of tasty venison.

      1. Get a 12-bore. With open choke, shoot slugs that can fell a bear, else shoot buckshot at the deer and heavy birdshot at geese.
        Only drawback is that you have to get close-ish, and that can be complex.

        1. We have the occasional slug in the utility room but I wouldn’t consider using a 12-bore.

        1. Steady on. The Tasteys came over to Britain with William The Conqueror for a short holiday but they lost their return ticket and decided to stay though at first the Saxons didn’t like them very much.

          Sir William de Tastey’s stock went up in some quarters when he and three other knights bumped off Thomas a Bechet in Canterbury Cathedral. I must explain to my sons that if they want to become very popular they should give Justin Welby a bit of the Tastey treatment !

          2. I’m sorry, Rastus, but rabbits are not very Tastey. You should have kept them on the continent and brought in some poulet de Bresse instead.

            [Plus les oies et les canards … and a few Périgord truffles]

    4. Signal crayfish are an alien invader. They eat everything in a river and leave it lifeless.

      My question is why a licence is required to hunt them?

      Morning, Grizz.

      1. Mustn’t b croool to them. There are now rules about what you can and can’t use as bait for effing rats..

      2. Afternoon, Phil.

        Dunno. I am told that they are quite tasty though. I’ve eaten more crayfish (kräftor) since I moved here than I ever did in the UK.

        PS If they are American invaders, why are they not called Signal Crawfish?

        1. I watched a program where they showed the devastation these creatures cause.
          The presenter had been given permission to set crayfish pots and caught lots of them. Then they boiled them up and ate them. And yes, they do taste nice.
          Why an invading species cannot be used as a food source to keep their numbers down without being granted a licence is idiocy.
          They also showed how aggressive they are. Their pincers could snip your little toe off.

        2. They are very TASTEY.

          Similar to prawns in texture but a bit milder in flavour. We have a Crayfish day every August. A large panful of them are served in their shells and they are eaten with the fingers (everyone wears a bib). Delicious.

  25. Given the EU’s bad faith, it cannot bring to heel a sovereign Britain

    The UK has credible arguments in its international legal row with the EU, and no longer has to be bound by the will of its foreign court

    MARTIN HOWE AND CLIVE THORNE
    1 October 2020 • 7:00pm

    The European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced she is launching legal action against the UK over the terms of the Internal Market Bill. Her complaint is that that clauses in the Bill breach the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) between Britain and the EU. These clauses, which have now passed through the House of Commons as part of the Bill and await consideration by the House of Lords, confer powers on the Government to issue regulations which would over-ride parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol which is attached to and legally forms part of the WA.

    In practice, states quite often disregard treaty obligations or interpret them to their benefit. The EU itself is no stranger to this practice, particularly when it comes to its lack of respect for its obligations under WTO Agreements. International law is not a hard-edged code like the national laws we are familiar with in our daily lives. It is built on the custom and practice of states and there are circumstances where it is generally recognised that states are legitimately excused from the complying with treaty obligations.

    There are good arguments that the Government’s clauses will not breach international law, contrary to the EU’s contentions. First, the clauses as such do not breach anything. Even if passed into law, they simply authorise action in the future.

    Second, there is a general principle of international law that treaty powers should be exercised in good faith. The EU’s blocking of reasonable “goods at risk” rules, threatening to use treaty machinery to impose tariffs on trade between Britain and Northern Ireland, could be classed as a bad faith exercise of treaty powers. The Government’s clauses, in turn, would allow the UK to protect itself from abusive exercise of treaty powers by the EU and on that basis can be justified under international law.

    Third, the Government would be acting in defence of a fundamental aspect of the United Kingdom’s constitution which is built upon internal free trade between the different parts of the UK.

    However there is a problem. When the UK was an EU member, the ECJ was a multi-national court in which the UK participated – helping to frame its rules, and appoint a judge and an Advocate General. After we ceased to be an EU member in February, it became an entirely foreign court which owes its allegiance wholly to the EU, and none whatsoever to an ex-member state like the UK.

    Under universal international treaty practice, sovereign states simply do not subject themselves to binding rulings by the courts of another treaty party. They insist on strictly neutral adjudication.

    But not so in Theresa May’s atrociously negotiated Withdrawal Agreement. She accepted clauses giving wide ranging and long term jurisdiction over the UK to a wholly foreign court, in complete disregard for normal international treaty practice. Boris Johnson in his renegotiation was unable to remove these clauses. This is now about to become not a chicken but rather a giant flying ostrich coming home to roost.

    This is because the Northern Ireland Protocol says that the ECJ and the EU Commission have direct jurisdiction over the parts of the Protocol to which the government’s clause would apply. Practising lawyers have to learn early in our careers that clients need to be told what the actual court which will deal with their case will decide, rather than what we think in theory it ought to decide. We assess the chances of the ECJ accepting a UK government argument that its clauses are justified under international law as somewhere between 0 per cent and a snowflake’s chance in a very hot place.

    This means that the government must get ready for the next step, which is how it would deal with an adverse ECJ ruling. Two things can be said.

    First, there is no actual means by which an ECJ judgment can be enforced against a sovereign state which defies it. Secondly, there are credible international law arguments that the UK’s obligations under the WA and its Protocol as a whole – including the egregious and one-sided ECJ jurisdiction clauses – have been vitiated by the EU’s bad faith behaviour over the course of the negotiations.

    What happens ultimately will be decided by the political reality.

    Martin Howe QC and Clive Thorne are chairman and vice-chairman of Lawyers for Britain

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/10/01/given-eus-bad-faith-cannot-bring-heel-sovereign-britain/

    1. But of course our politicos will ignore this and keep on bleating that we will not be taken seriously by any other country because we are breaching international law. MP are very, very selective in their reading if they can read, that is).

      Morning, Citroen! Excellent piece as usual by Lawyers for Britain.

    2. The Treaty of Union came about because Scotland needed to trade in the wide world and England was being very obstructive. it was a treaty driven by the need to trade. The Scottish position was desperately weak as a result of the Darien Disaster which had lost around a quarter of the entire wealth of the country.
      The UK is in a stronger position as regards the EU. The most recent EU nonsense about not aggregating components, so that tariffs would be payable on parts of a complete car (eg Mini, Nissan) exported to the EU is just that. Our reply should be that any item exported from the EU to the UK will be treated as a third country product unless wholly manufactured in the EU. That would mean that all the “German” items made in China would pay full whack tariffs. ( I would hope that we would cut our trading ties with China.)

      2. They look like messy eaters with a pile of food disregarded and cutlery in disarray. I know that type of meal table as I was brought up in a semi-working class environment but certainly our plates were clean at the end of the meal.

        1. The concept of “semi-working class” intrigues me, Clyde.

          Did you have one working class parent and another from a more pretentious background? Or did you just consider yourself “upper working class”?

          The whole ridiculous class system is an archaic hangover from the days when workers tipped their hats to “gentlemen”. If anyone asks what class level I am from, I simply answer “scumbag”.

          1. My father was at war Grizzly. He was a classics teacher but whilst away as corporal in the RAF our maternal grandfather took my mother and my brother and I in hand and made sure that we were getting enough food. His sons were railway workers and in a reserve occupation. My aunt had the problem feeding everyone hence the kitchen and kitchen table were organised chaos. Hence semi – working class. My grandfather’s house was a small flat in Motherwell and as well as one bachelor son and daughter who looked after the household, he took in his widowed son and 3 children, one of whom was a fatally suffering for what now is regarded as a serious form of MS. He was in a wheelchair. We lived in nearby Wishaw and were frequent visitors to our grandfather’s house. Despite my grandfather, brought up in the Wee Free religion, we enjoyed our visits there and can never forget my grandfather’s hospitality and care.

          2. I didn’t have any relations involved directly in the war. Being from a coal mining family, again, a reserved occupation, they all stayed down the pit. I had two younger uncles conscripted after the war, one in the RAF and the other in the RAOC but that is about the sum total of military experience in my family.

          3. My uncle (my mother’s half brother) served in the RAF, while my father’s elder brother worked as a miner. His younger brother was conscripted into the army (but survived the war). My father worked in the steel industry, but was a Home Guard. My elder brother did National Service after the war.

      1. Corbyn looks as if he’s busting for a pish and holding it in, until he can find some more dignified excuse to leave the table.

          2. Good morning, Citroen.

            I am not bothered by how
            many people gather together.
            I think this ridiculous directive
            has been and will continue to be
            ignored.

          3. The manager/landlord can be fined £10,000 if he/she allows more than 6 at table.

            Good morning, Flower.

          4. Good afternoon, Dear One.

            What is wrong with ten people at two tables?

            I am fair kna….ed, I have been busy doing my
            weekly penance!! I think I have broken the big
            Dyson!!

          7. Good morning, Dear One.

            Apparently not!! Phew….
            thank goodness but I have to pop to Church to finish the carpets….
            and re-sterilise everything I touch!
            ….Sighs.:-))

          8. You may think that …..
            If the Corbyns have a Winterval card list, I would imagine she’s now off it.

    3. At first I thought there were 7 people. Then I realised it was 8 (black chap against black tiles). Now I realise it must be 9 when the photographer is included.

      1. I only noticed him when I looked again. I thought it was just a gap naxt to the other man.

    4. What is the collective noun for a group of Pinko filth?

      A scum of Marxists? An infection of Socialists? A smegma of Leftoids?

      Suggestions?

  27. Lots of fruity comments BTL

    Tom Slater
    When will Harry and Meghan stop hectoring us?
    2 October 2020, 7:41am
    *
    *
    ************************************************************************

    Murti Bing KingEric • 16 hours ago
    Not every sodding month, no. It alternates with gay history month, trans history month, intersectional history month, disabled history month, islamic history month and, just to keep those pesky Christians quiet, Pancake Day.

    All clear?

    TriggerWarning Murti Bing • 15 hours ago
    You forgot one-legged Irish-speaking Somali lesbian month.

    Murti Bing TriggerWarning • 13 hours ago
    Dang! I missed out on that one. Was it fun?

    Alex Murti Bing • 12 hours ago
    Cancelled. They all fell over river dancing

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/when-will-harry-and-meghan-stop-hectoring-us-

  28. One lone Frog trying to protect his pond. Here we have only snakes and lizards intent on bringing in more venomous creatures to overrun and wipe out the native species.

    French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday announced measures to end a programme that allowed foreign countries to send imams and teachers to France in a bid to crack down on what he called the risk of “separatism”.

    During a visit to the eastern French city of Mulhouse, Macron said the government sought to combat “foreign interference” in how Islam is practiced and the way its religious institutions are organised.

    “A problem arises when, in the name of religion, some want to separate themselves from the Republic and therefore not respect its laws,” he said.

    Macron plans to end a programme created in 1977 that allowed nine countries to send imams and teachers to France to provide foreign-language and culture classes that are not subject to any supervision from French authorities.

    Four majority-Muslim countries – Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey – were involved in the programme, which reaches about 80,000 students every year. Around 300 imams were sent to France every year by these countries and those who arrived in 2020 will be the last to arrive in such numbers, said Macron.
    https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.zJETpB8VZmaQ6cusmhXoMQHaEo?pid=Api&rs=1

      1. Good morning, Bill

        The attempt and not the deed confounds Macron just as Lady Macbeth feared it could confound her husband.

      1. He’s looking forward to the next election, when he will have to contend with Le Pen again.

        1. Quite, Missus. He is trying to encourage right-wingers to vote for him – especially as his OWN supporters are quitting in droves!

      2. But will the supine Conservative Party ever wake up?

        Douglas Murray for PM! He is one of the few articulate people who is fully aware of the problems and dangers caused by the Muslim invasion.

    1. I have been looking at the old guard democrats and hoping that they will move ( be moved) aside to make room for a new less partisan generation.

      Then I look at this latest crop and just shake my head in dismay.

        1. Being on an operating table, half way through serious surgery, when all the power fails can’t be much fun

          2. They do, but nasty smelly things that run on fossil fuels, so they will have been banned/binned.

        2. Sur Simon Stevens (Shíthead to his friends – which include Boris J and Rupert Read, head of global environmental movement, Extinction Rebellion) son of a Baptist Minister and a university indoctrination lecturer. Born in Birmingham, worked in Guyana, Congo and Malawi (which was just like home). Helped Boris get elected as President of the Oxford Union.

          Can’t imagine how he managed to get such a prestigious appointment in the NHS. Must have some hidden talent or other.

          1. If he wants to appointment someone useless, it is a huge advantage to have prior knowledge of just how useless they are.

          2. You’re surely not hinting that “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” came into play here?! Wasn’t said shithead in charge when the Stafford hospital scandal became known?

    4. Too late to be first. Toronto have invested next years health care budget in green powered ambulances.

      Don’t worry, the ambulance will be there one the storm ends and we can charge the defibrillator.

    6. Much more exciting than the dull stuff of curing people. That’s so last century.

      1. Yes, the NHS needs to concentrate on planting trees so that patients can get more oxygen when exercising outdoors instead of having to give it to them at the last minute from a ventilator in a Nightingale hospital😷🙄

  31. Dr Bertie Dockerill wants the railways to revert to compartmented carriages – stupid idea…..no toilets! A pal of mine got caught short on on of those trains and had to wind the window down and do it out the window. He ended up with a mail bag on the end of his willie

    1. As a child I remember having other passengers holding the door ajar for me. Looking back I hope people on the platform at St Margaret’s were standing well back.

    2. I presume he means corridor compartment carriages. No one with any sense would suggest a return to the non-corridor suburban stock of the past.

    3. I sense a bit of confusion here. Was the good doctor referring to the suburban compartment stock with a door to each bay and no corridor, or was he referring to corridor stock which had a corridor up the side of the compartments?

    4. They did have toilets…. “Please refrain from urination, while the train is in the station…..”

    6. 324208+ up ticks,
      Morning FA,
      A mate done it in the waste bin and was wondered why his feet were getting warm.

  32. What a masterstroke it would be if the Trumps announced in a week or so that
    HCQ+Antibiotic+Zinc had cured them
    Bye bye vaccine

      1. That means he shouldn’t get sick not that he wouldn’t catch it. I desperately hope he has stayed on it and will advance to the treatment dosage with zinc of course and preferably Vitamin D and Azithromycin.
        The antagonism to this remedy widely accepted as useful has been monstrous in its denial of a life saver because of malignant politics. I hope there will be retribution.

    1. Good morning again P-T

      I like this song and, like you, I enjoy the music of the Dylan, Orbison, Harrison, Petty and Lynne Combo.

    2. I hope they will be OK. There are so many deranged Trump-haters out there who would genuinely believe they were doing the world a favour by dosing him with arsenic.

        1. The Presidential election should be delayed for 12 months with DT remaining as President.

          1. I would be extremely wary of the precedent that that would set.
            I would not trust either side not to abuse it in the future and I would be absolutely certain that the Democrats would.

          2. Morning sos – Has there ever been such a precedent to delay a Presidential election? I am thinking of WW2.
            I cannot see the forthcoming election ending peacefully in the present circumstances. Trump may survive the disease but if Biden catches it he could perish. The legal consequences could go on for weeks or months after the election. The status quo might be the least damaging prospect.

          4. That’s why Roosevelt was elected for a fourth term. Eastern Europe has his doctors to thank for their 40+ years under the Soviet thumb.

        2. Well, President Trump as to self isolate with the First Lady. could be worse. In the next couple of days Mike Pence (who?) will have to self isolate also. Then Ms Pelosi will step up. So next week should be fun.

          1. I’m not sure if that is sufficient medical hazard to get her in place, unless they both can’t continue working.

    4. I hope they will be OK. There are so many deranged Trump-haters out there who would genuinely believe they were doing the world a favour by dosing him with arsenic.

      1. I became a Trump-hater overnight after long feeling that he deserved his presidency as a fixer who could get things done.

        It was the sheer unforgivable treachery when he betrayed the Kurds, who had done the heavy and costly graft of ridding the world of Islamic State, by inviting Erdogan to attack them in Northern Syria, abusing NATO (which my own nation is a member of) by enabling the neo-Ottoman annexation of the Northern Syria corridor. It was called a “Peace” corridor in the same spirit that Tony Blair is a “Peace” envoy,

        A close personal friendship with Jair Bolsonaro, who is destroying many areas of extreme international importance in South America as I write, puts Trump beyond any hope of redemption, and frankly arsenic is too good for any of these monsters.

    1. And I bet they’re much less fun to look at on the University of Leicester service.

          1. The other one that riles me is the the disappearance of ‘twice’ in favour of the clumsy ‘two times’.

          2. Oh, I’ve ground my teeth so many times on that issue.

            Another abomination that not many people notice is the universal adoption of the appalling habit of pronouncing the definite article as “thuh” before a word commencing with a vowel (instead of the proper and natural “thee”). Nowadays we get all manner of people saying, “thuh apple”; “thuh egg”; “thuh ink”; “thuh orange”; and “thuh umbrella”. These chumps cannot be unaware of how retarded they sound, surely?

          4. Then there’s harASS, courtesy Michael Crawford and the septics. I could go on…

          6. Agreed but I’ve given up all hope of ever seeing that in common parlance again, more’s the pity.

  38. The takeover of the UK government by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the WHO and the UN, which really means Gates and Soros, looks almost complete.

    That would explain the robotic performance of the key players, Johnson, Hancock, Whitty and Vallance, who all sound as if they’re reading a script and cannot deviate irrespective of reason.

    Of course the takeover is not just about C-19. It’s also Net Zero, Build Back Better and migration.

    All four are linked into the UK surrendering by stealth to World Government.

      1. Morning! According to Forbes magazine the world’s top ten billionaires have each nearly doubled their fortunes in the last 6 months. I’ve no idea how that works but it clearly does.

  41. Russian soldiers beat each other black and blue in gruelling annual test to qualify for Spetsnaz crimson beret. 2 October 2020.

    Russian soldiers have been captured slugging it out in a gruesome boxing fight as part of their qualifications for a special forces beret in a spectacular set of photos.

    Volga Federal District’s National Guard special forces servicemen took part in the gruelling test to earn a crimson beret today.

    Striking pictures show the men battering each other’s faces bloody at the Bars training ground in the Republic of Tatarstan, southwest Russia.

    Hmmm. I think the British Army are running counselling sessions for Structural Racism and Latent Misogyny.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8794887/Russian-soldiers-fight-qualify-special-forces-crimson-beret.html

  42. Donald Trump and first lady Melania test positive for coronavirus. 2 October 2020.

    Donald Trump has announced that he and the first lady, Melania Trump, have tested positive for coronavirus, after one of his closest advisers contracted the virus, throwing the 2020 US election into chaos.

    I have mooted the idea that the Presidents removal is the only true guarantee that the Globalists plans will come to fruition. One wonders at this fortuitous infection! No clumsy Novichok here!

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/01/hope-hicks-covid-19-reports-trump

  43. SIR – I had a sad realisation yesterday: it has been a long time since I have been allowed to give or receive a hug.

    In addition, it has been ages since I last shook the hand of a friend, colleague or stranger.

    This is not good for the soul.

    John Catchpole
    Beverley, East Yorkshire

    I had a happy realisation yesterday: I give and receive hugs and handshakes routinely.

    I bumped into a male friend while out shopping and we greeted each other with a hearty handshake.

    As we were chatting another — female — friend turned up and we immediately gave each other a huge hug.

    It was so good for the soul.

    1. I’m quite pleased that the virus has scuppered the unhygienic French habit of 2-3 kisses on the cheeks of every female acquaintance one encounters. Necking a lot of old biddies in a group gathering is tedious and unnecessary.

      1. Not dead here yet. Went to a bar last night, bumped fists with many, elbows with some and kissed or got kissed by three young ladies, one of them kissed me on the lips. The habit isn’t dead but I might be if this continues.

      2. Very true. And I was interested at the start of the plague (while we were still in Laure) that the French press and TV were reporting that young people, esp. female) shared the view that you have. They were fed up with feeling obliged to kiss people whom they barely knew – at school., college or work.

        In 1999, I arranged a placement for a French girl at a UK Govt agency in Cardiff. I had to reinforce that in the UK, you did NOT kiss everyone or shake hands, even, on arriving at work each day….!!

        1. When we first arrived in France I was rather surprised that the little children of our friends all expected to be kissed.

          I have a moustache myself, but I remember that when I was a child I was always expected to kiss my dear old Aunt Marjorie whose moustache was particularly luxuriant.

      1. I only ever lived in Yorkshire four four years (between 1987 and 1991).

        Derbyshire: 1951 – 1987.
        Yorkshire: 1987 – 1991.
        Nottinghamshire: 1991 – 1999.
        Norfolk: 1999 – 2011.
        Skåne: 2011 – present.

  45. Having just perused the DT letters and comments thereon, be warned that that A Allan chap is all over the place, moaning and groaning about everything in sight. Some people…

      1. Quite agree…always looking over the fence…but I’m not sure if he can count beyond six so you’d probably be safe.

  46. Steerpike
    SNP MP admits bringing Covid to parliament
    1 October 2020, 6:03pm
    https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf04078f3cf7a9c30/blt959efc76c470ac30/5f760d4adf178b0ea9846e75/GettyImages-1185404641.jpg?format=jpg&width=1920&height=1080&fit=crop
    Margaret Ferrier and Krankie McFishface
    *
    *
    *
    ************************************

    BTL

    Andy C • 13 hours ago
    Statement from Margaret Ferrier, 25 May 2020:

    “Dominic Cummings’ actions have undermined the sacrifices that we have all been making in lockdown to protect each other from coronavirus. His position is untenable and he must be removed from his post now. The fact that Boris Johnson and senior Tories have backed Dominic Cummings, in the face of widespread and understandable public anger, demonstrates a total failure of leadership at a time of national crisis. The public health advice is crystal clear. For the safety of others, anyone with coronavirus symptoms must self-isolate, in line with government guidance. They should not leave the house for any reason.”

    2. She brought it to the Commons whist waiting for the results of a Covid test which was then confirmed. She then took the train back to Glasgow in the knowledge that she had Corona virus disease. She has reported her crimes to the police and Nicola has suggested she resigns her seat. Blackford has withdrawn the whip removing her from the SNP in Parliament. The whip’s not to give her a well deserved skelping.

      1. Initially, if she could prove that she wore a mask for the entire time she was in public, after the result, they should either do nothing in terms of prosecutions, in support of the masks protect us theory, or if any contact of hers gets it they should finally admit that the masks are useless and then prosecute.

        She should certainly admit the hypocrisy and consider if she should take the actions she was demanding of Cummings, Sturgeon is correct.

        1. I suspect she will have infected MPs in the HoC which may cause serious problems. I watched the division in the HoC when MPs left the chamber to vote on the Corona Virus Bill. As they left unmasked to the lobbies some MPs ignored the social distancing rule and a few who delayed their departure were in small close groups talking to one another. I can imagine the people in the lobby were disregarding the rules as well. Time will tell and passengers on her train, if they become infected over the weekend will have a case against this foolish SNP MP.

          1. If she knew the result at that time, it was irresponsible beyond belief.

            If someone catches it and dies, I wonder if she could be charged with manslaughter or similar. Possibly too difficult to tie her as the cause.

          2. I wonder how many MPs are getting calls from our world beating track and trace team. to isolate in the wake of this SNP MP’s misbehaviour. A bit of light relief for us in these troublesome times. edited to correct a misplaced apostrophe.

        1. Morning Plum – she was tested because she had symptoms. She should have stayed at home . At least one contact has self isolated and I expect her cronies in the HoC will be fearing that they will get the disease.

          2. Afternoon Hertslass – I hope the MPs don’t get another £10000 tax free gift for working from home

    3. The woman with raven black hair looks like a witch who has taken a day off from performing in the Scottish Play – but at least she has taken off her beard. I wonder if she was hoarse as she entered the battlements of Westminster?

  47. Why it’s fashionable to hate your own country, Spiked I October 2020.

    If one had to explain today’s culture wars in the barest, most simple terms, the best method would be to refer to David Goodhart’s division of peoples into the Somewheres and the Anywheres. In Britain, America and elsewhere we see a conflict between those attached to their homeland, its history and its traditions, and a more affluent, mobile elite, who profess to be more internationalist in outlook – because they can afford to be – and who are less likely to revere the tradition and culture of the lands, cities and towns of their birth.

    This is a pretty good explanation as far as it goes but it misses out the part that the Elite’s “religion” Neoliberalism, plays in their attitudes. This gifts to them moral superiority and the reasons for their actions. The Middle East Wars were justified ideologically on the grounds that these were all backward states and nothing could be better than to remake them in the mould of Western Democracies. That this failed is pretty obvious but the reasons are less clear. It was because the task of Nation Building is enormously difficult, expensive and Islam is highly resistant to modernisation and change. The interesting thing is that having failed in this they are now attempting to convert their own native populations. This will fail as well, with even worse results.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/10/02/why-its-fashionable-to-hate-your-own-country/

  48. Well, what’s happened to all this rain i’m supposed to be having?
    I’ve got a start made on putting the shuttering up for the retaining wall which is probably going to take longer than digging the trench!

    2. It’s here, Bob. As I was finishing my walk with the dog it started and it’s been continuing ever since.

  49. “How hard is it for people to understand? We WANT students to get the virus. They will speed us towards community immunity. It may not be very far off.”…

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/got-locked-twitter-having-wrong-opinion-covid/

    This view is one that the Government is flatly refusing to countenance and furthermore it is also one that is not allowed on social media. Is it because herd immunity is now an offensive phrase or because the authorities are persuading students that by catching the virus they could be facing grannyslaughter charges with with the Don’t kill granny slogan?

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/preston-dont-kill-granny-slogan-22488913

    After all the maxim:

    Yes we can – Ditch the Ban – Hug your Gran
    ………….👍……………..👎………………..❤️🙎

    doesn’t exactly have the right ring for a mission to defeat the COVID-19 virus at all costs.

  50. “How hard is it for people to understand? We WANT students to get the virus. They will speed us towards community immunity. It may not be very far off.”…

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/got-locked-twitter-having-wrong-opinion-covid/

    This view is one that the Government is flatly refusing to countenance and furthermore it is also one that is not allowed on social media. Is it because herd immunity is now an offensive phrase or because the authorities are persuading students that by catching the virus they could be facing grannyslaughter charges with with the Don’t kill granny slogan?

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/preston-dont-kill-granny-slogan-22488913

    After all the maxim:

    Yes we can – Ditch the Ban – Hug your Gran
    ………….👍……………..👎………………..❤️🙎

    doesn’t exactly have the right ring for a mission to defeat the COVID-19 virus at all costs.

  51. “How hard is it for people to understand? We WANT students to get the virus. They will speed us towards community immunity. It may not be very far off.”…

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/got-locked-twitter-having-wrong-opinion-covid/

    This view is one that the Government is flatly refusing to countenance and furthermore it is also one that is not allowed on social media. Is it because herd immunity is now an offensive phrase or because the authorities are persuading students that by catching the virus they could be facing grannyslaughter charges with with the Don’t kill granny slogan?

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/preston-dont-kill-granny-slogan-22488913

    After all the maxim:

    Yes we can – Ditch the Ban – Hug your Gran
    ………….👍……………..👎………………..❤️🙎

    doesn’t exactly have the right ring for a mission to defeat the COVID-19 virus at all costs.

  52. Good morning, my Friends

    Donald Trump and Nigel Farage are two sides of the same coin

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/02/donald-trump-nigel-farage-two-sides-coin/

    Daniel Hannan writes today in the DT comparing Nigel Farage and Donald Trump.

    Nigel Farage is a loyal friend of Trump. Piers Morgan was also once a friend of Trump but when he saw that this was not a popular thing to be he turned against his friend metaphorically stabbing him in the back.

    I think this shows very clearly just how very inferior Morgan is to Farage at a human level.

    Of course Morgan does not like Farage – remember the odious abuse he heaped on Farage calling him a liar about BLM when Nigel had simply quoted the BLM’s website!

      1. Nigel Farage has made two very grave mistakes.

        The first was leaving the fray after having won the referendum; the second was in trusting the Bonker and naively withdrawing all his Brexit Party candidates in seats where there were Conservative MPs – even seats where the sitting MP was a remainer.

        However, just as Churchill was a great orator who made mistakes along the way so Farage is indisputably the best orator in Britain today and so let us hope that, like Churchill, he will rise above his former mistakes.

      1. Good morning ogga

        I offered Caroline a bet that you would rise to the bait. She refused to take the bait or the bet.

        1. 324208+ up ticks,
          Afternoon R,
          The farage is not a subject one should gamble on, to do so we could end up with an action replay of his last vote splitting input.

          As in a “in name only opposition group” not a lot of peoples who joined IMO knew that, assisting an “in name only tory party” over the line by a very large margin.

  53. Update on computer problem…….. before taking it to the repair shop I opened up the case and found the fans were very dusty and there was a load of dust all over the components. Hoovered it out, did a checkdisc which found and removed a lot of strange files, restarted and it’s been fine ever since. The case is situated at floor level and obviously has ingested dust so must raise it to desk level to obviate this. PHEW!

    1. Major cause of failure for electronic systems is dust – clogging the fans, causing over hearing, and occasionally bridging contacts. Vacuum cleaner & soft brush are the remedy, a dust-free environment is better.

        1. Yep, Spikey, it’s little bro’ programmed into your mater board.

          After that have a good day.

        1. Looking at the photos which resemble Alexa and Siri, do you have to constantly shout “Vax, please remove all the dust particles”?

    2. Morning, Spikey,

      I’ve been painting the walls in the lounge this week. I must have filled three skips with dust, cobwebs and dead spiders I discovered behind large pieces of heavy furniture!

      1. Morning Grizz, I daren’t look under my divan bed, I’m seriously thinking of changing it for a slatted pine base so I can hoover under it

        1. I have to wheel my bed out on castors to vacuum under it. Still, on uncarpeted pine floors that is easy.

      2. Good morning Grizzly

        I enjoyed the comment made by a Nottler a few days ago that as we came from and shall return to dust we should not do too much dusting as you never know whom you are going to disturb!”.

        1. ” Fear no more the heat o the sun……….” one of my favourites.

          We had the chimney sweeper here this morning. a nice young chap called Tom, who sponsors our calendar.

          1. You must be Mrs Do-As-You-Would-Be-Done-By.

            Don’t push young Tom too hard up that chimney!

          2. He wouldn’t fit – it’s a woodburner with a flue.

            Anyway – better than being Mrs Be-done-by as-you- do!

    4. I had one of those in Tescos yesterday. I was well over 2 metres away from the person at the end of the till packing their stuff but in fronbt of the floor marks, by a couple of inches or so. I was barked at by some girl in Tesco uniform. I said “I’m way past two meters from the next person here. ( The cashier was behind a large screen. ) I was told that it’s for the safety of everyone. Oh and to “”move”.

      Oh no it isn’t. It’s so than little bints can feel important. So Tesco Watford, you may lose a customer…

      1. Tesco down here in Isleworth is pretty good. I managed 6 visits in the last 4 week without mask. But Project Fear and threats are working, I come across less than 10 others without masks yesterday.

        1. He would have supported her/ It’s COVID, innit? Can’t argue against anything there…

  55. As a regular listener to Classic FM has anyone noticed songs from shows appearing regularly? More dumbing down from Auntie….
    It’s a turn OFF for me, prefer Radio 3..

    1. Never listen to Classic FM. R3 has its good moments, apart from an increasing emphasis on poor black classical music and black musicians and black “guest” presenters. Oh, and an emphasis on unknown (for good reason) wimmin “composers”.

      The usual presenters are unrelentingly enthusiastic – and spend far too much time telling us how “wonderful”, “magical” etc etc the record about to be played is…

      Then there are the ubiquitous Tom (Aren’t I brilliant) Service and the appalling, giggly, thick Katie Derham. And don’t get me started on the Molleson woman….

      Apart from that, R3 has its good moments…{:¬))

        1. I never have the radio on indoors. Many years ago I used to have the JY prog on, with our learned friend.

      2. Good morning, Ndovu

        I find Classic FM very annoying. I tend to play CDs or France Musique in the car as the radio reception of English programmes in France is not very good.

      4. Spotify or my music library (60k+ tracks) on my phone plugged into the car radio works for me. No irritating ads or moronic announcers at all.

    5. Good morning, Plum

      If you have an internet radio or if you listen on line when writing comments to the Nottlers then Radio Suisse Classique is excellent. They don’t give you any superfluous chat, they just tell you what you are about to hear and what you have just heard.

      https://www.radio.net/s/suisseclassique

      If you are an enthusiast of Mozart’s music then this channel gives you uninterrupted music from Wolfgang Amadeus..

      https://www.radio.net/s/abacusmozart

      On a different topic, did you know that P.G. Wodehouse had the sobriquet Plum? I am currently rereading a collection of his short stories entitled Plum Pie and I read one story each morning when I start the day, at my physio’s advice, on the exercise bicycle I bought to get back to being mobile after my hip replacement.

      1. Hi Rastus,
        Re Plum….Yes I did… although not a Wodehouse fan I enjoyed the tv series with Ian Carmichael.
        Will take a deco at alternative channels ….good luck with the bike!

    1. Me too but it is of course a non-story since it’s highly unlikely she infected anyone.

      1. It is a story, because it is yet another example of how there is one rule for them and another for the rest of us.

        1. She shouldn’t just be expelled from the party, the stupid bitch should be locked up.

          1. As far as I can see the relevant regulations don’t include any mention of custodial sentences…. – and expulsion is as far as the party can take things.

            Depending on what the Commons decides in terms of a parliamentary punishment she could, conceivable, be subject to a recall petition.

          2. If her cause célèbre should show that this whole mask/isolation/social distancing is actually a fiasco, she should be given a medal.

      2. Ah, but surely that’s the story in itself. If she was positive and travelled the length of the country, but nobody was infected, just HOW disastrous IS this virus?

    2. First Class.
      As is his reason for living, DH Vine was fanning the flames on his radio programme today. He was trying to suggest that what she did was fairly insignificant, comparing it with Dominic Cummings trip to Barnard Castle. The relentless patter of the lefties eh.

    3. You know your problem
      don’t you? You have an
      unquenchable sense of
      humour!!
      Thank the Lord!

      Good afternoon, Rik.

    3. Shame Boris can’t restore his influencers (pillow or otherwise) back to nature. Dust to dust…

  59. Funny how a 40 minute deluge causes such problems , must have had over 6 inches of water within an hour , the road was like the River Nile .

    Then the sun came out and the front went through, and all that is left is mud and gravel .

    More bad weather expected tonight .

  62. I am in the middle of reading “Lockdown” by Peter May a 68 year old Glaswegian. It is a book he wrote several years ago but no publisher would print it because they thought it unbelievable. When Covid-19 reared its ugly head he brought the draft out and got the paperback published this year.
    It has uncanny similarities but more severe consequences of the present lockdown. Soldiers have more power including shooting people who break the curfew. The dead are cremated quickly, and funerals are not observed. A murder investigation has discovered that the victim had an engineered vaccine.
    My brother gave me a few of his books and I’ve read 5 in the last month. His repertoire of books ranges from the Isle of Lewis to London and overseas and are well researched.

    1. What a small world, clydesider. When I was manager of the Odeon cinema in Ayr in Scotland I lived in a small village outside Ayr. Peter May and his family had a house in the same village and we regularly met up for drinks with most of the residents at the local pub. At the time he was script editor for STV’s “Take The High Road” and when, after a couple of years, I sold up and moved into the centre of Ayr he organised for some of the cast to attend my farewell party. One of the highlights was when a Kissogram girl turned up to embarrass me!

      1. Manager, Elsie? Surely manageress!

        My source in Ayr tells me that you were actually the usherette who walked around with the ice-cream tray! 😉

        1. ;-)) Mr Grizzly, Sir, like many people these days (including our U3A Chair, who refuses to call herself a Chairman) I long since have referred to myself as an ex-Manager. Had they deigned to award me a Best Manageress Oscar at the Academy Awards I would have instantly reverted to being a Manageress. And you would have been the first person I would have thanked as my inspiration in my 5-hour “Thank You” speech.

          PS – Didn’t you once star with Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis in THE VIKINGS and be nominated for best horn-decorated helmet?

    2. I read that a few weeks (or was it months? Every day/month seems the same these days, marked only by unpleasant incidents!) ago and mentioned it on Nottl.

      1. Afternoon Conway -I had never heard of him until my brother brought him to my attention. I enjoy his books.

        1. I had never come across him, either, but one of my friends passed on some books to me and this was one of them (along with Hedge Britannia and Diana – a biography of Diana Cooper).

          5. Not guilty. I don’t eat the bland overpriced muck.

            Goose, duck. lamb, pork, beef, chook? Guilty as charged.

          6. As with many meats there is a wide range in the quality of turkeys, smallish, free-range turkey can be excellent… and not at all bland. Chicken, as it is readily available, is far more bland… indeed it is nothing except a carrier for sauce nowadays; but again the really good stuff can be found.

            But taste is a very individual beast.

          7. My brother swears by Norfolk black and bronze turkeys; I’ve tried them but I’m still not impressed. As you correctly point out, no two people share exactly the same preferences for food (or music, or comedy for that matter).

            For my last twenty years in the UK I had a capon for Christmas. It was boned out by the butcher (except for the drumsticks), opened out and layer after layer of other meats and forcemeats were added before it was reshaped and trussed. It was simplicity itself slicing it as you would a loaf of bread after it had been roasted and it was utterly delicious.

            Since I moved to Sweden, my English Christmas (usually in the New Year) — as opposed to the normal Christmas Eve julbord so beloved of the Swedes — has rotated around roast rib of beef on the bone; roast goose; roast duck; or roast loin of pork.

          9. They love it. I did have them utterly confused when I introduced them to Yorkshire puddings. The looks on their faces was priceless.

          11. I grew up having Yorkshire puddings at home as a first course … every day!

            It was actually too much since I had a school dinner Monday to Friday, and another “dinner” at tea time when I got home when my father was on early shift or night shift. I was not permitted to skip the meal, effectively being force-fed! Only when dad was on afternoon shift did I have a light tea when I got home from school. When I left home I refused to eat Yorkshire pudding for decades.

            Even now I eat one about three or four times a year at the most. Invariably with roast beef and always served with the main course. Onion gravy and Colman’s English mustard are a must, though.

          12. I don’t think I make Yorkshires more than once or twice year. On the rare occasions when I roast a piece of beef* I usually skip the Yorkshires, then make them to eat with cold beef and gravy the next day – thus spreading my high carb treats.. roasties one day and pud the next.

            We’ll have to agree to differ on English mustard though – I loathe the stuff.

            Pudding and gravy first was the norm for a handful of Yorkshire friends, but only on a Sunday and I very much enjoyed it as an occasional treat. If the pudding is a really good one you don’t realise quite how full you are until it’s too late! Even at my most energetic I don’t think I could have done justice to it every day.

            Because you really need to roast a good sized piece of beef to get a good result I’m more likely to stick to things like lamb shoulder. I don’t mind leftovers, indeed I do a lot of batch cooking, but somehow a big joint of beef never seems the right thing in a one person household.

          13. I struggled for years to “downsize” my cooking from the usual six, but have made progress, particularly over the last few years. Like you, I batch cook and freeze a lot. I now do the same with a beef joint. Prepare it and (slow) roast it (last time, not even for a meal) to 56° C, wrap it tightly to rest and cool, then slice and pack in portions for the freezer. Can be used for cold meals, eg beef and Russian salad, beef and watercress sarnies, beef and Bratkartoffeln or a quick “roast” dinner with some veg.

          14. It’s not that I don’t know all the tricks and what to do with cold roast beef, it’s not that I don’t like roast beef; but there are 2 factors which come into play which are more complicated.

            Firstly, the budget has been a bit tight for the last couple of years and a big piece of roast beef makes a big hole in the house-keeping money. But it makes a lot of meals so that can be worked out.

            The second is simply that, for whatever reason, a large roasting joint simply emphasises a single plate more than I’m prepared to try to cope with at present. A lamb shoulder or a piece of belly pork is very manageable, a proper joint of beef isn’t. It’s as simple as that.

          17. I’ve eaten turkey which barely passed as a conveyance for bread-sauce from plate to mouth and turkey which had both texture and flavour in abundance. On the other hand the former is easier to find than the latter. It probably helped that for about 45 years of my life my mother’s Christmas bird came from either one of two redoubtable ladies who reared their turkeys in fields, for the whole summer and autumn.

            Personally I’d rather eat beef or lamb than any of the other options, but spinster aunts don’t get to make the choices for meals which involve the whole family 😉

          19. Dark meat for me.
            I think things have improved, but it was always assumed that females liked the white meat.

          20. A slice of breast is fine on Christmas day with all the trimmings, but I’d agree that the dark meat is infinitely superior.

            Morrisons quite often have turkey available at any time of the year. Their diced turkey thighs, put into the slow cooker with lots of vegetable goodies (garlic, onion or leek, pepper, courgette, mushrooms, tinned or fresh tomatoes – you can probably add a few- and a few herbs and/or spices) makes a very acceptable casserole and forms one of my “Blue Peter” meal options for week-nights.

      2. Afternoon Plum I don’t know yet and I will not look at the last page until I reach it but it could be a bloody ending,

    4. I’ve read a couple of his books, Coffin Road was quite memorable it’s about why so many bees have been dying from pesticides.
      I believe a Nottler use to live in the same village as the author.

      1. Coffin Road was one of the first ones I read then there was one about mercenaries in Cambodia and the one prior to Lockdown was the Black House based in the Isle of Lewis.

        1. I seem to remember reading a couple based in France with a French/Scottish detective. I just found one on the book shelf. The Critic, one of the series of The Enzo Files. I liked his descriptive wording, he probably visited the places he wrote about.

      1. It’s not Sean Bean. Bean has a distinctive Sheffield dialect that he cannot disguise. The narrator isn’t speaking with any of the nuances of Sheffield.

        1. You are probably right, but the underlying accent certainly sounded similar to me. It kept changing slighty as the clip went on, which made me wonder if whoever it was was disguising it.

          1. I think I kept picking up bits of Liverpool here and there Certainly not an easy dialect to determine, unless you’re from his area.

            Problem is, some people who move around pick up bits of dialect from here and there and it gets confused. My younger brother, born and raised in Chesterfield, spent most of his working career in the south, then moved to Sydney 20 years ago, has the most weird mix of an accent you could imagine.

          3. I do a rather good impression of him when I entertain my Swedish friends.

            By the way, all Swedes love the character; none are insulted, affronted or offended in the least. They are quite chuffed that a Swede was chosen for the character and not a Dane, Finn or Norwegian.

          6. Don’t remember the name, but read about it in the SAS in-flight magazine a few years ago.

          7. I’ve been back to listen, yet again, and I’m convinced that whoever is doing it is trying to mask their accent and probably who they are.

            Weird.

    2. ‘Thinking of down loading the NHS Track and Trace app?’

      … No!

      Good afternoon, HJ.

    5. Interesting information about yet another giant that only got successful by leaching off taxpayers.
      I never had any intention of downloading the app, as it contravenes my policy of never giving any authority any information I don’t have to.

      1. Was having a similar conversation today as I paid in cash. I remarked that paying by card enabled the authorities to know what you bought, where you bought it and when. No such trail with cash as anybody could have bought the item(s).

    1. We should of course demand that the offspring of slaves pay this money back to us. It wasn’t a voluntary gift; it was extorted from the British taxpayer! That and the fare for crossing the Atlantic plus a percentage of the earnings they have accrued in the last three hundred years!.

      1. After all, that journey across the Atlantic gave their descendants a far better life than they would have had back home in the bush, despite the alleged ‘racism’. So yes, they should pony up.

  65. Evening all.
    Not long been home from 6 hour drive from Lydstep West Wales and it’s been an eye of the storm absolute deluge all the way home. I think the storm followed us.
    That’s where all the rain has been hiding Bob.
    I couldn’t believe that so many people are driving on motorways and duel carriage ways with out their head lights on, so many lunatics out there.
    We passed the illegal immigrants ‘holding camp’ at Penally several times on our way into to Tenby and back. A few demonstrators could be seen out side along with those welcoming them. More against then for. One migrant was arrested for arson and ended up in hospital i suspect he was trying to set something he didn’t like afire. It was also mentioned on the local news that they were complaining about the food.
    With my two younger sons we played Tenby Links golf course. It was the most unforgiving and punishing golf course i have ever played in my life. The rough was knee high. It rained almost al the way round. we probably lost around 20 balls between us………… Never again.
    But we all had a lovey week sunshine nearly every day, stayed in a 4 bed two bathroom house, At Celtic Haven. I would recommend it to any one. Lots of beautiful scenery and long satisfying walks. Tenby was very busy.

    1. So glad you enjoyed your holiday, RE

      You revived lots of memories for me .

      I spent a long hot summer in Tenby decades ago , chambermaiding to earn some money to buy clothes and text books and nice things before I started my nursing training . I was just over 18 years old . I can remember the lovely walks , nibbling wild strawberries on the cliff paths , and enjoying the stunning views . A group of us surprised the holiday makers by driving an aqua car onto the beach and then cruising off into the sea .. I think that was one of the very few aqua cars in the country .

      I also enjoyed horse riding then, but whilst riding a pony by the golf links , the pony bolted and I was dragged for yards through rough grass and prickly sea cabbage or what ever it is called . Haven’t ridden a pony since .

      1. Delightful memories so evocative of that time and age when nothing mattered very much, one day day drifting lazily into the next, no worries.

        1. Hello pm,

          I don’t know about you , but those days weren’t spent guzzling alcohol the way that modern girls seem to , we had fun in a different way, lots of nice music, modern and jazz, and just working hard and enjoying life .. and knowing that if you saved money from tips and things because a chamber maid didn’t earn a huge amount , but I knew that very confidently that at the end of the holiday season I would be starting a new student career with sufficient money to help me along.

          I wouldn’t have dreamt of asking my parents for money , even though they wanted to help. I was quite self sufficient.

      2. I have fond memories of cantering along the beach at Mersea Island and jumping the breakwaters. Ah, those were the days (when I didn’t think twice about leaving the ground )!

      3. chambermaiding to earn some money to buy clothes and text books and nice things before I started my nursing training .

        It’s hard to imagine TB. I was impressed with the town i loved the Victorian buildings. and the harbour. there were a lot more people around then we expected perhaps some others had escaped their lock downs in other parts of Wales to travel their for the weekend. or they may have been diverted as we were. I have only ridden once that was in South Africa. The horse i was on didn’t like down hill parts of the trek, i had to dismount and drag him down the hills. I could hardly walk next day after 4 hours in the saddle.

    1. I doubt HM is anti-Trump. She coped with Blair, Bush, the Saudi leaders and the Chinese President, who are far worse.

          3. For your delectation

            Robert Hardman
            Trumped

            Buckingham Palace was advised to remove silver brushes from the dressing table so the guests didn’t steal them
            From magazine issue: 1 June 2019

            https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf04078f3cf7a9c30/blt024aae708921701a/5e396b629023ea17803b19ee/Robert-Hardman.jpg?format=jpg&width=1920&height=1080&fit=crop

            The Queen has seldom had more holes in a state banquet seating plan. The leader of the opposition, the shadow foreign secretary, the Speaker and the leader of the Liberal Democrats have all ostentatiously refused ‘Her Majesty’s command’ to attend her banquet in honour of Donald Trump next week. The fact that the dinner is in honour of our greatest ally — and in the week we celebrate D-Day — seems to matter less than virtue points on social media.

            Few will appreciate the irony of this petty posturing more than the Queen herself. For it is that same tranche of the liberal elite who remain responsible for the worst state visit of her reign.

            It was a Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson, who invited the brutal Romanian despot Nicolae Ceausescu and his equally ghastly wife, Elena, to pay a state visit to Buckingham Palace in June 1978. By the time they arrived, Wilson had been replaced by Jim Callaghan, who was just as enthusiastic, as was the leader of the Liberal party. David Steel even presented the dictator with a labrador puppy called Gladstone (later renamed Corbu and promoted to honorary colonel in the Romanian army).

            None cheered louder than the one paper granted an exclusive interview with Ceausescu ahead of the visit.

            ‘Mr Ceausescu,’ gushed the Guardian’s Hella Pick, ‘has shown immense courage in asserting Romania’s independence from the Russians and encouraging Romania’s nationalism’.

            That same nationalism lay behind the ruthless persecution of millions of ethnic Hungarians, not that this was of any great concern to the left, let alone to ministers. Their sole concern was a £300 million deal for British airliners.

            Ceausescu was a communist with an eye for commerce. Exploring previously classified Foreign Office files for my book Queen of the World, I found that the Foreign Office was inundated with requests for introductions. British Aerospace even offered to send Ceausescu home by Concorde. A pecking order was established. The chairmen of Shell and ICI plus the director-general of the BBC would be invited to the Queen’s state banquet, whereas ITN’s head of current affairs would have to make do with the PM’s lunch the next day.

            There was one big hurdle, however. A nervous memo from the British Embassy in Bucharest warned that the Romanians had ‘dropped a number of strong hints that Mrs Ceausescu would be pleased to receive some kind of academic distinction’. Her scientific credentials were bogus but the visit could be in jeopardy if she didn’t get something. The Foreign Office asked Harold Wilson to lean on the University of Bradford, since he was its chancellor. He failed. No joy at Heriot-Watt, Sussex, Liverpool or Southampton either. Imperial College refused, although a Ceausescu son had studied there. By now, Kenneth Scott, head of the FCO’s Eastern European department, feared a leak ‘that the FCO are hawking Madame Ceausescu’s somewhat dubious wares around’.

            With just a month to go, the Polytechnic of Central London came to the rescue with an honorary professorship while the Royal Institute of Chemistry produced a fellowship. Panic over.

            The Foreign Office — and the Palace — were under no illusions about Ceausescu’s nastiness. ‘He is as absolute a dictator as could be found in the world today,’ the British ambassador to Romania, Reggie Secondé, wrote in a profile for his bosses. Elena Ceausescu was a ‘viper’ who ‘likes shopping’, their children were ‘feckless’. There had been ‘disastrous’ scenes on Ceausescu’s recent visit to Belgium, where his guards had ‘scrambled for places at the dinner table’. On a tour of the US, they had demanded free fur coats. On the plus side, Ceausescu was ‘well disposed towards Britain’. There was one golden rule: ‘Constant praise for Ceausescu’s international statesmanship is very much in order.’

            With just days to go, the foreign secretary, David Owen, was having serious doubts. ‘Who agreed to this visit?’ he wrote on an internal memo to his private secretary, Ewen Fergusson. ‘Did I? If I did, I regret it.’

            The Queen also received a call from president Giscard d’Estaing of France. He warned her that, during a recent stay in Paris, the Ceausescus had looted their quarters and had even hacked holes in the walls looking for bugging devices. The Queen passed it all on. ‘They were advised to move the silver brushes from the Palace dressing table or the Romanians would pinch the lot,’ former cabinet secretary Lord (Robin) Butler recalls.

            In fact, Ceausescu was on his best behaviour for the Queen. ‘He did exactly what he was told to do,’ says Sir Roger Du Boulay, former vice-marshal of the Diplomatic Corps. The Royal Family produced the full works — carriages to the Palace, tea with the Queen Mother, gifts (a hunting rifle and the Order of the Bath for him; a gold brooch for her). The state banquet was an odd affair with the British in white tie and the Romanians in lounge suits. With nothing in common between the two heads of state, the speeches were as underwhelming as the wine — plonk by royal standards. Yet the Romanian press presented the visit as a landmark in modern history, as did Central London Poly. Elena Ceausescu arrived to hear Professor Terence Burlin, senior pro-rector, hail her as ‘a woman of discernment’ and ‘a fine example of Heisenberg’s epigram: “Science clears the field on which technology can build” ’.

            The Queen had already had enough of her visitors. While out walking her dogs in the garden, she spotted the Ceausescus coming the other way and actually hid behind a bush to avoid them.

            Nothing, however, was to jeopardise the £300 million plane contract. When Romanian dissidents staged a wholly peaceful demonstration outside one venue, the police parked a coach in front of them and arrested their leader, Ion Ratiu.

            Finally, Callaghan got his deal. It was all in vain, of course. A mere nine BAC 1-11 aircraft had been built by the time the Ceausescus were put up against a wall and shot 11 years later.

            To this day, their state visit remains a low point in British diplomacy. When I asked David Owen why there is no mention of it in his memoirs, he was commendably frank: ‘I try to pretend it never happened.’

            The Queen, however, has never forgotten the guest she calls ‘that frightful little man’.

            It makes it all the more risible to hear politicians like Sir Vince Cable claiming that Donald Trump’s state visit will somehow ‘embarrass the Queen’. It will do nothing of the sort. For real embarrassment, rewind to 1978. Sir Vince might at least have the decency to apologise, on behalf of his party, for Colonel Corbu, the labrador pup.

            Robert Hardman is the author of Queen of the World (now in Arrow paperback) and writes for the Daily Mail.

            https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/trumped

  67. Russian soldiers beat each other black and blue in gruelling annual test to qualify for Spetsnaz crimson beret. 2 October 2020.

    Russian soldiers have been captured slugging it out in a gruesome boxing fight as part of their qualifications for a special forces beret in a spectacular set of photos.

    Volga Federal District’s National Guard special forces servicemen took part in the gruelling test to earn a crimson beret today.

    Striking pictures show the men battering each other’s faces bloody at the Bars training ground in the Republic of Tatarstan, southwest Russia.

    Hmmm. I think the British Army are running counselling sessions for Structural Racism and Latent Misogyny.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8794887/Russian-soldiers-fight-qualify-special-forces-crimson-beret.html

    1. The British Army pre-para selection course has a process called milling. It nominally lasts for one minute only but the object is to stand toe to toe and knock seven kinds of shít out of each other (no protective headgear and no defending allowed). The only ones who are smiling are the ones with black eyes and bloody noses, they have done their minute. The miserable looking ones are waiting their turn. Perhaps the Ruskies got the idea from that.

    2. Sotero:
      There’s one – look at the scars on his face!
      Hilario:
      The man for us is the one who GAVE him that face.

      (The Magnificent 7)

  68. Apart from the political aspects in the US & UK, Covid is moving down the front pages again as deaths fall slightly.

    When, oh when, will someone in authority have the courage to try to put a halt to the panic and fear and get the UK back to normal? Old normal.

      1. Been saying that for a while now.
        Covid – so deadly you need a test to tell if you are ill or not.
        Bah!

    2. I fear that those in Government, having tasted absolute power, will never willingly give it up. They may need compelling – by force – to relinquish their new powers.

      It’s going to get worse before it gets better, and it’s going to end in tears.
      :¬(

    3. Interesting here a couple of days ago. The “experts” presented their analysis, showing best, expected and worse case scenarios. After that Premier Ford gave his doom and glomo pitch, ignoring all but the worst case scenario.

      It did put his could scenario into context.

  69. Convert half of UK farmland to nature, urges top scientist “Former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, Poof Sir Ian Boyd said such a change could mean the amount of cattle and sheep would fall by 90%, with farmers instead being paid for storing carbon dioxide, helping prevent floods and providing beautiful landscapes where people could boost their health and wellbeing.” God! not another one. There’s millions of them and their all in government, education and the Snivel Serpents.

        1. That would take some long term planning beyond the capabilities of politicians.

          We planted some maple trees about fifteen years ago, you might be able to build a sleeping platform but it would probably take another twenty years before I could build a palatial abode.

          1. Last autumn, Firstborn planted about 100 acres of pines. By the time they are ready for felling, we and he will have passed on.
            Tree farming is for the long-term minded!

          2. 100 acres must have been back breaking work, we have planted several hundred saplings and that was enough for the day.

            Trudeau has now promised two billion new trees in the next five years. The way that he is spending on hare brained schemes, I hope that some of them are magic money trees.

          3. Is that two billion more trees? If so, where will they be put? Dig up most of the prairie – but then, what will people eat?
            If not new land, then he’ll find that the timber companies will be planting them as a matter of good business.

          4. Its politician talk, totally meaningless. The timber companies already plant millions of trees each year, as do provincial governments. Tree planting is good money for students if they work hard and can put up with the bugs.

            I assume that the UK government have worked out what people will eat if there are no farms, they seem hell bent on paving over or rewinding agricultural land.

          5. The UK government hasn’t worked anything out, least of all the dire consequences from their policies.

          6. I have saplings self-sown all over my garden but I am loathe to kill them off. They have taken the trouble to come to life and have more right to be there than I have.

            I identify little pockets of ground where I can transplant them each year. This year, I have cleared a strip of dead wood ready for them, and I have extended the bank on the boundary, giving me a few more square yards of planting space. They then have to take their chances with the weeds and the climate. Those that grow too close or shade the veggie bed get stacked away for the wood burner.

          7. There’s a company plants the treelets. It’s all manual, due to the nature of the ground.

          10. Some trees I planted less than 15 years ago have grown 30 feet or more, Maple, apple, sweet chestnut, fig and kiwi fruit to mention a few. It is a pleasure to harvest fruit and nuts from your own creation.

          11. Even more pleasant are the surprise crops. We discovered a peach tree a few years ago, we had not planted it but the peaches are really good.
            This year it is a walnut tree that has finally decided to produce nuts.

          12. We have two walnut tress and this year has produced a bumper crop.

            Anyone passing this way would be welcome to a bag or two.

          13. I agree; I have had apples, pears and hazelnuts from my trees. The fig is yet to fruit and I have had no luck at all with growing kiwi fruit.

      2. Bad enough that we’re getting so many illegals, why make them feel at home and encourage even more?

    2. I guess that worries about chlorinated chicken will fade away when all of your food supplies are outsourced to the lowest bidder – China.

      1. There is no problem with chlorinated chicken. There is more danger from those who exist on a diet of verbal shít from politicians and global warmers.

        1. It’s not the chlorine that’s the problem but the fact a lot of their animals are raised with far lower welfare standards than ours.

          2. Chickens don’t squeak; rats do.

            The French struggle with telling the difference between beef from cattle and beef from Romanian horses, so are you certain that it’s chicken?

            Malaysian Long Pig tastes of chicken apparently.

          3. That’s because the French will only knowingly eat French beef which is generally dreadful.

          4. One may say what one likes about the French, but they are remarkably chauvinistic about “made in France”.

            It’s a great pity that the British were not more so in the past.

            I suspect that a couple of reasons why French beef appears to be poor is the way they cut it and how long they hang it.

            In restaurants they would do much better to “trim” their steaks more and serve a smaller piece. I would rather have less on the plate, but all of it pleasant than a big steak. Thei slow cooked meats are very good.

            I find Charolais beef is OK, but only “OK”.

          5. But they’ve been brainwashed into thinking ‘French is best’. In fact, French beef is some of the worst I’ve ever encountered. Ever driven a French car?

          6. It is well known amongst beef producers that “half of the breeding goes in at the mouth”. In other words, management is just as important as breed. Add handling at slaughter and management of the carcase post slaughter and breeding becomes no more than about 30% of the quality of the final product.

            Charolais beef can be everything from excellent to dire, as can any other breed.

          7. My area, being in yer France, tends to use local beasts/vegetables/fruit/cheese and wines as much as possible.

            Supermarket managers have a huge amount of leeway in what they can buy and they really do support the local producers.

            Because the majority of “farms” around here are almost at the level of smallholdings and creatures are slaughtered locally, both the small butchers and the large chains get good meat.

            France might not be popular from the CAP perspective but they certainly get this bit right.

          8. France gets a lot of things right from the farming perspective. Including lots of local co-operatives. Much of French farming is also far, far more efficient than is widely publicised. Some of their grain growers could teach ours a thing or two.

            On the whole meat benefits from being small-scale and milk from not being too large-scale although, being more labour intensive it’s not viable on the tiny scale which used to be prevalent.

          9. We attend ( subject to covid {:-(( ) lots of village functions and the farmers are a very pragmatic lot.

            All over the commune there are small pieces of land, two or three acres at most, and they move creatures around those fields regularly. Mainly cattle.

            Bigger bits 6-10 acres are often left to grass and then cut and rolled each Spring, never any obvious crops, but some is selected for silage, as far as I can tell, and some for straw and immediate fodder etc.

            UK people seem to think French farmers are “coining it”, probably true in the Loire and similar areas, but in my part of the world, looking at the equipment, much of which appears to be 50+ years old, it certainly isn’t the case.

            I don’t want to, because my patch is a small creature sanctuary, but I could rent my bit out for a few euro. Instead I pay for a farmer to put his “chewer” over it all and then watch the wild flowers, butterflies and birds go crazy throughout the year. We get lots of hares, which are a particular pleasure to watch.

            Yu may recall my writing about an injured fox. He/she still appears, with a bit of a limp, but apparently no worse for the experience.

          10. Only ignorant people in the UK think like that, and many of them think that UK farmers are coining it too… although the majority are barely surviving whilst a few are doing pretty well. New machinery doesn’t necessarily mean loads of money – it often just means bigger debts. Livestock farmers are notorious for having he most appalling old and ill-used machinery. Those of us who understand these things know that farming is under pressure in many areas, not just in the UK.

            You could do well (and I put this forward only as a suggestion) to graze down your patch for a few weeks, at a carefully chosen time of year, every few years – trampling and manuring have a value in almost any ecosystem which includes grass. On the other hand if what you do works (and the “chewings” make a mulch which becomes available more slowly than digested grass) then there’s really no need to change it.

          11. Thanks for that.
            So far so good.

            My only real problem is moles, otherwise the regime seems to work well, even if it does look very dry and scruffy come August/September. The good bit is that we get lots of overnight ground roosting birds which are a joy to watch as the sun sets and the grass hides plentiful owl-food. We get the final cut/chew done early/mid October, just in time for the Swifts etc to have a final feast before departure, as all the bugs get disturbed.
            Watching them flying/feeding from 18″ to hundreds of feet up is a wonderful experience. I leave the pool cover off and they will swoop, catch and drink. It also brings the dragonflies out in force.

          12. There’s not much you can do about moles unless you can find the point where they go to water and set traps – always assuming that you are prepared to do so.

            On the whole “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” is a fairly good maxim. My suggestion for occasional grazing is just that, a suggestion.

            The irony is that anyone looking at your patch will assume that it is wild; whereas, in fact, you go to considerable lengths to maintain it as you want it. When I try to tell people that the “wild-flower meadow” they lament were the intensive agriculture of their day – they simply don’t believe.

            Some years ago I had a major argument with a would-be local politician who kept insisting that Montgomeryshire has an “unspoiled” and “natural” landscape. When I pointed out that it’s been an industrial landscape for hundreds of years, certainly longer than any of the “industrial” bits of south Wales have been “industrial” she was deeply offended and refused to believe me – until a couple of other locals pointed out that you can see the results of industry everywhere you cast your eye.

          13. I trap the little blighters, but I was told by a professional mole-catcher that because of our location, forest on three sides, all I’m doing is creating a fully equipped, pre-dug location for the next one.

            I still keep trying and as long as I can keep them away from the vegetable patch, I have to live with them.

            Better than having rabbits, I suspect.

          14. I’m afraid that your professional is right. The best you can hope to do is to keep the numbers down a bit.

            I cannot vouch for the efficacy of my next suggestion, because I haven’t tried if for myself, but I’ve been told that leaving the corpse in the tunnel will deter another mole from moving in. Moles are certainly very territorial.

            Rabbits…. well except that rabbits are edible and moles are not 🙂

          15. I had read the same.
            I have had the misfortune to smell many dead creatures in the countryside.
            I can’t think of anything that smells worse than a few days old dead mole. In fact not even close, the stench is dreadful.
            I suspect that they are left in their tunnels because removing them to go elsewhere is too revolting, better to bury and forget..

          16. When I was trapping them in new-sown grass fields I always removed the bodies – because I wanted the other moles to continue using the run that went to the stream. On two occasions I even managed to catch a mole in both ends of a half-tunnel trap..

            Fortunately we had a “hole in the ground” dug deep to allow for the disposal of things like lambs so the bodies went into that and they were far enough down not to smell too badly at the surface (one only lifted the cover to drop things in anyway, and it was behind a building and out of the way.

            On the one occasion that I caught one by the foot only it got its own back by biting right through my finger when I was trying to get it out of the trap. I didn’t want to bludgeon it in the trap because that would have been the end of the trap… One lives and learns.

          17. All the carnivores smell pretty bad when rotting. An old-fashioned game-keeper’s gibbet with moles, stoats, rats and a fox was probably the worst stench I ever encountered. I am rather glad that such things are no longer seen (or smelled).

          18. WE used to have local slaughterhouses until the EU regs (which we, of course, gold-plated rather than ignored, like the French) closed them down. Now animals for slaughter often have to travel the length of the country (one of the exacerbating factors in the F&M disaster).

          19. The EU regs for slaughterhouses were badly needed if you’d ever been in some of the old ones. The French didn’t ignore them, but they did the minimum as we certainly did not do.

            Most animals don’t have to travel the length of the country, and small local abattoirs were never going to continue to be viable in a country whose main interest in their food revolves around how cheaply they can buy it (aided and abetted by governments of both colours) – but one major factor in 2001 was the fact that abattoir in Essex where the disease was found was the only one slaughtering cull sows (something of a niche market) in the whole of the UK. I don’t currently have any contacts in pig production so I don’t know whether this is still the case.

          20. My uncle was a butcher and regularly took me to slaughterhouses when I was a youngster (until his untimely early death in his forties).

          23. So you didn’t see them all then? Did you even see all of the ones that you visited? And how long ago was it? I can assure you that an upgrade was sorely needed in a great many, some were still allowing blood etc to flow out into the street…

            Our local butcher in Yorkshire (who bought some of my cattle) was part owner of a small abattoir along with 3 other local butchers. They forked out for the necessary and he even conceded that much of what was demanded was desirable.

          24. When I was a student I worked in just such a slaughterhouse.
            Quite an experience.
            It is now closed as you describe.

          25. I thought Long Pig tasted of persons unknown…? (Question mark added as I haven’t tried!)

          27. Good afternoon, J.

            It is very wet and miserable here but
            surprisingly calm….so far!

            I really should have won my wellies
            this morning, when I went out, instead
            of the open toed sandals. stii l… they, and my feet
            had a very good wash!! :-))

          31. apparently the chlorine is so diluted that it is almost like tapwater, but never mind facts. Animal welfare is probably a bigger concern in Asian countries.

            Then there are the horror stories about Chinese manufacturers adding melamine to milk in an attempt to fake higher protein content.

          32. I wouldn’t knowingly buy meat from China. Or milk.

            The chlorine that the American chickens are washed in is to kill the lingering bugs fron their unhygienic rearing conditions – all squashed in together in intensive rearing sheds.

          33. The Chinese don’t, on the whole, export food. They need all that they can produce and a bit more.

            The other big problem with the Americans is that they want to do away with country-of-origin labelling; they regard it as a non-tariff barrier and knowing that their produce is widely despised they want to take away the option of choice on any basis except price.

          34. I think it should be labelled with country of origin – even if it’s just something woolly like “from more than one EU country”. I do most of my food shopping at Morrisons, and most of their fresh food does have the country of origin, and British produce has a big Union Flag. I would also like halal food labelled, so we can avoid it.

          35. At present in the UK country of origin labelling is standard – but the Americans will make it condition of any food trade agreement that it should be removed and I simply don’t see our negotiators standing up to them over it.

            Unless all food is to be packed in boxes big enough to allow for A4 labels then the amount of information available always has to be limited. I would settle for “stunned before slaughter” myself (a lot of halal meat is) – although I have to say that a slit throat is a very, very quick way to die if the blade is sharp and it’s done well – and no method is really humane if it’s done badly.

          36. Tighter checks on precures at slaughterhouse should be done too. I’ve seen some horror stories. No animal should be made to suffer.
            The Americans should be proud of their standards – if they not then something is badly wrong.

          37. The best in America is very good. But they really have nothing to be proud of in the way they treat many of their animals… and not just at slaughter. The fact that a dairy cow in the US very, very seldom lasts more than 2 lactations (the average is about 1.6) tells a story in itself. That’s a real statistic, acknowledged by the farmers themselves, it’s not invented for the UK press. It’s not necessarily about deliberate cruelty (because maltreated animals are not productive) but about systems which regard the animals as “disposable” and short productive life is cheaper than a longer one with better care. Liz Truss is openly saying that she wants to hold our farmers to existing standards whilst bringing in “cheap” (but only because US subsidies make the CAP look like child’s play) food produced to much lower standards (and she accepts that those standards are lower). One rule for the animals you can see – another rule for the ones that you will eat. If you can square that circle you are as crooked as she is (but I’m fairly sure that you are anything but that).

            Be careful about the “horror stories” around abattoirs. I’ve found identical pictures in several tales over a number of years both regarding abattoirs and poultry plants. There’s a political agenda (get everyone to stop eating meat, better still get meat banned) and lot of lying going on to try to further that agenda. Police reports make it clear that when some of these people break into places they take their “horrific evidence” in with them to make sure they have something to put in their pictures. Secret cameras are as trustworthy as the people using them and most of them can’t be trusted as far as you can see them. Which is not to say that there are no horror stories; but there is strong evidence that there are not nearly as many as the activists claim.

            There really isn’t a need for tighter checks – there are already very tight checks and slaughter can’t take place without the presence of a vet anyway – but there is need for those doing the checking to be brutally honest when necessary rather then letting the small things slip until there’s a major issue (which is normally how things get bad in any business).

            As for no animals suffering – that is never going to be the case. We’ll never be able to stop every cow from slipping and breaking a leg, every sheep from suffering with a bad lambing; any more than we can stop every child from running out into the road in front of a car or pulling a scalding pot off a stove – not however hard we try. Life of any sort involves a certain amount of suffering. But wild animals suffer far more than domesticated ones just in the natural business of living and dying and their are very few livestock farmers (again all one can do with the occasional bad one is weed out as soon as trouble comes to light) who don’t do their best by their animals… and that is all that can be asked.

            Humans who are not involved in animal husbandry are very inclined to anthropomorphise; but farm animals are not human. A client had the RSPCA on her doorstep a few years ago because her Highland cows were outside in some pretty rough weather. So she took them down to yard – and showed them a large, well-bedded, weatherproof shed – open to field so that the cows could go in and out as they pleased… there were no cows in the shed. Highland cows really would rather be outside than inside, regardless of the weather.

            Sorry, this is a bit of an essay, but this is my subject and the efforts being made to put an end to livestock farming are, in many cases, disgraceful; and if they succeed they will be disastrous.

          38. I would certainly not want to put an end to livestock farming – and most farmers here at least, want to do the best for their animals.
            If vegans really thought through what their dreams would entail, then perhaps they might be more realistic.

            I note that this week, in the Lords, UK food standards were upheld, which could mean trouble for any food agreement with the USA.
            British standard in livestock rearing are probably higher than most countries, and certainly have been in the lead while in the EU, in improving standards of husbandry elsewhere.

            I would not want to agree to any trade deal that compromised our standards of animal welfare and food hygiene.

          39. EU standards are almost entirely in line with UK ones and most of the EU countries are every bit as good as we are. Newer entrants are not permitted to export to the rest of the EU until they reach the required standard – a regulation which works very well. In some things the Dutch and the Danes are ahead of us, in others we’ve been taking the lead (as have the Germans in a few cases). Those who say that EU standards are lower simply don’t know what they are talking about.

            We already import NZ lamb at a lower standard than our own and we are seriously at risk from any deal with the USA. The EU has simply upheld regulation against them, we will not be in a position to do so.

          40. I never buy NZ lamb and would resist buying US meat either. I don’t suppose the Tesco horsemeat scandal came from the EU.

          41. I don’t buy NZ lamb either, we may both have difficulty in knowing what is, or isn’t, US meat – vegetarianism by the back door?

            The Tesco horsemeat scandal came from the whole EU, including the UK (Tesco’s own failure to make proper checks was, probably, the most egregious failing). Furthermore it was not a “food standards” scandal but pure criminality – and you find that in every country. Add criminality to corporate smugness/laziness and you get a mess which doesn’t reflect on the UK, or the EU, but on the individuals and companies involved. Tesco has succeeded in shrugging off their sloppy management with surprising speed – but not everyone has forgotten.

          43. 40 years ago when ADAS (Agricultural Development and Advisory Service – if I remember correctly) was still part of the civil service (I frequently laugh at comments on these pages about civil servants, no one ever seems to realise that some of them – even now – wear wellies on a regular basis, only a fairly small minority are London based, and pay grades are far from generous except at the very, very top) I travelled from Aberdeen to London for an interview in the Strand. All civil service interviews for graduate posts took place in London – though the job I was applying for would have been in the south of Scotland. I had to take 2 days (12 hours in the train each way and a 09.30 interview meant it couldn’t be done in one) out of my revision schedule less than 2 weeks before my finals to do it. It was a terrifying experience – 3 grey haired men facing me from one end of a table which was over 20 feet long, I felt as though I should have had a megaphone …

            Needless to say I didn’t get the job, quite apart from being entirely unnerved by the situation I hadn’t really done enough homework for the interview – because I had finals in less than 2 weeks! ADAS is now RSK ADAS Ltd part of the RSK Group (engineering, environmental and technical services – note that husbandry doesn’t even get a mention) it was originally privatised by the Major government back in 1996/97. They still provide advice to farmers but it is almost exclusively financial. Farm consultants nowadays seldom even bother to look at the livestock. Of course every business is dependent on “the bottom line”, but if you don’t do what you do to a good standard the bottom line can’t come right. But no one is advising on husbandry modifications or advice about good handling facilities (except the guys who sell the latter and we know in whose interest they are acting). There are still a lot of farmers producing a lot of good stock – but the effort that is going into producing the next generation is only coming from the current generation, almost nowhere else. One of my farmers has got his daughter working for him, she’s a bright lass, she loves the job and the stock but her “apprenticeship” as run by the local college consists of occasional day courses (none this year) and reports on what she is doing which are largely box ticking.

            Husbandry, even in this country, is going out of fashion. We’ve had governments for around 60 years who have pressured the industry for ever cheaper food – without regard to either husbandry or quality. UCAS tells me that 22 universities offer coursed “including” agriculture – but most of them are “environmental studies”; engaged, largely, in destroying agriculture. Newcastle which used to be one of the best now has a School of Natural and Environmental Sciences with agriculture just appearing in brackets. My own alma mater in Aberdeen closed their department over a decade ago and only the amalgamated Scottish Agricultural College (it was North, East and West in my day) offers any agricultural teaching in Scotland now.

            Besides, I’m out of date, casual reading can’t keep you on top of things over 40 years. Like a lot of people my age I worry about where the industry is going – and how bad things will have to get for farming before they begin to get better – but I’m not in a position to do anything about it. Like a lot of others in the 1980s my hopes of a career were blighted by a dole queue which, officially, never reached 4 million but which we all know was at least double that in reality. Careers never recover from that sort of start.

          44. Thank you for that, Jen. I have read it properly and you make many valid points. Shame your talents never got used in policy-making!

          45. I wasn’t, by any means, the only one thrown onto the scrap heap before I’d ever had a chance to make a start.

            I’ve managed to run my own (very, very tiny) business for the last 25 years – though the last 5 or 6 have been very tough and if I hadn’t paid off the mortgage I wouldn’t be surviving – but it’s been a case of using my secondary skills and making the best of it.

            Be fair or foul or rain or shine
            The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
            Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
            But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.”

            The joys may have been far too fleeting and the sorrows too long and too deep – but I can’t change any of them – and I wouldn’t if I could.

          46. Note this morning’s header. I dared to say a comment was stupid.

            Of course when I’m accused of sleeping with clients, or called a witch, there is no such warning and exactly no action is taken. Don’t count on me being around for much longer. I will not be meek.

          47. I missed the exchange (do you have it still?), but have now seen the completely unjustified header. I will think on’t.

          48. Oberstleutnant
            ¨We have an ID system here that is used for pretty well all electronic ID, including logging in to your bank. It is obviously not personal, but if it’s good enough for banking, it’s more secure than any voting system already in place.
            So, you can log in to the voting scheme with BankID, and vote – really easily and cheaply.

            JenniferSP Oberstleutnant • a day ago
            And if you don’t have an electronic ID? Millions don’t. The technology won’t be there until the population has all been educated in technology and is all provided with technology (how many areas over here are simply not connected yet?)

            It’s not easy and it’s not cheap either. Besides, would you really want even half the wailing idiots who don’t understand that 2+2=4 being able to get their hands on the levers of power? There’s a good reason for having representative democracy…

            NoToNanny JenniferSP • a day ago
            Easy way – no ID, no vote. As Paul says, most have a bank card and most have a driving licence. What about a passport? If you want to vote, go get some acceptable ID. Maybe harsh but it also identifies how valuable your vote is to you.

            JenniferSP NoToNanny • a day ago
            Far from “harsh” just plain nonsense.

            Paul specifically mentions electronic ID. The majority of over 75s don’t have any. It’s not about whether a vote is “valuable” – it’s just not on.

            Easy to be stupid, sure.

            Now you will note that Paul did not mention credit cards or driving licence (because they are not electronic and possibly because one cannot simply and easily “go out and get” either, there are terms and conditions).

            I feel that the header simply invites others to abuse – as if they didn’t do so already.

            Sorry it took so long to find the relevant bits.

          49. OK. Not your best riposte by any means, but does not warrant the reaction – we regularly see far worse. I doubt it was Paul who adapted the header, nor was Tom likely to be offended.

          50. A perfectly appropriate response to a silly and irrelevant comment. I suppose I could have been a smart alec about it instead of matter of fact, but I didn’t see the point.

            I confess I had assumed that only one person could alter the header…

          51. Hmm. I don’t totally agree, but hey-ho.
            Let’s hope sense prevails and the ridiculous “naming and shaming” (which doesn’t sit well with me and, doubtless, many others) will be sorted. I say no more now.

          52. PS. I’ve just been very thoroughly rude to a couple of “attack dogs” who came looking for a fight. I really hate late night aggro. Why do people always assume that they know what you’re thinking or that if you don’t want to waste your time on their silly arguments it means they are right? – when it invariably means that they are just downright idiots and that they bore you to tears.

          56. I think I gave up aspiring. Or maybe I just gave up. Or maybe I’ll just give up…

          57. Note this morning’s header. I dared to say a comment was stupid.

            Of course when I’m accused of sleeping with clients, or called a witch, there is no such warning and exactly no action is taken. Don’t count on me being around for much longer. I will not be meek.

          58. I once read that a third of the world’s apple crop is grown in China. I guess a lot of it is for domestic consumption, but probably quite a lot of concentrated juice in the West comes originally from China. All the more reason to avoid processed products containing it.

          59. That’s why any Chinese parent eager for their offspring to survive import their milk from New Zealand.

          62. They should be labelled with country of origin – but I think most of those go to pie companies etc, rather than directly to the general public.

      1. I overlapped with Ian Boyd for 3 years at Aberdeen and knew him very slightly. He certainly wasn’t a poof, but he didn’t appear to be completely off his rocker in those days either.

      2. It’s my abbreviation for the French “pouffer de rire” to laugh heartily.

        And if you believe that…

    4. Yep, they are everywhere, including in local government. As a parish councillor, I had a gushing email from somebody at Shire Hall who was delighted to chair some climate change committee (which we parish councils were all expected to support) and she (pardon me, but it always seems to be a woman – do they have no sense of logic or perspective?) had proudly volunteered for the honour. I emailed my parish clerk to say I wasn’t signing up for it. In the first place CO2 was plant food (I did biology O Level and cited the formula for photosynthesis), secondly we all breathed out CO2, so the idea of being carbon neutral, let alone zero carbon, was a non-starter without killing everybody off, thirdly the main reason for the disappearance of hedgehogs was not climate change, but the increase in badger numbers due to the 1972 Protection of Wildlife Act, and finally, flooding was a result of a) not dredging the rivers, b) cutting down trees at the headwaters and c) building on flood plains. We really need to stop building on green fields, stop increasing the population and plant more trees. I ended my email with the observation that because I was a heretic, there went any hopes of an MBE 🙂

    5. 324208+ up ticks,
      Afternoon P,
      I reckon that there is alien race from outer space,invisible to earthlings until triggered on polling day, they stay among us in between polls, hot bedding, which is going to prove awkward soon as johnson brings in the compulsory share your mattress law to help out with the Dover campaign.
      Many of these politico’s are NOT new, one female was mentioned in-house yesterday was conversing with PIE 3 decades ago, it surely cannot be the indigenous who continue to vote in the same type political sh!te surely, tell me it is not so….please.

  70. Former Hillary Clinton spokeswoman, Zara Rahim says she ‘hopes Donald Trump dies’ after he contracts Covid-19

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/02/former-hillary-clinton-spokeswoman-says-hopes-donald-trump-dies/

    And Miriam Margolyes hoped Boris Johnson would die and Russell Brand’s mum, Jo, wanted to throw acid in the faces of those with whom she disagrees.

    The Left has clearly decided that it and its supporters should no longer even pretend to be decent human beings – they should admit that they are sheer scum and stop the charade.

    1. Maybe not a former spokeswoman.
      I am sure that the Clinton woman has had similar thoughts and is wondering if this could overturn the last election.

    2. Jo Brand is paid good money to want to throw acid in people’s faces. They call it comedy.

  71. “A former BBC presenter who sexually abused children and adults as they slept has been jailed. Ben Thomas, who left the corporation to become a pastor, admitted 40 offences including sexual activity with a child and sexual assaults.”

    What is it about the BBC and the Church that they attract such a disproportionate number of perverts? Answers on A4 paper and keep it to less than twenty reams please.

      2. Yes, Peddy, but do not attempt to write on both sides of the paper at once! (With apologies to “1066 and All That”.)

          1. I don’t recall this at all, Rastus. I first read the book when I returned aged 7 from Argentina and had scant knowledge of British history. I must re-read the book; I am sure that many of the jokes will now make more sense to me.

    3. In general I believe that sexual perverts are inadequate people who need to dominate or control others. This is why such people seek occupations which give them authority and power over vulnerable people whom they make to trust them. This is why there are a disproportionate number perverts in teaching, nursing, the social services, the police, care homes, politics and the priesthood.

      I came across one or two perverts in my career as a teacher – indeed one of my colleagues when last heard of was in prison. He certainly was peculiar but we could not imagine that he would violate children as it turned out he had done in successive schools.

      2. In general I believe that sexual perverts are inadequate wankers who need sixty lashes with a cat o’ nine tails for every offence committed.

          2. Rather a lot on my plate at the moment. Not much time to do things I enjoy, like NoTTL.

            Hope you are doing far better than I!

          3. Anything anyone one here can help you with? Just let us know.

            Take care. Lass. I’m sure everyone else on this forum misses you as much as I do. 😘

          6. There’s nice! Thank you. It’s things like that, that help one get through trying times.

  73. Well, I managed to get all the serviceable bits of plywood cut to the size I want for the shuttering and even managed to get half of one side in place & leveled. When weather permits I’ll get the rest done and then it’s mix & pour the concrete.

    3. damned weather.
      I was getting ready to go play golf and the heavens opened. I looked out on our deck and it was covered in hail.

      Game cancelled.

        1. I am a wimp!
          I played through a brief hail storm on Wednesday, not through bravado I might add but we were so far from the club house that retreat was not an option.

      1. Yes! I am not carrying concrete for a 14’x12″x6″ up to the garden by hand in buckets and a concrete pump will be FAR too expensive.

        1. My brother-in-law hired one for a construction project in their garden earlier this year. In the past he has hand mixed for small quantities but decided that’s getting to be rather hard work.

          1. I’m surprised I coped so well with all the digging I’ve done over the past week!

          2. He’s been doing plenty of that too. They moved 3½ years ago (post-retirement) to be close to both our parents and their elder daughter who has a small son with a list of problems. They watched the garden for 12 months and have subsequently rearranged it to a large extent (and rebuilt most of the bits they didn’t rearrange), together with a couple of fairly large indoor projects he hasn’t had much “retirement” yet.

          3. PS. Don’t overdo things altogether – remember you don’t bounce back as easily nowadays.

    6. Well done, BoB. When it’s finished can you come round to my place and help me with the mixing and pouring?

      :-))

  74. Now that we are relying only on positive tests for keeping the placebo pandemic chugging along and nothing in reality like rising deaths or overwhelmed hospital wards there is really no way of knowing if the rises in positive cases is fictitious or not.
    They could keep this going for years, the power is all in the hands of the politicised scientists and we know what they want to do, destroy 30% of our farmland so the can re-wild it to save the planet.

  75. “How hard is it for people to understand? We WANT students to get the virus. They will speed us towards community immunity. It may not be very far off.”…

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/got-locked-twitter-having-wrong-opinion-covid/

    This view is one that the Government is flatly refusing to countenance and furthermore it is also one that is not allowed on social media. Is it because herd immunity is now an offensive phrase or because the authorities are persuading students that by catching the virus they could be facing grannyslaughter charges with with the Don’t kill granny slogan?

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/preston-dont-kill-granny-slogan-22488913

    After all the maxim:

    Yes we can – Ditch the Ban – Hug your Gran
    ………….👍……………..👎………………..❤️🙎

    doesn’t exactly have the right ring for a mission to defeat the COVID-19 virus at all costs.

  76. That’s me for yet another day. Sometimes, I wake in the night and think that someone – who knows my allotted span – is counting….

    A demain, one hopes.

    1. Bill , don’t think like that.

      Recite this to yourself.

      Now the busy day is done
      Father bless us , everyone .
      Keep us safely throught the night
      Till we see the morning light
      Amen xx

      1. John Ellerton.
        The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended,
        The darkness falls at Thy behest;
        To Thee our morning hymns ascended,
        Thy praise shall sanctify our rest.

        We thank Thee that Thy church, unsleeping,
        While earth rolls onward into light,
        Through all the world her watch is keeping,
        And rests not now by day or night.

        As o’er each continent and island
        The dawn leads on another day,
        The voice of prayer is never silent,
        Nor dies the strain of praise away.

        The sun that bids us rest is waking
        Our brethren ’neath the western sky,
        And hour by hour fresh lips are making
        Thy wondrous doings heard on high.

        So be it, Lord; Thy throne shall never,
        Like earth’s proud empires, pass away:
        Thy kingdom stands, and grows forever,
        Till all Thy creatures own Thy sway.

          1. It’s become an earworm this last few days, I don’t know why. Seems gentle and restful, something rather missing these days.

          2. St Clement. Written by (or at least attributed to) Rev. Clement C Scholefield.

            There is an alternative tune (I can’t remember it) which, from time to time, comes as a shock to choristers and congregation.

      2. Oo you callin’ Dum, Duncan. I’ll ‘ave yer no that Uncle Bill is a highly kwalified legal chap.

        :-))

      1. Is that years, months, days, hours, seconds or milleseconds that he’s got left?

        EDIT: or comments on NOTTL, perhaps?

        1. Days.

          But doubtless he’ll haunt the planet for at least that number of centuries.

          };-))

    4. None of really know, Bill, even when the Doc tells us it’s terminal and gives us X months/years more. Just take each day as it comes and enjoy it. “Carpe Diem” as the Romans used to say.

      1. No carp tonight; we didn’t go to the market yesterday!

        But thank you, Conwy, for your uplifting reply.

    6. Always a mistake to take any middle of the night thoughts seriously. Nowadays, I just turn on the light and read to keep them at bay.

  77. Re: Margaret Ferrier

    One party source even gave one of the more damning quotes of recent political history to the Scottish Sun’s Chris Musson: ‘Thing with Margaret is there will have been no malice to it… she’s just really hard of thinking.‘

  80. Completely and utterly off topic.

    I’ve just had a response from “Hat”, the first for far too many months. He and his family had not been well.

    This is self-explanatory.

    Hi Sos my friend, I hope you and family are well, I am still unwell, suffering from Sciatica in my lower left back, leg & neck & am
    in pain of varying degrees most days and am now on daily medication. I no longer own this blog ( not even a mod on it anymore ) as I transferred it to my friend Rata a month ago. I also transferred my Club Zero blog to another friend just over a week ago but I retained my defense, science & technology blog – the Sputniks Orbit https://disqus.com/home/for… and most days you will find me on Bill Smiths pro-Israel blog NTJP News https://ntjp.news/

    All the best, Pud known as Hat on the NTTL blog

      1. Indeed.
        HG used to treat a number of patients with such problems.
        It can be a cash cow for private physios, but she took a lot of pride in getting people right so they were no longer patients and were shot of the problem.

        Word of mouth referrals earned her far, far more than keeping them on, doing merey palliative treatment.

        1. When the spinal degeneration has gone beyond a certain point it’s almost impossible to “get right”. Sometimes palliative is the best that can be done. Lads who started lifting 20 stone sacks of beans in their teens are liable to get to that stage by the time they are 80+. Dad’s used to be got right for 5 years or so at a time, but it’s now beyond being fixable.

          Heredity doesn’t help. Both parents are arthritic and my upper spine started to crumble before I was 40.

          2. Thank you.

            There’s nothing that can be done about it – but I can’t say that I’m exactly looking forward to the inevitable deterioration that will come. I have a set of exercises which keep everything moving and I make sure that I have a good mixed diet, but that’s about as much as is possible. Until it’s possible to “choose your parents carefully” then a healthy old age will continue to be a lottery.

      1. I took the liberty of assuming that that would be the case, and suggested he might like to look in.

  81. AN UPDATE ON KORKY (Could one of our NoTTLer computer experts “doctor” this post so that it always appears at the top of the page, please?)

    Korky sent me this email yesterday (October 1st), and I thought I’d post it in its entirety so that you can see how he is doing. He has been busy in his garden for several weeks preparing a spot where he can sit out in better weather and remember the happy days he shared with his late wife Lizzie.

    “Just to let you know that I’m KBOing with little change in the patient. However, last night was one of the best night’s sleep since June 18th – about 5 hours undisturbed. Turning the corner or another false dawn? Only time will tell.

    I’ve planted up Lizzie’s plot with 150 or so daffodils of various varieties, 20 small yellow tulips, a present from my great friend Richard and his wife Judy, a white buddleia that just appeared in this Spring in the soil I moved last year, and I’ve edged the plot with low-growing Corsican rosemary and Minstead lavender.

    Lizzie’s memorial will be a cushioned heart in polished black granite with the engraving picked out in lead based silver paint. The last job is to fit the wooden capping to the sleepers, this should be done next week if we get a dry day. Painting the sleepers will be a problem with all this rain but the wood has had a couple of coats of preserver so it should stand OK over the winter. Fingers crossed it will look beautiful next Spring.

    I hope to return [to the NoTTL site] but not yet. Thank you so much for thinking of me. Feel free to copy any from the above to the Nottleblog and give my best regards to all.”

      1. I’m surprised that you didn’t know, Maggie. Korky and his childhood sweetheart wife Lizzie celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in April, but sadly just a couple of months later she passed away. She hadn’t been in good health for some time and Korky was devastated when he lost her. Since Anne Allan and I live nearby and had met up for lunch with him in 2019 we made a point of giving him as much support as we could. We even had lunch together again a few weeks ago. Korky has a large garden, which keeps him busy and he decided to create a spot close to the house in tribute to her, planted with daffodils – her favourite flowers.

        He has had some bad days but tries to hide it from his friends – he is a stoic and doesn’t believe in showing his grief. But he is trying very hard to keep busy (in his garden) and also get out and about as much as possible instead of just staying indoors and feeling sorry for himself. I was particularly pleased to read that he had a half-decent night’s sleep. Many NoTTLers have asked me to pass on their good wishes to him, which I always do.

        1. Good afternoon, Elsie.

          I wonder why people who have suffered such
          devastating bereavements believe they should NOT
          feel sorry for themselves.
          Feeling sorry for oneself is not,, necessarily, a selfish
          act but rather a defence mechanism which in no way
          deflects their love of humanity.

          2. I personally think that the best way to grieve is to allow all one’s emotions to show – it took me a long time to come to this belief. But everyone has their own way of coping, and Korky told me that almost everyone is telling him a different way to act to deal with his grief. So I didn’t tell him “This is what you should do” but gently suggested that people were well-meaning, but that trusting his instincts and doing what seemed to work for him is the way to deal with conflicting advice. He is a good man and fortunately is surrounded by some caring friends and relatives.

          4. That’s good of you to say so, Garlands. I do try my best to live up to what I aspire to. And I forgive myself whenever I fall short.

        2. Oh yes Elsie, I knew Poor Korky had lost Lizzie .

          I guessed he would be grieving for her terribly.

          Please pass on my best thoughts to him when you see him.

          1. Of course, Maggie. My apologies (see my reply to Sos) and anyone else who I inadvertently worried by my initial incomplete post.

        3. I think T-B’s post was due to there initially being no explanation as to why you wanted it at the top of the page.
          I wondered too and waited for an update, which eventually appeared.

          (I didn’t comment at the time in case it was bad news.)

          1. Aah, understood. I don’t know what happened but I think that I must have accidentally pressed the “Post” button, and it took me quite some time to type out his email message. Apologies to everyone who – like you – feared it was bad news. Despite his continuing struggles with his grief, I sense that in the longer term he will come to terms with his new life. The completion of his memorial garden along with the bulbs all blooming in the Spring will, I believe, help him along this new path of his life.

    2. I do hope it’s a case of “turned the corner”. although there will probably be relapses. The idea of a memorial garden sounds an excellent one. When you meet up with him (or contact him) next, do pass on my good wishes. My thoughts are with him.

      3. Indeed, I shall, Conners. Korky is well aware that NoTTLers’ thoughts and good wishes are with him. But I always remind him that he is well-loved by us all.

    3. Thank you again, Elsie. We are grateful. Please continue to assure Korky that we keep him in our thoughts.

          1. My problem, John, is that most NoTTLers seem to know each other personally, and call each other by their “proper” names. I can seldom remember real names and often get confused about who is male and who is female. For example, I can seldom remember whether Nagsman is a man who nags his wife, or a woman who often nags men. Short of making a list and adding to it and consulting it daily I have to confess that these days I just use the avatars people have selected. No offence is intended, so forgive me if I forget that you are John and write D in K in future posts. I will try my best to call you John from now on.

    4. Well done, Elsie – I’ve always thought of NoTTLers as a big, caring family and am happy to be a member.

      1. We are exactly that, NtN, which is why I love this site so much. It’s also (with a few minor exceptions) remarkably troll-free.

      1. Me too! The next time I visit Korky, I shall ask him if he would be willing to do this.

  84. SIR – Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, should hear alarm bells ringing from the Conservative Home article by James Frayne on which you report.
    (…)
    Michael Staples

    ThePrime MINISTER I knew the name was familiar.

  85. Evening, all. The government is, in my view, deliberately feeding a vicious circle of restrictions. They bear no connection with reality (or unbiased science), as far as I am concerned.

  88. If only…

    The Coronavirus Act rebellion is a warning shot to our draconian Government

    It may have been a damp squib this time, but No 10 needs to be on its guard

    SILKIE CARLO

    The period of ’emergency’ legislation is over. This week, MPs took less than 90 minutes to debate and renew the draconian Coronavirus Act and all its executive powers to suspend elections, close ports, ban protests and detain ‘potentially infectious’ citizens. Is this, perhaps, the new normal?

    The controversial Act had sped through parliament on a three-day emergency timetable with barely a glance before the March lockdown on the promise of greater scrutiny in the weeks and months to come. It was a promise unfulfilled. If you thought three days to pass an Act of constitutional significance that incurred the greatest suspension of liberties in peace-time was too little, then 90 minutes six months later was an “utter, utter disgrace,” as Sir Charles Walker MP furiously put it.

    Strangely enough, this fast-tracked legislative approval happened amidst a Conservative backbench rebellion against – er – fast-tracked legislation. Backbench MPs, led by Sir Graham Brady, demanded prior debates and votes on sweeping restrictions and lockdown laws and made a credible threat to inflict a government defeat if they did not get it. Matt Hancock gave a watery promise that prior votes will be offered only on “significant” national laws “where possible”, merely restating the default role of parliament as though it were something to be grateful for. This was hardly a concession, but a shattering reflection of how deeply power has been vested in Ministers’ hands.

    We are not a democracy simply on the promise of parliamentary scrutiny, but the actual performance of it. But like the Grand Old Duke of York, Sir Graham marched his sizeable rebellion, on which so many had pinned their hopes, back down the hill. The irony is that in the course of arguing for more time to scrutinise and vote on legislation, not much scrutiny of the Act actually happened and half of the House refused to vote.

    What this dreadful Act really needed was a thorough cross-examination, a dissection of the facts, an evaluation of necessity and proportionality. If only there were a highly capable QC in the Opposition who were actually willing to do the job.

    Keir Starmer’s strategy to stand by on matters of such magnitude, passively watching Ministers rule by decree and Tory liberals fight within their own party for democracy, is reprehensible. With lives, liberties and the economy at stake under this expansive Act, all but six Labour MPs abstained on Starmer’s instruction. Following the Napoleonic maxim to ‘never interfere with an opponent when he’s in the process of destroying himself’ could not be more cynical in this moment, with so much at stake.

    The former DPP could have mustered an opposition on the basis that, if nothing else, every single one of the prosecutions under the Coronavirus Act so far has been found unlawful by the CPS on review. Even the counter-terror years did not produce detention powers so extreme, arbitrary and unchecked that 100pc of prosecutions were unlawful. But it was left to the rebels – an unlikely motley crew of liberals and leftists, spanning Sir Graham Brady, Steve Baker, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Dawn Butler – to propose an amendment to repeal the detention powers.

    This parliamentary debacle is a sign of things to come. Ministers will cling to failed powers for the sake of pride, Starmer will stand by like a furloughed management consultant, vaguely assuring everyone there was a better way to do it without explaining how, and meanwhile we risk losing the country we loved.

    This is a moment when we desperately need people across the political spectrum with the courage to put principles before power. And although the Coronavirus Act rebellion may have been a damp squib this time, it was a serious warning shot – and the Government ought to be on guard. Because with fresh diktats this week banning dancing in bars and prescribing decibel limits for music, overnight lockdowns, changing rules dictating every inch of our work, family and social lives, and students held captive from their friends and families, a rebellion may well start to grow among the public too.

    Silkie Carlo is Director of Big Brother Watch

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/10/02/coronavirus-act-rebellion-warning-shot-draconian-government/

    1. “This is a moment when we desperately need people across the political spectrum with the courage to put principles before power.” We’re doomed!

    2. Does ‘ban protests’ mean only those concerning the emergency powers or all protests?

    3. But haven’t we realised yet – most of our politicians are spineless. lazy, corrupt pieces of excrement. Obviously the dumbing-down of our own people (and of course mass importation of people with beliefs alien to ours) by previous same defined politicians serves those politicos’ purpose.

      They genuinely don’t care whether or not they are despised by their constituents or any other people in this country.

  89. Gosh, weather forecast here predicts continuou rain until midday Monday (bar a 3-hour break overnight).

    1. Wonderful – we’re off for a long weekend in the New Forest tomorrow morning. We’ve already had 2″ of rain today in East Hampshire. I think any prospect of long walks will require flippers!

    2. Lewis, the first thing I check every morning is the weather forecast for the next 7 days. That is why I spent 5 full hours on Thursday morning “putting the garden to bed” as I realised that by late afternoon on Thursday I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of doing that until the middle of October when it might well be far too cold.

  91. SIR – The American actress Gillian Anderson says of Margaret Thatcher, who she will be playing in the Netflix series The Crown: “Taking on somebody who is hated as much as Thatcher is a whole other thing.”
    Mrs Thatcher was not hated universally in Britain. Many people, including me, saw her as a brave and capable prime minister, who rescued our country from the clutches of Marxist trade union barons and helped to restore our national pride.
    Might I suggest that Ms Anderson read the history of the period, rather than swallow the normal Left-wing propaganda about our first female prime minister?
    Ted Shorter

    Hear hear.

    1. Spot on, I liked her , yes she was irritating , but she had guts and strong persuasive politics .

      Brave in the face of traitors and people who stabbed her in the back. John Major for one!

      1. As the senior Minister said to a young reporter, explaining the layout of the House of Commons:

        “The opposition sits opposite; your enemies sit behind you”

        1. One of my Godmothers worked on her constituency team and got to know MT reasonably well.

          She said that MT was very intense, but when one got to know her, she could be entertaining company. I never got the chance to find out out!

          I could understand why my GM got on with MT, she too was an extremely intimidating woman when she chose to be.

          She was the “go to” magistrate when the local Met needed special permission for fire-arms and warrants; at any time of the day or night.
          I used to stay with her when I was working in London and the first few knocks on the door at 2 or 3am were very disconcerting.

          How times have changed. What was “special” then is normal now.

        2. In 1993 I was in the 34th largest Japanese city (Kanazawa, pop 400,000+) having a 12-month fellowship …. and, great coincidence, Mrs T. visited; having a meeting with bigwigs, business leaders etc., who paid £6,000 per head to attend.

          1. I was doing marine warranty work for BP in Azerbaijan, and they had her open the first Baku oil show. I had tickets, and so…

        3. #MeToo !
          At a Scottish Conservative Party Conference in Dundee in 1975. She wore a sapphire blue strapless gown; I too, had the opportunity to shake her hand …

  92. Here’s Johnny!

    Boris Johnson’s ‘strongman’ Government is destroying democracy

    Rule by ministerial decree is both contrary to our political tradition and thoroughly bad practice

    JONATHAN SUMPTION

    Behind the spat about parliamentary control over the Government’s Covid measures, there is an older and more fundamental divide. It is the divide between an authoritarian model of government and a more deliberative and democratic model.

    The authoritarians believe in the “strongman”: the boss who gets things done with the aid of a team of technicians, who surmounts crises by intervening swiftly and decisively, without wasting time in argument or debate. The alternative, according to this view of the world, is a bunch of squabbling politicians picking over the entrails while the sand runs through the hourglass.

    There has always been a strand of political masochism in Britain which likes this idea: the sort of people who admire dictators because they make the trains run on time. From time to time there is a more widespread move towards authoritarian government. We are experiencing one of those times now.

    Even before Covid came along, surveys published by the Hansard Society showed that more than half the public think that we need a “strong leader willing to break the rules”. Nearly as many believe that the country would be better run if “the government didn’t have to worry so much about votes in Parliament”.

    Harold Wilson won an election in 1964 by promising us “the slap of firm government”. Would people have voted for him if instead of slapping us in the face he had promised to kick us in the backside or sock us in the jaw, which expresses much the same idea? Perhaps they would.

    The habit of making these strident pronouncements has not gone away. The present Prime Minister is fond of saying that he “will not hesitate” before imposing some aggressive interference with our daily lives. The Health Secretary likes to say that he will “stop at nothing” to beat the virus. But hesitation has its uses. Politicians surely ought to hesitate before making radical decisions that fundamentally affect the lives of every one of us. Perhaps their decisions would be better if they paused for long enough to think them through. As for “stopping at nothing”, this is the language of despots and fanatics.

    Everything that has happened this year in Britain has shown up the cult of the strongman for the nonsense that it is.

    Authoritarian government depends on fear. Ministers need to spread fear to justify what they are doing and achieve compliance. So we have the continual attempt to pretend that everyone is at risk, even if they are under 60 and in good health. We have the dodgy charts deployed last week to persuade us that infections were doubling every week. We have continual threats to lock us down. This kind of behaviour destroys trust. If the government were trusted, it would not need to resort to coercion on the scale that it is doing. People are more likely to comply if the advice makes sense, is presented to them coherently, in calm language, and is supported by evidence which has not been crudely hyped up.

    But if you tell millions of healthy, young people that they are risking lives by mixing, they will ignore you and do their own thing. If you tell them that they can go to shops, work and school on buses, trains and crowded streets, but cannot have half a dozen people round for a drink without spreading death and destruction, they will tell the pollsters that they approve and then do precisely as they please.

    We are a parliamentary democracy in the most fundamental sense of the term. We do not elect our head of government. We elect MPs. Under our system, the government’s sole source of legitimacy is the support of the House of Commons. We are only a democracy because ministers are answerable to Parliament for everything they do.

    Government by ministerial decree, which is what we have had for the past six months, is not just undemocratic and contrary to our political tradition. It is usually thoroughly bad government. The concentration of power in a small number of hands and the absence of wider deliberation and scrutiny enables ministers to make major decisions on the hoof, without proper forethought, planning or research. Within the government’s own ranks, it promotes loyalty at the expense of wisdom and experience. The want of criticism encourages overconfidence, which banishes moderation and restraint. The present leadership’s mishandling of Covid-19 exemplifies all of these familiar vices of strongman government.

    Whatever one’s view about the merits of its decisions, it is impossible to think well of the process which produced them. It has been jerky, clumsy, unprepared, inconsistent and ill thought out. It is not efficient, and in the long run is not even popular. If ministers had to appear at the dispatch box in the House of Commons to explain and justify every decision that they made and back it up with evidence, we would have a better quality of decision-making. If they had to persuade sceptical MPs whose constituents are being propelled into misery and ruin by their acts, they might be more careful.

    All of this, however, depends on the House of Commons itself being willing to rise to the challenge.

    Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle was probably right to disallow the Brady amendment on Wednesday. It was a device designed to force the Government to consult Parliament about orders under the Public Health Act, by making it a condition of extending another Act which is irrelevant to the issue, namely the Coronavirus Act. None of the government’s measures of social control has been made under the Coronavirus Act.

    The Speaker was also right to accuse the Government of showing contempt for Parliament. But it will take more than schoolmasterly lectures to put this right. The real problem is the procedures of the House of Commons. MPs have to resort to devices like the Brady amendment, because the House does not have control of its own agenda. [And we know what happened when it very nearly did…]

    Under the standing orders, its business is determined by the Leader of the House, a government minister, and by the Speaker. Backbenchers, however numerous, do not get much of a look in.

    This seriously impedes attempts to hold the government to account. In this respect, the Commons is unlike almost every other legislature in the world. Other legislatures determine their own agenda through bipartisan committees or rules which entitle members with a minimum level of support to move their own business.

    In Britain, this did not matter when there was a shared political culture at Westminster which respected the institution. It matters very much now that we have a government which deliberately seeks to speak directly to the people, shoving their elected representatives into the margins. The people have no institutional means of holding them to account without Parliament, apart from general elections every five years.

    One of the major reasons given by the Prime Minister and his allies for withdrawing from the European Union was the democratic deficit involved in subscribing to EU legislation over which Parliament had no control.

    Parliament is already sinking into irrelevance in the eyes of public opinion. Unless it smartens up its act, we are in danger of creating an even bigger democratic deficit at the heart of our own constitution.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/10/02/boris-johnsons-strongman-government-destroying-democracy/

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