698 thoughts on “Friday 20 December: Boris Johnson’s ambition and enthusiasm have lifted the national mood”

  1. Morning all. Some quotes to start the day……

    “There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz SL500.”

    Frank Sinatra

    “It isn’t premarital sex if you have no intention of getting married.”
    GeorgeBurns

    “My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.”
    Jack Nicholson

    “Ah, yes, divorce, from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.”
    Robin Williams

    “According to a new survey, women say they feel more comfortable undressing in front of men than they do undressing in front of other women. They say that women are too judgmental, where, of course, men are just grateful.”
    Robert De Niro

    “See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis and only enough blood to run one at a time.”
    Robin Williams

    “It’s been so long since I’ve had sex, I’ve forgotten who ties up whom.”
    Joan Rivers

    Sex is one of the most wholesome, beautiful and natural experiences money can buy.
    Steve Martin

    You don’t appreciate a lot of stuff in school until you get older. Little things like being spanked every day by a middle-aged woman. Stuff you pay good money for later in life.
    Bob Hope

    “Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.”
    Oscar Wilde

          2. Well, yesterday I struck lucky , a charity reindeer all six foot of him , gave me a strong Christmas cuddle .. I contributed to a charity event when I had finished shopping in a supermarket . I glowed afterwards!

    1. Good morning

      Sadly the same here ..

      I have the most miserable morning to endure of absolute negativity and controlling behaviour from close encounters of a 3rd kind… damn this terrible weather. I just need some respite..

      1. Morning, Belle – cheer up, worse things happen at sea (apparently).
        We are enjoying freezing drizzle just now… makes walking outside just so much fun, and driving, well… like a forest rally stage, so it is. Cars everywhere (since studded tyres are frowned upon in built-up areas, no bugger has any grip, even with studless winter tyres). Ach, well, it gives one practice at driving & walking in difficult circumstances, I suppose.

        Hope it cheers up in the UK, the family & I are flying over on Sunday for Xmas near Bideford with MiL. I’ll need to be able to escape the house quite a lot…

        1. Morning OB

          Good heavens , your weather sounds cruel and rather hazardous …

          Will you explain the studded tyre thing in built up areas , why , is it because of the noise?

          Roads here were flooded in parts yesterday, water just flowing off the fields .. quite hazardous driving conditions . Drizzling now..

          I hope you and your family enjoy a glimmer of fine weather over here for Christmas ..

          We went to see the most hammy film I have ever seen for years, last night , called ” Knives are out ” with Daniel Craig … Moh’s choice … it was dire .

          A cross between Poirot and Columbo and an Agatha Christie who dunnit.

          1. Ahem… Poirot is one of Agatha Christie’s.

            ‘Morning, Belle.

            Studded tyres are used everywhere in Sweden during the winter, even in big cities, although they do knacker the road surfaces & are a bit noisy – but not much. I couldn’t have them, because I used to drive down to Germany to visit my father & they are banned there, so I had to have deck utan dug tyres without studs in Sweden. Never had any problems in snow, though.

          2. What size are the studs.. the imagination boggles , perhaps tracked vehicles are a better choice.. You should see what damage TANKS do to the roads here!

          3. Depends on the vehicle, but for private cars they are about 1cm diameter & about 1cm in profile. They are flat-ended & look a bit like miniature top hats.

          4. There’s a limit as to how far they can poke out of the tyre. Emergency vehicles are allowed pokier (?) studs than domestic vehicles.
            It can be fun watching someone go for a smokin’ pull-away at night, thrashing the tyres round throwing up sheets of sparks :-D)

          6. In Colchester, we knacker the roads without butch tyres.
            I think positively and view them as negative speed bumps.

          7. #Me too. When I bought this house, the road outside was a sandy track with potholes; everyone was forced to drive slowly. Since it was made up it has become a race track for some, even though it is a cul-de-sac.

            ‘Morning, Anne.

          8. Firstborn, living in the countryside, has studs (piggdekk in yer Weegie), and very useful they are, too.

          9. Morning TB (and all other NoTTLers). Well, apart from the distracting and excruciating Southern Accent by Daniel Craig (think of Dick van Dyke’s Cockney in reverse) I thought it wasn’t too bad a movie. We all have different takes on the same thing (think of Boris).

          11. Er, T-B, first Bill Thomas calls me “Harry” and now you call me “Peddy”. I think I must go for a lie down before the entire world goes mad!!!

            :-))

          12. Studded tyres grind away the asphalt and make evil dust that might lead to cancer if breathed in. Apparently.
            Daniel Craig is an arse. I avoid his films as much as I can.

  4. SIR – I can understand why Dame Vera Lynn (report, December 17), as someone who does not drink gin, objected to her name being associated with it in cockney rhyming slang.

    It is hard to know whether the singer Ruby Murray actually had a taste for curry, but we can be fairly certain that Richard III was history before he had a chance to complain.

    Bruce Denness
    Niton, Isle of Wight

          2. Look, it is Friday. I am dimmer than usual. Having gone to a Catholic school for 13 years I thought I knew all the Catholic jokes, (“I don’t care who you are, get your camels off my lawn”, kind of thing.). You’ve got me.

  5. SIR – We are deeply concerned by plans to merge the Department for International Development (Dfid) with the British Foreign Office. This move could undermine the ability of the Government to address security issues properly both at home and abroad.

    An independent Dfid has a track record of ensuring that aid is spent well and transparently in order to help the most vulnerable around the world – including millions affected by war.

    This assistance is essential to Britain’s national security interests. Dfid needs to have a strong voice in the National Security Council and the Joint Export Control Unit on arms sales licensing. It is not clear how the quality of its work will be protected if it is demoted, and its institutional experience in these matters removed.

    We urge the Government to keep Dfid independent – and, in doing so, to safeguard its input on national security and arms sales. Only then can we preserve the vision of a global Britain that works to build a better world.

    Paul Murphy
    CEO, Saferworld

    Michael Young
    CEO, International Alert

    Jonathan Cohen
    CEO, Conciliation Resources

    Dylan Mathews
    CEO, Peace Direct

    Any guesses at the aggregate remuneration of these four con-artists? They are an insult to the great lady, MRD.

    1. It seems to me very sensible to merge the two. IT will safe costs and I can see no justification for keeping two separate organisations

      I can also see a very good case to merge the 4 charity organisations into one. Why do we need 4 lots of CEO’s on the gravy train

      1. It would be even more sensible to slash the overseas aid budget and to ensure that all such expenditure was properly audited.

        Fat chance on both counts!

        1. All we need do is put aside a sum £1 billion (?) to cover emergencies.
          We have been shovelling countless £billions to these shiiteholes for 60+ years to little effect. (Unless you run a Swiss or Cayman Islands bank.)

          1. To little effect? In my view “famine relief” just results in more children growing up to produce yet more mouths to feed, i.e. more “famine relief” needed.

        2. Just close down the DfiD. Abolish charities. Let our entrepreneurs deal with foreigners, set up firms, and factories. If it works, it will bring jobs, and money to ordinary people in places like Ghana and Belize, Angola and Nepal. If it does not work, at least we would have stopped pouring money down foreign drains.
          If we need to bribe foreign dictators to keep the peace, or buy our guns, then let us do it. We have a rich history of giving Rolls-Royce cars to rajahs.

    2. Bunch of troughers. If they don’t like it, it’s a good idea. Merge it, sack most of the staff, stop giving the cash away. Spend it here.

  7. SIR – It is with great sadness that nurses in Northern Ireland have decided to strike (report, December 18) over the severe impact the suspension of the Stormont Assembly is having on them and their patients.

    No nurse will have taken this decision lightly, and I suspect that they are not the only public servants who have been pushed to breaking point by politicians who refuse to do their job and yet remain on a full salary. Will teachers, social workers, doctors, police and ambulance drivers also be forced to choose whether to strike or to allow an effective three-year strike by politicians to run services into the ground?

    How can members of the Northern Ireland Assembly feel they are entitled to any salary at all, when they have refused to do the job to which they were elected? If their salaries were suspended, they might find a speedier compromise and Northern Ireland could begin to recover. The present state of affairs cannot continue.

    Ginger Irby
    London SE23

    Delighted that someone still signs their correspondence ‘Ginger’ in 2019.

    1. Ginger, in Ireland? Surely that’s about 30+% of the population?
      Morning, Z.

      In any case, how does the lack of Stormont affect the nurses? I fail to understand (a common problem these days)

    2. If salaries were suspended I think we can guarantee a “speedier compromise”!

      ‘Morning, Citroen.

    3. We had a 67 year-old German called Wolfgang who applied for a position with a company that I worked for. I wanted to employ him just for his name alone, but he was not qualified at all for the vacancy that we had.

  9. This Blue Labour government risks repeating the errors of New Labour
    FRASER NELSON – 19 DECEMBER 2019 • 9:30PM

    This isn’t the fourth term of a Conservative government but the first term of a Boris Johnson government – and if the distinction isn’t clear now, it will become more so over the coming months. The Prime Minister’s agenda, revealed today, is about spending: on schools, the health service, scientific research, housing, infrastructure, even the exploration of space. It’s a plan not just for the next year but for the next decade: quite something for a Tory government which, at the start of last week, didn’t know if it would survive until Christmas.

    Johnson won’t have come to No 10 with a detailed plan for rewiring the government machine; he has not spent years dreaming about how he’d rebuild Whitehall. But Dominic Cummings, his chief adviser, has. The brand of politics he pioneered with Vote Leave – radical, high-spending but not identifiably Left or Right – is now back and shaping the government agenda. He saw the Brexit vote as an instruction not just to leave the EU but to enact root-and-branch reform of the British government. And it starts now.

    It would normally be fate-temptingly hubristic to talk about a decade in power, as the Prime Minister did today. But, then again, why pretend? I haven’t spoken to any Tory MP who thinks that the party is likely to be out of office before Christmas 2027, at the earliest. The Labour Party is in disarray, a danger only to itself, so the Conservatives think they can afford some long-term thinking.

    The Queen’s Speech is all very red Tory – or blue Labour, depending on which side you’re cheering. The NHS goodie list of more hospitals, doctors, nurses, free car parking spaces etc would have been the highlight of any New Labour manifesto. Then there’s a minimum wage, to be raised so high that it will soon cover one in every six people working in Britain. We have a three-year school spending splurge, an “infrastructure revolution,” even faster broadband. By the end of it, Jeremy Corbyn was complaining that his ideas had been stolen.

    It was a bulging Santa’s sack of goodies, more generous than any offered by any previous Tory Prime Minister.

    Behind it all lies a fascinating rationale. As a former Mayor of London, the Prime Minister is a firm believer in decent infrastructure as a means of spreading prosperity. His Chancellor, Sajid Javid, agrees and told me recently that government can borrow so cheaply nowadays that any “genuine economic infrastructure investments” will “pay for themselves.” So we can forget about the old-fashioned Tory ambition to balance the books. National debt is set to go on rising for the foreseeable future.

    There is also a lot more optimism, in Johnson’s No 10, about the ability of the state to be entrepreneurial and sponsor the kind of technological and scientific research that private companies won’t finance. Cummings has a phrase for it: “patient taxpayer funding,” the type that keeps flowing even if results are not forthcoming. A government that expects to be in power for a decade is a government that can afford to be pretty patient. This is what the Prime Minister was referring to when he promised “incredible breakthroughs in technology.” Expect this to be one of his preoccupations.

    So his Queen’s Speech wasn’t just a cynical ploy to bribe northerners. It does what he has always wanted to do: borrow money, lots of it, and see if he can bring to the north of England the opportunities that he thinks decent infrastructure has brought to London. Javid is quite right to say that the markets, relieved at the absence of Marxists in the Treasury, are still keen to lend at ridiculously cheap rates of interest. Just how long those rates will stay cheap for, however, is another matter.

    And this is the problem. If you can borrow money for the next decade at rock-bottom interest rates, and get more than your money back on investments that speed up the economy, then it does make sense. But what if rates rise? And anyway, can government be trusted to spend wisely? At the root of every debt crisis in history we can usually find someone arguing for a massive debt binge on the grounds that “this time is different”. It seldom is. If another debt crisis strikes, the “infrastructure revolution” might end as a graveyard of half-finished projects.

    Then we have the NHS splurge. Pouring money into unreformed public services tends not to work: this was the lesson of the Labour years. The health budget almost trebled, but the quality of the NHS certainly didn’t. David Cameron gave up on serious health reform, thinking it was too politically dangerous. If the Tories run scared of this for another decade, it will not make for a better health service. Scandals won’t stop. The biggest scandal of all is that our health service performance is on a par with the Czech Republic and Slovenia, and the price we pay is tens of thousands of extra avoidable deaths every year.

    Finally, what about the genuine achievements of Conservatism? It’s a bit simplistic to assume that the old Labour fiefdoms just want a spending splurge and more employment regulation. Cutting these regulations 10 years ago helped ignite a jobs boom that benefited high-unemployment areas the most. The wages of the low-paid rose faster than anyone else’s; more teenagers from poorer families go to university now than ever before. Tory reforms delivered for northern English constituencies. Perhaps one of the reasons that they stunned Westminster last week by returning so many Tory MPs.

    The Prime Minister promised a different kind of Toryism and, in doing so, averted the calamity of a Corbyn government. It was his personal victory and Tory MPs will now do anything he wants. To moan about a lack of fiscal discipline, at a time when Brexit is finally being done, seems a bit mean-spirited. But if the next decade is theirs to shape, the lessons of the last decade should be taken into account: the boldest reforms worked best.

    The Tories didn’t expect to win these new seats; they’ll need new ideas to keep them. But they might well find that Conservatism is, still, the best thing they have to offer their new friends in the north.

    2. “…more teenagers from poorer families go to university now than ever before…”

      Because more than three times as many places are available as there were 35 years ago, many of them for junk degrees paid for with yet more borrowing.

      1. Yes, and maybe. There are many jobs in junk industries, such as the BBC, for which junk degrees are suitable. Why train for a degree in heavy engineering when there are no jobs, because we no longer have an engineering sector? We do have a world leading computer games industry.
        Let’s not blame people for having aspirations to education. That is what made the UK number one in the world for pretty well everything.
        We may well blame the educators who have become focussed on left wing globalist propaganda to the extent that universities no longer supply a well-rounded education. And well-rounded graduates are a key ingredient of prosperity, as are practical people of all kinds.
        Successive Governments have made borrowing normal, even essential. The wages of ordinary people have fallen in real terms, for the earnings in pounds are much the same as they were ten or even fifteen years ago.

        1. We *do* have a huge engineering sector.

          I know one of the chaps who works for McLaren. He designs engines using CAD, then machines and tests them. The problem is, he’s already in post. They don’t need fifty people. They need one. As with most jobs in our economy – they need a specialist doing one job very well. Labour just wanted a voting block and brought in millions of unskilled mouths to feed when the nation was changing to reflect the changing economy.

      1. ‘Morning, BoB.

        “Mr Cummings, who is widely credited for masterminding both Brexit and the Tories’ thumping election victory…”

        I have no doubt that he did, but as a Spad he is a temporary civil servant on the public payroll, and therefore not allowed to become involved in any political campaigning, such as a General Election. To do so is a breach of the Civil Service code. I have no doubt that he did an excellent job, but he should have been employed by the party for this purpose and not the taxpayer.

        1. You’re probably correct, but given the way the Civil Service has been politicised towards the Left nowadays, he at least provides a counterbalance.

      1. I’m expecting our winter bourne to flow this year – bed still dry at present, but my prediction is for it to start flowing at New Year give or take a day or two.

    1. “Grey and terribly mild in Laure” – Yer Frogs never could brew beer, Bill.
      Oh! terribly mild, not terrible mild… Oops :-((
      Morning, anyway!

      2. They’re getting better at it, lots of micros springing up producing some good beers. And some bad ones. The problem is breaking the stranglehold of AB InBev who swamp the place with Stella and Leffe.

        1. Global trend seems to be that the microbreweries fill an artisanal niche that’s too small for the megacorp breweries – and, often, brew some excellent beers, too, although I’m fed up with American IPA as it has far too much aggressive hop flavour. English IPA is much superior, especially when brewed with the correct %alcohol.

          1. I like them both, with the notable exception of GK IPA, which is no more than beer-flavoured water. There are some stunning American IPAs but the ones that reach the UK tend to either rely heavily on Amarillo or Cascade making them, as you say, aggressively hoppy, or IPA in name only, e.g. Lagunitas.

            Have you tried Brewdog Punk IPA? Or Jaipur, from Thornbridge Brewery in Bakewell?

          3. I prefer the word ‘dry’ to ‘tart’ but I know what you mean. Yes. Great with a hot curry.

          7. The Punk I like, not tried the other.
            One local brewery, Nøgne Ø, brews a proper IPA in English style, and at 8%. Heavy work for a session, lovely for a beer just before lunch on Sunday.
            Firstborn’s local, NSB, does a good IPA, not so strong, though (5%).

    2. We drove back from a bash about 20 miles away at 11pm last night – the temperature was a ridiculous 16C. Much rain since – currently 13C.

  13. Is it just me? The MR and I watched “Casablanca” last night.

    Why is it the “greatest film ever made”? Is it because it is in black and white; or that the sets move; that Bogart just sits and chain smokes and plays the part of, er, Bogart; that all the acting is wooded and the dialogue stilted? Or is it the model planes and crassly sterotyped Chermans, and the atypically patriotic Franch (sic)? Or that Bergman’s hair never changes and the Czech chap is clearly reading his lines from a card held behind the camera? The only chap who tried to act was Claude Rains.

    Answers on a camel.

    2. Morning Bill

      Nostalgia , romance and of course the atmospheric music, and appeal to an unsophisticated undemanding audience perhaps ?

      ” Brief encounter ” was screened on TV the other day , and I thought it was rather grubby , the sharp manners of the era , the smell of railway smoke and dire weather and the social mores where divorce meant a five year wait or longer .. sacrifices of the heart post war must have been emotionally strained.

          1. Listen to recordings of the young Queen.
            I suppose women did sound shriller when we were young, but I have no memory of it.

          2. Taken the words out of my mouth.

            BBC announcers in the 30s and 40s. John Snagge; Alvar Lidell, Stuart Hibberd….. Quate different from the estchury wo’ yer ge’ nahadies.

          8. Morning Anne .

            The Queen had a terrible voice , but so did all the Royals ..

            Naga Muncheywhatever her name is and a few others are painful to listen to.

            I thought the Listen with Mother voices were the nicest ever, forgotten their names , perhaps Sue E can remember.

            Not forgetting Jack De Manio

          9. Daphne Oxenford was a Listen with Mother reader, and had an excellent tv acting career afterwards. It says here that the others were Julia Lang, Eileen Brown, Dorothy Smith and others..

      1. Good day, Hugh. The “camel” reference was a nod to the alleged setting in the alleged Morocco.

    7. It is probably the standard answer as to why it was good. They did not have 1,001 minor celebrities pretending to be massive stars, and those that stood out were more iconic than the non-entities that we have today. It was also a year after Pearl Harbour and Americans might have been wondering what was going to happen to those they cared about. Up there on the screen there was Humphrey Bogart “doing the right thing” even if it cost him dearly.

      As for the camel, there were only a few models on the market but they did come with a large range of optional extras.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ef1e59f0c0f46c2025f4ea1b05f34ad9ccde6448cb2fa39d50b1b97d1894ec3.jpg

  14. Devon town councillor calls for babysitting allowance

    Town & Parish Councils have very limited powers and typically have about 10 meeting a year in the evenings and lasting no more than 2 hours

    A town councillor has called for rules to be changed to allow parents to claim for the cost of babysitting or childcare while they attend meetings.
    Ashburton Town Council in Devon is supporting Saskia Hogbin’s plea.

    The mother of three told the BBC she had to pay £100 for childcare in order to attend meetings in August, which she had not predicted when she volunteered for the role.

      1. Town council meeting are not long. There must be very well paid baby sitters i Devon if she paid a £100 for 2 hours baby sitting

        At most Town Councils meet once a month but not normally in August. Very few Councillor attend every month

    2. “…which she had not predicted when she volunteered for the role.” Oh dear, not very bright are we, Cllr Hogbin? What did she expect – all round to hers for council meetings, or taking her children with her to the council chamber?

      Sheesh!

    3. Where was her husband?

      On one occassion I sat on one of these housing boards talking about people parking on the housing association property, preventing residents getting in. The local councillor sat there and I said, well, they pay council tax, the council should put a barrier there for residents only. The councillor was dumbstruck, as if this were actually something she should initiate.

      While she blustered, I said ‘you can do that, can’t you? If not, what are you here for?’

      They are truly pointless. Sack all councillors. As for that clothing allowance nonsense… no one gives me an allowance for my work clothes. why can’t they pay for them themselves?

  16. Can we Learn from Sweden’s Experience of Outsourcing Health Care ?

    Much of Sweden’s Health & Welfare services are now outsourced and it has a better health service than the UK

    2. BJ,
      Be better all round and solve a great many issues if we stopped supporting mass uncontrolled immigration parties.
      The unsustainable influx ceased would relieve pressure on the NHS, medication,education, accommodation,
      incarceration.
      The village idiot association will confirm that you CANNOT educate, medicate,
      incarcerate, accommodate the bloody world.
      The answer, total severance from eu
      then back to reality.

  17. Here’s why Brexiteers should raise a glass to Theresa May, the Tories’ unsung hero
    ASA BENNETT. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/12/19/brexiteers-should-raise-glass-theresa-may-tories-unsung-hero/

    It’s Premium but the bitchy comments are a delight to read.

    Party Pauper 20 Dec 2019 7:44AM
    @Pete Sunway

    Nothing “decent” about her. She was a lying, duplicitous, sneaky, dirty, underhanded remainer who did everything she could to keep us in the EU – ably aided and abetted by Hammond. Do you really think there was no plan in the event of a leave win? May was that plan. That’s why Cameron and Osborne called her “submarine May”.

    Well said PP.

    2. May hasn’t lost her unique sense of dress. The sky-blue trouser suit she wore for the Queen’s speech was ghastly & inappropriate.

    3. Morning PT,
      I posted just after the referendum victory that it was a fall back plan to be triggered if the unlikely happened, and it did.
      The likes of the wretch cameron do not operate without a fall back plan they are masters of treachery.
      What confirmed my feelings at the time also was the leadership farce followed by the 9 month delay.
      I likened it to a 3 stage semi re-entry rocket, the wretch cameron the launch,
      mayday the middle stage, until burn out, the final stage we could very well be witnessing.
      Let me be wrong on the final stage.

    4. I hate people who sit on the fence. Why doesn’t PP tell us what he really thinks?

      (I might have written that comment myself…it summaries what I have thought about Treason since she stole the PMship.)

  18. How quickly this dangerous nonsense has taken hold with the PTB who are akin to time travellers, attempting to take us back to the days when the Church proscribed advances in knowledge that didn’t fit with their view of the World.
    How soon before a doctor is in trouble for telling a biological male (X,Y) who believes he’s a woman, that because he does not have the requisite equipment he cannot become pregnant?

    https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1207692909543411712

    1. Telling a transwoman that she cannot give birth will probably be a hate crime . Doctors will have to go along with them and suggest they attend a fertility clinic for investigation as to why he/she cannot get pregnant

      1. And when they have been in Labour for 36 hours and not delivered would an emergency section be in order (Under the Mental health Act of course)?

    2. Monty Python were there on this subject 40 years ago in The Life or Brian, but even they would not have seen this level of dangerous insanity.

      “Stan: It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.
      Reg: But you can’t have babies.
      Stan: Don’t you oppress me.
      Reg: Where’s the fetus going to gestate? You going to keep it in a box?”

    3. Righto. Man in a dress demands to be treated as a woman surgically. He’s given anaesthetic suitable for a woman. The incision is felt, painfully – as it wasn’t enough to knock him out – and the wrong organs removed. He spends the rest of his life in pain – as the medication is designed for a woman.

      That is the rest of stupidity.

    1. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is the EU’s supreme court and rules on matters related to the EU’s legislation and ensures that those laws are applied across the bloc. It is part of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and covers areas including employment and environmental laws, taxation, trade, fisheries, and agriculture.

      What kind of Sovereignty is that…?

      2. Any future ruling by the European Court of Justice should have the same legal authority over the United Kingdom as it does over Japan or the United States of America. None. That is a key indicator of when we will know that we have left the European Union or not.

        This webpage below is slightly out of date as it was put up 10 months ago and the backstop has been removed, as it was meant to be. But as the EU and others have said, the core of the Withdrawal Agreement has not been changed and the authority of the ECJ remains the same:

        “ECJ jurisdiction [over UK Law]:
        •full direct jurisdiction for all matters during transition and for citizens’ rights in actions begun up to 8 years after end of transition.
        •‘long tail’ jurisdiction to rule against UK in actions begun by Commission up to 4 years after end of transition: Art.87(1)”

        This is why leaving now would save us years of having the EU being the final legal authority over the UK in these areas. It is also why we must know what is in this Free Trade Agreement and how much is being given away that does not need to be.

        https://lawyersforbritain.org/master-chart-of-theresa-mays-deal

        1. Sovereignty is the full right and power of a governing body over itself, without any interference from outside sources or bodies.

          That’s what I voted for…

      3. If anyone thinks the judgements will ever favour any group but the EU then they are mistaken. That, if nothing else should be removed from the WA.

        That and any monies. Put it this way. if the EU are happy with it, we shouldn’t be.

      1. Good morning, Bill

        “O Brave New World that has such people in it!”

        says Miranda to her father, Prospero, when she first sets eyes on the fine looking people from Italy. But Prospero, who knows how the world really turns, has the wisdom and perception to reply”

        ” ‘Tis new to thee!”

    2. “With hindsight, I think we can all now see that Brexit was inevitable.”

      It is this type of woolly complacency that has trapped us under EU control and delayed Brexit for the last 3 1/2 years since the referendum result. We are not out yet and we must watch what type of deal is being forged for us. We do not want a sudden “Its this Free Trade Agreement or the doom of No-deal!” being sprung on Parliament at the end of next year.

      Freedom for our country is there for the taking. We cannot just assume that our politicians will embrace that freedom “this time.”

      1. Morning MM,
        It would be a good bet to put your last dollar on the fact that it is maybe not in their interest to”embrace that freedom” this time so……….

      2. It most certainly wasn’t inevitable.
        What the hecketty heck does the writer think the last three plus years have been about?

        1. It was inevitable fomr the moment the result was announced. From that point on parliament fought us, private individuals with rich backers fought us.

          Such can never be allowed to occur again.

      3. No MM, we cannot “just assume that our politicians will embrace that freedom [a clean break from the EU] this time”, but I wish that so many people – including a large number on this site – are happy to assume the opposite. Why can’t we just stop assuming one way or the other and wait and see?

        1. Elsie – “Wait and see” has got us into the state that this country is in. It is not as if Boris has been neutral. He has taken step after step of going down the path of a Brexit in Name Only, when he has had the option of doing the opposite.

          From deliberately not answering questions about this Withdrawal Agreement, to avoiding interviews entirely on it and trust in him. By forcing new MP’s to say they will pass this bill, no matter what their own voters want. By choosing to hand over control of this country to a desperate EU when he can arrange a BETTER Free Trade Agreement from the outside.

          We will hand as much money to the EU as they tell us to. Their courts will still have authority over us in some areas 9 years from now. Boris has recently spoken of an amnesty for illegal migrants. He says he will get tougher on migration, but the borders stay open with a new taxi service picking them up from 1/2 way across the channel.

          But I am laying off of this topic now. It is late at night. But the idea that Boris is “doing his best for the UK” is poorly reflected by the actions he is taking to tie us under the EU’s control. He does have a choice. He actions are leading to one goal, and it is not the WTO Clean Brexit that many of us want.

          Boris has said himself several times that a No-Deal Brexit will NOT happen. “It’s a million to one” as he also said. He wants a deal above all else, and that will mean submitting to the EU to get one done in a year. Have a good night. 🙂

          1. My final word on this, MM, is that you are mistaken when you say that “he has taken step after step of going down the path of Brexit in Name Only, when he has had the option of doing the opposite”. I believe that he had no such option when outnumbered in the previous Parliament. Since gaining a proper mandate from the electorate (i.e. since Friday of this week) I am impressed by everything he has done to give us a proper Brexit. Anyhow, Happy Christmas to you and yours when it comes. May 2020 bring us each what we wish, i.e. a Clean Brexit.

          2. Yes this is an old conversation now and can be laid to rest. 🙂

            To clarify one point though – I was not talking about Parliament blocking his actions. I meant that since he won the election he has had the option of taking us out of the EU with no-deal and nothing could stop him. Instead he has chosen to follow the path of Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement. He did not need to do that. It just delays us leaving for a year and gives the EU power over this country that nobody else has had before.

          3. I have somehow lost the post I made today in reply to the one above. I need to correct an error in that missing post from “since last Friday” (which is the 20th of December) to “since Friday the 13th of December”.

      4. This is why it may well prove a disaster for Brexit that the Brexit Party stood down in Conservative held seats allowing the Conservatives to win some seats with ‘remainer’ candidates whom Johnson had not deselected before the election. Nigel Farage should have held out for much longer before making such a concession.

        Deselection of remainers and a pact with Nigel Farage would have assured a proper Brexit but Johnson’s determination to squash The Brexit Party makes me dubious about whether he wants a proper Brexit. I still fear that we shall be dumped on with BRINO.

  21. Morning Each,
    All the eggs seem once again going into one mostly rhetoric only basket, ” johnson’s ambition and enthusiasm have lifted the national mood” could it be the nation is being told what it wants to hear ?
    Was our nations mood not lifted on the 24/6/2016 ?
    when a great multitude cried “victory, job done, leave it to the tories” 3.5 years ago.
    Just keep in mind that johnson proved to be a consummate actor among the cast of the mayday leadership farce.
    The peoples seem to be depending a great deal on hope maybe not realising that hope can also play a fickle part.
    In regards to johnson let me be wrong & I would consider it to be an honour to shake his hand.

    1. Yes hope was the last thing out of Pandora’s box and I’m not convinced it was much of an improvement on all the other curses that preceded it.

      ‘According to Hesiod, when Prometheus stole fire from heaven, Zeus, the king of the gods, took vengeance by presenting Pandora to Prometheus’ brother Epimetheus.
      Pandora opened a jar left in his care containing sickness, death and
      many other unspecified evils which were then released into the world.[4] Though she hastened to close the container, only one thing was left behind – usually translated as Hope, though it could also have the pessimistic meaning of “deceptive expectation” ‘ (Wikipedia summary)

      I hadn’t come across the alternative translation of ‘deceptive expectation’ but seems very appropriate in relation to the current Brexit situation.

  23. Harry Potter author JK Rowling divides fans as she defends woman who lost job over anti-trans tweets

    I dont think there is any divide. 90% of the population would support her it is a small vocal minority making a lot of noise. When you read the full decision of the tribunal it is in my view total nonsense. It is a medical fact that there are only 2 sexes with the exception of Intersex a genetic condition

    JK Rowling has come under fire for supporting Maya Forstater, a woman who recently lost her job after posting anti-trans tweets.
    Maya lost her job at a thinkthank after saying that transgender women cannot change their biological sex.
    Judge James Taylor, an employment judge, ruled that the 45 year old did “not have the protected characteristics of philosophical belief” and said her opinions were “absolutist”.

    1. I never thought I’d agree with JK Rowling on any political issue, but good for her to taking a stand. Hopefully this will be a start of the pushback against the transgender madness, which endangers women’s safety (men in changing rooms, women’s refuges, girl guide camps) and is utter madness.

      “Judge Taylor argued that the legal rights of a transgender person override Ms Forstater’s right to express her opinions, saying that she was responsible for “enormous pain that can be caused by misgendering a person”.

      “If a person has transitioned from male to female and has a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), that person is legally a woman. That is not something [Ms Forstater] is entitled to ignore. [Ms Forstater’s] position is that even if a trans woman has a GRC, she cannot honestly describe herself as a woman. That belief is not worthy of respect in a democratic society,” Taylor said.”

      2. Some time ago Rod Liddle wrote in the Spectator that he thought that ‘transgenderism’ would prove to be the last straw of political correctness that broke the camel’s back and that the public just would not stand for it.

        So far he has yet to be proved correct but how can the public actually do anything against court judgements if the politicians refuse to see that this nonsense has to stop?

        1. I’d hoped to see a few Brexit Party MPs elected, to inject an elect of common-sense into Parliament. Failing that, I’m hoping that the new Northern Tory MPs will do the job. I’m a soft Southerner myself, but I understand that those ‘oop North’ speak their mind and don’t mince their words.

          The safety of women and children is at stake. We simply cannot indulge this latest PC fad any longer.

      3. What I find comical is that the judge seems to put the opinions of the complainant as irrelevant. Why do these weirdos get such special treatment? How can one person’s opinions overrule those of another?

        Typical egotist. The judge should be reminded that being mentally ill does not make you special.

      4. What I find comical is that the judge seems to put the opinions of the complainant as irrelevant. Why do these weirdos get such special treatment? How can one person’s opinions overrule those of another?

        Typical egotist. The judge should be reminded that being mentally ill does not make you special.

  24. This excellent post under a DT article about the fact that the BBC has lost touch with the people summarises my views, and I expect the views of many of my friends here, very lucidly:

    William Raaf 20 Dec 2019 7:22AM

    Diversity with one blatant exception; diversity of thought. Only their rigid inhuman dogma allowed ; Political correctness, Identity Politics, Open Borders, Antidemocracy and Victim Culture. The new religion of the fundamentalists. And it’s not only the BBC and 95% of the MSM. This poison is injected in our education system, the civil service, the NGO’s, the judiciary, Big Tech and the police. It’s destroying free speech, freedom of thought,the meritocracy, the Enlightenment and Western civilisation. It is destroying the lives of millions upon millions. They already destroyed a country such as Sweden. They are the Orwellians. The new totalitarians. By far the biggest threat since WO2 and they are everywhere and seemingly unstoppable.

      1. Good morning Sue

        I know nothing about Stephen Cottrell. Has he peculiar opinions? Is he anti-Christ? Why will his appointment put the nail in the CofE’s coffin? I am not sure that another man or woman armed with a hammer is needed. Welby seems to be doing a pretty thorough job if destroying the CofE by himself.

        1. Cottrell believes that the CofE should actively support same sex marriage, the trans lobby and all related issues arising from modern cultural mores and has now stated that he did not tell one of his clergy that he should leave the church if he doesn’t like it – but unfortunately for him, said outburst happened at a meeting in front of 30 people. One man’s testimony might be questionable but as it is, Cottrell is clearly lying.

  25. Company Memo
    FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
    TO: All Employees
    DATE: December 1, 2019
    RE: Gala Christmas Party

    I’m happy to inform you that the company Christmas Party will take place on December
    23rd, starting at noon in the private function room at the Grill House. There will be a cash bar and plenty of drinks! We’ll have a small band playing traditional carols – feel free to sing along. And don’t be surprised if our CEO shows up dressed as Santa Claus! A Christmas tree will be lit at 1:00 PM. Exchanges of gifts among employees can be done at that time; however, no gift should be over $10.00 to make the giving of gifts easy for everyone’s pockets. This gathering is only for employees! Our CEO will make a special announcement at that time!

    Merry Christmas to you and your family,
    Patty

    Company Memo
    FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
    TO: All Employees
    DATE: December 2, 2019
    RE: Gala Holiday Party

    In no way was yesterday’s memo intended to exclude our Jewish employees. We recognize that Hanukkah is an important holiday, which often coincides with Christmas, though unfortunately not this year. However, from now on, we’re calling it our “Holiday Party.” The same policy applies to any other employees who are not Christians and to those still celebrating Reconciliation Day.
    There will be no Christmas tree and no Christmas carols will be sung. We will have other types of music for your enjoyment.
    Happy now?
    Happy Holidays to you and your family,
    Patty

    Company Memo
    FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
    TO: All Employees
    DATE: December 3, 2019
    RE: Holiday Party

    Regarding the note I received from a member of Alcoholics Anonymous requesting a non-drinking table, you didn’t sign your name. I’m happy to accommodate this request, but if I put a sign on a table that reads, “AA Only”, you wouldn’t be anonymous anymore. How am I supposed to handle
    this? Somebody?

    And sorry, but forget about the gift exchange, no gifts are allowed since the union members feel that $10.00 is too much money and the executives believe $10.00 is a little chintzy.

    REMEMBER: NO GIFTS EXCHANGE WILL BE ALLOWED.

    Company Memo
    FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
    To: All Employees
    DATE: December 4, 2019
    RE: Generic Holiday Party

    What a diverse group we are! I had no idea that December 20th begins the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which forbids eating and drinking during daylight hours. There goes the party! Seriously, we can appreciate how a luncheon at this time of year does not accommodate our Muslim employees’ beliefs. Perhaps the Grill House can hold off on serving your meal until the end of the party or else package everything for you to take it home. Will that work?
    Meanwhile, I’ve arranged for members of Weight Watchers to sit farthest from the dessert buffet,
    and pregnant women will get the table closest to the restrooms.

    Gays are allowed to sit with each other. Lesbians do not have to sit with Gay men, each group will have their own table. Yes, there will be flower arrangement for the Gay men’s table.

    To the person asking permission to cross dress, the Grill House asks that no cross-dressing be allowed, apparently because of concerns about confusion in the restrooms. Sorry.

    We will have booster seats for short people. Low-fat food will be available for those on a diet.

    I am sorry to report that we cannot control the amount of salt used in the food. The Grill House suggests that people with high blood pressure taste a bite first.

    There will be fresh “low sugar” fruits as dessert for diabetics, but the restaurant cannot supply “no sugar” desserts. Sorry!

    Did I miss anything?!?!?

    Patty

    Company Memo
    FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
    TO: All F….. Employees
    December 5, 2019
    RE: The F****** Holiday Party

    I’ve had it with you vegetarian pricks!!! We’re going to keep this party at the Grill House whether you like it or not, so you can sit quietly at the table furthest from the “grill of death,” as you so quaintly put it, and you’ll get your ****** salad bar, including organic tomatoes.

    But you know, tomatoes have feelings, too. They scream when you slice them. I’ve heard them scream. I’m hearing them scream right NOW!

    The rest of you ****** weirdos can kiss my ass. I hope you all have a rotten holiday!

    Drive drunk and die,

    The Bitch from Hell!!!

    Company Memo
    FROM: Joan Bishop, Acting Human Resources Director
    December 6, 2019
    RE: Patty Lewis and Holiday Party

    I’m sure I speak for all of us in wishing Patty Lewis a speedy recovery and
    I’ll continue to forward your cards to her.

    In the meantime, management has decided to cancel our Holiday Party and
    give everyone the afternoon of the 23rd off with full pay.

    Happy Holidays!

    Joan

      2. Morning M,
        Have you got a ginn palace on the corner of your street ?
        The voting pattern dictates that
        if not, you will have shortly.

    2. I find that women are more beautiful after I’ve had a jinn or two. I also become much more witty and attractive to the opposite sex.

      1. I’m much better looking after some beers, and the farting just puts the cherry on the cake!

  28. Cannot Corbyn leave it. He is still going on about the NHS being sold to the US

    And guess what Labour are not going to vote for the WA

    1. Does that mean Labour will abstain, or vote against? At least the latter follows (if I understand correctly) what Corbyn said earlier, that they would negotiate a WA then vote against it…

        2. Good. They all show just why they lost the election and get the drubbing they deserve.

          All we need do is reach across the floor and punch a few of the vile cretins.

  29. Corbyn is now ranting about US food standards. They define the maxim level of foreign substances that can be in food. The UK has similar legislation. The reality is a Zero level is not possible

    1. Maggots in orange juice…..just as I sat down to breakfast!

      PS Note to self….. must give the chlorinated chicken a miss.

    1. Two CalMac ferries at the centre of a political storm over cost and delays should be scrapped and work started again, it has been claimed.

      Industrialist Jim McColl has spoken out against the Scottish government’s plan to spend at least £110m on the part-finished ferries.

      He was in charge of the shipyard where the ferries were being built before it collapsed and was nationalised.

      Management of the yard has been sharply criticised in a new government report.

      The ferries were being constructed at Ferguson shipyard in Inverclyde to replace old ferries on Clyde and Hebridean routes operated by CalMac.

      They are more than a year overdue.

      In an exclusive interview with BBC Scotland, the former chairman of Ferguson Marine Engineering said he was taking legal advice on whether the Scottish government’s attack on his management was defamatory.

      He said the report into the ferry fiasco, drawn up for the government after it took ownership of the yard, was “outrageous” and a “snow job” to cover up the role of the government agency involved in procuring the ferries.

      Mr McColl said Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited, which required numerous design changes, was the key reason why the budget and timetable went out of control.
      The ship design uses a novel hybrid power system, using marine diesel for getting in and out of ports, and liquefied natural gas while at sea. The need for new safety certificates also caused delays.

      Mr McColl challenged the Scottish government’s plan to continue building the two ships, after months of neglect. One has been moored at the quayside and the other sits on the slipway at the Port Glasgow yard.

      That would effectively write off more than £80m already spent on them, while more than £45m in loans from the Scottish government have been written off.

      The businessman said some materials could be used in new hulls, but that it would be better value for taxpayer money to start building again, to a simpler design. He suggested three smaller ferries could be built for the same original £97m budget.

      ‘Remedial work’
      The report published this week was strongly critical of the management of Ferguson Marine while Mr McColl was chairman, saying it lacked project and financial controls.

      Internal controls were reported as poor or non-existent. It said that there had been a “major departure from the specification” and as a result of defects, most of the pipe work would have to be removed from the engine rooms.

      The attack on Mr McColl’s competence is despite his success in running engineering companies around the world. He gets closely involved in management and is reckoned to be a billionaire. His advice was sought by the Scottish government as a member of its Council of Economic Advisers.

      The report went on to estimate a £13m bill for remedial work on the hulls taking seven months, including removal of rust and a dry dock inspection of the first ferry’s hull. There would then be a £95m bill to complete the vessels.
      Whereas the ships were due to be delivered in summer 2018, the first one, the Glen Sannox, is now scheduled for delivery by December 2021 and the second, known as Vessel 802, by October 2022. But that is with only an 80% probability.

      There is, in addition, a warning of “significant challenges” to get the yard working effectively, to improve productivity, recruiting the right people and it flags up a problem in “controlling and managing” the sub-contracted design firm.

      Mr McColl, who accurately predicted the doubling in cost, said: “It’ll become more than that and the vessels will take longer than they’re saying.

      “You’d be better building from scratch and to a design that’s more suited to what’s needed. They could probably build three smaller vessels for less than £100m and it would give them more flexibility.”

      Facing criticisms for his own management, Mr McColl drew attention to the reports commissioned by Scottish ministers from an expert adviser over the past two years, which he says were “damning” of the role of the government-owned procuring company, CMAL.

      ‘Inquiry needed’
      Luke van Beek was appointed by economy secretary Derek Mackay to report back on the state of the project, with advice on whether government loans should be released.

      In a private report to ministers released under Freedom of Information law in October, Mr van Beek said that the breakdown of relations between the client and the shipbuilder should be addressed through mediation, and he advised against nationalisation of the yard.

      Mr McColl said the minister was “trying to put people off the scent”. Criticism of his management team was “outrageous and unacceptable – the team selected were some of the best in the UK, and head and shoulders above those in there now. I’ve asked if we can sue them for defamation of character”.

      He added: “There needs to be an inquiry. The way they’ve handled this is incompetent”.

      The Holyrood committee for the rural economy and connectivity is to carry out an inquiry into ferry procurement, looking into the contract that has gone so badly wrong and at the implications for future ferry services.

        1. Not sure what the life of a ferry is. Lets say 50 years that £2M a year added to the costs so far. There must be a hell of a lot of subsidies on these ferry services

      2. As discussed yesterday this is a failure of the Scottish government and its desire for nationalising everything.

        Instead of ranting about Independence and spitting anti-English bile they should attend to the real issues affecting their rotten economy.

      3. “Mr McColl said Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited, which required numerous design changes, was the key reason why the budget and timetable went out of control.”
        Design changes. The most frequent reason for projects going out of control and costing zillions more then expected. Changing the goalposts, (and sometimes the stadium) while the game is being played is insanity. It has happened on every major project in Scotland in the last twenty years. Scottish Parliament building, every PFI project, new hospitals, Borders Railway, Dundee V&A. Scottish Government, a self-perpetuating clique of a dozen politicians are much to blame.

          1. The problems have been used by no design freeze. the Scottish Parliament project started with no design at all.

    1. That though does not cover Intersex which is an umbrella label that covers a variety of genetic conditions and in some forms of it they can have XX & XY chromosomes

      1. XX & XY are the combinations which give normal female or male genomes, so your supposition is nonsense.

      2. BJ,
        You could say a dolly mix then ?
        Not to be confused with a golly mix NO racial
        connotations meant, honest to God, guv.

        Ps How about YYY Delilah then BJ ?

    2. The condition of having three sex chromosomes on each cell reveals itself more often not as men in frocks but in the form of Down’s Syndrome.

      3. Hmmmm… Not quite.

        Down’s Syndrome is caused by trisomy 21 & subjects are definitely male or female.

        Sex dysplasia’s are caused by abnormalities of the X & Y chromosome combinations – an entirely separate issue.

      1. Afternoon JBF,
        A much unjustly maligned politician first & foremost a man for ALL reasons, good qualities
        being truth-sayer, decency, integrity, and a sense of humour.
        PS.
        Treachery is NOT inclusive in his portfolio

  33. Short days… Oslo, sun-up 09:17, sun down 15:11 today. If there was any sun, that is.
    zzzzzzzzzzzzz……

  35. Didn’t take long
    “This is an elected dictatorship”
    Waaaaa it’s not fair
    Blaircoughblair,suck it up losers,it’s OUR turn now

    1. ‘Morning, Rik, Doesn’t this constitute a hate crime worthy of the PLAIT Team?

      Must be worth 28 days in chokey!

      1. …& deplorable. Still, if he’s over-exposed he’ll soon become passé – as nearly always happens.

        1. Well there is a real window of opportunity at the moment with all the momentum tantrums against laurak and the BBC and their claims that the BBC’s negativity about Corbyn cost them dear ….

    3. Don’t they mean ‘Fuck the British people’?

      How do the hell do these dopes think that Boris is sitting as PM today?

    1. Seriously, it’s getting like a bloody police state here. Where you have to watch every word you say.

    2. Dear flipping life.

      Must the Left label everything?

      It’s a man in a dress. We’ve all the right to say that. The second someone chains us to accepting someone else’s opinion over our own then we’re all doomed to slavery, silenced by an arrogant and unpleasant group who put themselves above us.

    3. I do hate this Cis nonsense that recurs in the comments on these issues on Twitter. I knew my godmother as Aunty Cis. She was the eldest child in a very large family and was chief carer for her siblings, who rarely used here given name and called her Cis as short for Sister. It stuck.

  38. President Donald Trump has demanded an immediate impeachment trial in
    the Senate, amid an impasse among Democrats and Republicans over when it
    may start.

    On Wednesday, the House impeached Mr Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

    Democrats have refused to start the proceedings, arguing the
    Republican-controlled Senate is refusing witnesses and will not hold a
    fair trial.

    Oh, the irony.

    1. House-Senate Impeachment Impasse Would Mean Trump Wasn’t Impeached At All: Harvard Law Prof

      “If the House does not communicate its impeachment to the Senate, it hasn’t actually impeached the president. If the articles are not transmitted, Trump could legitimately say that he wasn’t truly impeached at all.

      That’s because “impeachment” under the Constitution means the House sending its approved articles of to the Senate, with House managers standing up in the Senate and saying the president is impeached.

      As for the headlines we saw after the House vote saying, “TRUMP IMPEACHED,” those are a media shorthand, not a technically correct legal statement. So far, the House has voted to impeach (future tense) Trump. He isn’t impeached (past tense) until the articles go to the Senate and the House members deliver the message”. -Noah Feldman

      1. Sounds a bit like ” we actually left the EU on March 31st”
        You can always find a lawyer somewhere who will say anything you want him to.

        1. I don’t understand why these so called ‘progressive’ people constantly look backward to their losses, using legality to get what they want rather than accepting the result and looking forward, realising their policies were rejected.

      3. So far, the House has voted to impeach (future tense infinitive, although the implication is future) Trump. He isn’t impeached (past tense present tense, passive voice) until the articles go to the Senate and the House members deliver the message”. -Noah Feldman

    1. What a disgusting man. If Labour elect him as leader they will become an even bigger laughing stock than Jeremy Corbyn was. If that’s possible.

    2. As I’ve remarked before he is a nasty, vicious piece of work and will do well as Leader of the Labour Party – for the Conservatives.

  40. Rain suddenly replaced by bright sunshine and 16ºC.

    Must dash – delightful Dane about to arrive. Back later.

  41. From the Independent;
    “The European parliament could block Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal over the UK’s treatment of EU citizens, its Brexit coordinator has said.
    Guy Verhofstadt called for the “remaining problems” with citizens’ rights to be solved before consent could be given by the parliament, which is yet to vote on the agreement.
    MEPs are worried that problems with the UK’s settlement scheme for EU nationals could cause problems and leave some citizens with no immigration status.
    “Everyone presumes the European parliament will give automatically its consent to the withdrawal agreement. Not if the remaining problems with the citizens’ rights are not solved first,” Mr Verhofstadt said on Wednesday. “Citizens can never become the victims of Brexit.””

    My italics. We do not need the agreement of anyone to leave. We decidedly do not need their consent. Article 50 is clear. We just tell them. We just leave. If they do not like it, too bad. Let them do their worst. They could deprive us of German cars, French wine and cheese, Spanish oranges, Italian pasta, Greek olive oil, Polish pork. Oh, too bad, we’ll just buy what we need elsewhere. Japanese and Korean cars, wine and olive oil from South America, Oranges from the USA, pork from the UK. Strangely enough, there are lots of countries producing lots of produce that they would be delighted to sell to us.

    1. Leaving means that we have decided to leave. The idea is to stop being trapped in an organisation that we do not want to belong to any more.
      An agreement would be nice, but, Mr Verhoffishit, YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS ANY MORE.

      1. There is a simple process for EU national in the UK to register they have until the end of 2020 to do so

      2. The Julia Hartley-Brewer negotiation technique was needed from the very start. (Synopsis of the JH-B approach: we’re leaving – end of; we offer you a free trade agreement – take it or leave it; if you impose tariffs on us we shall retaliate with the same tariffs on you which would hurt you the more as we buy more from you than we sell to you. That’s it.)

        2. Afternoon R,
          Total severance nothing else should be acceptable .
          Do NOT let any of the political bastards loose with a pen without
          consultation from NON
          lab/lib/con members, but decent ordinary peoples.

        1. Indeed. I have one in my German class. She’s a disruptive PIA. In fact I’m thinking of having her removed next term.

          2. …it was der die Germans... (Plural definite article.) 😉

            Of all the liberated countries, the Belgians are the most ungrateful. I don’t need to repeat (Rastus please note) how they treated my 90+ yo father when he went to board Eurostar.

  42. WA Debate Second Reading

    There has been no real debate on the detail of the WA it is just various MP’s standing up and expressing their personal views on it

    The Vote takes place some time after lunch

    1. We have been rather repetitive about this (to the great annoyance of Peddy) and we have said that Boris Johnson has never been closely questioned about the contents of his ‘brilliant’ WA deal. He told us nothing, squashed TBP and won the election with a handsome majority

      He is now going to get away with avoiding giving any concrete answers to parliament.

      I suppose you have to admire his powers of evasiveness – but we shall not be so full of admiration if we find his ‘brilliant deal’ keeps us enslaved to the EU for the foreseeable future.

      2. Which I fear it does.

        The proper response was a pralianent that discusses the issue and then focussed on the fundamental obedience to the public will determined the only rational option was WTO.

        As it is, the Eu is getting a lot of money and we aren’t getting a huge amount for it and are giving away a lot.

    1. The argument was over in 2016. The only problem is a bunch of noisy children threw a tantrum.

      Those same children should have been told to shut up, get off the floor and behave themselves. Instead, the Left wing state and media indulged them ferociously.

  45. Welsh Assembly facing £4m bill to replace Tŷ Hywel windows

    Why are you responsible for the windows on a rented building. It is in the bay as well and not directly on the coast

    The body that runs the Welsh Assembly is considering replacing the windows at its rented offices at a cost of £4m.
    The Assembly Commission said the windows in Tŷ Hywel, next to the Senedd in Cardiff Bay, have “an increasing level of faults and failures”.
    The building’s “coastal environment” has led to “a reduced operational life” for the 28-year-old windows, it added.
    Tŷ Hywel is rented while the Senedd building, containing the debating chamber, is owned by the assembly.
    The Tŷ Hywel building, which houses offices and committee rooms, is owned by London-based Equitix Tiger English LP, a limited partnership registered with Companies House in December 2018.

    According to the commission’s budget report, the windows of the type in Tŷ Hywel have an expected operational life of 25 to 35 years but “the building’s location in a coastal environment has led to a reduced operational life”.

  46. Waste: How will Wales end landfill and incinerator use by 2050?

    A lot of it daft all the handling and moving around of things like nappies will waste more energy and cause more pollution. It might as well be incinerated which would be far more sensible and efficient

    Repair cafes, apps for selling clothes, and treatment facilities for hard-to-recycle items like nappies are some of the proposals in a new Welsh Government strategy on reducing waste.

      2. When I worked in the nursery department in Selfridges in the early 1980’s they still sold large quantities of toweling nappies. I recall the liners were also washable?

        1. Indeed, in the months between June 1966 and June 1967, I would remove the nappies from the bucket of Milton solution and wash both the terry nappies and the separate linings BY HAND before taking the Tube to go to work. Leaving a bucket with fresh Milton solution for the coming day’s load….

  47. VW hit with record fine in Australia over emissions scandal

    Volkswagen (VW) has been slapped with a record fine by Australia’s consumer watchdog to settle lawsuits over the carmaker’s global emissions scandal.
    The A$125m ($86m; £66m) penalty is the highest ordered by a court for breaches of Australian consumer law.

    1. If your name is Tommy Robinson, you get a longer prison sentence for reporting about the crime/criminals. than they get.

      Now if you are a retired General etc, a lying peadophile, with help from the PC Great and the Good (PC G&G), can strip y0u of your dignity, with his lies.

      The PC G&G go unpunished

    2. Has this menace not finished?

      Why has there not been an absolute crackdown on even the slightest sniff of this sort of thing, with brutal, vicious punishments for the perpetrators?

      1. W,
        The answer to that is within the ballot booth
        ask any supporting the toxic trio why they are
        voting for mass uncontrolled immigration / paedophile umbrella parties ?
        This nations border force are not content with what we have, they are going into the Channel and bringing more in instead of returning them
        to the other side.
        We are getting the good ,the bad, & the ugly, with no checks.

  52. Just seen pictures in the Telegraph of floods all around Gatwick. Guess where I’m flying to on Sunday?
    :-((

    1. The people who’ve used the rogue airport parking firms round there have the most to fear. The fields their cars have been dumped in are probably underwater.

      1. I cannot understand why people who own cars worth tens of thousands of pounds want to save a few pounds on car parking charges by using cheapo establishments.

  55. Lib-Dems and their 2030 date to become Carbon neutral

    Has anyone told them there is no viable alternative for planes. A few small companies are looking at battery powered light aircraft one company claimed to have got one that ca take off and then land on battery power , Not that useful though. For commercial aircraft battery power is not viable. For a start it can take 10 years to develop an engine and get it type approved. Then there is the little issue of weight and volume an the fire and explosion risk of large volumes of Lithium batteries. Most courier companies will not transport them for that reason

      1. Well for trips across the channel a human cannonball machine with some nets at Calais to catch them when landing

    2. The Oirish way

      A long electrical cable plugged into a socket in Shannon Control Tower

      Completely viable, until The Resident EU Commissar puts the kettle on, using the same socket

    3. Well they managed a flight round Vancouver harbour (just one) and are claiming that they could do most of their short haul charters to remote fishing camps with electric planes.

      I wonder if they have thought about how they will recharge the batteries after they land on some God forsaken lake in then middle of nowhere!

    1. Boris is looking at Keir Starmer with the same expression of contempt with which Mrs May looked at Jeremy Corbyn.

      1. He is not a happy chappie as he knows he cannot stop Brexit

        The real work now starts ones the bill is passed and we move to the trade negotiations

        1. Trade would have been far, far easier to negotiate under a WTO basis.

          The EU would be on it’s knees, desperate for cash. Germany would frantically need a decent trade deal to keep it’s economy alive.

          The combination of Germany in need and the EU nursing several broken ribs from British punches and we’d get anything we wanted.

          As it is, trade will now be far trickier.

    2. Sukker Starmer (Holborn & St Pancras, Lab) now on his feet, in essence, bemoaning the fact that they can no longer block the WA.

      Best moment so far:
      Stephen Barclay for the Government addressing Sukker as the member for Holborn & St Pancreas.{:^))

    3. That’s what you get when you outsource (ghastly expression) your medical staff like the Swedes do.

      2. She looks far more attractive in this photo than she did in that frumpy outfit yes’day.

        1. The media love to show the Queen and the Duke as withered and a bit batty. They are far from that.

      3. Why do I imagine her saying ‘A powerful Sith you will be!’ before blasting Corbyn with force lightning?

        The war queen took me to see Rise of Skywalker. Probably one for Meredith McKay – it’s an incoherent mess. Give it a miss. Dinner and naughties were good though.

    1. The whole incident was dealt with in a remarkably unintelligent way.
      i) the ambulance took ages to arrive; could the lad have survived if there had been a helicopter available?
      ii) there must be medical personnel on a military base that size; why weren’t they called?
      iii) thanks to the publicity, everyone knows that the base is home to NSA employees; any American children at school locally could now be targeted by those um, you know, those people who worship peace.

  64. Cobyns Socialist Sweden

    Most of the Swedish Health Service is now Outsourced. You have to pay a small charge to use most health services. Sweden probably has one of the best Health Services in the world

    Average cost of an emergency room visit: 300 kr (£30, US$38, and AU$47.5)

    Average cost of a doctor’s visit: 200 kr (£20, US$25, and AU$31)

    One-day hospital stay 100 kr £10

    Primary care visit 100- 300 kr £10 to £30

    Specialist visit 400 kr £40

    12 months of prescriptions (maximum) 2,200 kr £220

    In case of emergency, the number to dial is 112. Emergency care is available for everyone including those without state health insurance or without a GP, such as tourists. However, once you’re recovered they’ll want proof of your travel or international insurance.

    Emergency cases are treated immediately. Some counties may charge a fee for ambulance or helicopter service, but this is capped at 1,100 kr. £11

    If you’re visiting Sweden temporarily, you can get medical treatment at any of the public facilities. If you’re a visitor from a country in the EU or EEA, you can access healthcare in Sweden using your European Health Insurance Card (EHIC). Tourists from non-EU/EEA countries don’t have an automatic right to free or reduced-cost healthcare; you’ll need to show proof of insurance from your country or comprehensive travel insurance.

    1. During my 3-year stay in Sweden I did not pay one single krona for medical treatment. Perhaps it was because I was in the “club”.

    2. S&H had a heart attack in Serbia. First class medical treatment, free for emergencies, everything else you pay for. Serbia is not in the EEA, so no EHIC, but the lad had more than adequate insurance.

    4. Similar scale of fees in Norway, except the [Norwegian] numbers are about 50% bigger. No charge for Inpatient care.
      ps: the 50% does not affect the telephone number for ambulance… ;-))
      [Edited in text for clarity]

      1. I think the charge in Sweden is effectively a small charge for board and meals

        Of the Health services in Europe the UK is almost unique in having no upfront charges and the UK is almost unique in not charging tourist for health care

        1. The NHS is supposed to charge tourists for treatment but nobody can be bothered to go through the rigmarole of doing the paperwork & collecting the money.

        2. ” UK is almost unique in not charging tourist for health care “

          Remember though, UKtax/NI payers are charged for tourists, visiting UK, health care

          1. Yes we are almost unique as well in not requiring tourist to pay for their health treatment in the UK

            If we got a proper cost for all this and expressed it as £xxx pound per UK taxpayer people might become more concerned about it

    1. I’m still unhappy about our paying anything to the EU. There’re an awful lot of holes in the WA.

      Without any money fomr us, the EU would literally be finished. With a great wodge of cash it keeps going. The bastards needed to be taught a lesson. They’ve escaped that.

    2. It indicate there were probably a 124 Rebels. This assumes all the opposition parties were whipped

      It now passes to the Committee Stage

    1. Impressive.

      Perhaps she could make an effective full sized model of you for a potager scarecrow.

    1. Nice BTL “These people couldn’t smell [the] coffee if they had 6 coffee beans pressed up each nostril.”

      1. …and is a particularly nasty piece of work. Surely you’ve seen him pontificating on ‘Look East’? He’s their ‘goto’ lefty and now almost the only one in the whole of East Anglia apart from Cambridge. Yeuch!

        ‘Morning, Anne.

    5. Lewis’ first job was as a security guard at in London.

      After completing a post-graduate diploma in journalism, he worked on local newspapers in Northampton and before being accepted into the BBC’s News Trainee Scheme.

      He went on to work as a broadcast journalist in Nottingham, Norwich, and Coventry.

      He then became a senior broadcast journalist and the main reporter on the BBC’s s Politics Show East.

      No problems with him being open-minded, after his BBC Training

      Having a female wife, lets him down a bit though

      .

    1. Of course there will be criticisms about the small print, etc.
      Hopefully all will go smoothly, and the Remainers and EU, and the Labour Party too, learn how to co-operate.

      1. Couldn’t give a stuff about the EU. It can, and should burn.

        Remainers needed to be shown their place – under the boot of democracy. I don’t care what they want. They wouldn’t if they had won. Their loudmouhted wailing needs silencing.

    2. I just hope too that we are not sat here in a year’s time, but if we were all sitting here, it would be OK.

  69. Parliament at the moment is discussing the proposal to make Southend a City.
    Jeremy Corbyn opposes this, because he got a kick up his Southend only recently.

      1. You’re not that far out. Who would expect Sarfend to have a posh Latin motto?

        “PER MARE PER ECCLESIAM” – Through the sea through the Church.

    1. Not seen it before. Wonder who wrote it. It’s very good. Should be translated into Urdu, Swahili, etc. and posted on the Labour Party eb page.

      I like this “gruesome twosome, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Angela Rayner”
      Good description.

      2. List their names, then cwe can check what they promised prior to the GE.

        If they reneged, take away the whip and call for By elections

  73. Technical question. I do not have “premium” access to bthe DT. This morning, I clicked on the DT letters – and the usual thing happened – first one then the next fading out.

    A bit later, I clicked impatiently – and the whole bunch appeared – clear as crystal. Can’t get them again, of course – but does any IT expert have a clue why this might have happened – and how to make it happen again?

    2. Someone said that if you keep clicking escape as the page is loading it will all load. That was with the Speccie i think.

      2. Shhhh… but if you use ublock and a social media annoyances filter you can get rid of all sorts of cruft.

        I especially like that it now allows you to dismiss the pinterest nonsense, although, to be honest I don’t see why anyone would use it. It’s just links to other pages.

  74. After less than six months on the market, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has found a buyer for his former North London home, according to listing records.
    The Islington townhouse, which was on the market for £3.75 million (US$4.8 million), sold in September, according to listing records. But the transaction has yet to hit public property records, therefore the identity of the buyer and final sale price are not yet available.

  75. University of Hertfordshire incident sees teenager ‘slashed’ during group fight

    A teenager suffered slash wounds to his arm after a group fight at the University of Hertfordshire.

    Officers were dispatched at around 3am yesterday, (Thursday, December 19), following reports of an altercation between a group of people in Newton Court, Roberts Way, in Hatfield.

    An 18-year-old man sustained a slash wound to his arm during the incident, which required stitches.

    A University spokesperson said: “We are aware of an incident on College Lane campus in the early hours of Thursday morning. The University takes all incidents of this kind extremely seriously and we are working with the police to investigate the full details.”

    1. I’m surprised a Special prosecutor hasn’t been appointed to look at the misdemeanours under the Obama administration. Mind you I think the Prosecutor would probably need a 24/7 bodyguard….

    2. The spitting is horrible but the placing of an index finger up one nostril and blowing snot through the other is deplorable. Imagine being tackled To the ground and finding yourself covered in snot.

  79. Woman dies in Welsh hospital after six-hour wait for ambulance

    The NHS is devolved in Wales and is the responsibility of the Welsh Assembly

    I am not entirely clear as to why they could not have moved her inside if it were just a fractured ankle. There seemed to sufficient people to move her safely

    A 47-year-old woman died after falling outside her home and waiting for several hours on a cold pavement for an ambulance.
    Donna Gilby was unable to move after breaking her foot in the fall on a residential street in the village of Cwmaman in south Wales.
    Gilby’s family claim she there for almost six hours until an ambulance arrived, during which time neighbours and relatives covered her with coats and blankets to try to keep her warm.
    She was eventually collected and taken to hospital, where she later died of cardiac arrest.
    The Welsh ambulance service accepted that the response took longer than it would have liked and it has launched an investigation. It said an increase in the number of high-priority “red” calls and significant hospital handover delays were affecting its response times.

    It they have not dispatched an ambulance and they have not got one available one can reasonably assume a wait and if the injury is minor provided enough people are there it should be safe to move the patient. It would be safer than leaving someone lying on the pavement in the cold

    I would have thought the call handler could access the extent of the injury as well and advice them to move the patient into the warm

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/woman-dies-in-welsh-hospital-after-six-hour-wait-for-ambulance/ar-BBYalhL?ocid=spartandhp

      1. ” Why did they not move her inside, call a taxi or use a private car?”
        She couldn’t be moved. And an isolated location, I thinlk.

          2. I walked home with a torn ligament once.

            It was agony, I stopped a lot, each time like a hammer to my knee. You damned well keep going because the alternative is indolence.

        1. Hmm. My lean weight is about 110kg. Now, if I can bench press that amount then that’s liftable by two people to get her upright on to one foot. Then she can hobble into a car.

          It’ll hurt – oh it will hurt – but then they take her to hospital. Her family chose not to move her.

    3. …”she’d struggled with her weight and ill health for years.” Sounds like an accident waiting to happen.

  81. Leeds 15 Telford 4 – this is not a rugby or handball score, it’s simply this week’s Muslim Grooming Gang count.

    1. Evening LD,
      You are going against the grain there, the grain being the three monkey, party first, pro PC / Appeasement brigade, the Jay report & the ballot booth proves that.

  82. That’s me for the day. Jigsaw (and the MR) calling.

    A demain – the Shortest Day – then the days start getting longer, thank God.

    1. Bill, I hate to correct you once again, but in point of fact the shortest day this year will be Monday the 23rd of December. It is my birthday which is on the 21st.

        1. Sorry, Bill, I think that I have been unkind to you in recent days. My apologies. I must try harder (not to be so rude). In case we do not comment on each other’s posts in the next few days, a very Merry Christmas to you and the Most Recent and every best wish for the New Year.

      2. Greetings, Mum.

        You know how loathe I am to contradict you (lest you withhold my plum crumble); well, it looks like I’ll have to make my own pudding tonight.

        The time of the winter solstice for 2019 is 04:19 hrs GMT on Sunday, December 22, in London. That makes that date the shortest day.

        Confirmation can be seen on this chart: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/london?month=12

        It clearly shows the following lengths of daylight hours:

        Fri 20. 7:49:52
        Sat 21. 7:49:44
        Sun 22. 7:49:43 (shortest)
        Mon 23. 7:49:48
        Tue 24. 7:50:00

        I hope this doesn’t spoil your birthday!

        Olaf. :•)

        1. Oi you two, keep your family disputes in house.

          Last time I looked, all days were 24 hours plus or minus a few bits.

        2. Now look here, Sonny Boy, climb up on my knee and listen carefully to the following:

          I don’t live in London, but in Colchester. On Sunday the 22nd daylight hours run from 8.02 to 15.48 [7hrs 46mins], on Monday the 23rd from 8.03 to 15.48 [7hrs 45mins], and on Tuesday the 24th from 8.03 to 15.49 [7hrs 46 mins].

          Quod Erat Demonstrandum (Latin for QED).

          Nah nah na nah nah! (Sticks out tongue!)

        3. Now then, Sonny Boy, just climb up on my knee and listen carefully:

          First of all I live in Colchester and not in London. And the figures for daylight hours in Colchester are as follows:

          On Sunday the 22nd from 8.02 to 15.48 [7 hrs and 46 mins]
          On Monday the 23rd from 8.03 to 15.48 [7 hrs and 45 mins]
          On Tuesday the 24th from 8.03 to 15.49 [7 hrs and 46 mins]

          Quod Erat Demonstrandum (That’s Latin for QED).

          Nah nah na nah nah! (Sticks out tongue.)

          3. The shortest ordinal number has five letters, so ‘first’ has no superiority, but it is numerically the leader.

        1. You are so right, OLT. I shall write to Mr Cole Porter and ask him to change his song lyrics from “Night and Day” to “Night-time hours and Daylight hours” and get Mr Frank Sinatra to re-record the song.

  83. Harry Dunn crash death: US woman to be charged

    A US woman will be charged with causing the death of teenage motorcyclist Harry Dunn by dangerous driving.
    Mr Dunn, 19, died in a road crash in Northamptonshire in August that led to suspect Anne Sacoolas leaving for the US under diplomatic immunity.
    The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it had started extradition proceedings through the Home Office.
    US officials said it was not “a helpful development” and Mrs Sacoolas’ lawyer said she would not return to the UK.
    Lawyer Amy Jefress said: “Anne will not return voluntarily to the UK to face a potential jail sentence for what was a terrible but unintentional accident.”

    1. terrible but unintentional accident

      Intentional events are not accidents

      If she gets away with this, a precendence has been set

      Sorry guv, I did not mean to do it: OK Mrs American Lady, orf you go back home.

      Has the British Government analysed the figures of how many Brits have been sent to the US to stand trial if not why not

    2. I’m surprised the charge is ‘causing death by dangerous driving’ as I’d have thought ‘causing death by careless driving’ would be more appropriate. Perhaps it will will bartered down. As for the US officials’ comment, WTF did they expect – a Happy Holidays card from the Dunns?

  84. Photo ID for Voting

    I was listening on the Radio to people views on this the vast majority of people were in favor of it including people involved in the running of polling stations
    The few that were against it came up with very contrived reason for not having it such as cost but the government made it quite clear that there would be no cost to obtain a Photo ID card if they did not have a passport or driving licence. I suspect as well that when the full details of the scheme are published that Pensioners bus passes and disability bus passes would be acceptable photo ID as with this you have to prove who you are to get one

    Others tried to claim it would be to difficult to fill the form in but it would be no more complex than registering to vote. Photo ID is also already required to vote in NI

      1. There was certainly evidence of people trying to vote twice. People who had registered for a Postal vote were turning up at polling stations and trying to vote there as well. Fortunately the system stops this as the register indicates who has registered for a Postal vote. When challenged they either claimed they had not registered for a postal voter or had forgotten. now that not impossible but highly unlikely as they would have received the post voting forms

    2. We have to show ID to get into pubs and clubs nowadays, it’s amazing that we don’t need ID to vote. I suspect that the people who “profess too much” on this issue are the ones who benefit the most from voter fraud.

      Does anyone know what Boris proposes to do on postal voting? To my mind that’s the area most open to abuse. It should go back to only being in exceptional circumstances like physical incapacity or being overseas in the armed forces.

      1. They have already tightened up on postal voting but are looking at even stronger security. The forms have to be signed but it is very difficult to quickly validate signatures. They may look at adding phone verification similar to what the banks are using banks are using now

    3. I would challenge if you cannot prove your identity through some simple documentation then you should not be allowed to vote.

      As it is I am rather concerned that through the voting slip you’re given you are actually identifiable.

  85. Paramedics braced for alcohol-related call every two minutes on biggest party night of year

    A £50 charge for attending to drunks that will soon stop them

    Paramedics were today gearing up for their busiest-ever shift — with one alcohol-related incident expected every two minutes during London’s biggest party night of the year.
    Medical chiefs have urged Christmas revellers to drink responsibly and avoid putting extra pressure on the over-burdened London Ambulance Service. This week the Standard spent a night with a paramedic crew on shift as office workers hit the town.

    Shortly after 11pm a call came in reporting that a woman in her fifties had been found unconscious at a McDonald’s in Oxford Street. She had been at her company’s party and told paramedics she was so drunk she did not know how to get home to north London. After she asked for the ambulance to take her home, one paramedic replied: “We’re an emergency service, not a taxi.” Eventually she was taken to A&E at University College Hospital

  86. Islington Council to spend £13.5m on temporary accommodation properties as landlords take rental homes off market

    It comes as an increasing number of landlords in the borough are taking their homes off the market for such use.

    Government statistics revealed on Wednesday show as of June there were more than 59,000 London families in often-unsuitable temporary homes, and more than 88,000 children.
    Islington Council’s figures are not included, but in March there were 553 families in temporary accommodation, and 727 children.

    2. Presumably a knock back thank’s to Corbyn’s threat to force landlords to sell their property at a discount to sitting tenants.

      1. And the tax on profits from letting second and third property. They don’t seem to do much joined up thinking.

        1. Yep. Those are passed on now in higher rents.

          Government doesn’t seem to look at A and realise that B is the consequence.

      1. I can’t help thinking: what if the protester was sufficiently crazy to be a suicide bomber?

        The audience in question would have been a “high value target”

    5. It’s the complete lack of accepting consequences or taking responsibility. It was her fault. She shouldn’t have been there. If she hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have handled her out.

      The fault was hers.

  90. Off topic.

    I pre-ordered two Christmas hampers from Loch Fyne for presents to friends. A month later they came back to me and said that one of the hampers was unavailable. Given that they were advertising a product that they didn’t actually have, plus my having to arrange with the recipient a time and date just before the 25th i was a bit peeved. The second hamper was to be delivered to me as it was for my neighbour.

    They tried to get me to re-order something else but i didn’t think at that time i could rely on them. And told them so in quite a forceful but polite way. They tried another weedling tactic and by this time i had had enough. I told them i would be putting in a complaint to Trading Standards and i would potentially seek damages. They were told to return all money i had paid immediately.

    The following Monday all money was returned. About £250 in total.

    This afternoon i received a hamper. The more expensive one which wasn’t destined for my neighbour. So they even managed to cock up that part of the delivery too.

    Suddenly i am awash with luxury goodies from an order that was cancelled and refunded.

    Merry Christmas !

      1. I don’t think so. My charge for storing an unsolicited time dated parcel would probably exceed the value of the hamper.

    2. After your earlier experiences with LF why do you persist with them?

      Let me guess:

      In the hope that you will get the refund and the order?

      1. The company that hawks Loch Fyne products isn’t actually Loch Fyne itself. The restaurants are franchises and they are not Loch Fyne either. Only the original remains Loch Fyne.

        I ordered these hampers early November in anticipation of Christmas.

        The recent meal at Gunwharf Loch Fyne was the shit coloured icing on the cake.

        The Winchester Loch Fyne remains well run so i will be going there in future.

        You traduce me Sir ! The disaster with the meal i made it clear i didn’t want any money off and i even paid the surcharge tip. But wouldn’t be returning.

        1. I’m sceptical of them after a few bad experiences in Cambridge.

          I had not realised that they are mostly franchises.
          The main company needs to take quality control a lot more seriously!

        2. The Loch Fyne we visited at the top of Milsom Street in Bath a few years back was excellent. My wife enjoyed the Lobster and I settled for the basic Haddock and chips.

          As with all franchises they are only as good as the operators.

          On that occasion we also dined at Brown’s located in the Old Prison at the side of the Town Hall on the site opposite Orange Grove. The steak was as good as ever.

    3. Yo Phil

      I have found House of Bruar to be completely reliable for hampers (and all other items). I don’t know how they compare with Loch Fyne for contents/price but from my quick perusal of the LF website, I think HoB may be better. Check them out on http://www.houseofbruar.com

      Their switchboard operatives are all charming despite coming from the same neck of the woods as VOB. 0345 136 0111 open from 9:00am tomorrow morning and see what they can do to help (expedited UK delivery £7.95 which would get it delivered on Monday or Tuesday) I see they have a separate ‘Hamper Line’ 0345 322 7655 which I haven’t tried.

      Happy Christmas!

      1. Thank you Michael. I will make a note of that. Once i knew they had cocked up i made other arrangements.

        When i neeed use H.OB i will tell them i know a VOB near them and if they don’t surpass Loch Fyne i will unleash him !

    5. The cashmere jumper my wife ordered from John Lewis for my present never arrived. When we checked with Hermes they claimed to have delivered to our home address (we told them we would be out) and claimed that someone in our house had signed for it. The signature was a scratch mark with no attempt even at a recognisable name.

      After an exchange of phone calls and emails, such as to make one wish to depart this life, Hermes admitted that our parcel had been left with a property several hundred yards from our home. John Lewis meanwhile promised a full refund.

      I dislike Hermes which having once been a good delivery service is now to be distrusted. Their drivers are often Eastern European with no command of the English language, they attempt to knock the front door down and try to pass off parcels from an adjacent village seemingly in order to dispose of their obligation to deliver to the right address.

      Being cynical I suspect the truth is that Hermes have been infiltrated by Albanian thieves who claim to have made deliveries but simply steal the goods.

      Edit: The EU just keeps on giving to the destruction of our country.

      1. We get a much better class of East European delivery drivers round our way. The expression is ‘Poles apart’, I believe.

      2. I have had a similar experience. I have cctv coverage with a time and date stamp. They said the delivery was made when it clearly wasn’t. All i needed to do was inform the depot manager of this and the problem was sorted. There are 4 or 5 different carriers that deliver to me and many are from Europe but i have on the whole found them very polite. Also, particularly at this time of year they are under a great deal of pressure.

      3. Sigh… I had the same experience with an Amazon order a couple of weeks ago. Hermes claimed to have left it in my porch, with an accompanying photo on the tracking page. I don’t have a porch. Simultaneously, Amazon emailed to say that the courier had found no-one in, and had taken the package away. This was nonsense, since (a) I was in all day, (b) no card was left, and (c) my video doorbell would have picked up any motion. It is impossible to report this kind of thing, either via the website, by email or phone. I wasted the best part of a morning trying to sort it out.

        Finally, I got through to Amazon, and after a very long conversation with a not terribly bright American lady, they refunded the money. I ordered another, and that turned up the following day, via Amazon’s own courier. No problem at all.

        A week later, a total stranger rang the doorbell. Hi – I’m Saskia. We’ve moved into redacted. We’re just back from holiday, and this was in our porch…

      4. A delivery by Hermes intended for us was put in a household bin in a village two miles away. It was signed for, Hermes claimed. We only received the delivery when the man who’s bin it was in drove to our house with it. That was several days later as the bin was not in use, being an old metal one and not the one provided by the Council. The house names were similar, but that was all. Our local Hermes man, possibly a subcontractor as he has being doing it for years, is dreadful. We have a sign on our front door, ” knock loudly, if not in please leave parcel round the back.”. He does not. He has left parcels as big lumps under the doormat. He has put parcels into our rubbish bin. This is next to the street and is emptied by the Council. He bends “fragile” parcels in half to cram them through the letterbox.
        I always ask anyone who is going to send me something to send it by Royal Mail. Our postie is excellent.

        1. Coming down from a short burst of work on the shed t’other day, I found a parcel on the doorstep.
          As the DT was expecting a delivery (NO, not one of those deliveries) I presumed that was it.
          No it wasn’t, it belonged to Tufa Cottage a mile & a half up the Via Gellia!

          1. That’s entirely your own fault.

            Having created the personna of being a thoroughly nice chap, people play on your gentlemanly aspects.

            Delivery driver: “I’m lost, do you know where Throstlemarch cottage is?”

            Villager: “I haven’t a clue, leave it with Bob of Bonsall, he’s a good bloke, he’ll get it to it’s destination”

          2. We aren’t that far from Bob, and since we are right on the minor road through our “hamlet”, which is a scattered collection of houses, all with the same post code, we regularly get lost delivery drivers asking for directions. DPD are very good, Hermes not so good!

            One numptie posted something through a neighbour’s letter box (they were away on holiday) despite it requiring a signature, and then presumably forged an illegible squiggle himself as the firm tried to claim it had been delivered – after a replacement had been delivered (by another delivery company!) , the neighbour returned and delivered the original, which proved the driver had been lying – no apology from that delivery company, though!

          3. I can’t understand all the trouble the people above are having with deliveries. Why not buy your hamster from a local pet shop?

            :-))

        2. Certainly all the Amazon delivery people are froeigners. They rely upon sat nav from the barcode scanner. They can’t read the address as most don’t speak English. If you’re not in, put the parcel in the bin or somewhere else absurd, such as in pouring rain a cardboard box by the door.

          As regards the mail, I’ve regularly brought my neighbour’s parcels to them. Bless them, they put a note on it and still the postman sent it to me. I answered the door once and read the note out to him.

      5. I’ve used or suggested Hermes for delivery here several times over the last year. Very efficient and no problems of any kind.
        Mainly English guys, a couple that weren’t English, all first class.
        A number of years back, Hermes were best and cheapest, then went down the drain and everyone ditched them. They now seem to be back on top again.
        This signature thing is a bit of a joke. Comes out as a scribble on the pad when you do it. Sometimes the delivery guys don’t bother and do it themselves to save time, which is naughty. But time is money to them, and I don’t think they are paid that well.

        1. When you’re paid by the number of deliveries you make there’s no incentive to put any effort in.

          I do wonder if they’re legally allowed to work here. After all, what effort are Amazon going to put in to it? They’re hiring contractors who can tick a box to say they are allowed to work in the UK when they aren’t, either not caring or not knowing the law.

      6. CCTV. I recommend something like a Nest cam, which will zap a warning to your mobile phone if strangers appear within a ‘zone’ that you can delineate. The doorbell-type cameras are not so good because people steal them.
        Edited: others have opted for cctv.

        1. I have a single CCTV camera which monitors all deliveries on our drive. I checked the record and could find no evidence of a delivery at the time given by Hermes. This was a factor in the admission by Hermes that they had not delivered to my door.

          Two years ago my CCTV captured a couple of Gypsies stealing my car covers. We put covers on our cars to collect the pidgeon shit and debris from our TPO oak tree which overhangs and straddles our parking area.

          The Police are yet to identify the thieves but you may be sure that they were Irish Travellers from nearby Ridgewell where they are accommodated and from whence they launch their attacks on Co-ops and cash machines in places like Sible Hedingham, Halstead, Earls Colne and Cottishall.

        2. My Ring doorbell wouldn’t be much use if someone stole it. It has no internal battery, a security screw holding the cover on, and is registered to my account. I have a Nest thermostat, but opted for the Ring product. It can detect motion like the Nest cam, and I’ve answered the door from afar on several occasions.

  91. Back in Dec 1987ish I recorded ( on a compact cassette ) a carol concert on R4, transmitted from Liverpool Philharmonic Hall and hosted and narrated by Richard Baker, it has all the usual favourite carols interspersed with readings from Dylan Thomas and Charles Dickens, I found the tape on a recent delve into my box of stuff and have just converted it to .mp3 . I’m listening to it now for the first time in many years and am both full of joy and delight but also a little bit of sadness at the loss of the likes of Richard Baker and the loss of the type of program that allows the expression and appreciation of all that is good about the UK.

    1. Dear Uncle Beastly

      As you may or may not know, I am currently de-cluttering my “stuff” and I have two very large boxes choc-a-block each full to the brim with cassettes. Can you point me in the direction of how to convert these to .mp3s. And, sorry to be so tech-ignorant, but what exactly is an .mp3? Is it a file which sits on the computer or is it a kind of memory stick which plugs into the laptop in order to be played. (By the way, I do not have a cassette player. Do I have to buy one and – more importantly – are they still available?)

      Yours in supreme ignorance

      Elsie Bloodaxe (Mrs)

      1. Hi Elsie,

        An MP3 is a computer file, typically containing music. It can be play by opening the file or by being played by ‘Juke Box’ program such as iTunes.
        You can create an MP3 file for a cassette by hooking up the audio outputs of your stereo to the audio inputs of the soundcard on your PC. You’d then play the cassette while recording it on your PC via a piece of software. These software should also allow you to cut the music file into individual songs and apply suitable filters to remove tape hiss and the like. These files would also have to have various attributes applied eg song name, artist, album name, album date. Then the files could be imported into your jukebox program for later enjoyment.

        Be warned though that it is a time consuming job. I spent the best part of three years converting some 900 albums on cassette and vinyl and had just finished when along came Pirate Bay where I found I could download most of what I’d worked upon, and better quality (i.e. from CD) too.

        It;s really only a task to be undertaken if you cannot find an easily available digital alternative.

      2. Greetings EB, an .mp3 file is an audio format file that’s pretty much readable by most computers , apple and android devices and is transportable on memory sticks, CDs or DVDs. Yep – you need a cassette player, a device to convert audio to mp3 and if you’re picky an audio editor to tidy up the result oh and quite a bit of time as it has to be done in real time, I’m lucky as I’m blessed with all these requirements. If you have something that’s particularly precious to you I’d be happy to help

        1. Thank you, Uncle B. I think my first step will be to source a cassette player, a device such as you suggested and an audio editor. Until I can listen to the tapes (not all of which are songs) can I decide what I want to keep. I think that Google and Richer Sounds might be the next port of call. The time needed will indeed be great, but I reckon that by tackling one cassette per day I might be able to get my tapes organised (or disposed of) by the end of next year. Many thanks!

      3. One alternative is to see if the music (video or just audio) is on Youtube. I use a programme called Viddly to download the file, either as an MP4 (Video) or directly as an MP3 (audio).
        As for any copyright issues, well, I had hundreds of tracks on compilation cassettes (Rock, Soul, Blues etc) which I had bought legitimately at the asking price, so I concluded that downloading the electronic version was not cheating anyone of their royalties, and was considerably less time-consuming than converting cassettes.

  92. VERY LAST POST (possibly for ever – one never knows)

    While having a glass of medicine and doing some jigsaw – and having supper, and then doing the washing up – I reflected on what Elise and Grizz said about my comment about tomorrow being the shortest day.

    Looking at the stats that Grizz posted, I should, perhaps, have said that the night of 21/22 December would be the longest night.- after which – albeit slowly – the nights begin to shorten.

    Good night.

    2. It’s funny how it feels like a big deal every year and yet the seasons roll on as they always have. I told my alarm clock it was lying this morning. OK it was 7.30 but so dark it felt like the middle of the night.

      Goodnight Bill!

    5. We just disposed of an inherited property and now have money in the bank for the first time in twenty years.

      When we sell our present property to scale down we should be able to actually enjoy our semi-retirements.

      Whilst I have a State Pension plus a small but equivalent Private Pension, my wife has to wait until 2022 for her State Pension so it is above all with some relief that we now live finally without fear of having to work flat out for a minuscule small profit and of the next bill arriving.

    7. Don’t bother with ‘Very last post’ threats, Bill. I did that, and got pilloried.
      (And I am fully expecting what comes next.)

      1. One man’s threat is another man’s unfulfilled promise.

        May you both live to be even older than you look.

        };-O

        Difficult, I suspect

  93. I see that once again Our Robert is TOTP BTL@DTletters

    “Robert Spowart 20 Dec 2019 4:02AM
    SNP MP Douglas Chapman tells us that the his party’s stance on independence in a future referendum would be boosted by the votes of European citizens and 16- and 17-year-olds begs the question of why should non-Scots be voting on the future of Scotland.

    Also, his inclusion of 16 & 17 year olds speaks volumes for the political indoctrination that must be taking place in Scottish schools.”

  94. Just a thought but I watched the new Speaker on TV saying that he expected conventions to be respected and that the previous Speaker would be offered a Peerage.

    My initial thought is that since Bercow broke about every convention in the book, showing himself to be atrociously partisan and disrespectful of anyone not holding similar views to his own combined with his bullying of staff in his office and bumptiousness, I would actually be surprised if he were to be offered a Peerage.

    I sincerely hope that Boris advises the Queen against ennobling the little prick.

    3. ” Here is a Labour MP, Afzal Khan, swearing his Parliamentary oath in Urdu.”
      He is swearing an oath before Allahu Akhbar that he will blow up the Mother of Parliaments for being a woman.

    6. You’d think as an English MP in England, he’d speak English. This isn’t Pakistan. He doesn’t get to choose.

      That and the baby nonsense shows the absurdity this ‘mother of parliaments’ has fallen to.

    7. Yo T_B

      2025 Stop Press

      MP barred from HoC for speaking English

      The PM, David Lammy-Lammy said that these white intruders have no place in UK Pollyticks

    9. Just exhibitionism. My late father had command of Urdu. He would converse with those Indian salesmen who came to the door with two leather suitcases, one containing dusters and cleaning goods, the other containing silky stuff for women.

      I asked my dad what he had said to the Indian salesman. “I told him he was the scum of the Earth” was his reply. My dad liked Indians, his mother was born in Cawnpore. He also served in Burma and had the highest regard for the Indian Regiments with which he served in The Royal Artillery. He knew a charlatan.

        1. Urdu is common in North East India and whilst associated with and adopted by Modern Pakistan was shared with millions of Indians. When my dad was in India during WWII Pakistan did not exist.

          I think there is a Hindi-Urdu language a bit like Pidgin English I imagine, a clumsy language understood by both Hindi and Urdu speakers.

          1. My father learnt basic Urdu because of his involvement with Indian troops during WWII. He taught me some I found it was understood by Hindi-speakers.
            My wife was a fluent Hindi & Gujarati speaker, as she was born & brought up in Bombay.

          2. Thank you Peddy for confirming my own personal take on things. I am no master of languages. I imagine my dad picked up his own knowledge of Urdu Or Hindi-Urdu from having to deal with both locals and the small boys enlisted to serve our troops.

            As I stated my dad loved India and Indians. His mother was the daughter of a regimental tailor. As a white woman she was feted and somewhere in the archive I have a photograph of her sitting on a white (Albino) elephant. The British Army was sent to protect British interests following the Cawnpore uprising and massacre of East India personnel.

            As I mentioned above I discovered that my grandmother was the daughter of a regimental tailor so it all fits.

    10. That MP should be expelled.

      I cannot imagine that there is anywhere else that he would get away with that piece of exhibitionism as an elected representative in a parliament. (Brussels being the exception of course!)

      If his English is so poor that he cannot swear the oath in English he most certainly isn’t capable of understanding anything that he is supposed to be voting upon.

      To Hell with him.

      Ideally fast track.

      EDIT
      What one does not know is whether this is a set up to trap racists like me, because he had already sworn his oath in English, although I believe that Urdu is not an acceptable language for the oath.

      1. All official business should be conducted in English, with anybody unable to speak the language having to employ an interpreter. In Dubai, where our daughter and family live, and Singapore this is the case without exception including schooling. Theirs is an international school so everyone is taught in English, excepting Arabic of course.
        We should not be printing information in multiple languages, all immigrants should be required to learn English. I am sympathetic to the idea of providing free lessons as long as multiple languages are dispensed with.

        2. A while ago I posted a link to an award winning GP practice.

          There must have been 30+ languages in the drop down boxes.

          1. In my last practice we offered quite a range of languages, mainly for the benefit of foreign visitors/tourists. All that was swept aside when the practice changed hands.

          4. I suspect that the GP practice in question would have been giving free treatment left, right and centre to all those people being offered quite a range of languages.

            If dentists can manage to charge, the rest of the NHS should be able to too.

  96. Re earlier threads on oaths of allegiance.

    Forget Bibles, Korans and any other “book”.

    Each MP should swear on their honour to uphold their office without fear or favour.

    If they are later found to act or have acted dishonourably, execute them.

    That would concentrate a few minds.

    We can start with Tony Blair.

    Tomorrow…

    3. If Blair had any honour, he wouldn’t have behaved as he did. He is a frightful creature motivated solely by cash.

        1. Oh, okay. Bit short notice but if you do the hang, drawing and quartering i will bring the BBQ so they can watch their chitterlings cook. Buns extra.

    1. Especially when there are six different fathers who could – and should – be forced to pay their whack.

    2. For 2020, New Year Resolution.
      ” I will get off my back side, drop my sense of entitlement, develop a sense of responsibly, and stop making society pay for my bad luck “

    3. Oh dear how sad never mind.

      I don’t care. Assuming you are a citizen, you had a choice to have that many children. Where is the father?

      If you moved here form another country you should have ensured you had sufficient income to provide for yourself.

      I’m sorry, I don’t see why I should pay for your life choices.

  99. Hmm. 107 votes By Gad!

    Robert Spowart 20 Dec 2019 4:02AM
    SNP MP Douglas Chapman tells us that the his party’s stance on independence in a future referendum would be boosted by the votes of European citizens and 16- and 17-year-olds begs the question of why should non-Scots be voting on the future of Scotland.

    Also, his inclusion of 16 & 17 year olds speaks volumes for the political indoctrination that must be taking place in Scottish schools.

    2. If he opens his mouth again, it will boosted by 50,000,000 English Folk voting for Our Independence

      We will hold Dig a Trench for the Border weekends.

      The Clapham Omnibus will run no more.

      We will do unto the Scots what the EU do unto Brits

      Not a groat will be spent by HMG in Ecosse, Scotia. The only support will be from the BBC with their Alba channel, which will stop when the beebs is purged of Garudian readers

    3. Is Sean Connery still alive? I wonder what his view about children and non-Scot nationals would be? He would probably vote Conservative…

    4. Were we English who had agreed the Act of Union be given a vote we would surely vote to let the Scots go their own way. They could take their chances with Europe but would probably be spat out.

      The Scots and their relatively small economy are really insignificant and at present totally reliant on subsidies from England, which once withdrawn would leave the Scots bankrupt. If the Scots believe for one moment that the EU wIll support their mad economy having lost our own contribution to the EU of £13 billion they must be mad.

      Perhaps someone in our new Boris government could explain these facts to the idiotic poseur Sturgeon and her supporters.

    1. “16 people are talking about this” but only two comments are visible. I guess she didn’t like the other 14.

      1. Given what I’ve seen here, I won’t be following JaneRH – too much respect for my blood pressure!

    2. This ” equality ” idea is nuts, There is no such thing. People are different. Let them be treated with respect, whether or not you agree with them.
      So longer as they don’t try to blow you up or destroy morality.

    5. I am continually surprised by this barminess. Person of the year for promoting equality?

      What choice does she have in Sparkhill? English is a second language over there.

  101. Phew, slumps on sofa,pours much needed beer,took sister on hospital run,wot a bloody farce too tired for details now

    .Night All

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/67448e27c8499339b1cc77505edcdbc9171d43d1cb98a7988542afc91335e1cb.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aa0273146c45835a92d7605049e0397acdc8b3ce0b0ec94a7cc96875a7213f6b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1059724d131730d6e271142cafdda3fe47dd29a428d120a4bd42bd15451119de.jpg

    And finally

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/43f1d1cf81c3be94fd1a2ece8f435ba32165b5caacd6a59992311feebc959d6f.jpg

  102. May one ask, did we get what we voted for or are we about to receive what “they” have granted us ?

      1. Evening M,
        The bigger worry is putting the party once again before the country, and quietly accepting half a loaf.

  103. Darn it!

    Something went wrong while trying to load this feed. Try again in a little while.

    Please visit Discuss Disqus to learn more.

    1. My children keep finding their Christmas presents that I’ve hidden
      around the house.

      Someone suggested that I should just keep them in the
      loft.

      So I tried that last night, but their constant crying and whining kept
      me awake.

      All the “I’m afraid of the dark” or “I don’t like it up here –
      there are spiders” really got on my nerves. Any other suggestions?

  107. My wife flung the door open on me as I was wanking last night, and she
    stormed at me and sobbed, “How could you !…

    You’re not only
    masturbating, but doing it to a clearly underage girl !”

    I replied,

    “You’ve got it all wrong… I’ve certainly been wanking, but
    this little girl is actually the new Finnish Prime Minister Sanna
    Marin.”

    *apologies to Prince Andrew…. :o(

  108. JK Rowling is under fire from thousands of screaming alphabet people
    after defending a woman who was fired for her opinion on trans people.
    Apparently they can accept witches and wizards, hippogriffs, dragons,
    house elves, grindylows, horcruxes, giants, centaurs, animagi,
    metamorphmagi, and unforgivable curses, but the statement “sex is real”
    is just far too ludicrous!

    and there we have it………………..Good night.

      2. Nice looking lass, but off the scale with her politics.
        Though this is one issue where I do share a common cause with her.

  110. .Just to cheer me up

    Topped up Disco yesterday (60 litres of Diesel) at 1,092€ a litre

    £1.00 = 1.154€

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