Friday 22 April: Bereft of policies, the opposition just wants to topple the Prime Minister

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

600 thoughts on “Friday 22 April: Bereft of policies, the opposition just wants to topple the Prime Minister”

  1. Morning, all Y’all!
    Sunny & fresh, and SWMBO comes home late tonight!
    Result!

      1. Two out of three. No dusting done – Polish racing-snake does that Tuesdays.

        1. Boo.
          I’m sorry – better night tonight, I hope.
          Not for me though – , night ahift looms.

        1. Morning BB. I think that his move to California has not worked out as he hoped and in the manner of those who make decisions that they later regret he has layed the blame at other’s doors. His visit to Her Maj last week might well be seen as Malice!

          1. So what you are saying Minty is:

            They are changing guards at Buckingham Palace
            Estranged Prince Hal went down with Malice….?

  5. Truffle-hunting puppy becomes gold-digger as it unearths buried treasure on first walk. 22 April 2022.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2fc2be324dc0be44923f61e55dc96f3fb209c2eaf1f042b7f8da6b5a28734af5.png

    A gold-digging puppy has sniffed out sovereign coins worth nearly £6,000 on its first walk.

    Adam Clark, 51, bought Ollie, a Lagotto Romagnolo, as a surprise for his daughter Alicia, nine, last month.

    The breed is notorious for digging – especially for truffles. On its first walk around the local fields on March 30, the young dog stumbled upon a small fortune.

    Now that’s what I call an addition to the household!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/20/truffle-hunting-puppy-becomes-gold-digger-unearths-buried-treasure/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    1. Someone had stashed those coin (they are modern sovs). The stasher will not be pleased. I’d worry about the dog.

    2. I’m replacing Mongo immediately. Well, if we had a wood burner he’d be handy. The great lunk carried around a 4ft log yesterday. All day. Everywhere. He simply wouldn’t let go of it.

    3. The Romans were so thoughtless; if they’d smeared all their valuables with roast chicken, Spartie would be a wonderful gold digger.

  8. Morning all

    Bereft of policies, the opposition just wants to topple the Prime Minister

    SIR – At recent Prime Minister’s Questions, the leaders of the Labour, Liberal Democrat and Scottish National parties seemed interested only in embarrassing Boris Johnson and trying to get him to resign.

    Not once did these leaders ask about the economy, the NHS, Ukraine or any other relevant subject affecting the nation. It was nothing but party politics, because they have nothing to offer as alternative policies.

    A J C Gorman

    Ickenham, Middlesex

    SIR – It seems to me that there were an awful lot of pots calling the kettles black in glasshouses in Westminster.

    Roderick Dominy

    Ashwater, Devon

    SIR – Mr Johnson didn’t mislead Parliament because no one believed for a minute that he didn’t know what he was doing. Much valuable police time has been wasted in establishing the obvious. It’s pitiful to see the office of Prime Minister being so degraded. My beef with Mr Johnson is that he takes the electorate for fools.

    Philip Everall

    Crewe, Cheshire

    SIR – In these momentous times, do not those calling for Boris Johnson’s resignation realise that, if they succeed, they will make Britain a laughing stock to the world?

    David Forbes

    Edith Weston, Rutland

    SIR – I couldn’t agree more with Sir Frank Davies (Letters, April 20). There is an obvious difference between a work event and a social event and, as he says, a good leader will be there to wish leavers and retirees good luck.

    I don’t understand why the Prime Minister has been so sheepish in continually apologising for doing his job. I hope he will now gather strength and provide the leadership we need in these challenging times. God help us if he is prevented from doing so.

    James Retallack

    Great Alne, Warwickshire

    SIR – Spoiling a local election ballot paper won’t bother the Prime Minister. He is not responsible for parking, library opening hours and dustbin collection. Local elections are for local issues not deposing a prime minister.

    Mary Moore

    Croydon, Surrey

    SIR – Sir Keir Starmer says that “telling the truth in politics matters”, and indeed it does; but, in today’s uncertain world, how much truth is contained in his own party political broadcasts?

    In February, he said: “My contract with the British people will build a new Britain which guarantees families, businesses and pensioners the security, prosperity and respect they deserve.”

    In all honesty, how can anyone make such a statement, except with the caveat that whatever we get, we have deserved. If we have truth in politics, let it be the whole truth by all parties.

    Rod Barrett

    Bromley, Kent

    1. Did you expect anything better, A Gorman? Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition consists of Sir Kneel and a few gobby women without a single original thought between them.

    2. Mr Everall, every politicians takes the public for fools. They know there’s nothing we can do to stop them once they get in and go about trashing our house for their own benefit.

  9. Good morning all.
    A bright overcast start with an almost mild 5½°C outside.

  10. Do you speak NHS?

    SIR – Those of us who have worked in the NHS have long derived amusement from the unintelligible job titles (Letters, April 21), such as “Hard FM Commissioning Manager”or “Portfolio Lead for People-Led Care” (neither of these is made up). I’m not sure what such people do – and, having sat through meetings with some of them, I’m not sure they do either.

    The NHS could save a lot of money by recruiting a group of averagely intelligent 12-year-olds. If you can’t explain to them in a sentence or two what your job entails, you are out.

    Dr Hilary Aitken

    Kilmacolm, Renfrewshire

  11. Morning again. What has become of us?

    Not in the office

    SIR – It is unbelievable that just one in four employees at the Department for Education is going into the office every day (report, April 21).

    My daughter is a primary school teacher. Like millions of other teachers and support workers, she was in school from the beginning of the first lockdown, teaching vulnerable children and those of key workers.

    They put themselves and their families at risk. Why? Because of dedication to their roles. They also taught their own classes online and marked their work. My daughter had to organise care for her own children while ensuring that they, too, were logged on to their lessons every day.

    And what of those children who were disadvantaged, who did not have the technology to enable them to continue with their education and who will struggle for years to catch up? It will be dedicated teaching and non-teaching staff who support them.

    It is shameful that civil servants are not matching these efforts.

    Ros Gait

    Retired headteacher

    Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset

    1. The department for education is pointless and could be closed. The monies saved sent directly to schools – not touching local councils, who currently consume a quarter deciding who will get what..

      That way everyone wins.

  13. SIR – If J K Rowling’s books were excluded due to her controversial views on gender identity, which many believe to be inaccurate and discriminatory, I do not see that she has been treated unfairly.

    Any author who had publicly expressed such opinions about another minority group would be highly likely to be excluded as well.

    Keeley-Jasmine Cavendish
    London SE21

    Gordon Bennett! JKR is entitled to speak her mind – it’s called free speech – and it is not for the B’stard Broadcasting Corporation to ‘cancel’ someone who has done so much to encourage youngsters to read.

    2. Those who think Rowling’s view on gender is incorrect indicate their stifled intelligence and should not be writing to newspapers to exhibit it.

      1. Yes, I saw this, and there are other letters in the FT, too. She’s into ‘gender dysphoria’ in a big way.

      2. From that cavenidish thing: “… medically and legally-verified fact that trans+ women are women … ”

        No, they’re not. You can get someone to say that you’re a woman, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re not, and never, ever will be.

        1. As soon as I saw the name my ears pricked up as it’s the sort of moniker a cock in a frock would adopt.

          1. Yes. By and large, c0cks in frocks (sounds like a Dr. Suess book) choose exaggeratedly female names. Over the top in a pantomime dame way.
            Keeley-Jasmine sounds perfect; Ann or Janet is just soooooooo dull.

    4. Her views are not inaccurate, they’re factual. Nor are they discriminatory – after all, a trans person is the one wanting the discrimination. You can’t see that she has because you want to discriminate. You see the problem you’re having ms Cavendish is that you’re a bigot, but like calling other people that to hide your nastiness from yourself.

      1. I’m gonna nick that, Wibbles for a BTL comment on the Telly Graf Spee.

        I hope that you won’t mind.

    5. He/she/it is a regular writer to newspapers. One example here:
      Ghislaine’s gripes won’t wash
      I was extremely annoyed to read Ghislaine Maxwell’s apparent complaints about her treatment in prison. While I acknowledge that she denies all charges, it would seem that she is subject to the same prison regulations as any other inmate and, by being allowed to use a laptop and phone, is possibly even receiving preferential treatment.

      Keeley-Jasmine Cavendish, London

  14. SIR – The Harry Potter books encouraged many children to read for pleasure. Surely J K Rowling should be included in the BBC’s Big Jubilee Read (Letters, April 19).

    Kate Forrester
    Malvern, Worcestershire

    Dream on, Ms Forrester. JKR has had the effrontery to challenge their deeply-ingrained groupthink, so she is toast.

    1. The weird bit is that Rowling has just presented her feminist perspective. The Left are attacking her for that.

      It’s almost as if, lacking a moral centre, guidance and integrity, the Left leap on to the nearest passing bandwagon, attack anyone who threatens it and then once that’s run out, find the next one. Surely not? That would imply they’re rootless, shiftless, debased wasters with no principles, character or sense.

      2. This development was the logical progression from Feminazidom – as opposed to old style feminism that merely wanted women’s brain power to be recognised and to be paid accordingly.
        There are alway nutters who take a reasonable argument from logic through to utter madness.

    2. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/21/real-best-reads-majestys-reign/

      The real best reads of Her Majesty’s reign

      The BBC’s shameful list missed the best of 70 years of literature. Here’s my alternative

      Allison Pearson21 April 2022 • 7:00pm

      After the BBC’s Big Jubilee Read turned out to be a “You’ll take your medicine and like it” kind of list compiled by people who were scared stiff of not being diverse enough, I asked Telegraph readers to suggest titles which they thought merited a place among the 70 best or most significant books of the Queen’s reign.

      You came up with the most brilliant suggestions, as I knew you would. There is no legislating for reading pleasure, but humour and suspense obviously answer to some deep need in the British psyche. As do animals. That would certainly please Her Majesty whose main, if not sole, reading material is The Racing Post, which accounts for her long happy life and unwavering sanity.

      I wasn’t familiar with all the books you proposed, but if a title (or author) was recommended several times I trusted your judgment and added it to our selection. Some years had an overabundance of terrific entries so I cheated and snuck them in elsewhere when an updated edition had been published. Particular thanks are due to Aelfwynn Erin who was so irritated to see great British authors sacrificed “on the altar of the BBC’s intolerant bigotry” that she drew up her own list upon which I have drawn.

      As you read what follows, I know you will be thinking, “But that’s not his best one!,” or, “Why did she pick X when she could have chosen Y?” My apologies in advance.

      Still, I reckon that the Telegraph’s Big Jubilee Read is an improvement on the BBC’s, not least because it expresses a deep appreciation for this country’s astonishing writers and a relish for the talent which has graced the pages of our history this past seven decades. Finally, there was this unimprovable comment from Rick Kelly: “Giles Cartoon Annual for any year that proves a problem!”

      1952: Down With Skool: A Guide To School Life for Tiny Pupils and Their Parents, Geoffrey Willans

      “If headmasters were honest a prospectus would be a book which sa how many kanes he hav, contane a warning about the skool dog and the amount of prunes and rice served during the term”. OK, strictly speaking, this immortal masterpiece of mirth was published the following year but that would have meant leaving out …

      1953: Casino Royale, Ian Fleming

      The birth of a British character so iconic he parachuted into the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics with HMQ.

      1954: Lord of the Flies, William Golding; Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis

      No, I’m not going to choose. Fight it out between yourselves.

      1955: Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

      This was shamefully left off the BBC list. Well, it was written by a pale, stale, Oxford-educated white male, and it has only sold 150 million copies. Another Oxford don, CS Lewis, wrote The Chronicles of Narnia between 1950 and 1956.

      1956: My Family and Other Animals, Gerald Durrell

      The Queen adores animals and Prince Philip was born in Corfu – bingo!

      1957: Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene

      My favourite Greene, The End of the Affair, was published just before Princess Elizabeth’s accession.

      1958: The King Must Die, Mary Renault; The Greengage Summer, Rumer Godden

      The former is the greatest ever reimagining of the classical world, the second a hugely popular choice with Telegraph readers.

      1959: Cider With Rosie, Laurie Lee.

      1960: The L-Shaped Room, Lynne Reid Banks; The Country Girls, Edna O’Brien

      This was an extraordinary year for ground-breaking novels about women’s lives.

      1961: Unconditional Surrender, Evelyn Waugh

      This was the final part of his Sword of Honour Trilogy, the greatest fiction to come out of the Second World War.

      1962: A Leg At Each Corner – Thelwell’s Complete Guide to Equitation, Norman Thelwell

      A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, published the same year, is pretty good, but not good enough to overshadow this corker, a book of which the Platinum Jubilee Girl (and lifelong pony rider) would surely approve.

      1963: The Girls of Slender Means, Muriel Spark

      Spark was on extraordinary fertile form; The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was published just two years before.

      1964: Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl

      It’s so hard to pick just one Roald Dahl, but this was your clear favourite.

      1965: The World of Jeeves, PG Wodehouse

      1966: Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys

      1967: The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth

      A thriller so good it is still read every bedtime in my house. Although not by me.

      1968: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C Clarke

      A tough choice, my heart belongs to Kes (A Kestrel for a Knave) by Barry Hines.

      A still from 2001: A Space Odyssey

      1969: Flashman, George MacDonald Fraser

      With sincere apologies to The French Lieutenant’s Woman.

      1970: A Dance to the Music of Time, Anthony Powell

      Twelve volumes were published between 1951 and 1975. I have childishly resisted reading it myself on grounds of off-putting poshness, but it comes Highly Recommended by those I trust.

      1971: Post Captain, Patrick O’Brian

      The second in his great Aubrey-Maturin series of nautical historical novels, which began with Master and Commander.

      1972: Watership Down, Richard Adams; All Creatures Great and Small, James Herriot

      1973: The Rachel Papers, Martin Amis; The Black Prince, Iris Murdoch

      1974: Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy, John le Carre

      1975: Heat and Dust, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

      1976: Sleeping Murder: Miss Marple’s Last Case, Agatha Christie

      1976: The Great Pursuit, Tom Sharpe

      1977: Staying On, Paul Scott

      Some prefer his Raj Quartet, but I love this one

      1978: Offshore, Penelope Fitzgerald

      1979: The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide, Douglas Adams

      1980: Unreliable Memoirs, Clive James

      “But, Clive, you need to be famous to publish your memoirs,” the late, great literary agent Pat Kavanagh pointed out to her to thrusting Aussie author. “But, Pat,” said Clive, “this book will make me famous.” He was right, of course.

      1981: Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie

      1982: Rumpole for the Defence, John Mortimer

      1983: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 (and 3/4s), Sue Townsend

      Townsend is surely the best diarist since Samuel Pepys.

      1984: Empire of The Sun, JG Ballard

      1985: Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson

      1986: A Dark-Adapted Eye, Ruth Rendell (writing as Barbara Vine)

      1987: Moon Tiger, Penelope Lively

      1988: Sharpe’s Rifles, Bernard Cornwell

      1989: Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro

      1990: Possession, A.S. Byatt

      1991: Wild Swans, Jung Chang

      1992: The Children of Men, PD James

      1993: Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks

      1994: A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth

      1995: The Ghost Road, Pat Barker

      The final part of her magnificent First World War Regeneration Trilogy.

      1996: Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding

      1997: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling

      Rowling was also omitted from the BBC list even though she single-handedly revived the art of reading among the nation’s zombie-device children.

      1998: The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith

      (Though it is probably cancelled by now for “cultural appropriation”, it is affectionate and life-affirming.)

      1999: Disgrace, JM Coetzee

      Honourable mention: Girl With a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier

      2000: White Teeth, Zadie Smith

      2001: Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett

      I’ve never read him, but he’s clearly a huge favourite among Telegraph readers.

      2002: Any Human Heart, William Boyd

      2003: Brick Lane, Monica Ali

      2004: Small Island, Andrea Levy

      2005: Saturday, Ian McEwan

      2006: Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

      2007: The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett

      2008: The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga

      2009: Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel

      2010: The Hare with the Amber Eyes, Edmund De Waal

      2011: The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes

      2012: All Change, Elizabeth Jane Howard

      This is the fifth and concluding volume of her triumphant family saga, The Cazalet Chronicles.

      2013: Life After Life, Kate Atkinson

      2014: The Balkan Trilogy, Olivia Manning (originally published 1960)

      2015: A Spool of Blue Thread, Anne Tyler

      2016: Mount!, Jilly Cooper

      Best selling author Jilly Cooper photographed at her home in Gloucestershire

      2017: The Break, Marian Keyes

      2018: Warlight, Michael Ondaatje

      2019: Giles Cartoon Annual

      2020: Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell

      2021: The Bench, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex

      (Don’t worry, only joking!)

      2022: Mother’s Boy, Howard Jacobson

      Though he could have appeared on this list with The Mighty Walzer and The Finkler Question.

      Well, what did I leave out?

      1. Something to replace the awful [IMHO] Wolf Hall? Glad to see a Pratchett though!

    3. In an article yesterday it was mentioned that children’s books were not eligible in the list.

  15. Chope, the Tory MP on a moral mission against his own government. 22 Apil 2022.

    Why is the government proving so intractable (Sir Christopher is awaiting answers to a dozen name-day questions)? Is the problem a consequence of the massive investment, political and financial, in the vaccine programme? Are we stymied by the near-impossibility of the government climbing down from such an entrenched position?

    ‘I think that is absolutely fair comment, and I agree with that. The failure to answer name-day questions is indicative of the fact that the government doesn’t want to admit that there are adverse events. The fact that we’re not getting answers just feeds into the suspicion that either the government is in denial or that the answers to these questions are going to be embarrassing.’

    Judging by the number of post vaccination complaints on Nottl; which is after all a very small sampling base, the problems are huge. Most of these effects will be minor but bearing in mind the vast numbers that have been vaccinated there is no reason to think that the number of fatalities will diminish. They may in fact increase or leave long term serious illness in their wake. We are probably looking at something potentially far more serious than the Thalidomide scandal.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/chope-the-tory-mp-on-a-moral-mission-against-his-own-government/

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/chris-chopes-awkward-vaccine-questions-and-how-the-health-secretary-avoided-them/

    1. Yet again, this week, I had to turn down a booster jab.
      I had texts, last week for 2 afternoon sessions that – the day before operations commenced – had 68 and 72 (from memory) slots still available.
      This week, it was a phone call from the surgery.
      I guess I’m not the only revolting one.

  16. Chope, the Tory MP on a moral mission against his own government. 22 Apil 2022.

    Why is the government proving so intractable (Sir Christopher is awaiting answers to a dozen name-day questions)? Is the problem a consequence of the massive investment, political and financial, in the vaccine programme? Are we stymied by the near-impossibility of the government climbing down from such an entrenched position?

    ‘I think that is absolutely fair comment, and I agree with that. The failure to answer name-day questions is indicative of the fact that the government doesn’t want to admit that there are adverse events. The fact that we’re not getting answers just feeds into the suspicion that either the government is in denial or that the answers to these questions are going to be embarrassing.’

    Judging by the number of post vaccination complaints on Nottl; which is after all a very small sampling base, the problems are huge. Most of these effects will be minor but bearing in mind the vast numbers that have vaccinated there is no reason to think that the number of fatalities will diminish. They may in fact increase or leave long term serious illness in their wake. We are probably looking at something potentially far more serious than the Thalidomide scandal.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/chope-the-tory-mp-on-a-moral-mission-against-his-own-government/

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/chris-chopes-awkward-vaccine-questions-and-how-the-health-secretary-avoided-them/

  17. Bereft of policies, the opposition just wants to topple the Prime Minister

    The problem for the opposition parties is that they broadly support everything Boris is doing and they want him to go even further with the dystopia, but they know how unpopular that is with the electorate.
    So all they can do is hide their policies and fall back on the old Blair character assignation tactic when he was in opposition in the 1990s, it always helps when the entire globalist controlled mainstream media is behind you as well.

    1. They all want the same thing, they just want to be the ones that do it.

      One has to ask, when the electorate want the opposite, why can we not stop them?

  18. SIR – My wife’s surname (Letters, April 20) was Perfect. We’ve often been told we missed an opportunity in 1970 when we married – but what a name to live up to as each year passed by.

    Phil Boddy
    Falmouth, Cornwall

    Lol!

    2. A friend of mine is called Geoffrey Silver. He married Yolanda Box. For some reason they weren’t tempted. Much to everyone else’s disappointment.

      1. A friend of mine is called Miranda Cox. She married Murgatroyd Hooker. For some reason they weren’t tempted. Much to everyone else’s disappointment.

  19. SIR – Spoiling a local election ballot paper won’t bother the Prime Minister. He is not responsible for parking, library opening hours and dustbin collection. Local elections are for local issues not deposing a prime minister.

    Mary Moore
    Croydon, Surrey

    Possibly, but if the party faithful rebel at the local elections then the 1922 Committee would be daft to ignore it – that is, if they would like to remain in office beyond May 2024.

    1. Why should people have to suffer 5 years of loony left local government in order to try and unseat Boris?

      1. Morning Bob. One of the major factors in the decline of democracy in the UK is the Nationalisation of Local Elections!

    2. And they’re [beeeeepping] [beeeeepp] at that as well. All councils do is trough, soak tax and provide abysmal services for ever higher amounts of our money. The more the state takes, the less it provides.

  22. Morning all,
    I mentioned one of my team a few days ago who is fasting for Ramadanadingdong. She has said she isn’t sure whether it will end on Mon or Tue next week because it depends on when the first sighting of the crescent moon.

    Forgive me, but I’m sure someone could call NASA, or Brian Cox, or some other star gazer – they could give our fasting friends the moon timings to the second two hundred years from now.

    1. ‘Morning, Stormy, “I entitled one of my team….”

      Does that mean that you put a title upon them such as Grand Panjandrum or did you just call her Ms?

      A very strange phrase, one I’ve never heard used in terms of a work team – the odd ways we live today.

    2. According to our family, who live in Dubai, it all depends of on a specific person seeing the moon first!

      Good morning all BTW.

  23. From the DT:

    Energy bill green levies won’t be scrapped despite cost-of-living crisis
    Boris Johnson dismisses proposal backed by prominent Tories and says there is ‘a lot of prejudice against the green agenda’

    By
    Ben Riley-Smith,
    POLITICAL EDITOR, IN AHMEDABAD
    21 April 2022 • 10:00pm

    Green levies on energy bills will not be scrapped to help with the cost-of-living crisis, Boris Johnson indicated as he rebuffed a proposal backed by prominent Tories.

    Speaking during his visit to India, Mr Johnson said there was “a lot of prejudice against the green agenda” in a defence of his push to decarbonise the economy.

    He did not rule out further action before the autumn Budget to help ease living costs, but backed the measures already announced.

    Green levies, which help fund the Government’s social and environmental schemes, are estimated to add around £150 to the average household’s yearly energy bill. Slashing them has been championed by several Tories and the energy industry as a way of bringing down soaring costs.

    Lord Frost, who left Mr Johnson’s Cabinet in December, and Robert Halfon, the Tory education select committee chairman, have backed the levies being scaled back. But Mr Johnson dismissed that idea and said: “I want to do everything we can to alleviate the cost of living.

    “There’s a lot of prejudice against the green agenda. Actually, green technology, green, sustainable electricity, can help to reduce bills.

    “Overall, if you look at what we have done with renewables it has helped to reduce bills over the last few years and will continue to do so. That’s why one of the things I want to do is use this moment to really drive towards more offshore wind turbines.”
    Mr Johnson’s response will be seen as a wider defence of his promise to make the UK a net zero carbon emitter by 2050.

    The pledge has come under internal pressure from government ministers. Some want Mr Johnson to water down the commitment, fearing the economic hit that could come with the green revolution.

    Number 10 had hoped to include cost-of-living measures in the recent energy security strategy, but proposals were quashed by the Treasury.

    Asked whether more announcements to help people with soaring prices and energy bills could be made before the autumn Budget, Mr Johnson did not rule out steps being taken earlier.

    “I’m saying we’ll do everything we can to help, but I’m pointing to what we’ve already done,” he said.

    He noted council tax rebates, raising the threshold at which people start paying National Insurance and the 5p cut in fuel duty, saying the total support package was worth £22 billion.

    Pollsters have warned the Tories that the cost of living is becoming a defining issue for voters as the government’s independent forecasters warn that inflation could hit nine per cent by the end of the year.

    * * *
    His missus is still exercising her vice-like grip on his dangly bits and ain’t about to let go. Nevertheless, I await the about-turn after a mauling on 5th May. As things stand I reckon the lunacy of net zero is the number one policy that will fester until it is addressed, and even more so when the price cap takes another leap upwards in October.

    The BTL posters are frothing, here’s just one:

    Finian Manson
    22 MIN AGO
    Once again, bungling and bewildered BoJo displays his scientific, financial, economic and indeed even political illiteracy.
    There is not “prejudice” against his green agenda: there is wholehearted and serious resistance to the folly and insanity of it all.
    The only reason he is still Leader of the Party and Prime Minister is because he is having a good war. Once that war is over the day of reckoning will come for Bojo for his failure to deliver Brexit; his mishandling of the Covid 19 pandemic, which helped to destroy the health and wealth of the Nation; and his absurd, unaffordable and unnecessary “Net Zero” or green policies.
    However one looks at it, Bojo is a dead man walking as they say; alternatively just yesterday’s man. He has had his day and he has failed.

    1. Pollsters have warned the Tories that the cost of living is becoming a defining issue for voters as the government’s independent forecasters warn that inflation could hit nine per cent by the end of the year.

      There speaks an optimist!

    2. It isn’t prejudice, it’s scientific fact. Just because you’re driven by emotion and greed doesn’t mean other people are. Green is just the latest effort at communism.

      Getting rid of the green subsidy would be the first step in ending the entire left wing climate change agenda. Without our money, they cannot survive. They make no money on the market and no more would be built. Bu of course, when your chums are landowners getting fat and rich from those same subsidy, you’re not going to want to stop the shift of private wealth to greedy pockets, are you?

    3. It isn’t prejudice, it’s scientific fact. Just because you’re driven by emotion and greed doesn’t mean other people are. Green is just the latest effort at communism.

      Getting rid of the green subsidy would be the first step in ending the entire left wing climate change agenda. Without our money, they cannot survive. They make no money on the market and no more would be built. Bu of course, when your chums are landowners getting fat and rich from those same subsidy, you’re not going to want to stop the shift of private wealth to greedy pockets, are you?

    4. Finian is going well, except for the “good war” comment – Boris is screwing that up in spades too, just like everything else he touches. He, Boris, really is deranged if he believes green energy will be cheaper – many of the policies he supports are impossible from a scientific and/or engineering point of view! And “exporting your carbon” to other countries isn’t green either – it’s just shifting the problem to a poorer country so you can virtue signal.

    5. He really doesn’t want the job, does he?
      Or he’s trying to escape from the wallpaper because it’s doing his head in.

    1. Agreed, and also his point about white people adopting a West Indian argot. Wass tha’ all abaht innit?

        1. Therefore WWII was about protecting our indigenous culture.
          (Gosh, Nurse, time for my pills already?)

        2. Good morning NtN.
          “Approximately 16,000 West Indians volunteered for service alongside the British during the Second World War.
          Around 6,000 West Indians served with the Royal Air Force and the Royal
          Canadian Air Force, in roles from fighter pilots to bomb aimers, air
          gunners to ground staff and administration.”

          1. These I’m already aware of but I doubt if, in 1938, Chamberlain would have had any but Imperial white staff in those positions.

          2. Pales (pardon the pun) into insignificance when compared with the number of volunteers to the RAF from NZ alone.

    1. Yes, but now they’ll likely get arrested and charged.

      Far better if there’d been no publicity and they had just hanged him. The courts cannot be trusted, he will receive endless amounts of money to protest his case – which will eventually be thrown out due to entrapment, he’ll get away with it and next time it’ll be my niece, and I’ll have no right of reply at all.

      Hang the scum.

    3. Morning Bob .

      What a filthy black turd.

      They say you cannot walk anywhere in the UK for five minutes with out seeing a black/brown face.

      The dilution continues.

    4. I read that the police were none too happy about these paedo hunters. It’s pretty obvious why. It shows their misplaced priorities and lack of action. Also exposing the incomers as a threat.

    5. Part of a script for a fantasy film scenario:

      A boat containing 400 “refugees” arrives at a port on the British south coast. A team of Border Force officers, all armed with sub-machine guns, stands alongside. The Border Chief addresses the boat through a megaphone.

      Border Chief: “Turn the boat around … NOW … and sail back to where you came from. Failure to do so … NOW … will mean we open fire. Capisci?”

      Boat remains in situ for more than a few seconds.

      BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG …

      Border Chief: “Which part of ‘NOW‘ are you having difficulty with?

      Well, I did day it was a fantasy …

    6. Did they beat the crap out of him, smash his teeth down his throat, break all the long bones in his body?
      No?
      Why not?

  26. Russian forces accused of secret burials of Mariupol civilians. 22 April 2022.

    Russia has been hiding evidence of its “barbaric” war crimes in Mariupol by burying the bodies of civilians killed by shelling in a new mass grave, the city’s mayor said on Thursday, as a US satellite imagery company released photos that appeared to match the site.

    The mayor, Vadym Boichenko, said Russian trucks had collected corpses from the streets of the port city and had transported them to the nearby village of Manhush. They were then secretly thrown into a mass grave in a field next to the settlement’s old cemetery, he said.

    “The invaders are concealing evidence of their crimes. The cemetery is located near a petrol station to the left side of a circular road. The Russians have dug huge trenches, 30 metres wide. They chuck people in,” he said.

    Bearing in mind the False Narrative of Bucha and the False Flag of Kramatorsk this is typical of Ukrainian and MSM propaganda. Everything is either an Atrocity, Genocide or a War Crime and just how secret can anything be when it is trumpeted in the Media and everyone knows? Bodies have to be disposed of during wars or disease runs rampant. There is no counter narrative to suggest how these people met their end. Even if we were to discard the not unlikely idea that many were armed civilians and played an active part in defending Mariupol, civilian casualties and “Mass Graves ” are an inevitable consequence of combat in Cities. It is convenient to forget these examples now but the air attacks on Mosul or an even earlier Dresden resulted in massive civilian losses inflicted by those complaining loudest now!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/21/russian-forces-accused-of-secret-burials-of-civilians-in-mariupol

    1. It was only a couple of weeks ago that the media were complaining hysterically that there were unburied bodies in the Ukraine.

      Now the Russians, following sensible practice, are burying them, the media are still complaining.

      1. Morning Janet. Of course. This is the most one sided Propaganda Campaign since WWI where the lies were so egregious that when it was over the population were so outraged that WWII was much more restrained in its claims.

        1. Good morning all
          I thought you were going to say it was the most one sided propaganda campaign since Covid.

          1. That too Alf. That was a “civilian” matter. Lying has now become ubiquitous throughout the Western World. It is far more prevalent than the Truth!

      2. This is one good point, and another one is that civilians have been issued with weapons, kindly donated by the West, making them into combatants.

        1. And those civilians were encouraged by Zelensky to fight in any way that they could, right from the start.

          If it ever comes to war crime trials he should be in the dock along side Putin and joined by many other Western agents provocateur.

        2. Civilians who take up arms surely have no protection under any convention? They are terrorists and may be summarily killed?

  27. Good morning all,

    Cloudy morning , 10c.. another golf day, garden is quiet because there is a black and white cat patrolling the hedgerow..

    Sadly found dead fledglings , probably baby black birds , no not the victims of magpies , but the neighbours cat who seems to be King pin .

    My spaniels will chase him out of the garden .. but it is a very bold cat.

  28. G’morning all and I see The Pillock from the Hillock is back BTL in another guise, I just wonder if these appearances / disappearances coincide with a section 2 under the MHA.

      1. There is a BTL commentator who takes a delight in being rude and contrary.
        He (probably he) always takes the moniker of a Scottish mountain. For ages he was known as AmFagash to regulars in the comment section.
        He disappeared for some weeks, but has now been resurrected as An Riabhachan.
        If he called himself Joe Bloggs, his style is unmistakable.

          1. I think he’s there for entertainment! His comments are hilarious! This mornings best effort was “Tony Blair didn’t lie to Parliament”!

          4. I’d noticed a Sue Macfarlane responding to him, now I know it was you, though I thought so at the time.

          6. Of course it’s approval – you were blasting Amfagash and getting his dander up.

            Check the uptick.

      2. Thanks to AA for answering that, I dubbed him thus as his original moniker was Gaelic for a small mountain and he/she/it/they is/are a total pillock.

        PS out of interest I’ve just looked up the origin of the term pillock and was delighted to find :-

        “Pillock. This is another delightful description of someone who’s painfully stupid. The word has has 16th century Scandinavian origins, and comes from the old English word pillicock, meaning penis.”

      2. I can’t make my mind up as to whether he’s an accomplished winder upper delighting in infuriating folk who are ill advised enough to respond to his pronouncements, in which case I have a modest admiration for him , or some sort of deranged inadequate who is periodically released from care .

        1. He insults a lot of people on a daily basis with his oft repeated mantras. Brexit voters are less intelligent….Blair didn’t lie…Boris and Trump are baaaad…Conservatives are numpties…blah blah! I admit that I shouldn’t have engaged him this morning but he’s definitely a troll!

  30. JUST FOR KEELEY-JASMINE CAVENDISH (see Letters), HERE IS THE FREE-SPEECH UNION’S WEEKLY NEWSLETTER:

    Welcome to the Free Speech Union’s weekly newsletter, our round-up of the free speech news of the week. As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join, and help us turn the tide against cancel culture.

    The Online Safety Bill returns to Parliament for its second reading

    As Paul Goodman pointed out in ConHome this week, the origins of the Online Safety Bill lie in the troubling death of Molly Russell, a teenager who took her own life after viewing images of suicide and self-harm on Instagram. Theresa May’s government felt something should be done, and now, after five years, a White Paper, a consultation, a draft Bill, a joint committee of Parliamentarians, a report by that committee and a separate inquiry by the DCMS Select Committee, we’ve finally arrived at the Bill’s Second Reading in the House of Commons.

    The FSU has been tracking the legislation’s progress through Parliament. You can find our free, open access briefings here.

    Our most recent press release about the Bill is here. It sets out the FSU’s position, which is, broadly speaking, that although the latest iteration of the Bill makes welcome provision to protect children from illegal content on the internet, it doesn’t afford online freedom of speech and expression the robust, meaningful protections we think it needs.

    In sum, there’s still work to be done. Over the next few weeks, we’re looking forward to engaging with the FSU’s allies in both chambers of Parliament to ensure that the final version of the Bill more adequately balances the need to protect people from harm with protecting freedom of speech.

    The Second Reading and the media reaction to the Second Reading

    Few pieces of legislation can ever have been more anticipated and discussed before entering Parliament for their Second Reading. And yet, in the end, the debate felt rather cramped, and more than a little rushed. Not that that will have surprised John Whittingdale MP (Con, Maldon). A week prior to the debate, the former Culture Secretary was telling ConHome that it was quite wrong that only one day, Tuesday, had been allowed for the Second Reading, when really it needed two. Because at least one statement would precede the Second Reading, his guestimate was that speakers during the debate on “this hugely important and hideously complicated Bill [would] get about 30 seconds each”.

    He wasn’t far off. Proceedings ended up getting squeezed into the last hour of Parliamentary business, and quite a few of the MPs who share the FSU’s concerns about the Bill couldn’t take to the floor. Joanna Cherry QC MP (SNP, Edinburgh), for instance, ended up releasing a draft of the speech she wanted to – but couldn’t – make on her Twitter account. It’s a cracker, too: “There is a very significant danger,” she wrote, “that the Bill, as drafted, will lead to censorship of legal speech by online platforms. In this respect the bill requires significant amendment.” (Joanna, by the way, recently joined the Advisory Council of the newly formed FSU Scotland – you can read about the widespread, cross-party support that that venture’s already attracted here.)

    Another staunch champion of free speech, Steve Baker MP (Con, Wycombe), withdrew from speaking “due to the extreme pressure on time”. In a piece co-authored with Professor Paul Dolan for The Times, however, he set out his view that the legislation, as currently conceived, would cause social media companies to censor more content than the law strictly required.

    The secretary of state’s arguments seem to rest on the bill only legally requiring companies to remove ‘legal but harmful’ content if it is already banned under its terms and conditions. Under the threat of penalties, [however] social media companies won’t risk allowing content that could come close to ‘legal but harmful’ to remain on its platform.

    His worry is that, therefore, “free speech and free discussion on the internet will die a slow and painful death.”

    During the debate itself, Adam Afriyie MP (Con, Windsor) expressed concern about the Bill’s problematic attempt to create a one-size-fits-all definition of ‘harmful’ content:

    If we say ‘something is harmful, it shouldn’t be there’, we start to get into difficult territory, because what’s harmful for one person may not be harmful for another person.

    According to the Mail, many MPs were also worried that the Bill gave tech firms too much power to take news websites’ stories down. The Bill’s original proposals did in fact allow for news stories to be put back up after an appeal, but of course the ever-present danger with an appeal process is that it ends up taking so long that the stories in question are out of date before they get reinstated. Encouragingly, the Culture Secretary assured the Commons that the government was “doing further work to ensure that content remains up while appeals take place”.

    In other words, it looks like the Bill will end up offering robust free speech protections to journalists, which is good (obviously). But, as Gavin Robertson MP (DUP, Belfast East) asked, rather pointedly:

    What about anyone else who wishes to enjoy freedom of expression in the online domain?

    The FSU clipped footage of these contributions, and you can watch them on our Twitter.

    In the debate’s aftermath, the philosopher Kathleen Stock produced a corker of a first column for UnHerd. As she points out in the opening paragraph, she’s one of the people whom the Bill will supposedly protect, but she thinks any attempt by the state to protect people from psychological distress is misguided and will inevitably have a chilling effect on free speech. “Delivering people from psychological distress,” she concludes, with about as much withering contempt as it’s possible to squeeze into one sentence, “is the business of therapists or priests, not lawmakers”.

    Writing for Spiked, Matthew Lesh posed a thought provoking question. Over the past five years, much time and effort has been invested in debating the Bill and the many ways it will intentionally change the ways we interact online. But what of the Bill’s unintended consequences? As Lesh suggests, it will place huge regulatory burdens on over 25,000 companies. Might that lead to overseas companies blocking access for UK users to avoid the cost of complying and the associated regulatory risk? That was, after all, what over a thousand US news websites did following the introduction of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018. Time will tell.

    Launch of the Scottish office of the Free Speech Union

    Yesterday saw the launch of the Scottish arm of the Free Speech Union. We’ve launched our campaign in Edinburgh due to overwhelming demand from our Scottish members who are concerned that free speech is in peril north of the border. They’re worried in particular about the chilling effect of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act once it is activated.

    It’s a venture that’s already attracted widespread, cross-party support. You can read about the many, high-profile politicians, academics and religious figures who’ve either given their support to the initiative, or joined the organisation’s Advisory Council in The Times here or on the Daily Sceptic here.

    NHS workplace culture and the ‘chilling’ of free speech

    “Why is it that so much ‘trans inclusive’ language is misogynistic and objectifying?”, asks Raquel Rosario Sanchez for Spiked.

    There was a time when it was seen as rather sexist to describe women via their constituent body parts. According to the Daily Mail, however, Brighton and Sussex University Hospital NHS Trust is now advising its midwives and obstetricians that “some individuals may have preferred terminology for their anatomy”, and that staff should act accordingly. Maternity care has in the past typically been designed as a women-only service, and the Trust’s new guidelines set out to correct this exclusionary and regressive state of affairs. To better serve the needs of trans people, for instance, midwives should from now apparently find other words for ‘breasts’, ‘cervix’, ‘clitoris’, ‘labia’, ‘vulva’ and ‘uterus.’ Another suggestion is that they replace the word ‘vagina’ with the term… ‘front hole.’

    The issue for the FSU in all of this isn’t so much whether anyone agrees with the guidance or not, but whether people are being allowed to debate whether, or to what extent, they agree with it. It’s concerning, then, to hear that many of the midwives who’ve received this advice are unhappy with it, “but because of the climate at the hospital they dare not say anything”.

    Is a similar “climate” impacting the work of gender identity services elsewhere in the NHS? A story in The Times this week gives pause for thought. The Health Secretary was asked in the Commons this week whether he was concerned by the interim findings of a review that doctors felt “pressured to adopt an unquestioning approach” when treating children with gender dysphoria. The Cass Review, commissioned by the NHS, published its interim findings last month and found that there was a “lack of consensus and open discussion” about gender dysphoria. Too often, the report went on, the NHS “lacked the appropriate clinical response” because of “a lack of open discussion.”

    Compelled speech and the law

    The FSU wrote to Matthew Rycroft, the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, last week to complain about a directive issued to Home Office staff. Guido Fawkes has more, but the gist of the story is that staff in the Visa, Status and Information Services department were sent a standardised format for their email signatures that included a suggestion they include their preferred gender pronouns. Was this directive a clumsily worded suggestion, or an attempt to compel employees to engage in a certain type of expression? It certainly looked like the latter.

    This isn’t semantic nit-picking, either. It matters legally. Any attempt at compulsion would not only have breached the Equality Act 2010, but would also have violated those employees’ rights to freedom of thought, conscience and the right to free speech as stipulated under Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

    In our letter the FSU’s General Secretary, Toby Young, pointed out that the “directive, which appears to be mandatory, is a form of compelled speech that violates the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion and the right to free speech” under the European Convention on Human Rights. The letter continued:

    We trust that this directive was based on a misunderstanding by an overzealous manager and is not official Home Office policy. Indeed, we think it cannot be as you have not included your pronouns in your biography on the UK government website. However, we would ask you to affirm that no Home Office employee has been penalised for refusing to include their pronouns in their email signatures.

    You can read the FSU’s letter in full here.

    A cis-gender, non-birthing person walks into a bar…

    Award-winning actress and comedian, Catherine (“Am I bovvered?”) Tate recently warned that cancel culture was waging a “war on comedy” and called on common sense to prevail. “I think you can’t help but second guess yourself,” the Mail Online quoted her as telling the BBC’s Headliners podcast. “We are in a climate where it’s like touch paper. Things can be, and often are, wilfully misconstrued.”

    Omid Djalili touched on that same issue in an interview with BBC Hardtalk’s Stephen Sackur this week. “Can you be your genuine, funny self in a culture today which is so full of wokery, even cancel culture, that there is a war on jokes?” Sackur asked. “I think so,” Djalili replied:

    If a comedian is clever, they can navigate it. If you just go for the gag, you may get into trouble. So in my concert pieces, there’s more explanation. When I look at the totality of my show it used to be 200 laughs. Now it’s 150 laughs. But you need that extra buffer.

    Djalili is a brilliant comedian. But even so, is ‘adaptation’ really the best response to cancel culture? What he’s suggesting sounds uncomfortably like a variation on the theme of a trigger warning.

    The problem with that type of thing is that in explaining, in providing a trigger warning to an audience, you effectively concede the exact point your opponents want you to concede, namely, that what you’re doing isn’t really acceptable. The explanation ends up as a form of special dispensation – ‘just this once’. But then, of course, there’s always another time, another audience, another sensitivity to be considered, until, in the end, even Djalili’s detailed explanations might not be enough to stop him, as he puts it, “getting into trouble”.

    Campaign news

    In 2020, writer Gillian Philip added the hashtag #IStandwithJKRowling to her Twitter account. Her publisher quickly caved to transactivists’ demands that they dump her – and, to add a classy, sensitive touch to the proceedings, they did so just one month after the death of her husband.

    Gillian is a member of the FSU and today she needs your help to seek justice. She’s launched a legal claim in the Employment Tribunal against both HarperCollins and WorkingPartners. Her case is that she was discriminated against because of her gender-critical beliefs and because of her age. This follows the case of Maya Forstater v CGD UKEAT/0105/20/JOJ in which it was established that it is unlawful to discriminate against someone for having gender critical views.

    Gillian’s aim is to win her case, and, in doing so, to stand up for others who have gender critical views, empowering them to speak up freely and without fear of being persecuted for their beliefs.

    You can read more about Gillian’s story and pledge your support here.

    Sharing the newsletter

    As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join, and help us turn the tide against cancel culture.

    You can share our newsletters on social media with the buttons below to help us spread the word. If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.

    Best wishes,

      1. Good morning, Maggie.

        Once I’ve mastered the skills of linocut, I might then turn my attention to attempting a woodcut. I have the tools to do so.
        The one you have chosen to show is particularly appealing.

        1. I remember doing something like that at school but I’m sure it was on clay with a black surface

          1. The lino we used for lino cuts was brown; the ink was black.
            Scraper board was paper covered with a thin coating of china clay with black surface so you could see your emerging design.

          4. I do – Art at school was a total disaster for me. A complete waste of a weekly period.

          9. That’s scraperboard, Spikey. I have lots of it. Some, like you had in school, is a layer of chalk or clay covered by a layer of black ink. You scrape away the ink with a sharp tool or blade to make a design by revealing the white beneath. I also have some white scraperboard in which you add your own ink (of any colour), allow it to dry thoroughly before scraping some away in the same manner.
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3d20ee17bc3b9e2e3c15eacbec5e4ea7ccc39df7ce46536cfcab092f7d6a17a7.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e3dcedcf0d46638556b4621fe92d478039a75ebd7fed70b5209af899bb76d4cf.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11244c480c1e954e03e3bfa44521fdadaa117394a30fde74be8c53e85d416607.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/03ffa9f5fdaac9a121abb01a58a43905c6177141d62c2eee37820df5e9b3a9fd.jpg Here are some of mine done on white scraperboard.

          12. Have you tried doing any block printing from your scraperboard engravings? They could be interesting.

          13. Not yet, but that is certainly a good idea. I’ll put my mind to that when I get started.

    2. The prisoners are in the canteen. It is secure prison for long term prisoners. The new guy has found a place at a table. After a few minutes a prisoner at the far end of the canteen stands up and calls out “37”. The prisoners start laughing, even the guards smile a little. A few moments pass and another convict stands up, and calls out “95”. More laughter all round. The new guy asks his neighbour what was going on. His neighbour tells him that they have all heard all of the jokes very many times, so now they just use a number for each one. The new guy wants to fit in, and thinks “I’ll try this”. He stands up, calls out “26” and sits down. Silence. Embarrassed, the new guy, with his head down, turns to his neighbour at the table and whispers, “what went wrong?”. His neighbour, a decent enough bloke for a serial killer, replies, “It’s not the joke, it’s the way you tell them”.
      Worse than that, the joke apparently broke the hate laws and his sentence was increased by six months.

      1. These days who can tell??

        Meanwhile Stonetoss propduce some crackers…

        https://i1.wp.com/stonetoss.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/ukraine-azov-stonetoss-comic.png?fit=1500%2C500&ssl=1

        https://i2.wp.com/stonetoss.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/ukraine-and-russia-lgbt-stonetoss-comic.png?fit=1500%2C500&ssl=1

        https://i1.wp.com/stonetoss.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/world-war-3-russia-ukraine-stonetoss-comic.png?fit=1500%2C500&ssl=1

        https://i1.wp.com/stonetoss.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/ukraine-canada-conflict-stonetoss-comic.png?fit=1500%2C500&ssl=1

        https://stonetoss.com/comic/cold-war/

      1. You are right: Theory or Theorem?

        Religion is entirely dependent upon it being impossible to prove (or disprove) the existence of God.

        If God’s existence could be proved in the way that Pythagoras’s Theorem can be proved conclusively then it would be absurd to have faith i is existence or to think He does not exist.

        Mind you, many of my companions seem capable of holding logically incompatible ideas simultaneously.

        1. Cognitive dissonance. Creating tension in the mind. No wonder so many lefties are nutters.

        2. “Religion is entirely dependent upon it being impossible to prove (or disprove) the existence of God.” – that’s why it’s called “faith”, after all.
          Read a disappointing book by Dawkins that said that God did not exist because you couldn’t prove it – you can make the exact opposite argument, taht God does exist because you can’t prove He doesn’t. In about 160 pages.

  34. “Marine Le Pen has accused President Macron of being nonchalant, condescending and arrogant when he faced her in their crunch television debate.”

    Stupid bint. She should NOT have whinged about her “treatment” by Toy Boy. Rather, she should have given as good as she got.

    Disappointing.

        2. Slammers tend to do what the imam tells them.

          However – unlike the poor old UK – you have to vote in person (or by a proxy). Postal voting is almost impossible.

          1. Similar situation in Spain, and ID must be presented. The Spanish also have a system of ‘mesa electoral’, a bit like jury service. (but no expenses can be claimed as far as I know)
            If you are selected by lottery, you and two others must attend the polling station and the count as witness & supervisor to ensure fair play.

      2. One can only assume that those who vote for Macron are happy to see the advancement of Islam throughout France.

        1. I believe that France already has the biggest Muslim population in Europe. It’s already very well advanced.

          1. Well, it is all part of the Great Reset – New World Order – bollox, n’est-ce pas?

          3. “I believe that France already has the biggest Muslim population in Europe. It’s already very well advanced backward.”

          4. They might have had once, but I believe there are not so many in Calais these days.

      3. Doesn’t surprise me one bit.

        I just wish the Mélenchonistas would vote for her. They won’t because, to them, she is Adolf in a skirt.

      4. Marine Le Pen shouldn’t have said she’ll ban ‘headscarves’.
        They’ll be dead touchy about that…

    2. Indeed. we have known for years that President Macron is nonchalant, condescending and arrogant. They elected him for these admirable gallic qualities, and it seems absurd to condemn a man aspiring to remain French President of possessing the characteristics of a Frenchman. I was equally absurd when I suggested that President Trump was too damned American for my taste.

      Giving as good as they get in a French presidential debate is like watching two camels eyeing one another up.

    3. Same thing happened in the last one…she crumples in a female way.
      French MEN won’t like it.

      1. I know – that is why it is so unfortunate. And that vain, self-obsessed little spiv will be there for another 5 years.

      1. He hasn’t appeared here for ages. Last I saw of him was under the DT letters some time ago when I could still read them.

  36. “Retail sales plunged by 1.4% last month – far more than expected – as

    consumers tightened their belts in the face of the squeeze in living

    costs, according to official figures.

    The Office for National

    Statistics (ONS) said the decline was largely driven by a drop in demand

    for online purchases and pointed to dented demand generally amid

    soaring inflation.”

    Meanwhile in Woking the Peacock Centre (largest shopping centre) goes into administration leaving the council to whistle for their 6 million pound loan

    https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/woking-peacocks-shopping-centre-faces-23731319
    There may be trouble ahead…………

    2. We’ve told them we can’t afford heating bills that triple suddenly, combined with the removal of the triple lock.
      What do they expect. Some of us are not reckless.
      Perhaps they think we’re fibbing – like them…

    3. Well, well, well, whoda thunk it? Swingeing taxes, high energy bills, high inflation, no return on savings – people haven’t got spare money to shop.

  37. 352127+ up ticks

    Morning Each,
    , the opposition just wants to topple the Prime Minister

    The political elites are trying to push the lie they are on opposing sides purely to have the herd battling for “their party” to win the key to number 10.

    The political toxic trio lab/lib/con ARE a
    coalition without a shadow of doubt.

    Bereft of policies, what policies would they be then ? the party manifesto’s are works of make believe purely as fodder for fools bent on getting “their party” elected.

    “Their party’s ( the coalition) history over the last 3 plus decades is very hard to define being it is covered in shite from the major era onwards, a great deal of which has
    rubbed of on to a majority of the electorate.

    Tell me was this johnson chap & crew sworn into office via the Koran .because if so he has every right to lie to NON believers.

  38. “Bereft of policies, the opposition just wants to topple the Prime Minister”

    The Conservatives might not be bereft of policies, but every one of them is entirely wrong and un-Conservative.
    ‘Partygate’ is merely a distraction ruse, a ‘look over there a squirrel ‘ game organised by CCHQ.

    3. Just a youngster.
      Andy Summers of The Police will celebrate his 80th at the end of this year.

  42. I wonder whether we might be better off with a single tax. VAT (aka Purchase Tax) increased to 50%. Would that be enough to replace almost all other taxes? If so, then income could be spent on discretionary items, as food, children’s clothes, electricity, gas and coal would be exempt. So the cost of new cars would rise, but fuel would be less expensive. The cost of all electronic stuff would also rise. Perhaps a 2-tier rate with VAT lower on products made entirely in the UK.

    1. The best tax rates are those on purchases, not income. An alternative is to tax land. Dominic Frisby presented this quite sensibly.

      Switzerland has low income taxes, but relatively high sales taxes – on luxury items. This is fair and rewards work. The higher taxes cannot be avoided as you pay them when you buy something.

      But, bluntly, the problem is too many taxes, too many faux subsidy because of too many taxes, a deeply unfair tax system to punish workers who earn something and reward shirkers who don’t..

      We have a truly obese public sector absolutely awash with waste and inefficiency. The better step is to reduce state waste. Bin this miserable redistributive model of taxation for ‘fairness’ and let work and effort pay. Oh, Lefties hate Jeff Bezos ‘cos he’s rich – what they really mean is they want his money for themselves. It’s plain greed. Start cutting waste then clamp the state in irons so it can never, ever run up a debt, cannot deflate the currency, cannot fix interest rates, cannot borrow without public permission and that that borrowing must be paid back.

      1. The Swiss tax regime would certainly give a boost to the secondhand (Well loved, Used) market.

        1. It does – it works for them. I think the best approach is control over the state. It simply cannot dictate and waste as it does here because the public can simply stop them. No net zero over there, the public would have the choice.

    2. New Hampshire offers an interesting example of taxation. Zero state income tax, zero sales taxes.

    1. Canadians have been very compliant with jabs 1, 2 , 3 and now 4.
      We have not seen many cases of covid in our area until recently. However, in the past few months people have started reporting covid positive in increasing numbers – the gym is now notifying us of two or three new cases every week.

      The answer? Booster shot campaigns and mass vaccination clinics are being organised, mask mandates are being renewed and the doom and glow health advisors are having a field day spreading panic.

      Absolutely nothing learnt in the last two years, it is the same message and reaction.

  45. Western spy agencies warn Russian hackers could target the NHS, nuclear power stations and the civil service…. 22 April 2022.

    Western intelligence agencies are warning Russian state-sponsored hackers are targeting critical infrastructure – and cautioned that working from home increases the risk of a successful attack.

    How would we ever know?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10742599/Western-spy-agencies-warn-working-home-INCREASES-risk-Russian-cyber-attack.html

    2. We would only notice if the NHS became more efficient. The civil service is so utterly hidebound and inefficient that Russian hackers would likely be so disgusted they’d give up.

    4. Presumably the civil servants working from home are using government supplied laptops connected to the gsi.(Government secure intranet) so they would be at no more danger of being hacked than the people working in the office.

    7. Russian hackers target power stations – no food – no petrol – lots of lovely opportunities for Government to clamp down on freedom to protect people – food shortages

      Government saves the day! power comes back on, but now digital ids are needed, not possible to pay with cash, government is making direct payments to people with lovely shiny new CBDC…

  46. Western spy agencies warn Russian hackers could target the NHS, nuclear power stations and the civil service,. 22 April 2022.

    Western intelligence agencies are warning Russian state-sponsored hackers are targeting critical infrastructure – and cautioned that working from home increases the risk of a successful attack.

    How would we ever know?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10742599/Western-spy-agencies-warn-working-home-INCREASES-risk-Russian-cyber-attack.html

    1. Her Majesty deserves much better than a scruffy overgrown shrub to commemorate her birthday and Jubilee. People all seem to be idiots nowadays.

      1. I’m sure that some ‘Greenie Genie’ will try (and succeed in) cutting it down.

        2. Even better, maybe some of these moronic eco oiks will glue themselves to it. Maybe Bonfire Night could come early this year…

      1. No doubt each pot will have its individually piped water supply. And no doubt some will grow faster than others with the survivors making the whole thing look an even worse mess.

      2. The blue jacket with the black trim is nice. Probably created by Angela Kelly. A much more useful confidante than One’s grandsons.

    3. Probably the idiot Hazza and his ghastly wife! He needed to check that his Gran was surrounded by the right branch of security.

    4. Thomas Heatherwick is 52 years old. His sun sign is Aquarius and his birth flower is Violet & Primrose. No details of his marital status.

      Who commissions these monstrosities? We know who pays for them – we do. We should know who is raking it in at our expense.

      1. He was also responsible for a hideous “floral bridge” in London, which was abandoned after something like £50 million had been wasted….

    2. I have all the Hancocks Halfhour playing from my phone atm. Unbeatable. I think I’m up to 1959, the Scandal Sheet.

  50. Good afternoon! I’m at work today so just looking in during lunch. Got Wordle in three today. Mostly luck but perhaps work also jogs the brain a little.

    1. Well done, I’ve been off form the last few days but have been very lucky with an eagle 2 today.
      Wordle 307 2/6

      🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  52. A beautiful sunny day, but still with that chill to the air that keeps my fleece lined shirt on when I’m not working.

    Currently doing a load of sawing, chopping & stacking to get the smaller of the woodstacks refilled and I’ve just about got it three quarters done.
    I’m having to shift the logs from up on the garden stack to the tiny postage stamp of level ground I have just above the stack I’m filling. It’s a lot easier than sawing & chopping up the garden and then hauling the bits down for stacking. The new saw chain is ripping through the logs very nicely too!

  53. Anyone seen this yet?

    Petition
    Take action to make entering the UK illegally extremely unattractive for adults
    Adults entering the UK illegally must be arrested, imprisoned, only given basic provisions & rapidly deported to the last country they were in or arrived from.
    https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/600378

    1. It is unattractive enough already – especially for white people born and bred here…

    2. The climate change loonies claim that global warming will attract the great white shark to the English Channel. If only…

    5. “make entering the UK illegally extremely unattractive”
      What about making them disembark onto a large pontoon 5 miles offshore and see if they can swim the rest of the way.

      1. That won’t work; those that aren’t doctors or engineers will no doubt be Olympic standard swimmers so they’ll make it and be put in the National team.

        2. Like Eddy the Eel? I may have got the name wrong, but there was a black swimmer in the Olympics who finished ages behind everyone else.

      2. The old joke was that Enoch Powell was offering a £1,000 prize to each and every immigrant from the Caribbean to swim home.

    8. Politicians wont take any notice or take any action they have not done anything to stop any of it so far Remember Cameron was flying hundreds in at a time for weeks from Syria.
      Signed all the same.
      Putting them in prison as well ? That’s gonna cost us Bob, but being an island it’s very difficult to turn them away once their feet are on the ground.
      I suppose instead of loading them onto RNLI boats they might just chuck them a few gallons of fuel to get them back to France.

      1. And, in any case, we are going to be welcoming more immigrants from India. Don’t forget the Hong Kongers, the Africans, and the everyone elsers.

        1. It’s some thing we do not need, our idiots on Parliament keep banging on about green this, green that, green everything.
          How is it green to rip up our countryside to accommodate people from warmer climates who’s carbon foot print goes through the roof as soo as the switch on a light. Let alone heat a house in the winter,

        2. It’s some thing we do not need, our idiots on Parliament keep banging on about green this, green that, green everything.
          How is it green to rip up our countryside to accommodate people from warmer climates who’s carbon foot print goes through the roof as soo as the switch on a light. Let alone heat a house in the winter,

    9. 8,192 with Alf and me. Not that it’ll do any good. But then, if you don’t try, it really will never happen! We live in hopes. (I know – it’s the hope that kills!).

    1. That’s very cruel for those of us now blessed with a large portmanteau after three years of lockdown.

        1. I’ve still got half a box of ‘extremely chocolatey’ biccies to have. I think I’m being very abstemious.

  55. I said to the war queen yesterday ‘Talk dirty to me…’

    So she said ‘Fancy an early night?’ with that coquettish look in her eyes.

    ‘Oh do I ever’, I replied.

    Twenty minutes later we were both abed and asleep.

    2. After the invasion of the Grand Monsters we were in bed and snoring about 10 o’clock!

    1. Netflix was described to me by a friend as having “every movie except the ones you actually want to watch” several years ago. Saved me wasting money on a subscription to try it out!

      1. There do seem to be many many films made in America for a home teenage audience. IMO unwatchable.

        1. Yes, it was US teen stuff that made me throw our TV out.
          It is a great pity the Bavarian Eberhofer films aren’t published with English subtitles, they are a very funny series.

          1. What pisses me off is the subtitles are never in English, they are invariably in a retarded Americanese, even on an English film.

          2. I used to love the dubbing on some of the early martial arts films – very amusing!

      2. If you pick something you don’t know at random, there are some gems among the cr*p.

  57. Breaking News:
    Due to continued protests about royal tours overseas to commemorate the
    Platinum Jubilee, the British government has revised its stance on
    compensation for the descendants of slaves. A spokesman said “We are
    committed to ensuring that no-one is left worse off as a result of
    historic slavery and intend to leave every black person in the same
    position they would have been in if their ancestors had not been
    enslaved. To this end we will be relocating all compensation claimants
    from these idyllic Caribbean paradises and giving them a mud hut in
    Somalia with a grass skirt, a spear and £3.87 for lost earnings.”

      1. kegs pl (plural only) (Northern England) Underpants. (Northern England) Trousers (pants).

  59. Well that’s me done enough for the day. Only a small amount of the stack to fill when we get back from the land of the Viet Taff and that will leave the half used stack we’re currently using to top back up again.

    And just in time to pick up Tchaikovsky’s 5th on Radio 3.

      1. They created a streaming media site but have now abandoned it after only a month or operation apparently.

  61. Is anyone else having difficulty with the Disqus Comments tag, and also the summary, which does not seem to be updating any more?

        2. Didn’t know that page existed, JM. Don’t know why today’s page isn’t listed. Better to use the ‘front door’ – nttl.blog, or follow the link at the top of each day’s page.

    1. And Three for Me, sweetie ! … x
      Wordle 307 3/6

      🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. Back to par.
        Wordle 307 4/6

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

    1. That is VERY old news, Paul. The Liverpool snap was taken months ago when masks were still mandatory.

          2. Ah – didn’t notice that. Very sensible of the BPAPM. Much more likely to be stabbed in Liverpool than in Kiev.

  64. 352127+ up ticks,

    May one ask with May approaching since the bog mans ( teflon tone) era the mass uncontrolled immigration party’s still receive
    support, carte blanche, to run the nation into the ground, any supporter / lab/lib’con voter know ?

  66. Heard ‘sir’ Roger Gale on the radio today. What a snivelling little creep he was. I know Boris isn’t the best bloke on the planet but gawd help us from fatheads like Gale.

          1. Hem – never an employee. A contractor. Significant difference in terms of pay and pension.

            Do get your facts right…{:¬))

          2. I was barely out of suckling when i first heard your dulcet tones. How was i supposed to know !

          7. There was a tentative arrangement to appear. AFTER the programme, a contract was sent to me for the fee for that one programme.

          8. I am starting to understand why lawyers tend to love their jobs.
            The opportunities for delving into the the small print are legion.
            Does this mean that when I sign the contract for my roofer to complete work I am not actually employing him, merely paying a tentative fee?

            No need to reply, I’m being facetious, as usual!

    1. Why can’t they see that that’s sick? Join the Stasi, report the person sitting next to you at a football match?

      1. And, of course, you can scan the seats of any fan of the opposing team!! Or the bloke whose head is in the way, or who is so fat he’s taking up more than his share of the seating or ….

    3. The hair is cultural appropriation. Nigerians don’t have curly hair like that.

    5. The size of the bust reminds me of those huge Soviet-era statues of people like Lenin.

    6. The size of the bust reminds me of those huge Soviet-era statues of people like Lenin.

    3. Technology has unquestionably transformed the music industry, in terms of both how we listen to music and how it is made. In this era of computer-generated music, the ability for any individual to create vast electronic symphonies has rendered bands almost redundant. I grew up in a time when teenagers gathered in garages with a motley collection of instruments, dreaming of stardom. These days, it’s more likely to be a lone wolf with a laptop and some inexpensive software.

      No more flogging up and down the highways in a battered Bedford or Transit, playing your own instruments to 50-100 in a pub or club, hoping you’ll get noticed for your ability and a style of your own. No, rip off the work of the masters, smother it with synths, sell it on the internet, job done.

  73. That’s me for today. Gorgeous sunshine – and lovely in the sunny part of the house and the greenhouse – BUT the wind all day was very unpleasant – blustery, buffeting and chilly. It blew down the washing line with all the bed-linen on it. Grrr.

    More for the next few days. No rain in sight, worse luck. I had hoped for steady drizzle while we are away. No such luck.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain

    1. Dear Ripon

      Of the tens of thousands who have slunk into the UK, about 100 are ASYLUM seekers. The rest are money-grabbing illegal economic migrants.

      Do TRY to get your facts right. They are COMPLETELY different from (most of) the Ukrainians.

      Grrrr.

      1. My feelings exactly Bill.

        I love Ripon and all the North Yorkshire towns .

        Even down here you cannot walk five minutes with out viewing , well you know what .

    2. They may have done nothing wrong but to change a village in such a way is an invasion. Keep it up. Civil war next. Why don’t they all fuck off to Italian hill towns that are empty? Oh i know…they would have to do some fucking work.

      1. Actually we walked though several northern Italian villages [Vale Maira] before the plague – they have been forced to accept “their share” of gimmigrants, most of whom speak little or no Italian but all have mobile phones! In some places the incomers make up 30% or more of the inhabitants – there are few jobs [which is why the young Italians have left] so most are unemployed. The villagers we spoke to were seriously pi$$ed off at having this problem dumped on them!

    3. Ripon’s response – typical multi-culti rubbish – there is no war in France, and most are purely economic migrants who have entered this country illegally. Woke up, you morons!

    1. I am very suspicious of the word ‘light’ in the context of food; invariably there are dodgy ingredients as in ‘Weightwatchers’ rubbish …

    2. No self-respecting Greek would touch it with a Στύλος φορτηγίδας …

    1. If it replaces the stupid Mayday holiday- fine. But the last thing this country needs is another bank holiday. The banks do bugger all anyway.

        1. Not much, ’tis true. But we don’t need another one….isn’t there going to a four day holiday weekend to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee? That should be plenty.

          2. I am just waiting for (a) sudden lockdown just before – to “protect” the NHS and
            (b) a slammer attack in several places.

    2. Perhaps there should be an entire week where people are required to work for nothing; to show them all just how much the illegal gimmegrants and their hangers-on, lawyers, council workers, support staff and the like are actually costing every working family.

    3. You waycist. Only far-right, foam-flecked, Leavers even think about St George. And – anyway – his flag is an insult to the slammers.

    4. Yep. I’ve been flying the flag from about lunchtime (after I took the union flag down following HM’s birthday yesterday).

  78. Linton-on-Ouse, Linton-on-Ouse it’s time to come in, your time is up.
    All residents report to the village square for decolonisation.

  79. For the love of God, stop supplying the Ukrainians with arms, which only prolong the misery.
    Admit it’s over. Zelensky has arranged the murder of more than sufficient numbers of his own population, aided and abetted by the West.
    Stop the destruction and stop the killing.

    Boris Johnson admits Russian victory in Ukraine is ‘a realistic possibility’ as Putin steps up onslaught

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/russia-could-win-ukraine-war-admits-boris-johnson-donbas-mariupol-b995670.html

    1. Apparently the Russians are pretty good at destroying foreign weapons on arrival but I guess the people who manufacture and trade in arms still get paid, so they probably don’t care?

      1. I fear so.
        My take on it is that the Yank armaments suppliers see this as an ideal opportunity to test their wares in a real time environment and will sell on the back of it.
        Bastards

          1. The big boys love their wars to test their toys.
            As long as it’s “little people” on the receiving end they don’t care.

      1. That’s a corker. (The Duke of Clarence who supposedly was drowned in a butt of Malmsey, his daughter wore a cork on her wrist all her life, in memory of her father.)

        1. Thank you.
          EDIT PS
          One of the things I like about Nottle is that almost any deliberate reference to something slightly away from the post gets spotted, rather like Ready-Eddy and Grizzly’s snag the other day.

          1. That daughter, Margaret, Countess of Salisbury was executed by Henry VIII. She refused to lay her head on the block saying, rightly that she had done nothing wrong. Her only wrong was being of Plantagenet blood. She was hacked to death.
            History does not tell us what happened to the cork.

          3. I remember that from my schooldays….history was my fave subject.
            We had an excellent teacher who brought history to life…Mrs Brill. She certainly was!

          6. A chap I once worked with could never get the hang of history or geography. He explained in the first year of learning history all they ever seemed to do was to draw maps. At the same time in geography all they seemed to learn was the history of different places!

          8. Failing to learn dates (with my problem with numbers) is what caused me to fail history.

          9. It was so unbelievably dull it left in me a hatred of history that lasted until mid 30s or so.

          11. Considering the syllabus was European history from the end of the 100 Years’ War to 1914, you can imagine what scope there was for me to get all the treaties, wars, etc wrong, wrong, wrong!

          12. My history teacher at Wallop (yes really) school was Plantagenet Somerset Fry. I never became interested in the subject.

          13. That was the name of one of the main male characters in the Pallisers….Plantagenet Palliser- known as Planty.

          14. He used to write history books. Rather lurid, if I remember rightly. He seemed to have a bit of downer on the Tudors – especially Elizabeth First.
            Maybe the clue is in his Christian name.

          1. I am not knocking our mutual hero, sweetie !

            Herewith some (Aussie?) history:
            The Preservation of Horatio, Lord Nelson’s Body
            Author Grose, Kelvin, Subjects 19th century wars, Battle of Trafalgar, HMS Victory.

            Much has been written about Nelson in the lead up to this bicentenary of his death at the Battle of Trafalgar and here the author dispels the myth of “Nelson’s Blood”- the matelot’s legendary tot of rum.

            When Lord Nelson died at 4.30 pm on 21 October 1805, there was no lead on board HMS Victory for a coffin, so a cask called a Leaguer (the largest size aboard) was chosen for the reception of his body. The hair was cut off (and given to Emma Lady Hamilton, as Nelson had asked), the body stripped of clothes (except for a shirt) and put in the cask which was then filled with brandy. ((‘William Beatty, M.D., The Death of Lord Nelson, Constable, Westminster, 2nd edition, 1895, p. 58.)) The cask was then put under the charge of a Marine sentry on the Middle Deck. It stood on its end, having a closed aperture at its top and another below. In that way the old brandy could be drawn off and new brandy poured in, without disturbing the body.

            On 24 October there was a “disengagement” of air from the body; the sentry became alarmed when the lid of the cask opened to allow the discharge of gas from inside. The brandy was then drawn off and the cask filled again before the arrival of the Victory at Gibraltar on 28 October, where fresh spirit was procured. ((Ibid., pp. 58-59.))

            The Victory left Gibraltar and passed through the Straits during the night of 4 November. At noon the next day they joined Collingwood off Cadiz. ((Ibid., p. 60 Ibid., pp. 61-62.))

            It took the Victory five weeks to arrive at Spithead, during which time the brandy was renewed twice more. ((Ibid., p. 61.))

            On 11 December Lord Nelson’s body was taken from the cask and found to be in a state of perfect preservation, “without being in the smallest degree offensive”. The bowels were then removed, as they were in a state of decay. While Dr Beatty was doing this, he found the ball that had killed Nelson. It had passed through the spine and lodged in the muscles of the back, a little below the shoulder blade. ((Ibid., pp. 61-62.))

            On the way, it fractured the second and third ribs. ((Ibid., p. 66))

            Lord Nelson’s remains were wrapped in cotton vestments, and rolled from head to foot in bandages, the ancient way of embalming? ((Ibid))

            The body was then put into a leaden coffin filled with brandy holding in solution camphor and myrrh. This coffin was then enclosed into a wooden one made from the mainmast of the French ship L’Orient, presented to Nelson by his friend Captain Benjamin Hallowell of the Swiftsure after the Battle of the Nile. ((Ibid., p.67.))

            The leaden coffin was then opened and the body taken out. All the officers of the Victory, together with Admiral Collingwood and Captain Hardy’s friends were present at the time of the body’s removal from the leaden coffin. The undecayed state of the body, after a lapse of two months, surprised all.

            The body was then dressed and placed in the shell made from L’Orient’s mast, and covered in shrouding. This was then enclosed in a leaden coffin, which was immediately soldered up and put into another wooden shell. It then left the Victory and was conveyed to Greenwich Hospital. ((Ibid., p.68))

            Beatty found Nelson’s body in a very healthy state. There were no morbid indications. The heart was small and dense in its substance. Similarly, the lungs, liver, stomach and spleen were sound. All the vital parts were:

            “..so perfectly healthy in their appearance, and so small, that they resembled more those of a youth than of a man of 47.”11 The immediate cause of Nelson’s death was a bullet wound to the left pulmonary artery, which bled into the chest cavity. ((Ibid., p.76.))

            Nelson preferred to be buried in St Paul’s Cathedral rather than Westminster Abbey because he believed Westminster Abbey would revert to the swamp from which it came. ((Ibid., p.70.))

          2. “The body was then put into a leaden coffin filled with brandy holding in solution camphor and myrrh. This coffin was then enclosed into a wooden one made from the mainmast of the French ship L’Orient, presented to Nelson by his friend Captain Benjamin Hallowell of the Swiftsure after the Battle of the Nile.”
            My family was always generous about giving coffins to other folk.

          4. He added Carew to the Hallowell on inheriting Beddington, so mum was born a Hallowell Carew.

          2. Nelson’s body was placed in a cask filled with brandy on 22 October 1805 and was then transported to Gibraltar on HMS Victory, arriving there on 28 October 1805. In Gibraltar the brandy was replaced by spirits of wine to preserve the body. On 4 November HMS Victory set sail from Gibraltar, reaching England on 4 December 1805. On 11 December 1805 her surgeon William Beatty performed an autopsy on Nelson’s body, extracting the musket ball that had killed him. Nelson’s body was then placed in a lead coffin filled with brandy.
            https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nelson/gallery8/

          4. Oh thank you Conway! Shaun the Sheep was my first thought! Grandchildren…! Next thought was Saoirse..I think.. pronounced seer shaa!

          6. It was.
            A multiple play on words and names.
            Only those Sharpe enough could separate the sheep from the old goats.

  82. Time’s up for ‘Blackboy’ clock: Council to tear down 250-year-old Cotswolds ‘racist relic’ depicting a black child with a club and leaf skirt – but locals slam woke ‘minority constantly finding things to be outraged at’

    Sculpture is located on side of Grade II listed building in Stroud, Gloucestershire
    The name of the building, Blackboy House, is also to be reviewed by the council
    It comes after a public opinion survey found the statue causes ‘pain and offence’
    But local MP last year opposed idea, saying ‘it will not end the scourge of racism’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10742609/Council-tear-250-year-old-racist-relic-depicting-black-child-club-leaf-skirt.html

    2. There’s a black boy statue due to be torn down, yet Cardiff has just set up a black woman statue… I don’t see any logic here.

    3. Note that the cretinous morons remain anonymous? I am so bluddy sick of these pathetic people, and the media who give them airtime.

    5. What “scourge of racism”? The anti-white racism we’re constantly subjected to in our own land? There was a black woman in H&H yesterday going on about how she wanted to champion diversity over here. My thought was, why aren’t you championing diversity in Africa?

    6. I bet Siobhan Baillie has rung a few bells in her time…

      Meanwhile, Polly Stratton, the founder of Stroud Against Racism, said the statue is ‘traumatic for people of colour’. Why do these gimps exaggerate so much?

    2. Night Plum, sleep well. I won’t be late to sleep tonight- still worn out from the Grand Monsters.

  84. Evening, all. Weather-wise it’s been a lovely day; sunny, if with a rather biting cold north wind. IT wise, it’s been a nightmare. I’ve been trying to update my sat navs (I’m supposed to do it once a year) and I had to try three different computers before I found one that would actually do it. Then it took ten plus hours, just for one! The laptop’s keyboard went doolally – it kept giving me the function key letters without my pressing the function key. When I did, I got the normal letter. Solving that one has been beyond my poor brain, other than to get the right letters using the Fn key! As if that weren’t enough, Avast decided that sites that I look at every day (Horse and Hound, Shropshire Star and the racing results) were a threat and blocked access to them. Unplug and restart! Now for the headline – of course they want to topple Bojo – they think they should be in charge. It wouldn’t matter whether they had policies or not, it would still be their aim. I don’t know why they are bothering, though – he’s just as left-wing as the Labour party.

      1. On the laptop I need to use one of the functions on the top row to get the wifi to work. That’s the only other time I use it.

    2. Is there summat going on? My computer went bonkers today and so did one of MH’s. (Don’t ask- it’s like mission control here.)

      1. It was in the terms and conditions of this particular one. Regular updates of the maps and speed limits/cameras are advisable. One year I didn’t update the one in the car and at one stage, on a new road, I appeared to be driving across fields!

          1. It was a by-pass. I don’t like going down narrow roads in my 17.5′ camper 🙂 I’ve finally managed to do it now, although one sat nav is too old to be properly updated (the software can’t cope). I only use it as a spare, though – just in case; a sort of “belt and braces”.

    4. Weather-wise ….. Now where did I hear that …. ah yes:

      … Weather-wise, it’s such a lovely day
      Just say the words and we’ll beat the birds
      Down to Acapulco Bay
      It is perfect for a flying honeymoon, they say…

    6. Just use Google Maps for the latest updates and live traffic. I got a ticket for following my out of date satnav!

  85. Who want’s to be a Russian Billionaire?

    The bodies of two Russian oligarchs were found dead alongside their wives and children just one day apart, according to a handful of media reports.
    The first was Vladislav Avayev, formerly vice president of Gazprombank. He was found killed by a gunshot wound in his Moscow apartment on Monday, Russia’s state-run Tass news agency reported. Police are looking into a theory that Avayev shot his wife and children, and then himself.
    Although the names of the victims were not included in a public statement from the Russian government, Tass said an unnamed source later confirmed their identities.
    Investigators said in their statement that they believe Avayev shot his wife and daughter, and then himself.

    The second oligarch was found killed in Spain, some 2,000 miles away.
    His name was Sergei Protosenya and he was found stabbed to death with his wife and daughter. Local media outlets claimed he had been found with a bloodied knife and axe by his side. Prior to his death, Protosenya had been the vice president and chief accountant of Novatek, a major gas company with close ties to Gazprombank.

  86. I was going to put this up as a ‘Where is it?’ feature until I stumbled across the answer myself. These metal skips masquerading as flats were built in 1988 to a design by renowned architect Nicholas Grimshaw. Renowned for what, I ask – recycling scrap metal? They haven’t aged well but then plain metal and concrete surfaces soon become discoloured – think of all those old blocks covered in ‘insulation’. When and why did architects declare their cultural and aesthetic war on our towns and cities?

    A one-bedroom flat was going for £650K in 2015:
    https://www.theguardian.com/money/gallery/2015/mar/27/steel-yourself-for-canal-side-living-in-this-striking-flat-in-pictures

    The location is the Regent’s Canal in Camden. The photo was used as a backdrop for a BBC weather forecast.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1c9c06a1eb57ec6bbbfc2d33899d3752937739274ec4178c86e4757197fd08ec.jpg

    3. Grimshaw practiced initially with Terry Farrell. They both studied at the Architectural Association in Bedford Square London (from memory). I recall visiting the Rotork Controls building in Bath with a group of fellow students from UCL in the seventies, an incredibly overrated prefabricated shed made of ‘zip-up’ grp panels.

      I also remember that Grimshaw won a competition for a new Northampton Town Hall with a glass pyramid design where the council chamber was to be at the apex. Thankfully this design was never realised.

      Grimshaw’s practice employs hundreds and specialises in transportation projects, railway termini and airports in the main.

      1. London Bridge station was a Grimshaw project. I’ve seen worse. They can’t be blamed for the mess at Birmingham New Street. That’s AZPML, who managed to trump the Selfridge building around the corner.

        1. The Northampton competition was won by Jeremy and Fenella Dixon, my mistake to ascribe it to Grimshaw. Memory playing tricks.

          The Eurostar shed at Waterloo is one of Grimshaw’s better projects, albeit intended to be a temporary building.

  88. Am off to bed, still very tired but we just relaxed today. Re me, no follow up re an appointment so if no letter comes tomorrow then I will call the hospital Monday morning. Still in pain which the Monsters distracted me from yesterday.
    Sweet dreams Y’all and I hope you all have a nice rest of evening.

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