Friday 22 December: The danger inherent in changing Britain’s laws on assisted dying

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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426 thoughts on “Friday 22 December: The danger inherent in changing Britain’s laws on assisted dying”

  3. Wordle 916 3/6

    Did it in 3 today.

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    1. Well done, four here

      Wordle 916 4/6

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  5. The danger inherent in changing Britain’s laws on assisted dying

    I wonder if they will make it mandatory to save the planet

  7. Starmer calls Russia ‘real and constant threat’ to Europe. 22 December 2023.

    Russia is a “real and constant” threat to Europe, Sir Keir Starmer said as he sought to distance himself further from Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership.

    Wearing army fatigues, the Labour leader visited soldiers stationed in Estonia to stress his party’s commitment to Nato, the defence organisation Mr Corbyn wanted to leave.

    As well as the military threat from Vladimir Putin’s actions, underlined by the war in Ukraine, there was also the risk of other forms of “interference” by the Russian state, Sir Keir said.

    If I had to choose between Vlad and Starmer which was the greater threat to the UK and its people there would be no contest.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/12/21/keir-starmer-calls-russia-real-constant-threat-to-europe/

      1. Starmer is a ventrioquist’s dummy in reverse

        The ‘master’ puts his/her/its hand down the dummy’s throat and it speaks out of its’ ass

      2. Starmer is a ventrioquist’s dummy in reverse

        The ‘master’ puts his/her/its hand down the dummy’s throat and it speaks out of its’ ass

    2. Surely the Army fatigues in Estonia would be the blue/grey shades that conceal soldiers in a snowy landscape.

    3. This report quoted is scurrilous, planting a false link between Starmer’s supposed hostility to Russia (which may be total support tomorrow, since nobody can trust anything Starmer claims to stand for), and the rift between him and Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters in the Labour Party.

      I took the opportunity to look up the Wellingborough constituency, which is shortly to enjoy a by-election, which Labour will surely take as the Tory vote collapses. No other party have ever come anywhere near taking the seat. Most intriguing is the 2017 election, where the Labour vote near-doubled under Corbyn’s leadership, and then fell back again in 2019. It suggests that Corbyn was far more popular than he is given credit for, but constant sniping from within his party over “antisemitism”, and the parliamentary anarchy fostered by his Shadow Brexit Secretary, exhausted him, and by 2019 he must have wanted out.

      The main reason for Corbyn failing to break through in 2017 was that the SNP were still riding high in Scotland, with Labour there languishing on the fringes, and that the Lib Dems were wiped out by the Tories in the West Country over Brexit, so the Tories had a useful bulwark of seats there to see off Corbyn. This left Corbyn the impossible task of a leftwinger making a breakthrough in the English shires. He made a stab of it, and I saw red banners protesting at the closure of a local hospital in Chipping Norton, but it was always a big ask.
      Starmer may claim the keys to No.10 on the back of a Youssaf-led Labour recovery in Scotland, although exchanging one useless Glaswegian Muslim for another hardly seems a solution. Had Kate Forbes been chosen, then I think Starmer would have had a tougher job of it, relying almost totally on a breakdown of Conservative support and the traditional weakness of any third party getting enough strength nationally to prevail in a general election.

      1. Corbyn was better than Starmer, because he was more instinctively anti-WEF. But he wouldn’t have had the courage to stand up to them. Starmer is Blair II.

    4. Oh dear!
      ‘Ahead of the visit, Mr Healey [shadow Defence Secretary, heaven help us – mind you, at present we have Shapps!] said: “We will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes to win. We stand ready to back further assistance to Ukraine and our Nato allies like Estonia.” Amid signs of war fatigue among Ukraine’s Western allies, Labour has heaped pressure on the Government to reveal the UK’s plans for future military aid for Kyiv. Britain gave £4.6 billion of military aid to Ukraine across 2022 and this year.‘

    5. “Wearing army fatigues,” I do get annoyed when journos use American military jargon with regard to the British forces. British soldiers wear combat kit or just combats. Fatigues are an activity, namely general cleaning or labouring duties around barracks, not an article of clothing.

      1. 379711+ up ticks,

        Morning B3,

        Very much so,
        Child ask’s, why is granny in the queue for a shower.

    3. 379711+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      The question is “Are we witnessing the 5th
      Reich rising” when it should be “we are watching the 5th reich rising” and condoning it via the polling stations within the United Kingdom..

    2. I might still have a copy of his novel, “To Hell In A Handcart”, lurking about the place somewhere!
      A very funny read.

  11. Finally emerged from sleep. Needed a quick zed yesterday about 17:00, just woke up now. No supper..
    Morning/afternoon, all Y’all.

  12. Finally emerged from sleep. Needed a quick zed yesterday about 17:00, just woke up now. No supper..
    Morning/afternoon, all Y’all.

  13. Finally emerged from sleep. Needed a quick zed yesterday about 17:00, just woke up now. No supper..
    Morning/afternoon, all Y’all.

  14. Finally emerged from sleep. Needed a quick zed yesterday about 17:00, just woke up now. No supper..
    Morning/afternoon, all Y’all.

  15. ‘Morning All

    Medley

    https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=710,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/155/156/990/original/8bf3a9c1219c1da8.jpg

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    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7bc59e55e50f8110ceb18698109dc8216214eaf8251083e19bed403a75cc4d2a.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7f5422230fc49354dd43c79c32fd75c5f2ed55c0349c6cc3d00f56c4db46d0fb.jpg

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    1. Good morning, all. Overcast and blustery here in N Essex.

      Re the immediate above:

      Is it coincidental with the high concentration of carbon dioxide in the Cambrian Period, that the ‘Cambrian Explosion’ occurred?

      What was the Cambrian explosion? The Cambrian explosion happened more than 500 million years ago. It was when most of the major animal groups started to appear in the fossil record, a time of rapid expansion of different forms of life on Earth.19 Feb 2019

      This major change in animal development is summed up in a statement referring to rabbit fossils in the Precambrian.

      “Precambrian rabbits” or “fossil rabbits in the Precambrian” are reported to have been among responses given by the biologist J. B. S. Haldane when asked what evidence could destroy his confidence in the theory of evolution and the field of study.

    3. Some newborn babies show intolerance to milk based baby formula and have mothers are who are unable (mentally, or physically) to breast feed. Remember that a preemie may be stuck in a hospital for a month before being reunited with his or her mother. Edit: the listed ingredients indicate that the product is medically formulated for a particular group of babies: It is not for open sale in Walmart or Tesco. Simon Goddek PhD is a biotechnologist, not a GP.

    4. It’s American rubbish – my babies had SMA formula and thrived on it.

      The USA seems to be fixated on High fructose corn syrup and the other crap in that picture. No wonder they are all so overweight and unhealthy.

    1. He’s right. People don’t realise how fragile the food supply is, and across the world, governments ‘penetrated’ by the WEF are attacking agriculture.

    2. What will the billionaires do when they are the planet’s sole survivors? Will they turn their hands to growing crops and mining minerals?

      1. 379711+ up ticks,

        Morning DW,
        Probably start the NEW lab/lib/con
        coalition in preparation for manipulating future electoral fools.

        Growing crops ?
        gates / blair foundation = food pills.

  18. Good morning all.
    It seems the ‘Leccy Lads have finished, but the traffic lights have yet to be picked up!

    Wind has finally died down and it’s a nasty heavy drizzle outside with 5°C.

    1. lol cheer us up, why don’t you!!

      A brief scan of today’s Mail website reveals a litany of satanic anti-human misery heaped on readers’ heads.

      A mother who took her son out of mainstream society is a bad mother…mistresses have a hard time at Christmas…Father Christmas dies…covid…seeing grandchildren brings back the horrors of parenthood…Putin the evil child snatcher…criminals hacking children’s social media…going home for Christmas will be a nightmare journey…rich people are on holiday in the sun…euthanasia, just kill yourself.

      After reading the Mail, the last option begins to look tempting!
      This is not news, it’s depressing, anti-Christian, anti-human rubbish, and the rest of the corporate media are not better – they just have a different poison, like ‘climate crisis’ for example.

      Good morning Phizzee!

  22. The elite and their hangers-on are pushing the ‘unprecedented’ climate (warming) that the Earth is facing. Prof Plimer and others are trying to explain that the elite’s claims are deliberate nonsense. Evidence is important, although often ignored in these days when claims of “settled science” are quite brazenly used as a put-down to real science. The modern idea that scientific claims cannot go through the falsifying process is a very dangerous path to tread.

    Unprecedented warming since the end of the last glaciation? The elites & Co may deny the data but can they falsify it using the scientific method?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b6a6a018115bc82da6e52184810ab649bfb15d98ff9923fce714dbedb56dd856.png

  23. Just called the generous friends who invited me for Christmas day to tell them i’m not coming. Constant cough and a slight fever. Even if i feel a bit better on the day i would probably still be infectious. Damn and blast.

    1. Of course you could do the kind thing and go.

      You would pass on the lurgies and thus give them the bestest Christmas present of all: an excuse to go to bed early on New Year’s Eve.

      1. I’ll cough all over a card and send it to you. Wouldn’t want you to miss out on all the fun.

        1. Too late, HG started coughing and sneezing yesterday and is even thinking of going back to bed today.

    2. Oh no Phizzee – it’s still three days, perhaps you will feel better by then. Wrap up warm and dose yourself with chicken soup, Vit D, C and zinc!

      1. I wanted to give them enough notice so they could fine tune their plans. Like leave the rib of beef in the freezer for another time and do something smaller. I don’t think i will be well enough in three days.

    4. Oh, how dreary. Never helps when you’ve just done the right thing and deprived yourself of future fun, either.

      I hope you feel better soon, and that the dogs wait on you hand and foot meanwhile…

  25. The Envy of the World. True story. The MR has damaged her knee. Saw an ACTUAL GP on 14 December. He advised an X-ray. Yesterday she received notice of her -ray appointment on Sunday (Christmas Eve) at 11.30 am. Not bad at all, these days.

    2. In these Godless days, you’re lucky it’s not 8pm on Christmas Eve, or 11.30 am on Christmas day.

    3. Service seems to be better in rural parts……. My OH had a lot of appointments with no long waits.

          1. And my knees. I’ve now gone out of the physio system (although I can go back in at any time in the next three months) and onto another plan.

          3. They have referred me to an “advanced practitioner” who will get in touch with me at some time in the future (I should live so long!) with a view to offering me an appointment and possibly injections in my knees.

  26. The Envy of the World. True story. The MR has damaged her knee. Saw an ACTUAL GP on 14 December. He advised an X-ray. Yesterday she received notice of her -ray appointment on Sunday (Christmas Eve) at 11.30 am. Not bad at all, these days.

    2. We need to stop blaming these WEF tools, and start blaming the thousands of ordinary men and women who “just obey orders” and implement this stuff.

      The Channel invasion for example, only happens because of hours of work put in by men and women working for the RNLI, the Council, refugee services etc.
      It needs to be made crystal clear that this is not socially acceptable, and the same for people who choose to take jobs where they implement policies that stop food production and stop transport.

    3. And will Eamon be walking to work, or does the idea of curbing car use only apply to the little people?

    4. Interesting !!

      We wonder whether Mr Eamon Ryan will be giving up his car?

      Just asking for an Irish friend.

    2. I’ve got one of those cleaners – when I bought it, the saleswoman said it wasn’t her cup of tea, and bought mostly by men! It is very loud, but is the best vacuum cleaner I have ever had. Cannot comment on why it is mostly bought by men though…:-)

  32. Good morning all,

    Cloudy again at the McPhee demesne, wind West-Nor’-West, 10℃. Yesterday got up to an indicated 13℃ on my car temperature gauge so maybe it will again. That’s climate change for ya.

    On Fraser Nelson:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eb6b7f26bcb0514966f2cab3d8ca804b461763eeef2edbe825e9c1911ceb8bcf.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/21/politicians-can-no-longer-afford-to-ignore-britains-declini/

    So what does the pinko editor of the Spectator have to say about it having chaired a discussion about it in Westminster?

    – that the topic is treated as a dangerous ‘far-right’ conspiracy theory.
    – that Labour MP Rosie Duffield had to pull out of the debate because of death threats.
    – that the subject attracts ‘nutcases muttering about cultural decay’.
    – that the internet is rife with theories about a ‘Great Replacement’ and elites using immigration to keep economies afloat rather than helping families.
    – that London is hardly in crisis despite 60% of live births being to foreign-born mothers.
    – that we shouldn’t take demographic forecasts seriously.
    – that it is not necessarily such a bad thing if a rich societies have low birth rates.
    – that those who don’t regret not having children still live happy ‘fulfilled’ lives.
    – that it’s about important questions about the structure and future of society, family and the welfare state.
    – that while many government measures and exhortations to have more children have failed, Hungary’s policy is a success story.

    Well, Fraser, there are no conspiracy theories involved here, just observable facts which you could have pointed out.

    You could also have said that the death threats to Rosie Duffield are an indication of something dark and sinister at work in the undergrowth which does not want the native British to maintain their numbers.

    As to cultural decay being the preserve of ‘nutcases’ perhaps you would like to address that comment to Peter Whittle & Co at the New Culture Forum.

    The Great Replacemnet is not a theory, it is a migration policy originating in the United Nations – you can find that for yourself. Have you not heard of the Kalergi plan?

    Major multi-national corporations are the main supporters of mass migration – why do you think that is?

    Some would say London is in an existential crisis – Islam, knife crime, homelessness with native Britons at the bottom etc. It is demonstrably no-longer a British city. A city in Britain, yes, but not a city OF Britons.

    We shouldn’t take demographic forecasts seriously. Seriously? Do you mean that? They surely MUST be the basis of ALL government policies for the future.

    Rich societies with below replacement birth rates are committing a long, slow suicide. Why else were you chairing a meeting about it?

    As to those who don’t regret not having children living happy fulfilled lives, I’ll leave aside the fulfilled bit but what they are also doing is ensuring the extinction of their genetic inheritance.

    It’s not just a question about the structure and future of society, the family and the welfare state, is it? It’s about the very existence of an ethnically-based nation state which we largely were until 1948 and the docking of the Empire Windrush started it all. Present society is in a chaos wrought by the Marxists in our midst, they are wrecking (largely have wrecked) both the nuclear and extended family and the welfare state needs to be ended anyway to solve many of our ills. It would not be fun but it needs to happen.

    If Hungary has been successful – and it has been – why didn’t you expand on what it has done and urge that the UK copies it.

    If you think that all makes me a ‘far-right’ nutcase, so be it. You’re then a loony leftist.

    1. Once the population if the UK has been replaced with those who couldn’t cut it in Bangladesh, all over for the bennies, who will be doing the earning and organising? The same useless bastards who cannot cut it… They hated it when the white man ran their shithole so much that they moved to a country run by white men…

      1. “to a country run by white men””…

        You mean run by the migrant-descended, women and soy boys?

    2. The elephant in his room is trumpeting loud and clear in that piece. He pointedly doesn’t mention the main problem and it’s not the Polish population of this country.

    5. I worry about what kind of upbringing children would have when their existence is not a product of love between their parents and to satisfy a yearning for them but born of a desire to maintain and prolong the racial and ethnic identity and purity of a nation state. Not that “duty” children haven’t been born before but it’s usually to meet the expectations of would-be grandparents or urgings from others to match the long understood norms of married life.

      1. Correct. Israelis have said in the past that Palestinian violence would continue until the perpetrators loved their own children MORE than they hated the Jews. I remember a young mother who popped out at least four babies from different men; one of the children she was just not enthusiastic about, poor wee mite. Parental love is not automatic. (they would be adults now)

      2. Correct. Israelis have said in the past that Palestinian violence would continue until the perpetrators loved their own children MORE than they hated the Jews. I remember a young mother who popped out at least four babies from different men; one of the children she was just not enthusiastic about, poor wee mite. Parental love is not automatic. (they would be adults now)

    6. As I understand it, his wife certainly, and his children probably, are Swedish nationals. So Fraser is bigoted, because he earns enough moolah to have married and imported a person of colour from almost anywhere.

    7. “Britain” does not have a declining birthrate; the invaders are ramping it up. What is in decline is indigenous breeding because people can’t afford to have children – the govt taxes them too much to pay for the incomers.

  33. I must admit to having had a bit of a surfeit of videos, especially those in which talking heads spend an hour or more rambling around a subject that could be dealt with in under 10 minutes. ‘Rambling’ could be used about some of David Starkey’s public appearances, especially when the corkscrew’s not long been employed – and this one could be condensed to half of its 22 minutes in the disciplined environment of the studio with a proper script – but it’s still worth watching for his ability to get so quickly (even in 22 mins!) from bashing the French to the wrecking of Britain via wokery, feminisation, Brexit and human rights.

    Don’t be put off by the title. This is about far more than Brexit. Starkey begins by bemoaning the loss of courage in a nation built on it but which has now elevated female virtues – ‘woke’ is primarily female, the worship of the victim. Progress was always made by courage, by saying and doing something different. We have lost that to the bureaucracy that has smothered the UK since WW2.

    Brexit: “I voted for, I campaigned for it, I believed in it but it has delivered nothing…parliamentary sovereignty was destroyed at home – by bureaucracy.” He praises Nigel Farage more than once for his courage (for being the man “who said something rude in church”) but disagrees with him for saying new ideas are needed when it’s the old ones that must be revived.

    Starkey repeats a number of themes from other videos. He talks of good and bad liberalism, property rights, capitalism versus corporatism. He mentions Edmund Burke who, at the time of the French Revolution, understood that the enemy was the idea that inherited structures are bad and newfangled structures of mere abstract reason are good. He saves his most forthright criticism for supporters of universal human rights and legislation written to support it, commenting on the paradox that the Free Speech Union has had to use the HRA, and ends on the Blairite destruction, by immigration and legislative vandalism, of not only the constitution but the very idea of the nation.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyHda1EcqqE

    PS There is a brief loss of sound at the start.

    1. It was a waste of time because in spite of a huge majority, the government only implemented Brino.

    2. Have you discovered the play speed in the Settings? I usually set videos on 1.25 speed – 1.5 if the person is a particularly slow talker!

    3. Already seen. Dr Starkey is always a ‘must listen’ when he talks on current affairs of the state and society.

  35. Eliot Wilson
    The truth about Ireland’s Troubles amnesty law challenge

    21 December 2023, 3:30pm

    Christmas is a time when those who are closest to each other fight most bitterly. Ireland, which is bringing a legal case against the UK under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), appears to be acting in the spirit of the season.

    The country’s deputy prime minister Micheál Martin announced yesterday that his government intended to challenge the provisions of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 at the European court in Strasbourg. The Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, framed his government’s intervention in particularly provocative terms.

    ‘We did make a commitment to survivors in Northern Ireland and to the families of victims that we would stand by them,’ he said. But this idea of the government in Dublin as some kind of guardian angel is utterly obnoxious; it would be interesting to know how deep its commitment to the victims of Republican violence runs, given that they made up the majority of deaths during the Troubles.

    It’s true that the legislation is not particularly well conceived. Granted Royal Assent in September, it attempts to address historical issues of the conflict in Northern Ireland: it sets limitations on criminal investigations, legal proceedings, inquests and police complaints and balances this by establishing an Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery and making provision for the experiences of victims to be recorded and preserved.

    Effectively, it is an attempt to draw a line under some of the most bitter disputes and accusations and to help Northern Ireland as a society move on. The model which ministers have pointed to is South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created in 1996 after the dismantling of the apartheid regime, which rejected punitive justice for ‘bearing witness’ to the crimes and injustices of the apartheid era.

    While the Troubles Act was welcomed by veterans’ groups, as it offered the reassurance of immunity from prosecution for former members of the security forces, victims’ groups argued that it would prevent them from seeking justice; the commissioner for victims and survivors, Ian Jeffers, described it as ‘a very bitter pill to swallow’. It also achieved the unusual distinction of uniting Sinn Féin, the Democratic Unionist Party and the other major parties at Stormont in opposition.

    However bad or unpopular the act may be, however, it is a piece of domestic legislation, considered and passed by the UK Parliament to apply within the UK. Martin criticised the decision of the UK government to ‘pursue legislation unilaterally’; but he appears to be forgetting that, within its own jurisdiction, Westminster is within its rights to do just that.

    Ireland’s government also appears to be turning a blind eye to something else: the long and consistent pattern of sympathy towards Republican terrorists in the country. Convicted IRA bomber Gerry Kelly said he was sheltered by leading supporters of both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael after he escaped from the Maze prison in 1983; five years later, taoiseach Charles Haughey refused to extradite the defrocked Catholic priest Patrick Ryan, suspected (accurately) of assisting the IRA in its bomb-making. Events like these leave a sour taste in unionist mouths.

    Micheál Martin has argued that the Belfast Agreement stipulates that the ECHR must be observed and that he has been advised the act infringes this law. But then-secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis, had no hesitation in making the required declaration when the bill was first introduced in May 2022 that it was compatible with the UK’s obligations under the ECHR. Why Dublin’s advice should be any superior to London’s is not clear.

    Perhaps the answer is that this challenge from Dublin is a political intervention. It is the worst form of pious cant for Varadkar or Martin to pretend otherwise. The three-party coalition government which was formed by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green party in June 2020 must face the electorate again by March 2025, and its leaders are acutely aware that their parties have lagged increasingly far behind Sinn Féin for almost three years. No wonder the coalition parties want to polish their anti-British credentials and pretend that the articles of the Irish constitution which claimed to ‘exercise jurisdiction’ over ‘the whole island of Ireland, its islands and the territorial seas’ had not been repealed in 1998.

    Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has criticised the Irish government’s decision to intervene, noting that Dublin has not engaged with the Independent Commission for Reconciliation & Information Recovery led by Sir Declan Morgan KC. He also observed that the Irish government has made no effort since 1998 to pursue prosecutions for past offences over which it might have jurisdiction.

    Tánaiste Martin claims he and his colleagues ‘find ourselves in a space where our only recourse is to pursue a legal path’. Unionists will with good reason contest that plea of ‘you made me do it’. The Belfast Agreement recognises ‘the Irish government’s special interest in Northern Ireland’, and provides a number of forums in which Dublin is to be involved and consulted. But for the Irish government to portray itself so explicitly as a party to domestic UK legislation, especially wearing the dubious cloak of the champion of victims, is offensive interference. This was a conscious and political rather than legal decision in Dublin: the Irish government should, as they say in Belfast, wind its neck in.

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

    Flintshire Ian
    19 hours ago edited
    I think that it is beyond time for Ireland to be considered to be a hostile state. The anachronisms of the Common Travel Area and the rights of Irish citizens to live and work without restriction in the UK and to vote in all UK elections should be quickly brought to an end.

    Blindsideflanker
    19 hours ago
    I don’t remember the Irish Republic taking us to court because Blair gave 300 IRA terrorists an amnesty

    Tory scum
    15 hours ago
    So a foreign country can appeal to a foreign court and in the event of a finding against it, the UK government is duty bound to implement the finding thanks to Blair’s Human Rights Act. A UK government is literally unable to govern. Every single one of Blair’s so called ‘reforms’ need to be repealed.

    Troy Tempest Tory scum
    15 hours ago
    Indeed. Blair needs to be seen in Hitchens terms as a revolutionary who destroyed the British Constitution. First of all he brought in the Human Rights Act (was this in the manifesto?), then devolution (that worked well- not), then he brought in the Supreme Court (which began the depressing trend of judge made law). It is an appalling legacy, not forgetting Iraq and his henchman’s treatment of Dr David Kelly RIP.

    1. Cheap Anglophobia is all that Varadkar knows

      Ireland is hypocritical for suing the UK over the Troubles Legacy Act. It’s just playing up for Biden

      RUTH DUDLEY EDWARDS
      21 December 2023 • 6:23pm

      Even if you disqualify Gerry (I-was-never-in-the-IRA) Adams and his Sinn Fein colleagues, there is no shortage of prime candidates for the position of Chief Hypocrite of the Irish Peace Process. But though he’s a late starter and has stiff competition from historic candidates like Tony Blair, Leo Varadkar has powered his way to the front of the field.

      His government, he tells us, “with a sense of regret”, is going to the Strasbourg court to sue the British government for breaching the Convention on Human Rights with its Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act, which gives some immunity from prosecution.

      He has no option, apparently, because his government made “a commitment to survivors in Northern Ireland and to the families of victims that we would stand by them, respect their wishes and also stand by the Good Friday Agreement, which specifically references the European Convention on Human Rights.”

      Everything about this is dodgy, particularly the timing, which came when the elaborate minuet being danced by the British and Irish governments, hand in hand, trying to bribe the DUP back into Stormont, was thought to be bearing fruit.

      Now it is true that the legacy legislation has been denounced by every political party in Northern Ireland. No one wants those who murdered their loved ones off the hook. But it’s also true that what precipitated the legacy bill was public outrage in England that while a few elderly soldiers – more than 600 of whose comrades were murdered by the IRA – were being pursued over alleged murder 50 years ago, there never seemed to be enough evidence to put in jail republican politicians that – in the Northern Irish idiom – the dogs in the street knew to be as guilty as hell.

      In practice, the whole justice system has been biased against representatives of the British state. Unlike the forces of law and order, terrorists do not keep records, tell the truth, tolerate unhelpful witnesses or run short of lawyers. Under Blair, there was much underhand facilitation of those known as “On the Runs” and hundreds of millions were chucked into investigating anti-state claims. There was little interest in the widows and children of cops or squaddies.

      Successive governments in the Republic – although in theory they deplored IRA atrocities – gave virtually no support to those seeking justice for republican crimes. IRA terrorists left their homes in the south to cross the border and murder men in lonely farms and villages, and then raced back home rejoicing in the knowledge that, even should the police have enough evidence to charge them, they would not be extradited.

      Where the mega hypocrisy comes in is that, though Varadkar is taking a high moral line about amnesty, the British Government is doing nothing that the Irish haven’t done for years.

      From 1999 to 2007, Michael McDowell was attorney general and then minister for justice, and one of the harshest critics of the IRA and Sinn Fein. He has written publicly that the government of which he was a member yielded to the incessant demands of Sinn Fein for immunity from criminal prosecution for unconvicted IRA members, and brought in a de facto moratorium on investigation and prosecution of IRA members.

      In the UK, after decades of wrestling with the issue, the Government decided to draw a line in the sand and have an amnesty in exchange for information. Even though my heart is with those who opposed any such betrayal of the forces of law and order, my head is with the compromisers, since I think they offer a worthwhile alternative.

      What is hardest for victims to bear is not knowing the truth. The new Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery is already taking shape. Since it would require cross-border co-operation, Westminster wanted inter-governmental consultations to make it work.

      So why the threat of legal action? Well, ever since Brexit, which Ireland took personally, Joe Biden – who is obsessed with his Irish Catholic heritage – has made it clear that in any disagreement between “the Brits” and his ancestral home he’s in the green corner. Varadkar has an election coming up, Anglophobia is rampant, Sinn Fein are breathing over his shoulder and Irish prosperity depends on Silicon Valley.

      He reached for his handiest weapon. Go to the top of the class, Leo.

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

      Jacob Smith
      16 HRS AGO
      The Irish are the enemies of the UK. They have made this clear. We need to drop the pretence that they are “our friends”
      The Irish had zero issue with amnesty for the IRA. They only developed an interest in “human rights” the second the same amnesty was applied for former British police and armed forces personnel EDITED

      mary molloy
      15 HRS AGO
      Reply to Jacob Smith – view message
      No. as it so frequently the case it not the people of country that have an issue, it’s the idiots supposedly running the country (in this case Martin, Varadkar and useful zombies like Mairead McGuinness). In another form would you regard Sunak, Blair, Cameron or Starmer to be representative of your views or your countryman. I certainly wouldn’t, at best, representative of a half-wit minority or vested interests…

    2. Flintshire Ian
      19 hours ago edited
      I think that it is beyond time for Ireland to be considered to be a hostile state. The anachronisms of the Common Travel Area and the rights of Irish citizens to live and work without restriction in the UK and to vote in all UK elections should be quickly brought to an end.

      A neat sidestep by Flintshire Ian. The UK is a hostile state to the indigenous English, Scots , Welsh and Northern Irish.

    3. The fact that the craven Sunak and his miserable government failed to leave the ECHR when they should have done has come back to bite them in the buttocks.

      If Sunak caves in yet again then any Conservative MP who does not leave the party immediately deserves nothing but contempt.

      1. Leaving the ECHR alone would not be sufficient. Yes, it would stop cases being taken to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg but the provisions of the charter would remain embodied in the Human Rights Act with the Supreme Court as final arbiter.

        As for leaving the ECHR, was that ever an aim.of this or any previous government? It could be said that you do not fail to achieve something if you had no intention of doing it and made no effort to do so. Otherwise, I’ve failed to run 100 metres in less than 10 seconds.

        1. As well as leaving the ECHR & The ECJ, repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 forthwith. The only way to stop the time-wasting appeals.

    4. Sir Tony Blair’s mother was born in Ireland, top left hand corner; he would surely be entitled to apply for citizenship if he ever wished.

  36. Eliot Wilson
    The truth about Ireland’s Troubles amnesty law challenge

    21 December 2023, 3:30pm

    Christmas is a time when those who are closest to each other fight most bitterly. Ireland, which is bringing a legal case against the UK under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), appears to be acting in the spirit of the season.

    The country’s deputy prime minister Micheál Martin announced yesterday that his government intended to challenge the provisions of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 at the European court in Strasbourg. The Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, framed his government’s intervention in particularly provocative terms.

    ‘We did make a commitment to survivors in Northern Ireland and to the families of victims that we would stand by them,’ he said. But this idea of the government in Dublin as some kind of guardian angel is utterly obnoxious; it would be interesting to know how deep its commitment to the victims of Republican violence runs, given that they made up the majority of deaths during the Troubles.

    It’s true that the legislation is not particularly well conceived. Granted Royal Assent in September, it attempts to address historical issues of the conflict in Northern Ireland: it sets limitations on criminal investigations, legal proceedings, inquests and police complaints and balances this by establishing an Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery and making provision for the experiences of victims to be recorded and preserved.

    Effectively, it is an attempt to draw a line under some of the most bitter disputes and accusations and to help Northern Ireland as a society move on. The model which ministers have pointed to is South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created in 1996 after the dismantling of the apartheid regime, which rejected punitive justice for ‘bearing witness’ to the crimes and injustices of the apartheid era.

    While the Troubles Act was welcomed by veterans’ groups, as it offered the reassurance of immunity from prosecution for former members of the security forces, victims’ groups argued that it would prevent them from seeking justice; the commissioner for victims and survivors, Ian Jeffers, described it as ‘a very bitter pill to swallow’. It also achieved the unusual distinction of uniting Sinn Féin, the Democratic Unionist Party and the other major parties at Stormont in opposition.

    However bad or unpopular the act may be, however, it is a piece of domestic legislation, considered and passed by the UK Parliament to apply within the UK. Martin criticised the decision of the UK government to ‘pursue legislation unilaterally’; but he appears to be forgetting that, within its own jurisdiction, Westminster is within its rights to do just that.

    Ireland’s government also appears to be turning a blind eye to something else: the long and consistent pattern of sympathy towards Republican terrorists in the country. Convicted IRA bomber Gerry Kelly said he was sheltered by leading supporters of both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael after he escaped from the Maze prison in 1983; five years later, taoiseach Charles Haughey refused to extradite the defrocked Catholic priest Patrick Ryan, suspected (accurately) of assisting the IRA in its bomb-making. Events like these leave a sour taste in unionist mouths.

    Micheál Martin has argued that the Belfast Agreement stipulates that the ECHR must be observed and that he has been advised the act infringes this law. But then-secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis, had no hesitation in making the required declaration when the bill was first introduced in May 2022 that it was compatible with the UK’s obligations under the ECHR. Why Dublin’s advice should be any superior to London’s is not clear.

    Perhaps the answer is that this challenge from Dublin is a political intervention. It is the worst form of pious cant for Varadkar or Martin to pretend otherwise. The three-party coalition government which was formed by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green party in June 2020 must face the electorate again by March 2025, and its leaders are acutely aware that their parties have lagged increasingly far behind Sinn Féin for almost three years. No wonder the coalition parties want to polish their anti-British credentials and pretend that the articles of the Irish constitution which claimed to ‘exercise jurisdiction’ over ‘the whole island of Ireland, its islands and the territorial seas’ had not been repealed in 1998.

    Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has criticised the Irish government’s decision to intervene, noting that Dublin has not engaged with the Independent Commission for Reconciliation & Information Recovery led by Sir Declan Morgan KC. He also observed that the Irish government has made no effort since 1998 to pursue prosecutions for past offences over which it might have jurisdiction.

    Tánaiste Martin claims he and his colleagues ‘find ourselves in a space where our only recourse is to pursue a legal path’. Unionists will with good reason contest that plea of ‘you made me do it’. The Belfast Agreement recognises ‘the Irish government’s special interest in Northern Ireland’, and provides a number of forums in which Dublin is to be involved and consulted. But for the Irish government to portray itself so explicitly as a party to domestic UK legislation, especially wearing the dubious cloak of the champion of victims, is offensive interference. This was a conscious and political rather than legal decision in Dublin: the Irish government should, as they say in Belfast, wind its neck in.

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

    Flintshire Ian
    19 hours ago edited
    I think that it is beyond time for Ireland to be considered to be a hostile state. The anachronisms of the Common Travel Area and the rights of Irish citizens to live and work without restriction in the UK and to vote in all UK elections should be quickly brought to an end.

    Blindsideflanker
    19 hours ago
    I don’t remember the Irish Republic taking us to court because Blair gave 300 IRA terrorists an amnesty

    Tory scum
    15 hours ago
    So a foreign country can appeal to a foreign court and in the event of a finding against it, the UK government is duty bound to implement the finding thanks to Blair’s Human Rights Act. A UK government is literally unable to govern. Every single one of Blair’s so called ‘reforms’ need to be repealed.

    Troy Tempest Tory scum
    15 hours ago
    Indeed. Blair needs to be seen in Hitchens terms as a revolutionary who destroyed the British Constitution. First of all he brought in the Human Rights Act (was this in the manifesto?), then devolution (that worked well- not), then he brought in the Supreme Court (which began the depressing trend of judge made law). It is an appalling legacy, not forgetting Iraq and his henchman’s treatment of Dr David Kelly RIP.

    1. She probably told him to make his bed.

      Also, the little shit has admitted lying to the Police on two occasions. Why believe anything he says.

      1. Bit harsh, young Phil. Though I did doubt the line that he spent four days “walking across the Pyrenees”.

          1. Probably not but from the snippets above he seems to have brought a lot of baggage with him…..

            Afternoon Sue and all

        1. We only have the corporate media’s word for it that he was kidnapped and made to live with (evil! antivaxxer!) weirdos.
          The same story could have been spun in the media about me when I removed my son from hospital and took him to another country – where incidentally they fixed his health problem within ten days.

    2. That’s what I thought. I was going to do a post on this but you’ve upstaged me, Rastus!

    1. That cyclist’s got a cheek!
      Honestly, riding on the wrong side of the road with a bare behind!

    2. Just as well the US Constitution didn’t get the words mixed up. If it had been the right to ‘arm bears’ instead of ‘bear arms’, the cyclist would be in big trouble.

  39. I renewed my driving licence on-line on the evening of the 15th December, two and a half months in advance of the required date. The new licence dropped throught the letterbox yesterday, the 21st December. DVLA is not all bad.

  41. Just back from town with a few bits of shopping. For what its worth (about 30 pence) Waitrose had the following:

    2.5Kg of white pots (30p)
    500grm Bag of parsnips (30p)
    500grm Brussel Sprouts (30p)

    3. Bargain.

      Parsnips and sprouts are $3.50 a pound in the local discount supermarket. It must cost a lot to ship them across half of the world and dry them out before putting them on sale.

      They do give unit prices for the sprouts – about 10 cents each.

  42. JOLYON CONGRATULATES HIMSELF FOR APOLOGISING

    Jolyon’s put his foot in it again. He has apologised for tweeting, potentially in contempt of court, that Brianna Ghey’s murderers were transphobic, which got him a reprimand from Mrs Justice Yip and a speaking to by the police. Maugham seems to think his apology makes him some kind of salt of the earth paragon – he congratulated himself on Twitter for apologising and patted himself on the back because “no one asked me“. He’s now deleted the tweet after widespread ridicule…

    The fox-beater has doubled down, though. He’s ranting about the “enormous level of transphobia in the media” and claiming that Radio 4 is “implicated” in blighting “the lives of a small and vulnerable community” after they spoke about his tweets this morning. Guido is reminded of Jolyon’s permanent campaign against The Times after it published a negative review of his book…

    1. This is all very well Stephen but when I fell over earlier this year I wasn’t aware of it until I found myself stareing at the pavement!

      1. Have you watched Bob Mortimer on that ‘fishing’ series with Paul Whitehouse. He takes a tumble in most episodes.

          1. It’s not so much an angling programme as 2 old gits out and about. It’s ok, some of my friends love it though. On IPlayer, 5 or 6 seasons.

    5. I’m not tempting Providence.

      Many years of playing judo made breakfalls instinctive.
      It has saved me from serious injury on a number of occasions.
      If you are stumbling rather than falling that pictorial advice is good, but most falls are over and hurting before reasoned thought processes can react.

      Edit for clarity.

        1. Indeed, but unless you are learning and practising on a very soft surface, at the age most Nottlers have reached you could easily do more harm than good.

        1. Yep, playing.
          What else would you call it?
          The vast majority of the activity is doing moves over and over again; Then you might do something called randori which is again lots of practice.
          Actual competition in the form of scored fights is a relatively small part, even if it might be considered an objective.
          People often start thinking it will be good for self-defence; most of those give up long, long before it would be of any real use as such.
          For most players they would be better tying the suit up tightly with the belt, and then swinging it around their heads.

    6. Senior curlers are too old to learn so many of them have started to wear helmets when on the ice,

      It makes quite a difference, we haven’t had to call for an ambulance once this year.

  45. Kate Andrews
    The Tories’ immigration U-turn didn’t take long
    22 December 2023, 10:15am

    Has the immigration U-turn already begun? When Home Secretary James Cleverly announced his overhaul of the legal migration system at the start of the month, it included a big crackdown on the family visa route into the UK. The Minimum Income Requirement (MIT) for a British citizen wanting to bring their foreign spouse to the UK was set to rise from £18,200 to £38,700 – a threshold thousands of pounds above the median salary in the UK.

    But in the small print of the ‘legal migration statement’ released last night by the Home Office, we learn that the MIR has been watered down significantly. Instead of more than doubling the salary threshold, the new earnings requirement will be £29,000 as ‘part of a staged implementation’ – an amount below median earnings. There are no details in the document about when the MIR might rise to the full £38,700, suggesting that £29,000 could be the new threshold for some time, and it will only apply to new applications (those already on a family visa can renew it under the old threshold). According to the Home Office’s assessment, this increased (but lower) figure will still allow the majority of the UK’s working population to bring their spouse to the UK on their earnings alone.

    A policy deliberately designed to keep more families apart did not feel conservative by nature

    What explains the government’s change of heart? While the document doesn’t say, it does reference the possibility of a legal ‘breach of Article 8 ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights)’ were a worker to ‘meet an exceptional circumstances test’. It has been well publicised that campaign groups, including Reunite Families, were preparing to test the government’s new immigration policies in court. The decision to lower the threshold may have been part of a strategy to avoid (more) defeats around government immigration policy in the courts, as the document mentions multiple times that ‘some applicants may still be granted permission’ to come to the UK even if the criteria isn’t met.

    Still, the change in policy has all the characteristics of a U-turn. Announced quietly in the days before Christmas, when the Commons isn’t even sitting, this seems to be the first climbdown from the government in its bid to implement much harsher visa requirements. It didn’t take long.

    The substantial hike to the family visa requirements was thought to be the most controversial part of the government’s legal migration crackdown when it was announced. The right of the Tory party may not be impressed with the most recent changes: former immigration minister Robert Jenrick told Politico that the full scale of the measures need ‘to be implemented now, not long-grassed to the spring or watered down’, while Miriam Cates MP (co-chair of the New Conservatives group), has told the the Times that the change ‘does not bode well’.

    But a policy deliberately designed to keep more families apart did not feel conservative by nature. So it’s not surprising that this was the first policy to be changed. But it raises questions about what comes next. As I noted when the changes were announced, the government seems trapped in a vicious cycle where it cracks down on legal migration for political reasons – mainly to be able to say it’s reducing the ‘headline figure’ – only then to unwind the restrictions when it becomes obvious the myriad of problems such blunt restrictions are causing.

    This U-turn on the family visa is a prime example, and, eventually, there are likely to be more. The latest changes bizarrely target the rights of foreign health and social care workers coming to the UK, and also reduce the number of eligible taxpayers who can work in the UK, by raising the threshold to procure a work visa from ​​£26,200 to £38,699. It’s not difficult to imagine a scenario, with the NHS England waiting list hovering around 7.7 million, when ministers (in this government or another) reassess and decide they need to incentivise foreign health staff to come to the UK, rather than make it more difficult.

    Wider economic factors may force the government’s hand, too. This morning’s update from the Office for National Statistics shows the UK economy contracted slightly between July and September. Having previously thought the economy had flatlined in that period, the ONS figures now show that GDP appears to have dipped by 0.1 per cent, making the prospect of a technical recession more likely – and creating even more hurdles for Rishi Sunak to make good on his pledge to get the economy growing by the end of the year.

    It shouldn’t be forgotten that a government that made economic growth one of its major pledges has also implemented a severe immigration crackdown at a time when the UK still has over 900,000 job vacancies and immigration is doing a lot of the heavy lifting to keep GDP figures afloat. It would be politically impossible now for Sunak to unwind his own immigration changes, set out just under a month ago. But it’s not hard to imagine at some point down the line a different calculation is made: one that puts the economy and prosperity at the heart of decision-making, rather than the ugly politics of bluntly reducing migration figures.

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

    Crater264
    3 hours ago
    Can I ask why would anyone who goes to a foreign country to do a university degree would expect to take their family with them and expect right of residence for all after they graduate? Is that a thing now for people who come here?

    Tony Palmer Crater264
    3 hours ago
    Further, would they feel they have the right to protest aggressively in favour of a terrorist organisation and given special lenient treatment by the authorities?

    ChDa
    2 hours ago
    There are ‘universities’ who offer ‘degrees’ which don’t even require English language proficiency or to turn up to any lectures. Their facilitators abroad mock up any paperwork needed, which isn’t checked, and get their cut. The ‘universities’ get the money, the ‘student’ gets in (and once in they never ever leave), then brings their whole family over – and the taxpayer gets the bill. It’s a total scam.

    2. This is the most muddled policy imaginable. Putting a high bar on salaries to prevent immigrants bringing entire families sounds sensible but why not just bar the family? A high salary bar should certainly be in place to prevent the mass importation of cheap labour but not to prevent a single person coming here to work, even if intending to settle. The number of these is very small. There have been some sad cases of young couples being separated or the UK-born half emigrating because of the cap, even at its previous lower level.

    3. This is the most muddled policy imaginable. Putting a high bar on salaries to prevent immigrants bringing entire families sounds sensible but why not just bar the family? A high salary bar should certainly be in place to prevent the mass importation of cheap labour but not to prevent a single person coming here to work, even if intending to settle. The number of these is very small. There have been some sad cases of young couples being separated or the UK-born half emigrating because of the cap, even at its previous lower level.

    1. I honestly think that there are many people who will die not realising an iota of what happened in front of their eyes. Like my multi-jabbed colleague who thinks that more jabs are the solution to his recent illness.

  47. Rishi Sunak won’t cut migration before election, Tory MPs warn
    Backbenchers voice ‘disappointment’ after Home Office waters down plans to increase minimum salary needed to bring spouse or partner to UK
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/12/22/migration-rishi-sunak-minimum-salary-home-office-tory-mps/

    BTL

    Any Conservative MPs with an ounce of common sense must realise that there is absolutely no chance of Sunak winning the election. They should all apply to join The Reform Party and, if they are accepted, they should start rebuilding for the future now.

    I think that those who leave the sinking ship now are not the rats – the rats are those who have chosen cravenly to drown rather than to try and save the UK.

  48. We already have weekly demos / riots as well as bombings of synagogues, how will this help?

    The stupid Trudeau has announced that they are relaxing the entry criteria for family members from gaza. It is not just parents and children that will qualify for entry into the socialist wonderland, cousins, nephew and other assorted trash now qualify.

    As an aside, yet another church (about 70 in the past year) has been destroyed by arson but not a word from the government or media.

  49. BMW repurposed into rocket launcher by Ukrainian forces. 22 December 2023.

    A black model of the German car was filmed launching a salvo of missiles at enemy positions near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.

    The pimped-out saloon rocked back and forth as three missiles were catapulted into the air from a multiple launch rocket system attached to its rear bumper.

    This is desperate stuff. It’s like reading a Tiger Moth shot down a Messerschmitt in the Battle of Britain. The question one would like to ask is why? Are things really so dire at the Front?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/12/22/watch-bmw-repurposed-into-rocket-launcher-ukrainian-forces/

      1. Good afternoon Bill. The Swordfish was only viable in the west against the Kriegsmarine because they had no aerial counter to it at all. It was of course useless against the Japanese and the Zero. Taranto was its high spot but there the Italian navy was at anchor.

  50. Migrants applying for asylum in the UK are trying to go back home for Christmas, the UK’s Border Force chief has told LBC.

    Phil Douglas said his officers had been left shocked when carrying out exit checks on people leaving the UK.

    LBC got an exclusive look behind the scenes at how Border Force operates at Luton airport – one of the busiest for Eastern European airlines in the run up to Christmas.

    He said: “We do find a lot of people who have claimed asylum in this country, and are heading back to their own country for holidays, which obviously isn’t allowed.”

    Home Secretary James Cleverly told LBC that some of those coming to the UK are economic migrants who are seeking a better life.

    He said: “We have always been a very generous country, to the people who are genuinely seeking protection from persecution, from war from violence.

    https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/migrants-applying-for-asylum-are-going-home-for-christmas/

    1. “..some of those coming to the UK are economic migrants who are seeking a better life.”

      SOME????

          1. Should that happen, simply black up, transition to a lesbian woman and get Mrs Bliar to act for you in a ‘Uman Roits case.

    2. “..some of those coming to the UK are economic migrants who are seeking a better life.”

      SOME????

    5. There must be something about the UK at Christmas that makes it unatractive for asylum seekers to wish to stay here.
      If we can only figure out exactly what this is we have a foundation on which to Stop the Boats far better than any Government could ever be able to build.

      Let’s keep Christmas indefinitely!

      Joseph and Mary will get a stable future and the National Elf will get a welcome break concentating on filling sacks for Father Christmas.

  53. Matthew V ix

    Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

    (But there’s no time like Christmas for those who want to reopen old family wounds!)

        1. Somewhere in England. Mr Cox writes Triumphantly in english, so it can’t be a french letters page.

    2. Thankfully I don’t spend Christmas with family (not that I have any to speak of – or speak to, come to that!).

      1. But re the second wave of inflation, the debt to GDP ratio was much lower in the 80s, so they might not be able to rein it in via interest rates this time….

          1. I think it’s just the inevitable progression towards the end of a fiat currency by over-printing.

  55. S.S. Gryfevale.

    Complement:
    35 (0 dead and 35 survivors).
    4,980 tons of cotton seed, 2,,050 tons of oil cake and 250 tons of rice.

    At 13.40 hours on 22 December 1939 the Gryfevale was damaged by a mine laid on 1st December by U-61 (Jürgen Oesten) three miles east of the Tyne Piers.
    Gryfevale made it back to the Tyne under her own power and was repaired until June 1940. She was taken over by the Admiralty and used as water distilling ship in Freetown and Bathurst until April 1944 when the ship returned to trade by Anglo-Danubian Transport Co Ltd, London.

    Post-war:
    1946 renamed Charles Dickens for Andrew Crawford & Co Ltd, Glasgow and 1948 transferred to Chine Shipping Co Ltd, London. 1952 sold to Japan and renamed Fukuyo Maru for Hukuyo Kisen KK, Tokyo. Broken up at Innoshima in October 1962.

    Type IIC U-Boat U-61 was decommissioned on 27th March 1945 at Wilhelmshaven.
    Scuttled on 5th May 1945 at Wilhelmshaven, western entrance to Raederschleuse. Wreck broken up.

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

  56. Hhmmm… now there’s a point:

    If duelling ever came back
    A whole bunch of people would suddenly be a lot less “offended”

  57. Argentina has apparently approved Bitcoin as an (the?) official currency.
    Some other changes are below.
    “central banker” is a giant red flag, and the changes look like a laundry list to deliver the country into the hands of international big business. Wonder how much money Bill Gates et al will be investing in Argentinian agriculture?
    Cynical? Moi?
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/70357e28848e11d7b9a5c4edb1c6e9e4d8ebe0388e2fab5bbbf0b286997e5a76.jpg

  58. Afternoon, all. Just popping in for a while before I go off partying. The Christmas season starts here!

    We all know what happened with the change in the laws on abortion. Mission creep will surely happen when the PTB see a way of getting rid of troublesome people who have lived through life’s events and recognise the crap they spout for what it is.

    1. With luck, they will start on the trans folk….

      Enjoy your partying. Remember all those labels about “alcohol abuse”? Well, just go ahead and abuse it!!

    3. I think it is early in the New Year that it is to be made public. 2 Jan if my memory serves me correctly. However there has been a list floating around and circulating on the internet for months, I don’t know if it the same one being made ‘official’.

      1. I believe it contains the names of Republican politicians who are identifiable by their support of Obama-Biden policies.

        We know about Prince Andrew, Bill Gates and Bill Clinton but I suspect a lot of names on flight logs will be redacted “for security reasons”.

  61. The daddy state. Spiked Lionel Shrover. 22 December 2023.

    It was once understood that British culture was inherently polite. Now decency is imposed from above through the enforcement of ‘hate speech’ laws. As a grammatical pedant, I just wish that British peelers were pounding on the doors of cowering homeowners for using the wrong pronouns because the offenders had typed on social media, ‘with him and I’.

    The pursuit of Net Zero seems to justify unbridled interference with both commerce and individual liberty, because no restriction is too severe, unfair or poorly thought out, so long as it’s intended to ‘save the planet’. The free market is out the window. Embracing a Soviet-style command economy, as of 2024, Westminster will now idiotically fine the manufacturers of gas and oil boilers if they fail to ensure that four per cent of their sales are heat pumps. Shouldn’t the government instead fine customers for not wanting heat pumps? Effectively, the state will do just that. Manufacturers have announced a £300 fee per boiler installation to cover their fines.

    This Clean Heat Marketing Mechanism is tantamount to the government fining Tesco for not selling enough guava-flavoured yoghurt, when the real problem is that the public hates guava-flavoured yoghurt. So now the recalcitrant shopper with a closed-minded attitude towards tropical fruits will have to pay 40p more per pot for the strawberry kind.

    Ms. Shriver is soon moving to live in Portugal. One assumes that it is free of this mania!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/12/22/the-daddy-state/

    1. Gullible’s Troubles?

      I wonder if the number of people in the UK who are convinced that man-made climate change is true, carbon dioxide is not beneficial and that Net Zero is a desirable policy outnumber the number of people who think that Covid jabs have no nasty side effects and are completely safe?

    1. Well done, four here

      Wordle 916 4/6

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

    4. Par here.

      Wordle 916 4/6

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

    5. Well done. Par for me.

      Wordle 916 4/6

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

    6. Par here

      Wordle 916 4/6

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

  64. That’s me gone for this penultimate Friday in 2023. Good to see the evenings drawing out! (Pedants – please don’t bother..{:¬)) …)

    More strong winds forecast for the next few days – though mild temperatures (thanks, global boiling).

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

  65. What does Santa suffer from if he get’s stuck in the chimney ? Claustrophobia.

    What goes ‘Oh, oh, oh’? Santa walking backwards.

  66. The Laffer Curve is about to blow up the SNP

    Decision to introduce 48pc top tax rate is only going to bring in modest amounts

    PATRICK MINFORD
    22 December 2023 • 6:00am

    Wisdom can be found in unexpected places, as is demonstrated by the recent forecast report of the Scottish Fiscal Commission on the SNP government’s finances and tax policies, which says that the rises in top Scottish tax rates just announced will bring in only modest amounts.

    “Behavioural responses”, it outlines, will cause big reductions largely offsetting the gains calculated on “static” assumptions of no taxpayer response. The new 48pc top rate, it says, will bring in virtually nothing at all.

    This use of “dynamic costing” is a most welcome contribution from Scotland’s equivalent of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

    It reminds us of the debate on the Laffer Curve triggered by Nigel Lawson’s famous Budget of 1988, when he abolished the 60pc top rate of income tax.

    The late chancellor argued that it actually reduced tax revenues, owing to its effects on the labour supply of those paying it; they reduced effort, switched activities to lower tax areas, left the country or otherwise found legal ways to evade the tax.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/income/laffer-curve-blow-up-snp-tax-rate-48-scottish-government/?li_source=LI&li_medium=for_you

    In later research on UK data, I found strong evidence of such Laffer effects, joining other international evidence.

    If this analysis can happen north of the border, why not in the UK generally?

    It has been very largely ignored by both the Treasury and the OBR, which have failed to evaluate the supply-side effects on tax revenue of our top marginal tax rates, not simply the 45pc notional top rate but also the 60pc rate created by the withdrawal of the personal allowance at the 40pc threshold.

    All hell broke loose over the proposal to abolish the 45pc rate in 2022’s Truss-Kwarteng mini-Budget, even though its abolition would probably have raised tax revenue.

    But dynamic costing should not stop at these basic effects on revenue due to labour supply shifts. The effects go far further, to impacts on capital investment and productivity growth from both business taxes like corporation tax and the higher rates of income tax paid by entrepreneurs on their profits.

    These do two key things: they reduce the return on capital, reducing investment and capital through substitution with labour.

    Also, more radically and with much bigger long-term growth consequences, they reduce the return to innovation, alias productivity growth. The rise in these, and allied disincentives, accounts for our dreadful growth performance in recent years.

    Again, much research supports these effects on growth, as does the most casual look around the world at successful cases of growth, whether Texas among US states, or Poland in recent decades, or China under Deng Xiaoping (versus today’s slowing under Xi Jinping’s interventionism).

    The best accessible review of the post-war evidence on how growth is damaged by tax is still the Institute of Economic Affairs’ Sharper axes, lower taxes, published in 2011 and edited by Prof Philip Booth.

    Our Cardiff work based on the simplest of ideas, that a firm’s owner-managers will divert energy to innovation if its returns exceed the costs in tax, regulation and lost wage income, predicts that low marginal tax rates and light regulation spur growth.

    And richer entrepreneurs are less worried about the downside because they have a stronger balance sheet.

    One of the challenges for the tax-growth nexus is establishing causation and not just association, and opponents of the low-tax agenda exploit this problem.

    To overcome, it requires building causal models of growth and testing their ability to replicate the facts of economies’ behaviour.

    With today’s powerful computers and recent advances in econometrics, we are able to do this by simulating these causal models and checking how well their simulations statistically match that behaviour, a roundabout procedure known as “indirect inference”.

    In research carried out by me, my colleagues and our PhD students (some still unpublished) at Cardiff, we have found that this model can satisfyingly explain trends in growth and inequality in the UK both recently and over the last century and a half, as well as in the postwar US, and across Chinese regions.

    The UK effects are clearly visible in our lived experience since the Thatcher reforms of the 1980s, largely retained during the 1990s but since then progressively reversed by ill-considered, mostly EU-led, regulation combined with rising marginal tax rates.

    https://cf.eip.telegraph.co.uk/illustrator-embed/content/b629d11370075005877582d3e2e6a41a2e64a9bf/1689360393727.jpg

    On GDP per capita, we had overtaken France and Germany by 2000 as those reforms took effect, only to fall back relatively since then.

    Yet for all the declinist talk of our parlous situation, we have the world’s eighth largest manufacturing sector, we are a leading world centre for business and financial services, and we rank second in Europe on the EY rankings for foreign investment attractiveness.

    The growth prospect can be turned around if only this government would pay attention to the case for cutting down our high marginal tax rates on income and business.

    This should go hand in hand with the generally agreed agenda for liberalising business regulation and development planning.

    The trouble has been that the community of commentators has forgotten the supply-side lessons of Lawson and Thatcher, and drifted into thinking that productivity growth is unexplainable and “exogenous”, nothing to do with government policy.

    Hence the view that tax can be raised to pay for redistribution and public services at no cost to the economy’s performance.

    This view is convenient for those on the political Left, who are strongly represented in that community, but both theory and evidence contradict it, as we are now discovering with a vengeance.

    This Conservative government tells us it believes in low tax and good business incentives. Yet its record seems to reveal opposite beliefs, in line with its Labour rivals for power.

    It is time for it to revert to its true principles and restore the economy’s health and dynamism. Much is at stake, with an election coming that could well see the emergence of a damaging Left-wing agenda concealed under an apparently conservative cloak designed to fool the voters. That could really drive a stake through our still-revivable business culture.

    This government needs to find once more the courage of its real convictions. For the SNP, it is already too late.

    Patrick Minford is a fellow of the Centre for Brexit Policy and professor of applied economics at Cardiff University

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

    Brenda Macdonald
    10 HRS AGO
    You forget that the reason socialists believe in high tax isn’t so much as to raise revenue as to punish people for being better off.

    2. Taxation is not about maximising state revenues. It’s a means of imposing a moral code. It says that nobody should be allowed to retain fortunes in excess of a certain amount purely as a consequence of market forces. If supply and demand produces great inequalities of wealth it must be the outcome of immorality, of human imperfection. Only greed, avarice or bestiality could account for such inequalities. If you have particular talents, skills or qualities which have earned you such fortunes, it can only be that you have exploited them, at the expense of others less well favoured, such that you have been the beneficiary of an earning power and wealth which sheer good fortune, not merit, has conferred on you.

    1. If asylum seekers are returning voluntarily to their home country then ipso facto they have no need of asylum and should be disbarred from re-entering the UK. What travel documents are they using?

      2. If I wanted to fly to Aghanistan, for example, I would need a valid travel document of some kind. Had I arrived on the Kent coast, undocumented, claiming to have fled in fear of my life, what would I have, in terms of both the financial means and necessary paperwork, that would allow me to fly back to Afghanistan to an acceptable degree of personal security?

  69. Muslim migrants are destroying European culture, says Poland’s ex-PM

    Mateusz Morawiecki opposes the EU’s latest migration pact and wants to ‘preserve’ his country’s culture

    Steven Edginton
    22 December 2023 • 4:19pm

    Mateusz Morawiecki, who served as Poland’s prime minister from 2017 until the beginning of this month, said: “We were very open to war refugees from Ukraine when the need was there… We have opened our hearts and our gates for all refugees.

    “But this is very much different from the huge [amounts of] Muslim migrants from the Middle East who are coming to Germany and France and other countries and who want to change the culture of those countries, those nations.

    “I am clearly opposed to such attempts. I’m admiring [of] French culture, Spanish culture and British culture, but I also admire my Polish culture and I want to preserve it, I want to nurture it.

    “I don’t want it to be destroyed by the Muslim migrants coming from the Middle East or from Africa.”

    The former Polish PM said Ukrainian refugees were “culturally very similar to Poles” and had behaved “very well” since arriving; an estimated one million Ukrainian refugees currently reside in Poland.

    According to data from the European Commission, there were more than 230,000 first-time asylum applicants to Europe from the Middle East and Africa in 2022.

    One million illegal citizens
    The commission also estimates over one million non-EU citizens were illegally present in the bloc last year.

    Mr Morawiecki condemned the EU’s latest migration pact, agreed by Brussels on Dec 20, which would relocate migrants across the continent and impose fines on countries who refuse to accept their share of migrant quotas.

    The pact aims to relieve pressure on southern border countries by creating new detention centres, speeding up the vetting of illegal migrants and accelerating the deportation process for rejected asylum seekers.

    Following elections in October, earlier this month Mr Morawiecki’s conservative Law and Justice Party was removed from government and replaced by a three-party coalition, consisting of the liberal Civic Coalition, the New Left and agrarian Third Way, all led by prime minister Donald Tusk.

    The previous Polish government fought bitterly against the EU’s migration plans, in particular the clause that would relocate migrants from border countries to other EU member states.

    Mr Morawiecki described illegal migration as a long-term “threat” to European civilisation and said: “We do not agree on any form of compulsory distribution of migrants across member states. We do not agree to compulsory distribution of migrants into Poland specifically, of course, or paying for not accepting those migrants.

    “This is one of the biggest threats going forward for the European Union because I think that accepting one or two million illegal migrants can be the beginning of a huge wave that can pose a very serious threat to the whole of the European Union, and the stability of the European Union, and for the security of the European Union.”

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

    Christina Martins
    2 HRS AGO
    Someone’s finally said it.

    Christina Martins
    1 HR AGO
    Reply to Christina Martins – view message
    I say this as a resident of tower hamlets where Lutfer Rahman’s council has 24 male Muslim Councillors (none of other faiths, races, genders) it’s deplorable. And seemingly legal.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/12/22/migrants-destroying-european-culture-poland-ex-pm/

      1. I hear of such atrocities named not just as disasters but also tragedies, as if they were volcanoes or earthquakes. People of other religions or none use the same mealy-mouthed language when they refrain from giving human agency to such monstrous acts.

      1. It adds a certain perspective to hard sprouts and bickering over what channel to watch.

        2. It had been brewing for years. All it needed was the spark of the Archduke’s assassination in Sarajevo.

      1. From the Old Contemptables, very few. Most of these would be dead or severely wounded by the close of 2nd Ypres.

        1. When I asked my maternal grandfather who went to France ‘What was it like?’ He replied: “Bloody murder…”

      2. There are many millions of people across the world who speak English as a first or second language thanks to men… like what?

    2. A near neighbour, Erskine Guinness, has a huge Handkerchief tree. I’ll try to contact him to see if he knows anything.

          1. My daughter when about 2 years old played shove halfpenny with Henry Paul Guinness Channon, Baron Kelvedon…

          2. I met a few Guinnesses when in Suffolk. St Andrew and St Patrick Church, Elveden (presumably any similarity to Kelvedon is coincidental) was on Elveden Estate, owned by the Guinness family. Still is. Played the organ there from time to time. Was once pursued down the aisle by Lady Miranda, who had questions about the organ. Sadly, had to leave for the next service.

          3. If I recall correctly one or two subscribers to this forum have met several Guinnesses (usually down the pub!)

      2. I should have perhaps first addressed the question to the internet:

        “Can you grow a handkerchief tree from seed?
        The seeds are notoriously difficult to germinate and take two years to do so in a large pot in a cool vermin free position. The trick is to lightly mow over the seeds on the ground with a rotary lawnmower. This scarifies the thick ridged fruit and we have found much more success in germination as a result.”

        I’ll give it a go….

        1. https://www.rpseeds.co.uk/products/davidia-involucrata-dove-tree-seeds

          GROWING GUIDE
          These seeds have a double dormancy which needs to be broken before they will germinate, ie. they need to go through a process which simulates the changing seasons.

          Sowing Instructions: Sow at any time of the year. Soak seeds for 24 hours. Sow in pots of moist seed compost (eg. John Innes) mixed with perlite, vermiculite or horticultural grit, cover with a ¼” layer of compost, perlite or vermiculite and seal inside a polythene bag. Maintain an optimum temperature of 18-21C for 4 months or until the seed coat starts to open, then place the pots in the fridge for a further 3 months. After this, return to 18-21C and germination should take place within the next few months. Throughout this process check regularly and ensure the compost does not dry out.

          Alternatively, sow as above and place in a cold frame or sheltered part of the garden in spring and let nature take its course as the seasons change. (I personally find this gives the best results)

          Growing Instructions: Transplant seedlings when large enough to handle into 7.5cm pots. The little trees are best grown on for at least two years in pots or a nursery bed and protected from frost for at least the first winter. Plant out once established in a sunny or semi-shaded position out of strong winds.

    2. It was a great winter for me, sledges, snowballs and frozen ponds. I saw a shoal of small jack pike frozen in formation at Ham common pond. The things you remember.

    3. I remember it well! It started on Christmas Eve, we were at my Grans and played in the back lane under the orange sodium lights. My cousins were back from Holland for Christmas and it was magical! I was 6,

      1. I was in Germany at the time, hardly any flying and went on a winter survival course in Oberammergau with loads of skiing and drinking

    5. From me it started, in central London, on Boxing Day and the snow was still on the ground in March. I was 16 and had been at work for 16 months. There was only mum and dad and the younger of my two brothers living in our 1880’s 3 bedroom flat. My eldest brother and two sisters were all married. I was the youngest of 5 born between 1934 and 1946. Our flat had 3 bedrooms, a passage (hallway), a scullery and a lavatory. At one time 7 adults were washing, mum was doing the washing and cooking in the one room, the scullery.
      Sometime in the 1980s my eldest brother commented that we had a deprived childhood, by the day’s standard but didn’t realise it because we were all loved and everyone else was in the same boat and we were happy.

      1. My mum once said ‘I suppose we were poor, but we didn’t feel it’. I suppose this is a reason why I am not motivated by money, one learns to make the best of the hand that has been given. In many cases (not all) being ‘poor’ is a state of mind.

        1. Wholeheartedly agree. Materially poor but spiritually rich. We were all poor at school but all of us made our way in the world.

        2. We certainly were poor, by today’s standards – my Mum, being a widow, worked long hours, including Saturday mornings. Grandma lived with us for two years, till she died. We had two bedrooms, kitchen & bathroom and a sitting room with coal fire.

          We had no money but didn’t want for anything. We had good neighbours too. I was the youngest child in the road but I knew everybody. I walked along a busy main road to my village school.

          The snow in 1963 started on Boxing Day, as we were walking home from Gloucester Cathedral, from the performance of Messiah, which was sung every year. I was 14. The school kept going, though our little youth club was closed for a few weeks.

    6. The steam engine pulling the college special took a very long time to get us from Paddington to Malvern I remember. No heating and stuck in a tunnel near Evesham for hours.

    7. I remember there was still snow on the ground at the beginning of the school summer term

      1. I couldn’t get to school for the first week or so of the new term. Two buses, 12 miles and several steep hills on the old A604 Colchester to Cambridge road saw to that. Local Bobby stopped me and wanted to know why I wasn’t in school. I remember some snow remaining until early April in sheltered spots on the school cross country course out at Colne Engaine.

  82. They call us “The Elderly”
    We were born in the 40-50-60’s.
    We grew up in the 50-60-70’s.
    We studied in the 60-70-80’s.
    We were dating in the 70-80-90’s.
    We got married and discovered the world in the 70-80-90’s.
    We venture into the 80-90’s.
    We stabilize in the 2000’s.
    We got wiser in the 2010’s.
    And we are going firmly through and beyond 2020.
    Turns out we’ve lived through EIGHT different decades…
    TWO different centuries…
    TWO different millennia…
    We have gone from the telephone with an operator for long–distance calls to video calls to anywhere in the world.
    We have gone from slides to YouTube, from vinyl records to online music, from handwritten letters to email and Whats App.
    From live matches on the radio, to black and white TV, colour TV and then to 3D HD TV.
    We went to the Video store and now we watch Netflix.
    We got to know the first computers, punch cards, floppy disks and now we have gigabytes and megabytes on our smartphones.
    We wore shorts throughout our childhood and then long trousers, Oxfords, flares, shell suits & blue jeans.
    We dodged infantile paralysis, meningitis, polio, tuberculosis, swine flu and now COVID-19.
    We rode skates, tricycles, bicycles, mopeds, petrol or diesel cars and now we drive hybrids or electric.
    Yes, we’ve been through a lot but what a great life we’ve had!
    They could describe us as “exennials,” people who were born in that world of the fifties, who had an analog childhood and a digital adulthood.
    We’ve kind of “Seen-It-All”!
    Our generation has literally lived through and witnessed more than any other in every dimension of life.
    It is our generation that has literally adapted to “CHANGE.”
    A big round of applause to all the members of a very special generation, which will be UNIQUE!

    (Opinions may differ)

    1. Welby who is destroying the CofE. Not a good move by the Defender of Faiths and head of the Church of England.

      2. Especially when Welby profited greatly from the oil and gas industry which our Idiot King so despises.

        I reckon our Idiot King is bi-polar, that or a crank.

        1. 379761+ up ticks,

          Morning DW,

          How ?
          Follow the pattern that has already been tried & tested and found to be of great success.

          Reenact the Great Charter.

          The political bastards HAD to destroy the original and have almost succeeded in its entirety, with help via
          thoughtless fools through the polling stations.

          By whom ?

          People power `those united in the need to live in peace unmolested by a cartel of treacherously rogue politicians.

          Sad to say, but once again heads must roll.

  87. As we moreorless conclude 2023 I have become acutely aware and annoyed by the BBC Verify tag on so many topics in their news. It simply indicates that the BBC are covering up for barefaced lies in their articles.

    We are still paying the BBC Licence Fee but by God I will cancel in the New Year. Just call it a New Year’s Resolution. How I despise the BBC and what it has morphed into: an arm of the WEF and Sunak government.

    1. I watch nothing on the BBC and feel much better for it.I stopped paying the licence about 8 years ago. and never watch live tv . We use DVDs and YouTube.

    2. Do it. When you see the BBC in the future, you will be amazed that you ever watched such nasty stuff regularly.

  89. A tale to warm the cockles…..

    “Fat Leonard, Who Filmed Orgies Involving Senior Navy Admirals, Extradited To The US By Venezuela

    THURSDAY, DEC 21, 2023 – 10:20 PM
    As part of a prisoner exchange in which Joe Biden granted clemency to a prominent moneyman for President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela released 10 detained Americans as well as the man at the center of historic Navy bribery scandal: Fat Leonard, a military contractor known for organizing and filming orgies involving senior U.S. Navy admirals, is on his way back to San Diego to face sentencing for corruption over a year after he fled to Venezuela. It’s one of the U.S.’s worst ever national security breaches.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fat-leonard-who-filmed-orgies-involving-senior-navy-admirals-extradited-us-venezuela

  92. @07:10
    Good morrow, Gentlefolk. today’s story

    Be Careful What You Think
    This woman goes to her doctor complaining of stomach pains, so the doctor lays her down and conducts an examination of her stomach area. Once he’s finished, he asks the woman, “Well, I hope you don’t mind changing nappies!”
    “Ooh! Ooh!” says the excited woman. “Am I pregnant?! Am I going to have a baby?!”
    “No,” the doctor says. “You have colon cancer!”

Comments are closed.