642 thoughts on “Friday 22 November: Labour’s regressive, hard-Left agenda must be defeated once and for all”

    1. Ditto here in Derbyshire.
      Just seen the DT off to her mother’s so I’m going to get my head down for another couple of hours!
      TTFN

  2. Good morning all.
    The DT has just driven off to head to her mothers for a week and it’s me & the last SaH looking after ourselves.

  3. Given his “withdrawal” from activities I wonder if he has now earned the sobriquet of The Black-balled Prince?

    Morning folks.

  4. You cannot beat the hard left agenda, it is a religion for them just like the climate change agenda, people need a religion replacement.

  5. Good Morning, all

    The Munich agreement and secret intelligence
    SIR – In between Neville Chamberlain’s two visits to Munich in September 1938, the British government approached the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) for policy advice on the unfolding crisis (Letters, November 14). In the paper that followed, it was reported that the Germans intended to establish political and economic hegemony over the whole of central and south-eastern Europe.

    SIS advice was to allow the German absorption of Sudetenland in the belief that it would forestall the inevitable. This would leave the remaining territory almost wholly Czechoslovak in population, with the modified state’s existence under international guarantee.

    The report went further by stating that Britain should “unremittingly build up our armaments” in order to stand a chance of preserving peace. It concluded that Britain should cultivate friendship with Germany as far as possible “without sacrifice of our principle and vital interests”.

    The SIS report clearly shows that Chamberlain was not as naive as he is portrayed to have been when he met with Hitler, and that his decisions were greatly influenced by the advice and intelligence provided. It also shows that Britain was not in a position to wage war in 1938, and Chamberlain’s action was the only viable option.

    Nicholas Young
    London W13

    SIR – It is the unenviable task of a senior military logistician, which I once was, to sit on great men’s shoulders and inject a note of realism, perhaps whispering: “You can’t do that yet, General – you haven’t got the ammunition.”

    Having attended three staff colleges, I am familiar with the Sudetenland debacle, contrary to what Frederick Forsyth suggests (Letters, November 20). My point is that Chamberlain had no choice at Munich. The Czech army certainly did not lack courage, but it was short of resources, especially air power, and could not have withstood blitzkrieg, which was first used by the Nazis in 1936 in the Spanish Civil War.

    At the time, Britain was powerless to help the Czechs effectively – of that, the British chiefs of staff would have left their recently appointed prime minister in no doubt. My response to assertions that we should have stopped Hitler at Munich is always: “With what?”

    Air Commodore Michael Allisstone
    Chichester, West Sussex

    ********************************************************************************8

    BTL:

    Michael McDougall 22 Nov 2019 5:37AM
    The series of letters on Chamberlain and Munich are all interesting and, although not always agreeing with each other, paint a well rounded picture of the issues as they stood at the time.

    What is clear is how little things have changed. Germany still wants economic control over much of Europe and due to successive British cowering and concessions, is gaining it with less resistance than in 1938. Given the context we have, we can now say that Chamberlain showed more honour and patriotism on his return from Munich than any of the following:

    Major returning from Maastricht

    Brown from Lisbon,

    Blair whenever he engaged with the EU and surrendered Britain’s concessions

    Call me Dave on his gormless attempts to renegotiate UK’s arrangement with the EU

    Theresa May with her craven surrender deal.

    The question now is whether Johnson, if he gets a reasonable majority, can go back and get an arrangement – preferably complete freedom with mutually favourable trade agreement – that allows Britain to stand tall.

    I believe that he is the only leader in parliament that has the ability and potential to do that but the bar is unfortunately very low and TBP gives the impression that they might have good ideas but probably couldn’t negotiate themselves out of an open paper bag.

    1. One thing that sounds similar from Chamberlains time and the present day is our politicians saying that we have no choice.

      1. As usual, it’s the politicians that are the problem. Political testicular fortitude died with Maggie, it would seem.

    2. “…go back and get an arrangement…”
      The only reason that this pathetic grovelling can be contemplated and suggested as a beneficial course of action is because the UK, in the persona of Mrs May accepted a subordinate, beseeching role at the outset. Stuff it!
      We go back and tell them we will have none of it!

  7. A Good survival lesson to live by.

    A Cowboy Tombstone

    Here are the Five Rules for Men to Follow for a Happy Life that Russell J. Larsen had inscribed on his headstone in Logan, Utah.

    He died not knowing that he would win the “Coolest Headstone” contest.

    FIVE RULES FOR MEN TO FOLLOW FOR A HAPPY LIFE:

    1. It’s important to have a woman who helps at home, cooks from time to time, cleans up, and has a job.

    2. It’s important to have a woman who can make you laugh.

    3. It’s important to have a woman who you can trust, and doesn’t lie to you.

    4. It’s important to have a woman who is good in bed, and likes to be with you.

    5. It’s very, very important that these four women do not know each other or you could end up dead like me.

  8. Morning all

    SIR – I listened to Jeremy Corbyn launching his “radical” manifesto and decrying poverty in Britain.

    As the solution, he offers rent caps, nationalisation, increased state control, higher government spending and handouts that he describes as “free”. He also pledges to punish the wealth-creators who drive Britain’s prosperity.

    It is hard to imagine how these measures could result in anything other than further poverty across the country. A similar socialist revolution has recently brought the once-wealthy Venezuela to its knees. Those young enough not to have experienced socialism, or who refuse to accept its evils, should not be fooled into thinking that Mr Corbyn’s plans will lead to a different outcome in Britain.

    This election is an opportunity both to honour the result of the 2016 referendum and to ensure that the hard-Left figures leading the Labour Party are removed and a more suitable leadership elected.

    It falls upon all moderate Labour voters to lend their vote to the Conservatives in order to bring an end to Brexit uncertainty and ensure that the economy is not destroyed by Marxism.

    Richard Burden

    Rainham, Kent

    1. SIR – It has often been said that Labour governments fail when they run out of other people’s money.

      Having read the party’s shiny new manifesto, I think it is entirely possible that a Labour government could run out of other people’s money by Christmas.

      Ross Ellens

      Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire

      SIR – Labour can confidently predict that 95 per cent of workers will pay no more tax for its plans – because those workers will all be unemployed.

      John Clezy

      Flims, Graubünden, Switzerland

      1. Yo Epi

        Having read the party’s shiny new manifesto, I think it is entirely possible that a Labour government could run out of other people’s money
        by Christmas. 15 December 2019

    2. And after all that, anyone with less than 60% of the median income will still be classed as being ‘in poverty’ according to the ludicrous official definition that makes ‘poverty’ permanent.

  10. SIR – Recent letters (November 20) have discussed euphemisms for death.

    I was brought up in the Salvation Army, and we always used the expression “promoted to glory”.

    Raymond Byers Hills

    Thornton Cleveleys, Lancashire

    1. Better than one I saw in a joke book about management speak, where a hospital referred to death as “a negative patient outcome”

    2. We once lived next to a coven of nuns, White Sisters, who were the worst drivers in the village, almost as bad as Italians. My father often remonstrated with them after one of many near-death experiences with one of the hooded dispatchers of mercy at the wheel. Quite hopeless appealing to their better nature. They would give a beaming happy smile and say “ah, but you’d be going to a better place”.

    3. When my father died I told my sons that their grandfather had died.

      When my mother died I told them that their grandmother had died.

      None of this ‘promoted to cross the rainbow bridge in glory to a better place with the angels’.

      1. Agreed, Basset and Good morning. Too much sentimentality about a sad fact of life – and death.

        1. One needs to be straightforward about death. It happens to everything that lives – and even (if the stories told are to be believed), the Son of God could not escape death. So, at least one may well be in good company.

    1. Thanks Citroen and Good morning, nicked and uploaded to Ar5ebook for a wider audience but I doubt it’ll last long.

    2. What is the point of this humourless joyless propaganda?

      The group most anxious for Jews to leave the UK are the zionists, who are keen they all return to the Promised Land. It is they, far more than Corbyn, who want to spread paranoia among the Jews. Even the most rabid Palestine-lovers in Momentum would rather the Jews were here in the UK doing some good, rather than stirring up trouble in the Middle East.

      Can I get my down-ticks in three figures, please?

      … Here they come! I’ve blocked the usual gang that once threatened me with a dawn knock from Plod for inappropriate thinking, so I am not provoked by the usual defamations. One of them even came up with “we know where you live”.

  12. Morning again

    SIR – While the Conservatives’ and Liberal Democrats’ annual tree-planting targets represent laudable attempts to fight climate change, reduce flood risk and enhance biodiversity, Adrian Danby (Letters, November 18) is correct to question the practicalities of such policies.

    The source of the trees is vital: if they come from overseas, there is a substantial risk that damaging tree pests and pathogens will be brought to the country. For the sake of national biosecurity, the trees need to be grown – from seed to sapling – in this country. This, however, raises the question of our nurseries, which currently lack the capacity to produce trees in such large numbers. A long-term and practical strategy is required to fulfil the ambition.

    Dr David Slawson

    Nairn

    1. Annual tree planting targets to fight climate change versus hundreds of thousands of council houses and loss of green belt and ag quality land..

      Practicalities just don’t stack up , do they?

      1. David Attenborough filmed recently talking on fighting climate change says we are not in a “win or lose” situation.
        Whilst he has identified the extent to which humankind is wreaking havoc on its natural world and has given an incentive to curtail our wasteful treatment of the planet’s resources, he says the best we can hope for is to “”not lose so badly”.

        1. If DA is so worried about man-made climate change, why has he hung on for 93 years (and counting)?
          Surely, he should have voluntarily popped his clogs the moment he was persuaded by the cause.

          1. I think he his one of those people who will just carry on and on until after Greta and the rest of us have all been extinguished so he can sail away into the sunset in Boaty McBoatface knowing that he was right all along.

        2. Makes a change from filing all he same stuff again – sea, sky, trees, animals… cheaper & less CO2 to run repeats, and nobody will tell the difference.

    2. Morning TB,
      Brings back memories of the green
      grocer in Kew, don’t buy his cabbages Mrs he wees on them to make them heavier.

    3. Yo Belle

      Is the trug on the cart for collecting the

      ‘naturally produced (green?), recycled, methane rich, already warm, rhubarb growth accellerator’ ?

      1. Morning OLT

        The trug on the wagon contains ‘lucky’ horseshoes..

        That poor old patient Dobbin clattered his hooves , he was as bored as hell.

        I can remember horses and carts in Dorchester.. years ago..

          1. We had a horse drawn milk cart in the early 60s in Small Heath Birmingham. It was replaced by a three-wheeler electric float such as the one pictured. As kids, we would jump into the open cab and pretend to drive it, but the crucial removeable lever to engage the gears always went in the milkman’s pocket when he stopped.

  15. For once I agree with Comrade Corbyn – his vision really would transform Britain; it would ruin us completely! If you need any further evidence that the man is totally barking, here’s what the BBC say about crazy Polly’s support for the plan – Polly Toynbee argues that the manifesto offers a “vision of a country that can begin to put to rights the dilapidation and dysfunction that has been the deliberate policy of the past decade”. It “goes right to the heart of longstanding fault lines in how the country is run, and for whom”. Well, the country certainly isn’t run for the benefit of the 17.4 million who voted Leave, that’s for sure!

  16. Grace Millane murder: New Zealand man found guilty of killing British woman

    The Crown alleged the defendant, whose name is subject to a suppression order, strangled her and shoved her body inside a suitcase before burying her in a forested area outside Auckland.

    So, © Newman, if he’s now found guilty, that should then remove any reason to continue to suppress his name, he is, after all, a convicted felon.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/22/jury-retires-consider-verdict-ingrace-millane-trial/

    2. Unless a similar trial is pending. Although I do agree with NtN. The Kiwis, although our kith and kin, are not the smartest branch of the family.

  17. Putting the thoughtpolice on trial. Spiked . 22 November 2019.

    Such a sinister approach to police work suggests that the divisive and illiberal ideology of ‘social justice’ has infected our law-enforcement agencies. The investigating officer in the Harry Miller case, for instance, made a startling statement when he spoke to Miller on the phone in January. ‘I’ve been on a course’, he explained, ‘and what you need to understand is that you can have a fetus with a female brain that grows male body parts and that’s what a transgender person is’. Since when is it the role of the police to uphold such pseudo-scientific belief systems?

    Makes you wonder who was giving the course eh?

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/11/22/putting-the-thoughtpolice-on-trial/

        1. ‘Morning, Peddy, I’m sure it had two huge areas one called, “Obey all Orders.” and the other “World Domination”.

          1. ‘Morning, Tom.

            No, nothing like that, but the female brain had a Schmuck und Diamanten Riecher & a “Das hab’ich dir schon gesagt” Speicher (Jewelry & diamond sensor & a “I’ve already told you that” recorder – both very large) & a Schweigen während des Fußballspielsvermögenzentrum (Ability to stay quiet during Match of the Day centre) – very small.

    2. ‘Morning Minty

      “Makes you wonder who was giving the course eh?”
      And how much was paid to who for providing said course,my bet is
      A Quite a lot of money
      B Mermaids/Common Purpose

    3. There must be a way, under the Freedom of Information Act to identify how many of the following ‘crimes’ have been investigated by the Mindstapo

      1. Muslims against Christians, either singly or as a religion

      2. Muslims against the Jews, either singly or as a religion

      3. Police not declaring an attack by Muslims, ie London Bridge as a hate Crime

      4. LGBTQwertyops against the heterosexuals

      5. Black against white

      etc

    2. Lipman is so far the the left, she thinks Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, Corbyn, MuckDonnel, Mao etc are ultra right wing dictators

  21. Putin predicts 10-year COLLAPSE of EU – and compares event to Soviet Union fall. Thu, Nov 21, 2019.

    President Putin believes the EU will crumble completely in just 10 years, the same amount of time it took for the USSR to disintegrate on Boxing Day 1991. His remarks hint that the beginning of the end has already started. Sharing his doubts as to whether the EU will be preserved in its current form by the year 2028, he cited Brexit among one of the main causes of the collapse of Brussels, adding it is why it follows “with concern what is happening there”, in reference to the EU itself.

    He said: “By 2028 some countries in Eastern Europe will reach a sufficient level of development, so that they will no longer receive support from the European budget, but they will have to pay as the United Kingdom did and still does.

    This is an oddity. For a start it is in the Express and makes sense while Putin is quoted directly instead of by reported speech, which is the usual practice since it allows for his comments to be misrepresented. There are some calumnies later but since he’s by far the smartest national leader on the world stage his unedited views should be of interest to anyone interested in BREXIT. This should be particularly heartening to Nottlers since he’s saying that though we may well remain under Boris’s BRINO we will still get out when the whole thing falls flat. Of course other unpleasant events may supervene while this process is happening but bright spots are in short supply at the moment.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1207588/EU-news-latest-russia-vladimir-putin-soviet-union-collapse-brexit-boris-johnson

      1. …and I just hope that he’s too optimistic and the EU fails within the next two years.

        ‘Morning, Anne

  22. The words I hate …

    Rising levels of inequality.. what does that mean .. It is a Labour luvvie word, isn’t it?

    Has this feeling been perpetuated by celebrity living, footballers, pop stars, media people and credit card life styles?

    When I got married over half a century ago, and those similar to me , survived on the basics of life because we were buying our own property , and just made do .. I had a Burco boiler and a wringer , and washed clothes by hand .. We had battered old car , a Wolsey, 17% interest rates re mortgage .. We knitted, sewed and made do.. and the white goods purchases had to be saved for .. Remember how expensive everything was.. We even rented our black and white TV!

    Was that an unequal life .. I don’t think so .

    1. We even rented our black and white TV!

      Rent a telly

      We had to sit on orange boxes (they doubled as bedside tables), on the pavement and look throuh Radio rentals window.

      I did not realise that telly had sound ’til I was 15; Mum and Dad told us we had to Lip Read

        1. Eggs, what were those

          We only ever got them (wrapped in newspaper that was then recycled in outside cludge) when we went to see Nanna, at the farm

          I was 12 before I found out that a roast dinner has not (the contents) of a jar of (Shippams) Meat Paste surrounded by Roast pot00000000s all covered in Bisto

    2. Outside of London house prices in real terms are as affordable as they ever where but people are less likely to be prepared to save

      1. Not surprising when the interest rates for savers on offer are about 2% below inflation. Borrowing is cheap though, and everyone maxes out on their credit cards these days – it’s the done thing to spend, spend, spend. Helps the economy, don’t it.

        1. If you think borrowing is cheap on a maxed-out credit card even Diane Abbott could put you straight.

          1. Of course it’s cheap – just consolidate it on a fresh credit deal, and it’s settled.

        2. Plus there are endless help to buy schemes. The main problem is we have to many people living in the UK and in particular England but politicians and the media are in denial about that

          When a developer phone into a radio station say the house building numbers are not achievable due to lack of labour the instant response was we need more migrant which all that does is make a bad situation worse

          1. When we do get to bring in the much-needed migrants, it’s the jihadis and their extended families that are approved, and the Polish builders are sent home to improve the statistics.

        3. Everyone maxes out their credit cards these days?

          My card (singular) was maxed out when we were younger, with young children. Some of the purchases were essential, but others weren’t. I hated it, I detested it, but we couldn’t afford to pay off more than the minimum monthy payment. It took a windfall over 25 years ago to allow me to clear it for the first time and throw off the usurous interest rates that had prevented us from getting it paid off earlier. I swore I would never again gather a millstone such as that around my neck.

          Since then it is paid off every month that there is debt on it to zero, avoiding those charges altogether. I don’t need to pay it off every month, because it’s not used every month. It is only used when there is no option (foreign car hire – where they insist on a credit card), or for large purchases from unfamiliar dealers to ensure protection.

          Anyone who maxes out their credit cards is a fool.

          1. I only ever use mine to get commission-free money when I am abroad. I get letters telling me that unless I buy something on it within fourteen days, they will close the account. When this happens, I use it at the next supermarket shop and then pay it back before it attracts interest. They hate me.

            My fridge was thrown out by my sister 15 years ago, my hi-fi is a 1962 gramophone I’ve just spent £100 on restoring at a little repair shop in Worcester, my car is a 32-year-old 2CV with another £300 spent on MoT welding repairs this year, so it’s good for a while yet. My 25-year-old boiler was looked by a professional who told me I have to replace them every six years you know, so I had to fix it myself. My woodburner is due some new firebricks (about £40) and I’ve just stitched up a hole in my Lidl jumper, so that should do me for a few more winters. I’ve just spent £100 on a bigger hard drive on my laptop, so I can load up Windows 7 and get a supported browser. None of this on a credit card though, but from a pot of money I had earmarked for a house extension, but being a cheapskate, I’ve made little progress on it since 2005, which is why it’s unlikely Kevin McCloud will ever feature me on his show.

          2. There is a lot of sense in paying for things on a credit card. You have a record of what you have spent,, you have an interest free period to pay and in many cases you get cash back on the purchases and the most valuable benefit is you are covered if a company goes but or fail to deliver the good

          3. I, personally, will not have a credit card, I use only a debit card and then get cash back on supermarket shopping. I don’t trust ATMs, they seem to be too easily rigged.

    3. Here, in S. Birmingham, in the 1970s, there was a mile of the Pershore Road in Stirchley and Cotteridge with second-hand furniture shops. We bought chests of drawers and wardrobes there. I still have some of these sturdy items, but ALL the shops have long gone.

      1. Few buy used ordinary (but good) stuff any more – it must be a famous antique. Likewise, the new furniture is so cheap and transportable (IKEA, for example) that it’s cheaper & easier to buy new. Also, with more disposable income, people can afford to buy new, even when it isn’t cheaper..

        1. When MB and I – and the boys – were young, I wasn’t allowed to buy anything on hire purchase unless my husband gave his permission.
          And we have always had our separate bank accounts.

          1. Our first bed: 4′ double – £5 from a junk shop in Bow. Still going, now at Mother-in-law’s place. Our first desk – sold 20 years ago. Our first table – still going. Chest of Drawers – at MiL’s place. Mirror – upstairs.

    5. Still got a Burco, tucked away under the stairs. It was my father-in-law’s and when he died 30 years ago I hung onto it to boil crabs that I was able to buy cheaply by the stone ( a fiver) or half stone (three quid) from a local quayside fishmonger. Then I’d dress them and freeze them in small pots so I had crab for my lunchtime sandwiches at work whenever I felt like it.

      That fishmonger closed and is now a chip shop, but I’ve never been able to chuck the Baby Burco out.

      1. Goodness , I would never have thought about that.. It was for the terry towelling nappies the babies wore, towels and handkerchiefs, all the white shirts, stuff that could be boiled and kept white!

        I love crab sandwiches.. a favourite treat.. mmm

        1. The great thing about it was that it did them all in one batch, then after they were cooked all it took to drain it was to open the tap into a bucket and wash it out..

  23. Dear Marj,
    I would like to live in a stable democracy under the rule of fair laws and even-handed justice, where free speech is simple fact of life.
    I cannot decide between the United Kingdom, Honduras, and China.
    Can you help, please?
    Bewildered, Dalston.

  25. Labours Freebies

    I had a look at their Manifesto and real information was totally lacking , If we take their abolishing tuition fees the typical Student debt is given as about £60,000 of which only about £30,000 is ever paid back currently. There is also interest on student loans so that’s a further cost

    Due to our partial and hybrid devolved UK Westminster only covers England for tuition fees but due to the Barnett formula a pro rata amount of cash will have to be paid to NI, Scotland & Wales.

    We also have overseas students. The last figure I could find was 25,000. If we leave the EU we can probably change them after the transition period but depends on what’s written in the WA. If we remain in the EU we would have to provide free tuition for EU students

    Labour have also not factored in that removing student fees would increase demand in England and from overseas students

    Labour has also not costed in the possibility of higher interests rate nor the increased amount of government debt although it is unclear as to how much will be funded from tax increases and how much from increased government debt

  27. Working at home today. Tiny dark Polish cleaner has brought an equally tiny, but blonde, mate, so the house is filled with slender Polish girls cleaning like crazy people. It’s a wonder there’s any pile left in the carpet, and grain left in the wooden floors… jayzuz, the energy in these two lasses!

    3. ‘Morning, Paul, I hate it when Best Beloved gets the cleaners in – about twice a month – as she rushes round removing everything from surfaces and places where they’re supposed to be, hiding them in cupboards and drawers (not hers) and, after they’ve gone, I cannot find a damn thing in the nice clean house, without having to play hide and seek.

      1. Morning Jeremy.

        The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

        F. Scott Fitzgerald

      2. JM,
        The best thing would be to set something up in an islamic type country, no need to travel afar
        plenty on home ground, courtesy of the lab/lib/con coalition.
        The feminist being the real time victim,phone ambulance after the trial run.

        1. Only if she is looked at or spoken to by the wrong sort of patronising gender-binary elderly male patriarch. God help him if he holds a door open for her. That really does require a 999 call for both an ambulance to deal with her post-abuse trauma and the police to deal with the hate crime.

          1. JM,
            I held the door open for one yesterday as she
            & trolley past me by, she must have heard me say thank you.

      1. Somewhat reminiscent of the Nazzi way of encouraging refugees to move or, more recently, South African Police with Sjamboks.

      2. Yes, but a properly indoctrinated lslamic woman would presume that the victim had it coming to her. Men have no monopoly on cruelty.

      1. T,
        She had come straight from a police ID line up
        in keeping with the PC / Appeasement unwritten rulings.

    4. Ogga1 2 ogga1,
      Hold up ogga 1, wot ?
      The politico’s swear by the instruction manual in parliament,& I do believe that is is not only muslims that
      support those politico’s / parties.

  29. UK Government rescues British orphans of Isil fighters from Syria in first repatriation mission. 21 NOVEMBER 2019.

    British orphaned children of Islamic State fighters have been rescued from Syria, in the first evacuation by the UK Government of nationals stranded in the war-torn country following the fall of the “caliphate”.

    The Telegraph is not revealing their identity for security reasons.

    Surprise. Surprise! No comments allowed!

    Wooden Horse operation this! A White Helmet holding every kid’s hand!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/21/uk-government-rescues-british-orphans-isil-fighters-syria-first/

    1. Why are they British, they damned well aren’t .. if their parents cleared off to join Isil, Britishness is sacrificed surely… the seeds of terrorism have already been sown .

      1. Most of them were probably born in their beloved calibrate over there. Definitely not British by either birth or intent.

        1. Weren’t they supposed to be the next crop of fighters? No doubt they will be well trained once they are back in the UK.

    2. No doubt these will will be adopted into slammer families where they will frequently be told how the infidels killed their parents and it is therefore their duty to take revenge.

    3. So why do islamic charities not come forward to help these Arabic speaking children. As they are born muslims, so they will remain. Perhaps an middle eastern country would be a more suitable place for rehabilitation as they are orphans. But I wonder how many parents will suddenly raise from the dead in the coming months.

    5. And after 20 years of the taxpayer raising this spawn, they will thank us by blowing us up/running us down/going all choppy choppy at a gathering.

  31. Nigel Farage is set to announce his Brexit Party’s policies today while Scottish Labour and Plaid Cymru will also outline their manifestos ahead of the December 12 election.
    Mr Farage has said he will detail a “contract with the British people”, as opposed to a traditional manifesto, at a launch event on Friday.

    1. Unfortunately there are too many who will have no Brexit Party candidate. So far we have no idea on the Brexit stance of our newly selected Cons candidate who replaces the undemocratic remoaner Boles.

      1. The ideal situation would have been a deal between the Conservatives and the Brexit Party as it is not sensible for example in Hull the Brexit Party should have stood aside. THe Conservatives if the Brexit Party had not stood could take 2 of the 3 seats in Hull

        1. BJ,
          The very real ideal situation was to have had a UKIP input post
          referendum & we would not have had nearly four years wallowing in
          political treachery / sh!te.

    1. He dresses up as just a 5% tax increase for those earning £80,000 or over but fails to mention of the huge increase in debt he will run up nor the 38% increase in Corporation tax, Two impacts this could have companies will move out of the UK and prices in the shops will go up

      His other daft idea is to do away with business rates and replace it with a Land value tax which the landlords will pay. They are already being squeezed by CVA’s so all that will happen is rents will go up

      The real problem with retail is there has been a fundamental change in how we shop which has left us with to many retail shops

      What has happened is since the early 1960’s both partners go out to work, This means they don’t have time to shop in a dozen different shops so they go to a large Out of town shopping centre where they can do a one stop shop. The more recent additional change is to shopping online. If you shop online you can get what you want. If you go to the High Street the chances are they will not have it in stock. The other disadvantage is there limited opening hour. Most are only open when people cannot get to them. The other issue is most will not deliver goods

      1. Just taken a delivery of frozen smoked cod’s roe so I can make taramasalata over the Christmas and New Year period.
        I could tramp around the town centre and shopping malls from now to doomsday and not find it.

          1. I am very greedy for soft fudge and caramel and quite like smoked cod’s roe in taramasalata.

            I once was offered a plate with cubes of what I thought was fudge but turned out to be smoked cod’s roe.
            If you know what tea tastes like when you are expecting coffee imagine that but 100 times worse.
            How I managed not to puke on the spot is still a mystery. At least i could eject the roe into a suitable recepticle.

          2. Beware little cakes served with coffee in Finland. They look scrummy, but may well be anchovy or fermented fish!

          3. Smoked cod’s roe itself is far too rich; I can’t eat it in that form. It needs making into taramasalata to dilute the salty smokiness.

    1. As I said last night it was enlightening when she said, as an English teacher she taught ‘politics’ as part of her lessons.

      Whose ‘politics’?

  35. tried adding up the Cost of Labours Manifesto. It would cost people on average over £2000 a year if not more. The problem is their manifesto is vague which makes it difficult to cost accurately

  36. Daily Brexit Betrayal

    Our EU-imposed financial woes don’t stop with this budget.

    Since this GE is about money and jobs, allegedly, ask the LibLabCon

    Remainers how Remain will create jobs in the face of these news:

    “A long-standing

    dispute between the USA and the EU over many years of illegal state

    subsidies to Airbus, principally by the French and German governments,

    is about to result in massive extra tariffs being imposed on all EU

    exports of goods and services. This retaliation by the USA has been

    agreed by the WTO and will cost EU exporters (including those from the

    UK) $7.5 billion per year. The US plans to levy additional high tariffs

    on a wide range of goods and services, from Jaguar cars, to Cheddar and

    Stilton cheeses, to Scotch whisky. These new costs will range from

    10-25% on top of existing tariffs, making British goods uncompetitive in

    the US market and putting UK jobs at serious risk.” (link)

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-brexit-betrayal-friday-22nd-november-2019-20-days-to-polling-day/

  37. An idea for a TV Reality Show;

    Living in the 1950/60/70s with the nationalised industries …. showing people’s experience of trying to get a telephone (and the marvel when you finally get a phone of being on a party line). Gas and electricity bills translated into today’s prices …..

    NHS (nationalized): Arriving at Outpatients at 8:30 am with a simultaneous group of 50 others with an 8:30 summons. Consultant breezes in at 11;00 am – you eventually see the specialist at 2:30 and eventually depart at 3:00 pm.

    2. I remember my first telephone. I moved into a flat on my own. There it was. On a shelf in the hall. A beautiful 1930s black bakelite instrument. It was not connected to the exchange. My employer wrote to BT (whatever it was then – Post Office?) and said that I needed to be on call. It did no good. It was nine months before it was connected, after BT built a new exchange. Such good times.

      1. Nine months? We had the phone gathering dust on the hall table for 18 months. When it finally rang, MB and I thought we were hallucinating.

      2. I recall privatisation and early BT days: Phone boxes that worked! They even installed my first phone ON A SUNDAY! I nearly fell down when I called to ask for a phone – the lady said that it would be no problem, and was Sunday morning in a few days time OK? My gast had (and has) never been so flabbered!

      3. When we bought our first house in Canada we called Bell to arrange for a phone to be installed. Their answer- we cannot be there today, will tomorrow morning be ok?

        That was of course in the days before companies rationalized, shipped support offshore and cut staff.

    1. Doesn’t seem that long ago that I had one like that. One day I switched it on and it literally went bang. I still have a 3 by 4. Perfect for watching the Talking Pictures channel. Can’t be arrised to buy a new one.

      1. We found one right at the back of a cupboard under the stairs in a house we rented.

        The cabinet must have been over three feet high by two by two. The screeen can’t have been more than nine inches square.

        It worked perfectly for several months, though it took ages to warm up to the point of getting both sound and a picture.

        It didn’t just go bang when it went, it also burst into flames. I suspect we were very fortunate that it happened when we were watching it, because the warm up time was such that we would go off and do something else in the house or garden.

        1. Apparently, in Russia, they were known as ‘Friday afternoon televisions’.
          Even by Russian standards, they were shoddy because the workers wanted to get away for the weekend. Buyers would actually ask what day they were made.

    2. My mother never did get a telly in her life. We did have one like that when my children were growing up.

  39. Yes, indeed:

    fakenewswatcher

    November 22, 2019 at 10:21 am

    Brexit Party will scrap the beeb licence fee, Farage announces.
    Wonder what sort of coverage their launch will get, compared to yesterday’s great Labour launch celebrations all day long on beeb?

    Vote 1 likes

  41. November 22 2019, 12:01am, The Times

    Labour manifesto: Big plans don’t bear real scrutiny
    Paul Johnson

    It’s easy to get inured to big numbers as the parties make claims and counter-claims about billions and trillions of pounds actually or supposedly being promised in tax and spending increases. So let’s get one thing clear about Labour’s pledges. They are very, very big indeed.

    Labour is looking to increase public spending by more than £130 billion a year. That’s on a base of about £810 billion. This would increase public spending by about six percentage points of national income. It would take the share spent by government to levels not sustained in peacetime.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Fc23da66c-0cb3-11ea-be0a-9205ce633777.png?crop=2000%2C3000%2C0%2C0&resize=320
    These numbers ignore the costs of nationalising water, energy, rail, mail and BT Openreach. They also ignore the long-term consequences of a particularly imprudent pledge: that state pension ages will not rise beyond 66. That would mean spending on state pensions rising by more than £60 billion a year by the 2050s relative to today.

    Of that £130 billion of extra spending, £55 billion is earmarked for capital investment. That would double investment spending. There is a strong case for more investment spending, but increases on this scale probably couldn’t be achieved in an effective and efficient manner over a parliament. Labour would be content to borrow the additional £55 billion a year required to fund its spending, and would hence be comfortable with public sector debt rising over time. But it has said it wants to raise taxes by £80 billion a year.

    That too is a vast increase, and it would take our tax burden to its highest level in history. About half of that £80 billion increase would supposedly come from increases in corporation tax. That would take our corporation tax revenue from about the OECD average to among the very highest, and right to the top of the G7 league table.

    The claim that the scale of public spending that Labour desires can be financed entirely by taxing companies and “the rich” does not stand up to scrutiny. Corporation tax is in the end paid by people — increasing it would mean higher prices, lower wages, or less valuable pensions and savings. If you really want to raise an extra £80 billion you are almost certainly going to have to raise broad-based taxes, which directly affect large numbers of people.

    There is a good case for changing the model of capitalism here to one more like the French, German or Scandinavian systems. But it is dangerous to pretend that it can occur overnight. It needs to be planned over a long period.

    All those countries have a higher tax burden on average earners than we do. Transformation would require all of us to pay. If it is worth the candle, and it might be, then it is worth not pretending otherwise.

    Paul Johnson is director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies

    1. Do these figures ignore the Government income from nationalised industries? In France the railways, electricity, and the postal service are nationalised.
      Expenditure is not an issue. Net expenditure, expenditure less income, (i.e.subsidies) is certainly an issue.

    2. Numbers too big to make sense to this average person.
      So as long as I can expect freebies, let us just accept what they say.

  43. In their manifesto, released this morning, The Labour Party have

    pledged to introduce abortion, on-demand, for any reason, up to birth.

    The manifesto outlines (page 48) that the party is seeking to ‘decriminalise abortions’.

    Full decriminalisation of abortion involves repealing sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act along with the Infant Life Preservation Act. The Abortion Act 1967, sets out exceptions to this underlying legislation which last year allowed for over 200,000 abortions to take place in England and Wales. Without this underlying legislation, the Abortion Act would become redundant.

    This change in law would scrap the current 24-week time limit for

    abortion – and abortion would be available on-demand, for any reason, up to birth. The upper time limit would be completely abolished.

    https://righttolife.org.uk/news/labour-pledge-to-introduce-abortion-for-any-reason-up-to-birth/

      1. Kill an unborn baby: Legal

        Call a LGBTqwetyop by a name that they do not like: Jail

        Welcome to the Asylum 2109

          2. Wotcher OLT,

            Yep, too right.

            I like your sideways umlaut – reminds me of the famous line in Hamlet: “Alas poor Horlicks, I knew him backwards”. Or something…

    2. How low can these repulsive politicians sink?

      Next Corbyn and Abbott will decide to allow ‘abortion’ up to one year after birth to give people the chance to change their mind if they find thy don’t like having a baby making noises and smells in their homes. Perhaps they could even provide special coloured dustbins in which to dispose of unwanted fetuses and infants.

    3. How about allowing abortion of progeny up to the age of 16 years? Much more useful. Babies could be born and brought up and a decision made about their continued existence in the year after their 15th birthday.

    4. Does this mean that they would euthanize a full term delivered baby on the wishes of its mother? Ye Gods – and I have no religion – are they finally dragging us down into the pit of horrors that they inhabit. Who, in the medical profession, could bring themselves to do that? Once on that road, where does it stop? The old, the infirm, the mentally abnormal? We know who committed those atrocities back in the ’30s and ’40s.

      2. My thoughts entirely. For “euthanase” read “murder”. Too horrified to even think about this stuff.

      3. “Planned Parenthood” (what a horrible misnomer) have been caught out in this sort of practice in the USA,not to mention selling foetal body parts

    6. Corbyn and his crowd are the real Marxist Trotsky murderers.. soul less , lacking heart , Christianity .. They would murder us all if they had half a chance .. and they probably will… we will become stressed out, cold bankrupt and miserable .. They hate us so .. they hate our English/ Scottish/ Welsh pedigree , they hate that we have found them out .. they hate that we know what they are upto , and they hate our Protestant ethic , bravery and do or die national character .. They hate all Jews .. These Corbyn people are like King Herod resurrected .

      Corbyn will shipwreck Great Britain .. God help us all.

    7. I wonder whether the organ harvesting will be part of the NHS business or whether it will be outsourced.

    8. Why stop at birth? Why not just legalise murder? Then the police would be able to devote more personnel to hate crime.

    9. Beyond shocking and horrible, and that’s the same policy as the Dems have…. and who heavily influences them ?

      Does this mean Labour have fallen under the Soros spell ?

    1. My first visit to Moldova,the city of Beltsy,my first thoughts were “Jeez,Blade Runner without the Neon” Parking up in the Mafia car park 100 dollars a night because any vehicle left on the streets would be stripped by morning
      Walking nervously across ther street to Ruxanda’s flat in one of the crumbling blocks arranged in squares,the flat running with condensation as the only form of heating left was the gas stove,two hours of electricity and running water a day,the central factory steam heating had departed with the Russians
      TB heaven
      Yup.we are all equal here comrades,equal in misery

    2. When my younger son first went to Switzerland to live, he met a Czech girl at his German class. She invited him to stay for a few days – he said it was in a communist block & I think he found it a bit of an eye-opener.

  45. Plaid Cymru wants ‘green jobs revolution’

    I wonder what planet they live on the £20B alone equates to about £7000 each for every man woman and child in Wales. How exactly is he expecting to fund that?

    I can hazard a guess he will want Westminster to fund it. It is time we had a proper Federal UK let Wales sink in its own mess

    The proposed Swansea Tidal barrage was estimated to cost £50B and with these things to play safe you need to treble it so a £150B to produce modest amount of energy. Westminster binned it on the basis of costs and risk

    Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price has called for a £20bn “green jobs revolution” in Wales as he launches the party’s general election manifesto.
    Plans include huge investment in rail and bus travel, three tidal lagoons, a barrage and a new offshore wind farm.
    Mr Price said tens of thousands of “green collar” jobs can be created and the “urgent climate emergency” tackled.
    The manifesto also states there should be another EU referendum so voters are given a final say on Brexit.
    Mr Price said the green proposals would make Wales self-sustainable in renewable energy by 2030.

    2. The SNP keep banging on about how Scotland ‘voted to remain in the EU’ in the referendum. Curiously enough, Plaid Cymru do not mention the fact that Wales voted to leave…

  46. as anyone told Corbyn that if we stay in the EU he cannot Nationalize companies nor can he stop US companies bidding for NHS contracts

  47. Peddy was criticising another poster this morning for repetition – something for which he often has good reason to criticise me. However he might like to reflect on the following:

    “I believe that the beauty of repetition is something that is not explored enough yet.” (Keren Ann)

    “There is always more to be found by exploring the same subject again and again.” (Dion Archibald)

    “Repetition makes reputation and reputation makes customers.” (Elizabeth Arden)

    “The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected; the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition.” (W. H. Auden)

    “The eye loves repetition, but does not want to be bored. It likes familiarity, but needs surprises.” (Edith Bergstrom)

    Peddy will be able to find more quotations about repetition here:

    http://www.art-quotes.com/getquotes.php?catid=352#.Xde8zuhKiUk

    3. I didn’t critcise Minty for repetition this morning; I simply pointed it out.

      Sloppy journalism on your part, Rastus. 😉

    1. Despite there being no evidence apart from contrary to their ideals there has been no country ever that has managed to tax it’s population into prosperity. Most people live and LEARN others vote for socialism.

      1. The real problem we have is tax avoidance by the large corporations. If we leave the EU we could look to move asway from Corporation tax to a tax on profits from Sales. We may need to look at the IPR dodge as well

    2. Most of the Scandinavian countries Corbyn like to uses as example are actually reducing taxation and tax in these countries is not as high as some would claim. A lot of spin can be used with taxation. WE may have modest rates of income tax but we have a large number of indirect taxes as well as quite high rates of council tax etc

      1. The income tax burden in Norway isn’t too bad as a headline figure, but conceals a lot.
        Example: I pay about 38% of my income as tax to the government. They then redistribute it – of that 38%, 13% goes to the Local Authority (equivalent rates/ poll tax), and 7% is health & unemployment – equivalent to NI contributions. So, the national portion of income tax is actually quite small.

        1. Presumably helped a lot by Norway’s decision to create a sovereign wealth fund from N Sea Oil revenues, instead of squandering the bonanza.

          1. Yup, but there are spending rules. Only 4% of the annual growth / profits may be spent in the year.That’s still a huge wedge of money, though.

  49. Farage under fire for conspiracy claims linked to antisemitism. Thu 21 Nov 2019 .

    In an interview earlier this year with a tiny UK evangelical Christian TV channel, Revelation TV, the Brexit party leader alleged that banks and multinational corporations were trying to created a dictatorial world government.

    The discussion, uncovered by the group Hope Not Hate, saw Farage single out Goldman Sachs, the investment bank founded by Jewish immigrant to the US that is often the focus of antisemitic conspiracy theories.

    This has all been dredged up from the dim and distant past for the election. That Hate not Hope was involved tells you the agenda.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/21/farage-under-fire-for-conspiracy-claims-linked-to-antisemitism

    1. Same old. Criticise Soros and the bankers (sic) and the Left wail about antisemitism but criticise their own rabid hatred of Israel and you get the malicious fallacy that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.

    2. Banks and corrupt people ARE trying to make a One World Government where “democracy” is just a meaningless sham. The EU is a tiny model of that. The fact that some of them were born Jewish is irrelevant. These globalists will employ anyone who can be corrupted. Nigel Farage was just pointing out one of the big banks involved. It was the Marxist thugs in Hope Not Hate who said that meant it was the Jews.

      Angela Merkel, Tony Blair, Theresa May, Dominic Grieve etc. are not Jewish, and they are fully on-board with dragging us all down.

    3. One of St. Jo’s favourite charities. Like White Helmets.

      Wasn’t it Goldman Sachs that was involved in getting Greece sneaked into the EU?

  50. Plaid Cymru want to electrify Wales’ main rail lines by 2030

    The main GWR line I already being electrified as far as Cardiff . The economics and passengers numbers beyond there making electrifying it no viable. The North Wales line does not have the traffic to justify electrification. Bi-Modes would be the sensible solution. The population o North Wales is under 1M and typically only about 5% of people travel by rail

    Electrification is expensive, which left some wondering whether spending billions to save minutes on journeys was value for money.
    But electrification allows bigger trains to be run on lines. They can be more frequent and more reliable. Overall more passengers could travel on the services.
    The trains themselves are more environmentally friendly and more travellers might be encouraged to use public transport rather than cars.
    Businesses have long pushed for rail electrification in areas where demand justifies the cost.

    1. Lack of a sensible business case is not holding up HS2, fairs fair and all that.

      Electrification allows bigger trains to run? You should see some of the goods trains over here, they just hook in multiple engines and end up with trains that exceed a mile in length.

    2. Much of the limit on rail usage these days comes from overcrowding. There is a limit as to how many trains can pass in an hour. What’s needed is more track, shorter block lengths (ERTMS is supposed to address blocks), faster acceleraion and better braking (limited by steel wheel friction).

    3. Have they not got a good supply of pit ponies that could haul carriages on branch lines?

  51. I’ve just had a phone call from an elderly relation whose birthday was the other day.

    On the day, he called in to his local chemist for a repeat prescription. They must have been expecting him and as soon as he walked in, all three people there stood up, clapped and wished him a Happy Birthday.

    How nice is that?

  52. Good afternoon Nottlers. A quick skim through (that’s all I can do just now :o( ) but here’s something that should make us think, when our politicos boast about full employment. Sweden today, us tomorrow. The whole article is worth a read – it’s the way we are going further (we are already way down that road)

    Sweden: The Price of Migration
    by Judith Bergman
    November 22, 2019 at 5:00 am

    “The industries have a very limited need for people without experience and education.” — Johanna Odö, municipal councilor; Aftonbladet, October 3, 2019.

    Now, to save money, the Ystad municipality will no longer serve hot meals to the elderly and cleaning services will be limited to once every three weeks.

    Motala municipality had said that it would lower the heat in buildings managed by the city, including old age homes, to save money. “We will take care of the elderly; they will not be freezing, they can have blankets,” the message went.

    Meanwhile, in June, the Swedish parliament voted in favour of a law that is likely to increase immigration to Sweden based on family reunification.

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15081/sweden-migration-price

    1. It is becoming clearer to many people now, that these policies in different countries are not “silly ideas” put forward by stupid people. There are far too many policies for that, happening over far too many years.

      It seems insane to us, but the end goal of these policies is to cause the breakdown of our societies. To make things so bad that the people will accept anything that the globalists put forward to make the problems go away again.

      Yet after years of seeing things getting worse and worse, still our borders stay open. Now with added Lifeboats in the Channel to provide a taxi service from France. It would appear that they cannot get the followers of this cult into the United Kingdom fast enough. They are certainly not being brought here to make the country more stable.

  53. One of Fraser Nelson’s better efforts

    Corbyn’s class war on capitalism would be ruinous for the many, not just the few
    FRASER NELSON – 21 NOVEMBER 2019 • 9:30PM

    In this age of political fakers it’s almost refreshing to find, in Jeremy Corbyn, a man of principle and consistency. He promised a potentially transformative socialist agenda and did not disappoint. His agenda, if enacted, would drop a precision bomb on every major Tory achievement and test just how quickly a country can come undone.

    It’s not just that the policies Corbyn proposes have never been tried before in Britain; they are more radical than anything being attempted by any government in Europe. At the heart of the manifesto lies a vision of Britain as an embattled country, divided between predator and prey. “We’re a society of billionaires and the very poor,” said Mr Corbyn in this week’s television debate. His manifesto elaborates on this theme. It offers an extensive cast list of villains: landlords, oil companies, Ofsted, the media, ‘very rich’ football clubs, free schools, private schools and many more. They’d all best watch out. Under a Corbyn government, a reckoning would begin.

    The “powerful interests that are causing climate change” would be punished by expulsion from the London Stock Exchange. Any company of any serious size, no matter how green, will see 10 per cent of its shares confiscated by the state, without compensation. Companies found guilty of pay gaps (race, gender, disability) would be penalised. To run a successful company in Corbyn’s Britain would mean being seen as the class enemy and in a stroke, the UK would become one of the riskiest places in Europe to do business. In an age where people and capital have never been more mobile, it’s not entirely clear how many investors would stick around to see how the story ends.

    But the richest 5 per cent had better stay put because Corbyn has said they will be the only ones facing tax rises. Free university tuition fees, free dental check-ups, personal care for the elderly, free broadband, free television licenses for over-75s and more. The bill adds up to £82 billion, by Labour’s own costings, almost twice the price of Corbyn’s last manifesto – and that’s before we count the £196 billion of borrowing for the various nationalisations. But, we’re told, 95 per cent of the population need not worry. It will all be drawn from the tax-dodging rich.

    The Institute for Fiscal Studies, which does its best to be politically neutral, is now running out of polite ways to say how damaging all of this would be. “It’s impossible to overstate just how extraordinary this manifesto is, just in terms of the sheer scale of money being spent and raised through the tax system,” said Paul Johnson, its director, yesterday. “Vast numbers. Enormous. Colossal.” The idea of this money being squeezed from a small number of high earners, of course, is a fantasy. And this is where the danger lies.

    Perhaps because the Labour manifesto is based on an imaginary Britain – one where the rich are selfish and avoid tax – its solutions are also fantastical. The UK government is unusually reliant on the incomes of a small number of super taxpayers, so the economics of taxing them is an important art. When Labour last whacked the top 1 per cent, under the Callaghan government, they paid just 11 per cent of all income tax collected. After the Tories cut the top rate of tax, the 1 per cent ended up paying 28 per cent of all income tax. A new record and a progressive triumph. But very easily ruined.

    Corbyn’s proposed windfall tax on oil firms is guaranteed to be a disaster. George Osborne tested this idea to destruction when in office: his tax hike saw oil and gas fields close, multi-billion pound projects suspended and tax revenues collapse from £11 billion to barely £1 billion last year. The debacle left the world with an important lesson of the damage that ill-judged tax raids can do.

    Nor would the abolition of tuition fees do anything to increase the number of poorer students at university. When the Irish abolished fees in 1996, they found to their dismay that the extra money had subsidised middle-class families without improving access. Starved of tuition fee income, English universities would certainly have to cut back on courses – which is sure to mean fewer opportunities for bright working-class children. So the Corbyn reforms would be profoundly regressive, hurting the very people they’re supposed to help.

    Ditto rent controls. No class war agenda would be complete without a bit of stick directed at landlords. But why? It’s expensive to buy houses, but the cost of renting from private landlords has been falling for some time now – in fact it’s cheaper, in real terms, than it was ten years ago. Rent controls would do to Britain what they have done everywhere else they’ve been tried. We’d see buy-to-let landlords giving up, meaning fewer properties for rent, chronic shortages and long waiting lists. So this would backfire, spectacularly.

    As would its environmental agenda. The Labour manifesto showed a form of green Marxism, snarling at “big polluters” who act hand-in-glove with the Tories. It’s an argument we can expect to hear plenty more about in this election: environmentalism as class war. Profit, the Labour manifesto tells us, is a “poor regulator for our use of natural resources.” The old myth of companies as heartless, careless polluters.

    In fact, the opposite is true. Resources cost money, which is precisely why profit-seeking companies have found so many ingenious ways to make more with less. The UK economy has grown 40 per cent since the turn of the century but we use fewer resources, because capitalism has led to greater efficiencies. The amount of energy used, for example, is down almost a fifth. So profit – or, rather, cost efficiency – has proven an ideal regulator of use of natural resources. This helps explain why the UK has reduced greenhouse gas more than any other major developed country since David Cameron was elected.

    All told, the Labour manifesto is a gift for Boris Johnson, containing enough horror stories to last him for the rest of the campaign. He can now argue that this is the most important election in our lifetimes. “We will deliver our plans,” said Corbyn yesterday, “which is why they want to stop us being elected.” Quite.

    1. Not once, during this auction orgy of pledges for massive borrowing to cover public spending programmes have any of the parties considered the quality of the public services the Magic Fairy is being invited to invest in.

      We may as well spend the lot on luxury yachts to be scuttled after the next hurricane in the Bahamas or cocaine parties for celebrities, duly broadcast on prime time TV and paid for by putting up utilty bills and Council Tax.

      If the 1% felt that it was money well spent, they might feel more inclined to make a just contribution to the infrastructure that enables them to generate their wealth. I don’t think anyone is putting that argument to them though.

      For me, No.1 priority is guaranteeing adequate cash flow for small businesses, potentially profitable, but vulnerable in the short term.

    1. Labour policy in the raw. Tax those with enough life experience that they won’t vote for them, because they see their economic policies for the disaster that they are. Then promise free things to those who are young enough to still believe that the government “has it’s own money” and that they deserve to have it spent on them.

      Without pointing out that the young people voting for these freebies now will be the ones paying for them, and the borrowing and interest that they cost, for half of their working lives. “Free broadband today. Slashed services for tomorrow.”

    3. “progressive property tax to replace Council Tax”. You mean, like the Rates, based on rentable value?

      We have value based property taxes in the US, and they are in general not cheap. BUT they are our local county’s only source of income to pay for the schools, and that is something we all understand.

      1. “The building has been evacuated and everyone accounted for, the East Sussex Fire Service says”.

  56. The latest poll of polls, compiled by PA media

    All very similar to other polls

    Con 43%
    Lab 29%
    Lib 15%
    Brexit 4%
    Green 3%
    Others 6%

  57. Thursday 21 November: In the TV debate Boris Johnson should have pressed Jeremy Corbyn on security and defence. Not the Telegraph Letters. November 21, 2019 by ladyof the lake.

    Now, besides all the Brexit shit and the electioneering lies and propaganda; now we have an ongoing plan or scheme to bring down our monarchy. I have never been a conspiracy theorist and I think most of those people are bonkers. However, I cannot see that all this is pure coincidence.

    Morning everyone. Well I don’t believe in coincidence either but I am a “conspiracy theorist” and that is because that is the only way I have found to explain events in the modern UK. This is not to say that I am always right, we are after all looking at events from a distance, we know none of the purported players at first hand and there are certainly varied targets, aims and motives for their actions. Since the actors are hidden and acting through proxies, both individuals and organisations, we can only see them though results which requires analysis and judgement on possibilities. That this process is a reality I have not the slightest doubt. To illustrate it is another matter entirely since it encompasses such a wide range of destabilising activities. We could point to anomalies that defy common sense, Foreign Aid, Defence, a Police Force that is simply a political poodle, the bizarre activities of the Security Services etc. It is this range and the persistence in breaking down the accepted Social and Cultural norms that tells me that it is orchestrated. States have been overthrown from within by forces hostile to them many times during the twentieth century but this is probably the first time that an attempt has been made to destroy an entire civilisation by covert means. It is succeeding!

    https://nttl.blog/thursday-21-november-in-the-tv-debate-boris-johnson-should-have-pressed-jeremy-corbyn-on-security-and-defence/

    1. Morning AS,
      It is succeeding aided & abetted by at least 48% of the electorate and overall
      a great many of the party first brigade.
      The peoples can see themselves the
      deterioration of these Isles over the
      UK/EU rubber stamping years, brought about via the ballot booth.
      Once bitten ( mid 70s) should have been acted on, but it never was / is, now the best of the worst / nose holding is voting guidelines.
      The peoples cannot go on blaming the
      politico’s when it is the peoples that put the politico’s / parties into power
      again,again,& again.

  58. The Brexit Party has changed its tune on, yes, Brexit.
    Until recently its leader, Nigel Farage, said a no-deal Brexit “was the only acceptable deal”.
    This “contract” moves the goalposts.
    Gone is the criticism of Boris Johnson’s withdrawal agreement – now the party simply promises there will be “no extended transition period”.
    At the moment the transition period – during which the UK would follow EU rules and regulations without having any say in making them – finishes at the end of next year.
    Without saying so explicitly, the Brexit Party is warning that it will campaign to ensure Mr Johnson sticks to his promise not to extend the transition.
    That gives very little time to agree the terms of a future free trade deal.

    1. BJ,
      You did not expect this ? bloody amazing.
      At least UKIPs manifesto items are getting an airing.
      If I remember right was not “nige” once upon a time calling for an extension ?

  59. I note the Labour Manifesto is getting the same detailed analysis as BoJo cup of cold sick reheated WA ie NONE

    One line extract from the Labour Party manifesto published yesterday:

    “Abolish the IHT main residence nil rate band.”
    So pensioners,if we can’t tax you out of your houses whilst you’re alive,we’ll steal it all when you die

    1. That will cost the Grenfellese evacuees, who have all been paid enough money to each buy their own houses in Mayfair
      (and I do NOT mean the Monopoly one)

    2. I rarely watch the news anymore, just the highlights. On Sky News this morning they led with The Brexit Party launch and went into full-on attack mode. Every bias was there and repeated multiple times. It would appear that there are many in the country who want to sell us out to the EU who are still terrified at the potential for TBP to have enough seats to stop Boris’s deal.

      If The Brexit Party were really on 2% as the media pretend, then Sky would not bother attacking them this strongly.

      (Seriously – 2% – LOL. How stupid do they think that people are? They are playing an all-out propaganda war now, because trapping the United Kingdom inside of the EU is within their grasp, but that can still be yanked away from them.)

    3. Written by George Harrison in respect of Labour’s 19/6d in the £ supertax, when Healey was boasting about ‘taxing the rich until the pips squeak’.

      He taxed the rich, so they moved abroad to avoid it and the government lost out as a result, with the rest of us paying more to fill the gap. That’s why The Rolling Stones and many more moved to France, the USA, The Caribbean, etc,etc. They liked what they saw and stayed. How much tax did that deny our exchequer over the 53 years since?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0zaebtU-CA

    4. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so …”

      {Hamlet]

      At the risk of infuriating Peddy by my repetition I shall ask again why no serious scrutiny has been given to BJ’s ‘brilliant ‘new’ Brexit deal which is neither new nor brilliant.

      I think it is a very bad deal but I cannot understand how any rational person – appraised with the details of Johnson’s rehash May Mk2 surrender deal could possibly think it a good deal for Britain.

      1. I don’t think it is a good deal but it’s the only one we’re likely to get. It’s either that or no Brexit at all.

        1. No deal is better than a bad deal.

          But is a bad deal any better than no Brexit at all?

          This is a very moot point.

          ‘No deal’ would be the best possible deal for Britain and this would be what I would vote for if I had the vote.

          However the ‘brilliant Boris deal’ gives us, who live in France and run our own businesses, the very worst of both worlds: none of the advantages of a proper Brexit and all the hassle and inconvenience that BRINO will give us.

          So if the choice for me is between BRINO or Remain in the EU’ it would be in my best interests and in Britain’s for Britain to stay in the EU as BRINO is in Britain’s worst interests.

  60. Scientists Still Baffled as to why we have had a massive increase in the number of people suffering food allergies

    They suspect a number of things contribute to it such as over cleanliness, Over use of antibiotics, Fady eaters and lack of vitamin D

    The reality is restaurants and takeaways can only take limited measures. They are not proper production environments and some cross contamination is inevitable. They have no control neither over ingredients bought in as they will only identify the main ingredients and there is the possibility of some cross contamination with these

    3. More like too much prepared food and far too many antibiotics floating around in food, the water, soap, etc. Besides can you imagine modern parents letting their darling little offspring play in the gutter or make mud pies, and so build up a decent level of immunity?

      I never knew anyone at school and even in my early working career be allergic to anything. One colleague in the late ’60’s had a baby son diagnosed (after a long time) with celiac disease. The doctors at the local hospital (close to London) told him they had read about it, but had never seen a case before. None of us in the office had even heard of it.

      We have definitely stuffed something up.

  61. Repatriation of terrorist children already on the way, AKA next wave of usurpers in the pipeline, bit of schooling then ready to take up their place in knocking what is left
    of the indigenous population into the islamic ideology shape.
    The saudi nation is close on hand why not there?
    Which parties have brought these issues into being & the UK ?
    Who is supporting / voting for these parties ?
    Why are they finding support ?

    1. The Conservatives must be supporting the charities who are bringing the children to the UK in semi – secrecy. They are orphans and children whose “parents” are in custody.No doubt some of these ” parents” will appear later on and apply to join their children in the UK. We also know from experience that the definition of a child in these circumstances is very flexible to the point of absurdity. More burden on the taxpayers.

      2. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office seems to be the prime mover which leads me to suspect that this is really about getting the White Helmets to safety in the UK!

    2. If they start a hunger strike, it should be compulsory for it to last Forty Days and 40 Nights, without liquids as well

        1. I was going to have some nice mashed potato with some peas and gravy. Very easy comfort food, and you get to play with the mash to mimic the “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” scene. But now I also have a hankering for bacon and eggs. I will throw in a couple of sausages as well. You only live once and life ends for me tonight after eating that sandwich.

          Thank you misguided Rebellion UK protester in the clip above for introducing some meat into my evening meal. By the way little lady, if the aid money that we sent to these countries was not funnelled into private bank accounts and used to buy guns and bullets, there would be more than enough food for everybody there.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4930518ab13d975d1b6f3e2b12090c1c5eb22d1d60bc0d3c7bd38e48182696b7.jpg

    4. Lunch was bacon sarnies, if I could bottle the aroma of it cooking I would send it to her.
      Come back after another couple of weeks of your hunger strike luv, I will let you know what effect it has had in the country.

      Spoiler alert, SFA I suspect.

    6. Spaghetti Ragu for lunch. Delicious! Washed down with a glass of Barone Ricasoli Chianti.

    7. Amazing how some weak propaganda about ‘the science’ can persuade people that we are all going to die, very soon. It seems to indicate that individuals have very little power of critical thought.

    8. Stupid Bint. Wake up and get a life. Imagine when your kids find this nonsense 15 years after you’re all supposed to have died.

    10. Insensitive? Maybe, but they’re rather tasty. I was intending to have fish and chips tonight, but I’m not sure that cod fart enough methane. I might defrost a steak instead…

      1. For lunch I had mussels cooked in cider & cream with tarragon, followed by pork rillettes on sourdough toast with cornichons, washed down with cider, followed by vanilla ice cream topped with hot chocolate sauce. Will prolly have just a snack tonight.

        1. Hmm… I had a small Waitrose Melton Mowbray pork pie, and a small packet of crisps. Thanks, Ocado. I’m with you on the sourdough, though. I’ve a sourdough culture rising nicely, and will put half of it in the breadmaker before bedtime.

          1. I used to like the w/rose pork pies until one day I found a huge lump of gristle in one. Put me off for life.

  63. Jeremy Corbyn ally urged to quit safe seat race in ‘anti-Semitic’ tweet row

    Jeremy Corbyn ally Apsana Begum has already apologised for an anti-Semitic post which she shared on Facebook that accused Saudi Arabia of being in thrall to “Zionist masters”.

    Ms Begum, who was a senior member of the Left-wing group Momentum, is running in the safe Labour seat of Poplar and Limehouse.

    However, it has since emerged that she was also part of Tower Hamlets Momentum which posted an alleged anti-Semitic tweet about Jewish Tory councillor Peter Golds in April last year.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8cbacf8141d9a0d5993d53c10646ac3a64e021f000af9a4bf533e88b82a97502.jpg

      1. “People like her are aliens. They do not belong in this country. Why do we acceptinvite them ?
        I reckon that’s a bit more accurate, Tony. Hope you don’t mind.

        1. But “we” did not invite them. Their route into this country was opened by our political masters (“elected representatives”) without as far as I can recall any question of asking us what we thought of the idea.

    1. Laughing at this sort of thing is forbidden. You are demeaning the intellectually weak among us.

  65. Got a letter from Darlington this afternoon with my TV licence valid until 31 May 2020 and a reminder that I will have to pay for it thereafter. Another reason not to vote for the Conservatives.

  66. Detectorists jailed for stealing £12m Viking hoard of gold and silver. Fri 22 Nov 2019

    Sentencing the men on Friday to 10 years and eight and a half years respectively for stealing, Judge Nicholas Cartwright said they had “cheated” not only the landowner, but also the public of “exceptionally rare and significant” coins.

    “You cheated the farmer, his mother, the land owner and also the public when you committed theft of these items,” he said. “That is because the treasure belongs to the nation. The benefit to the nation is these items can be seen and admired by others.

    Stupid, if they had stabbed someone and run off with their cocaine stash they would have got off with a slap on the wrist!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/22/detectorists-jailed-for-stealing-12m-viking-hoard-of-gold-and-silver

    1. It is bizarre. Land can be held by the owners but without mineral rights. Mineral rights might belong to someone else. So the notion of what is below the surface not necessarily belonging to the landowner is established in law. (In Scotland anyway.)
      So why should the landowner own something that someone else finds?
      As for the Crown, this treasure trove business goes back centuries and is essentially theft set up by feudal overlords. (Do they still do “droit de Seigneur”?

      1. It is no longer treasure trove – the law has been changed. Treasure Trove depended on being able to show whether the original owner had intended to come back to retrieve it or not. There were some cases where different archaeologists interpreted the evidence in opposite ways (I think one may have been very deliberately arguing the opposite case to English Heritage to show up the difficulty or just to annoy EH) which eventually resulted in the change of regulations. I think there are plans to make some amendments to the present law to prevent rare and important artefacts that have not previously been included amongst those that have to be declared from being lost to the nation – the incentive was the loss of the Crosby Garret helmet somewhere abroad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosby_Garrett_Helmet

        I have to say I approve of the sentences. In my view treasure hunters who destroy the nation’s heritage are only one rung above IS blowing up Palmyra.

        1. Treasure hunters surely value “the nation’s heritage” very highly? They are likely to place it with someone who also values it highly, and will likely take great care of it. Not like ISIS or the National Trust. Your link (I thank you for it) does nothing to dissuade me that private owners are often far better than the likes of the NT. The National Trust for Scotland and other similar organisations have a woeful record in maintenance and conservation, and I have raised issues with them in the past.
          Thanks also for the note on”treasure trove”. I live in the past.

  67. Hong Kong citizens deserve more from the UK – starting with permanent residency. Chuka Umunna. 21 November 2019.

    Liberal Democrats will bring an end to this unforgivable situation. Democracy, the rule of law, and human rights run through our veins. During the handover process in the 1980s and 1990s, these values motivated us to demand that the people of Hong Kong be given the right of abode in the UK if China were to renege on the promises made in the Sino-British declaration. The late Paddy Ashdown led this call, knowing the UK could not guarantee the promises we’d made without this supportive measure. As he said then, democracy is not a magic charm to be waved in front of a Chinese tank. It needs to be supported by something; it must be supported by the right of those people to leave if they wish and come to Britain.

    Well if you were thinking of voting so that 10 million Chinese could come and live here. Here’s your chance. Just vote Liberal Democrat.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hong-kong-protests-uk-residency-carrie-lam-bno-passport-a9210521.html

    1. Too late now,but if we ever needed to import endless numbers “to pay our pensions” may I politely suggest we would have been a damn sight better off with Hong Kong Chinese rather than the most inbred backward members of various Shitistans

      2. Apparently a number of people moved from HongKong to Canada at the handover. Good for Canada!

  68. How can Corbyn and his minions believe that this is something that the people will vote for? Working people have seen real wages fall due to the impact of mass immigration, in addition, anyone with a functioning brain cell can see that the Country’s infrastructure is struggling across the board to cope with the current influx, let alone ever increasing numbers. Promising ‘free stuff’ to all and sundry at the moment is nothing more than an electoral pipe-dream, how much more of a nonsense will it appear to be with unlimited numbers of freeloaders being ushered in?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0a8fbc558fab8db7769900381b903d4ceaa7f2f6a9a9ea80791df4c64d64c09e.png

      2. Tipping point not reached yet? If this latest manifestation of the Labour Party is not seen as sufficiently extreme and anti-worker then there is something seriously wrong with those people who would support it and its lunatic policies.

        1. Well, students voted for Clegg’s lie. Too many people don’t bother to see past the promise.

  69. This just came through the letter-box. Google tells me that Alliance for Green Socialism is centred in Leeds, although I have never heard of them or their candidate either.

    I googled her name and the photo came up against her name. I was about to vote for her when I read-

    ” Celia Foote is a 27-year-old woman who hired Minny to be her maid because she can’t
    cook. Minny is about the best cook in Jackson, Mississippi. After Minny
    got fired by Hilly, Aibileen makes Minny work for Celia. Celia is shown as lazy but yet gentle and sweet towards Minny. ”
    Wrong one. I nearly put my foote in it.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b7d3c004bc7ec316cfaa06099b74ab36d2138bbc75b97f866d41415db00c89ca.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/74d321a3ee643a8ed1f62780fda0500afc978e429f8ac7c29a1925735df994f1.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ffa9e1cb35b8709008ace45c333fcf5ad611314906e0a7a3537359db70462dfb.jpg

    1. That election message reads as if it is from “The Janet and John guide to why the world is an unfair place” with footnotes by “Trust” the friendly Communist Bear.

      I have seen dumbing-down become more common place, as a necessary result of our education system being simplified, but that document is a new low. Even the name of the party sounds as if it has come about from a focus group.

      “Alliance” – that polled well, it symbolises working together to make things better. “Green” – everybody loves that now, even though they don’t know what it means. Thank you St Greta. “Socialism” – that has been very dodgy in the past. But since the last Labour Government almost bankrupted the country, we have made great strides in branding anyone not on the left as a polar-bear murdering Nazi psychopath. So we can use the word socialism again. The young don’t know what that really means either.

      1. Not only the last Labour government, but the last three. Both the Wilson and Callaghan governments had to be bailed out by the IMF as they had failed spectacularly to manage the country’s finances.

  70. The private company, Electricidad de Caracas was owned by the United States’ AES Corporation until 2007; according to The Wall Street Journal, “Venezuela’s power grid was once the envy of Latin America”. Then-President Hugo Chávez created the state-run Corpoelec by nationalizing the electric sector and expelling private industry in 2007; hence, the state has been solely responsible for energy supply for over ten years.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Venezuelan_blackouts

    https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2019/03/28/venezuela-blackout-caracas-sot-vpx.cnn

    When everything is state-run there is just one body that becomes solely responible for any subsequent failure.

    https://youtu.be/Wi1jjYLugs8

  71. FFS

    Locals are fuming
    over their town council’s plans to sell a medieval copy of the Magna
    Carta.

    The charter of rights is just one of seven in existence and was
    presented to the Kent town of Faversham in 1300.

    After caring for the document for more than 700 years, Faversham Town
    Council have revealed plans to sell the manuscript, which was signed and
    sealed by King Edward I.

    The precious document is worth an estimated £20m and could be sold to
    fund refurbishing the council officers or an exhibition space, town
    leaders say.

    The announcement has been branded ‘outrageous’ by locals who are keen to
    preserve the town’s history.

    Former journalist Mark Gardner said it was an act of of ‘incredible
    irresponsibility’ to ‘sell the town’s birth right’.

    Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/21/council-sell-original-magna-carta-20000000-fund-office-refurb-11197750/?ito=cbshare

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/
    The price of everything,the value of nothing………………

    1. “…could be sold to fund refurbishing the council officers…” and their wives, their houses, new cars, foreign holidays…
      That I can well believe!

      1. Refurbish your bluddy offices by other means – try DIY you plonkers.

        Always selling the family silver for their own ends, regardless of future generations who will also inhabit the shithole they seem hell-bent on creating.

    3. It is a Human Resources position in the NHS in Bradford. They will need to find someone who has sold their soul and will reject ALL candidates that do not fit a very particular set of requirements. The high salary is to provide lots of excess taxpayers money that can be donated to “charities” that fund the cause. Those Qur’ans will not buy themselves.

      One well placed Human Resources viper can spread poison throughout an entire organisation by selecting who gets employed there.

    1. …….2015, when Merkel welcomed nearly 1 million migrants and refugees as
      part of what she had christened Germany’s “Willkommenskultur,” or
      culture of welcoming.
      Muslims welcome .How stupid can they get ?

      1. They are just looking for more tax payers so they can continue to pay state pensions. looks like they have it wrong.

    2. Yo Nd

      To hoist the German’s with their own petard, applications MUST be made to the EUCHR.

      They have a more of a say in what we do, in the UK than our government.

      Shirley they can force Chermany SA to let them have their citizenship back

      Conversely, the should do a Groucho Marx, viz:

      Thank them for keeping them out, but shout it loud at the UN, in USA and what is left of the Free World

    3. Compare/contrast Germany’s rules with that of the Republic of Ireland. You are entitled to Irish citizenship if at least one of your grandparents was born in the island of Ireland. I have two (one maternal, one paternal), so am doubly entitled to citizenship, should I wish to claim it.

      1. As you know, Brit citizenship only goes one generation. As our kids were born in Britain before we left, our grandchildren (born here) are eligible, but no further “down the line”.

  74. Just got my postal vote paperwork. One of the candidates is for ‘The English Democrats’ – “Putting England First!”

    His name? Antonio Vitiello!

    2. The English Democrats were the ones, I believe, who tried to bring the court case to prove the UK had already left the EU in March.

  76. I had sex with a female optician once… she kept saying.

    Is it better like this ……..or is it better like that

    B.M

    1. Morning TB,
      A case of,
      Whats that ? be easier if you remove the letter from your gob prior to asking the Question.

        1. My Question Time debut left me with the sense that the disconnect between the metropolitan elite and the public is only growing
          SHERELLE JACOBS = 22 NOVEMBER 2019 • 8:22AM

          There are still those beautiful little moments of telly when the Westminster bubble is pierced by the acerbic interrogation of a public that is having none of it.

          My debut on Question Time in Bolton – as the only full-fat Brexiteer and unapologetic Thatcherite on the panel – seemed like just this. Within the first five minutes of the show, far from welcoming the main parties for their high spending pledges to create “real change” (Jeremy Corbyn) or “unleash Britain’s potential” (Boris Johnson), the audience was castigating them for splashing too much and failing to learn the lessons of the financial crisis.

          One audience member rather flamboyantly compared Britain to Viv Nicholson in 1961, who after winning the pools decided to “spend spend spend” and eventually went bust. Another expressed resentment at being classed as a top-rate earner on a salary of £80,000.

          Workington Man – the Tory policy wonks’ bizarre caricature for target voters in the North of England who voted Brexit but wants loadsamoney for public services – was nowhere to be seen.

          So were the Jeremy Corbyn fans. I expected a mixed reception when suggesting that Labour was about to be wiped out in its heartlands. Perhaps a few snorts of derision at my naivite at their ability to hold on in their traditional strongholds, or even groans of hostility. But there was overwhelming applause.

          https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/22/question-time-debut-left-sense-disconnect-metropolitan-elite/
          BBC Question Time
          ✔
          @bbcquestiontime
          “I’d like to call out Labour as liars. I am one of the people he will tax more”

          This audience member, who earns over £80,000, criticises the taxation promises in the Labour Party manifesto. #bbcqt

          There was just one Twitter bubble question – about Tory HQ turning their official account into a “fact checker” – in an amateurish attempt to debunk the myths of the other side. Apparently Fiona Bruce had a lot of requests to ask about this. I have to admit at first I was puzzled it had caused so much of a stir, as the liberal Left also have form when it comes to dubious fact checkers.

          But the audience then started raising issues of trust, and I realised that, with faith in politicians at an all-time low, and our technocratic media and political elite now operating on the basis that their perspective is fact, and anything else is either wrong or ‘opinion’, people don’t know where to look for Truth.

          I would say this as a journalist who works on a comment desk, but I can’t help but think that, as a society, we relegate the prestige of ‘opinion’ – which is informed by value judgments based on principles, as well as facts – at our peril. Just look at the squabble our country is trapped in over whether Brexit is Good or Bad, I pointed out. I wondered if such an abstract point would land, but it seemed to chime with the audience.

          My Question Time debut left me with the sense that the disconnect between the metropolitan elite and the public is only growing. The media may hype up the manifestos, but voters are acting on the assumption that they are lies. The politicians may think they can galvanise votes with lavish funding plans, but people want a government that will live within its means.

          The cliche goes that Question Time isn’t worth watching any more because it’s biased, David Dimbleby has departed, and they are inviting on inexperienced Z-listers like me. But if you want to know what the public is really thinking, sometimes you can’t beat it.

          4. Good morning, Citroën

            I often post something only to find that somebody else has already posted it. But today I put up the same article by Sherelle Jacobs 2 minutes before you did!

    1. No. It was officially colonised and then leased to the US so that they could fly bombers into the Soviet Heartland. ( Tough on the natives, but them’s the breaks.)

      1. The Chagos Islands were never a colony. They were administered from Mauritius and not by the Crown. They were handed over to the Americans by legal and financial jiggery-pokery.

        1. Ah, yes. But when making jokes I’m not sure actual historical facts and truth are necessarily required. After all, it’s not politics!

    2. Do the occupants want it back? Full responsibility for their own finances, and everything else?

      1. You haven’t read it ? Mauritius claims it, and the extradited Chagos Islanders want to go back.
        We kicked the inhabitants out to provide a U.S. military base. Got away with it at the time.
        I would not be happy at all about Mauritius taking over.

        1. For those whho didn’t read to the end – here is the last sentence, so the Graun can say it’s a balanced article:

          “A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “The UK has no doubt as to our
          sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), which has
          been under continuous British sovereignty since 1814. Mauritius has
          never held sovereignty over the BIOT and the UK does not recognise its
          claim.”

  78. Just wondering if now that Andrew is a persona non grata he might get a spot on Sky’s election night coverage

  79. No comments allowed on Sherelle’s article in the DT this morning.

    I saw only bits of QT last night but she knocked the others into a cocked hat.

    My Question Time debut left me with the sense that the disconnect between the metropolitan elite and the public is only growing

    There are still those beautiful little moments of telly when the Westminster bubble is pierced by the acerbic interrogation of a public that is having none of it.

    My debut on Question Time in Bolton – as the only full-fat Brexiteer and unapologetic Thatcherite on the panel – seemed like just this. Within the first five minutes of the show, far from welcoming the main parties for their high spending pledges to create “real change” (Jeremy Corbyn) or “unleash Britain’s potential” (Boris Johnson), the audience was castigating them for splashing too much and failing to learn the lessons of the financial crisis.

    One audience member rather flamboyantly compared Britain to Viv Nicholson in 1961, who after winning the pools decided to “spend spend spend” and eventually went bust. Another expressed resentment at being classed as a top-rate earner on a salary of £80,000.

    Workington Man – the Tory policy wonks’ bizarre caricature for target voters in the North of England who voted Brexit but wants loadsamoney for public services – was nowhere to be seen.

    So were the Jeremy Corbyn fans. I expected a mixed reception when suggesting that Labour was about to be wiped out in its heartlands. Perhaps a few snorts of derision at my naivite at their ability to hold on in their traditional strongholds, or even groans of hostility. But there was overwhelming applause.

    There was just one Twitter bubble question – about Tory HQ turning their official account into a “fact checker” – in an amateurish attempt to debunk the myths of the other side. Apparently Fiona Bruce had a lot of requests to ask about this. I have to admit at first I was puzzled it had caused so much of a stir, as the liberal Left also have form when it comes to dubious fact checkers.

    But the audience then started raising issues of trust, and I realised that, with faith in politicians at an all-time low, and our technocratic media and political elite now operating on the basis that their perspective is fact, and anything else is either wrong or ‘opinion’, people don’t know where to look for Truth.

    I would say this as a journalist who works on a comment desk, but I can’t help but think that, as a society, we relegate the prestige of ‘opinion’ – which is informed by value judgments based on principles, as well as facts – at our peril. Just look at the squabble our country is trapped in over whether Brexit is Good or Bad, I pointed out. I wondered if such an abstract point would land, but it seemed to chime with the audience.

    My Question Time debut left me with the sense that the disconnect between the metropolitan elite and the public is only growing. The media may hype up the manifestos, but voters are acting on the assumption that they are lies. The politicians may think they can galvanise votes with lavish funding plans, but people want a government that will live within its means.

    The cliche goes that Question Time isn’t worth watching any more because it’s biased, David Dimbleby has departed, and they are inviting on inexperienced Z-listers like me. But if you want to know what the public is really thinking, sometimes you can’t beat it.

  80. Election Guide 5.

    Q: Why don’t you watch the BBC anymore?

    A: I’m British, and it isn’t

    1. Pity no-one has the guts to say removing references to boys and girls at school is nuts and we are not going to do it.

      1. Evening Jtl,
        To many follow the lab/lib/con
        PC / Appeasement unwritten rulings & cannot recognise
        child abuse under their nasal
        canals, & even with their own kids.

    2. Leeds East – I’m in Leeds North East, also Labour. What is it about Labour ? They are just not nice people.

    3. As a politician, he is authorised to lie. (Scottish Courts are selling Certificates of Authorisation.”

  87. My kinda girl – with backbone:

    There are still those beautiful little moments of telly when the Westminster bubble is pierced by the acerbic interrogation of a public that is having none of it.

    My debut on Question Time in Bolton – as the only full-fat Brexiteer and unapologetic Thatcherite on the panel – seemed like just this. Within the first five minutes of the show, far from welcoming the main parties for their high spending pledges to create “real change” (Jeremy Corbyn) or “unleash Britain’s potential” (Boris Johnson), the audience was castigating them for splashing too much and failing to learn the lessons of the financial crisis.

    One audience member rather flamboyantly compared Britain to Viv Nicholson in 1961, who after winning the pools decided to “spend spend spend” and eventually went bust. Another expressed resentment at being classed as a top-rate earner on a salary of £80,000.

    Workington Man – the Tory policy wonks’ bizarre caricature for target voters in the North of England who voted Brexit but wants loadsamoney for public services – was nowhere to be seen.

    So were the Jeremy Corbyn fans. I expected a mixed reception when suggesting that Labour was about to be wiped out in its heartlands. Perhaps a few snorts of derision at my naivite at their ability to hold on in their traditional strongholds, or even groans of hostility. But there was overwhelming applause.

    There was just one Twitter bubble question – about Tory HQ turning their official account into a “fact checker” – in an amateurish attempt to debunk the myths of the other side. Apparently Fiona Bruce had a lot of requests to ask about this. I have to admit at first I was puzzled it had caused so much of a stir, as the liberal Left also have form when it comes to dubious fact checkers.

    But the audience then started raising issues of trust, and I realised that, with faith in politicians at an all-time low, and our technocratic media and political elite now operating on the basis that their perspective is fact, and anything else is either wrong or ‘opinion’, people don’t know where to look for Truth.

    I would say this as a journalist who works on a comment desk, but I can’t help but think that, as a society, we relegate the prestige of ‘opinion’ – which is informed by value judgments based on principles, as well as facts – at our peril. Just look at the squabble our country is trapped in over whether Brexit is Good or Bad, I pointed out. I wondered if such an abstract point would land, but it seemed to chime with the audience.

    My Question Time debut left me with the sense that the disconnect between the metropolitan elite and the public is only growing. The media may hype up the manifestos, but voters are acting on the assumption that they are lies. The politicians may think they can galvanise votes with lavish funding plans, but people want a government that will live within its means.

    The cliche goes that Question Time isn’t worth watching any more because it’s biased, David Dimbleby has departed, and they are inviting on inexperienced Z-listers like me. But if you want to know what the public is really thinking, sometimes you can’t beat it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/22/question-time-debut-left-sense-disconnect-metropolitan-elite/

    https://twitter.com/bbcquestiontime/status/1197651546940608514

    1. Was the guy in the audience a plant? For many viewers £80,000 a year would be riches so he comes across as selfish and greedy and “deserves to be taxed more….”

  88. An Indian businessman who posed as a Lufthansa pilot to jump airport queues, impress women and get flight upgrades, has been held by police.

    Rajan Mahbubani admitted to taking at least 15 flights dressed as a pilot and often getting preferential treatment.

    The businessman from Delhi was caught on Monday trying to board an AirAsia flight from the Indian capital to Kolkata.

    His exploits have drawn comparisons with the 2002 Steven Spielberg film ‘Catch Me If You Can’, in which Leonardo DiCaprio played the real-life fugitive Frank Abnagale Jr, who also posed as a pilot.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/21/indian-businessman-wore-pilot-disguise-get-upgrades-special/?fbclid=IwAR28BCx58ppTYPW2dOF5-DM29pLB6BdmDFziHAEetHzIUJPJLHP0MlbmyYk

    1. If I were ever jailed, which can only be a matter of time the way that things are going, then I would like it to be in my absence.

      He is not much of a looker, and even the sheep would throw themselves off the cliffs at the sight of him coming up the path. He should not be that hard to find. Unless he is being “hidden” by the millions here who think that these serious firearms offences are just a normal way of life.

  90. Spiked

    The more mundane truth here is that the whole concept of this feminist Charlie’s Angels

    reboot is fundamentally flawed. It wants to keep the silliness of the

    original TV show and be a modern high-tech spy thriller, and it wants to

    make feminist points along the way. Inevitably, the po-faced feminism of the film sucks the life out of the silliness and the thrills.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/11/22/why-feminist-films-flop/
    Sounds just like all modern tv drama,never mind the plots,feel the wokeness
    Drivel

  91. Meanwhile, top story over on The Times…

    Does Brenda know something we don’t know?

    Andrew forced to move office out of Buckingham Palace
    new

    The Duke of York is being forced to move his private office out of Buckingham Palace, The Times can reveal. In the latest humiliation for the beleaguered duke, which has been authorised by the Queen, he has been told that he will have to clear his staff out and find other premises. The move…
    Read the full story

    PRINCE ANDREW
    Reformed convict shows prince the way backs the Duke of York comes to the end of a disastrous week, he can take some solace from the thought that others have been through worse humiliations and survived. They have even emerged feeling strengthened, having acquired a new lease of life. One of them is the Rev Jonathan Aitken, the former Conservative cabinet minister who…

      1. One does wonder if the Conservative manifesto will mention the Withdrawal Agreement at all, with the years in transition, and other drawbacks, that it contains? Or will it just be brushed over with “After we get Brexit done by the end of the year, our policies will be…”

        (Tiny print: decided by the European Union.)

        But I am being too optimistic. There won’t be any small print at all. At least not in that document. What an interesting night it will be in December as the results come in. At least I know that I won’t be flicking to Sky News even once through the night, now that I know that Bercow will be there.

          1. Yes, the correct spelling, but a mismatch of monsters in my humble opinion. Instead of a Vampire sweeping majestically through the streets, untouched by the mundane world that surrounds him. Bercow is the spiky little puffer fish, who blows up to huge size when he has an underling or a woman that he can abuse in front of him. But he shrinks down and scuttles away when actually confronted by someone not under his control.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c90db23a011f5324991ee955b6ec933c7513ed1edf17bfe9f087b0cae778e015.jpg

            There are a lot of us about, Mr Bercow. We are very disappointed with your performance.

  93. Anyone know why the 27-year old Kiwi killer of Grace Millane hasn’t been named? Is he facing other charges?

    1. Bullet-proof side windows are generally not permitted in UK as in the aftermath of a crash they would inhibit rescue by the emergency services.

      1. I can’t help thinking that, apart from the Queen, anyone who needs bullet proof glass isn’t worth rescuing.

      2. Side windows resistant to bullets are very handy driving through parts of London and rock resistant also handy driving through muslim areas.

    2. It depensds what the detail say. It may only apply to those that let out their second home. It may not apply to those that run it as a business. It depends what the detail says and that does not seem to be in the manifesto

      Eithjer way it will hit the UK’s tourist industry which has been seeing a bit of a revival. This tax hit will price it out again

  98. “NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has given astronomers a peek at the location of the most energetic outburst ever seen in the universe — a blast of gamma-rays a trillion times more powerful than visible light. That’s because in a few seconds the gamma-ray burst (GRB) emitted more energy than the Sun will provide over its entire 10-billion year life”.

    Eat your heart out Greta….

    1. Oh! We’re having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave
      The temperature’s rising, it isn’t surprising,
      She certainly can can-can
      She started a heatwave by letting her seat wave,
      In such a way that the customers say
      That she certainly can can-can …

      1. Only if one heads directly for us. After which there won’t be any climate or indeed us to worry about it!

        1. Probably just luck something like it hasn’t hit us already.
          No great loss – if we were an experiment, it failed.

          1. No I won’t say it, I won’t say speak for yourself but that open goal is more than flesh and fur can resist. Mind you I think we Nottlers are a pretty huge success – just a pity that the rest of the world is more like us…

        2. Probably just luck something like it hasn’t hit us already.
          No great loss – if we were an experiment, it failed.

  99. Confession: I’m missing the leaders’ debate (and am watching Fulham v. QPR instead).

    1. Is it true Fulham recently splashed out £15 million on buying a second supporter so that the two of them could sing “You’ll never walk alone” as a duet?

  100. BREXIT PARTY’S 12 Key Policies

    I prefer the earlier approach to tuition fees. Abolish interest on the loans but also have graduated tuitions fees. These would be linked to the UK’s skills shortages. They could be reviewed annually to keep them in line with the skills shortages but once a course has been commended those fees would not change

    For example Nursing could have tuition fees of say £3000 a year. Golf Course management say £10,000. The aim being to get the most effective value for money

    1. No extension to the transition period
    2. No privatisation of the NHS
    3. Reduce annual immigration
    4. Tax and spending
    Package of tax cuts including elimination of VAT on domestic fuel, and a reduction in Corporation Tax.
    5. Ban the UK exporting its waste
    6. Provide free broadband in deprived regions
    7. Scrap the BBC’s TV licence
    TV licence fees are being phased out where they exist elsewhere in Europe
    8. Abolish inheritance tax
    9. Scrap the HS2 rail link
    10. Abolish interest on student loans
    12. Subject judges to political scrutiny

    1. Absolutely disgusting, policies that will make this a better country to live in, people will never vote for that, especially if they haven’t got a candidate to vote for.

      1. Yep, Bob, we wish – I feel disenfranchised and yes, it does hurt.

        I shall just have to keep taking the tablets.

        1. Medicine comes in bottles. Red & white medicine for everyday issues, Scots, French or Russian medicine for when it all gets too much.
          😉

          1. Most of mine comes in Australian bottles. Scots (the isle of Mull, to be precise) for emergencies… Wouldn’t touch yer Franch (©BT) stuff with an extended bargepole.

          3. Fairy nuff. I agree. I have a bottle of gin and another of Pimms, neither of which saw the light of day this year. I’ve most of a bottle of 18 yo Ledaig, which I bought last December. Still largely untouched. The bottle of English fizz (from around two miles away) Is reserved for the day that Brexit actually happens. i.e. never.

  101. Sitting next to a guy (family deported from East Poland to Kazakhstan in 1940) who was in Lebanon as a child in 1946/7. They lived in the Maronite Christian area of that beautiful country. They would go on excursions to the druze (muslim) areas to see various Crusader/Roman forts/castles and Lebanese Cedar Trees …. What struck them was the stark poverty which contrasted with Christian affluence (great traders). Seems to me, if you want mass child poverty and inequality import a muslim population. Which countries would be stupid enough to do that? What? Even if many of the imports wanted to rape and kill?

  102. Just switched on the wireless and I’m sure I heard somebody say “Two thirds of African people go to bed in Hungary”

    If that’s right, it’s no wonder Viktor Orbán is pissed orf.

  103. Just watched part of Question Time and that woman now wearing a light green dress and showing some nice legs answering or evading the questions. She came over very well, actually. I hope she gets the part.
    Think I missed Corbyn; Started watching Boris but it was too painful.
    Anyone who votes for any of them must be notes. Each one is worse than the other, and they aren’t listening to us, anyway.

      1. We were going to, but we aren’t all that close together. Tell you what, if we say which part of the country we are in (to those who don’t already know), we might even work out a few baby parties. Some Nottlers (especially around East Anglia) already pow wow. I know BoB used to meet up with people when he was in their area, and I try to, when I am in someone’s area.

        Well I am in SW Hertfordshire.

        2. Some time ago I did suggest a meet up at Jack’s Hill Cafe on the A5 just North of Towcester.

    2. T,
      Do you think their inattention ( they haven’t listened for years) will change the voting pattern ?

    3. I watched it. My wife was shouting at the TV throughout. The treatment by flat faced flat chested Fiona Bruce towards Boris was in stark contrast with her polite reverence for the other three. It is probably the worst example of interruptive bias I have yet witnessed in the BBC so far.

      1. Bet she plays the piano well. Church organ would be even better – oh maybe not.

        Evening, Maggie.

  106. “How safe are my Drugs” London Live
    Jeez this is a world away from a bit of Rocky or Red Leb or even a tab of Welsh acid
    Legal Highs,terrifying

    1. We can do legal highs in Canada already and the government must have been smoking something when they set up the pot distribution system.

      How can they make a loss selling pot?

    2. Corbyn was forced to play the “Jo Cox was murdered” card to try to get out of the corner that he was in… He must have felt threatened. The more that the Left play that card in desperation to dodge real issues, the more unpleasant they reveal themselves to be.

      You almost suspect that they will need to kill another one and blame it “on the right” so that they have a new name to hide behind. The globalists must have their eyes on Gina Miller as the perfect target for them to say: “Look at how racist and misogynistic the Leavers really are!” If I were advising that woman I would say:

      “Stay indoors, preferably a bunker, and let nobody into your presence until after the election. Don’t even think about getting in a car near any underpasses. Aeroplanes are right out.”

  109. Two metal detectorists who unearthed an astonishing hoard of gold jewellery, silver ingots and coins buried more than 1,000 years ago by a Viking warrior in Herefordshire have received lengthy jail sentences for theft.

    George Powell, 38, of Newport, and Layton Davies, 51, of Pontypridd, should legally have declared the find, estimated to be worth as much as £12m, but instead they began showing it to dealers to try to sell some of it off.

    Sentencing the men on Friday to 10 years and eight and a half years respectively for stealing, Judge Nicholas Cartwright said they had cheated not only the landowner, but also the public of “exceptionally rare and significant” coins.

    “You cheated the farmer, his mother, the landowner and also the public when you committed theft of these items,” he said. “That is because the treasure belongs to the nation. The benefit to the nation is these items can be seen and admired by others.

    “Stealing the items as you did denies the public the opportunity of seeing those items in the way they should be displayed. When treasure is found it belongs, from the moment of finding, to the nation.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/22/detectorists-jailed-for-stealing-12m-viking-hoard-of-gold-and-silver

    Very harsh sentence … exceedingly so, What do you think?

    3. Not harsh enough. But then most sentencing nowadays is soft. The bastards will be out in time to sell off the stuff they have hidden and still enjoy wealthy lifestyles. If they are released in a few years then I would hope they are put under constant surveillance.

      The daubed messages in the East End Viz. ‘George Davis is innocent’ springs to mind.

    4. Two men were sentenced today for a vicious rape,seven and a half years apiece
      Draw your own conclusions……………

    5. They will be out in half the time. Stealing our country’s heritage has always been treated as unthinkable.
      They are on the same levil as those Islamists who destroyed all those historical artifacts in Iraq and elsewhere.
      They knew what they were doing and they they knew the score it they were found out.
      The sentence is correct.

    7. Evening TB,
      I do agree, because if that is right then what do the lab / lib / con politico’s deserve for robbing the nation of self respect, honesty,and integrity, not to mention the abuse of its children.

    9. Not harsh enough. But then most sentencing nowadays is soft. The bastards will be out in time to sell off the stuff they have hidden and still enjoy wealthy lifestyles. If they are released in a few years then I would hope they are put under constant surveillance.

      The daubed messages in the East End Viz. ‘George Davis is innocent’ springs to mind.

  111. HAPPY HOUR – Every Little Helps!
    At a local fund raising raffle i won a small selection of fudge presented in a festive Christmas stocking.
    Although I like fudge occasionally, I took it to my local charity shop only to find they were closed.
    I continued to Tesco for my weekly shop and whilst queuing at the checkout I slipped the fudge into
    an elderly customer’s shopping bag.

    I hope she likes fudge…..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a85c7cf3365b015e556119704fe6d81487cb174e4bbd882b3b19a67c3cfbb2d8.gif

  112. For NoTTLers without Premium, the Remain poster boy gets a bit of a thrashing….

    Like most bullies, the ever-hypocritical John Bercow can give it but he can’t take it
    KATE MALTBY – 22 NOVEMBER 2019 • 8:00AM

    For his accusers, ‘Bercow the Movie’ will be too much to bear

    For nearly twenty years, I have nurtured an admiration for the actor Tom Hollander. For some people, it’s his BBC performances in Rev and The Night Manager; for me, it’s still all about his performance as Edgar in the Almeida Theatre’s 2002 production of King Lear.

    As a theatre critic who has seen plenty of Lears in the intervening years, I’ve still never seen anyone quite so deftly capture the character’s righteous frustration with the corruption of the world; the almost petulant madness to which Edgar is driven by the abuses of the powerful. Hollander was, and still always is, terrific.

    So I raised my eyebrows when this newspaper reported that Hollander had been seen in the House of Commons taking notes on the parliamentary performance of John Bercow, the righteous and petulant Speaker of the House. Could “Bercow The Movie” – big screen or small – be in the works?

    Hollander is a natural choice: he specialises in short-statured and short-fused Englishmen. But I hope that my favourite actor won’t be taking part in what seems to be John Bercow’s current project: whitewashing his reputation.

    In a land of political despair – much like the Ancient Britain of King Lear – Bercow has as much in common with the deceptive Edmund as he does with poor frustrated Edgar.

    These days, when we talk about John Bercow we seem to talk only about his approach to Brexit. And sure, Bercow vs Brexit would make a snappy movie. We’ve forgotten that Bercow stands accused of repeatedly bullying staff. His private secretary, Kate Emms, was diagnosed with PTSD after working with him. Her predecessor in the role, Angus Sinclair, signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement after alleging similar bullying, in which he was paid £86,250 of taxpayer’s money not to speak publicly about his treatment.

    The 2018 report by Dame Laura Cox into bullying and sexual harassment in the Commons found that Bercow had presided over a culture in which such behaviour had become endemic – a culture that could only be fixed, Cox concluded, by a change in leadership. As the chief disciplinary officer of the organisation, it was Bercow’s responsibility for oversee grievance procedures and manage the imposition of sanctions. Instead, he is accused of shielding his political allies from complaints, avoiding reforms, and being a bullying himself.

    No wonder Bercow is so keen to suppress press coverage of this particular subject. On Wednesday, emails published by the Buzzfeed website revealed that the former Speaker had pulled out of a major interview with the BBC’s HARDtalk programme after it refused to give written assurances that he would not be asked any questions about bullying. (It’s not called SOFTtalk.)

    This isn’t the only such incident. In a major interview with The Observer earlier this month, Bercow also refused to be asked questions on the allegations. (That newspaper agreed but informed its readers of the fact.) It’s no surprise Bercow’s keen to avoid the subject; the allegations are serious, credible and backed up by independent inquiries. Although he denies them, Bercow is keen to build a speaking and lecturing career in the United States, where they pay well – but take workplace allegations seriously.

    There is particular hypocrisy in a newly-retired Speaker refusing to answer questions on his behaviour in the House. The job of the Speaker is to hold the Commons to account – and to protect the power of the Commons to hold the government to account. In a recent puff for Bercow’s one autobiography, out next February, publishers Weidenfeld and Nicholson laud his ‘vital activist role in the Government being held to account.’ But when it comes to being held to account himself by our public broadcaster, he’s suddenly frit.

    When Bercow dodges questions like this, it’s not merely a case of journalists being deprived of bloodsport. The people it hurts are those ordinary workers in parliament who know what it’s like to work in an institution run by John Bercow; who have wrestled anxiously for months with whether to make a complaint through a system they see as corrupt, or to risk talk to writers like me. When the former Labour Deputy Leader Margaret Beckett told the BBC that Bercow’s support for the Remain cause “trumps bad behaviour”, and that she would thus work to keep him in post, it was one of these women who cried down the phone to me.

    Beckett’s intervention was merely the most explicit proof of something we all know: on this issue, as so many others, Brexit has divided us into tribal camps that trump basic ethics. Remainers (like Beckett and Bercow) protect their own; Leavers protect their own. But issues around abuse of power at the top our our political system aren’t going to go away. The upcoming trial of Alex Salmond, who denies sexual assault charges will raise more questions about who gets away with what.

    If John Bercow is serious about holding elites to account on behalf of the little people, he should be prepared to answer questions about the political culture over which he has presided.

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

    BTL:

    Duane Pipe 22 Nov 2019 8:45AM
    Margaret Becket’s remark that ‘Brexit trumps bad behaviour’ captures perfectly the utter contempt our ruling elite have for the voters. Remember also she was the MP who suggested Corbyn run for the leadership thus showing a complete lack of insight into what might happen. She is not only a disaster but an utter disgrace.

    Andrew Hicks 22 Nov 2019 8:31AM
    Bercow is a very unpopular character. Sky have made a huge mistake having him on their election night programme – a huge turn-off.

    2. “Remainers (like Beckett and Bercow) protect their own; Leavers protect their own.”

      That comment can be clarified as the Remainers are protecting the interests of a very small number of people, and that group does not include the innocent members of the public who voted to Remain without knowing what it means.

      The Leavers are trying to protect their own, but that includes the interests of everyone in the country who want us to live in a free democracy, whether they voted to Leave or not.

  115. Amusing how Open Society strongly promotes President of the European Commission Ursula Von Leyen and ”her” green initiative which just by random coincidence is identical to Open Society’s green initiative !

    ”Ursula von der Leyen, the new European Commission president, has promised a “European Green Deal” with a new law within her first 100 days. This deal will need to be comprehensive, covering not only rapid decarbonization of the economy but also protection of biodiversity and other planetary limits. It will also need to cover the interaction between climate-related measures and the massive societal disruptions that will come from digital transformation of the economy and aging populations.”

    https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/confronting-the-eus-three-biggest-challenges?playvideo=1

    It’s obviously also just a random coincidence that Open Society’s green initiative and Ursula’s green initiative are identical to PM Johnson’s green initiative… and, looking at the street plan, it’s obviously just another random coincidence that Open Society has their ”hub office” a short distance from Westminster at ”Millbank”.

    How convenient !

    Open Society only have a short taxi journey to get to the top… and it looks so close they could even walk to save emissions !

  117. For al you peeps suffering from the cold weather, here in the Allycanthe Province of Spain, it has been raining, virtually non stop, for 24 hours.

    It has been raining regardless of weather (sic) it is daylight or darkness

    The one good thing, temperatures of 28 (Centigrade gollux to Celcius) tomorrow

    So, the rain will be warm

  118. I don’t get too worked up about Upticks (or the lack of them). In short I don’t suffer from Uptick envy. But may I place on record my sincere appreciation to Sue E who unfailing seems to give me one whenever I posit here….

          1. Pathetic. Even after a week or so of an upward trajectory I’m roughly 25,000 down and again falling freely.

            As I have noted before, I get a frisson of pleasure that some lefty feels that silencing me is worth doing.

          3. You could always ask the Disqus staff if they have the records, as they are highly suspected to be the ones who are stripping the votes of those of us “on the right” because they dislike us so much. Twitter, Facebook… I know that Disqus is small fry, but you know those powerless lefties, they like to think that they are making a difference by punishing those of us who think differently.

            I have the numbers of 5 people from a month ago, 21/10/19. I didn’t play any favourites at all, it was just 3 people mentioned one night that their scores were all suddenly falling and 2 others did the next day. Those were the 5. There are others that I’ve added since then, if I’ve been here and they’ve mentioned it, but they do not go back as far.

            The first time that I heard of this bot was well over a year ago on another channel. They mentioned a similar one being run in the earliest days of Disqus. So the ability to strip people’s votes has been here since the beginning. Disqus staff must find it useful, for them to have left it there and to not have patched the hole or stopped it.

            I care not. Disqus is only one of many, many systems out there. If they get “too facebook” in their actions then there are other places.

          4. I knew roughly, because I had clicked over into the 6 figure club a few months before I noticed that the number had dropped back below 100k.
            I would guess that it maxed out ~105K.

      4. There was a period from Saturday 9th to Sunday 17th when almost everyone’s scores that I looked at stopped dropping and started going back up normally again. Now almost all of them have started falling again since Monday, 4 days ago.

        So someone has had a long week off before coming back and running their little vote stripping program again. I wonder if they were as lonely and sad on their holiday as they are in their normal lives.

    3. But may I place on record my sincere appreciation to Sue E who unfailing seems to give me one whenever I posit here….

      mmmmmmm…….

          1. Oh no, no grovelling now Tryers. :o)

            Mind you, you can have an uptick as booby prize. Don’t even THINK of your response…!

          3. Aw now you pull at my heartstrings – and I forgot to give you the uptick. Done.

            What do the hieroglyphics at the beginning of your message mean. I’m not very good at keyboard-speak. A smiley is about as much as I can manage.

          4. Leaning your head to the left, those squiggles appear to be:

            {(:@>) which looks to symbolise a round-faced man with a piggy nose @ and a very happy “v” like smile. He also appears to wearing a toupee. {

    1. Cus, with all the ‘Hate Crimes’ being levelled at us Whities, they want to avoid reminding the public that all the perps ate in Ali’s Snack Bar

Comments are closed.