Friday 22 October: A Bill that protects the vulnerable and allows those who are suffering to die with dignity

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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491 thoughts on “Friday 22 October: A Bill that protects the vulnerable and allows those who are suffering to die with dignity”

  1. Vladimir Putin slams ‘monstrous’ West for teaching children they can change their gender, saying it is ‘close to a crime against humanity’. 21 October 2021.

    Vladimir Putin has claimed it is ‘monstrous’ that Western children are taught that they can change their gender.

    The Russian President, speaking in Sochi, said it is ‘close to a crime against humanity’ for young boys and girls to learn about becoming transgender.

    The Kremlin leader said: ‘It is terrible when children in the West are taught the idea that a boy can become a girl.’

    ‘Calling a spade a spade, this is close to a crime against humanity dressed up in the name and under the flag of progress.’

    Morning everyone. It’s true of course, but it is more than that. A complete cultural inversion has taken place. Russia has exited the USSR to become the home of Traditional, Democratic and Christian values. It is the only place left where the ideas of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment still thrive. It is rapidly becoming the last bastion of Freedom in the World. Everywhere else Darkness reigns!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10117735/Vladimir-Putin-slams-monstrous-West-teaching-children-change-gender.html

    1. Morning Minty. I’m currently listening to Beethoven’s Mass in C Major. It was published in 1812. The same year a Corsican decided to lead an army of 450,000 in the invasion of Russia. As you know that didn’t turn out well. In the 209 years since there’s been a lot of water and blood under the bridge in Europe. I can’t begin to imagine the incredulity of past generations if they had had any cognisance of what the future would bring with the present inversions of truth. I suppose it must be up there with our incredulity that folk in the past believed that witches existed and were capable of casting evil spells. On second thoughts perhaps they do hence the current delusions!

      PS The BTL Comments and thousands of likes in the DM piece indicate support for Mr P’s stance.

      1. Perhaps their lives were so bleak that dying in battle was better than the alternative, that has got me thinking about how bleak lives will be after we get to net zero

      2. Morning Stephen. The story has not appeared anywhere else as yet and the comments were shut down last night. Lol!

  4. A Bill that protects the vulnerable and allows those who are suffering to die with dignity

    A course of the covid jab should do it.
    It looks like they are trying to say that Shipman was right all along.

  6. The Pickle Slicer

    Yossel worked in a Polish pickle factory. For many years he had a powerful desire to put his penis in the pickle slicer. Unable to stand it any longer, he sought professional help from the factory psychologist.

    After six months, the therapist gave up. He advised Yossel to go ahead and do it or he would probably never have any peace of mind.

    The next day he came home from work very early. His wife, Sacha, became alarmed and wanted to know what had happened.

    Yossel tearfully confessed his tormenting desire to put his penis in the pickle slicer. He went on to explain that today he finally went ahead and did it, and he was immediately fired.

    Sacha gasped and ran over to her husband. She quickly yanked down his pants and shorts only to find a normal, completely intact penis. She looked up and said, “I don’t understand. What about the pickle slicer?”

    Yossel replied, “I think she got fired, too.

  7. The Queen spent Wednesday night in hospital after going in for checks. She returned to Windsor on Thursday. She is still intending to go to Cop26 but I suggest she does a virtual appearance as it’s too big a risk. BBC Radio 4 and Sun news.

      2. So far, it seems that Russia is getting natural gas consumption taken out of the equation, the Aussies are getting coal consumption taken off, the Saudis are getting oil consumption taken off, the Brazilians are getting the clearance of rainforest for industrial beef lots and the soya to supply them taken off…

        And so it goes on – the only people that can make a serious difference are excusing themselves, whilst those whose own contributions are negligible are driven to ruin.

        We’ve yet to find out what the Americans, the Chinese and the Indians are getting taken off, and as for the Muslims, do they even give a damn?

        This is how 7.9 billion act when it comes to “responsible” stewardship. No wonder many people now feel the euthanasia bill is not going anywhere far enough.

        1. A bit like the UK in the EU – we followed the rules to the letter, whilst most of the other countries ignored them when they did not suit their national interests – France being the prime example.

      3. I think our PM is set for a humiliation at Cop26 and I sincerely hope so. He needs to face reality.

    2. Her Majesty needs to survive until her jubilee. I’ve booked holiday making the most of it.

  9. Most Britons want assisted dying legalised. Why are MPs too cowardly to do it? 22 October 2021.

    What are MPs for? The assisted dying bill, to be debated on Friday in the House of Lords, ranks with past laws on divorce, abortion and sexuality in the canon of social liberalism. It is unfinished business of the 1960s.

    The bill also lies at the heart of how a free democracy should regulate issues of life and death, with deep significance for millions of Britons at a time of their maximum pain and despair. An overwhelming majority in the UK now want reform. Yet MPs lack the guts to give it to them.

    I’m a supporter of assisted dying (a kindly humane euphemism for euthanasia) just not Here and Now! It is somewhat bizarre that Jenkins cites abortion as a comparator. A program initiated with the best of intentions that has become an indiscriminate death machine that slaughters children with neither fault nor voice on the whims of others. So it would be with assisted dying. Before long the confused, distressed, annoying and irritating would be urged on their way to make room for their possessions to fall into the hands of others!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/21/britons-assisted-dying-legalised-mps-lords-commons-choice

      1. Well, at least we’d then get a home visit from our GP.
        Just the one, I realise, but beggars can’t be choosers.

    3. Before long the confused, distressed, annoying and irritating would be urged on their way to make room for their possessions to fall into the
      hands of others!

      Like Boris did with the old, at the start of the Covid fiasco
      Many deaths to raise the urgency of restrictions etc
      Saving on Pensions
      HMG ‘seen to be doing something’
      etc

    4. Before long the confused, distressed, annoying and irritating would be urged on their way to make room for their possessions to fall into the
      hands of others!

      Like Boris did with the old, at the start of the Covid fiasco
      Many deaths to raise the urgency of restrictions etc
      Saving on Pensions
      HMG ‘seen to be doing something’
      etc

    1. I took my geraniums in yesterday.
      Although frost wasn’t predicted, I felt there was such a sharp cooling, that it was time.
      I found some wonderful very pale blush pink geraniums this year, with mocha dark bands on their leaves …so I’ve brought them into the conservatory to preserve them.

      1. My pelargonium (my geraniums are the hardy variety) has been nestling in the greenhouse for a couple of weeks, since the evenings went chilly.

    1. Yes, well worth watching. It is not often that I can watch a broadcaster, an interviewer and his interviewee and feel as though all three are on my side. It’s just a shame they didn’t get Starkey on earlier so as to conduct a longer interview.

      ‘Morning, B3.

  13. This Cop26 fiasco threatens to leave Britain humiliated. 22 October 2021.

    Time to start managing down expectations. It seemed to be an early triumph for Boris Johnson’s premiership when Glasgow was chosen two years ago to host the Cop26 Climate Change summit, just the sort of thing he needed to showcase Britain’s new, post-Brexit leadership role in the world. Yet now just a few weeks away, the conference shows every sign of turning into a public relations disaster – at best a damp squib, and the way things are going, very possibly an abject humiliation.

    Well Xi Jinping isn’t coming and neither is Vlad. They’ve sussed this thing out! I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there’s couple of late cancellations as well for “health” reasons. A study of the six steps of a Confidence Trick are well worth a look here.

    Foundation work.
    .Preparations are made in advance of the game, including the hiring of any assistants required and studying the background knowledge needed for the role.

    Approach
    The victim is approached or contacted. .

    Build-up
    The victim is given an opportunity to profit from participating in a scheme. The victim’s greed is encouraged, such that their rational judgment of the situation might be impaired. .

    Pay-off or convincer
    The victim receives a small payout as a demonstration of the scheme’s purported effectiveness. This may be a real amount of money or faked in some way (including physically or electronically). In a gambling con, the victim is allowed to win several small bets. .

    The “hurrah”
    A sudden manufactured crisis or change of events forces the victim to act or make a decision immediately. This is the point at which the con succeeds or fails. With a financial scam, the con artist may tell the victim that the “window of opportunity” to make a large investment in the scheme is about to suddenly close forever. .

    The in-and-in
    A conspirator (in on the con, but assumes the role of an interested bystander) puts an amount of money into the same scheme as the victim, to add an appearance of legitimacy. This can reassure the victim, and give the con man greater control when the deal has been completed. .

    They are all there in Glasgow!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/10/22/cop26-fiasco-threatens-leave-britain-humiliated/

    3. A good time for Her Majship to put her feet up in front of ‘Flog It’ and chow down on something eggy on a plate.
      I’m sure her doctors can come up with a good excuse.

  14. 340420+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,
    I got the feeling the herd is being bum steered by political cowboys of a very odious ilk the care home issue proved this, may one ask will it morph
    into the ” shipman law”.

    Many a law sets out with the best of intentions only to be twisted & reset to suit the politico’s treacherous agenda.

    Friday 22 October: A Bill that protects the vulnerable and allows those who are suffering to die with dignity.

          1. 340420+ up ticks,
            N,
            We do, funny we have NEVER seen the milkman since he took over the round some years ago.
            He was just a token deliverer others would be pressed ganged into service, the butcher / baker / the candle stick maker ( he will be much sought after, shortly).

          2. Ours is back to twice weekly after a very shaky summer when we were lucky if we had any deliveries. Usually around midnight.

  15. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – To please the woke brigade, the Royal Opera House has pledged to re-examine classic works to ensure performances account for “cultural sensitivities”.

    Surely if people are not happy with the works of Puccini, then the ROH is not the place for them.

    These works should be left alone for the vast majority of opera lovers who would never dream of thinking such masterpieces need to be “assessed”.

    Janey Allan
    London W7

    SIR – When Madama Butterfly premiered in New York in 1900, the composer Giacomo Puccini famously fumed off stage when the audience booed what they regarded as an anti-American storyline.

    That opera has since remained a firm favourite in opera houses worldwide, not least in America. I suggest the Royal Opera House has better things to do than waste time and money investigating the offensive nature of operas.

    John Pritchard
    Ingatestone, Essex

    Quite right…after all, it’s not as though attendance at the ROH is compulsory. The wokeists can shove off if they don’t like it.

    1. Das WokenVolk von Der Leftwaffe

      Can’t wait for them to get stuck into the misogyny portrayed by Wagner!

    2. But think of the poor cast members, the poor members of the orchestra, the poor front of house workers. All forced to work on these dangerous, provocative, misleadingly inaccurate, and insulting works which portray some people in a poor light.

    3. Well, they bluddy well won’t find any. We built flipping everything. In fact, let’s send the ROH to Eritrea to enjoy their culture.

  17. SIR – Elaine Winter (Letters, October 21) asks why more people don’t visit pharmacists to alleviate GPs’ workload.

    She may not be aware that for years pharmacists have been providing a service well beyond not only their comfort zone but also what they feel can be safely achieved.

    Last month they were told they would in future be expected to do basic health checks instead of GPs. Despite the parlous state of pharmacy funding, which has led to reduced staff numbers, they have been available for face-to-face consultations on a walk-in basis throughout the past 18 months. Yet it is GPs who are given extra money to offer services that they are already being paid to provide.

    S B Hall-Turner
    Daresbury, Cheshire

    You would think that the doctors’ union would be keen to restore some of the lost respect for their profession, after many have seemingly hidden behind their screens whilst accepting a further £250m of taxpayers’ money and now threatening industrial action?

    1. These days does Continuous Professional Development include a training course on Sterlingectomy?

    1. ‘Morning, Rik. As you may recall, “investment” was the euphamism for “spending” invented by NuLabour, and subsequently adopted by the media, more’s the pity.

    2. Take away the subsidy and fixed price for energy – even when the windmills don’t turn.

      Then see if they’re built. This isn’t investment – there’s no return. This is forcing tax payers to support a failed industry for the ego of arrogant scum.

    2. They will never be punished. In the novel “The Odessa File”, sometime after the end of the war, a penniless Jew who survived a concentration camp sees the former commandant of the camp get out of a nice car and enter an opera house. The man is wearing a dinner jacket and bow tie. The old Jew realises that there will be no justice and no retribution. He kills himself.
      These thugs with their identities kept secret by a newspaper will never be charged, will never be convicted, and will never be sacked.
      What have we come to?

      1. I watched the Odessa File DVD last week. The investigative journalist hero of the film ensures the Camp commander gets his due desserts. The Novel was written by Frederick Forsyth and is an excellent 1970s film

        1. Indeed so. I am recalling the feeling of despair that the old man had. I have something like it when I see this stuff. There seems to be no shortage of film clips of police assaulting old people for no reason. None of police going to trial for it.

    3. Just seen the longer version of that – the old man was accused of shoplifting- they tasered him before that kick. Disgusting.

      1. The bastard tasered him twice before kicking him in the back when he was down. That pig must be disciplined.

  23. I disagree. We don’t need a referendum. Merely abolish Boris and Carrie Antoinette – where’s Madame Defage when you need her?
    https://oliviadiamond.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/defarge2.jpeg

    We need a referendum on net zero to save Britain from the green blob

    As with membership of the EU, the political elite is imposing a revolution on the public without consent

    ALLISTER HEATH 20 October 2021 • 9:30pm

    Does the blob never learn? Voters don’t like being treated like naughty children, let alone apathetic imbeciles, by technocrats convinced that they know best. Much of the electorate is now in a permanently defiant, irritable mood. It has grown allergic to stitch-ups by the ruling class across Westminster, the City, the arts and academia, and is repelled by attempts to impose a single political vision as a fait accompli, with no debate and no consultation. This applies as much to radical environmentalism and net zero, the groupthink du jour, as it does to Brexit, the NHS, overseas wars, crime or immigration.

    The universal franchise was hard-won. The electorate is deeply attached to its democratic rights, not just when it comes to form – elections being held, and results respected – but also in terms of ethos. It expects the great questions of the day to be carefully discussed, and for voters to have the ultimate choice between meaningfully different options. Decisions cannot be delegated to a self-anointed, conformist oligarchy.

    Voters hate it when, as with the EU, they were told by Labour, Tories and Lib Dems alike that ever-closer union was the best of all possible worlds, that the only acceptable debate was about the speed of integration, and that only a racist would disagree. Ordinary folks’ revenge, when it came, was devastating.

    It beggars belief, therefore, that a government of Brexiteers, in power only because they led a populist rebellion against another cross-party consensus, have forgotten this crucial lesson when it comes to net zero, and are seeking to enshrine a revolution without consulting the public. Yes, the vast majority, at least in wealthy nations, wants to improve the environment, reduce pollution, bolster biodiversity, treat animals better and prevent man-made catastrophes.

    But that is where the near-universal consensus ends: the details of how to proceed are explosively contentious, and require democratic assent to be legitimate. The parallel with Brexit is clear: the fact that voters all agreed that another European war must be avoided didn’t mean they all wanted to fuse their countries into a superstate.

    The Government has learnt the wrong lessons from Covid – in a genuine health or military emergency, the electorate temporarily gives its support to any government it believes is doing its best. Even in such cases, a minority will favour alternative solutions, such as a Swedish approach.

    Decarbonisation is entirely different to the pandemic, whether or not you judge that we face a climate emergency. The public won’t automatically rally around whatever the government proposes. Many, perhaps most, will hate much of it. Net zero involves long-term, hugely significant measures that could drastically modify lifestyles and give the state immense, permanent powers to socially engineer as it sees fit.

    Do you agree that all new petrol and diesel cars should be banned in just nine years’ time? Or that gas boilers should be replaced, at great cost, with heat pumps, a technology that doesn’t quite work yet? Are you willing to eat less meat and pay higher taxes? Do you disagree entirely, or accept some of these ideas but not others? Or would you prefer to take it more slowly given China’s reluctance to act?

    The shocking reality is that how you answer is irrelevant. The public isn’t being given a choice. The fact of, and speed, scale and method of decarbonisation have been decided: Tories, Labour and Lib Dems all agree on all the essentials. It doesn’t matter who wins the next election: a new orthodoxy rules supreme. There is no functioning democracy, no mechanism by which outcomes might change. This is a disgrace and extremely dangerous.

    One doesn’t have to disagree with everything the Government is planning to be concerned. I really like electric cars, though I can’t see how banning combustion engines so quickly in the absence of better, long-range batteries can work. Why not let capitalism continue to organically shift consumers over? It is great that Boris rejects the hair-shirt, neo-communist approach to greening Britain, and that he backs nuclear and hydrogen. But do I really trust a government that has waged war on the car, invented so-called low-traffic neighbourhoods and campaigned against Heathrow expansion not to revert to banning everything vaguely carbon-positive if it falls behind on its targets?

    Why is its nudge unit advocating a tax on meat and producers and retailers of “high-carbon” food? The inflammatory document, disowned by the Government but commissioned by the Department for Business, demonises business travel and seeks to reduce international tourism and restrict airport expansion – goodbye, capitalist freedom. Can the Government guarantee that it would never impose extreme restrictions, rationing on homes and business or even mini eco-lockdowns? Or use a punitive form of road pricing to drastically reduce mobility (as opposed to ensuring motorists pay appropriately for road usage)? Will the courts start striking down high-carbon housebuilding or farming?

    Net zero isn’t a technical issue: it is an inherently political question, one of the greatest choices we have ever been asked to make. In the sickening absence of disagreement between the parties, a massive, uncontrollable backlash is guaranteed, at least when the bills start to drop. The only question is who the new green-sceptic Nigel Farage will be, and the next Boris figure? What will Vote Leave II look like?

    Johnson should preempt this war, which could destroy the Tories, and call a referendum on net zero today. His obligation, in doing so, would be to explain in exhaustive, costed detail how he proposes to achieve the changes he so fervently believes in. The No side would present its case, holding Johnson to account, proposing alternatives, with the public taken through the pros and cons and trade-offs. The results should be legally binding, with MPs compelled to implement the verdict, and the question tightly defined. The Government will have its work cut out: the Swiss have just rejected plans to slash their own emissions and to slap higher taxes on fossil fuels.

    The green challenge is too important, its implications too dramatic, to be left to an establishment that has embraced net zero as if it were a new religion. The public must have the final say, and the only way this will happen is through another referendum.

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

    tony moore
    20 Oct 2021 10:04PM
    People voted for Brexit for many reasons, but core was probably the disconnect that had grown between ordinary people and our elected politicians. Yet, a few years on, the chasm is wider than ever:

    Immigration- we want control, we get open borders

    Crime – we want longer sentences, we get 600k violent crimes a year, practically unabated.

    We certainly didn’t ask for our institutions to spend millions paying themselves and their cronies to tell us about white privilege and indoctrinating white children to feel guilty.

    … and ignore the ever growing Muslim terror threat.

    HS2- 2:1 don’t want 100bn to be spent that way.

    BBC – About 7 in 10 want the licence fee ending.

    What we need is a populist party that believes in direct democracy. Noone amongst the mainstream politicians is representing anyone but themselves.

    Ian McGregor
    20 Oct 2021 9:57PM
    Net Zero should be a choice for the people of the U.K. not a vehicle for virtue signalling by arrogant elitists like Boris, Nut Nut and autistic children who despise the little people and their petty, pathetic wishes.

    When a government and its politicians are so disassociated from the electorate that they refuse to test policies before implementing their foolhardy plans then the results are both inevitable and predictable.

    The madness of King Boris will haunt us for a long, long time after we are rid of him and his Princess Nut Nut.

    Roger Brady
    20 Oct 2021 9:53PM
    “ Johnson should preempt this war, which could destroy the Tories, and call a referendum on net zero today.”

    It would do far more than that! To hell with the Tories!

    Net zero is a suicidal policy, based on an irrational belief system that would destroy the civilised world.

    It MUST NOT happen.

    Yes to the referendum, but first the government must explain how carbon dioxide drives global temperature. It never has in the past 600 million years – whilst life has existed on the planet.

    Man made carbon dioxide, 3% of the total atmospheric carbon dioxide, or 3% of 0.04% of the atmosphere, is physically irrelevant.

    CO2 is plant food: an essential trace gas, for goodness’ sake!

    All life depends on atmospheric carbon dioxide!

    2. Net zero will be forced on us. It is only when the economy completely collapses and tax revenues stop that government will notice. Then it will keep borrowing more and more.

      It just seems malicious, as if the massive invasion at Dover, the green nonsense, the tax hikes, the diversity nonsense, the idiocy over covid control systems these fools want – it all seems intentional, deliberate malice.

  24. ‘Morning again.

    Good article from Fraser Nelson. Yesterday the statistics for Covid patients in hospital made interesting reading – just 159 for the whole of the southeast region, with just 21 of those on ventilators. Of the SE hospitalizations, just 31 are here in East Sussex. Even allowing for a 2-week delay in the figures, that doesn’t sound like a crisis to me, either.

    COMMENT

    The NHS isn’t facing another Covid crisis and Sajid Javid knows it

    If the Government restricts a fully vaccinated nation, it risks ushering in a new way of life for good

    FRASER NELSON
    21 October 2021 • 9:30pm

    It hasn’t taken Sajid Javid long to get into a fight with the doctors’ unions. Unlike recent Tory Health Secretaries, he doesn’t wear an “NHS” badge on his lapel – regarding himself more as a reformer than a cheerleader. He rejected calls to extend lockdown in July and is resisting bringing restrictions now. The British Medical Association is upping the ante, accusing him of “wilfully negligence” in his failure to enforce mask-wearing. Their message: if things get worse, he’ll be to blame.

    The NHS Confederation, which lobbies for various healthcare providers, has also joined the fray. The Health Secretary is in denial, it says: he seems to think it’s a failure to bring in restrictions where he ought to realise it’s a success. Matthew Taylor, the new head of the NHS Confederation, is calling for vaccine passports (as is his former boss, Tony Blair). Javid can expect this kind of pressure all winter. It won’t be long until new Sage scenarios are released, pointing to potential horrors.

    So far, Javid is feeling bullish – especially about Sage. “They’re entitled to come to their own decisions,” he told me recently. “I’m entitled not to listen.” So far he has answered the BMA and NHS Confederation by pointing at the data – which is on his side. The question is how far it will stay that way.

    Covid cases are certainly rising fast. Daily positive tests stood at 30,000 last month but are now over 50,000: Javid says he’s bracing himself for it to double. This is less dangerous than it sounds because almost half of this rise so far is made up by teenagers and children, who are far less likely to get sick. The most important metric – the one that decides if the NHS copes or not – is how many end up in hospital. In January, 30 per cent of hospital beds were occupied by Covid patients. Now it’s 6 per cent. So it’s not a crisis. It’s not even close.

    The huge difference is that, back in January, hardly anyone was vaccinated. Now, 93 per cent of adults are estimated to have antibodies so any new wave of Covid will, as was originally envisaged, meet a wall of vaccinated people. Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, is even arguing against vaccine passports, telling colleagues that they may help vaccine-hesitant countries but could mess things up here. A papers-please ID-card system, he tells colleagues, may breed resentment and give vaccines a bad name.

    Contrary to the BMA’s jeremiads, hospitals are doing well. The latest NHS figures show more empty hospital beds (4,940) than beds with Covid patients (4,901). Covid patients do need more resources but it’s worth remembering that even last year, the NHS never did melt down. At the Covid peak last April, at least a third of hospital beds (and ventilators) lay unused, as did the overflow Nightingale centres.

    Matt Hancock tended not to pass this information on. It suited his purposes to talk about an NHS on the brink as he thought such scary messages encouraged lockdown compliance. Javid sees it differently: his message is one of reassurance. Covid alarmism, he thinks, can deter millions of patients from seeking the help they need and result in avoidable deaths. His priority now is to keep all healthcare moving and get the waiting list falling – which means keeping calm about Covid.

    This change of mood has taken place right across Government. Michael Gove, who had been perhaps the most powerful advocate of restrictions, has been moved off the Covid brief and replaced by Steve Barclay who is still, at heart, a Treasury man. The Prime Minister is prone to wobbles but has come to like the idea of Britain being more liberal than its European neighbours, especially ones with thinner democratic roots. He sees this relative freedom as part of the vaccine dividend.

    David Frost, the Brexit minister, has taken to saying that Britain’s lack of lockdown restrictions embodies our national values. “Britain – or, at least, England – is now the free-est country in Europe,” he recently declared, proof that Brits “recognise the risks to society of not opening up”. Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, has never given up on his overall message: the need to “live without fear”. Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, has said we can rule out ever locking down again.

    They might be right about Covid, but the bigger risk is flu. Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, worries that the vaccine may be less reliable this year because they have so few samples to go on when guessing which flu strain will dominate. There was hardly any flu anywhere last year but there are early signs of a comeback now. A few years ago, the flu vaccine turned out to be 15 per cent effective. Such a low figure now, combined with a big caseload, could make for problems – especially in an NHS regularly pushed to the brink by bad flu seasons. In 2018, the then health secretary Jeremy Hunt cancelled elective surgery because of the winter pressures on the NHS.

    Much will depend not just on the flu vaccines but on the Covid booster jabs. Israel found that countries who vaccinate early are the first to see what happens when immunity wanes but its booster programme helped crush its fourth wave. Britain’s booster programme is struggling, having lost both Nadhim Zahawi as vaccines minister and Emily Lawson, the civil servant who ran the rollout programme. “It’s now closer to NHS as normal,” says one minister. “That’s not a good thing.”

    Javid is acutely aware of this – hence his emphasis on getting boosters into arms. But this isn’t just about facing down the pressure groups. This will be the first cold season in which Britain learns not how to suppress the virus, but how to live with it. To bring back restrictions in a fully vaccinated nation – and one not facing an emergency – risks ushering in a new way of life. These would be new rules not for a pandemic, but for winter. We’re about to test the “new normal”.

    For now, the vaccine effect looks robust. Covid cases aren’t translating into hospitalisations anything like they used to, and that hasn’t changed – so the facts, for now, remain on Javid’s side. Should these facts change, he can change his mind. But for the next few weeks, the most important task will be to hold his nerve.

    2. O woe, woe, and thrice woe”*
      Of course the whole thing is a crisis of the worst kind. Why else would infantry be posted into hospitals? It the presence of uniformed troops in hospitals does not spell out how bad things are, what would?

      *Up Pompeii – Senna the Soothsayer. (should have been called “SAGE”)

    3. “Daily positive tests stood at 30,000 last month but are now over 50,000:”
      and have the number of daily tests increased also?

    4. News this morning: 52,000 new “cases” yesterday and IIRC, 152 deaths related to covid and we all know what that means. Increase testing and the PCR – which by the way, according to the officials in the USA, is not capable of telling the difference between ‘flu and covid – cycle threshold most likely increased again. Project covid proceeds on its way to ever more control. This globalist shower cannot be trusted, none of them.

  25. A late good morning to one and all.
    A wet start today and I’m not quite sure if the rain is stopping or merely pausing, but the scattered blue bits I saw as I got the milk in have become a dull grey colour.
    4°C in the yard and VERY Autumnal.

    If this woman is a Judge in the USA, then the American Justice System is FUCKED.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3Ut5jCO3AU

    1. If I answered every question with ‘Thank you for your question about…’ I’d never get anything done.

  26. A late good morning to one and all.
    A wet start today and I’m not quite sure if the rain is stopping or merely pausing, but the scattered blue bits I saw as I got the milk in have become a dull grey colour.
    4°C in the yard and VERY Autumnal.

    If this woman is a Judge in the USA, then the American Justice System is FUCKED.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3Ut5jCO3AU

  27. Right, I am off to Cambridge. I’ll report back later – if I survive the “shopping” (ugh)….

    Play nicely.

    4. I hope you’re doing park and ride Bill it’s free for us oldies.
      We went to the botanical gardens back in September.

        1. Yes and there’s problem of lugging all the shopping around on the bus and getting it back to the car. Still, its a nice pl;ace to visit. at the right time of the year The botanical gardens are good but the queue for refreshments can be a bit tiresome.
          But the P&R bus stops right out side.

  28. The apparatus of democracy has halted, and pretending otherwise is to deceive ourselves for even longer than is already the case. “Controlled debate” – the speciality of the Telegraph, and all the rest of the global media propaganda machine, – has us trying to reason with genocidal psychopathy. Not a very productive activity.

    There comes a moment in conflict, going back into the mists of human transaction, when you know that your opponent will neither listen or desist from their aggression. We are at that point, indeed have been so for some time. The choice we have is the same one our forebears have had to face at times, and had they not made the right one, the world we now live in would have been dystopian a long time ago. It is now for us to carry the light.

    https://www.tarableu.com/the-global-parasite/

        1. I was surprised by the manner in which it was done, the indirect mocking of democracy and the downright hilarity.

    1. Sadly I can’t speak Norwegian, but it is worth clicking on the link just to see the woman at the “top of the page”!!

      1. Almost in the Lady Of Shalott’s league.

        A lovely smile has always been something I rate very highly in women.

    3. The bonny girls look pleased and happy in their costumes. It puts the Muslim costumes in the shade. Perhaps that is the reason the EU committee want the costume banned. Ignore their wishes.

    4. How can this happen? Are these lovely* young ladies self-identifying as female? Their costumes which include skirts would certainly seem to indicate this. It must not be allowed. It mocks the transblobs something fierce.

      *Is one allowed to make this kind of sexist comment?

    5. Norway’s not in the EU.
      Maybe it would like to review its cosying up to the Great Satan.

    7. Oh, the EU. Desperate to erase any semblance of national identity.

      As for polyester is the most environmentally friendly thing you can wear – it’s plastic. Shove off, euromentalist. I know they’d prefer we were wearing paper overalls and some form of identifying code – maybe one tattooed on, just so we don’t lose it – but truly, these creatures are nutters.

      The EU is typical of such institutions: power crazed, incompetent, hypocritical utterly disorganised except in it’s own perpetuation and lust for control.

      1. Seems an appropriate time to show this again:

        Empires of the past have gone through this cycle of prosperity, peak,
        decline, and collapse. Rome is probably the greatest example, but there
        are many others you can study.

        The events that are associated with this collapse are always the same —
        namely tyranny, ever-increasing police state, out of control government
        spending, hyperinflation, civil unrest, war, debilitating taxes,
        repressive regulations, and terminal decline in people’s freedom and
        standard of living.

        In addition, there is always a tiny group of elitists who thinks they
        should control the entire system with unchecked dictatorial powers,
        including absolute control of the money supply and military.

        But the lessons from history paint a very bleak picture for governments
        that go down this road…

        They always fail 100% of the time, without exception.

    8. …and when will the EU ban the Dirndl for Austria and Bavaria and, above all…

      …the burka and the head rag for the Moslems

    9. Ghastly people. If the EU got its way we would all be dressing in something like Mao jackets and trousers, regardless of sex, just like the hapless Chinese at the height of the cultural revolution. I hope the Norwegians, in no uncertain terms, tell the EU where to shove it, and I hope it is wedge shaped with large spines on it!

    10. As this is the first time I have seen this colourful attire and I have no particular reason or ulterior motive for saying this, but i think those (young ladies) people look rather smart and happy. Perhaps that’s precisely what ‘the others’ don’t like about it.
      And why does Norway have to listen to and obey the Brussels mafia ?

      1. The Bunad was given to a girl on her confirmation, and stayed with her all her life. The patterns are local, somewhat like a tartan. They cn be a bit made-up – the girl in the blue on the left is in Oslo bunad, the others I don’t know.
        Traditionally, it’s all wool, hand-embroidered, and very expensive. Work often with a belt made of silver and/or gold links and baubles, it was the girls capital that she took with her when she left her family on marriage.

    12. The EU seem to have taken against wool, saying it’s very unsustainable.
      How that comes about. nobody understands, as it grows on sheep, fgs! The EU have also said that our hydropower is the ungreenest power around – again, nobody can see the logic. Apparently, we should all wear recycles plastic clothing. Ugh – they make me sweaty.
      Maybe we should just leave EEEA, and the EU can go eff themselves.

      1. Oh, Canada is stuffed then. Some of our provinces are over 90% hydro generation, if hydro is bad, maybe we need to switch to fossil fuels.

        As an aside, I looked at power generation by type and saw that Prince Edward Island is 99% wind and solar. Sounds goody green but what they don’t mention is how much of their power is imported from New Brunswick.

    13. The EU seem to have taken against wool, saying it’s very unsustainable.
      How that comes about. nobody understands, as it grows on sheep, fgs! The EU have also said that our hydropower is the ungreenest power around – again, nobody can see the logic. Apparently, we should all wear recycles plastic clothing. Ugh – they make me sweaty.
      Maybe we should just leave EEEA, and the EU can go eff themselves.

  32. Good Moaning.
    Clucking Bell, it’s cold. Made worse by waiting for the plumber to give our boiler its annual service.

  33. 340420+ up ticks,

    May one ask,
    Are these real “Britons” or politically manufactured britons ?

    breitbart,

    Britons STILL Frightened of Being in Enclosed Spaces with Maskless People

    2. As a Boy Entrant in the RAF Cosford Pipe Band, we played at the Royal Tournament in 1962.

      Quite a thrill.

      1. In the 70’s, I was at HMS Daedalus, Deadloss RNAS Lee-on-the-Solvent, where the FAA Crew trained

        As The Tournament Date approached, the Crew held Public Runs, to get used an audience, on Thursday evenings
        One memorable Thursday, there was standing room only, at the track, Jack was out in force, not to see the gun-run, but to see Pan’s People: they were far better looking and moved in a much better way, than the Crew

  35. Very revealing interview by Reiner Fuellmich to Brian Gerrish, a British investigative journalist, who describes in detail the (cynical) psychology operation applied to the British people from March last year…also the coordination of this across the continent.

    https://www.fbcoverup.com/docs/library/2021-09-13-I-Brian-Gerrish-Interview-by-Justus-Hoffmann-Reiner-Fuellmich-On-Huge-Psychological-Operation-re-Mindspace-Neureo-Linguistic-Programming-NLP-OVALmedia-Health-Freedom-Resources-Sep-13-2021.mp4

    1. With regard to “producing further leaders”, I would say that true, natural leaders are born, not ‘produced’.

      1. That may be so Rose. But as I said last night. No real leader will arise ever again. Modern technology and techniques will see to that. Tommy Robinson was a natural leader. He had an audience, world wide, of millions. But see how easily he has been eliminated.

        2. Also Trump of course.
          Whatever one’s opinion of him (& difficult to know through all the media propaganda— both ways), there is no doubt millions of people respond to his natural leadership qualities..one of which is not being afraid to take the initiative.

          1. I think Trump is the last gasp. If he doesn’t win this time. It is the end. I think that the skulduggery has become so blatant that they would happily doctor the election. They know now that the American people will do little about it. They have had their dummy run and know they can steal an election, lie, and get away with it.

          2. Yes, look at Georgia in January & then Newsom in California or Commiefornia recently.
            Blatant, insolent.
            To be fair though, the poor American people are hamstrung when a large proportion of the judiciary are either corrupt or apathetic.

          3. It is one of the worst things about America that the judiciary consists of elected officials. So they are brought and paid for in the very beginning of their careers. It is a system given to corruption and I know that first hand. I ended up talking to judges as if they were vermin, and I didn’t bother to conceal my attitude to them.

    2. I only watched 20 minutes but will do catch up later.

      At last some one is bringing to the fore what a lot of us have been thinking for some time. What is happening in the world is not in any way a natural occurrence.

      But I’ve been ridiculed for saying this before but next time you have a picture of Frau Merkle in front of you put a little dab of black under the nose. And it might tell a different story as to where Mr Hilter (deliberate error) ended up as in south america and there might have been girls from Brazil as well as the boys.
      But as we all have had an inkling there has been people behind the scenes pulling the said strings for years.
      I read something the other day about the relationships between the leaders in the states it was fascinating.

      1. I have said before that looking back she will be regarded in the same way as her predecessors, Hitler and the Kiser, as another German determined to destroy Europe.

    1. And as the BTL comments point out If it had been one of Trump’s sons the MSM would have been all over Trump like the worst rash imaginable…..

    2. And as the BTL comments point out If it had been one of Trump’s sons the MSM would have been all over Trump like the worst rash imaginable…..

    4. Frankly, having worked in the University Art Museum of Berkeley, one of the largest University Art Museums in the USA, I find Hunter Biden’s art no better or worse that an awful lot of the stuff we had on display. We had one whole floor devoted to the art of Juan Gris, a Cubist. It is the second largest collection of his work in the world. I have to say it was ghastly stuff. But it was worth god knows how many millions. If I had possessed one it would have hung on the wall with the back of the canvas facing out. But then I like Rothko. So each to his own, I suppose.
      Here is an interesting video by someone that most people don’t realize is an art expert.

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

      1. The Rothko Chapel is powerful stuff. John Grey is a very famous painter, so he must be good; his name reminds me of that of the successful singer Julius Churches.
        I am lucky enough to be able to see art in nature, so pictures pall after a while.

        1. Julius Churches. Hilarious, make me laugh its so ridiculous, does that make it art?
          The Rothko Chapel. Never been to Texas unfortunately, except to drive right through. I would have liked to see the chapel. I first saw Rothko at the MOMA and was bowled over by it. Loved his art ever since.
          As for John Grey, don’t know who he is. Sorry!

          I agree entirely with your last comment. Having grown up in North Africa, sitting on one side of a Wadi, watching the desert and the ever moving sculptural forms it would make, whilst the sand would whisper in the breeze, then being in the Redwoods or on the wild coast of California, outclassed any human art. Likewise, a dandelion or a speedwell, I have no idea why people consider them weeds, look closely and they really are beautiful. I really don’t understand why they have neve been hybridized. But perhaps the answer to that is they are better left alone. I think it was the desert that sold me on abstract art. I do not have much of a taste for the figurative.

          1. I like Rothko. I didn’t until I saw them for real, and realised one could look into them – they had depth & powerful atmosphere.

          2. Quite so Rose. As I said, they do not translate well in reproduction. To me they are like monuments that once seen you can’t forget such is the impact. When I was visiting MOMA the first one I saw of his huge canvases was visible from a from a couple of galleries away. It was like approaching something Biblical, a bit like the discovery of the obelisk in 2001 A space Odyssey. If that makes any sense at all!

          3. Yes.
            Although not similar paintings, the watercolours done by Emil Nolde (after he was banished by the Germans) also have many, many layers of subtle colours built into them.
            It gives them depth and nuance of interpretation.
            Yet in reproduction these paintings can look messy & even crude.
            Colour in painting needs to interact with living light.

          4. That is a good point. I hadn’t thought of that before. But now you say it it’s rather obvious. Light has to be a major factor when viewing a painting and that would not translate into reproductions at all.

          5. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=emil+nolde+watercolour+image&t=ipad&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2F736x%2F7f%2F44%2F43%2F7f4443e221650bb1cf96b13b3f35be9c.jpg

            I wanted to illustrate one for you, but there are just so many!
            It’s the landscapes, sunsets and seascapes in particular…espwith the deep blues.
            These indigos ultramarines & blue violets are wonderful in real life…but they are the worst to try & reproduce.
            Especially if viewed in yellowish light

          6. It is impossible to reproduce water colours because they rely on the fact that the light goes through them and bounces back through from the white ground through the transparent colours. I paint with water colours and much prefer them to anything else ,but not painting at the moment because I’m to shaky. I will start again at some point.

          7. Looking at Nolde has made me want to start again…(although I use much more delicate colours).
            After the nightmare of the move & the last 2 years, I would really like to.
            I had bought some lovely new paints, German, with very pure pigments, but haven’t really used them.
            I must, now I have my attic/study sorted. I had to paint it first – with a milky white chalk paint – so I could see the colours in it!

          10. Yes…also sometimes Sennelier.
            Windsor & Newton are muddy by comparison, & their blues are greenish.

          11. Interesting thing about Nolde is that he could draw perfectly well in a classical sense when he wanted to – as Chagall also.
            I expect Rothko could too?

        2. Rothko has two meanings. 1. Lithuanian conman and 2. Manufacturer of lacklustre drivel. He couldn’t even spell his name correctly – Ротхка.

          1. If you hade seen his paintings at MOMA you wouldn’t say that. Unfortunately his paintings do not translate at all well in photos. And why should he “spell his name correctly”? He was 10 when he arrived in the USA. I’m surprised that you don’t criticise him for not using his full name, Rothkowitz. To all intents and purposes he was American not Lithuanian.

          2. I have seen his paintings and they are fodder for imbeciles – along with nearly all ‘modern’ art.

            Picasso is a typical example. He said he could wipe his árse on a serviette and someone would pay millions for it – and he did, often.

  39. Ireland’s cricket team are about to begin a “must win” game against Namibia. Only victory will secure their place in the Super 12s of the T20 Cricket World Cup. The match is being broadcast in the UK by Sky Sports Cricket and BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra. It begins at 11:00 BST.

      1. Death is just the loss of life, nothing, no more fun but no more pain either, nothing. Gotta make the most of while we’re alive.

        1. I will demise and go now, and go trouble free,
          In a wood coffin lay there, until clay and bone made;
          No other beings will I have there, just a resting place for me,
          And lie alone in the bee-loud glade.

          (With Apols to WB Yates)

    2. I have had a near-death experience and God spoke to me – I didn’t think it wise at that moment to tell him I was agnostic.

    3. Many years ago I used to work for the herbalist shop Culpepers (from 1978, before herbs became ‘mainstream’).
      One year, in the autumn, a Culpeper shop in Guildford were having trouble finding someone to run it for 2 weeks, due to normal people being respectively on holiday & ill.
      So I was persuaded to go & be temporary manageress. The shops were run on the same model; I would be the sole person there & in charge, & sleep in the flat above the shop; the building was an old pub, 15th century, converted.
      As I had relatives nearby, I thought it might make a change.

      I did note the girls kept giggling though, as I agreed.

      As soon as I was there, odd things happened from the first night.
      Mostly the bedroom door opening with a squeak, &/or something like a brief
      shout, -hence waking me.
      Each time I ensured it was firmly shut, even putting something by it. I don’t remember now the other odd events, although one was the fire in the hearth kept going out, even when it was established, and also found the door wide open, after it had been closed on the latch.

      It was so disconcerting that I asked my sister if she would come & stay the first weekend. We were both nervous!
      Then in the middle of the second week, I had an extraordinary & vivid dream.
      A young lady was going to a special occasion (I never found out what). She was wearing a cream silk chiffon dress with a large red flower on the bodice.
      She came to ask me (in the dream) if the flower was ok? She disappeared and was incredibly sad.
      I forget the rest; I never wrote it down.
      The following lunch break, I wandered down a street I had never been before. Ever.
      There, in a charity shop, in the window, was …
      the cream dress…with a red rosette on the front.
      I was mesmerised and went in & tried it on. It was a fitted dress, AND IT FITTED ME EXACTLY.
      That sent shivers down my spine. I took it off quickly, and I also bought it. £8. A lot in those days.
      (I later transformed it…sort of exorcism!).
      That night I slept better.
      Returning back to the shop in Bath, the girls asked with with great curiosity “how did you get on?” and,
      “You know it’s said to be haunted? That’s why no one will be there on their own.
      It is said to have been a smugglers’ pub, with underground passageways to it.”

      I didn’t tell them of my experiences.
      “Oh, fine, I said”.
      Apart from my sister, I never told anyone, until now!

      1. I have a story. But not half as interesting as yours. My family used to live in a house that was a 400 year old converted pub. The dining room was separated from the kitchen by French doors. You would hear the back door open to the garden from the kitchen. Hear someone walk across the floor to the French doors and then the door handle would turn. That was it. Nothing terribly spectacular. My stepfather always sat close to the door and could lean over and open it while the door handle was turning. The door was all windows, so if anyone was really there you could see them. No one was ever there. Once we got used to this little performance we would just ignore it. Whatever it was was we called it , Inky, a not terribly imaginative name. Can’t remember who came up with it.

        1. That is interesting.
          These ‘spooky’ occurrences often have an ordinariness to them…as if all is perfectly normal.
          I remember now also for several nights before that dream I woke up slightly startled in the night with a sensation that someone had wandered over and was watching me. It wasn’t malevolent, rather a benign, wistful feeling.
          Rupert Sheldrake believes we can tell when someone behind us is watching us etc…so why would we not know if/when a free floating soul is doing the same!

          1. “ordinariness” is the right word. There was nothing spooky about it at all. No blast of cold air or the atmosphere changing. Nothing at all other than the phenomena that I have just described. But you story is really fascinating. Obviously a communication took place.

          2. Perhaps that’s why we say, “Rest in Peace”.
            To try & help souls who may have died young, or with unfinished business, so that they may let things go that were unresolved.
            Perhaps she felt I could resolve it for her?
            Who knows; it felt okay.

    4. Not me personally, but during my first year living in Essex (Fingeringhoe), my landlord told me of his ghostly experience when he was on guard duty in the army (the reason for that was, I wanted to see the remains of Borley Rectory). He’d been upstairs and decided to have a crafty smoke because the captain wasn’t due on his rounds for a while. Suddenly, he heard him coming up the stairs, so stubbed out his cigarette and waited. The steps reached the door and stopped. When he opened the door there was nobody there. He said he couldn’t get out fast enough!

    1. “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

      George Orwell – 1984.

    2. Morning all.

      I suspect garden slugs have better understanding of the world than the dopey wokies.

      1. Rather than rewrite history they should read a few facts….

        …we captured 1,600 slave ships and freed more than 150,000 slaves who thus never reached a life of forced labour in the USA or the Caribbean.

        2. Those idiots need to look at the BBC TV prog Blood and Gold the making of Spain. In the 1100-1200s The Muslims had thousands of white children held in captivity for their own entertainment long before the African tribes started to sell their own to be used in slavery.
          And when they had finished abusing the children they were thrown to the resident pride of ‘pet lions’.
          I often wonder how many of the people who constantly moan about being the product of slavery have made the journey back to their home lands………my guess is Zero, they know when they are well off. The same could be accounted to those in the UK who moan all the time about their ‘plight’. Go to sub-Saharan Africa and see how lucky you are to be living in northern Europe.
          At least I have been and lived there and have seen the conditions their governments expect them to live under. But perhaps in reality they are better off than those who live in and around London.

          2. Did you watch that particular three part series Plum ?
            Simon See-bag Montefiore BBC 4 about two years ago.

          3. It must have been his cousin or his aunt who was at UEA when I was there. She was nicknamed Teabag Monty Python.

          6. History, Music, Geography, English Lit, Tech drawing, Sport, athletic’s team and school goalkeeper. And I came top in wood work twice and once with a broken arm.

          8. Not joint out of place.
            This is the irony, my fathers side of the family were all in commerce and printing. My mothers side were from trade back grounds.
            I was offered a job at a printing works I hated the noise. So i did a five year apprenticeship as a joiner and spent two years making stair cases and many other enjoyable jobs. My mothers brother had a building company i went to work for him for a bit and his son did not want to be in the industry, but both chose printing and commerce Both due to supplying office furniture ended up Millionaires. Me………..just and old carpenter and joiner but useful and I traveled a lot in the process.

        4. That’s only because we felt guilty and we wont stop feeling guilty until we have paid in every conceivable way. It was a manifestation and proof of “white guilt”.

    3. Let us campaign against the family of Ogg The Wheel Maker

      Virtually all Climate Change damage is down to him

    4. Read about that too Plum. The aim, of course, is to trash our history, to eradicate it so that the English people are non-personed. It started when they decided to call people from elsewhere “ethnics”. When we are the ethnic people of this land and have been for thousands of years.

  42. 340420+ up ticks,

    May one ask,
    Who was the author of the original report, the fat turks dad ?

    Truth be told the electorate is suffering covid fallout in the shape of Stockholm syndrome.

    breitbart,

    Deleted Report: Corona Shows Public Have ‘Deep Set Reverence’ for Govt But Hate Elite Hypocrisy

    3. There must be something wrong with her. She looks Amish but the Amish are rarely fat. They are on the go from dawn to dusk because they use no modern amenities.

        1. Have you gone all-American, Philip, the English I grew up with, would spell that ‘goitre’.

          6. Goitre: 1620s, from French goitre (16c.), from Rhône dialect, from Old Provençal goitron “throat, gullet,” from Vulgar Latin *gutturiosum, from Latin guttur “throat”. Yankee spelling – Goiter.

        1. Well, there you are. It’s the same woman. I’ve visited Amish country and I don’t recall ever seeing a fat one either male or female. There life style is far heathier than ours by miles.

  45. 340420+ up ticks,

    May one ask,

    Thinking outside the box,
    Could these boosters become addictive as in , “phssst do you wanna
    interim jab” which would needle a great many peoples also give the political overseers an unholy grip on the herd.

    Live Politics latest news: Covid vaccine boosters after five months will need to be considered, says JCVI professor

  46. Interesting BTL comment on a ZH article on the US poking the Bear over the Crimea:

    “The USA has a potato as President and a short bus window licker as SecDef.”…….

    1. What annoys me is the historical lie that the USA is pushing that the Crimea is Ukrainian. It never was apart from Khrushchev in a meaningless grand gesture so typical of dictators, giving it to Ukraine as a fraternal gesture of solidarity and all that guff. It was, even under Soviet law illegal for him to do that and thus null and void. But nothing was done about it for the obvious reason that no one thought it of any significance because no one thought the USSR would fall. So in all but name the Ukraine along with all the other countries under the rule of the Communists belonged to the USSR for ever.

      1. I believe it was a tribute to his mother who was born there. You are right though, they never imagined the fall of the Iron Curtain or the colonising land-grabbing of the European Union.

        In 1954, the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Pereyaslav was widely celebrated. Crimea was transferred from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR.

        1. Khrushchev’s mother was Ukrainian? I didn’t know that and it is, given the context, an important bit of information. Thank you!

    2. Really Stephenroi, you should not demean Pot00000000s

      Without them, there would be no chips, no Irish, no mash and no jackets

    3. Really Stephenroi, you should not demean Pot00000000s

      Without them, there would be no chips, no Irish, no mash and no jackets

    1. Twitter have suspended Stew Peters’ account. The price of truth telling. Of course to be fair to CNN, the vaxx is doing what it’s meant to do and is therefore effective.

      1. He was becoming too authoritative, or rather the material he was presenting was red hot!

      2. Peters is on Gab in addition to Red Voice Media. In an earlier life he was an investigator/official bounty hunter, or something of that kind.

    2. I come from a family of doctors. My grandfather was a doctor, four of his children were doctors, several of my cousins and their children are doctors and my niece is married to a doctor and her daughter, my grand niece, is a doctor. My younger son’s fiancée is currently doing a doctorate in epidemiology.

      But I am not a doctor and I know nothing about the subject.

      However Caroline is the local organist and she has had to play at far more funerals this year than is normal and the majority of her funerals have been for people who have not died of Covid but have died shortly after having had both doses of the jab.

      At first we were told that once there was a vaccine the virus would be brought under control; then, when the miracle vaccine arrived, we were told that we would have to have a second jab and that it would not stop us getting the virus or passing it on so everybody would have to have a booster – but even this booster would not fully protect you from getting Covid 19 or passing it on. And of course very little was said or reported about cases where the side effects of the vaccine were bad or even fatal.

      I am noted for the sweetness and trustfulness of my nature but these are being stretched by the commands that Squalid Jawdrip is issuing.

      2. The whole point of Lockdown, is not to isolate people and so prevent them catching/passing-on Covid,

        it is to isolate them and prevent people communicating with one another.and coming to realise they are being duped

        The Scam must be protected

        If we do go into lockdown, it will cease before Saturday, 02 April, 2022 and can re-started after 01 May 2022

        https://www.calendardate.com/ramadan_2022.htm

      3. The whole point of Lockdown, is not to isolate people and so prevent them catching/passing-on Covid,

        it is to isolate them and prevent people communicating with one another.and coming to realise they are being duped

        The Scam must be protected

        If we do go into lockdown, it will cease before Saturday, 02 April, 2022 and can re-started after 01 May 2022

        https://www.calendardate.com/ramadan_2022.htm

      4. It is all about protecting the NHS and control of the population. I realised this at the outset. To prove they had near total control they had the people standing outside their homes clapping the NHS who had totaly let us down. It is as bigger con as climate change. Remember when we were told joining the common market would never become a united states of europe, and all the politicians knew it was a lie.

      5. The ‘excess’ deaths may be a statistical blip, and have nothing to do with the vaccination event. I know a palliative care nurse who commented that she has been expecting a wave of cancer deaths because of delays to treatment. As for the jab, I heard of a female shop worker in her forties who died, and a lady in her 70s who had a stroke shortly after receiving the AZ.

    3. What do you expect from an organization that claims Bidens performance on TV last night was acceptable.

      As for covid deaths, just show the cdc vaxed vs. non vexed reports – no explanations, just the charts.

  49. Merkel faces down Macron over ‘Polexit’ at last summit. 22 October 2021.

    Angela Merkel faced down calls from Emmanuel Macron and other EU leaders to punish Poland in her last summit as Chancellor.

    Amid mounting fears the battle over rule of law could collapse the bloc, the German chancellor called on her counterparts to cool tensions over Poland’s challenge to the primacy of EU law.

    “Germany does not want to have a Polexit. Poland’s place is in the middle of Europe,” she told the meeting, which was her 107th EU summit, according to a senior diplomatic source.

    The end of the EU would be a boon to lovers of Freedom and Democracy everywhere!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/10/21/germany-doesnt-want-polexit-merkel-collision-course-macron-last/

    1. “…battle over rule of law could collapse the bloc…”

      Let’s hope that the Merkel loses this battle, Poland exits, quickly followed by Hungary and Czechia and the implosion starts.

      1. Then we can make decent trade deals with France and Germany if necessary with

        ABSOLUTELY NO POLITICAL STRINGS ATTACHED

        which many of us who voted for staying in the Common Market in the February 1975 referendum thought we were getting before we discovered that Heath had been lying to us.

    4. You do realise thai if Poland DID exit the EU – – it would be OUR fault. Don’t know why – – but it would be.

      1. We in the U.K have a shared history of oppression from Germans and French. Perhaps that has something to do with it.

    5. Interesting that Merkel recognised Polexit as a real possibility. Before Brexit, she would have treated the Poles with contempt.

  50. Went to the supermarket today and so many more are wearing masks again. I have lost what little respect I had for our population. They are just followers and do what they are told without question. They must do no research of their own. Just The Mail stirring things up is enough for them to mask up again.

    1. Me too, Johnny! I’ve done a bit of shopping today as I’m making cakes and meringues for our youngest grandsons 1st birthday on Sunday. I haven’t worn a mask here in Scotland for at least 8 months, although it’s mandatory, and I cannot believe the sheeps who are still wearing them outside!! It’s pretty cold and windy here!

    2. We have two acquaintances who say they wear masks if most people are wearing one otherwise they wouldn’t.
      They looked bewildered when it was suggested other people may be putting on masks because they were wearing them.

      1. Hopefully it made them think. There are way too many people who just want to be good obedient little citizens!

      1. In the last few weeks there has been renewal of Flu – once deaths had miraculously fallen last year? The Delta Covid variant ( 21 letters to go ), Super cold? – – and now a NEW “Covid – related ( of course ) disease” for kids – – – the govt REALLY REALLY have lost their marbles – – they can’t admit what they’ve been claiming – – so just keep ramping it up – MORE FEAR – MORE MORE FEAR !!!!!!!!! There is NOWHERE for them to go. – – apart from continually importing OUR exterminators from 2 other continents. Wipe us out – end of the govt’s problem – and us.

    4. I’ve just mentioned to a friend that I thought Lidl looked more masked up today than of late. I sort of joked that it was old farts Friday as most maskees were on the old side, rather like me (old that is, not masked). Seeing a group of four masked oldies trying to have a conversation made me chuckle.

      1. I came across two wearing masks outdoors today; both were on their own. The vet came out to talk to me in the car park and was wearing a mask.

        1. I can understand why vets and medical people are wearing them – for their own safety – but for normal life they are just pointless.

      1. Off to a lawyer for a massive compen claim – whitey’s fault – didn’t warn us – in our language.

    4. I see as usual they are using children as human shields. And the man at the back is doing what?

  52. At 15.05 on BBC Parliament the HoL are discussing the Assisted Dying Bill.
    Shall we lock them in and throw away the key.

    2. Shall we lock them in and throw away the key.
      Great idea.
      Where are the generals we pay to keep our democracy in tact ?
      As i have said recently the NHS is slowly but surely adapting a FOAD mode.

    3. Digital surveillance will deliver assisted dying? Just switch off all lifelines when we outlive our usefulness!

      1. Pump it full of CO

        But the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also notes that because the gas is so silent, so subtle in its attack “people who are sleeping or intoxicated can die from CO poisoning before ever experiencing symptoms.”15 Aug 2013

    1. Took me ages to get that to play. You don’t think they lowered my bandwidth when i went to twitter?

      1. If only the parents of

        Johnson, Abbot, Blair, Brown, Hamilton, Krankie etc
        Had used the product

    3. Brilliant!

      How John Lewis could have thought that ad was a good idea, I don’t know. They must have had a personality transplant, and have joined the monster. Wrong, wrong, wrong, for so many reasons.

        1. And another thing about JLP – with its terrible financial situation. All their vehicles (and advertising material) have been painted BLACK – presumably to match the CEO…. Just think what it must have cost.

    4. Brilliant!

      How John Lewis could have thought that ad was a good idea, I don’t know. They must have had a personality transplant, and have joined the monster. Wrong, wrong, wrong, for so many reasons.

    5. I’d rather have seen him getting his backside thrashed for the nasty little shite he is and needs a very, very sharp lesson

  54. Oh joy! First recovery after 9 days of pain with the torn muscle – thankfully no problems

    2. You do know that because of Brexit, climate change and soaring fuel prices you should be charging them an arm and a leg…

  55. Good afternoon, folks.

    Well – WHAT A TREAT. The Gold from the Great Steppe expo at the Fitzwilliam is BREATHTAKING. Anyone within spitting distance of Cambridge MUST go.

    https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/visit-us/exhibitions/gold-of-the-great-steppe

    A few tips. First, you have to book a (free) timed ticket online. On arrival, the damned ticket is checked and scanned THREE times for some pointless reason.

    Secondly, being eco-freak, full Covidian, leftie Cambridge, EVERYONE wore masks – lots of them TWO masks. Two women ran (literally) to get away from unmasked me – and gave hate stares. Made me smile – which infuriated them even more!!

    Thirdly, if you can make it – it is well worth buying the catalogue and reading it BEFORE you go.

    The stuff displayed is nothing like anything you will have seen before. And the workmanship (given that it was about 2,500 years ago) of the highest standard. A 2021 goldsmith would be hard pressed to do such fine work – forgetting being in a yurt in the winter at minus 40ºC……!!

    DO GO.

    1. I’m surprised the Fitz hasn’t been cancelled. To get to that level of civilisation could only have happened because of slaves. Just like every other successful empire. That means all Empires.

    2. Do you need to be vaxxed? Or are the uncontaminated purebloods allowed in? Is there a mobile app thingy you have to wave your phone in front?

      1. There might have been – but no one asked about it. And (though I had my bit of paper with me) there was no request to see it.

          1. It is certainly the finest exhibition that I have seen since Tutankamun at the Cairo Museum in 1950

      2. When people cut the gas supply pipe on the supply side of the meter and connect it directly to the domestic side, thus bypassing the meter entirely, it needs to be done with care. Just saying.

        1. I had a similar problem with someone who rented from me. They had drilled the electricity meter. Not as catastrophic but still a pain in the arse to sort out.

    1. The poor kid will be traumatised for life. My daughter lives in Alabama, it explains why she is such a sourpuss.

  59. 340420+ up ticks,

    May one ask, any views regarding the Gerard Batten / Hearts of Oak
    video last evening ?

      1. 340420+ up ticks
        Evening NtN,
        There was a small hook in the request knowing many hard core tory (ino) supporter / members would avoid it like say… covid.

      2. Batten is very good. I enjoyed it. He is tainted by the bad decision of switching UKIP’s focus from fighting for Brexit before it was achieved to fighting against Islamic takeover, but he’s a very intelligent man and understands exactly what’s going on at the moment, I think.

    4. I listened to it all, nice presentation but its preaching to the converted here. There were one or two big leaps from evidence to conclusion but otherwise much of it is what is said on here.

      1. 340420 + up ticks,
        Evening Kp,
        Many on here are converted granted, does NOT stop many on here supporting / voting
        Tory ( ino) causing the fear / farce to continue.
        The link showed a successful leader the proof of that is in his year leadership of UKIP.
        He was warning of our terrorism trouble back in 2005 the dangers of islamic ideology in book & rhetorical form whilst lab/lib/con were working alongside the islamic ideology followers in parliament & sharing halal fodder with them in the parliamentary canteen.
        Over the years there is very little the real UKIP has been wrong about by the same token over the last near four decades there is very, very little lab/lib/con coalition / supporters / voters have been right about
        converted you say ? in many cases is that inclusive of polling day.

  60. The astute Mr Ward points out:

    “Rewind your tape to 2019, and the Guardian Editorial Tsarina Katharine Viner’s diktat memo banning all hacks from using ‘lite’ climate terms. Even this history has been airbrushed into a less flagrantly Nazi approach, such that Viner’s disgraceful ideology jack-bootism has now become this:

    ‘The Guardian has updated its style guide to introduce terms that more accurately describe the environmental crises facing the world. Instead of “climate change” the preferred terms are “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown” and “global heating” is favoured over “global warming”’

    So, taking 2018 as a starting point, in 2019 Viner invents the GH thing, and then in 2021 it becomes something in “Common usage”….enjoying “15 times more usage than in 2018” when, um, nobody used it at all. It’s in the OED, so it must be true…as one used to say about the BBC.

  61. Someone ought to be a Nottler: “Re trans women in sports, i think we can accept them participating as women as soon as the first trans man has won an olympic gold medal….. i’m not holding my breath…”

    1. Tamara Press would have been in with a chance

      She competed as a woman and could change back to being a man

    2. Is that a woman who wants to be a man, or a man who wants to be a woman?

      As if a man pretending to be a woman is competing in a women’s event, then chances are he might win – after all, he has an incredible biological advantage in speed, strength, lung capacity, heart size, vision, bone density – you name it, a man – even a man in a dress – is still, and always will be; a man.

      1. Thank God i’m not the only chap who doesn’t know which way the words mean. Assume some of that group don’t know either.

    1. Gates: “And, Javeed, just check the envelope I gave you – those shares will be worth something for your half-breed children… But, hey – don’t tell…!!!”

    2. As someone who has exactly the same medical degree as Gates my considered medical opinion is that should Feck right off!

    3. Gates arrives and the narrative bursts into life and Javid starts making threats. It’s clear who is the puppet master and who are the puppets. Another clear reason to treat anything Johnson says as bullshit: clearly he is not running this shitshow, and let’s be honest, he’s not exactly making much of the role of leader. He really should stick to what he’s good at, creating sprogs.

  65. Just had a phone call inviting me to attend the local health centre for a flu jab and booster jab. I said “No thanks I’ve had enough jabs this year”. ” Oh”, she said – ” quite a few people have said that.”

    5. I assume from that statement that Sarwar is advocating forced inoculation. Has Wee Krankie the authority to change Human Rights and other laws governing medical interventions and confidentiality or will she try and ride roughshod over everyone’s rights? Governing a country on the whim of one person is a dictatorship.

  67. Time for me to go and have a little drinky-poo – to celebrate what we saw today.

    Have a good evening – keeping warm

    A demain.

  68. ‘Night All

    A “Modern Life” /”Awkward”selection box

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5efc6b01171885c7a7192bf1727400f0cd59c70d25c58f4925dfef2bbad0dbb2.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aa78e0343db7e8d257b737b76aaa3e40955f6f6cf69a35b872425b8b5207264f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/916813e148afbe6e6a24ee3315624fcd4287ac0835947d392a3b3bfa354acb0f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/817319c5c290113df83399a2b11b92815069d5d56fd8eb210b6ab7d2a406530f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a516f429386ba395a2078731f0ecec2f7f9b4a45656bfbc86ab5b360812836f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e8e55679e24f0bb3cd5b7d23009ce5a8118cd4173e120ffb56736746ac23860.png

    Finally……….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8d9d5ebda261010a56690150b09bbcca497d00e869ff29b60af27b1f97b7ebe7.jpg

  71. Just had an attack of the Gypoes. The gulley on the roof between my bungalow and the neighbour needs to be replaced.

    The problem stems from moss on his roof blocking the drainpipe.

    He called out a moss removal company to look at it. They suggested that not only his roof but mine also needed completely replacing.

    My neighbour is 84 and so i listened in. They were trying to brow beat him into submission.

    What they were unaware of was i had already had an inspection done from a reputable company and what they were telling him was utter bullshit.

    I engaged my other neighbour who is a big bloke and he asked them to restate their case. As there were now three against two they said they would send a quote and left quite sharpish.

    I hate these shitbags.

      1. I recognised the technique. I heard the voices of the ‘moss removers’ and could not hear the voice of my neighbour. It went on for quite a while.

        That made my ears prickle.

      2. Some years ago, I saw a rough stocky man going dowm the other side to every house. He arrived and knocked on my door, presumably expecting a lady due to time and day. But – I worked shifts and was a damn sight larger than him. As he turned to me he saw me, his jaw dropped – I said NO – – and he backed across the lawn, in silence, while he glared at me. Told you lot before about my looks !!!!

    3. There are companies that jet wash roofs, I saw one the other day and it looked like a new roof afterwards, i think they have to do a bit of repointing though.

      1. I know Bob. Other neighbours have had it done in my road. They all tend to have aerials that birds sit and shit on.

        The only thing on my roof is lichen.

      2. The roofer who has done many small jobs for us says this pressure spraying of the roof will do more damage than good and hasten the need for a new roof.

        1. Yes I’m not that sure about it either but there again a roofer would say that , wouldn’t they.

          1. I would rather trust someone I’ve known for some time than a knock on the door merchant.
            If my chap wanted to replace my roof surely he would advocate the spraying.

    6. I had a similar visit about 10 days ago. A week before that it was a Gypo offering to cut my hedge.
      I repelled the oiks by stentorian shouting. It seems that now is the season.

  73. A boot full of coercion helps the medicine go down
    Medicine go down
    Medicine go down
    A boot full of coercion helps the medicine go down
    In the most spiteful way.

    1. The Chinese will not attack Taiwan. They will not only have to deal with Japan and all the other countries in the area. They would have to deal with the West. Also Taiwan supplies the West with chips for almost all technology. Destroying Taiwan would cripple that industry, which the Taiwanese would destroy to prevent it falling into Communist hands. at the same time they would kill the Western golden Goose that China needs for a market. The Peoples Army, which is basically a business racket would not tolerate that. in attacking Taiwan China would end up destroying themselves. There are plenty of other reasons why they will not attack Taiwan so those observations are just for starters.

    2. Daft Joe prolly thinks Tai Wan is

      a A Chinese Takeaway in Washington

      b. a Marital Art

      c A Martial Art

      d After the two above, a painting

    3. Joe Biden is in severe cognitive decline. He is at the stage where his awareness of his mental deficiencies gives rise to anger. He has dead eyes and a mean mouth and his posture and strange gestures are those of a robot in need of oiling. His handlers are walking a tightrope in pretending that he is fit to be Commander in Chief.

      Obama is likely pulling Biden’s strings as many of Biden’s appointments are Obama retreads.

      This will not end well. Biden, like Obama and Clinton has become as rich as Croesus by corruption but with the reverse Croesus touch when it comes to American taxpayers.

  76. I get a newsletter from time to time from an organisation called Get Britain Out.

    It looks as if the Bumbling Bonker is even weaker than we thought he was:

    Here is an extract from one I received today

    October 22nd, 2021

    Dear Friends and Supporters

    The last two weeks had the potential to finally bring about action and real change in our relationship with the European Union. Unfortunately – as has become the norm – what is actually happened is a lot more talking, but very little actually change!

    So, what’s new then…..
    Firstly, we had Lord Frost make a speech in Portugal where he demanded the EU comes to the table ready to negotiate and he proposed an entirely new legal version of the Northern Ireland Protocol – including a fully developed legal text for the EU’s consideration – which would remove the power of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over Northern Ireland. However, it is now being reported the PM is already thinking of backtracking on this red line, which again seems to show his lack of a backbone.

    Lord Frost’s opposite number, the EU Commission’s Vice-President, Maroš Šefčovič, then responded last Wednesday, to put forward the EU’s own proposals. While containing some good suggestions to remove up to 80% of customs checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, the EU refused to even debate removing the control of the ECJ. On top of this, when you look in detail at what he had to say, it was full of quick fixes of old ideas – such as regulatory alignment given a makeover to seem more appealing. No matter how much you slap greasepaint on a pig, it’s still a pig!

    Throughout his speech, Šefčovič consistently tried to pass himself off as ‘the good guy’ in these talks – open to compromise and listening to those involved – seeming to suggest the UK does not have the NI people’s best interests at heart. Clearly the EU believes the way to win these negotiations is to try and sow the seeds of further discontent within Northern Ireland. After all, they can no longer rely on a ‘Remain’ Parliament to block any pro-Brexit action, so instead they are turning to propaganda and manipulation to get their own way.

    Lord Frost has confirmed there will now be weeks of further negotiations with the EU, but I want to know how long the can will continue to be kicked down the road? Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol still sits unused, yet this week Boris had the gall to go to a celebration of the Centenary of Northern Ireland being created, while he is so obviously abandoning that country – which is still part of the UK – to the control of the EU and the European Court of Justice. None of this makes sense!

    It has been clear, a firm stance with the EU clearly works. So why is the Prime Minister kowtowing to the lecturing from the masses of ‘Remainers’ inside Whitehall, and the ever-preachy US President, Joe Biden, over the Northern Irish Protocol? It is time to end the back-and-forth time-wasting over a broken Deal, and trigger Article 16 immediately. This would force the EU to come to the table with serious amendments to the Protocol – more aligned with Lord Frost’s ‘Command Paper’. (You can see a link to this at the bottom of this e-Bulletin).

    It’s about time the EU started to actually respect the Sovereignty of this country, now we are no longer an EU Member State – or they will continue to lose the respect of the rest of the world, while we enhance Global Britain around the globe.

    1. “.. seeming to suggest the UK does not have the NI people’s best interests at heart…”

      Who are they to speak. It is clear that their behaviour does not have the wellbeing of the people of Northern Ireland at heart. In fact they seem to be going out of their way with petty restrictions in creating turmoil in Northern Ireland. And yes, Boris is a useless spineless wimp in these negotiations. He should remind the EU in no uncertain tone, that Northern Ireland is part of a sovereign Britain and not something that needs their version of “welfare”.

    2. I think Boris now has bigger fish to fry. The Green Agenda, alongside of vaccinating the world many times over, is where we’re heading. NI and it’s place in the UK is just small fry I’m afraid.

      1. I am beginning to think he never had any genuine intention of getting Brexit done. He is a liar and a hypocrite as well as an uxorious coward.

          1. The words of Tennyson come to mind:

            “His honour rooted in dishonour stood,
            And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.             “

    3. I think Boris now has bigger fish to fry. The Green Agenda, alongside of vaccinating the world many times over, is where we’re heading. NI and it’s place in the UK is just small fry I’m afraid.

  77. Evening, all. Re the headline: “protect the vulnerable” – we all know the mission will creep like a black mamba. Look at abortion how it morphed from “to protect the life of the mother” to on demand.

      1. Being a herpetophobe, I wasn’t aware there was a green version! I only know the blacks can move like a, well, a racing snake 🙂

          2. It’s ok, they only live in elms, oaks, willows, beeches, chestnuts, ash and fruit trees. You’re safe if all your trees are mango trees, Mon.

  78. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-59009053
    Ex-MP Frank Field reveals he is close to death
    Ex-Labour MP Frank Field has announced his support for assisted dying and revealed that he is dying himself.

    Lady Meacher read out a statement from Lord Field in the House of Lords, where peers are debating a new bill to legalise terminally ill adults seeking assistance to end their lives. It said that he had recently spent time in a hospice and that he was not well enough to attend debates.
    Lord Field urged other members to back the bill in his absence.
    The 79-year-old spent 40 years as the MP for Birkenhead, and briefly served as minister for welfare reform in Tony Blair’s first term in government. He built a reputation as one of the most effective backbenchers in the House of Commons, with campaigns against poverty and for curbs on EU immigration. He quit Labour’s group in Parliament in 2018, saying Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership had become “a force for anti-Semitism in British politics”.

    He was made a non-affiliated, crossbench peer by the Conservative government in 2020, after campaigning in favour of Brexit.

    A number of MPs have sent their best wishes to Lord Field, with Health Secretary Sajid Javid calling him “an amazing, compassionate man”. His sentiments were echoed by Tory peer and minister Zac Goldsmith, who described Lord Field as “a man of immense courage and integrity”, as well as “an extraordinarily effective and independent-minded parliamentarian”.
    Lady Meacher told peers: “Our colleague, Lord Field, who is dying, asked me to read out a short statement.”

    In the statement, he said he “had just spent a period in a hospice and I am not well enough to participate in today’s debate. Had I been, I would have spoken strongly in favour”. It also explained his change of heart on the issue, saying: “I changed my mind on assisted dying when an MP friend was dying of cancer and wanted to die early before the full horror effects set in, but was denied this opportunity.”
    Lord Field said one particular argument against the bill was “unfounded”, adding: “It is thought by some the culture would change and people would be pressured into ending their lives.

    “[But] the number of assisted deaths in Australia and the US remains very low – under 1% – and a former supreme court judge in Victoria, Australia, [talking] about pressure from relatives has said it just hasn’t been an issue.”

    He concluded: “I hope the house will today vote for the assisted dying bill.”

    The new bill has been proposed by Lady Meacher – a crossbench peer – and would give patients of sound mind, with six months or less left to live, the right to die by taking life-ending medication. The person wanting to end their life would have to sign a declaration that was approved by two doctors and signed off by the High Court.

    The bill passed its first stage – known as its second reading – unopposed and will undergo further scrutiny in the House of Lords at a later date. But even if it was passed in the Lords, it would not become law unless it was backed by MPs in the Commons, and the government.

    Lady Meacher and Lord Field are among the peers in favour of the changes, but others have spoken out against the bill, including the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who told BBC Breakfast vulnerable people could face “intangible” pressure to end their lives.

    Speaking in Friday’s debate, another crossbench peer Lord Curry, also opposed the bill, describing how it would have been a “tragedy” if his daughter – who had a learning disability and died aged 42 – had had her life cut short.

    “She breathed her last while we held her hands, a very emotional and precious moment for us,” he said.

    “If someone at that time had offered an assisted dying, assisted suicide option, I firmly believe that in that heightened emotional state we were in, not thinking rationally, we may have been tempted to agree to her premature death. Had we done that, it’d have troubled us for the rest of our lives.”

    1. ‘“She breathed her last while we held her hands, a very emotional and precious moment for us,” he said.
      “If someone at that time had offered an assisted dying, assisted suicide option, I firmly believe that in that heightened emotional state we were in, not thinking rationally, we may have been tempted to agree to her premature death. Had we done that, it’d have troubled us for the rest of our lives.”

      Sounds all ‘us’ and not her, to me.

    2. Actually, we are all dying. None of us is immortal. Le soleil de nos jours pâlit dès son aurore.

    3. By email 18.04 pm – The Second Reading debate of Baroness Meacher’s assisted suicide Bill has just ended. Following mass opposition from over 60 Peers who spoke against the Bill in the debate, Baroness Meacher has not taken her assisted suicide Bill to a vote!

    1. Thanks for that, Rose, it is terrifying. The whole island could go up. Is there any information on the implications for the UK? Water tends to slosh around, are we in line for a repeat of something like the North Sea Surge of 1953?

      1. The last estimate I read was that there could be an incursion of tidal water up to 12 miles inland in the uk, & up to 40 or 50 miles inland on the east coast USA 🇺🇸.
        Probably the worst scenario, but, as they say, there will hardly be time for warnings.

      1. ;-))
        The sun wasn’t up, but a moon like a searchlight lit the whole landscape in that weird, flat steel blue-grey colour that Strand electric called “Blue no 17” for their theatre light colour gels.

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