Friday 23 October: Resourceful life under lockdown without an end date

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/10/22/letters-resourceful-life-lockdown-without-end-date/

660 thoughts on “Friday 23 October: Resourceful life under lockdown without an end date”

    2. ‘Morning, Hugh, as ex-RAF, I too am disgusted.

      I sat out the Cuba Crisis in 1962, confined to the Squadron for 72 hours, all 17 aircraft on the QRA at the end of the runway. Seems we couldn’t do it today because they’d have to get their cornrows and dreadlocks in position before they could even lift a screwdriver to fix a fault.

      “So Russia, welcome in, don’t you like my hairstyle, ooh, you great Slavic bitch, you.”.

  3. Fear not, Peter J Newton; he’s just another “here today, gone tomorrow” politician. I wish I could say that someone less ignorant will take over soon, but there is little prospect of that.

    SIR – It was highly irresponsible of Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, to describe Royal Fleet Auxiliary supply ships as “warships” in the Commons last month.

    These ships can supply our warships at sea mainly because they are classed as merchant ships and manned by civilian seafarers of the Merchant Navy. This allows them to load essential supplies in foreign ports that would deny entry to vessels classed as “warships”.

    Peter J Newton
    Chellaston, Derbyshire

  4. I like the cut of your jib, Brian Ford!

    SIR – How about holding an independence referendum, but in the rest of the UK?

    The Scots might be surprised when their neighbours vote overwhelmingly to wave goodbye, leaving them to their own devices on all matters – including finance. Then we might be spared the smug SNP leader telling those of us outside Scotland how good they are.

    Brian Ford
    Ringwood, Hampshire

    1. Unfortunately, it is the SNP and its supporters which give us English a bad impression of Scots. We must remember, though, that the majority of them voted to remain in the union in 2014.

      1. Yo Aeneas

        The SNP is EUSSR trained

        Keep asking the question, ’til you get the answer that YOU want

      2. Quite so, A…that was the ‘once in a generation’ vote if my memory serves. Unfortunately once Johnson has sold us down the river on Brexit I can see him giving in to the Fishwife. The polls show an increasing majority for independence. I do wish he would grow a pair.

      3. Last year, when we were still able to run our courses, we had several Scottish students from Glenalmond with us. They were amongst the most pleasant, well-mannered, charming and enthusiastic young people who come to us and our students have come from most of the leading independent British schools.

  6. Good Moaning. And Greetings from Old Noll:

    “It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place,

    which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice.

    Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government.

    Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

    Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?

    Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

    Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?

    Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.

    Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.

    I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.

    Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.

    In the name of God, go!”

  7. Test and Trace in Nottingham is working so well that everyone with COVID-19 is in hospital:

    Despite the increase in Covid-19 hospital admissions, Nottingham’s case numbers have started to decline in recent days – as 610.1 cases per 100,000 people were reported in the week to October 18.

    Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/22/nottingham-hospital-postpones-operations-as-ward-exceeds-200-covid-patients-13467027/?ito=cbshare

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

    https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/22/nottingham-hospital-postpones-operations-as-ward-exceeds-200-covid-patients-13467027/

  10. From today’s DT. Germany has been ‘going through the motions’ since the arrival of the Chinese Virus, and yet we didn’t start until June, and Handycock tells us this is ‘innovative’…why is it that we are so reluctant to adopt successful practices introduced by other countries?

    Monitoring sewage to detect Covid-19 outbreaks is effective, the Government has revealed as it plans to expand the programme across the country.

    Scientists have been trialing the method since June, and have found that they can see spikes early on in areas which have low testing.

    The programme to analyse sewage for traces of coronavirus will now be used to provide an early warning for local outbreaks. It can also give a clearer picture of asymptomatic spread, and show a surge before people develop symptoms.

    Officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the method is successfully detecting fragments of genetic material from the virus in waste water.

    Data from this testing, which has been rolled out to more than 90 waste water treatment sites across the UK, is being shared with the Joint Biosecurity Centre as part of NHS Test and Trace.

    The fragments of the coronavirus are passed out from people’s bodies when they go to the lavatory. The detection of the material, which is not infectious, can indicate when a local community is having a spike in cases.

    Officials said the results of testing can give local health teams a clearer idea of infection rates by identifying where there are high numbers, particularly of asymptomatic carriers and people before they start showing symptoms.

    Defra said the project had already worked successfully in an area of the south west of England, where sewage sampling showed a spike in coronavirus material despite relatively few people getting tested. The information was passed on to NHS Test and Trace and the local council who were able to alert local health professionals to the increased risk and contact people in the area to warn of the rise in cases.

    There are currently 44 sites in England where sampling is being done, covering 22 per cent of the population, with plans to roll it out further.

    There are also 24 sites in Wales and 28 in Scotland where sampling is being done, with the projects being led by the devolved administrations and the UK Government coordinating the findings.

    Environment Secretary George Eustice said: “This is a significant step forward in giving us a clearer idea of infection rates both nationally and locally, particularly in areas where there may be large numbers of people who aren’t showing any symptoms and therefore aren’t seeking tests.

    “NHS Test and Trace is able to use the science to ensure local health leads are alerted and can take action.”

    Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: “This initiative is just one example of how we are working across government and with local partners to find innovative, new ways to track the outbreak, slow the spread of the virus and save lives.

    “Monitoring and sampling wastewater offers another tool to help us identify outbreaks early on – helping NHS Test and Trace and local authorities target hotspots quickly and effectively.”

    Scientists from top UK research institutes are now also investigating whether analysis of wastewater can be used to estimate the number of COVID-19 cases in a population.

    Separate work carried out by the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) also identified coronavirus material in London sewage in February before cases were recorded in the area.

    High levels of virus material were detected in March and April, followed by a considerable decrease in May and June, reflecting how the national lockdown curbed virus transmission.

    Other viruses, including Norovirus and Hepatitis, are monitored year-round in sewage by scientists, so they can detect any change in spread of the diseases in the population.

    3. Yo HJ and All

      Monitoring sewage to detect Covid-19 outbreaks is effective,

      If they start at the HoC, the effluent from there through the plimbing or front door will break their instrumnts

      1. ‘Morning, Anne a minor correction, “…grovelling amongst shiite is about above this government’s pay grade.”

    5. “…reflecting how the national lockdown curbed virus transmission.”. They would say that wouldn’t they?*
      They certainly would not say, “reflecting how the virus had run its course…”

      *© Mandy Rice-Davies

  12. SIR – I wouldn’t normally expect to 
find amusement in the Death Announcements of your paper, but Wednesday’s notice about Stephen Davenport – a former sub-editor for the Telegraph who, according to his family, died after a long battle with clichés – caused me to chuckle.

    John Morris

    Malton, North Yorkshire

    1. There are very few people – even among politicians – whom I find as odious and unattractive as George (call me Gideon) Osborne.

  14. Good morning all. A frightful night. If not endless awake, then having nightmares. I hope a bowl of porridge will make me feel a bit brighter.

    No news again, I see.

    2. Good morning Bill

      Nightmares, yes , I wonder how many of us are having them.

      I have has a week of nightmares, why I just don’t know, I can remember bits and pieces, all I want is a good stretch of sleep.

      1. I have recurring nightmares where i am falling from high places. The other one is being lost. If i wake up i just read my kindle.

      2. I have the occasional wakeful night, but generally I sleep like a log. Didn’t wake up till 9.30am this morning.

    3. ‘Morning, Bill, if I cannot sleep, rather than lie awake and starting to think dissonant thoughts, I will get up, make myself a beef tea and, if there are no NoTTLers about, I’ll read a book until it falls out of my hand.

      No nightmares just occasional weird dreams like searching for a sixpence in my dressing-gown pocket. Where that came from I’ve no idea but at least it wasn’t nightmarish.

    4. Taking any medication Bill? Anti depressants, beta blockers like propranolol and some others can do this.

  15. Fraser Nelson in the DT:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/22/elderly-paying-terrible-price-protected-covid/

    “The elderly are paying a terrible price for being protected from Covid

    Sweden’s decision to abolish restrictions on the over-70s raises important questions for Britain

    22 October 2020 • 9:30pm

    Sweden has rejected lockdown and face masks, but infections there are on the rise again. Yesterday, its public health agency published a report noting this – and pointing out that the elderly are at the gravest risk. In any other country, you could guess what would come next: a crackdown or curfew, a ban on socialising, a “rule of six”, no more seeing grandchildren. But what the officials had to say next was – to British ears – astonishing.

    The elderly, they said, have suffered enough. They have spent months being advised to avoid public transport, shopping malls and other parts of everyday life. And the result? Loneliness. Misery. This is more than unpleasant: it quickly translates into depression, mental health issues and mortality. “We cannot only think about infection control,” said Lena Hallengren, Sweden’s health minister, “we also need to think about public health.” An important distinction: focus on Covid to the exclusion of other conditions and you risk lives.

    Sweden is perhaps the first country in the world to make this case so clearly: isolation kills too. We now know much more about the virus, said Ms Hallengren, but we also know more about the side effects of lockdown – and even in Sweden’s case (where restrictions were voluntary) these effects are severe. Her 21-page report found a “decline in mental health” that was “likely to worsen the longer the recommendations remain in place”. So restrictions for the over-70s have been abolished forthwith, even with Covid rising (albeit slowly). And all this in the name of public health, not the economy.

    If Sweden has found this problem, we can expect it here too. Our official surveys show rates of depression doubling amongst the over-70s (and trebling amongst the young) since lockdown was imposed. But here, the debate is very different. When argument is made for Tier 2 and Tier 3 restrictions – outlawing home visits and indoor socialising – there’s no mention of the side effects. Given that most Covid deaths are among the over-80s, it has been assumed that this whole lockdown project is for the benefit of the elderly. But this can overlook how they can be harmed, too.

    Most pensioners in Britain are, at present, banned from receiving guests – friends or family – outside their designated support bubble. The Swedes are now emphasising the effects of such isolation. Lack of stimulation and mobility means increased blood pressure and faster cognitive decline. Studies have shown that unvisited, lonely pensioners are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s and three times as likely to have a heart condition. This is for normal times, when society is open: loneliness may become an even bigger problem when young people are advised by ministers not to “kill granny”.

    Preparing for winter has been a Swedish obsession for centuries, so they have some expertise in how to survive them. It was researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm who found that pensioners with fewer social contacts are 60 per cent more likely to develop dementia. So looking after the elderly means thinking of ways to visit, to get people moving, to encourage them to move about. In Britain, there’s far less discussion about how to make the most of the last years of life. Maybe that is why a pensioner is more likely to die of the cold in Britain than in Sweden.

    You can perhaps argue that the calculation won’t apply in Britain because the virus is now so widespread here that Covid is the bigger risk. But that’s not the argument being made. There’s still a see-no-evil approach to the side effects of lockdown, which are simply not being modelled in the way that Covid deaths are. This makes it far harder for Boris Johnson to balance the risks, or identify the point at which the cure becomes worse than the disease. When Manchester and Yorkshire were put into Tier 3 restrictions, there were plenty of graphs looking at the virus – but none looking at the side-effects.

    The basic point is that it’s not just about the number of years you live, but the quality of those years. Someone aged 60 may be more inclined to go for a lockdown than those in their 80s, many of whom would be quite happy to run the risk, see their friends and go about their life. Those living alone (as almost half of over-70s do) may really struggle this winter: they’re allowed to form one “support bubble” with one other household, but that’s their lot.

    Polls show that pensioners are keen on lockdowns, but we seldom hear from those opposed. We did this week when one octogenarian was stopped outside M&S in Barnsley and asked about the coming restrictions. Two million people have now watched Maureen Eames’ answer on social media, such was her eloquence. She declared herself not overly worried about the virus (“I’m 83, I don’t give a sod”) and unpersuaded of the merits of Tier 3 lockdowns. “I’ve not got all that many years left of me,” she said “and I’m not going to be fastened in a house when the Government have got it all wrong.” Her main concern was for the young, having to pay for the surge in unemployment. She would not pay, she said, “because I’m going to be dead.”

    At times, it seems Britain is still stuck in the lives vs money fallacy – talking as if the problems of lockdown can be remedied by Rishi Sunak writing a very large cheque. He was doing so again yesterday – but money can’t buy company or stem the mounting mental health crisis. Those in care homes are, in all too many places, banned from seeing their family at all – which may make sense in terms of the virus, but is certain to make life more miserable. And probably shorter.

    When Britain first locked down, there was no time to do such calculations. We knew nothing about the virus and it made sense to buy time, to learn more. We can now look around the world and see the effects – not just of the methods of suppressing the virus, but about the mental and physical toll taken by the experiment of lockdown. It may well be that the price of isolation is worth paying: then, and now. But we should, at least, be honest about that price.”

    1. Since the only good programmes are repeats on Freeview, the BBC would be done for if the licence fee went to keep Freeview going, along with one public information and national culture channel, and everyone else had to fight it out in the marketplace.

      This 20% quota, is this representative of metropolitan Britain, and we out in the Shires can be duly ignored because our lives do not matter to those that do?

  17. Normally, I just post a link for TCW articles. However, given the tendency for alternative views – especially medical ones – on Covid to be vaporised, I’m posting this article in full. I’m afraid the video doesn’t transfer, but the words do.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/fear-of-covid-has-turned-into-a-pandemic-of-mental-illness/

    “Fear of Covid has turned into ‘a pandemic of mental illness’

    October 23, 2020

    ON October 17 psychiatrist Dr Mark McDonald spoke at the second Summit of the medical group American Frontline Doctors on ‘Overcoming Fear’. Not on physical fear but the psychological fear that is driving the West’s irrational and destructive Covid 19 response. In a compelling account of the ‘pandemic of delusional psychosis’ that is upon us he calls on us all to stand against the socially controlling Covid diktats issued by governments, corporations and arbitrarily demanded by individuals.

    I thought it deserved the widest possible dissemination. This was not the ravings of a crank it was not far fetched, rather a passionate, lucid and convincing warning from a top-class, highly experienced doctor. But on Wednesday evening when I sat down to watch it again to write a link to it for TCW the video disappeared in front of my very eyes. My screen went black and read ‘Sorry this video no longer exists’. I returned to the main site to find none of the Summit videos available any more. They had all been censored.

    I did finally manage to find it elsewhere on the net. Here is it.

    But in case of further censorship, the text of the main part of his presentation has been transcribed and follows.

    Dr McDonald begins by noting that although the pandemic is largely over, the pandemic of hysteria is not and furthermore now ‘it’s not just fear that’s taken hold of the country’. His speech focuses on how we’ve moved in a matter of months from fear to something even more worrying – a form of ‘group control’ that is and will impinge on our most basic freedoms of choice and action.

    ***

    Dr Mark McDonald: What we’ve done, though, since then is we’ve conditioned Americans, largely, to believe that all of the measures and the fear is actually real, true and helpful. Years ago we were told by one of our presidents that we really don’t have anything to fear, except for fear itself. But now we’re told that fear is good, fear is necessary, in fact, fear is a virtue. We really should be afraid. And when someone in a position of authority says, ‘We don’t need to be afraid. We should express courage and freedom’, that person is castigated, is looked at as not only stupid, but actually dangerous. I would say it’s the opposite. I would say that we not only must fight back against the fear, we must embrace the freedom and we must embrace the courage.

    The problem, though, right now, as I see it, from the position of a psychiatrist, is that a lot of people in this country have developed what I would call a mental illness. There’s a pandemic, not of fear and hysteria alone, but there’s a pandemic now of delusional psychosis.

    A delusion is a fixed false belief that is contrary to reality. Everything that we’ve seen today proves irrefutably that there is no reason for us to either be afraid, or to distance ourselves from others physically, or to wear masks, or a number of other ridiculous measures that we’ve seen instituted in the last six months. And yet people are doing it. And they’re not just doing it out of fear. They’re doing it because they think it’s a moral duty.

    I was in the elevator to my building a while back, less than a month. And I got in halfway up to the floor level. I got in at the parking garage level and there were two people in the elevator that had gotten on in the lobby. We were both going up to the same floor . . . all three of us. And I walked into the elevator and the two were facing me with masks on. And I didn’t wear a mask. I never wear a mask anywhere. And one of them, as the doors were closing, turned to me and he said, as he put his foot physically at the door to keep it from . . . from closing, he said, ‘Would you mind getting off the elevator if you’re not going to wear a mask?’ I declined. And he held the door with his foot. And I asked him why he and the other woman that were in the elevator were concerned about me not wearing a mask, since clearly they were wearing masks that they felt protected them. So why did it matter if I was wearing a mask? And I asked this calmly and I asked it with a sort of sense of curiosity, even though I sensed that they were a little odd. And they had no response. They couldn’t explain it. One of them said, after mumbling a few things that were incoherent, ‘Well, your mask protects me and my mask protects you.’ We’ve heard this phrase scattered all over billboards. It’s on the freeway signs in California. It’s on the public service announcements. But it’s . . . it’s illogical. It’s irrational. It makes no sense.

    And so I paused. I waited for a few seconds and I said, ‘Well, can you explain to me how it is that your mask protects me, but it can’t protect you from me? I don’t understand that.’ And then the other man started to use profanity and screamed at me because he’d lost his nerve. And then the woman walked off the elevator and she turned to me and she said, ‘Well, you know what? It’s a sign of respect.’ They actually felt morally good. It wasn’t about fear as much as it was about virtue. Fear has become our newest virtue. And they got in the other elevator and then we both went up, got off at the same floor and walked out at the exact same time.

    I think this is a bigger problem right now than government mandates. This is my opinion. This is what I see. I see it in my practice, I see it in the elevators. I see it at my friend’s sports team here in Washington DC. His child goes to school. He’s about early teenage years and he is trying out for soccer practice. And there is a woman who stands on the field, she’s not a police officer, she’s not a government official, she’s an employee of the school. And she stands on the field and her only job is to point her finger at the children and yell at them when they pull their facemask down below their nose. That’s her only job. And then to send the kids home if they do that. These are kids that are doing sprints. They’re running around. They’re lowering their blood oxygen concentrations. They’re having trouble breathing as it is. And now they have to put on facemasks – the cloth masks that make it almost impossible to breathe. Even if the mandates from the government ended today, she would still be there. So would the people in the elevator. So would the flight attendant on Delta Airlines that had me removed from a flight last month when I deigned to drink from a cup of water for, in his words, ‘more than three minutes’.

    ‘I now can no longer fly on Delta. I have been officially banned. Because I didn’t have a face mask on for three minutes and thirty seconds. This is not a government rule. This is a corporation that made this decision. Uber now requires that you put on a picture of yourself wearing a face mask to get in the car, if you had previously not done it once and a driver had reported you. Not a government rule. This is a company.

    ‘So we have individuals and corporations, not government, that is now pushing this. Pushing this delusional psychosis into what I would say is the third stage, which is what I’m very, very fearful of right now, which is group control. We started out with fear and hysteria. We moved to delusional psychosis. And now we have group control. Now we don’t have police officers and government coming after us – still, we have some of that – but what we have more of is we have our fellow citizens now castigating us legally, limiting us from getting into vehicles, going into businesses, getting jobs.

    ‘At some point, I suspect, we’re going to be required to get ourselves vaccinated with an unproven, largely dangerous and probably ineffective vaccine. Now they’re going to say it’s not required. But if you don’t have it, you won’t be able to go to school. You won’t be able to get a job. You may end up having to take employee records of the people at your place of work who’ve had the vaccination. If you have employees that don’t have it, those employees will be fired or you’ll be put in jail. So essentially, you kind of have to get it.”

    ‘This, I think, is a really big danger. And it’s completely unnecessary. So once Americans start to serve as police forces, we really don’t need a tyrannical government any more because we’ve already got that. China has that now. They’ve a social points system. If you’re found littering on the ground, someone snaps a picture of it, sends it to the government. Now you lose points. Now you can’t fly domestically. You might not get that promotion. Your kids might be banned from university. This is happening now in China. It’s going to start happening here. In a way it already has. Banned from Uber – that’s like a social points system. You didn’t wear a mask. You can’t actually get into a vehicle now. You can’t fly on a plane. Now, if I had a private plane, I wouldn’t care. But what’s the option? I don’t have the money to fly a private plane.

    So, what do we do about this? This is a big problem. First of all, we have to reject the fear, because that’s where this all started. We have to . . . we have to reject it as unhelpful, unnecessary, and most importantly, that it is not virtuous. Fear is never helpful, and it is never, ever virtuous. No exceptions. What we should do is protect people who are at risk. This is so obviously apparent that I hardly even feel like I need to repeat it, but we have to, because it seems to be so silenced by the public.

    We need to use rational evidence-based prophylaxis and treatment for those who are at risk and those who have early stages of illness. This is so obvious. It’s so simple. It’s so cheap and it’s so effective. We need to use measures like exercise, sunlight, vitamin D, hydroxychloroquine, zinc. This stuff is free or nearly free, and it’s not risky. You don’t need to go to a hospital to get it, doesn’t require an IV like Remdesivir. It doesn’t cost $3,800 per treatment. It’s cheap. It’s effective. It works. These practices reduce risk of infection and risk of complications if one is infected by over 90 per cent, in all of the studies and research published. That’s huge.

    What else? Healthy people should never be wearing masks and isolating themselves, ever. There is no reason for it. These practices offered no proven benefit, yet they confer a significant risk. Just two days ago, 12 children in Michigan in one school came down with a streptococcal infection in the throat. That’s the bacteria in the throat. It does happen every now and then. Kids get streptococcal infections. These kids were all mandated to wear masks. And guess what they were doing with the masks? They were taking them off, putting them in their pocket, putting them on the table, rubbing their hands with them, putting them back in their pocket, putting them back on their face. What they determined at the school was that this mask was creating basically a petri dish of filthy bacteria that was then going from one mask to the other, hand by hand, kid by kid, going down to the throat, causing these infections. That would not have happened had mask mandates not been in place. This has to stop. It has to stop.

    We also know that these practices of distancing and masking perpetuate the delusional psychosis and the fear. They are symbols. One woman well-known in national media said about a month ago that they are walking billboards of fear. That’s what we are, when we have these masks. We say to others, through the mask, that ‘You should be afraid, you must be afraid’ and ‘I’m a better person because I’m afraid and wearing the mask. You’re not, because you’re not wearing a mask.’ This has to stop. It’s not a small thing. The mask is not a small thing. It’s huge. It’s a symbol. And I don’t think we can get through this if we don’t get rid of the mask. So we have to stop it.

    And then finally, I think every healthy person should embrace courage, honesty and freedom, not just in their head, not just in their words, but also in their actions. And they have to do that one by one by one. We need to do that as a society. This is how we get through this. This is how we get to an end point where we are free of burdens and free of illness and not just physical illness, but free of the illness in our heads and we get our lives back. Thank you.

    Why America’s Frontline Doctors are being subjected to social media ‘cancellation’, censorship and to the demonisation of the US MSM I discuss in a separate post today.

    1. Morning all. Thanks Anne for posting this article, really interesting. I have been convinced that the idea is to herd us all into having the vax, with all the consequences mentioned in the article if you do not have it, and the money to be made by big pharma and certain individuals but had not thought of the general public joining in and policing those of us not wearing a mask.

      I do get some strange looks when shopping without one but just ignore them and carry on. Nobody has yet actually said anything, except for the guards on shop entrances (no mask today?) in that case I just show the “badge” printed from the government website saying “I am exempt from wearing a face covering”.

      When will common sense break out in government? Deaths are way down and the virus will be around for ever so we must just adapt to it. They will not relinquish control of us willingly, something has to break.

      1. Funnily enough, this morning I had a call from the GP surgery, offering a flu jab. I turned it down.

        2. Gosh you are favoured, an actual call! We had text messages a couple of weeks ago and we both turned it down. Will we be able to do that with the Coronavirus jab? I very much doubt it if we want to travel anywhere.

    2. Thank you Anne.
      As you commented to me a week or so ago. ‘There is far more to living than not dying’.

  18. Good morning everybody, sunny and bright in south Hampshire, but it’s not expected to last.

      1. Sunny and bright here in Norf Zummerzet, way way above the grey clouds and drizzle.
        Oh joy!

          1. Morning Belle,
            No visit to the Lookout Cafe today then.
            You can always tell when the situation subconsciously plays on your mind, I almost called it the Lockdown Cafe, perhaps I should follow your dogs example and have a snooze!
            When I awake a visit to a farm shop beckons, it comes to something when that is a welcome distraction in Boris land.

          2. Exactly VvOF

            When I am sorted and up and about , I will be visiting our local Edinburgh Wool outlet which will soon be closing , for good!
            Hope I will be able to find some bargains.

          4. Currently, I feel as if I’m living exiting in a recurring nightmare. The sort where you dream you are paralysed and wake up gasping for breath and frantically trying to move the covers.

          4. He’s the cause of all the rubbish being dumped around the countryside he slapped a tax on getting rid of ‘unwanted stuff’ and trade waste.

  19. Good morning all

    How is it that there are so many hungry children in Britain.
    Have parents abdicated their reponsibility to their youngsters, and why do so many women have so many children by so many different men?.

        1. The good people (aka the brain washed sheep) might be.
          This is Essex, remember; home of the Revolting Peasants. Simon of Sudbury regretted trying to parlay with them.

          2. I know of it, but never seen it. My ex-sister-in-law (we’re still good friends) lives only a few doors down down from St. Gregory’s.
            At the moment, I assume the CoE would worry about me giving Simon a dose of Covid.

    2. Someone’s got to push the national quota for BAMEs up to BBC-approved levels.

      It’s a woman’s right to reduce men to wallet and sperm donor. The more they can harvest, the more they can claim. Plenty more arriving on the boats.

    3. Good Morning Maggiebelle

      Having children is now a right rather than an obligation and the obligation is for the state (i.e people who have to pay their taxes) to provide for them. And why are none of our politicians prepared to be honest about this?

      The deputy leader of the Labour Party, Angela Rayner, notoriously called a Conservative MP ‘scum’ a couple of days ago. In fact she did not go far enough! There are very few MPs on either side of the house who do not fit into this category.

      I married at the late age of 41 – but as we had moved to France to set up our business Caroline and I decided not to start our family until our business was well established and we would not be dependent on the state or anyone else to provide for them. I did not become the father of Christo until the age of 47 and of Henry at 49.

    4. Families with too many children to cope with are already living on the benefits handed out per child. And hand outs because they have never worked.
      People who really struggle are those with jobs, a mortgages, taxes and utility bills to pay, whilst they still have to find enough money to put their youngsters in pre-school child minding situations, this comes after maternity leave and they return to their jobs, even with children around a year old and upwards. This can also have a tremendous side effect on those families who are in this situation. No financial help is handed out as a matter of course.
      I think if the general public were aware of how much money was spent on our live-in scroungers, there might be a justified uproar.
      When we see what the average pensioner is given to live on, most of whom have worked all their lives, a lot of them would be better off in jail. At least their savings or hard earned properties would not be confiscated to pay for ‘care homes’. And they’d get free TV.
      What goes on behind the scenes in this country now, is quite scandalous.

      1. Good morning RE

        My feelings exactly .

        I cannot add any better than that and of course the self employed are totally overlooked by government !

        1. self employed are totally overlooked by government

          I was one of many TB, after paying in to the system for 53 years including making up the difference in payments when i was overseas for 6 years, totally ripped off by the UK government even my annuity was wrecked.
          I well remember going to the benefits office after i had had two ruptures discs L3 and 4, i went to see if i could get some financial assistance. This fat git (and apt description) leaned back hands behind his head in his comfy padded office chair behind his counter and said ” you wont get anything, because your self employed”. I wanted to plant a heavy object on his head.
          I went to a tribunal on the health issue to no avail, and took things up re my pension entitlements with my then MP Peter Lilley.
          All a total waste of time. It didn’t matter that i had paid in for 23 years more than the now 30 years i was not entitled to any more than the basic.
          If the politicians and civil servants had the same pension entitlements as the general public, then i believe it might be a different kettle of fish.

    1. “Halfcock – you pretend to enforce these stupid rules and we’ll pretend to observe them.”

    2. BTL comment there:

      “Well like Mrs U, I don’t know how I’ve survived my transgressions. I
      collected my youngest granddaughter from High School, or Plague Central
      as it’s now known. We sat unmasked in a closed car, she actually came
      into my house, ate food that I’ve cooked, without gloves. When she left,
      I took my life in my hands and gave her a hug. Today, eldest
      granddaughter is bringing her washing when she comes back from her one
      lecture a week at Uni, trailing Covid across the threshold with her. And
      to top it off, I had an 30 second unmasked conversation with the
      Morrisons delivery chap on the doorstep this morning. I might even go to
      Aldi this afternoon, if they have cleared all the bodies away from the
      door. I am really living life on the edge at the moment, like Russian
      Roulette.”

  22. Good morning my friends

    Reposted from very late last night

    DT Story

    Brexit: Michel Barnier says UK and EU have ‘huge common responsibility’ to avoid no deal.

    A bit rich coming from the man who has done his best to punish Britain and make things as difficult as possible.

    All right then Barnier – finally you must shoulder your responsibility. What we want is:

    i) To bin the WA agreement;
    ii) To have a ‘no strings attached’ free trade deal;
    iii) Complete freedom from all EU jurisdiction.

    And that’s just for starters.

  23. So – © Telly tart – 68% of contributors to any beeboid programme is allowed to be white and without disability….

    I am bound to say that that does not reflect the world in which I live.

    Thank God I gave up the BBC in 2002.

    2. I know a local old chap who was taken to court over his lack of TV licence, he let them babble on and on as he has not had a TV for 20 years.

    3. If every company hired according to the BBC quota we would run out of Bame’s. Will they prosecute the companies that can’t recruit them?

      1. 325856+ up ticks,
        Afternoon N,
        He does err on the simplest of things being human but on major issues worth listening to and evaluating, no hint of treachery.

  25. Morning all.
    As things in the UK become more and more out of order, our useless politics forge ahead with more eff ups.
    https://www.bitchute.com/video/iYhoZ5KzRFRh/ i don’t agree with all of what this guy says, but do watch this to the end, less than 15 minutes, this it’s such an eye opener as to the dreadful things that are happening to our once well run and ordered ordered society.

  26. Moh was based up in Scotland in the very early 1970’s, when his squadron( RN Seaking helicopters moved to Prestwick)

    We rented a house on the outskirts of Ayr , quite close to a mining village . We were there during the miners strike ..Do you remenber the power cuts and shortages?

    The miners suffered enormously , no financial assistance , there was alot of hardship amongst their community .

    Because we lived in a very rural area, there were no 2 car housholds in those days .. Ours was a very elderly green Mini traveller, so shopping trips were always a problem .. Our young son was 3 years old , and we also owned our first spaniel .

    Half a mile up the lane was a farm, arable and diary and sheep , 2 brothers and their unmarried sister ran the farm , they were all probably in their sixties +

    I used to walk to the farm several times a week to buy my milk .. I had a metal pail with a lid, probably took 3 pints or more , but it was filled up with spillage in mind for my journey home .

    The people who owned the farm were kind and generous , and Jean the sister had an old fashioned black cooking oven range which always had a huge kettle bubbling away, and either a big pot of leek chicken and tattie soup on the boil, or leek and tattie and lamb stew .. and baked marrow bones!!!

    She said that the pots of stew lasted three days with top ups.. and the marrow bone contents were scraped out and spread on toast.

    The farmhouse had a cool larder room where all her fresh food stores were kept, and would you believe a very large bowl of beef dripping with meaty jelly underneath.

    The dripping bowl contents were quite the most delicious I have tasted. She insisted that my little son and I stopped for a bite to eat, , a small wadge of freshly made bread , and dripping to spread on the bread and a bowl of soup, perfect on a cold day.

    This time of the year brings back memories like that, the simplicity of the food offered, the flavours and the kindness shown. People existed on the simple easy meals of leek and potato and bread and dripping , and apple crumbles, that even those in extreme hardship hardly went hungry.

    Am I being naive here, and is cooking just such an expensive difficult thing to accomplish these days?

    1. You had me with the dripping (try Smalec if you can find it in your local Polish shop) and marrow on toast – loverly grub!

    2. I had a similar conversation in the butchers the other day.
      We were both essentially saying “Thank goodness summer is over and we can cook proper food again”. In our case, oxtail stew and slow roasted lamb shoulder.

        1. The choices are more limited by temperature.
          I just find summer dishes rather boring to cook.

        1. If you can get it, Harry, try oxcheek for the beef. Cooked low and slow it becomes beautifully tender without shredding.

          3. Ox cheek is wonderful too, Tom – when you can get it. Mine comes from Devon Red Ruby grass-fed animals.

          5. In our paean to slow-cooked (once) cheaper cuts, we managed to overlook a slow-cooked (8hrs+) hand & spring: tenderest meat, best crackling.

      4. The butcher at the local farm shop provided me with a whole ox heart on Wednesday. Approx 2 kgs of beef for the princely sum of £3.00. I will feast upon beef stew and the dog will deal with the gristly bits which will have given their goodness to the gravy during cooking.

          1. Please don’t mention pearl barley in any context relating to decent food…. even the smell of it cooking makes me want to retch. It’s the mucilage which causes the problem and I simply can’t swallow it, from being a tiny until now, it’s beyond me… even for the sake of good manners. Barley is the worst, but tapioca and sago have a similar effect. I’ve never even been able to bring myself to attempt okra.

            I used to boil gallons of barley to make gruel for scouring calves, but I had to keep the kitchen door shut and mashing and bottling it was a major effort in self-control. But it worked for the calves.

          3. It was a bit difficult when I was small and Scotch Broth was a regular on the school menu….

          5. Our school dinner lady was a dragon (not for nothing was she known in the community at large as “snappy Annie”) and leaving food one didn’t like was simply not permitted. On the other hand she was neither blind nor stupid. I would sit, nibbling the accompanying oatcake as slowly as I could to help absorb the liquid, struggling to eat the vegetables and as much of the liquid as I could choke down until everyone else had finished their meal and left the dining room. At that point she would remove the bowl – without a word of sympathy or any recognition of my struggles – and simply give me my second course. She had realised early on that if she tried to force the issue I would, quite simply, be sick, but in no way was she going to encourage fussiness.

            School dinners were two courses either a main course and a pudding or, on soup days, soup and a main course; so I didn’t have to go hungry, but I lost most of my playing time and it was a miserable way to eat lunch.

          6. I had a similar experience with Miss Davies (never knew her first name) about swede, which she made me eat. I was sick!

          7. I never had a problem with swede, I have always been happy with brassicas… the only exception being kohl rabi – and I can eat that if I need to for the sake of good manners.

            Mrs Ironside (her official title) had been round the block many times by the time she had me in her dining room, she knew the ones who were really struggling quite well. There were one or two others who got similar treatment for a particularly difficult foodstuff.

            The ones who “could but wouldn’t” would have to sit until they ate it – every last scrap. We had one boy who arrived in school aged about 7, his mother cheerfully stated that he would eat nothing but potatoes, by the end of term there was nothing he didn’t eat – though there were not a few tears and tantrums along the way. His younger sister started school the following year with a similar attitude to food – sorted within a month.

    3. We don’t do the dripping but everlasting soup is a regular feature in Chateau Kobeans. The secret is to grow as much as you can and don’t buy any foodstuffs that come in a box.

      1. ‘Afternoon Harry.

        I will never stop making dripping and lard. I am due to render own some lard from some pork back fat today. It is a vital ingredient for my pastry and bread cobs. I always keep a tub of pork dripping from roast pork to spread on bread. Insanely delicious and exceedingly good and nourishing for you. Far healthier than all those disgusting Frankenstein “spreads”.

      2. We don’t do the dripping here any longer , but we enjoy the stews and vegetables when the weather changes.

        The thing was , in those days in Scotland that I was referring to , none one in that area had central heating , all coal fires or parrafin or log fires when the coal strike was on .

    4. Most young people haven’t been taught how to cook a meal from scratch. That’s why there was nearly a riot in London when the chicken shops closed. If the food runs out we are three days away from societal collapse.

      And on that cheery note. Good morning, Belle.

    5. Good memories!

      Cooking simple food like that is not difficult – but people cannot be bothered, or don’t know how to. All this fuss about children going hungry because the government has put a stop to free meals for kids during the holdays – where is the responsibility of these parents to feed their own children?

      We did it when ours were young – no child benefit for the first child in those days and not much for the second.

    6. Cooking is not expensive but there is a lack of teaching children how to cook when a lot of families, poor included, who survive on take always and ready meals.

          2. My old man once gave me a salad spinner for Christmas. He got a new Land Rover. It was quite a quiet Christmas!

          5. Or a new ironing-board cover. Always a favourite, that look on her face on Christmas morning……

          1. Essentially, yes.
            But with greater variety, though I’ve not tried the dessert settings.

        3. That’s what Best Beloved cooks the oxcheek in for the Kate and Sidney – wonderful. Exacto (© a viking) the same that she bought for herself.

          1. It does everything a crock does in a fraction of the time. Mine also does high speed roasts. The beauty of it is that you just throw all the ingredients in, set the program and walk away.

          2. I just rub two sticks together, place a cauldron over the fire, then boil some nourishing whippet and turnips.

            What will you do when there is no longer any electricity or gas?

      2. When wifey helped at our local food bank, they tried bringing in cooking lessons for the recipients. Most had never been taught any kitchen skills so although we live in a rural area, with an abundance of fresh food freely available through the food banks, many could not go beyond the instant meal in a microwave gourmet delights.

        Having made a dent in that problem, they were then faced with a few who had really enjoyed the cookery lessons but had no cooking facilities where they lived. Literally back to a cold tin of beans and a tin opener for them.

        1. It’s unbelievable in this day and age isn’t it.
          You could adequately feed a family of 4 with a pound of mince. Or buy chicken legs which here go for about £2 per kilo and, again, would feed a family of 4 with a few added vegetables.

        2. The lack of decent cooking facilities is a problem for more families than one would wish to believe. There’s also the fact that although food is considerably cheaper in real terms than it was in the past the cost of housing in the UK has escalated enormously.

    7. No, it isn’t. However if I were to make a crumble, it takes me a good 2 hours what with all the chopping, soaking and mixing.

      This isn’t a protest, it’s simply that we don’t have a lot of time. Much of the weekend is spent preparing fodda for next week.

  27. Not long back from the dentist having one fewer teeth, an extraction, and a lighter wallet.
    In and out in 20 minutes.

      1. It was mostly filling and went into the bin. Surprisingly quite painless, I guess the anaesthetic worked.

        4. I asked my dentists a tiny Iranian lady when she would extract the tooth I anticipated loosing. She had already done it without my knowing. What a change from the whiff of gas and the smell of chloroform before the graunching struggle to pull the tooth by its dripping root.

  28. 325856+ up ticks,
    May one ask,
    Are these so called governance party’s linked to the terrorist fraternity ?

    Two Weeks After Fatal Stabbing, Knifeman Revealed as Known Islamist Extremist with ISIS Links

  30. A decent Desert Island Discs for a change.

    Dr Averil Olive Mansfield CBE ChM FRCS FRCP (born 21 June 1937) is a retired English vascular surgeon. She was a consultant surgeon at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, central London, from 1982 to 2002, and in 1993 she became the first British woman to be appointed a professor of surgery.

    It was a pleasure to learn of her. No ‘wimmin’s libber’ her, she leads by example.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averil_Mansfield

  33. Some more unhappy scam call receivers:

    SIR – Every call made to my landline (Letters, October 21) is a wrong number, an inquiry about an accident that was not my fault, or is from a criminal. I don’t mean that figuratively – it is literally true, with no exceptions.

    “Hammersmith Police Station” is a frequent caller, as are a number of banks with whom I do not bank, as is “Microsoft”. The latter needs my credit card details to fix a computer virus and swears at me when I refuse.

    The problem went away when I stopped answering the landline altogether. I now use only my mobile, on which I have never received a scam call. It’s drastic, but it works.

    J P Redman
    London NW11

    SIR – Will Rumsey (Letters, October 21) should buy a BT nuisance-call-blocker phone. Once you have entered all your acceptable contacts into the memory, any other caller is forced to announce themselves. You can then choose to take the call or block it. Scammers, cold-callers and pre-recorded messages don’t get through because they don’t announce who they are.

    I wish I had a similar system on my mobile, as I, too, had a fake call from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. It was a pre-recorded message, so no one heard my extremely colourful reply.

    Pamela Giles
    Bushey, Hertfordshire

    SIR – I have assigned a distinctive ringtone to all the numbers in my contacts list on my mobile phone, so I now ignore all calls that come through with the standard ringtone. I can check the missed-calls list at my leisure, but most people who really need to get in touch with me would send a text message if their call was not answered.

    A J Bennett
    Letchworth, Hertfordshire

    SIR – My strategy is to keep the caller waiting while I get the householder, Mr Longwait.

    I then make a cup of tea.

    Dr Robert McKinty
    Darlington, Co Durham

    Pamela Giles, I can block unwanted calls on my mobile (although some of the scammers frequently change their numbers). You should try it.

    Dr McKinty, the trick is not to answer nuisance calls, because if you do you will recieve further calls from them once their system knows that some poor sod has answered! JP Redman has the right idea, although he should now consider asking his provider for a ‘line-only’ service, and make a saving at the same time.

    1. Dr Robert had better get the telephone point moved to the cludgy, he’ll be there a lot pumping bilges from all of that tea.

  34. What’s your mental image of a Police Superintendent?? A grizzled old thief-taker passing on his expertise to the next generation??

    Meet Elisabeth Chapple a former head of “Human Resources” at a bank who joined the Met 6 years ago as a “Direct Entry Superintendent”

    “Direct Entry Superintendent is a fantastic opportunity

    for those with senior managerial/director experience in the workplace.

    This is a chance to use your skills and talent to help make an impact on

    policing, the local community and wider society in a way you never

    thought possible, as well as gain real policing skills in a prestigious

    management career.”

    https://recruit.college.police.uk/Officer/leadership-programmes/Direct-Entry-Programme/Direct-Entry-Superintendent/Pages/Direct-Entry-Superintendent.aspx

    This is the women (who has obviously never made an arrest in her life) who instigated the now abandoned hate crime investigation of Grimes and Starkey………

    Since promoted to Chief Super I wondered just who has greased her wheels so successfully,being a cynic I googled her name and Common Purpose,answer came there none except…….

    “Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe”
    ‘Nuff Said

    5. Direct Entry Superintendent….now I really have heard it all. No wonder the police are so useless these days!
      Heaven forbid the bosses would ever have soiled their hands with actual police work!

  35. Today’s DT Leader – attempt to control a generally uncontrollable virus and wreck the economy in the process? I know that our politicians are slow on the uptake, but after six months you would think they might have cottoned on by now…

    Given the disastrous impact of local lockdowns upon the economy, the Chancellor had to take action to increase taxpayer support for businesses – and the steps he announced yesterday meet that challenge. But the pain he is compensating for was caused by Government policy, policy that is only becoming more draconian as winter approaches.

    The original furlough scheme ends next Saturday. The Job Support Scheme (JSS) that replaces it was intended to balance better the contributions of government and employer, and to distinguish between jobs that could survive the lockdown measures and those that perhaps could not. Support for businesses that found themselves closed under Tier 3 rules was set much higher than for those still operating in Tier 2 – but, in practice, this has proven deeply unfair. Tier 2 employers have had a double blow: still open but with demand in freefall because of the ban on households mixing indoors. With Birmingham and London in Tier 2, and with yet more areas set to follow, the Government needed to adjust.

    The Chancellor is now reducing the number of working hours required to qualify for the JSS, and increasing the amount paid by the Government; doubling support for the self-employed; and promising cash grants of up to £2,100 per month for hospitality, accommodation and leisure businesses, backdated to August. All this shoots Labour’s fox because it was a far more generous package than expected, and Labour is left peddling the ridiculous idea of an England-wide lockdown. On the other hand, the Opposition is quite right to point out that the Chancellor’s original winter support programme did not even make it to the end of autumn, and what replaces it is really just an extension of the old furlough.

    In which case, when will it end? Government policy boils down to suppressing the spread of Covid-19 until a vaccine is found. Will the financial support stop if and when said vaccine materialises? What happens if, as suspected, the vaccine does not eradicate the disease – and Covid becomes an endemic virus with which we must “learn to live” (as we have been warned on more than one occasion)? Will the lockdowns continue and, if so, the financial support?

    This is not just a matter of economics – although this programme is incredibly expensive and it is surprising that there are not more Conservative voices warning about the cost – but it is a question of quality of life, of what exactly defines the good society. The national clinical director in Scotland, Professor Jason Leitch, has told Scots to prepare for a “digital Christmas” stuck at home, which would not only be calamitous for many businesses but a serious blow to people’s mental health.

    At his press conference yesterday, the Prime Minister said that Britain must sail a path between the Scylla and Charybdis of over and under-reaction to Covid, characterising those who want to shut everything down as unreasonable, which is fair, and those who question lockdowns as “laissez-faire”, which is not.

    At this stage, almost no one is in favour of doing literally nothing; most mainstream sceptics are simply asking whether we can afford these very harsh measures, whether they are necessary and proportionate, and whether they actually work. When Britain has a relatively poor record on handling the coronavirus balanced by a terrible economic performance, critics are entitled to ask “is this a middle way, or is it the worst of both worlds?”

    There is an obvious tension within Government between those who favour measures that are as tough as possible and those who argue for keeping as much of society open as possible, not least because of the catastrophic costs of continued restrictions. That debate is largely taking place behind closed doors; the proper place for it is out in the open in Parliament. Britain urgently needs to interrogate the underlying assumptions driving policy.

    Leading BTL comments:

    Adam Peters
    23 Oct 2020 6:46AM
    The Great Barrington Declaration is by far the most sensible approach. Open the economy, lift restrictions, get back to work and focussed protection on the elderly and vulnerable. Lockdowns are financially devastating and at best only delay infection rates. The virus is something we have to live with.

    Am I alone in thinking Ln
    23 Oct 2020 6:55AM
    The decision to aim for zero positive test results, until a vaccine is available, all whilst the hospitalisation and mortality rates are completely normal; and killing the economy and society with the ‘medicine’ is most definitely the worst of both worlds.

    1. It strikes me that what is needed is a Canute (Cnut) to illustrate that Covid WuFlu is a tide that cannot be turned by man and, like the sea, will continue to come in waves, the size of which depend upon the prevailing weather.

      Yes, I strongly back the Great Barrington Declaration – is that a Canute that has deaf ears turned against it?

  37. How the BBC plans to help win back the red wall.

    Get wall to wall coverage of a former MP who is now a local politician, ignore the fact that his main job is sorting out the bins and the parking and portray him as some sort of Jon Snow, King of the North from Game of Thrones.

  38. ‘I was shocked by everything’: an asylum seeker on arriving at Kent intake unit. 22 October 2020.

    Abia is a 29-year-old female asylum seeker who fled the conflict in Yemen and arrived at the Kent intake unit in the middle of July 2020

    Her journey through seven countries had been difficult before she reached Calais where she paid smugglers for a place on an overcrowded dinghy with 20 others – four women, one child and 15 men.

    She said that although they were given food it was very unfamiliar to her, and she could not eat it. “I had no money with me at all so it was not possible to go and buy any alternative food. I had no privacy when I was there and wasn’t able to have a shower.”

    Morning everyone. She travelled through seven countries and paid smugglers at Calais and yet had no money for food in the UK? One also has to ask how is it possible for anyone to cross half of the Middle East and the whole of Europe without ready cash? Even if they walked the whole way, which they clearly do not do, they would still need to buy food as an absolute minimum. In reality there must be bus and train fares and accommodation however basic, since exposure is always a possibility. Clearly the whole truth is not being told here. One suspects that the Home Office Ferry across the Channel is just the last step in an assisted passage scheme.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/23/i-was-shocked-by-everything-an-asylum-seeker-on-arriving-at-kent-intake-unit

    3. If she was hungry – really hungry – she would eat the disgustingly “unfamiliar” food.

      If she was an asylum seeker – she would have kissed the ground of the first country she reached and asked for asylum there and then.

      She is an illegal economic migrant. And she be deported pronto.

      1. The High Court has now made that impossible. Anyone, anyone at all has the right to a hearing in court, including illegal immigrants. The lawyers, paid for by us, will prolong court hearings time after time for as long as they can. Meanwhile the illegal immigrant is free to rape girls and adopt cats. If the court declines the claim to asylum, the illegal immigrant will vanish into the crowd. There is really little possibility of illegal immigrants being deported. Any deportation order is immediately opposed by the harridans of human rights organisations.
        I’d be interested in knowing the cost to the taxpayer of an illegal immigrant, accommodation, phone bills, food and entertainment, pocket money, and legal fees, as well as the indirect costs of police time, officials time, court time and the like.

        1. I can’t help wondering, Horace, when Priti Awful will get round to repealing the Human Rights Act.

          1. I think her hands are tied until we are out of the clutches of the E.U monster. But then it might be too late as we will all be in hock to the globalists and if we want to survive we will have to do as they tell us.

          2. Yesss. Hmmm. That will be after we leave theEU. So holding one’s breath is not good idea.

    4. ‘She has as much right to be here than we do’ – thinks The Guardian.

      Hands up all those who remember the Brits being shot to death on the streets of Aden and the slogans ‘British Go Home’ on walls? We came home (not really ours, but …) and strangely they followed us.

  39. Morning all

    SIR – I am 83, with underlying medical problems, and my wife is not far behind.

    We have survived wars and many an economic crisis. We are used to managing risk. In common with most of our generation, we do not expect or want the younger generation to suffer as a result of the draconian lockdown measures being implemented.

    We, perhaps with a little help when needed, can protect ourselves at a fraction of the cost of the current measures.

    S K Morgan

    Easingwold, North Yorkshire

    SIR – Here in North Wales, I will today be doing my last decent hill walk with my daughter before the new lockdown is imposed at 6pm.

    After that, even though my wife and I are pushing 80 and I am asthmatic, my daughter will not be allowed to see us, even outdoors, although she only lives in the next house to us. This being a sparsely populated area, that means she is a half mile away across some fields. So maybe we should start learning semaphore.

    Dr Brian Wareing

    Penyffordd, Flintshire

    SIR – A couple in our late 70s, we face a continued, long period without close contact with our families. Fortunately, we enjoy each other’s company.

    Due to her health, my wife is unable to travel long distances. So she had not seen her mother, living 200 miles away, since July 2018. On Monday afternoon, aged 100, her mother died of natural causes in her excellent and virus-free nursing home. No family member was with her.

    To lift our spirits when the first virus lockdown was brought in, we took to Skype to “meet” family members. We also participate in telephone friendship groups in our community. We are all in touch frequently.

    We are careful people. We stay physically away from others in public spaces. We do not eat in restaurants. But we do go shopping, because our local supermarket has been exemplary in managing service and customers in its car park and indoor floor space.

    We live in a Tier-1 sliver sandwiched between South Yorkshire (Tier 3 from Saturday) and the Tier-2 areas of Derbyshire. We are far from being demoralised.

    Government rules are an attempt to control the spread of the virus while scientists seek a vaccine. “Partying” antics by some seem connected with higher levels of infection.

    Three consistent rules to shield the elderly and vulnerable are clear. I wear a face mask outdoors; I stay two metres away from other people and I wash my hands frequently after touching anything outdoors. I have done this since March.

    David Blackwell

    Clowne, Derbyshire

    SIR – I do hope that Boris Johnson has lost the Dorset piece of his Lockdown jigsaw as he tries to complete his map of England.

    Nigel Lines

    Ferndown, Dorset

    1. A lesson in how to inflate the figures of positive tests. But then we knew we were being lied to anyway.

      1. And the poor darling is trying to maintain her sanity in the midst of this mayhem.

        Morning Minty

  41. SIR – I am fortunate to work as a private GP in central London. Our clinic has been open since March and we have been seeing patients in person.

    After lockdown our footfall was reduced, but we stayed open, checking that no one entering the clinic had symptoms of Covid-19. Patients who had were sent to 111 clinics. We have observed social distancing, worn personal protective equipment and have cleaned the clinic fastidiously. None of our staff have contracted Covid-19 working in the clinic, and neither have our patients as a result of attending.

    We have also been very busy seeing seriously ill patients who have been unable to access their GP since March in a face-to-face appointment and see no alternative but to pay for this privilege. Some have needed urgent hospital admission, some have been referred for urgent cancer care and others have been treated on the spot.

    We are running at maximum capacity and would have difficulty seeing more patients; we may have to recruit due to the increased workload. Unlike NHS services, if we do not see patients, we are not paid.

    Dr John Lawson

    London SW1

      1. That is what i pay. For that you get a longer conversation/consultation and you can talk about more than one thing that is bothering you. Unlike my GP.

      2. That is what I was quoted when I enquired re shingles vaccine (did not include the vaccine). I think it was for 20 mins. Slightly cheaper than private dentistry.

        1. Shingles vaccine is the one I would advise. Lifetime cover for a very nasty and debilitating illness.

          1. I should have had that when I turned 70 – instead I got shingles last year.

            When I went for my flu and pheumonia jabs on Tuesday (never bothered before) I was advised to have the shingles one as it can occur more than once.

    1. Even the statement that it is a ten year contract – I’ll come back to that – means 290 million a year. With – if my memory is correct – 365 days in a year, that’s about a quarter of a million a day. Assuming the properties the illegal freeloaders are living in are already owned and paid for by the tax payer and this is for a lease agreement (which I do not believe) what, in the name of trousers is the money being spent on?

      Oh! Hang on. Troughers. Lots and lots of six figure salaries.

      As for a ten year contract – absurd. It should be for one year with an option to continue for a year at a time, with costs strictly controlled and reviewed.

      1. It’s just an efficient way of transferring money from ordinary people into the pockets of troughers.

        1. They all have access to lawyers at our expense. They get on the plane, off the plane, back to the removal centre, and the cycle begins again.

          1. And those taxpayer funded lawyers will be mainly from the RoP culture – ensuring our nations culture gets destroyed ASAP.

    3. I wonder how many of our political classes will have ‘pay offs’ and investments in this.
      Where as it would probably only cost a few hundred thousand to get rid of them all. and keep airlines in productive business.

  43. (Reuters) – Serco and Mears have won contracts totalling 2.9 billion pounds from the British government to provide accommodation and support for asylum seekers, lifting shares in both outsourcing firms.

    Valued at 1.9 billion pounds for Serco and 1 billion pounds for Mears, the 10-year contracts were awarded by Britain’s Home Office Visas and Immigration department under the Asylum Accommodation and Support Services Contract (AASC).

    Shares in Serco were up 6.5 percent at 108.8 pence at 1253 GMT on Tuesday, while Mears rose 6.2 percent to 360 pence on news of the new contracts, which sources told Reuters last month had attracted few private sector bids.

    The British government is awarding contracts worth a total of 4 billion pounds to house asylum seekers, the sources said, but last year’s collapse of Carillion has dampened appetite for riskier projects.

    Serco bid for parts of the AASC contract despite having hundreds of millions of pounds in losses in 2016 from its predecessor, when refugee arrivals and costs outstripped budgets baked into fixed contract terms.

    “The hope is that … the risk/rewards on this contract are much more attractive. The structure of the new contract is very different and does not have volume risk and the same level of penalties,” Liberum analysts said.

    Annual revenue from the new contract is expected to be about 150 million pounds for Serco in 2020, compared to about 70 million pounds in 2018 on the previous version of the contract.

    “In 2020 and thereafter we expect the AASC contracts to be materially positive to both profitability and cash flow”, Serco said in a statement.

    Mears, which specialises in social care and housing services, is the only newcomer to the asylum contract since 2012, the sources told Reuters.

    Serco has won the contract for the North West of England and the Midlands and East of England regions, where about 20,000 asylum seekers are living.

    Mears has been awarded contracts for Scotland, Northern Ireland and the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber.

    https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-serco-group-contract/serco-mears-win-2-9-billion-refugee-housing-contracts-in-britain-idUKKCN1P216Z

    JANUARY 8, 201912:46 PMUPDATED 2 YEARS AGO

        1. It would be very interesting to know exactly how many are being put up, and where.
          Also how many are single male, single females and how many are families.
          Also the numbers by age groups.

          I suspect a freedom of information request would get precisely nowhere.

          1. The areas mentioned are Covid infected areas.

            Why don’t the press inform us as to who is infected and the nationality of who has succumbed to the virus!

          6. Holiday Lodges are being built near Jedburgh, around 40 of them, large and close together. Looks like a prison camp rather than a resort. Consider that successive Scottish Governments have been very eager to accept immigrants, the climate for holidays, and one wonders if the holiday homes are intended for some other purpose.

          7. Most arrivals are, as we have seen – -young single males – they are more likely to actually get here – THEN the family get the “right”???? to come and be a burden and a danger to our culture and us. Clearly the Priti and Dan show are there to welcome as many as possible. Fear for the little white kids here – it can only get worse for them every year.

          8. Slight correction Mr Walter:

            “Young single military age males”.

            Perhaps that’s why the Government is so afraid of them?

          9. The last video I saw of some being offloaded in Dover by BF showed all of them as that, none looked as if they had slept rough, ever. Every single one was well over 6ft tall and certainly NOT malnourished. Every one wore clean clothes, washed and had neatly cut hair. Claims of penniless and fleeing persecution certainly did NOT appear to be correct.

          10. There are at least 4000 on the watch list at the moment who are a potential danger to the general public. The Government has been entirely negligent and will one day pay for their sins.

          13. I’d be delighted to see the Government pay for it’s sins.

            I just don’t want the British public to suffer.

          1. Nothing is lost on the internet if you copy and paste the whole article and repost.

            It’s why i don’t understand Facebooks policy of removing anything that doesn’t fit the narrative. That was what Zuckerburger and the others designed it to be about originally. I suppose now he is one of the mega rich he has changed his tune.

    5. I’ve had a report from the Midlands that a 100 year old lady was diagnosed positive with COVID-19.
      She later tested negative but subsequently died of scepticemia after a urinary infection.

    1. And people clamour for more taxes. This is what you get with a big state, awash with other people’s money.

    2. As you say beyond parody. Under whose orders is this happening? It’s utterly ridiculous. How quickly our freedoms are being removed. Without much protest too it would seem.

      1. There’s a long article posted this morning, explaining that people feel virtuous in using masks and the lockdown, so approve of it. In fact, to prove their virtue, they want, actively, more, so they can demonstrate how much “better” than others they are.

    3. I’ve just been to Morrisons. Two members of the Stasi were stood inside the doors to intimidate the customers into wearing their masks!

      1. Two members of the Stasi were stood standing inside the doors to intimidate the customers…

        Or are you saying they were life-sized cardboard cut-outs?

    5. I have no sympathy for any voter who cast their vote for the Welsh Taliban (aka Lab)
      Perhaps they will think twice before voting for them next time…….. who am I kidding, stupid is as stupid does.

    1. Bill’s cousin, Dylan, might say that you’d be a No Good Boyo if you bought any.

    2. The Welsh flag under these rules could be considered a non-essential item unless it were edible. I wonder how that would play out.

  49. “I’ve sent you a photo of my hard-on. Tell me what you’d like to do with that tonight.”

    “Mum’s driving,… Dad. Do you want me to show her the pic?”

          1. Dad texts his wife for a fun session later. Daughter answers phone because mum is driving. Dad realises daughter has just seen a rude pic of him. Cue red faces all round.

            Not funny now. 🙁

          2. i was being a bit dim.

            I do not have a mobile phone and so I don’t ever send text messages or photos by this method. My sons say that I am a Luddite – whatever a Luddite is!

          5. Likewise pictures of dogs, small children, flowers (enthusiastic gardeners) etc. Video clips too. One of the light reliefs of my lockdown was a series of little videos of my youngest great-nephew sent by his mother to lighten my darkness.

  51. Good morning all and BUGGER!
    Thought I’d catch an hour on the next section of the wall and was barely up there two minutes when the first drops arrived!
    I need to dig out another 8′ and get another 5′ of shuttering in ready for the next lot of concreting. I’m dumping the spoil from the digging out behind the bit of wall I’ve already done to give me a level bit of ground.
    After the concreting I’ll be needing another 60 or so high density blocks delivered and humped up the garden!

    As a side point, I’m playing with a little Suffolk Punch lawnmower engine in the shed that’s been hanging about for years in need of a bit of TLC.

    1. Peaceful Rebellion with a catchy slogan…….any ideas Nottlers?

      “We Shall not be Moved”…….won’t work if we’re in Lockdown!

  53. Jan 10th 2020

    That’s when the Vietnamese government started taking action against what was known then to be a form of viral pneumenia.
    Since then there have been no reported COVID-19 deaths in the country of nearly 100 million.

    Was this down to closing air travel early, sealing the country’s borders, ramping up testing of what became known as COVID-19 or quaranteening the infected population in military facilities and student accommodatiion?

    Or was it just government spin from a unitarian state?

    https://youtu.be/LDk9CW82puo

          1. I was speaking to our friends in Perth WA earlier this week.
            Steven being very worldly and in business deals with Chinese business men, was telling me of the diseases chinese bats were effect with around a year ago. He said they were falling out of the sky and the people were actually feasting on them.
            And becoming very ill in the processes.
            It was also said that the monkeys which had been used in laboratory Virus experiments were putdown and somehow were sold on at the local market in Wuhan. Who knows ?

          2. Plenty of rumours as to how it started – but we know it came from China and that’s enough for me.

          3. Some peoples’ are adverse to hand cleansers and sterilising solutions as they contain alcohol.

      2. Yes, Bill, quite right.

        It’s not the COVIDs that kill you it’s tiny little clots in your blood vessels that eventually can make all your organs fail.

        Resveratrol in red wine
        Resveratrol might help prevent damage to blood vessels, reduce low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (the “bad” cholesterol) and prevent blood clots.

        https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-disease/in-depth/red-wine/art-20048281

        You keep reminding us of the appropriate medication that has the resveratrol protective effect — could be even better than a vaccination but we do need some volunteers to take part in a scientific study:

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fd1e2c4637b70e66c6b6ce65790fed65b7531840aea0b4eb780546126df646c7.gif

    1. A dog or a wife?(!)

      1. The later you are, the more excited your dogs are to see you.
      2. Dogs don’t notice if you call them by another dog’s name.
      3. Dogs like it if you leave a lot of things on the floor.
      4. A dog’s parents never visit.
      5. Dogs agree that you have to raise your voice to get your point across.
      6. You never have to wait for a dog; they’re ready to go 24 hours a day.
      7. Dogs find you amusing when you’re drunk.
      8. Dogs like to go hunting and fishing.
      9. A dog will not wake you up at night to ask, if I died, would you get
      another dog?
      10. If a dog has babies, you can put an ad in the paper and give them away.
      11. A dog will let you put a studded collar on it without calling you a
      pervert.
      12. If a dog smells another dog on you, they don’t get mad. They just think
      it’s interesting.
      13. Dogs like to ride in the back of a pickup truck.
      And last, but not least:
      14. If a dog leaves, it won’t take half of your stuff.

  57. DM Story

    ‘I am kept awake by climate failures’: Prince William reveals he gets upset over politicians’ failure to combat climate change

    Speaking to campaigners, Prince William, 38, said he doesn’t understand why ‘those who have the levers’ don’t do more to tackle climate change emergency and that their failure to act keeps him up at night.

    The science is settled as they always say – before it becomes evident that it isn’t.

    It seems that science is really just a question of fashion. Some science, like fake news is acceptable – other science is not.

    Is William going to emerge as just as lacking in wisdom as his younger brother?

  60. Belated ‘Morning All

    This leaves me in paroxysms of rage and horror on two counts……..

    https://twitter.com/GerardBattenUK/status/1319400840730390529
    1 What utter bastard issues such an order
    2 Possibly even more important who OBEYS such an order
    Truly what have we become??
    Edit
    Forgot this little beauty,not checked fully but the source has been reliable in the past
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWqUCyHWDQk
    We need crimes against humanity charges at the end of this

    1. This is likely the same situation for the daughter of a friend of ours. Daughter diagnosed with kidney cancer, too ill to be looked after in hospital now, needs hospice care, only 2 named visitors allowed. She has 5 children but will only be seeing her husband and mother. How unbelievably cruel and callous. Where’s the compassion?

    2. 325856+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Rik.
      I watched him last night , put the You tube link of the interview up this morning, worth watching.

    3. I think the callous way Boris Johnson treats the women with whom he is intimately involved gives us a pretty good insight into the fact that he is a heartless, callous, self-seeking, sadistic monster. No wonder that he does not give a toss about people who actually love and care for each other like this poor old dear who has been robbed of her family..

    4. They should have stormed the hospital, pushed those aside who tried to prevent them….. it would have made the media….. they would have stood up for something in their lives, in the words of Winston Churchill. Words fail me and I am in tears writing this. Who will set the ball rolling with charges of crimes against humanity? How can we go about it? What is the procedure? I can only echo your WHAT HAVE WE BECOME ?

      1. I have been advocating such charges for months now against the doctors who have allowed the sick to die when there is a cheap safe and effective treatment. The departments of Health and the media, the Democrats and the Left.All should be called to task. What was your motive? Who devised the Lancet trial? Who gave the patients toxic doses?

        1. If only Trump had rubbished Hydroxy, etc. the Leftards would have relished advocating and adopting it.

        2. Sadly, nobody is ever likely to face justice for that. It continues to this day. That report about why more dark-skinned people died didn’t seem to think Vit D was a possible cause.

      2. 325856+ up ticks,
        Afternoon PM,
        Who gave it legs on twitter ?
        I would back him if he returned, but I would say that wouldn’t I ?

  61. Husband, 37, who was jailed for three years for making wife film him having sex with 29 CHICKENS can still keep hens as pets due to legal technicality
    Man jailed for three years for sex with 29 chickens is still allowed to keep hens
    Rehan Baig, 37, from Bradford was filmed violating the birds in sick home videos
    However, a legal technicality meant he wasn’t charged with any cruelty offences
    Judge forced into U-turn as he had ‘no power’ to ban pervert keeping animals
    By CLARE MCCARTHY FOR MAILONLINE

    PUBLISHED: 12:39, 23 October 2020 | UPDATED: 13:22, 23 October 2020

    Rehan Baig, 37, pictured, was jailed for three years this week for having sex with 29 chickens but is still allowed to keep hens as pets due to a legal technicality

    A sick husband who got his wife to film him having sex with 29 chickens can still keep hens as pets due to a legal technicality.

    Pervert Rehan Baig, 37, was jailed for three years this week after killing the poultry during intercourse with several white and brown chickens.

    As part of his sentence, the judge had banned Baig, from Bradford, West Yorks, from keeping animals for life but has been forced to make a U-turn.

    Despite the ‘depraved’ and ‘perverted’ acts against the chickens, Baig wasn’t charged with any cruelty offences and the lifetime livestock ban has been lifted.

    Judge Richard Mansell QC said: ‘I have no power to prohibit him from keeping any animal.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8871843/Husband-jailed-having-sex-29-CHICKENS-hens-legal-technicality.html

    2. 10. Disqualification from ownership of animals

      Where an offender is convicted of one of the following offences under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, the court may disqualify him or her from owning or keeping animals, dealing in animals, and/or transporting animals (Animal Welfare Act 2006, s.34):

      causing unnecessary suffering (s.4);
      mutilation (s.5);
      docking of dogs’ tails (ss.6(1) and 6(2));
      administration of poisons etc. (s.7);
      fighting etc. (s.8);
      breach of duty to ensure welfare (s.9);
      breach of licensing or registration requirements (s.13(6));
      breach of disqualification order (s.36(9)).
      The court is required to give reasons if it decides not to make such an order.

      The court may specify the minimum period before an offender may apply for termination of the order under section 43 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006; if no period is specified, an offender may not apply for termination of the order until one year after the order was made.

      Disqualification may be imposed instead of or in addition to dealing with the offender in any other way.

    4. Now we know why the chicken crossed the road.

      Judge Dick QC should have jailed him for being a vile disgusting pervert.

      1. Be fair – he didn’t understand our pathetically narrow-minded view of these things. He is a “visitor” after all.

          1. They prolly came from the chicken concentration camp at the end of the garden. The company is owned by slammers.

      2. Why did the pervert cross the road?

        Coz he still had his kn0b in the chicken…..

        Ack: Rik Mayall.

    7. Apparently he had heard the tune “Do . . .Do . . . Do . . .the funky chicken” – – and thought he would.

    3. I find that if I scroll the picture off the top of the screen and then slowly bring it back into view, I see the young one. If I then scroll it off the bottom off the screen and bring it slowly back on I see the old one.

          2. Seriously – I tried a pair and was sick in the gutter. A horrible sensation. Never again.

          3. I like mine
            And otherwise I would need three pairs and would be constantly changing, depending what I was looking at or reading.

          4. I have a pair for reading – on a string round my neck. I also have a long-distance pair which I usually forget as my vision has changed rapidly in the last two years. Old bleeding age, I imagine.

          5. I hope you have regular check ups.

            Much to my optician’s surprise, my eyesight is actually improving as I age.

          6. If you were short-sighted that will happen as the eye ball elongates with age, apparently. People who were long-sighted just get worse.

          7. I like them. I can drive & see the road clearly, then read the instruments on the dashboard.

            I also found them useful in the surgery – working in the patient’s mouth, then looking at the computer screen 2m away.

          12. I was the same, Bill, actually in tears, vowing to go back and get separate pairs. I was persuaded to persevere and it took two weeks before I felt even acceptably comfortable, but thereafter (10 years now) it’s been fine – and very beneficial.

          13. En-route to the eye clinic yesterday, I had my varifocals with me. I was given a lift to the nearest bus stop, and they were steaming up, so I slipped them into my pocket. When I took them out and put them on again, they didn’t work. When I poked myself in the good eye, I realised that lens had escaped. Happily, it was still in my pocket. I needed it for the initial eye test. As luck would have it, I had four pairs of specs which were destined for the ‘donations’ bin. So I rescued the out of date distance pair, which got me through the vision channel. I foresee a trip to Specsavers.

          15. Off topic but I am getting fed up with that bitch JSP continually downvoting me and attempting by so doing to draw me into arguments with her, pea brained though she is. I am not bothered by downvotes as such but whilst freely available it is not the way on this forum is it?

            I really hate the idea of blocking people so hope that some other remedy is available. I am frankly sick of this silly argumentative woman who clearly resents professionally qualified and experienced practitioners. From the downvoting pattern the silly woman has two equally obnoxious supporters, each presumably bearing some historical grudge.

            I object to downvoting because it is disrespectful and shows an inability to argue for an alternative view.

            This wretched woman leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. I doubt that I am alone in this thinking on this forum.

            If this is allowed to continue I will finally quit this forum for good. I am heartily sick of the abuse.

      1. The way England are playing cricket these days, they could do with some smuggled runs…

        I’ll get me box.

    2. I loved the way he completely stitched up the prison governor. Who then committed suicide.

  64. Yer Welsh wanqueurs must be barking. If a shop is open, and the public are allowed in, why on earth can they not buy what is on the shelves?

    Where is the logic, Boyo?

    1. Reduced choice = reduced time in the shop?

      Or, more likely, petty-minded bullying bureaucrats are loving their moment in the sun.

      1. I’ll go with “petty-minded bullying bureaucrats … loving their moment in the sun”

      2. It has arisen as a result of a plea from the Federation of Small Businesses that small businesses not be put at a disadvantage during this period of lockdown so close to Christmas by allowing the supermarkets to sell whilst they are forced to close. It’s not logical, but then lockdown isn’t logical. There has been no clear definition given of what is, or is not, essential.

        Supermarkets/off licences in Wales have not been allowed to sell alcohol after 22:00 in areas where curfews were introduced – which was at least more logical than the English method of closing the pubs at 22:00 and leaving the shops to sell booze into the small hours.

        Scotland has forbidden the sale of alcohol before 10:00 for years now, the supermarkets don’t police the aisles – they just won’t accept it at the checkout until after that time.

        1. Well thank goodness there is at least some logic to it.
          I despair of how the politicians are killing the economy.

          1. Just be thankful that you are not the one who is likely to be caught in a road block on your way to work on Monday and asked “whither goest thou”. Fortunately work is still permitted – but only just.

          6. The pretence to intelligence combined with innate intolerance.

            You really don’t need to describe yourself. We’ve all noticed.

          10. I was thinking about lipstick and pigs. Farcical is it not? The pretence to intelligence combined with innate intolerance.

            There’s the start of the argument. A direct and entirely unprovoked attack.

            A downvote (as valid as an upvote) is (like an upvote) earned by the comment to which it is attached. It is, in fact, the opposite to a desire to have an argument. It is a criticism of the comment without challenging the spite and malignancy which I know that the deserved riposte would bring. Just as an upvote is an acknowledgement without a desire to enter into conversation.

            Just accept that I’ve as much right to be here, as much right to vote however I choose and I will continue not to make unprovoked attacks – something which you do not seem to able to reciprocate.

          13. If we cannot “work from home” – which, of course, really means work at home – then we may go to work.

            I always work from home; being self-employed my home is, technically, my place of work, but that doesn’t mean that I do most of my work here…. I don’t.

            Those who are employees, whose place of work is elsewhere, cannot work from home by definition; but many have, recently, been working at home and some, who had returned to their places of work, will be doing so again for the next fortnight.

            I’ve noticed that most of the dining tables (I work on a wide variety of dining tables) have been given an extra polish before my arrival this year and we do, carefully, maintain a safe distance. I’ve never been in the habit of hugging clients, though I have cuddled quite a few babies (clients’ children and grand-children) over the last 25 years so maintaining an anti-social distance hasn’t been difficult. Since farmhouses are also “places of work” I’ve yet be obstructed, though I was asked to explain my presence on the highway a couple of times between late March and early July, and I fully expect to encounter the same at some point in the next 2 weeks.

    2. I guess you’re forced to shop online, where Big Brother doesn’t accept cash and can more easily keep tabs on you Boyo?

      1. Reminds me of the joke: An Englishman an Irishman and a Scotsman go into a pub…..but what about the Welshman? The Welshman is already in there.

        Difficult to imagine the men of Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham staying away from their pubs.

    3. It is to discourage what they call non-essential shopping. And to see how far we are pushed before we go choppy choppy. Not long now.

      1. Yes, dear, I know that. My point was – if the effing shop is open – why can’t you buy everything that is on sale?

          2. I posted earlier that when food becomes unavailable we are three days from societal collapse. We have seen in all our previous riots since we let the wogs in that mayhem, looting, rape and pillage soon follow. Just take a look at what is happening in Democrat cities in the U.S.

          6. Nine and a half stone now and moobless but i have to work on my abs. Very difficult as i don’t like exercising so i thought i would employ someone. I will sit on the floor with my legs in front of me and someone can push my upper body up and down. That would work wouldn’t it?

          8. Yup. I remember the Brixton riots back in 1981. The wogs trashed shops in Abbeville Road near Clapham Common. The next year they threatened my wife with knives and stole her handbag causing immense disruption to our lives.

            Enough was enough and we moved to Cambridge and commuted. Curiously the commute from Cambridge took about the same time as the tube from Clapham Common to South Kensington.

            Years later a shop front I designed for a Carluccio’s in a leafy area of South London was stoved in by niggers and the patrons forced to hide in the kitchens as the blacks pilfered the place.

          9. Yup. I remember the Brixton riots back in 1981. The wogs trashed shops in Abbeville Road near Clapham Common. The next year they threatened my wife with knives and stole her handbag causing immense disruption to our lives.

            Enough was enough and we moved to Cambridge and commuted. Curiously the commute from Cambridge took about the same time as the tube from Clapham Common to South Kensington.

            Years later a shop front I designed for a Carluccio’s in a leafy area of South London was stoved in by niggers and the patrons forced to hide in the kitchens as the blacks pilfered the place.

    4. A Welsh spokesman on the 5pm BBC radio 4 news said it was to ensure that those shops which were closed during the lockdown would be disadvantaged by supermarkets selling those products which they usually would be selling. No list given of “non essential items” which would be affected. Clothes and newspapers were suggested.

      1. Just a load of far-left, swivel-eyed polytechnic “lecherers” (sic). Who know nothing of commercial life, or business or shop-keeping – but spot power at a hundred miles.

        One hopes yer Welsh voters remember their misery come the next election.

          4. But not Bangor is y coed. Brough Scott (the former jockey, now presenter) said that he went all the way to Bangor for one (NH) ride – only to find that there was no racecourse there and he should have gone to Bangor is y coed.

          12. Too true.

            Edit: My dad was born in 1910 in Newport and died in 1978. He was affected by his experiences in India and Burma during the War where he served in the Royal Artillery. He was the third child and eldest son of a family of 14 children. His younger sisters were almost the same age as my eldest sister.

            He suffered mental illness and was incarcerated for a while in a mental asylum in Wells after assaulting my mother. He never spoke about the War and I never reached an understanding with him.

          14. Yup. The house was demolished years ago. I have a moreorless complete family history going back two centuries. I think our lot were also descendants of the Hyetts of Painswick but work has stopped my investigations for a while.

          21. Elementary really – your surname isn’t Jones (unless of course Thomas is a pseudonym)…/

          28. It is interesting to note that the request for this restriction of trade was made by my local MS.

            Far from far-left he’s a Tory.

            Far from knowing “nothing of commercial life” he has a business of his own and is part of an extended family who have been business people in Montgomeryshire for about 150 years.

            It is to be hoped that local voters will, indeed, remember.

          1. As some f*ck arse has removed 175,000 upvotes, I care neither a jot nor a tittle for one down vote!

          2. You should be so lucky…

            The idiot “bot” is still removing votes, you may well be minus a million by now.

          3. I mighthave guessed which miserable, frustrated wanqueuse would have down-voted. Typical. No wonder she lives alone.

          4. And to be fair, if HG and the MR were not infinitely patient, I can think of two misanthropes who might be living alone.

            };-O

          5. When your pants are pulled down, wear them on your head with pride.

            But don’t forget to wibble.

        2. we had an absolute MN a few weeks ago with our bank they seemed to take money from one account when it wasn’t; authorised and put it into another account but we sorted it out after many hours of personal woe.

    3. The information you have is not what you want.
      The information you want is not what you need
      The information you need cannot be obtained

      FFS why didn’t Joe include the full source references?

  67. I’ve got to go chaps and chapesses but remember it’s bad news for dyslexics this weekend, as on Sunday morning all their cocks go black.

  68. I see that Tom Kerridge has a programme on saving the British pub.

    The pub is a focal point of the community across the UK. It is one of the old constants, where people congregate with like minded friends or “people of their own kind”.

    Of course the God-damned politicians and NWO fanatics want to kill them off, they symbolise community rather than open borders.

    Good luck Tom.

    1. I wonder what the comparison is for pubs in Muslim areas as to non-muslim areas works out at. Nah, i already know. Though Tom is wellmeaning he won’t go there.

      1. That’s why they’re such miserable b****rds – they can’t have a nice pint of beer and good conversation in their local.

  69. Before I go (thank God, I hear you say), I’ll leave you with a heart-warming story of wifely love.

    In January – the last time we had a two-week break – we were able to go to a FREE (seats usually €100) technical rehearsal of Act 1 of “La Bohème” at the Opèra de Monte-Carlo (the little gem of the Salle Garnier). We arrived, queued and were able to get seats immediately behind the conductor – in row one of the stalls. It was a wonderful experience. An international cast – all in their jeans and T-shirts – doing their stuff. Remarkably clever use of the very small stage. A memorable afternoon. We were just sorry not to see the rest….

    Unknown to me, the MR discovered that https://operavision.eu/en included this opera in its dozen or so streaming versions. And last night, we were able to watch the real thing – with all the chaps in costume etc. Talk about a brilliant, unexpected treat. But that’s wives for you…!

    Anyway – I am off.

    A demain

    2. We watched a modern version a few weeks ago on Freeview, either Sky Arts or BBC4, I cannot remember which. Rather odd, as it was modern dress of sorts, with camper vans. It was open air and the front of the stage got wet as it was bucketing with rain. The orchestra were at the rear of the stge. The audience watched from cars a la “drive-in”. It was not too bad.

      1. Oh, I watched the match, but avoided the nonsense beforehand, although one could hardly avoid the sight of big supposedly tough men sitting in the seating area reserved for coaches, miles from each other, up high in the stand, on a typically rotten evening in Edinburgh, wearing masks.
        Switched on just exactly at the kick off. I skipped the half time prattle also. Was there something I missed?

  72. DM Story

    ‘I am kept awake by climate failures’: Prince William reveals he gets upset over politicians’ failure to combat climate change

    Speaking to campaigners, Prince William, 38, said he doesn’t understand why ‘those who have the levers’ don’t do more to tackle climate change emergency and that their failure to act keeps him up at night.

    The science is settled as they always say – before it becomes evident that it isn’t.

    It seems that science is really just a question of fashion. Some science, like fake news is acceptable – other science is not.

    Is William going to emerge as just as lacking in wisdom as his younger brother?

    1. Our lives literally revolve around cycles: series of events that are repeated regularly in the same order. There are hundreds of different types of cycles in our world and in the universe. Some are natural, such as the change of the seasons, annual animal migrations or the circadian rhythms that govern our sleep patterns. Others are human-produced, like growing and harvesting crops, musical rhythms or economic cycles.

      Cycles also play key roles in Earth’s short-term weather and long-term climate. A century ago, Serbian scientist Milutin Milankovitch hypothesized the long-term, collective effects of changes in Earth’s position relative to the Sun are a strong driver of Earth’s long-term climate, and are responsible for triggering the beginning and end of glaciation periods (Ice Ages).

      Specifically, he examined how variations in three types of Earth orbital movements affect how much solar radiation (known as insolation) reaches the top of Earth’s atmosphere as well as where the insolation reaches. These cyclical orbital movements, which became known as the Milankovitch cycles, cause variations of up to 25 percent in the amount of incoming insolation at Earth’s mid-latitudes (the areas of our planet located between about 30 and 60 degrees north and south of the equator).

      The Milankovitch cycles include:

      The shape of Earth’s orbit, known as eccentricity;
      The angle Earth’s axis is tilted with respect to Earth’s orbital plane, known as obliquity; and
      The direction Earth’s axis of rotation is pointed, known as precession.
      Let’s take a look at each (further reading on why Milankovitch cycles can’t explain Earth’s current warming here).

      https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2948/milankovitch-orbital-cycles-and-their-role-in-earths-climate/

    2. “Those raindrops are fallin’ on my head, they keep fallin’
      So I just did me some talkin’ to the sun
      And I said I didn’t like the way he got things done”.

    7. I think, if this is what’s really happening within the royal family, that I’m a British republican.

    8. If William is the true heir to Charles’s barminess, it could really spell the end of the RF. We can put up with one weak monarch, but when the heir is looking as bad or worse, the majority will get restless.

  75. Asylum seeker pupil who worried parents complained ‘looks 40 years old’ is ‘pictured’ after he joined school in Coventry as teenage student
    Photographs emerge purporting to show the student following pupils’ concerns
    He is believed to be asylum seeker from West Africa who joined Coventry school
    Girl shared images of him on Snapchat which have now been put on Facebook
    Her mother was then called into school to discuss concerns that it was ‘bullying’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8872507/Asylum-seeker-pupil-Coventry-looks-40-years-old-pictured.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailUK

    3. And should he assault or rape or impregnate a classmate, who will take the responsibility?

      1. In this country – -inevitably it will be classed as the victims fault. The offender will probably end up claiming compensation for his trauma. A crime like that will get him safely here for life, claiming he will be persecuted back home for his crime here if deported. So he won’t be. Free life here – for destroying someone else’s.

      2. As with the German boy who was buggered at the swimming baths, Nothing. They accepted the assailants plea of it being a sexual emergency.

        1. It seems that the only way these things ever start to change is if it happens to an MP’s child or similar.

          1. I used to think that but a German official whose daughter was raped by one of them made appeasing statements. One has to ask oneself why he wasn’t enraged. Probably wanted to keep his job.

          2. A German official “enraged”? Such people haven’t been enraged for, er, generations. Just ask any passing Pole

          5. I’ve just looked it up, there are explicit photos of the murder scene and a picture of the grinning piece of shit who killed the lovely young lady. It brought a tear to my eyes.

          6. Yes – and these are the people who Europe is supposed to welcome in thousands, pay for, house, feed, etc etc. The photos really are sickening.

          7. What have our useless political classes done to our long established and fought for cultures ?

          9. I wonder what his wife and daughter think of him.

            He probably regards himself a a true Christian offering forgiveness and thinking that the savage will reform.

    4. I have yet to see a picture of him. Perhaps he had a bad time as a child or has some health condition that makes him look older than he is. Alternatively he is a full grown man. It’s not the first time this has happened.

      In the earlier days of this invasion TV crews were allowed to film the arrivals. It was obvious to anyone that those arriving claiming to be children were men in their 20’s. Now cameras are not allowed.

      1. Talking about cameras not allowed.

        As the 24th October is the anniversary of Vidkun Quisling’s death, will we see photos of the MPs attending the memorial service?

          1. Well, he needs to go to school to learn to read and write so that he can claim his old age pension. Stands to reason.

          2. No need, Bill; the literature is translated (at enormous cost) into dozens of languages and audio is available as well for the partially sighted.

    2. It is obvious that forcing people to inhale their own exhaust is both potentially unhealthy and will cause lasting problems from oxygen depletion and possible brain damage.

      I liken the wearing of masks to the effects of air pollution. All the evidence of the initial spread of Covid 19 was that areas such as Milan were heavily polluted and that this contributed to the ease of transmission and infection.

      It is as though the PTB want us all to die.

      2. They do. It is also more subtle. Brain damage caused by oxygen starvation brought about by masks does not get better. The intention is that all native Britons become brain damaged, thereby reducing our IQs to the level of incomers. What the EU would call a “level playing-field”.

  77. One million Hong Kongers coming to UK could generate £6bn in tax revenues
    Eligible Hong Kong residents looking to escape Chinese state repression can sidestep tests that other migrants will face from January 2021

    Up to one million Hong Kongers could take up the UK’s citizenship offer to escape Chinese repression, netting the UK economy nearly £6 billion in tax revenues, a Home Office assessment has revealed.

    The influx – as a result of the Government’s fast-track immigration lifeboat for Hong Kongers – would see up to 500,000 arrive in the UK in the first year, dwarfing any previous similar scheme, from the 15,000 Windrush arrivals in the 1950s to the 28,000 Ugandan Asians in the 1970s.

    The total potential one million spread over five years would be larger than the population of Liverpool and would bring the number of Chinese in the UK to 1.5 million, overtaking the number of Indians at 1.4 million.

    However, it is the potential economic uplift that could have the biggest impact on the UK, with the Home Office’s estimates putting the “net positive impact” at between £2.4 billion and £2.9 billion over five years, “the majority attributable to additional tax revenue.”

    This is based on the £6 billion generated for the Exchequer through tax revenues minus the cost to the state from the incoming Hong Kong families’ use of health, education and other public services.

    Under the scheme, Hong Kongers who have, or are eligible for, British National Overseas (BNO) passports will be able to sidestep jobs, skills and income tests that other migrants will face from January 1 2021 and secure five-year UK visas.

    They will not be entitled to claim benefits and will have to pay the health surcharge and visa fees. They will also be expected to be able to accommodate and support themselves for at least six months and demonstrate a commitment to learn English and have no criminal record.

    The scheme was launched after the UK suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and slapped an arms embargo on the territory in response to China’s national security law on the former British territory.

    It means that from January, BNOs and their immediate family can apply for 30-month or five-year visas to live, work and study in the UK, and can seek British citizenship once they have been in the country for more than five years.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/10/22/one-million-hong-kongers-coming-uk-could-generate-6bn-tax-revenues/

    3. “They will also be expected to be able to accommodate and support themselves for at least six months and demonstrate a commitment to learn English and have no criminal record.” – -Aren’t ALL of the new arrivals supposed to support themselves or leave ? – -but none do.

    4. Can we swap them for 1 million muzzies? I understand the Chinese know how to deal with them.

    5. The supposed net positive impact of up to £3bn will have been more than wiped out with the contracts given out to Serco and Mears paying for the gimmegrants. It’s more pie in the sky.

    2. The man’s wife had turned to him and said ” You have just been to the Russian nuclear meltdown site and the radioactivity has caused the material in your underpants to rot – If you don’t get new ones now – Chernobyl Fallout”.

    1. This is ‘interesting’ Monmouthshire is/was part of England.

      The official line, upheld by legal opinion, was that it was part of England, but could be ‘linked to Wales for administrative purposes’. Monmouthshire was included in the 1889 Intermediate and Technical Education (Wales) Act, but was not in the Sunday Closing (Wales) Act of 1881.

      And perhaps it still is as it’s not mentioned as being in Wales here

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preserved_counties_of_Wales

  83. I enjoy cooking for myself and mostly it’s damned good…………..
    Not tonight,two days in the making Lamb keema and peas,greasy overprocessed lamb mince(waitrose)horrible texture and my sauce and spicing was rubbish too
    Whole lot (at least three meals worth) straight in the bin!!
    Egg and chips is looking good {:^((

    2. Minced lamb is very fatty. You should use it only for burgers or meatballs & the like. For curry or hotpot I buy diced shoulder of lamb & I can cut off most of the fat before cooking.
      Better luck next time.

    3. Top tip. Spread the lamb thinly on a baking tray and roast it. When done pour the fat off.

      There was a cafe in Brum called Mr Egg. Like the Monty Python spam sketch. Egg and chips. Ham, egg and chips. Sausage egg and chips, Pie and chips with an egg on top. Many other combo”s too. Beans with everything.

      Plus you got bread and butter and a pot of tea.

      Cheap as chips it was…

      1. Re: Top tip.

        I have a silicone mat with very small holes, I put this on the
        baking tray, the meat doesn’t then lie in the fat at all.
        some barbecue disposable trays look as if they would do
        the same job.

        Good morning, Dear One.

  84. Grumpy ‘Night All

    Normal service resumes

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a66d51d1671e55a4e9be0f5b73668732216f0971c426f6747ea8617c2f5c599a.gif

    Gingers rule……………..mostly

    https://media1.giphy.com/media/1d5Kyis2SAMLc0ja74/giphy.gif

    https://media1.giphy.com/media/t7MWRoExDRF72/giphy.gif

    https://media4.giphy.com/media/12foepFRqYc6gE/giphy.gif?cid=ecf05e4765be1ee43914d6691fe45495d544afaf39fe7cd1&rid=giphy.gif

    https://media3.giphy.com/media/Rt3xpiV6KfibC/giphy.gif

    https://media1.giphy.com/media/8vQSQ3cNXuDGo/giphy.gif

    https://media2.giphy.com/media/3o85xGRWMlHdGB1vMs/giphy.gif?cid=ecf05e4789bn3r6tohgqu725exl069hwrys88ite79hvzo3v&rid=giphy.gif

  86. The PM must avoid a Brexit deal which looks like success on the day but brings failure later

    There’s a danger that the pressure to get an EU pact becomes greater than the pressure to get it right

    CHARLES MOORE

    The word from the resumed Brexit trade negotiations is that it is boiling down to fish; and therefore to the French. Emmanuel Macron still demands his – or, rather, our – maquereaux. The problems of subsidies and the “level playing field” also remain, and also bother the French.

    EU negotiations are often thus, and it is partly why we have grown so sick of them over the past half-century. Euro-doctrine is generally preached in the high language of ever-closer-union, with the sound of Beethoven’s Ninth playing in the background. But when the pommes frites are down, it frequently turns out to involve small, noisy interest groups, such as pêcheurs putting out from Boulogne.

    Well, you might retort, there aren’t many groups smaller than our own British fishermen, so isn’t it pot and kettle? To which one returns another question: “But why are they so small?” The answer is: “Because of the EU.”

    We have been here before, when it all began. Stephen Wall, who used to be Britain’s permanent representative (ie, ambassador) to the EU, is the best informed, most succinct chronicler of our membership. Although a strong, even passionate, Remainer, he has the true historian’s gift for understanding and summarising views that he does not share. His new book, Reluctant European (Oxford), tells the whole sad story of Britain’s involvement from 1945 to Brexit.

    Sir Stephen vividly describes how, when Britain tried to enter in the Sixties, it was the French who made the trouble. General De Gaulle, who understood the British mentality and knew it would not fit with his protectionist continental entity, said “Non! ” twice. He wanted, in Harold Macmillan’s words, to be “the cock on a small dunghill”.

    When Edward Heath’s government was desperate to gain entry in the early Seventies, the existing Community of six, led by France, saw their chance. “In an act of pre-emptive and ruthless self-interest,” writes Wall, “[they] had decided to equip themselves with a Common Fisheries Policy before the British were allowed to join.” Heath was too keen on the grand design to care. By joining, we lost our fish.

    So it is poetically fitting if the last battle is to stop us getting our fish back, and is being fought with a Frenchman, Michel Barnier, in charge of the talks, and his country’s hyperactive president stamping his foot.

    It is important to the French view – doctrinally and politically – that leaving the EU must never be seen to give any country (least of all Britain) advantages. It could even be that President Macron feels – or wishes to appear to feel – so strongly about fish that he will let any deal die because of it. Deal or no deal, after all, the French will lose a great many “landings”. He may conclude it is politically better for them to lose lots of fish through no deal and blame the British, than to agree a somewhat smaller haul in an agreement and he gets the blame.

    This is the same President Macron who claims the moral high ground by calling for a great leap forward in European integration, when others (notably Germany, who must pay) hold back, and is invoking European “solidarity” for literally fishy reasons. But one must not criticise French hypocrisy. They understood from the late Forties that Germany’s position as the potentially greater, but profoundly guilty power would allow France to pursue its national interest by claiming to do so in Europe’s name. They learnt that trick from Napoleon. We, who also have a strong idea of our national interest, should admire them for theirs.

    But the French option would never have been available to Britain, even if we had not joined the Community 15 years late. Repeatedly lamenting it, Stephen Wall makes clear that the problem has been the same throughout: “Part of the British EU story is an unwillingness to face up to the true nature of the organisation we eventually decided to join.” He confirms it is a project to surrender sovereignty. When a British colleague complains to him about the EU’s “mission creep”, Sir Stephen replies: “ ’Mission creep’ is the very essence of the European project.”

    This has always been what most British voters disliked, despite sweet-talking from their leaders. How often, over 40 years, have I heard British politicians and diplomats say: “Europe’s coming our way.” It wasn’t (although we sometimes won individually important victories). It couldn’t. It had chosen another path. That is the burden of the story Sir Stephen tells so well.

    Where does that leave Boris Johnson? Despite all the fretting about fish, comes the hopeful message: “We’re close.” As close, indeed, as social distancing permits. Our chief negotiator, Lord Frost, spent Thursday and yesterday in talks with M Barnier in the basement of the Department for Business. This was itself a good sign. Britain’s terse statement that there was nothing more to talk about had brought the EU back to the table. It acknowledged, as it had not before, that this is a discussion between equal entities.

    Given the long, sad history, however, one must ask: “Are the British public being manipulated by a government which is in reality ready to trade major long-term issues of principle for short-term presentational wins?” Old hands will remember the brilliantly spun “Game, set and match to Major”, which fanfared Maastricht in 1991. Yet Maastricht was the treaty from which the Tory party has never fully recovered, and from which the longing to leave was reborn.

    Compared with Theresa May’s efforts from 2017-19, Boris does have major advantages – a mandate, a big Commons majority, a Cabinet united on this issue, and officials specially signed up for the mission. Unlike her, Boris is in an under-recognised category in this country – genuinely pro-European but genuinely anti-EU. He is not hostile to European countries, but nor is he scared of Brussels disapproval. He knows also that insistence paid off in getting Brexit at all, whereas appeasement failed. Earlier this year, Lord Frost himself stated the aim – “to recover political and economic independence in full”. Britain deliberately nailed its colours to the mast to make it harder for faint hearts to haul them down.

    Heavy on the Prime Minister, though, lies the thought that failure to get a deal will look like – and might actually be – a failure of statecraft. It is not so much the queues at the ports. These will to some extent happen either way, because we shall be leaving the customs union. It is more the need to unite the country, help secure our own Union, calm global nerves, lift us out of Covid gloom and set a new course on comfortable terms with our former partners – a “good” divorce, rather than a bitter one. He also needs another proof, as at December’s election, that he can succeed when everyone thinks he can’t.

    It is not wrong to search for a deal. Given the way politics works, however, it feels as though the pressure to agree something is stronger than the pressure to get that something right. If the EU – especially the French – sense this, that something will get worse for Britain. Then “success” on the day will bring failure later, as has happened time and again under every previous British prime minister since we joined. Inevitably, the EU will exact a price if we make a clear break, but the price if we do not will be much, much higher.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/23/pm-must-avoid-brexit-deal-looks-like-success-day-brings-failure/

    1. We lost quota in 1993 and in 2003. First the Tories gave it away, then Labour. Both times our boats were”de-commissioned”. That is a euphemism for cutting up fishing boats, making tenth generation fishermen unemployed, closing down fish processing factories, shutting down fish sales businesses, wrecking the economies of villages and towns all round the coast of the UK and having to watch the French make fortunes from our fish!
      And now our Government is going to do it again.

      1. The U.K. government had better not sell our coastal communities and fishing industry down the river again. The Tories will be toast if they attempt it.

        1. Will they, as much as I agree with your sentiment, it seems to me be it Tory or Labour supporter, you can subject them to betrayal of trust or financial mismanagement to downright shatting on their heads and the majority still seem willing to vote for them next time round.
          Much like my earlier comment about voting for Drakeford and his Welsh Taliban, people get what they vote for.

          1. Times are ‘a changing’. Social media is the principal component in the exposure of the crimes of the establishment. They might employ political has-been, never-was oiks like Cur Nick Clegg to police Facebook but as with all of his other enterprises he will eventually bankrupt the company and contribute to its oblivion. Just look at the Liberal Democrat’s for proof of the results of his influence.

          2. I feel you have too much faith in the electorate, I sat on a bus and quietly listened to fellow passengers during the last GE campaign.
            Sat in front of me were two ladies who were convinced that the candidate having a “nice look” was enough to vote for him. FFS!

          3. 325846+ up ticks,
            Evening vvof,
            I heard it said make the wretch cameron a PM he looks like one, make boris PM he makes us laugh.

          4. I recall many years ago that our neighbours in Bath displayed posters favouring the candidates supporting Ted Heath.

            When I had the temerity to ask
            why I was told that Heath was thought by women voters to be an attractive man. God help us ever since. The man was a poof and in all probability a paedofile.

            The shit sold us down the river, destroyed our coastal towns and fishing industries just to sit at the Top Table in the corrupt EU. The wretched man was a traitor and should never have never been allowed to get away with his crimes.

        2. I think the trouble is that Boris Johnson and Conservative Party are already toast.

          If Johnson realises this he might give in and give up as he has nothing more to lose.

  91. UK mandatory migration salary reduced…………..

    ”New rules demolish the last vestiges of Theresa May’s attempts to reduce net migration to tens of thousands”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/23/net-migration-targets-abandoned-38500-salary-threshold-settle/

    Has there been a phone call from Open Society London to Boros, maybe like this……………

    ”Good morning Prime Minister, this is George Soros’ Open Society London here……

    We wondered if you might be free for lunch one day at the Ritz? We have a little proposition to put to you from George personally which I’m sure you’ll find very interesting…….

    As you know George is very keen to assist migrants overcome the difficulties they face…. and he’s also very generous when it comes to helping cash strapped politicians too……….

    You’re a little short in the wallet you say ? Six children, perhaps more, and three wives or is it four, you’re not quite sure…… never mind, Sir, and don’t worry, George is very kind, understanding and has the instant cash solution you need, no questions asked !

    See you at the Ritz tomorrow then Sir at 1pm, look forward… absolute discretion assured… no, our meeting never happened.. yes, I’ll have some cash with me, see you there in the cocktail lounge, Sir, thank you and ciao for now !”

  92. Covid’s spread could be entirely out of our hands

    From luck to genetics, politicians may have less control over the virus than we like to imagine

    JULIET SAMUEL

    Every so often, another of those stories pops up. Two doctors in one Australian family are dead from Covid. Four members of one New Jersey family have succumbed, likewise three brothers in Iran. A whole family – mother, father and child – have died from it in the UK. Each time, surely, it raises the question: why? You can blame testing failures, poverty, too few distancing measures or too many, for crowding families together, or any other political or economic factor you choose. But perhaps we spend too little time considering the hundreds of factors that have little to do with our politicians: some families, for example, may be genetically predisposed to get severe Covid.

    Over the summer a UCL scientist called Karl Friston attracted a flurry of media interest when he suggested that the reason for different Covid outcomes in different countries may be something he termed “immunological dark matter”. The idea was that some populations simply happen to have more existing immunity to Covid-19, perhaps due to the particular mix of coronaviruses they have caught and fought off in the past. This, rather than Germany’s exemplary competence and early testing capacity, may be why that country has not suffered as much from the pandemic as many of its neighbours, he theorised.

    Yet neither Germany’s testing regime nor its “dark matter” quite explain why the country is now facing a second wave of Covid bigger than its first – even if both waves are small on the scale of ours. Nor has there been an especially satisfying explanation of why Sweden’s death rate, though worse than its neighbours’, was less bad than in the UK, Spain, Italy and so on. Even within countries, it is hard to compare. Why should prosperous northern Italy have been hit so brutally, while the rest of the country, most of it poorer, had a comparatively mild ride?

    It is tempting to focus on national habits and customs. Mediterraneans like to hug one another, for example, whereas Scandinavians are standoffish. Most of these assertions have little research behind them, but not all. Talking loudly, for example, genuinely affects aerosol production. Multiple studies have found that the louder you talk or sing, the more airborne spittle flies out of your mouth and into the world. Sage devoted an entire working group to the question of spreading risks caused by “singing and wood wind instruments”. A yodelling concert held in Switzerland last month has been identified as a likely super-spreading event behind a major rural outbreak. So the seemingly absurd notion that Covid has been harder to control in the US due to Americans’ habit of talking loudly could actually have some truth in it.

    Even more nightmarish for government policy, our genetic makeup also seems to affect our propensity to get severely ill and die. One study by the Covid-19 Host Genetics Initiative found that for some Covid patients with a particular set of genes, being in blood group A seemed to be associated with a higher risk of respiratory failure, whereas being in blood group O had the opposite effect. Another study from the Max Planck Institute in Germany looked at those with especially poor Covid outcomes and found they disproportionately possessed a set of genes inherited from Neanderthals. What’s more, these mutations are especially prevalent in people of South Asian origin, who have been so severely affected by Covid, and almost non-existent in those from East Asia.

    The genetic picture is extremely complex, however. Like South Asians, black Britons and African Americans have suffered especially bad outcomes from Covid, yet Neanderthal DNA is largely absent from African populations. A study by scientists at Regeneron, a biotech company, found that there may be another gene also associated with poor Covid outcomes and more prevalent in people of African origin. So it isn’t just down to one killer gene, but a person’s susceptibility could well be profoundly affected by her genome and such genetic factors may be just as important as social problems like poor health and poverty in explaining why certain countries and populations seem to be so much more vulnerable than others.

    Aside from genetics, the variation in Covid outcomes across the world may also be down to an even more mysterious factor: luck. After all, the virus spreads unevenly. Most people who get infected actually go on to infect no one else, but a few people infect dozens of others. This may be due to entirely random factors, like whether a Covid carrier happened to be playing in an ice hockey game – breathing heavily and shouting in a very cold environment – during their infectious period, as happened in June in Tampa Bay, Florida, resulting directly in at least 15 new cases.

    Conversely, sometimes policy has wound up suppressing outbreaks even when it wasn’t intended to. Iceland originally embarked upon a herd immunity strategy, but once greater testing capacity revealed that its initial contact-tracing had largely contained the disease and had not actually generated any immunity at all, it switched tack.

    A few generations ago, the notion that governments could do much to control recessions, disease outbreaks or changing weather patterns would have been seen as ridiculous in much of the world. We are now so accustomed to thinking the other way around that we blame or credit politicians for everything, including every twist and turn in the spread of a brand new virus.

    Ultimately, the history of this period may be rewritten several times depending on factors that are largely outside of government control, like whether and when a vaccine is found, whether humans develop immunity to Covid and how long it lasts. It is perfectly healthy to highlight and condemn irresponsibility or institutional failure. But no one should pretend they know definitively what the right answer is or what the outcome of their chosen plan will be. Policies, like epidemiological models, have a habit of becoming irrelevant as soon as they are applied.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/23/covids-spreadcould-entirelyout-hands/

    1. That is probably true. Although different countries vary in the timing and severity of the lockdown / mask / distance commandments, it seems that the declared covid cases follow along quite closely.

      It is as if these strategies don’t work (perish the thought).

  94. So it turns out Soros apparently invested a hundred million dollars, which probably came from the 1992 UK heist, in a US hedge fund in 1995.

    Then John Major got a multi million dollar job with the same hedge fund in approx 2000.

    Meaning Major might have got paid from the profits the hedge fund made from investing the money Soros got off Major in the first place !

    Nothing to see here. Please move along..

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