Friday 23 September: With no alternative, NHS patients are stuck waiting weeks to see a GP

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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531 thoughts on “Friday 23 September: With no alternative, NHS patients are stuck waiting weeks to see a GP”

  1. Good morning all. Past the Equinox and it’s noticable how much quicker the mornings are drawing on.
    A dull 6°C start with overnight rain.

    1. It certainly is. However, clocks don’t go back until 30th October, at which point the evenings arrive far too quickly!

      As usual there is the debate about clock-changing, but nothing constructive comes ever out of it – i.e. leave them alone!

      1. Leave the clocks on GMT, as it’s a geographically fixed time. BST/daylight savings is merely just another political construct.

    1. Well done Matt, another chuckle to start the day.

      I had the misfortune to catch a short burst of Toady this morning. They love referring to minor tremors as “earthquakes” when they are nothing of the kind. And their coverage of the parliamentary debate on fracking yesterday featured plenty of faux outrage from Milliprat and others who want to bring this country down, but only one pro-fracking MP (Andrew Bridgen) despite others who were in favour. As usual, the BBC abandons, and gets away with, any semblance of impartiality.

      Edit: Sorry, this was intended for Clyde, but ‘morning both, all the same

      1. Martin Selves of BTL fame is, as usual, on the ball:

        Martin Selves
        1 HR AGO
        Is there no end to our self harm? I fear for Fracking. Wherever it has been tried in the World it works, but in the UK we cannot even try. Tory MP’s are not going to let this happen without a fight. So lets fight for our own energy source, and stop importing it pretending we are greener for it. Because we are not.
        How is it I know more about the risks of Fracking better than those sitting in the HoC. They are Luddites, who cannot take this Golden opportunity when it is presented to them on a Fracking Plate. And what a small plate it is. A Fracking site is the size of a football pitch, and unlike Coal Mines the earth does not tremor from underground explosions or the grind of a drill 10 feet in diameter or a railway line a mile below the surface.
        It has been stopped by Boris and the Greens with a 0,5 Richter restriction. An earth tremor cannot be felt, and then only just, when the Richter reaches 3.5.
        Fer God’s sake let us just try, and that way we will know who has been the Luddite and who has been the progressive. Doing nothing is not an option when some lights might be going out over Christmas. What are these people afraid of? They fear Net Zero is at risk, and the World is going to boil. “Charles” said 1some years ago the North Pole was going to melt by now.

    1. As the oil companies have been fracking for oil in Britain for the last forty years with no complaints from the lefties, why is fracking

      for gas so problematical?

  7. Good Moaning.
    How lovely; some nice lady is offering me $250,000 if I help her with a money transfer.
    As I plan to raid a nearby supermarket for boxes – and buy a couple of items as cover – every Lidl helps.

  8. Morning all 😊
    Winter draws on eh.
    I spose I’ll be making the tea this morning.
    Oh well.
    Yesterday I was searching for a medium size plastic funnel I know I have. There are two wicker baskets on a top shelve in our garage/storage (it’s never had a car in it) my short steps are elsewhere, so I grabbed one of the many golf clubs, a putter, to try and hook on of the baskets down.
    Disaster……the larger basket was somehow hooked onto the smaller one and it fell landing on my right arm and hand. I ended up having about 6 separate cuts and now bruises on the back of my hand and arm. Not a pretty sight.
    Plastic funnel. I can’t edit.
    Plus I cut my left index finger chopping apples Yesterday. I think I just go out and buy a new pkastic funnel. Dunnelms is not far.

    1. Quickest way to find something you know you have but can’t find is to buy a replacement. The original article will be staring at you when you get home…

      1. A square of kitchen roll, folded and masking tape made a decent bandage. The back of the hand is an awkward and moving shape for plasters. And I’m a bleeder 😉🤫
        Now Just waiting for Wickes to deliver ten bags of topsoil to level off our front garden.

    3. ‘Mornig, Eddy, sounds like my unexpected consequences, when I tried climbing on the desk and onto the window-cill to shut the top sah in the window.

      Surgery and then A & E 25 miles each way – no fun. Go find the short steps, NOW. Be safe.

    4. Gan canny, Eddy.

      Since I sharpened all my kitchen knives I frequently have fun trying to (or not!) slicing the end off a finger!

      1. I’ve got a couple of sets of the screwfix diamond laps. There are excellent and easy to use. I usually take one on holiday with me the knives in the kitchen drawers are usually appallingly blunt.
        One of the apples I was chopping in to 4 turned on its axis It got on my pip.

      2. We have one knife in the drawer my wife uses, it’s a blunt as the back of a bus.
        She’s ‘sorely afraid’ of sharp knives. 🤔

        1. She sounds like my friend’s wife. Rolf is a master carpenter and has a large workshop stocked with hundreds of razor-sharp hand- and machine-tools. Yet his wife won’t allow him to sharpen her blunt kitchen knives, despite him explaining that sharp knives are safe and blunt knives are dangerous, since you are more likely to have an accident from the extra pressure you need to exert on a blunt knife. She isn’t having any of it, though!

          2. After I cut my finger using a knife to slice a tomato, MOH said, “it isnt’ sharp enough.” Seemed plenty sharp to me as it sliced through my flesh!

    1. Here’s the full article, the “Covid-19 Actuaries Response Group” appears to be another scaremongering outfit:-

      Covid hospital admissions in England up 17pc in a week, sparking fears of new wave
      It is the first time there has been a significant rise in admissions since numbers began to fall at the beginning of July

      By
      Sarah Knapton,
      SCIENCE EDITOR
      22 September 2022 • 7:00pm

      Hospital admissions with Covid in England have jumped 17 per cent in a week and are rising significantly for the first time since July amid fears of a new wave.

      The latest NHS statistics show that 718 people were admitted to English hospitals on Sep 19 – a large increase compared to the previous week, when daily admissions did not rise above 586 and fell as low as 476.

      It is the first time there has been a significant rise in admissions since numbers began to fall at the beginning of July.

      The Covid-19 Actuaries Response Group calculated that the seven-day average has risen by 17 per cent and said it was clear that the R-number – the average number of people an infected individual can expect to pass the virus on to – was now above one.

      Dr Kit Yates, a member of Independent Sage, warned: “All the early indicators are pointing towards the beginning of another wave.”

      Experts said the increase was likely to be due to a back to school effect, as well as more workers returning from the summer holidays. Cooler weather means more people are meeting indoors, while many have not had a vaccination for nine months, meaning immunity is waning.

      The biggest increases were seen in the South West, where admissions rose 39 per cent, followed by the East, with an increase of 33 per cent. In the North East and Yorkshire, admissions have risen 30 per cent in the past week.

      ‘Try to stay at home if you are unwell’
      Dr Susan Hopkins, the chief medical adviser at the UK Health Security Agency, also said it was clear admissions were rising and urged people to get boosted.

      “While Covid-19 rates are still low, the latest data for the last seven days indicate a rise in hospitalisations and a rise in positive tests reported from the community,” she said.

      “As it gets colder and we head towards winter, we will start to see respiratory infections pick up – please try to stay at home if you are unwell and avoid contact with vulnerable people.”

      However, experts said that much of the increase appeared to be people getting Covid while in hospital. Likely hospital-acquired cases have increased to 1,133 in England in the past seven days – an increase of 46 per cent.

      Adele Groyer, an actuary at Gen Re, said: “Likely hospital acquired Covid cases now account for 28 per cent of hospital admissions in England, the highest proportion seen if we look back to the start of April.

      “This may reflect reduced routine testing at admission, with people only being tested if they later become unwell. Covid in addition to whatever brought a patient into hospital will not aid their recovery.”

      As of Sep 20, there were 4,667 patients in hospital in England with Covid, but just 1,679 – 36 per cent – were being treated primarily for the virus. Deaths with the virus are still falling in hospitals in England, with the seven-day average having dropped 12 per cent.

      1. This is such nonsense – they never followed the flu statistics like this.
        In 2015, a colleague of mine spent about three weeks in hospital and lost half his body weight – from flu.
        In 2018, another colleague had a similar experience with flu.

        1. Except for one couple, 9 out of 11 of our family including three young children caught covid from our holiday in Cornwall early August.
          Kids had only slightly raised temps and sniffles.
          It was not much worse than a common cold.
          The couple who weren’t infected have had it several times. They both travel into London a few times a month. So must have been immune to that particular flu strain.

        2. ‘Flu is going to be at epidemic proportions around here this winter.

          Only Morrisons have supplies of vaccines.

          All other chemists/doctors’ surgeries around here claim that they will receive supplies later this year.

          1. There is some doubt about how effective the flu vaccines are anyway. Truth be told, probably ivermectin as a prophylaxis would work better.

          2. Given that I went down with ‘flu after I’d had the ‘flu jab, I don’t think the injections are all they are cracked up to be.

      2. No mention of the crowded Abbey, the crowds queuing to go into Westminster Hall. The personal contact KC and his wife had with many thousands of people all over the country. And I wonder where all those dignitaries went to lunch after the gathering. Only one confirmed infection a Danish lady. Could have picked it up anyway before she arrived in London.
        As you say Bob scaremongering Bolero.
        Perhaps the jabs are once again causing the problems.

      1. Yes. Though there were individuals who, like the Marxist behavioural “expert”, Susan Michie, were members of both.

  13. Europe should welcome fleeing Russians. 23 September 2022.

    Putin wants to keep his brightest, richest and best close – indeed a common fear among many international-minded Russians is that he will close the borders. In effect, Europe is doing his work for him. But Boris Johnson had it right in March when he called for punishing Putin but helping Russians. The best way to do both is to help them leave his failing, war-crippled country.

    Strange! I don’t recall the UK being so welcoming to those fleeing the draft during the Vietnam War.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/europe-should-welcome-fleeing-russians

    2. He’s at the very least what you described Bob.
      His mate Campbell who not longago was weepingly telling the public of his mental health issues has turned up on TV again. Another turd.

      1. Campbell is one of those who makes a good living out of being a turd. Programme makers please note – any appearance of him and his former boss results in immediate operation of the ‘off’ switch.

        ‘Morning, Eddy.

    3. Why on earth is that creature B Liar even anywhere near being involved? If anyone should be explaining anything it should be Lord David Frost. Liz Untrustworthy is going to be a disaster.

      1. 356439+ up ticks,

        Morning VW,

        It would surprise me greatly if she veered from a long line of political treachery purveyors.

  17. Funny what Paul said in his opening post. We have rain. We weren’t woken by cats fighting BUT, on opening the front door, two fighting cats burst in and tore round the house being very pugnacious!

    Must be the change to Autumn…..

  18. ‘Morning, Peeps.  A nice drop of rain here in the early hours.  More please.

    This article is disturbing.  If we can’t rely on the CQC to do its job properly we stand no chance of dealing with the protectionist attitude of the NHS:  Perhaps those responsible for running the CQC don’t want to rock the boat and miss out on their gongs…

    The hospital inspector sacked and vilified for doing his job

    When surgeon Shyam Kumar went to work for England’s health watchdog, he was horrified by what he found…

    ByAnna Maxted 22 September 2022 • 7:59pm

    A consultant orthopaedic surgeon with years of experience and an unblemished reputation, Shyam Kumar was recruited by the Care Quality Commission in 2014 as a part-time special adviser. His role for the health watchdog – consisting of a few days’ work every year – was to conduct hospital inspections. But in 2019, after he raised concerns about clinical negligence and the inadequacy of CQC inspections, he was sacked.

    Now an employment tribunal has found that his dismissal was unfair and has awarded him £23,000 for injury to feelings.

    “I felt morally wronged,” the father of two says. “It’s my integrity that I got back.”

    Kumar, 55, who works at the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, did not ask to be reinstated. (Nor was this about monetary loss – he was unpaid for his role, except once when he was on annual leave.) “I don’t want to be part of it,” he says. And no wonder.

    Kumar’s first complaint was in 2015 when he alleged that the CQC had attempted to curtail an investigation into South Tyneside hospital and subsequent claims of bullying by CQC officials when Kumar questioned their decision-making.

    “I think we need to look into this a bit more deeply,” he told the CQC inspector in charge, after a number of doctors spoke to him off the record about serious clinical concerns they had about the orthopaedic department. Her response, he felt, was demeaning. “I felt like a nursery school student in front of a heavy-handed headmistress. I don’t think they wanted me to scratch below the surface.”

    His letter of complaint to the then Chief Inspector of Hospitals at the CQC, Prof Mike Richards, followed up with an email and phone calls, received no response.

    Kumar’s other concern, which he escalated to the CQC in 2018, was that he and other consultants believed that the work of an individual within his own NHS Trust – University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay – was causing patients significant harm and that the trust had not taken sufficient action.

    “Further investigating the harms, preventing further harms, clearly falls in the CQC’s remit,” he says. “[But] they didn’t heed that at all.” It wasn’t until MPs and NHS England got involved in 2021 that a Royal College of Surgeons review was initiated. “They found at least 26 patients were harmed,” says Kumar.

    Also in 2018, Kumar visited a hospital where “the whole of the surgical division had to be inspected”. He was the only consultant in the team. “They were asking me to inspect orthopaedic surgery, hepatobiliary, vascular, ENT – and multiple other specialities across two sites.” He told them it wasn’t possible, and was beyond his expertise, but he said that he was told they didn’t have enough staff, and to complete the inspection.

    This time, in his complaint, he wrote: “The CQC itself has criticised and ranked some trusts negatively for lack of staff, but it appears that the regulator itself is in serious trouble here.” He suspects this email was “the last straw”. (He has a jolly laugh, even at painful moments.) In February 2019, he was sacked. “They showed no mercy.” If only, he says, one person at the CQC had noted, “Kumar was recruited for his professional standing, has somebody listened to him?” He was shocked by the regulator’s behaviour. “They considered me a thorn in their side. Their response when you point out their inadequacies can be brutal.”

    He says he was subjected to “falsehoods” and “character assassination behind my back” – there is astonishment in his voice even now. From his experience, he feels the CQC has a “bullying culture”. He feels they breached their own values. “The standards they want others to follow do not apply to them. That is the impression I got.”

    For example, after his tribunal case was filed, court documents show that CQC officials emailed his employers asking whether there were any “past issues” on his file. “They’re misusing their authority as a regulator. It’s a serious offence in my opinion. They have no right to request information from my employer.” There was no dirt to dig up, but that’s not Kumar’s point. “It’s unbelievable that this was happening in the offices of the prime regulator of health care in the country.”

    The British Medical Association (BMA) supported him, funding his case. As the judges acknowledged, he says: “I have an untarnished reputation.” He knows he could have kept quiet. “It’s not my employment. But I felt so insulted, wronged. I didn’t want this to hang over my head until I died. It’s a blot on my career.”

    He was fortunate in this “David and Goliath scenario” to have support. “My family stood by me – my wife and two children. A few close friends. And most of my colleagues.” Though not all raised their head above the parapet. “It was a lonely place in the court. I was cross-examined for three and a half days by a QC. I had three CQC officials sitting not very far from me. I found it extremely difficult and stressful. I lost sleep.” The first phase of the hearing was in November 2021. Usually, he says, he is “very active in the Christmas celebrations on our street”. That year, he “sat inside”.

    It’s been “a long battle”. But the response to the judgment makes him feel that “I fought for thousands and thousands of NHS workers and patients. I feel vindicated.” Now, he’s receiving flurries of emails, letters and phone calls from other health-care staff, saying they have had similar experiences, and thanking him. “I’m not alone.”

    It begs the question, why would any esteemed clinician want to be a CQC special adviser? “They’ve lost the confidence of the health-care community now,” Kumar believes. Yet he sees no sign of anyone in the CQC being held accountable for their actions. There should be consequences for those who “failed in their duty”, he says.

    It’s not the regulator’s first controversy. The CQC rated maternity services at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Hospitals Trust as “good” in 2015. The Ockenden Report, published earlier this year and led by senior registered midwife Donna Ockenden, found that over 20 years, 300 babies died or were left brain damaged due to “avoidable errors” in care.

    A government review of public bodies, including the CQC, is now under way and a report in Pulse, a news magazine for GPs, earlier this year revealed that ministers are considering whether to abolish the watchdog and return powers to “more accountable ministers”.

    Given the CQC’s current state, Kumar believes this to be “a reasonable suggestion”. He says: “You have an unaccountable regulator at the moment. What’s the point?”

    As he points out, the line from the CQC was: “‘No one else has a concern, there are no problems, everything is fine, I am the problem – and then, patients are found to have been harmed.” He has received a private apology from the regulator, but “in the public statement they don’t acknowledge that the court says I was victimised for raising concerns. There is a reluctance to say that openly and say, ‘Sorry, we got it wrong’.” An apology is only an apology if the public knows about it, Kumar says. “My reputation has been tarnished in public.”

    After the case, the CQC public statement read: “We accept the tribunal findings and have learnt from this case. We have already improved many of our processes and will continue to review these based on the findings to ensure we make any further necessary changes.” In contrast, the BMA said: “Rather than punishing those who bravely speak up, the system should be supporting them, so that steps can be taken to improve safety for both staff and patients.”

    Kumar believes if patients, NHS workers, and the public are to have confidence in the watchdog, there needs to be an investigation by an independent body. “They have to show demonstrable and visible action against individuals within the CQC as a model, so that nobody else is subjected to the same treatment. They need to clean their stables.” Kumar also notes, “We have a new Health Secretary now. She’s starting with a clean slate.” Now might be a good time, he says, to look a little closer at the CQC.

    * * *

    A couple of the top BTL posts:

    Seven Pillars9 HRS AGO

    Kumar mentioned names at the CQC. Why have those individuals not been sacked, lose their pension or even face legal action, civil or criminal? If you allow wrong doers to go unpunished, wrongdoing will flourish. Another story of public sector incompetence and failure, like the Post Office Horizon scandal. Ho hum!

    Angela Davies10 HRS AGO

    I am delighted that Mr Kumar decided not to take his treatment lying down. Big Governmental QANGOs feel they are a law unto themselves. The CQC reaches some bizarre conclusions, as do Ofwat, Ofsted, Ofcom and many others. The CQC sounds like a good idea, but as Mr Kumar found out, it has its own agenda.

      1. I agree, BoB – and good morning. It was she who allowed the ridiculous system of ‘self-inspection’ which, in no time at all, was being exploited and abused by those she was supposed to be checking. What a surprise that was!

    2. That’s what happens to people who take the job seriously nowadays. He’s lucky he wasn’t white or they would have slapped a charge of raycism on him.
      Thank you for your efforts anyway, Mr Kumar – they are appreciated by the poor fools who pay for this circus.

  19. Seems like one cannot comment on today’s letters. So, my response to one Richard Marshall is as follows.

    He, Richard Marshall, says:
    “SIR – Liz Truss is right that we need to get growth going. Britain has been through Brexit and the pandemic. Add to these a new monarch and a new prime minister, and it’s like we are starting again. The message the Government needs to get our people to buy into is that their own contribution will make a real difference.

    Richard Marshall
    Stoke D’Abernon, Surrey    ”

    My comment

    Isn’t it just a case of same old, same old, even with a Lib Dum PM and a ‘woke’ King and heir?

  21. 356439+ up ticks,

    So could very well be carols backed by shellfire,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    14h
    If we end up in WWIII will there be any future historians to record how we got there? If so it will make the slide into WWI & WAII look logical & rational.

    A US President who might have stopped it had an election stolen from him, & power was exercised by an entrenched global elite of totally corrupt & evil oligarchs, ‘led’ by a senile & corrupt puppet President.

    Good luck with unravelling all that & accounting for it when the dust settles.

    Steve Bannon
    @SteveBannon
    ·
    18h
    Serbian President: within 2 months — great world conflict as bad as WW2

    https://gettr.com/post/p1rs6106049

    1. So Truss continues to spout the mantra that ‘its a price worth paying’. She refers to the extra £1500 pa that households have to pay for energy. Quietly forgotten is the £100 billion or so subsidy that is being added to the taxpayer tab. Not such a small price especially as I expect a deep recession to set in soon.

        1. Too many zeros. Can’t keep up. My Zimbabwean friend said that during the hyperinflation, they all became super quick at mental arithmetic with big numbers. Then the govt did a devaluation, and all the coins that they had given to the children to play with suddenly became useful again….don’t laugh, we’re about to live through the same thing.

  22. SIR – On Thursday I received this message from my energy supplier:

    “Thanks so much for the meter readings you sent us on September 21. It looks like we were overestimating how much energy you were using each month. Based on your latest readings and lower than estimated usage, we’ve credited £14.14 back into your account. It is now £1,352.99 in credit.”

    Should I feel grateful?

    Derek Hall
    Tydd St Mary, Lincolnshire

    No, Mr Hall, anything but! Your supplier is following the usual practice of borrowing your money interest-free. Demand that most of your ridiculous ‘loan’ is repaid immediately, and then keep a much closer watch on your account. My energy supplier has twice jacked up my monthly DD way above what it should be, so to show my gratitude I send them a snottygram and promptly reduce the figure to what it should be – which is just enough to keep my account in credit.

  23. An Epidemic of Ideology
    Theodore Dalrymple

    A lot of the rhetoric in America seems almost like the preparation for a new civil war. I do not think that it will ever take place; in the last analysis, what unites will prove stronger than what divides, especially under dire threat from the exterior.

    However, my record as a social prophet is not unspotted, to say the least. I have often not seen what is coming and have often seen what is not coming. My record of failure does not prevent or even inhibit me from prognostication, however. I think we have entered a golden age of bad temper that will last some time, one of the reasons being that too many people go to university where they have learned to look at the world through ideology-tinted spectacles. There is nothing like ideology for raising the temperature of debate and eventually of avoiding debate altogether.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/an-epidemic-of-ideology/

    2. SO counter to the claim ”You couldn’t make it up”. ……..You actually can make if up !
      Perhaps there’s need for a revival of certain notices in shop windows in the US.

  25. 356439+ up ticks,

    Does this not smack of treacherous treasa and the nine month delay, keeping in mind the
    dire consequences incurred ongoing.

    New UK PM Puts Off Standing Up to EU, Biden on Northern Ireland for Six Months

  27. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ddcb8d9e297bfda6e1662543057e7ab534d46c7528efd55dd8a8b0e35d1a5746.png Sorry, Dave lad, I agree with your sentiments but there is a huge flaw in your reasoning.

    Back in the time era when National Service was a part of every able-bodied young man’s life, discipline was a concept taught at home and in schools, as well as in youth organisations such as: Boy Scouts, Boy’s Brigade, St John’s Ambulance Cadets, Air Training Corps (and many others). Those partaking in their two years’ statutory service to country are already immersed in discipline, which included self-discipline.

    There has been neither discipline nor self-discipline as core attributes in Britain’s youth now for a number of decades. Self-interest and a general lack of control and laissez-faire attitude by parents and teachers (in particular) has resulted in generations of young people pleasing themselves what they do, with no attempts to show them, or teach them, any strict regimen of duty that will prepare them for life.

    I’m afraid that any attempt to bring back National Service will be an impossible task for those entrusted to run it.

    1. Another benefit of national service was that illiterate school leavers learned to read and write.

        1. We have a friend who joined the Royal Navy at 15 as a rating without any academic qualifications and came out about ten years later.

          He married at the age of 20 and before the age of 21 he had been around the world three times, and learnt to become a sports trainer. Before coming out of the Navy in his mid 20s the RN ensured that he studied and gained five “O” levels which enabled him to get a job with a bank. There he learnt how to use computers and so, in his mid 30s, he set up his own computer company which flourished. In his 50s he bought a 40′ sailing boat and set off to explore the world with his wife leaving his sons to run the computer business. We first met him in Gibraltar and then many times in various places in the Med – especially in the Greek Islands and in Turkey. We last heard of him in South America and he has now got a 50′ boat and was about to cross the Pacific.

          1. What a heartwarming story. Then all it took was Blair and his successors to destroy what had taken centuries to build. You could take that young man’s success and liken it to the success of the British Empire where we helped the majority of those who became independent to have a framework for administration and law & order.
            May Blair and those who followed rot in hell.

      2. I find it hard to understand why so many parents allow their children to get through school without learning how to read and write. Both Christo and Henry were fluent readers at the age of 4 and, now in their 20s, they are still voracious readers.

          1. My dad was but he was a hard worker. My mother went to grammar school and had beautiful copperplate handwriting which she didn’t bother to teach me.
            I was the only member of my family to take and pass all my exams. Not that my parents noticed or cared.

    2. How many people remember fagging?

      Fagging was particularly harsh when I was at Blundell’s in the early 1960s: there were too types of fagging – one was personal fagging for your specific prefect, the other was general fagging.

      The former was not too bad if you had a decent ‘fag master’. The jobs you had to do for him were: go to the tuck shop, make cups of coffee, clean his CCF kit (belt, spats and boots), shine his shoes and sports footwear (rugby boots, cross country running shoes and cricket boots) as well as go to the matron to get fresh games kit for him when it was dirty. You also had to deliver messages for your fag-master to his friends in other houses. On Sunday morning you had to clean his study from top to bottom. If you had a fag master who was in all the school teams and was a fanatical CCF enthusiast it was bad luck! In School House the lavatories were in a block outside the main building – some fag masters asked their fags to go and sit on the bog seats for five minutes to warm them up before they used them. However a good fag master would give you a generous tip at the end of term and stick up for you if you got into any scrapes with other boys.

      In addition you had to do general fagging each evening for 25minutes before going to bed. This entailed brushing the changing room floors and dusting, cleaning the baths and basins and taps in the wash room, dusting all the corridors and keeping the boot room spotless. These jobs were inspected severely and if you failed to come up to scratch you were given a black mark and when you got to five black marks the prefects went to see the housemaster to be authorised to beat you with a cane. (I was the most beaten fag of my year).

      As Evelyn Waugh wrote in Decline and Fall:

      “…any one who has been to an English public school will always feel comparatively at home in prison. It is the people brought up in the gay intimacy of the slums, Paul learned, who find prison so soul destroying.”

      He knew that of which he spoke even though the school he went to (Lancing) played round-ball football rather than rugby!

        1. And yet virtually all of us got good “O” levels and most of us did “A” levels and went on to do further study.

          Of course in those days you could leave school at 15 with 5 “O” levels and join a firm of accountants or solicitors and ‘serve’ five years as an articled clerk while studying for the exams during the evenings. In this way you could become a fully qualified solicitor or chartered accountant at the age of 21.

          1. You had to be at least 21 to be admitted a a solicitor.

            I left at under 18 with 8 O levels……5 years articles. Admitted 11 January 1965.

      2. I read about it a few times, but it has never happened in state schools. Notwithstanding that, our headmaster was a ramrod-straight, strict disciplinarian who resembled a cross between Enoch Powell and Adolf Hitler. It was, however, the threat of the cane more than the actual use of it that kept us on the straight and narrow.

    3. Both discipline and self-discipline were taught at home in my younger days. It helped me get through Boy-service in the RAF, when I joined up at 15½.

  28. I strongly suspect the Greeniacs held on remand are not first time offenders,they will be the hard core that when given bail promptly went out and committed further offences breaching their bail conditions

    Play stupid games,win stupid prizes,suck it up

    “UK climate activists held in jail for up to six months before trial

    Campaigners say protesters arrested for blocking roads getting ‘lost in prison system’ while on remand”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/23/uk-climate-activists-held-in-jail-for-up-to-six-months-before-trial

    3. I suggested to my MSP that I should be exempt from the Covid passport scheme that proved you’d been injected. I objected to the “vaccination” on religious grounds. She responded that it was my choice so I had to accept the consequences.
      If these dangerous protestors make a nuisance of themselves with repeated crimes, maybe they should accept the consequences?

    1. Talking of Diogenes, a little story on Ancient Wisdom:

      Keep this in mind the next time you are about to repeat a rumour or spread gossip.

      In ancient Greece (469 – 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom. One day an acquaintance ran up to him excitedly and said, “Socrates, do you know what I just heard about Diogenes?”

      “Wait a moment,” Socrates replied, “Before you tell me I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test.”

      “Triple filter?” asked the acquaintance.

      “That’s right,” Socrates continued, “Before you talk to me about Diogenes let’s take a moment to filter what you’re going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made
      absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”

      “No,” the man said, “Actually I just heard about it.”

      “All right,” said Socrates, “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about Diogenes something good?”

      “No, on the contrary…”

      “So,” Socrates continued, “You want to tell me something about Diogenes that may be bad, even though you’re not certain it’s true?”

      The man shrugged, a little embarrassed. Socrates continued, “You may still pass the test though, because there is a third filter, the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about Diogenes going to be useful to me?”

      “No, not really.”

      “Well,” concluded Socrates, “If what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me or anyone at all?”

      The man was bewildered and ashamed. This is an example of why Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.

      It also explains why Socrates never found out that Diogenes was banging his wife.

  30. Thought For The Day
    Old age pensioners will die of cold this winter as the well-off charge up their electric cars.

    Advert, ” Electric Cars May Never Be This Cheap Again”

    1. I wonder at what point the owners of electric cars will realise that they are the bad guys?
      If they are already blind to children mining cobalt and the strain that their toys put on the electricity grid, will electricity rationing and people dying of cold make any difference?
      More people die of cold than of heat every year, but the media always talks about heat waves as though they’re some mass extinction event., and ignores deaths due to cold. All part of the global warming scam propaganda.

  31. Tax cuts are welcome, but will do nothing to address the real problem of ruinous mortgage rates
    Hundreds of thousands of families will be experiencing financial hell over the next few years
    DT : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/uk/tax-cuts-welcome-will-do-nothing-address-real-problem-ruinous/

    It was far too easy to borrow far too much. Every time there was a problem with property prices rising too quickly government pumped more money into the market with hair-brained schemes which only succeeded in inflating prices still further.

    Why do politicians never see and act upon things which are as clear as a pikestaff to the rest of us?

    BTL

    When I was in my 20’s you had to put up a minimum deposit for house purchase of 10%. Then, if you were single you could borrow a maximum of three times your income but if you were married you could borrow twice your joint income. (However you could charge the mortgage interest against your income tax.)

    These rules kept property prices under control but even though you paid higher rates of interest in those days you knew what you were taking on as property prices rose in line with earnings and inflation.

    If today you have borrowed five times your income on an income of £40,000 pa – £200,000, as many people have done – a 2% increase in the mortgage rate could destroy your finances and seriously curtail your ability to spend on food and heating.

    1. All these changes are just rubbish that will pour petrol onto the fire of inflation. They’re still printing money like crazy, and they’d have to raise interest rates to double figures to tackle the inflation that we’ve already got.
      They won’t do that, because so many governments, companies and individuals would default.
      So they are going to carry on pouring petrol onto inflation, while diverting the public’s attention, until they’ve inflated what little value remains in the pound away to zero. During this process, they will hoover up a large amount of the remaining assets that don’t already belong to the super-rich.
      Then they will “rescue” us with CBDC slavery.
      At no point will they ever admit that they caused any of these things.

      1. Yet tax cuts show people respond by reducing debt. They have the opposite effect of increasing spending.

        Frankly, we urgently needed these tax cuts. Inflation is part fuelled *by* high taxes, and if the green taxes go that’s a start, the next one is fuel and VAT.

        1. I don’t disagree – more money in people’s pockets instead of the government’s pocket is a good thing. But the government will simply print more to make up the difference.

      1. So where is the money coming from to buy houses costing £400,000 + when average salaries are still under £40,000 pa?

        Are people borrowing 10 times their salaries – if so we really are in for total meltdown!

        1. I’m not sure if 100% mortgages are still available but if they are, even on 10x salary, a single person on average wage could only go up to about £280,000.

          I have had two jobs for years, (three before I left the Reserves) one full time and one part time and earn a reasonable salary for both and have been saving to move for as long as I remember. For every thousand pounds I save, houses go up by five thousand.

          1. Getting on the property ladder is more important. Buy something small and tart it up. Put on the market after six months. Rinse and repeat.

        2. You are in an affluent area. Houses around here atrt at about $700,000 but even at ten times salary, local employees on $20 an hour cannot afford to look.

    3. We’re putting in £80,000 into moving and that’s from a hoped for sale deposit of 90. I’m working on a real value of 75 at most. We’re also borrowing only on my salary and at 3.3 times getting us about 180K. I am worried about it, it’s a huge debt, especially with only the one cost. However, the spreadsheets work it out at about £900 a month, 950 at the top end based on 5% interest.

      It’s frightening, to be honest, but I think by over estimating our costs we can do it. The big hammer, of course, is energy and council tax – a tax that gets us nothing.

    4. I feel sorry for the people that bought our house. They paid close to a million and still haven’t sold their old house. They are either very rich or suddenly carrying quite a mortgage.

      Lots of new builds around here are not selling. Just a year ago real estate brokers were snapping them up before the homes hit the market but the situation has changed and all of these investors are now trying to dump the still unfinished homes.

      2. In a way, it was the last great Victorian event like that.
        I bet they will soon start criticising it for being too big – but in my view, it was a fitting end to a very long reign, which also coincided with the end of a long financial cycle.

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

    Sinister, shocking, dangerous: Reaction to PayPal’s demonetisation of the FSU

    The FSU has been demonetised by US payments company PayPal for daring to stand up for free speech and freedom of expression. PayPal UK, the company whose Twitter banner proudly proclaims that it is “open for all”, has now permanently shut the accounts of the FSU, as well as the personal account of our co-founder and General Secretary, Toby Young, and Toby’s news website, the Daily Sceptic, without prior warning, meaningful explanation or recourse to a proper appeals process (Epoch Times, GB News, Mail, National, Telegraph).

    Speaking on Nigel Farage’s GB News show, Toby described the company’s actions as “a new low” in Big Tech’s war on free speech. The fact that people who express contentious political views are now regularly cancelled, de-platformed or demonetised is bad enough, he said. But if that same treatment is now going to be meted out to organisations like the FSU that merely defend people’s rights to express those views, we are entering into another, and altogether more sinister world.

    Questions have also now been raised in Parliament regarding PayPal’s actions, and, just as importantly, the regulatory environment in which companies like PayPal presently operate. Citing the FSU’s recent demonetisation, Danny Kruger MP took to the floor of the House of Commons to express his “deep concern” at the fin-tech company’s actions. “As we move towards a cashless economy,” Mr Kruger said, “companies like PayPal form part of the essential infrastructure of ordinary life.” Would the Government “take steps to ensure that [these companies] cannot discriminate against individuals or organisations on the basis of perfectly legal political views?” It was a “very good topic for debate”, said the Leader of the House, Penny Mordaunt, in response – so good, in fact, that she encouraged MPs to put the issue forward for a debate in the Chamber. (You can watch the exchange here).

    PayPal’s actions also met with condemnation across the media. The FSU’s special guest at our forthcoming, members only Online Speakeasy event, comedian and writer Jack Dee, told his 575,000 Twitter followers that he was in the process of cancelling his PayPal account. “Big Tech companies that feel they can bully people for questioning mainstream groupthink don’t deserve anyone’s business,” he said. In the view of GB News’s Colin Brazier, “No single organisation – within or without government – has done more over the last couple of years to stand up for basic freedoms than the FSU.” Another GB News presenter, Dan Wootton described the FSU as “one of the most important organisations in the country” and professed himself “proud to be a member of a group that was set up to fight the causes of so many ordinary Brits who have found their lives turned upside down after being cancelled by the woke mob – often for holding views the majority of the population actually agree with” (GB News).

    For Big Brother Watch’s Mark Johnson, PayPal’s “flex” of its “digital power” is “deeply concerning and dangerous for us all” (Unherd). The “sheer irony” of the thing struck Laura Dodsworth – an organisation that stands up for those who have been deplatformed now getting deplatformed itself. “Big Tech bowdlerisation and banditry,” she said, is a “shocking development”, not least because it would have been “unthinkable only a very short time ago”. Tom Slater agreed: the deplatforming of the FSU was “sinister” and “shows just how unhinged Big Tech censorship is quickly becoming” (Spiked).

    Elsewhere, FSU Advisory Council Member Lord Frost described the decision to close the FSU’s account as “a very worrying development” and urged the Financial Conduct Authority “to look into this urgently”. “It is quite wrong for PayPal to close the FSU’s account,” Lord Bethell said, adding that the “politicisation of payment platforms is a worrying trend”. It was also heartening to see four of the FSU’s fellow campaign organisations – Big Brother Watch, Article 19, Index on Censorship and the Open Rights Group – issue a joint statement expressing concern “that PayPal has shut down the account of the FSU without adequate explanation or an effective route to appeal”. The statement also made clear that: “PayPal’s refusal to serve individuals and groups associated with lawful political causes – let alone ones where the right to free expression is directly impacted – is alarming, wrong, and dangerous for all of us who value the right to politically organise and express ourselves online.”

    The FSU has now updated its home page to include a compilation of clips about PayPal’s attempt to demonetise us, which you can watch here. Our press release on the matter is available here. And if you’d like a quick reminder about the important work the FSU does in support of members that have been sacked, cancelled, penalised, harassed or attacked by outrage mobs simply for exercising their legal right to free speech, we’ve put together a selection of some of our highest-profile cases from the past six months for you to read about here.

    How have you been affected?

    About a third of our 9,500 members are paying their dues via PayPal and we’ve written to all of them with instructions about how to switch to another payment processor. If you’ve received that email, please follow the instructions; if you haven’t, that’s because you aren’t affected and you don’t need to do anything. If you want to make a donation to the FSU to help us deal with any of the fall-out from this attack, please do so on our Donate page. Rest assured, all traces of PayPal have now been expunged from our systems.

    Why has the FSU been demonetised?

    How did we get here – to a world in which a financial intermediary can so casually close the account of an organisation that defends people’s right to free speech, and that does so without taking sides on the issues that those people are speaking about?

    Writing for the Spectator, Toby recounts receiving his first email from PayPal last week, informing him that the company was “initiating closure” of his personal account. A few minutes later, PayPal sent the same message to the FSU and the Daily Sceptic. In each case the message was the same: PayPal was shutting down the account because it was in “violation” of the company’s “Acceptable Use Policy”. Not that that really gives any clue as to the specifics of our alleged misdemeanour, because as the Mail explains, the policy “contains numerous ‘prohibited activities’ including transactions involving illegal drugs, stolen goods, or ‘the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance’”.

    What’s so odd about PayPal’s decision is that, as Tom Slater remarks, “even the briefest of glances at the FSU’s output would make clear that Toby is not presiding over a network of hate-mongers” (Spiked). Not even legal-but-harmful mongers, actually. Then again, do PayPal’s algorithmically driven systems have much time for anything as human and contextually sensitive as a ‘glance’? Certainly, the fact that the FSU exists to protect dissenters against cancel culture and has defended people from across the political spectrum seems to have been entirely lost on a company that is now treating the FSU “as if it were a new offshoot of ISIS”. Tom Slater’s analogy is chillingly apt – in a similar manner to an individual who is placed on the UK Government sanctions list and then has his/her assets frozen, PayPal will now get to keep the money in Toby’s account for up to 180 days while it decides whether it is entitled to “damages” for the FSU’s as yet unspecified breach of its Acceptable Use Policy. (Although it isn’t keeping the money in the FSU or the Daily Sceptic account, which is a relief.)

    Quite why the company decided on this course of action remains a mystery. Speaking to the Telegraph, Toby said he suspected foul play. If PayPal had shut down just one of these accounts “it could conceivably be because it had violated the company’s Acceptable Use Policy”, he said. “But it closed all three accounts within minutes of each other, suggesting there’s a more sinister reason.” Writing for Unherd, Mark Johnson was inclined to agree: the fact that the accounts were targeted “in one fell swoop” suggests that PayPal “designated Toby and the websites he runs as non grata because of some unidentified political transgression”.

    ‘Unidentified’ is right! No-one at the FSU knows why we’ve been placed on the Big Tech naughty-step. Have we fallen foul of one of woke culture’s strongest taboos – defending people who’ve got into trouble with HR departments for refusing to declare their gender pronouns? “Open for all” PayPal, like most Big Tech companies, has certainly sided with the trans-rights activists on that issue. Or is the Daily Sceptic the source of PayPal’s political discomfort? As Toby pointed out in the Times, his news site has never knowingly published ‘misinformation’ regarding Net Zero, Covid or mRNA vaccines, but of course over in Silicon Valley, ‘misinformation’ is often little more than a euphemism for “an opinion I disagree with”.

    As our Chief Legal Counsel Bryn Harris made clear, what we need from PayPal now is an explanation as to what the FSU has allegedly done, and what the company’s justification is for withdrawing its business (Talk TV). In an attempt to prompt the company into making some sort of gesture towards ‘due process’ of that kind, Toby has written to the CEO of PayPal UK – Vincent Belloc (who you can email here), and the Corporate Affairs Department of PayPal US and PayPal UK (you can email them here and here), asking for an explanation. There’s been no reply, obviously – as so often when dealing with these Silicon Valley behemoths, it’s impossible to hold them to account.

    The FSU to campaign for new laws on financial censorship

    The relatively recent digitalisation of financial transactions placed a vast amount of power in the hands of financial services companies like payment processors, banks, online platforms and credit companies like Visa and Mastercard. (Unherd). It is ‘FinTech’ that now owns and controls the technical, algorithmic means to move virtual money seamlessly around the world in real-time. For a while, the risk that these powers might be exercised to completely cut off and shut up groups, organisations and people seemed entirely abstract. More recently, though, we’ve seen governments leaning on these companies to act in ways beneficial to state interests (Money Week).

    In 2019, for instance, the Russian government froze bank accounts linked to opposition politician Alexei Navalny (Reuters); in February 2022, Canada froze the bank accounts of the mostly peaceful truckers protesting against the vaccine mandates with no due process, appeals process or court order necessary (Mail); then, in early 2022, cross-border payment system SWIFT took the unprecedented move to cut Russia’s central bank from its global financial messaging service (Telegraph).

    But that was all at the behest of governments. What’s new is financial services companies like PayPal throwing their weight about and attempting to influence what kind of speech is or isn’t acceptable on the basis of their own, decidedly woke corporate values.

    Does that mean the withdrawal of financial services from people and organisations that express dissenting opinions on those topics is the new front in the ongoing war against free speech? Sarah McLellan, writing in Spectator Australia, certainly thinks so. Citing Jesse Powell, Chief Executive of Kraken Bitcoin Exchange, she argues that “the traditional financial system has essentially been weaponised” and that losing free access to funding streams on account of one’s political views is tantamount to losing free speech.

    PayPal undoubtedly has form in that regard. Earlier this year, Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi published a story about how the company has been selectively de-platforming alternative media sites that published stories contradicting some of the West’s reporting of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Among those to have been banned were Mint Press News, a left-wing web-based outlet, and Consortium News, founded by the late Associated Press investigative reporter Robert Parry in 1995 as one of the web’s very first independent, reader-funded news outlets.

    More recently, we’ve seen sites that raise perfectly lawful questions about Covid vaccines also getting demonetised by PayPal, including the U.K. Medical Freedom Alliance. (As in Toby’s case, Liz Evans, the head of the UKMFA, had her personal PayPal account closed at the same time.) Law-or-fiction, a site run by lawyers and dedicated to helping citizens understand their rights and how they may have been affected as a result of the UK government’s response to Covid-19, suffered the same fate a few weeks ago. UsforThem, a parents’ group that fought to keep schools open during the pandemic announced just this week that its account had been shut down by PayPal due to “the nature of its activities” (Telegraph). And then there’s Conservative group Moms for Liberty, and the personal website of gender ideology critic Colin Wright, and… we could go on.

    As Matt Taibbi explains, “going after cash is a big jump from simply deleting speech and actually has a much bigger chilling effect”. This is especially true when it comes to alternative media or grassroots campaigning, where “money has long been notoriously tight”, and the loss of a few thousand pounds here or there can have a major effect on a project, website, podcast or whatever else.

    Up until now, companies like PayPal, GoFundMe, Patreon and CrowdJustice have ‘only’ demonetised individuals and groups whose views they disapprove of. But “open for all” PayPal has just decided to close the account of the FSU, an organisation that defends people’s right to free speech, without taking sides on the issues they’re speaking about.

    Is this now the benchmark for all subsequent forms of financial censorship? If so, then as Toby pointed out on GB News on the night the story broke, PayPal has just significantly – and singlehandedly – “narrowed the Overton Window”, ensuring that “there are now certain issues you aren’t allowed to defend people for expressing sceptical opinions about”.

    That’s why, as the switch to a cashless society gathers speed, the Government will need to put laws in place to protect people from being punished by companies like PayPal for the expression of dissenting views. But what sorts of laws? “The challenge,” as Fraser Nelson points out, will be to make the case that “protecting diversity should also mean diversity of opinion” (Telegraph).

    One possible solution to Fraser Nelson’s “challenge”, outlined by Toby in a comment piece for the Telegraph, would be for legislation to be passed “making it illegal for financial services companies to discriminate against customers on the basis of their political beliefs, provided they’re within the law”. The Equality Act 2010 does provide some protection for people discriminated against on that basis, it’s true; but not in the case of companies headquartered outside the UK, like PayPal.

    The FSU is still working through the ramifications of PayPal’s actions, but one thing is clear: over the coming weeks and months, we will be lobbying the Government to put new laws in place to make it illegal for financial companies to withdraw their services “for purely political reasons”.

    The FSU’s packed schedule of events this autumn!

    Details of the FSU’s packed schedule of members-only events this Autumn has been emailed to members, so please do check if you’ve received that message (and let events@freespeechunion.org know if you haven’t).

    Our upcoming members-only events include a live, in-person launch of Andrew Doyle’s brilliant new book The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World. The comedian, author, and presenter of GB News’s Free Speech Nation will join FSU General Secretary Toby Young on-stage in London on 27th September to discuss how we can push back against cancel culture and reinstate liberal democratic values. There’ll be plenty of time for an audience Q&A, as well as for audience members to purchase signed copies of The New Puritans.

    On 5th October we’ll be holding our second Online Annual Convention. This event is exclusively for Gold and Founder members, so do consider upgrading your current membership package if you’re not a Gold member already. The Convention affords senior staff and the Directors of the FSU the opportunity to thank members for their continuing support and to report back on highlights from the past year – e.g., legal victories, case-work successes and the impact our behind-the-scenes legislative and policy work is having. It’s also an opportunity for Gold and Founder members to participate in a Q&A where they get to have their say about the work we’re doing.

    Then, on 12th October, Toby will be joined in conversation at an exclusive Online Speakeasy by stand-up comedian, actor, writer and presenter Jack Dee. You can watch Jack’s video message inviting you to the event by clicking here.

    FSU members will also be offered discount tickets to the Battle of Ideas Festival 2022 (15th and 16th October). During that event, Toby be speaking on a panel the FSU is sponsoring that focuses on the Online Safety Bill. The Free Speech Champions will also be partnering on a session about how young people can be persuaded to join the defence of freedom of speech.

    Finally, we’ve organised a members-only Online Speakeasy with Neil Oliver, the television presenter and former President of the National Trust Scotland – more details to follow in due course.

    Roger Scruton Memorial Lectures 2022 – register for free tickets here!

    Oxford University’s annual ‘Roger Scruton Memorial Lectures’ are fast approaching.

    On 17th October, Chair of the Social Mobility Commission (and “Britain’s strictest teacher”) Katherine Birbalsingh CBE will be in conversation with the founder of the 30% club, Baroness Helena Morrissey, and Dr Marie Daouda (Oriel College, Oxford). Register here.

    On 19th October, one of Britain’s most distinguished historians, Andrew Roberts, will be in conversation with Professor Robert Tombs, now Professor Emeritus of French History at the University of Cambridge. Register here.

    On 24th October, journalist and writer Peter Hitchens will be in conversation with former Conservative MEP Lord Daniel Hannan and Professor Sir Noel Malcolm (All Souls College, Oxford). Register here.

    Finally, on 26th October, FSU Chairman Professor Nigel Biggar (Oxford) will be in conversation with every self-respecting free speech warrior’s new favourite politician, Secretary of State for International Trade the Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch, and Professor Ali Ansari (University of St Andrews). Register here.

    All events are free to attend, although registration is required.

    FSU members publish free speech related books!

    FSU member Andrei Yafaev’s work features in Diversity, Inclusion, Equity (2022), an edited collection from Imprint Academic that also contains contributions from clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson, and philosopher Peter Boghossian. The contributors to this book ― spanning five continents ― offer a stark insight into the dangers of equality, diversity and inclusion policies to free speech on campus and in the research environment. Hyper-wokism poses a serious threat to academic freedom and this volume marks the start of a fight back against those seeking to de-platform, harass, and censor academics who dare to tackle ‘forbidden’ topics. You can purchase a copy here. Another book you might be interested in is this one by FSU member Douglas Cormack.

    And finally…

    The National Trust will shortly hold elections to its council at its annual AGM, and the ultra-woke Trustees are doing everything they can to secure victory for their preferred candidates. So, if you’re a member of the National Trust, think about voting for the candidates being put up by the Restore Trust, the non-woke alternative: Bola Anike, Jeremy Black, Phil Bradby, Edward Bulmer, Philip Gibbs, Zareer Masani and Rosamund Roxburgh. The Restore Trust is also asking members to vote for its resolutions calling for an end to the Chairman’s discretionary proxy vote, which is a way of rigging the vote on resolutions in favour of the Trustees’ preferred outcome, and another calling for a National Trust Ombudsman so that tenants and other stakeholders have recourse to an independent complaints procedure.

    Sharing the newsletter

    As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join, and help us turn the tide against cancel culture. You can share our newsletters on social media with the buttons below to help us spread the word. If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.

    Best wishes,

    1. I totally support the FSU’s fightback on this, but this is the classic outraged reaction of the establishment “rebel” when people who genuinely oppose the system have been oppressed for years, and they never said a word because they thought it wouldn’t apply to them.

  34. Well do you think I’ll get away with this ?
    I’ve just informed my energy suppliers that they can now pay me 100 pounds per reading I supply each month.

        1. I find Shell Energy (in reality Royal Dutch Shell) are a pain in the backside, particularly when it comes to billing.

          1. There’s not a lot of difference between any of them Conners.
            I still have no idea why our electricity prices have risen so dramatically. It makes no particular sense at all.
            And I thought our gas came from Norwegian waters via a pipe line direct to the east coast.

  35. So much for GPs being overwhelmed…… ours clearly doesn’t have enough to do! He’s just phoned and offered to do OH’s three monthly jab himself as the nurse is off sick.

        1. Funny thing – payment for such things. BIzarre.

          One would have assumed that it was all part and parcel of the job (for which they are very well paid, anyway).

      1. Possibly……. he’s quite young, and our former (very good) GP seems to have retired sometime over this year.

    3. My nephew-in-law (i.e. the husband of one of my nieces) who was a doctor retired at the age of 58 because, thanks to Gideon Osborne’s absurd treatment of pensions, discovered he would be worse off if he continued to work.

      Now there is a severe shortage of doctors and those that are still working are far too highly paid and work far too few hours.

      Do politicians ever get anything right?

      1. There are also a lot of female doctors with family commitments who prefer to work part time. Others earn enough in three days to make it worthwhile – gives them time for other things like private work.

    4. My nephew-in-law (i.e. the husband of one of my nieces) who was a doctor retired at the age of 58 because, thanks to Gideon Osborne’s absurd treatment of pensions, discovered he would be worse off if he continued to work.

      Now there is a severe shortage of doctors and those that are still working are far too highly paid and work far too few hours.

      Do politicians ever get anything right?

  37. I went to get a haircut yesterday. When I got there, I thought “What the hell” and got them all cut.

  38. I went to get a haircut yesterday. When I got there, I thought “What the hell” and got them all cut.

      2. Learnt as a child at my grandmother’s knee
        If the great (sic) be empty put some coal on
        If the grate (sic) be full stop

        1. All my grandparents except one whom I only met once died before I was born which limited the lessons I could learn at my grandparents’ knees and other low joints.

          hijklmno

          (H to O Water)

          and

          Wood

          Mr

          Hants

          Mr Underwood,
          Andover,
          Hants

          2. My paternal Gfather died in 1931, my maternal Gfather in 1950. My maternal Gmother came to live with us in 1953, so I knew her for two years before she died. My last Gmother died in 1970, but the only time I really remember meeting her was in 1959.

        2. All my grandparents except one whom I only met once died before I was born which limited the lessons I could learn at my grandparents’ knees and other low joints.

          hijklmno

          (H to O Water)

        3. All my grandparents except one whom I only met once died before I was born which limited the lessons I could learn at my grandparents’ knees and other low joints.

          hijklmno

          (H to O Water)

    2. Bunch of demented fascists, the lot of them. Does she realise what she has said? Good grief. We have left, and thank goodness we have.

    3. And people still think we should return to the EU?

      This sort of thing should make any remotely pro-Britain politician wish to throw off all the malign influence the EU still has over us. We should invoke Article 16 this week and get rid of the NI Protocol; we should leave the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act while we’re at it. We should also stop paying benefits to illegal immigrants before kicking them out of the UK altogether.

    4. ‘…we have tools…’

      This from the former German defence minister who sent her troops on exercise armed with broomstick handles in lieu of rifles.

      1. Probably reading legal tomes to try and figure out how to get one over on the socialist traitors at the Home Office. They did for Patel, and they will try to bury Braverman’s career too.

        1. Easy solution(s)

          1. Leave the ECHR
          2. Repeal the Human Rights Act
          3. Stop benefits to illegal immigrants
          4. Inter those arriving in Island camps
          5. Inspect and reject any with criminal records

          Job done.

          1. 1. will be blocked by Truss
            2. will be blocked by Truss
            3. will land the home office in court, as the illegals have rights under international refugee treaties
            4. would provide much work for Yooman Rites lawyers – at our expense
            5. ditto
            No Home Secretary can do anything until they have the PM’s backing – and Truss is a WEF person, like Johnson. They’ve just put Braverman at the Home office to finish her.
            She is clever though – maybe she will think of something.

          6. The only answer is to sink the dinghies. The ooman rites lawyers can’t scrape them off the sea bed and they don’t need to know who delivered the puncture if it’s done from underneath.

    2. Hang on. If the frogs can shepherd those struggling back, why are they not doing the same for them all?

      Get rid of these vermin.

    3. Nice outside here now – just hung out the washing and picked some tomatoes for preserving with the MR’s recipe.

  43. R: el budget:

    Rebecca Evans, the finance minister in the Labour Welsh government, said the “mini-Budget” will “embed unfairness” across the country.

    She said: “Today’s announcements show the UK Government is heading in a deeply worrying direction, with misplaced priorities leading to a regressive statement that will embed unfairness across the United Kingdom.

    How? When high taxes created this divide, how will more socialism undo it? Hmm? Blasted communists. If they don’t like it, it’s a good thing. Regressive statement… ahh. Progressive being communism, regressive being capitalism. What a complete berk the woman is.

    1. “Evans obtained a BA degree in history at the University of Leeds,[1] and an MPhil in Historical Studies at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.[1]

      She worked as Policy and Public Affairs Officer for a national charity representing disabled people and their families. Evans is also a former Welsh Labour Organiser for Mid and West Wales, and a former Senior Researcher and Communications Officer for an Assembly Member.”

      (Wikipedia)

      Financial qualifications? Well, with that extended study, she probably knows about debt. Looks like a classic example of a parasite who studies a useless subject at Yooniversity and then sucks off the taxpayer teat for the rest of her miserable career.

    1. Are the Left squawking?

      Yes, they are.

      Then the decisions are the right ones.

      Keep cutting. It’s not their money, it’s time they got off their lazy, Left wing, entitled, spoiled, lazy backsides and paid their own way.

      1. Try clicking on “later” when you see the sign in message.

        It’s about the young man shot by police and his criminal record, but such a good guy and loved by everyone.

          1. I

            n residential Kirkstall Gardens, Streatham Hill, residents still ask who Chris Kaba
            is and why the 24-year-old, black unarmed rapper was shot dead by a
            police marksman through a car windscreen outside their homes nearly
            three weeks ago.

            Sadly, amid an unsettling lack of official
            information, they are not the only ones across the capital demanding
            answers to the same urgent question.

            Mr
            Kaba’s distraught family learnt a little more on Wednesday when they
            viewed body-worn footage captured by officers in two police cars who
            chased and hemmed in his Audi Q8 late at night on September 5.

            They also privately met Scotland Yard’s new Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley,
            for 25 minutes after viewing the footage. Today, the Evening Standard
            investigates the events leading up to the shooting in a bid to shed new
            light on the story gripping London.

            Mr Kaba was shot once in the head, suffering catastrophic injuries, on the narrow south London street. The Metropolitan Police officer involved has been suspended and the Independent Office for Police Conduct has launched a homicide investigation. Read More

            Chris Kaba’s family taking ‘a step back’ after viewing footage of fatal incident

            Chris Kaba’s family says viewing video of son’s shooting was ‘very hard’

            New Met Police commissioner holds meeting with family of Chris Kaba

            SPONSOREDCanary Wharf Group is transforming London offices

            But
            Mr Kaba’s cousin, Jefferson Bosela, believes most people have already
            made up their minds due to a lack of information. Streatham Labour MP
            Bell Ribeiro-Addy told the Standard the immediate impact on young people
            in her constituency was a profound belief that Mr Kaba had been
            “executed”.

            His killing had echoes of the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan, 29, a decade ago in Tottenham, which sparked rioting across Britain.
            An inquest jury later found he was lawfully killed. On social media,
            supporters passionately argue Mr Kaba’s case with the hashtag
            #JusticeForChrisKaba, as Mr Bosela, 27, a former English teacher and
            year head, pleads: “He mattered to us.” Protesters marching to New Scotland Yard in a demonstration over the death of Chris Kaba (Left Unity/PA) / PA Media

            Ms
            Ribeiro-Addy, below, also says the car was not registered to Mr Kaba
            and she wonders if police even knew he was the driver. Last weekend,
            rallies were held outside New Scotland Yard, the Met’s headquarters,
            with other protests taking place in Brighton, Manchester and Cardiff.

            Mourners were told Mr Kaba’s pregnant fiancée, Karimah Waite, was so grief-stricken she could hardly get out of bed.

            Star
            Wars actor John Boyega, 30, highlighted the case on New York’s Hot 97
            radio station while discussing institutional racism. Vossi Bop rapper
            Stormzy, 29, offered his support to Mr Kaba’s family at a time when the
            Queen’s death overtook the musician’s in the news.

            The Standard
            has learned that two years before his killing, on August 11, 2020, Mr
            Kaba, then 22, was pulled over just four miles away in Cranbrook Road,
            Thornton Heath, on suspicion of failing to stop a Vauxhall Astra on the
            order of a police constable in uniform. Bromley magistrates’ court heard
            the officer “had cause to believe it was being used in a manner likely
            to cause alarm, distress and/or annoyance to members of the public”.

            During
            a search, police found a lock knife. Two days later, Mr Kaba pleaded
            guilty to having a bladed article in a public place and driving without
            insurance. The failing to stop charge was withdrawn.

            He was
            remanded in custody and committed to Croydon crown court for sentencing
            as the offences were committed while on licence. On October 21, Mr Kaba
            received an extra five months in custody, six penalty points on his
            licence and told to pay a £120 victim surcharge.

            At the time, Mr
            Kaba had only recently been released from a four-year term in a young
            offender institution for possession of a firearm with intent to cause
            fear of violence. The conviction dated to an incident in Butchers Road,
            Canning Town, at 3.25am on December 30, 2017.

            Police said gunshots
            were fired but no one was injured. Following his extended sentence, Mr
            Kaba was released around a year ago. Habib Kadiri, from stop-and-search
            campaign group StopWatch, responded to why Mr Kaba may not have complied
            with the instructions of a firearms officer on that fateful night.The scene of the shooting in Streatham Hill / PA

            He
            said: “In our conversations with individuals subjected to a
            stop-and-search, we often find that the inherently aggressive tactics of
            the officers involved crowd out any notion of so-called ‘rational
            behaviour’. The nature of street policing induces panic.

            Many
            people we’ve spoken with feel as though the police engineer encounters
            in order to catch them out.” By April 13 this year, freed Mr Kaba was
            served by police with a 28-day domestic violence protection order
            relating to Ms Waite, the mother of his unborn girl. The notice granted
            at Westminster magistrates’ court barred him from contacting her on
            social media or entering her street in Battersea.

            It added the
            order prohibits the “alleged perpetrator from using or threatening
            violence against Karimah Waite or pester, encourage or instruct any
            other person to do so”. However, Ms Waite’s mother Kim Alleyne, 49, said
            her future son-in-law had an apprenticeship to become an architect,
            adding earlier this month: “He was so loved. He was so funny. He was
            super-kind. If that was a white boy, he would have got a chance to get
            out the car.”

            Mr Bosela, who quit his job to assume the role of
            family spokesman, said: “Clearly in this case, his moral compass doesn’t
            matter. And as much as I believe he’s amazing and a good person, even
            if he weren’t, that does not matter because they did not know that Chris
            was in that car unless it was a targeted operation.”

            “Because of the lack of information at the beginning, people have already drawn their own conclusions,” Ms Ribeiro-Addy agreed.

            “I’m
            worried that no matter what the outcome of the investigation, people
            have already made up their minds about what happened. We’ve heard a lot
            of the young people referring to it as an execution because of the way
            he was shot. That is really dangerous language.

            “For a lot of
            them, it’s very much, ‘This has happened again. It always happens to
            us’. They believe nothing changes. In Lambeth, we have the lowest
            [police] trust and confidence in the entire city.”

            On the evening
            of September 5, Mr Kaba had left the home of his mother, Helen
            Lumuanganu, also known as Nkama, in Peckham but it is not known where he
            was going. While driving the Audi it activated an automatic number
            plate recognition camera that alerted police to a link to a firearms
            incident in the previous days.

            The car was subjected to a “hard
            stop” after a pursuit by two armed response vehicles carrying specialist
            firearms officers, which boxed him in.

            Just before 10pm,
            residents in Kirkstall Gardens heard a single shot. An anonymous witness
            later told the Standard: “Armed police jumped out and were shouting at
            the man, ‘Get out of the car’. It was at least a dozen times. The guy in
            the car had a lot of opportunities to stop but he refused. He then
            started driving towards a police car and smashed into it, then reversed,
            he just wouldn’t stop the vehicle.”

            The resident claimed that Mr Kaba “could have killed one of the officers with his car”.

            The
            Metropolitan Police Federation, representing every constable, sergeant,
            inspector and chief inspector, confirmed it would support their “brave”
            firearms colleague as others threatened to hand in their weapons.
            Chairman Ken Marsh said it had “no issue whatsoever” with the shooting
            investigation.

            The prospect of any criminal charge against the
            officer who fired the fatal shot is likely to depend on whether the
            Crown Prosecution Service decides that he was acting in self-defence in
            response to a realistic threat to his life or that of another officer.

            Mr
            Kaba was the eldest of three brothers brought up by church-going
            parents Prosper Kaba and Mrs Lumuanganu from the Democratic Republic of
            Congo. He lived in Wembley. Known by the street name Madix, he was a
            member of 67, a Brixton Hill-based drill rap group. His mother said
            after viewing the police video footage that she remained determined to
            achieve “justice”.

            The IOPC said its investigation could take six
            to nine months as a “significant amount of evidence” is examined. A
            spokesman added: “We empathise with Chris Kaba’s family and we fully
            appreciate that they have many questions. We understand that people want
            answers quickly. However, this is a complex investigation and we must
            allow our investigation to run its course as we establish all of the
            facts.”

            Daniel Machover, the lawyer for Mr Kaba’s family, said:
            “It is vital for a safe and just society that the police are held fully
            accountable in law whenever they use lethal force.

            “This remains
            true regardless of what anyone involved may – or may not – have done in
            the past. Speculation in these circumstances is a distraction from what
            must be the priority, which is establishing precisely how and why Chris
            came to be shot.”

            The Met said it was unable to comment due to the IOPC’s probe. An inquest into Mr Kaba’s death will be opened at Inner South London coroner’s court on October 4

          2. Thank you. I hope the police marksman gets a slap on the wrist. He waited until the rapper had rammed a couple of police cars. Defacing ‘rainbow’ cars is a serious felony. He should have acted sooner.

          3. Can’t read it either.

            However, I noticed in The Grimes that the family announced that “…having seen video footage” they had decided to “stand back”…..

            Which presumably means that they now realise that he was a murderous thug determined to avoid “assisting the police”….

          5. The owner of the car is going to be pretty upset. The insurance company may be unwilling to pay out.

          7. “…from the Democratic Republic of the Congo”
            Is there anyone on the planet who does not have the right to reside in the UK? anyone?

          10. That’s odd, there has been on my browser.
            It blocked the screen.
            Having clicked on it I get normal access.
            It read something like, “no thanks, Ill try later” or similar

    3. “Mourners were told Mr Kaba’s pregnant fiancée, Karimah Waite, was so grief-stricken she could hardly get out of bed.”

      but, reading further down;
      “By April 13 this year, freed Mr Kaba was
      served by police with a 28-day domestic violence protection order
      relating to Ms Waite, the mother of his unborn girl.      “

  51. Biden sends secret nuclear strike warning to Putin. 23 September 2022.

    The US has been sending secret messages to Russia to warn that it will face grave consequences if it conducts a nuclear strike in Ukraine.

    Deliberately vague, the memos are designed to keep the Kremlin guessing over how Joe Biden, the US President, would respond.

    US officials told the Washington Post newspaper the private communications had been dispatched regularly for the last several months.

    They are so secret that they are in the Washington Post and the Telegraph and so vague that no one understands what they mean. Fortunately I think its complete tosh dreamed up by some drunken hack at the Post!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/09/23/ukraine-war-russia-sham-referendum-nuclear-military-mobilisation/

  52. Biden sends secret nuclear strike warning to Putin. 23 September 2022.

    The US has been sending secret messages to Russia to warn that it will face grave consequences if it conducts a nuclear strike in Ukraine.

    Deliberately vague, the memos are designed to keep the Kremlin guessing over how Joe Biden, the US President, would respond.

    US officials told the Washington Post newspaper the private communications had been dispatched regularly for the last several months.

    They are so secret that they are in the Washington Post and the Telegraph and so vague that no one understands what they mean. Fortunately I think its complete tosh dreamed up by some drunken hack at the Post!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/09/23/ukraine-war-russia-sham-referendum-nuclear-military-mobilisation/

    1. “… designed to keep the Kremlin guessing over how Joe Biden, the US President, would respond.” Don’t think Biden knows how he will respond never mind the Kremlin!

  53. A Thomas Sowell quote.

    Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born while others are not held responsible for they themselves are doing today.

    Couldn’t have put it better myself.

    1. His book, Basic Economics is very good. He’s a genuinely incapable chap. Much like Morgan Freeman, he doesn’t think of himself as black but simply as a man.

      Lefties, of course, are desperate to label him.

    1. A very distinguished and handsome looking gentleman. We, the UK and USA, could do with more of his ilk.

      1. No, the probability is that that PC is either lifting himself up from prostrating himself, or is about to prostrate himself, so if you want equivalence the Muslim should be prostrating himself before the altar of a Christian church.
        I do not believe that the senior officers would request him to do so for community relations.

          3. What I found most offensive about the whole (ongoing) episode is that the Muslims claim areas as “theirs” and that non-Muslims are unwelcome.

          6. And NO ONE points out to these savages that we do not have ghettos in Britain (er, leaving out Norn, of course)…..

  57. Here are my anxious thoughts ..

    Are illegals being tolerated here in the UK to compensate for the higher than normal death rates amongst our indigenous population , and that birth rates haven’t quite caught up with the adults required to keep the country afloat?

    1. Given that hardly any of them are ever likely to make a net contribution and nor are any children they produce, I doubt it.

    2. No. Illegals have been invited here. In Scotland the last First Minister but one said Scotland needed 600,000 immigrants. No distinction made between legal immigrants qualified or experienced in some useful skill, and illegal immigrants illiterate in any language.

        2. I don’t give a sh*t anymore. This government does not care about the real and true British people.
          This country is a sad joke.

          2. Count me out – I don’t hate Africans. Doesn’t mean I want to live in a majority African country, because in common with every other human being on the planet apart from liberal progressives, I like being surrounded by people who look and behave like me. But I appreciate Christian Africans, they are good people.

    3. TB, Just over 12 months ago my MP replied to my query on why all these people are being allowed into the UK.

      The united Kingdom has a proud record of helping those fleeing persecution. oppression or tyranny from around the world.
      A key objective of the Nationalities and borders bill is to deter and prevent illegal entry into our country. By cracking down on illegal immigration, we can prioritise those in genuine need      ……..he goes on with even more BS

      It’s a total lie and the Irony is of course all these people are illegal and not one of them comes from the areas described, they have come from France a safe country. And of course something else that our political classes have effed up.

    4. TB, Just over 12 months ago my MP replied to my query on why all these people are being allowed into the UK.

      The united Kingdom has a proud record of helping those fleeing persecution. oppression or tyranny from around the world.
      A key objective of the Nationalities and borders bill is to deter and prevent illegal entry into our country. By cracking down on illegal immigration, we can prioritise those in genuine need      ……..he goes on with even more BS

      It’s a total lie and the Irony is of course all these people are illegal and not one of them comes from the areas described, they have come from France a safe country. And of course something else that our political classes have effed up.

  58. The United States has failed in its ambitions. As the child of the United Kingdom it wanted to supplant and succeed us. The US, having dropped its splendid isolation, set out to achieve world hegemony, not recognising that it is a very different world to the one that we ruled. They failed to curb the ambitions of Japan prior to WW2, and they have failed in almost every military enterprise since the end of WW2. Most were ill conceived, based on false premises, and reliant on supposed military superiority. Despite VietNam, Iraq, and Afghanistan they continue with policies and covert interventions that made things so much worse. (Their only success was Grenada where there was no opposition.)
    The US has no concept of “soft power”. Their main tool of outreach is the CIA, as incompetent an organisation of world influence as the KKK. Iran is an example of how a country friendly to the West became an enemy as a result of CIA machinations. (With the help of the catspaw UK and MI6.)
    Their bungling in the Ukraine, their deep-seated hatred of Russia (despite the obvious fact that Russia of the Soviets no longer exists) has brought about a situation where both sides are openly discussing the use of nuclear weapons.
    Any use of nuclear weapons, however limited in initial intent, will result in a full on war, with strikes on Russia, the UK and the USA. The Vandals who are talking this up must realise and be happy with the likely result; the destruction of western civilisation in the Northern Hemisphere. China will not join in as they have everything to gain by being the top dog in a wrecked world. Everything that China could gain from the West they already have, gifted by our businesses.
    Gates and chums will be satisfied with the reduction of the white population to remnants.
    We seem to be heading for nuclear war.

    1. “Their main tool of outreach is the CIA,...”

      If ever there was/is a useless tool, it’s the CIA. Sack the lot.

    2. Even a limited nuclear war in the Ukraine would render much of Ukraine uncultivable.

      A world wide famine would ensue.

      Mr Gates’ profound wish for a reduction in population might occur sooner than he imagined.

  59. In yer France (Sancerre) there is a small wine maker called “Thomas et Fils”

    My elder son and his wife are holidaying near there. Yesterday, they were joined by their elder son (29) – and today they all went to Domaine Thomas.

    A photo was taken of Dan and Son in front of the sign saying “Thomas et Fils”.

    One for the album!!

      1. I introduced them to the Domaine – having first tasted the red it at the wonderful Bourges restaurant “Le Beauvoir”

  60. Funny Old World
    News full of tax cuts not a word about cutting government expenditure
    Sigh,time to rev up the printing presses again I suppose……….

    2. Spot on, Rik. Yet many people will be taken in; they think that tomorrow is going to be just like yesterday.

    1. Not so good today but I got there.
      Wordle 461 5/6

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

    2. And the Euro and the Jap Yen, too. All taking a pounding vs US$. My US$ pension, thankfully my largest, is doing well. But who knows for how long?

  65. Conflicting reports but the shop Fauchon in Place de la Madeleine is closed. Due to the yellow vests and the scamdemic. Nothing to do at all with tourists deserting Paris because of all the human excrement, muslims and beggars.

    Such a snobby shop. Ladies in ball gowns sitting on thrones behind desks sneering at the arrivistes. I even got a slapped wrist and was told off for picking up a bar of chocolat. I expect those self same ladies are now working as prostitutes.

  67. That’s me done for today. Nice walk to see goats. Then an hour’s useful ladder work – cutting back (yet again) one of the Wisterias. How they GROW…..

    Cats were both sick last night – Pickles dramatically so. We think they must have eaten something which had been poisoned. Both in fine fettle now – though we’ll keep a eye on them.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain

    1. Hope they both make a swift recovery. I spent time in the garden cutting things back, too. In my case it was Japanese quince and a holly. If the holly hadn’t been female (see, Stormy, there are advantages) I would have dug it out. As it was I just cut it back to enable prickle-less passage, leaving the berries on.

      2. Cheer up, small, compact tits easily outweigh big busty knockers. More than a handful, is a waste.

  70. Evening, all. The alternative most NHS patients seek appears to be clogging up A&E, resulting in situations like the one reported tonight in my local rag where an elderly patient had to wait 20 hours for an ambulance after a fall at home. No wonder most people who have access to transport turn up at A&E under their own steam (and thereby no doubt save their life).

    1. And, if like us, you do not have access to your own transport? I am seriously pissed off with the NHS right now.

        1. But we’ll be happy. Thanks, Klaus.

          Since moving, I’m four minutes’ walk from Wanborough station. So I’m alright, Jack. If I could prise a licence from DVLA, I’d only really need a car to get to the churches in the parish, and since there are near neighbours willing to give me lifts to and from those, I really can’t justify the costs of having a car. Despite being eligible for a Motability one. But not everyone is in my position.

          It’s clear to me that ‘own transport’ is soon to be limited to bicycles. For us plebs. At least, you’ll have your equine transport…

          1. We’re off to Sheffield in a couple of weeks’ time for a family reunion. We seem to have dodged the railway strike days but there could be some disruption on the days we’re travelling.
            We’ll be walking down the hill to the bus stop (approximately a mile but downhill) and getting the bus to the station. Coming home on the Sunday evening, our lovely neighbour next door has volunteered again to pick us up from the station as there’s no bus.

    2. The NHS needs a bloody good sort out with a VERY severe pruning of it’s management system.

      But then we here already know that.

      1. It doesn’t have a ‘ management system’, BoB; rather a bunch of overpaid, incompetent administrators.

        1. Empire building. They need to be taken out and shot in the knee and then they might see how well the services they oversee perform.

    3. When my GP suspected i had had a heart attack she told me to wait in the empty waiting room. She was gone for 30 minutes while i sat there in contemplation. She came back and said that after 20 minutes of trying to contact my local General she was cut off. They did however wring her back 10 minutes later.
      The advice was to get a friend, Taxi or Bus as there were no ambulances.
      I arrived at Acute Medial and was seen after two hours.
      I was told after an ECG i hadn’t had a heart attack but wait for the Consultant.
      Eight hour later as patients began to bed down in the waiting room I left.

      I had a recent call from my Hymaetologist that i needed a recent blood test. I tried all morning to book an appointment on the number given.

      That number is no longer valid and their website hasn’t been updated since April.

      I called the switchboard and they told me to just come in as a walk in though the website says not to do so.

      I am thinking of booking a lunch in a nice restaurant close by and see who gets my money/blood. Save on Parking charges!

        1. I don’t think they are allowed to perform personal services (good film BTW).

          Dolly had to have her jabs last week and he was 30 minutes over the appointment time. When he eventually appeared i said to him how long past the appointment he was.

          His response was….Am i slow today?
          My response was …You should never keep a lady waiting if you don’t want her to turn into a bitch.

          1. Probably not, but they are certainly qualified to treat any animal, you included.
            In extremis, I would happily go to a vet if my friend Bill Thomas was in trouble

        2. Vets give their patients a treat for good behaviour.
          I’d love to see a human patient’s expression when offered a dried chicken ‘coin’.

          3. Our vet kisses his patients on the top of their head. Our son’s kitty thanked him by hissing loudly. Poppie is fine with it.

        3. The vet at the stables was convinced he’d broken his ankle but the NHS said no, it was only a bruise. He used the practice X ray machine and sure enough, it was broken!

      1. It isn’t the fault of the ambulance drivers, ususally. They can’t offload their patients. I gave a lift home to a friend this afternoon and she said she qualified for free transport for hospital appointments and instead of a sending a hospital car, they sent an ambulance! Her son is a paramedic and he took over from another at the beginning of his shift and by the time his shift ended, the same patient was still waiting in the ambulance. The system is completely broken.

  71. About 8 or 9 bucket loads of soil & stone dug out from the steps and a couple of the kerbstones relaid.
    I’ve another 5 to relocate and will need most of the 7 or 8 spares I have to finish the job.

    I’m now off for a well deserved bath!

      2. Where have you been? it’s either the Hanging Garden of Bonsall or the Great Wall of Bonsall. Depending on who said it.

  72. Good Evening All – just a quick update on the back problem- had enough and engaged the doc again who sent me to the xRay dept over the road ( convenient!) turns out I have minor compression fractures between T6 AND T7 to add insult to injury I have eventually this week contracted Covid, the sneezing and coughing makes my eyes water, Its most likely I picked it up. from Leila who, with her friend who is now similarly afflicted, had attended a works BBQ on Friday night. it was an NHS event. It was our 49th Wedding Anniversary yesterday and it was marked only by a flurry of soggy tissues and lot of moaning and groaning. Stop sniggering at the back!!!

      1. Thanks for that LoL, ’tis but a passing inconvenience compared to some of the serious afflictions of some my chums and neighbours . I keep this in mind if I start to feel sorry for myself

      1. Absolute positive on three consecutive lfts for both of us, we have plenty as Leila still works in the nhs and has to test regularly, the back will sort itself out eventually as long as I avoid reading bob of bonsall’s posts

      1. I used paraffin, swished around the gob, sprayed out through pursed lips and fired up with a blazing torch.

        Spectacular, and the biggest risk was the squits the following day.

    3. Looks like the gel used in films.

      I learnt to ‘eat fire’ when travelling around NZ about twenty five years ago – I even appeared on NZ TV doing it.

      1. The most difficult bit for me when I did it was taking a mouthful of paraffin.
        Foul taste and the underlying fear of doing something one had never done before.
        I’m sure there must have been better alternative flammables

        1. We had flaming torches that we put out by putting them in our mouths. It was quite simple once we knew the trick.

      2. Looking at her, I’m guessing you tried to teach Jacinda Ardern and she wasn’t paying attention…

    5. Such people are vandals. Greedy, stupid, gormless vandals. As it is, most of those people who swan off to these communist conferences arrive by private jet. Cancel those and the troughers would have to fly like the rest of us putting a stop to the stupidity.

  74. Re the burning arm
    It’s a shame that the toad may have spoilt the last competitive professional game played by one of the all time greats as a doubles partner with another in a competition named after, in my view, the greatest of them all.

  76. Came back from the gym to find the Warqueen fast asleep with a ream of paper strewn about covered in her bizarre heiroglyphs. Number on it and an arrow and an exclamation mark. Phone was buzzing away on 1% battery so stuck it on silent and plugged it in.

    Carried her up to bed.

    She has, however, eaten all the Ferrero Roche and the hot chocolate.

    Junior dozing on the chair the great beast flopped alongside. He’s a good boy. He won’t leave Junior alone if he is by accident. For a very welcome change, Ozzie comes to greet me at the door with a little whuff.

    Washing to do, but the tidying can wait as if I touch her system it’ll be my neck. Of course, if I don’t, I’ll get asked why I didn’t tidy up.

  77. Goodnight, all. Off to have a long soak in a hot bath to ease my aches and pains after the gardening (and other work) I’ve done today.

    1. I remain surprised by people who think they should just be given other people’s money to have the life they want.

      When the rightful owner – the earner – of that money then has the ‘temerity’ to say no these people scream and shout about how unfair it is. The mindset of far too many people is utterly skewed.

      1. As one who worked 21 years in the JobCentre, I can tell you there are many people who think it’s their right to be paid to do nothing and they know every trick in the book to avoid getting work.

        1. I cannot help but think that welfare should be time limited. Certainly no one who’s lived on welfare should receive a pension.

          I don’t understand a world where someone believes, fervently that it is other people’s responsibility to work so they don’t have to.

          1. The old Unemployment Benefit was limited to 312 days – and depended on the claimant having paid enough contributions in two recent tax years to qualify. I don’t know what the qualifying conditions are for Universal Credit as I retired before it came in.

          2. Seemingly too low, but it was a start. I know a lot of Lefties hated it, which showed it was a good thing.

            It’s comments like this:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tax/news/mini-budget-2022-winners-losers/

            8 hrs ago Mike Brettle:

            Just put £20k and then £200k into the calculator.

            £20k gains £167

            £200k gains £5220

            I’m disgusted.

            Never thought I say or write this in a million years but I’m off to Labour next election.

            The poster deliberately ignores the £60,000 of tax that the 200K earner pays. He doesn’t mention that, only that the 20Ker doesn’t get as much. He doesn’t *pay* as much either. He seems to believe that the ‘fair’ thing is for the high earner to get far less, despite paying far more. Such people cause a divide by zero in my head. It is plain old politics of envy.

            I wonder if as they sat down to tea and I walked in and nicked their TV he’d say ‘Oh, cheers mate, take what you like’ or if he’d actively try to stop me. Forcing the state to take what people have earned is still theft, just using a proxy.

          5. If they haven’t worked for at least 35 years they won’t have paid enough contributions for a full state pension. But the state doesn’t let them starve, they will still get welfare patments.

        2. I am certain that people disfigure themselves with ink and rings and studs in noses and cheeks and weird hair because they don’t want to get a job .

          Some people look so ghastly, they don’t stand a chance of being employed .

          1. Others will misbehave at interview (if they ever get one) and other ruses to stay on benefits. When I was doing New Deal advising we used to have a fund to pay for some decent clothes for people to wear – some actually did get jobs but plenty would make every effort to not get work.
            My last job there was leading a small team sending out letters to people who didn’t bother going for jobs, then sending their excuses up to get a decision on stopping their money. That job was quite a doddle, but yet another reorganisation was looming so I decided it was time to call it a day.

  80. Home alone this evening with DT doing her Helicopter Mum act with Student son, so I spent an hour listening to Bruckner’s 1st Symphony and had a bottle of ale.
    Now it’s time for bed!!

    BOING!!!

    1. I have no idea where this comes from, but the only time I’ve been on a private jet I know the owner had bugger all interest in whether the crew had had their flu shots.

      There’s simply no interest. At that level It’s a tool. Nothing else. The only person this bloke knew by name was his driver.

    2. If you can choose only to employ vaccinated gene therapied employees then surely you should be able to choose only to employ unjabbed employees too.

      (Corporal Jones come to mind!)

  82. We are now being dictated to by hobgoblins , imps and creatures that crawl out of the bowels of bank vaults .. by those who mean great harm to our stability and peace of mind .. and those who want to wreck our countryside .. tearing great chunks out , ruining our pastoral heaven …

    Look at what Truss wants to destroy, planning laws…

    https://twitter.com/RSPBEngland/status/1573247105568743424

    The RSPB is deeply concerned about today’s proposals for investment zones and “liberalised planning rules” in places as widespread as Norfolk, West of England, West Midlands and Tees Valley. Alongside the potential powers in the new Retained EU Law Bill, Government has effectively launched a full-on attack on the laws that protect nature.

    Whatever people’s views on Europe, laws such as the habitats regulations have played a vital role in protecting our very best places for wildlife the length and breadth of England. Nature has been declining in the UK for decades. The laws that are now under attack were introduced to protect what we had left. Without them nature would be in even worse trouble. They’ve given us hope that some of our rarest and most vulnerable wildlife can still recover.

    The Habitats Regulations have shown time and time again that they can effectively protect nature. They have steered development away from our most important wildlife habitats and protected some of our most vulnerable species. They provide clarity and certainty for landowners and business and, after three decades, are well understood. For this reason, numerous sectors, from housing developers to port development, have spoken out in support of them.

    Rather than once again attacking them, we need the UK Government to accept that they are vital and invest in the additional protections nature really needs. Only then can we drive nature’s recovery – a goal the UK Government has committed to domestically and globally, having set a legally binding commitment to halt the decline of wildlife by 2030.

    However, if the Government pursues the course we have heard described today and rips up these laws, it is effectively abandoning this promise.

    Fundamentally what is being proposed fails to understand not only the love people in this country have for wildlife, but the fundamental point that a healthy environment is vital in underpinning the nation’s own social and economic wellbeing. This was described clearly in the Government’s own findings on the relationship between nature and economy the Dasgupta Review.

    Instead of attacking nature, we call on Government in the run up to the forthcoming global conference on nature to show its ambition, and in planning for prosperity to work with nature, to protect it, and realise it’s benefits.

    We call on all our supporters to contact their MP directly and ask them to act in support of these vital laws.

    You can find out more about the Habitat Regulations here.

  83. Ignore the envious Left: this Budget helps both rich and poor

    There is a backlash to any policy that benefits high earners, but they are often the ones who create jobs and foster growth

    JOHN REDWOOD • 23 September 2022 • 7:07pm

    Finally, it has been recognised that lower tax rates generate more growth and more revenue, and that only by getting growth can we boost living standards and afford good public services for everyone, especially the poorest and most vulnerable. You cannot tax your way to growth, but we were taxing ourselves into recession. Nor can you regulate your way to more investment and innovation. The private sector, all those talented individuals and risk-taking companies, need the space to make things happen.

    Kwasi Kwarteng will face a typical backlash for cutting taxes for the highest earners, but it is the right approach. We do not wish to live in a pocket money society where the state regards all the income generated by business and talented individuals as theirs to distribute once they have taken it away in taxes. That way lies the outcome of all socialist experiments, with successful people and businesses giving up on the country concerned, private investment tailing off and empty shelves in the supermarkets.

    He is returning the top rate tax to the 40 per cent successive Labour and Conservative governments thought appropriate, conscious that higher rates are not competitive internationally and lead to loss of jobs and talent as a result. It was also important to cancel that other ill-judged tax on jobs, the National Insurance surcharge this year and the social care tax next year. How wrong it was to think that such surcharges could solve the problems of financing the NHS or social care. Why would it ever be helpful to tax jobs more heavily when the main aim of policy is to create better paid jobs? Such policies, it should always be stated, hit both employers and workers.

    Perhaps the best tax proposal by the Chancellor was to promise to free self-employed people from the dangers and difficulties of the complex IR 35 regime, which led some to abandon self-employment and others to flee the country altogether. We are going to need all the self-employed we can get to grow our economy, as they often provide the innovation and flexibility required to respond rapidly to changing conditions. Some of them become the seedcorn for larger successful new companies. And many of them are also high earners.

    The ultimate aim of the Chancellor’s tax cuts is unashamed and necessary: growth in living standards. Growth brings better paid jobs, advances individual prosperity, can help level up communities, pays for the investments we need in the future and generates more tax revenue to pay for public services. The Chancellor had to borrow more this year whatever course he took – but if he had opted for the higher tax austerity some favour he would have ended up with a bigger deficit, by plunging the economy into a longer and deeper recession. For an economy falling away means less tax revenue and more benefit spending.

    Now the Bank of England needs to recognise the same urgency to halt a recession. It has done enough to settle the inflation it helped create. Its own forecast sees inflation tumbling next year which should be right. But at this moment, if it tightens too aggressively, it will bring on the recession it is forecasting despite the best efforts of the Chancellor.

    We need harmony between the Bank with its independent powers to fix interest rates, and the Government with its powers to spend, tax and borrow. They have to come together anyway to agree policy under the scheme first devised by Labour in the financial crisis to print more money and buy up government debt. The Bank does not need to sell bonds from its huge collection at depressed prices brought on by its rate hikes. That is taking financial masochism too far.

    Moreover, the Government is right that it takes too long and there are too many barriers to investing in the energy provision, water supply, flood prevention, roads, digital networks, and industrial capacity we need. The Government has to sweep away more of the obstacles to growth and harness much more private capital to achieve the longer term aim of lifting the growth rate.

    Too many white van men and women are stranded in traffic jams, booking fewer appointments each day as a result. Too many heavy energy using industries give up on the UK for not having a sufficient and affordable energy supply. Too many digital schemes to raise public sector service and productivity are beset by long delays and huge cost overruns, negating their potentially favourable impact on efficiency. They need to look again at their list of possible projects to be given the accelerated treatment they propose, and demonstrate they can take early and effective decisions on the things we need most.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/23/ignore-envious-left-budget-helps-rich-poor/

    1. The champagne socialists screeching tax the rich tend to be the same people who’ll use every trick in the book to avoid paying tax.

  85. The government will now have less of our money to waste, a good first step. The left doing their nut is the bonus.

  86. Goodnight, Gentlefolk and God rest ye but also bless ye, ’til the morning’s light – I may rest awhile.

  88. Good morning to any fellow insomniacs.
    Awake a bit before 2 and unable to get settled again.

    Poked my nose outside and it’s a lovely clear, starry night with the barest breath of wind and 6°C on the thermometer.

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