Friday 26 August: A worse Channel migrant crisis looms if the Government fails to act

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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490 thoughts on “Friday 26 August: A worse Channel migrant crisis looms if the Government fails to act”

      1. Dunno where it is. It’s one of a series published in yesterday’s DT
        ‘In pictures: 20 spellbinding weather phenomena

        We present some of the entrants for the Royal Meteorological Society’s Weather Photographer of the Year 2022 competition

        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/25/pictures-20-spellbinding-weather-phenomena/

        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2022/08/23/TELEMMGLPICT000306554723_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqzpnK1fqIf8AfXYjEGXVTop08y7QJ4BVgFhA8j6xy9Mc.jpeg?imwidth=640
        Huge waves rise from the sea at Newhaven during Storm Eunice

        1. It certainly wasn’t the Costa Clyde this morning; heavy drizzle until 08.30, 15 holes of golf until 11.30, abandon course to steam gently in the clubhouse. I’ll need my coat when I nip out for a social pint or two later.

  4. ‘Morning, Peeps and Geoff. Delightfully bright, fresh start to the day here.

    I could hardly believe my eyes when seeing the following headline to an article in today’s DT:

    “Renewable energy is the only way out of this mess

    On the basis of simple economics and self-reliance alone, the case for offshore wind and solar power is overwhelming”

    Give me strength…it is the obsession with unreliable methods of power generation that got us into this mess!  And the ‘Saudi Arabia of wind’ (Johnson, June 2021) is about to pay a terrible price for his childlike fascination with manifestly unreliable ‘renewables’.

      1. Get “the West” totally reliant. Pull the plug on spare parts and replacements.
        Checkmate.

        1. China plays an even longer game than Russia.
          Both have correctly identified plentiful energy as the key to Western affluence, and are putting a noose around it.

          1. That’s my take, and when the West degenerates into civil uprisings against the elites they will just enjoy the spectacle and munch their popcorn.
            Africanisation and Islam, help yourselves.

          2. And what has China done with Africa? Bought it in a fire sale, ultra cheap, no shooting required, nothing got broken.
            Simple strategy, and clever, too. Like Judo, use the opponents energy against them (see what I did there?)

      2. ‘Morning, Ashes. They have done the same with lithium. If electric cars are affordable now – and that’s a big ‘if’ – they won’t be for much longer, given that the Chinks own much of it and will continue to raise the price as the demand grows.

    2. A toothy read from “Watts up with that” debunks the possibility of “renewables” replacing fossil fuels

      https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/25/you-can-be-sure-that-net-zero-carbon-emissions-from-electricity-generation-will-never-be-achieved-heres-why/

      The missing link is of course the ability to STORE intermittently produced energy

      That dream always seems to be just ten years in the future just as fusion power has been since the 70’s

      It’ll work soon comrades………..

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e068b8b093b665e2cc5cb0643e84244d8e21dfa516e991a9c0fa4e36540c6cc1.jpg

  6. Rishi Sunak is just the start. The great lockdown scandal is about to unravel. 26 August 2022.

    This is part of Sunak’s point. He doesn’t say locking down was wrong. Just that it somehow went from being a daft idea, rubbished by scientists, to a national imperative whose necessity was unquestionable scientific truth. So we need to ask: was the fear messaging really necessary? Why were No 10 outriders sent out to savage dissenting scientists? Why was Sunak made to feel, as he told me, that he was being seen – even inside government – as a callous money-grabber when he raised even basic concerns?

    The disclosures should start a great unravelling of the lockdown myth, its pseudo-scientific sheen stripped away and the shocking political malfeasance left to stand exposed. Were Sage minutes manipulated, with dissent airbrushed out? If Sage “scenarios” were cooked up on fundamentally wrong assumptions we need to know, because that will mean lockdowns were imposed or extended upon a false premise. A premise that could have been exposed as false, had there been basic transparency or proper scrutiny.

    This is all being played as the part of some Great Revelation. The irony of it is that you could have read the truth on Nottl any day in the last two years. From Operation Fear to Fergusons Fantasies; the lies and dissimulations, the suppression of the truth; it was all on here; often times in great detail and depth.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/25/rishi-sunak-just-start-great-lockdown-scandal-unravel/

    1. Yes indeed. I’m not sure about the whole thing starting to unravel, though – more like swept under the carpet while attention is focused on the next ’emergency’.

    1. I didn’t know maintenance came in colours… and that’s my job!
      Morning, Delboy.

      1. Good afternoon. Just back home. Had a demo of two mowers ranging from £10,000 to £16,000.
        I think it would stupid to buy an electric mower before we see what happens this winter.

  8. Good Morning. Cold and damp. Sky again overcast. I was awakened last night by bright lights and the sound of big engines. Yes, it was harvest time. Huge machines were at work, cutting down the unidentifiable green stuff in the fields. The machines were lit up like travelling fairgrounds with a multiplicity of headlights and searchlights all round. At around 3:00 am they passed the window at distance of about 20 feet. The “agricultural manoeuvres in the dark” went on for three hours.
    I’m feeling tired.

      1. No, it’s not. Townies think it is a rural idyll for their relaxation, camper vans and cycling. Whereas it is a very large wide open workplace. The roads are for business, not tourism.

        1. When the sugar beet campaign was on. We used to have a convoy of about 10 massive empty trucks going through the nearby village at about 3am. The noise as they crashed themselves on the road had to be heard to be believed.

          1. A bit like the convoys of Quarry Tippers & tankers full of lime dust past my place from 03:00 onwards.
            We got used to it though.

    2. Remember that they use to burn 🔥 the stubble. H.P.
      We use to back onto a field 30 years ago.

      1. Bloody awful oily black smoke off the remains of rape. Like the aftermath of a panzer attack. Ugh.

  9. Golf balls ‘are the product of colonial exploitation’

    The game was ‘imposed’ around the world by the British Empire, says University of St Andrews

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2022/08/25/TELEMMGLPICT000306791636_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqGQR7TMwEvfaYG0TH6J-Ry06Usa8KZCn8ZaDf3fwLU6E.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Gutta percha, a natural rubber material found in trees native to south-east Asia, was harvested to make golf balls
    *
    *
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2022/08/25/TELEMMGLPICT000306790631_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqAF78rXbGHyAUQXfA4pRHqqf5nlD4o7eNcQ8vaK9Yq5g.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Golf was exported by the British Empire around the world, including to Egypt
    *
    *
    **********************************************************************

    Most sports played today were invented by the Brits even if we are no longer very good at them (c.f. Wendyball)

    Personally, I would accept that golf had to be cancelled the sine qua non being the cancellation of Scotland.

    3. I’m an equal opportunity golfer; I release golf balls of any colour back into the wild.

  10. Today’s leading letter:

    SIR – On Monday a record 1,295 people crossed the Channel in small boats.

    It is reported that four out of every 10 migrants recently crossing are from Albania – a safe country. Others seem to have been charged large sums for their voyage. Who is paying for them?

    A very large proportion of the rest have already been granted safe entry into France and other European nations, and are therefore strictly speaking not asylum-seekers.

    One wonders why France has received them but is not willing to provide for them or their needs. Does France not have a duty of care for those it allows to cross its borders?

    It is shocking that the British Government is paying millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money every day to care for those making the crossing.

    Illegal migrants should be returned by train or ferry to France, which gave them refuge, and from where they can make legal requests to come to Britain.

    This is the only solution to what is a constantly growing problem. If our Government fails to take immediate and rigorous action in this matter, it will inevitably result in a serious crisis.

    Nigel Scotland
    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    Well said, Mr Scotland (of England). You must have been watching GBN, ‘cos no other news channel would have the guts to tackle this subject with such persistence and vigour…

    1. Illegal migrants should be returned by train or ferry to France, which gave them refuge, and from where they can make legal requests to come to Britain.

      Requests which will almost certainly succeed given that 840,000 free admission tickets were given away last year.

  11. Oh dear Mr Sprague. You were doing so well till the final sentence.

    “ Autumn leaf fall has already begun here in Hampshire – two months too soon.
    I live in a wooded area. In the past it was a healthy family activity to collect the leaves that create the autumn carpet using besoms or wire rakes. Today, we have men and women who provide a leaf-sweeping service. They are not gardeners, but part of an army whose weapon is the most powerful backpack leafblower that money can buy.
    While rustling leaves have a decibel level of 20 and a babbling brook 40, the leaf-blower can reach a decibel level of 120. A jet engine at take-off has a decibel level of 140.
    In a typical street of a hundred houses in a wooded area, there is, throughout the late autumn and winter period, the frequent noise of this army on the march.
    This year, thanks to climate change, the battle has already begun.
    Bob Sprague Chandler’s Ford, Hampshire”

    1. Those things are incredibly loud. The company where I do a lot of work has offices facing into a courtyard garden. The young man who maintains this garden appears to require either a lawnmower or a leaf blower about 50 weeks of the year! Drives me insane.

      1. The ones I hear and see appear to be paid simply to blow the leaves from one place to another and back again. While revving up and down like an F1 car on takeoff.

      2. The ones I hear and see appear to be paid simply to blow the leaves from one place to another and back again. While revving up and down like an F1 car on takeoff.

  12. SIR – The French police and navy stand by and watch as migrants launch boats and motor slowly to the centre of the Channel to be picked up by the Border Force with one of their five large crew-transfer vessels.

    This is a commercial operation. The migrants purchase a “ticket” costing thousands of pounds, and yet the boats, described by the National Crime Agency as “death traps”, are known to be unseaworthy. They are grossly overladen and I very much doubt that the person with their hand on the tiller has a certificate of competence for being in command of a vessel at sea.

    Yet still the French authorities do very little to prevent a very serious accident. No doubt President Emmanuel Macron will be full of remorse should one of these boats sink, with the loss of up to 50 lives, or be run down by a merchant ship in the world’s busiest shipping lane.

    Sqn Ldr James A Cowan (retd)
    Durham

    To be perfectly honest, Sqn Ldr Cowan, the safety of the boat people is not exactly at the top of my list of considerations when it comes to the matter of our daily invasion. They know that what they are doing is illegal and therefore must bear responsibility for the outcome.

    1. Dear Mr Cowan perhaps it’s time for you to get things into perspective. And perhaps a few very serious accidents might even put a stop to the invasion.

      Re Eddy and many others (retd) and fed up with all of it.

      1. Well past time proximity mines were deployed across the Channel. As a silver lining, the production of replacement mines would be a boost to the job market.

    2. Given the success rate in getting across and the fact they have a full rescue service on standby the minute they set off, its hardly a risky enterprise.

      1. Apart from that, last time there was a fatal accident in French waters Macron had no remorse whatsoever but used it as another excuse to bash the British.

    3. If the lifeboats and Border Force boats are picking up the illegals in neutral waters they should return them to France from where they set off,not to the UK.

  13. SIR – I was not surprised to read about Pam Perceval-Maxwell’s experience of treatment for macular degeneration, or Duncan Rayner’s experience of Frimley Park Hospital (Letters, August 24).

    I was told in April that I needed a monthly injection for a macular problem. I had my first, then another on May 25. On June 17 I received a phone call asking me to attend the following day. This I was unable to do, and I was promised a new date.

    By early August I had heard nothing. I wrote a letter asking about my next appointment. No reply. At 11am on August 12 I rang the number given for the duty eye doctor. A message said the phone was only manned between 9am and 5pm, and gave me another number. When, at last, I got through to Frimley, I was told that it had no record of me being down for any treatment.

    I was then told that the hospital had a new system and everything was in chaos. If I had not made contact, I would have heard nothing.

    Three months late, I have finally had my third injection. I will have to chase for my next appointment. What sort of management is this?

    Simon Bathurst Brown
    Camberley, Surrey

    Well, that’s certainly one way of reducing the waiting list – lose the records!

    1. Good morning, all. The dome of the sky is blue here in N Essex. Leylandii hedge cutting beckons. Oh joy!

      What sort of management is this?

      Well, Mr Bathurst Brown, at first glance, mis-management through incompetence fits the bill. Then, as the reports of failure continue to mount one could become suspicious that maybe some areas of management do not understand that the best interests of their patients is their primary concern and that spending massive amounts of time and money on the impact of climate change, diversity issues etc. do not in fact improve patient outcomes. Emulating the government’s stance re people’s best interests is not a good look.

  14. 355398+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Friday 26 August: A worse Channel migrant crisis looms if the Government fails to act

    Then they will have a future success on their hands, that should please the current supporter / voter.

    I can see either mandatory lodgering creating a sardine effect within indigenous households & solving the hearing problem, OR, forming a protective army serving five years before citizenship is given.

    It’s main allegiance will be to protect the politico fraternity, a barrier betwixt MPs & herd.

    Lets not kid ourselves each & everyone of them will play a part in the great RESET
    campaign.

    So lab/lib/con coalition member / voters support regarding
    Dungeness / Dover etc etc, is still highly valued.

  15. Putin might just win his giant bet against a fractured West. 25 August 2022.

    Persuading the British people that the economic distress they will suffer is a price worth paying for standing against tyranny in Europe will be a major test for Johnson’s successor and Liz Truss’s proposal to release intelligence exposing Putin’s wider aggressive design is on the right lines. But continued support from the UK and Eastern Europe, however stiff, will not be enough. Unless unified Western backing can be propped up, Putin’s central calculation will be proved right – that his will to win is greater than the West’s will to resist.

    I don’t doubt that Vlad has no “Wider aggressive design” because even were it true Ukraine, if it has done nothing else, has demonstrated that it is unachievable! As for my happily paying to maintain Ukraine; a corrupt kleptocracy that not one person in ten in the UK could have pointed to on a map six months ago; forget it!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/25/putin-might-just-win-giant-bet-against-fractured-west/

  16. SIR – Preparing for possible power cuts this winter, I went in search of a new wick for my old oil lamp and was delighted to find exactly the right thing at 5p per inch.

    I bought two feet.

    Belinda Goyder
    Darlington, Co Durham

    Ah, but will you have the oil (parrafin?) to run the lamp, Ms Goyder??

    1. We’re thinking of converting our used occasionally gas fire with a flue, into a log burner. At least we can toast some crumpets. Something we did as youngsters over 65 years ago. My word how advanced has been the process of society led by the useless political classes..

      1. https://twitter.com/alifarhat79/status/1562509582613655553
        Can’t find the chart with Britain included, but it’s about the same.

        We’re re-designing everything to manage as far as we can without electricity.
        Computer free days are not popular with the family…
        I’m even going to move the furniture layout so that beds and tables are as close to the windows as possible to get maximum daylight. Also going to put a table and chairs under the overhanging roof to do more tasks outside where possible.
        I’m selling the tumble dryer that I hardly ever used anyway, and going to buy a petrol engine chainsaw to use instead of the battery one, and a couple of solar phone chargers, plus a couple of big pans for heating laundry on the woodstove before doing a cold wash in the machine.
        I have a hand drill for wood, flat irons and mechanical shears/saws for the garden.
        Don’t know if our bills will rise as much as this chart, but it’s scary enough.

        If you get a log burner, consider one that you can cook with, or fit a hot water tank over it.

        1. BB, you can get woodburners with back boilers
          Sounds like you’ve made some sensible moves to counter the rise. Having solar panels and being in the house most of the day I can use electricity as it is generated yet still get paid for it so if possible I only use things like the oven, washing machine, breadmaker etc when the sun is shining. Even the hot water is topped up with the solar panels before the electricity is exported
          Due to the damage from high winds in February I now have enough logs to last me years.

          1. We don’t have central heating radiators, and the chimney is on the opposite side of the kitchen from the water, so I haven’t looked at a tank over the stove yet. I’d have to make quite an investment for that, and get the radiators and water circuit fitted. Also, my Italian friend said that wood pellets are far better than logs for powering central heating – they had both systems in their house at different times, and she much prefers the pellets, but they are expensive of course.

            I’m hesitating about putting solar panels on the roof, and the garden isn’t secure enough. I know someone who has one solar panel on their balcony, but they live in a top floor flat, where it’s absolutely secure from theft or accidental damage. She said it cost about 900 pounds.

          2. Yes wood pellets are better because they can be fed in – you have to physically load logs.
            I have the advantage of living in a crime free area so security of panels isn’t an issue. My 16 panels, the maximum for a domestic tariff, cost me £6k, I’ve already had over £5k back plus saving the amount of electricity not supplied by the grid but you have to be at home using the electricity as it is generated for it to pay.
            I have oil fired central heating but in this current fuel situation I only have it on when it’s necessary, the wood burner is lit when it’s cold and if I leave all the internal doors open it heats the whole house.

          3. Interesting – it’s always good to hear what other people are doing.
            Still thinking over how I could use a solar panel or two.

          4. Be careful BB the feed in tariff which the energy supplier gives you is very low now and it may not be economical to install them as you may never get your money back. Any electricity you export to the grid is sold by them for at least 3 times what they give you. 2 panels won’t be worth the hassle, you still have to have the same invertor to convert the panel voltage to 240v. With 2 panels you would only generate 12.5% of what I generate with 16 – the return would not be worth it.

        2. When you think about all this it’s quite ridiculous that we are returning to the era of 60-70 years ago and some countries still haven’t achieved even that yet.

          1. Makes sense when you realise that the pound has been pegged to the dollar, and the dollar has been the world reserve currency since the end of the war, allowing the Americans to print as many of them as they wanted. With the change back to commodity backed currencies (hasn’t happened yet, but very likely will) that artificial prosperity has vanished.

      2. We miss ours…they are very efficient and ours used to heat not only the room but, after an hour or two, part of upstairs as well. The new owners promptly ripped it out…and put in a gas fire instead. I feel they may come to regret that decision!

        1. The Dower House has a gas fire.
          Converting it back to coals is one of my planned improvements. But we have to get in the place first.

          2. I’ve just had my winter fuel delivered – I think I got away with it. Incidentally, the boss of the firm has just died suddenly of a brain bleed, aged 48. I didn’t like to ask if he was triple-vaxxed, but it would not have surprised me in the least.

          3. When I moved into my first house, it was a priority to get rid of the gas fire and open up the fireplace. When we moved, we had to do the same thing in this one.

    2. A left and a right foot I hope, Ms Goyder.

      I’m putting on my running shoes as I type…

  17. SIR – I can assure your correspondents that driverless cars continue to be developed here in Bicester, mainly around our shopping village.

    There is obviously plenty of work to be done on lane-selection technology, as they often change lanes without indicating and perform random U-turns.

    The developers usually put a dummy in the driver’s seat to add a touch of realism – these dummies have blank expressions and stare straight ahead.

    Bob Massingham
    Bicester, Oxfordshire

    Bicester is not alone with this problem!

    2. ….as they often change lanes without indicating and perform random U-turns.

      Typical politicians

    3. This BTL poster has raised a smile here:

      Trevor Anderson
      5 HRS AGO
      Bob Massingham: We have plenty of driverless cars here in Kent too. It’s astonishing the speeds these vehicles can get to in built up areas, cutting corners and taking bends in the middle of the road as well as driving three feet behind the vehicle in front. The dummies also often have music on so loud that one can hear that before seeing the vehicle.

      * Nick Jones: In this area, restaurants and shops have many employees who when thanked for a particular service respond with: “No worries.” Some of these people can sometimes be found in a driverless car.

      *This is the letter he refers to:

      SIR – When visiting restaurants, my partner and I try to guess whether the placing of our orders will be hailed as “amazing”, “awesome” or “perfect”.

      Nick Jones
      Cardiff

    4. Part of the problem is the insanely complicated road layout around Bicester village, plus Tesco upped sticks and moved about a quarter of a mile down the road (and using a different turning) which further confuses occasional visitors. Getting in the right lane at every one of the many sets of traffic lights is no mean feat.

      1. ‘Morning, Maggie, even though it’s still August it is very cold (for me) and, after yesterday’s debacle with the water-vapour from my e-ciugarette setting of the fire alarm, I now have to have the window open. It’s gonna be a cold, cold winter.

        1. I worked in an office where our slumbers were frequently and repeatedly interrupted by the Tannoy broadcasting messages to the entirety of the site; offices, stores, bottling hall and bonded warehouse. We disconnected the wires to the loudspeaker. Peace, perfect peace. Just saying.

  20. Ron DeSantis can beat the man at Mar-a-Lago

    The effective Florida governor must prise the Republican Party from Trump’s hands if it is to stand a chance in 2024
    Douglas Murray
    Thursday August 25 2022, 9.00pm, The Times

    Anyone fed up with the length of the Conservative leadership race should pity the American public. In US politics it is generally claimed that presidential races last two years. In fact they have come to last at least four.

    From the moment Joe Biden was sworn into office two questions hovered over American politics. The first: does he want to run again, and if so how can the Democrats stop him? The second: does Donald Trump want to run again, and if so how can the Republicans stop him?

    The Biden conundrum is obvious. He was elected as the non-Trump, a return to some normality after four whirligig years. But he has fumbled his term of office. This week his approval ratings hit a fresh low of 31 per cent.

    A majority of Democrats do not want him to run in 2024. Biden would be 86 at the end of such a term and while some people could excel at this age, Biden cannot. His major policy announcement this week, on student debt, characteristically managed to upset people on all sides of the aisle. His own party needs to ease him out of position — but how to do it?

    If the Democrats have their own woes at least they can console themselves that the Republicans also have theirs.

    For Republicans, the man in Mar-a-Lago continues to eat up almost every other discussion. This year, with the partisan January 6 hearings in full flow, the simple unelectability of Trump appeared obvious. How could the party put forward as a candidate for election someone who still refuses to accept the results of the last one?

    But with Trump nothing is obvious. When the FBI raided his home in Palm Beach this month they threw yet another curveball into US politics. They even searched his wife’s closet. They have leaked a little about the reasons but still have not explained themselves.

    As a result part of the Republican base is riled up against the FBI and behind the “persecuted” former president. The left, meanwhile, seems to have found a new love for the FBI, showing once again that with Trump almost anything is possible.

    Still, beneath everything the question remains: will he run? Common Republican wisdom is that he is waiting. If the party performs well in the November midterms Trump will claim every ounce of the credit. He may even deserve some of it. Candidates who have sought his support and achieved the nomination are likely to get elected on the back of it.

    Trump remains a huge, powerful, popular force among the Republican base. But the downsides at least outweigh the upsides. And while the base may back him, what are the chances of him wooing the swing voters that any presidential candidate needs?

    It is here the Republicans have their great advantage over the Democrats. For if you agree that Biden cannot stand in 2024 then you have to ask who will. Every answer is unappealing. Kamala Harris? Political kryptonite. Pete Buttigieg? For president? The Democrat bench is woefully thin.

    The Republicans, by contrast, have any number of experienced candidates. Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, and Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, are clearly in the running. But it is the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, who everyone is watching.

    DeSantis has many of the same policies as Trump but he has proved far more effective at implementing them. Like Trump, he rails against the extremes of “woke” ideology. Unlike Trump, as I mentioned here two weeks ago, he has actually been effective at legislating against such extremes.

    He has shown he can take bold decisions, but only after careful consideration. At the beginning of the pandemic when the rest of the world was going into lockdowns, DeSantis did what the British government and others did not: he took advice from voices outside the pro-lockdown consensus. DeSantis weighed up what he was told by health professionals and others and decided not to lock down his state. As a result Florida became a destination “safe space” during Covid and is booming.

    Can DeSantis take his skills to the national stage? Many people in the Republican Party think so. After Trump he has become the leading contender among the base, effectively hoovering up the support that might have gone to other, smaller candidates. Yet for him the most dangerous part of the game is now on. That is, how does he run without being monstered from Mar-a-Lago?

    It is clear that whoever is first out of the traps in the Republican race will get a typically Trumpian doing over. Such was the fear of this over the past year — that Trump would terrorise his rivals into not announcing — there was even talk of sending out a decoy candidate. Chris Christie or some other contender could lumber out of the starting gate, get eaten by Trump and then, while the former president is distracted gorging on him, the other candidates could get running. It isn’t an appealing role.

    DeSantis is too good to be wasted in that. Someone else must attract Trump’s ire first. But if anyone can move the party on from Trump then DeSantis is probably the man. He may pay tribute to Trump, and should not fear doing that. He might promise to take the fight from here. Then, gently, he must prise the Republican Party from Trump’s hands. The future of more than his party depends on whether he can pull off that delicate task.

  22. Morning all 😃
    Bright and sunny here but very damp with condensation on the outer panes of our new double glazing.

      1. It’s due to evaporation HL, it’s only in patches on the outside I checked it. There’s a 25 mm gap now in the new windows. Now the sun is on the house it’s all cleared up.

  23. 355398+ up ticks

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    8h
    I’m sorry for her son.

    These phony science ideologues have done untold damage with their lockdowns, masks & vaccines. The damage won’t play itself out for years, maybe decades, & they haven’t finished yet.

    CNN Medical Analyst Who Wanted To Ban The Unvaccinated From Society And Force Children To Mask Now Reveals How Masking Has Severely Harmed Her Son

    https://gettr.com/post/p1o9zde8d1d

    1. During the covid farce and the mask wearing my brother became basically a prisoner. As he couldn’t wear a mask he was only allowed to go around the compound – their little block of flats. OK, he was never adventurous and wasn’t seeking to dash off to Borneo, but he would like to go and sit by the duck pond and feed the ducks. When he was told he couldn’t, or if he did had to wear a useless face covering, and worse that *we* did… it was infuriating.

  24. SIR – It was raining all Wednesday night. I therefore expect proposals for a national water grid and increased resilience of supply will be put aside once more, until the next drought.

    Adrian Charles
    London E3

    Methinks you are taking the piss, Adrian Charles!

    3. Mr Charles, the water companies have been asking since 1991 to be allowed to build reservoirs. The state keeps refusing it. Why? The EU forbade it. When we left in 2016 they asked again. The answer was still no.

      Why?

      Because the state refuses to do anything that could jeopardise our being rammed back in to the hated EU.

      I imagine that’s the plan, really. All the problems we have, all the chaos caused by government will melt away quietly as soon as they get their way and we’re forced back in to the EU.

      1. The UK didn’t leave the EU in 2016: that year was just when the referendum took place. The UK left the EU at 2300hrs GMT on Friday 31 January 2020. The transition period that was in place – during which nothing changed – ended on 31 December 2020. The rules governing the new relationship between the EU and UK took effect on 1 January 2021.

  25. Good morning.
    Geopolitical analysis of power shifts in the world:
    https://twitter.com/RonStoeferle/status/1562816315269971968
    It’s good, but it only covers one aspect, which is the breakdown of the US dollar hegemony and the rise of BRICS alliances.
    It doesn’t acknowledge the existence of a parasite class of super-rich that sits above nation states, or attempt to answer the very important question of how much wealth and power they will have when China and Russia are officially running the show.

  26. Had lunch with Nagsman yesterday

    She brought the following ‘Situations Vacant’ to my attention

    “Nutrient Neutrality Project Officer
    Wiltshire Council
    83 reviews
    Trowbridge
    £33,486 – £35,336 a year
    You must create an Indeed account before continuing to the company website to apply
    Summary

    Wiltshire Council is leading a range of exciting projects that will make a positive difference to our natural environment and biodiversity. The strong ecology team has an excellent reputation for its competence and ability to provide innovative solutions to challenging issues and is at the forefront of new thinking. One such challenge is nutrient neutrality on the Hampshire Avon catchment.

    We are looking for a talented Nutrient Neutrality Project Officer to work with local planning authorities across the catchment and help ensure that new developments leave the environment in a better state than before.
    *
    *
    * ”
    It is (A) outrageous that we Wiltshire rate payers should have to fund this sort of nonsense, and (B) the thin end of the wedge of the type of anti-nitrogen/fertilizer WEF tyranny already seen in the Netherlands and Canada. Bollocks to the lot of them.

    1. Is that the same as someone who uses a vacuum cleaner to clear spilt bread crumbs from the floor ?

    2. Well said, C1! I would like to think that the people of Wiltshire will, at the first opportunity, vote out the morons who thought this is a sensible and necessary expenditure of council taxpayers’ funds.

    3. A totally unnecessary post that wouldn’t exist if government were not so disgustingly over funded. Taxes could be halved with absolutely no loss of service in fact, I imagine they’d improve as the time wasted on this dross would go to what people actually want.

  27. Good morning, all!

    If this is true, it proves what contemptible people some of our MPs are, and reinforces the argument for criminal investigation into their actions for misconduct.

    Sunak’s belated Covid confessions: A shocking indictment of a man without a moral compass by Kathy Gyngell
    August 26, 2022

    IT IS hard to work out Rishi Sunak’s motives for his remarkable and belated revelations about his ‘opposition’ to the government’s Covid policies including lockdown, closing schools, terrorising the population and, perhaps most important of all, handing decision-making to an unelected bunch of ‘independent’ ‘scientific’ ‘advisers’, many of whom had personal agendas and interests.

    Why has he decided to give his version of events more than two years after they happened, when it is too late to change anything? Why, even more importantly, has he chosen to admit that none of his supposedly profound concerns was of sufficient import for him to resign over? As Chancellor of the Exchequer wasn’t he the most senior member of Cabinet and the most responsible? What, after all, is the point of a Chancellor who cannot say no?

    Perhaps he thinks that he will appear a good guy who did his humble best against the irresistible forces ranged against him? Perhaps he hopes this will give him the impetus he needs to overtake Liz Truss and become Prime Minister? If that is really what he thinks, it is a terrible misjudgment. For if he had spoken out at the time, if he had taken the honourable course, resigned and opposed policy from the back benches, who knows how the course of history might have been different. Could Johnson have ignored his Chancellor’s warning that his measures would be a disaster for the country? And that his unelected science and medical advisers were not just calling the shots but editing Sage meeting minutes to suppress contrary advice?

    He could not. And the chances are that economy would not have been trashed, businesses would not have gone to the wall, ‘our’ NHS would not have been converted into a Covid-only service resulting in a backlog of millions of patients, hundreds of thousands of children would not have had their education and social lives damaged, in some cases beyond repair. It does not bear thinking about that a man with great power, the second-most important politician in the country, sat on his hands knowing that the policy he supported in public was ruinous.

    In his interview with Spectator editor Fraser Nelson, Sunak says that when Neil Ferguson delivered his infamous prediction that lockdown could cut Covid casualties from half a million to 20,000, no cost-benefit calculation was carried out.

    Nelson writes: ‘[Sunak says] “I wasn’t allowed to talk about the trade-off.” Ministers were briefed by No 10 on how to handle questions about the side-effects of lockdown. “The script was not to ever acknowledge them. The script was: oh, there’s no trade-off, because doing this for our health is good for the economy.” If frank discussion was being suppressed externally, Sunak thought it all the more important that it took place internally. But that was not his experience. “I felt like no one talked,” he says. “We didn’t talk at all about missed [doctors’] appointments, or the backlog building in the NHS in a massive way. That was never part of it.” When he did try to raise concerns, he met a brick wall. “Those meetings were literally me around that table, just fighting. It was incredibly uncomfortable every single time”.’

    What does he mean by ‘I wasn’t allowed’? He is not a schoolboy. As Chancellor it was directly his remit, indeed it was his responsibility, to insist on the necessary cost-benefit analysis – and to resign if his advice was refused on a matter of such national importance and economic significance. He also recalls one meeting where he raised education: ‘[Sunak said] “I was very emotional about it. I was like: ‘Forget about the economy. Surely we can all agree that kids not being in school is a major nightmare’ or something like that. There was a big silence afterwards. It was the first time someone had said it. I was so furious”.’

    If this is really what happened, it is beyond unforgivable that Sunak didn’t yell from the rooftops about the disaster he foresaw. Similarly with the campaign to terrify people about Covid, as recommended by Sage:

    ‘One of Sunak’s big concerns was about the fear messaging, which his Treasury team worried could have long-lasting effects. “In every brief, we tried to say: let’s stop the fear narrative. It was always wrong from the beginning. I constantly said it was wrong.” The posters showing Covid patients on ventilators, he said, were the worst. “It was wrong to scare people like that”.’

    Why didn’t he say so at the time? Is there any material evidence he even raised these concerns (which says little for his leadership abilities)? He surely must have been aware of the many millions – upwards of one billion by the end – that were being spent, with the Treasury’s blessing, on the Cabinet Office’s deliberate fear-engendering campaign.

    Sunak reveals that Sage recommendations were implemented by No 10 without consultation with Cabinet members. This meant, writes Nelson, that whoever wrote the minutes for the Sage meetings – condensing its discussions into guidance for government – would set the policy of the nation.

    But in the early days, at least, Sunak knew that the minutes of Sage meetings were being edited to silence dissenting voices, because unknown to the Sage members one of his staff was listening in to their conference calls.

    ‘His mole, he says, would tell him: ‘“Well, actually, it turns out that lots of people disagreed with that conclusion”, or “Here are the reasons that they were not sure about it”.’

    Nelson writes: ‘For a year, UK government policy – and the fate of millions – was being decided by half-explained graphs cooked up by outside academics. “This is the problem,” [Sunak] says. “If you empower all these independent people, you’re screwed”.’

    It surely goes further than that. As lawyer Francis Hoar has tweeted, if the minutes of Sage were false, and Sunak knew they were false, there are grounds for criminal investigation into misconduct in public office.

    This is absolutely shocking. If this is true then those responsible – and it is reasonable to suppose that Whitty and Vallance were at least aware – should face a criminal investigation for misconduct in public office.https://t.co/WEMTO0pWX9 pic.twitter.com/GuVPjsT2EB

    — Francis Hoar (@Francis_Hoar) August 25, 2022
    But Sunak said nothing. Worse, he gave every appearance of backing Boris Johnson and Sage until last December when Sage said that without a fourth lockdown, Covid deaths could hit 6,000 a day (a prediction soon proved to be rubbish). By this time, Sunak says, he had taken advice from elsewhere and met Johnson: ‘I just told him it’s not right: we shouldn’t do this.’ The unspoken implication is that his advice carried the day.

    Nelson says he asked Sunak if he should have gone public or resigned. The answer: ‘To quit in that way during a pandemic, he says, would have been irresponsible. And to go public, or let his misgivings become known, would have been seen as a direct attack on the PM.

    ‘At the time, No. 10’s strategy was to create the impression that lockdown was a scientifically created policy which only crackpots dared question. If word leaked that the chancellor had grave reservations, or that a basic cost-benefit analysis had never been applied, it would have been politically unhelpful for No 10.’

    Politically unhelpful for No 10?! Is that what mattered when the country was being ripped apart by useless if not deliberately destructive advice from biased ‘experts’ while people who really knew their business were being cancelled, smeared, ignored and ruined? When, he all but admits, the pandemic was one more of fear than microbe?

    Sunak has shown himself by these revelations to be a man without moral character or understanding of his public duty. It is beyond doubt that he is not fit to be PM. It is equally clear that the same applies to everyone from the present regime.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/sunaks-belated-covid-confession-shows/

    1. Well I’ve learned a few things over the years. HL I doubt very much that extreemly rich people are ever honest, trustworthy and what you might see on the surface.
      One of the most important aspects of going into politics is being a dodgy individual ‘with a price’ .

      1. I know of one well off chap who believed in treating people well and dealing fairly. Where he came unstuck is in dealing with officialdom, who get rich by abusing power and office rather than competence and effort.

        The officials, to continue their power hinder the worker because he’s a threat to their hegemony.

    2. Suddenly Sunak presents himself as the hero of the hour, standing up for what’s right, just and the British way!

      Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It’s Super Sunak, pouring his heart out on how just and representative he was!

      What sewage that man is.

      1. And to think that the MPs voted him in to be one of the contenders. They are almost without exception sewage…

    3. Sunak is a chancer .. a product of his Asian heritage .

      Well actually , that is an unfair description , he has assassinated British politics , and drawn us down into a deep dwang .

      1. Khan is also a product of his Asian heritage, as are others – there is something to be said for not allowing people who are immigrants or children/grandchildren of immigrants into any political office (edit: that includes ennobling people like Dubbs and Adonis, and others like Johnson and the Millibands). Yes, there may be some, like Suella Braverman, who genuinely do seem to have this country’s wellbeing in her mind, but that very small minority does not justify the harms caused by the majority.

        1. I think there’s an attitude difference there. Khan is a statist, a parasite who has lived inside the state machine from the outset. He sees everything through the Left wing ‘How can I use authority to get what I want’ rather than the Right minded ‘what is my moral compass, and what can I do to achieve my beliefs?’

    4. Liz Truss, thankfully, was oblivious to all of this. She was kept the dark, so it’s not her fault. She did not attend Cabinet meetings so she would have had no inkling that there might be undertones, or hints of reluctance in any discussions.
      Oh, hang on… I was forgetting. Ms Truss was in the Cabinet. So, what’s her excuse?

        1. No, I suppose not. The disasters that she will undoubtedly unleash might have been tempered by some sensible, reliable, steadfast Cabinet members. But I do not see any.

    5. His confessions have a ring of truth to them. But they merely highlight that he is a man who married money, he didn’t make it, and clearly he doesn’t have leadership ability.

      1. And arguably he should not be anywhere near Westminster – but then that could be said of most of them. They also married money – their inflated pay, expenses and pensions.

    6. Rowing back on decisions re CV-19 is becoming quite the spectator sport. I await Javid’s excuses for pushing a useless and dangerous serum – I do not expect anything of the like from Hancock.

    7. Really all it confirms is what we already knew. The ‘advisers’ are the senior civil servants who actually run the country. PPEs to a man with zero comprehension of any science based advice they are given and thus unable to make judgments on, or criticise that advice..

      1. You don’t need a science degree to know that if one set of “scientists” say one thing and another large proportion of highly qualified people say another, then both sides should be considered…at the very least.

  28. Good morning all. A much less muggy and clearer start to the day with thin cloud and 8½°C on the yard thermometer.

  29. Good morning everyone .

    Sunshine and blue sky here.

    Jeremy Kyle is interviewing Sir John Redwood .. he is rather stiff , and a Truss supporter, but who else is there to support .

    The cost of asylum seekers here is now 2 billion a year.

    In Holland , asylum seekers are living in tents and the charities are looking after them , no wonder the people are heading for cosy little idiotic UK

    1. I remain firmly behind “None of the Above”. This “leadership contest” is a complete charade orchestrated by the media.

    3. They’ve no right to come here, the act is illegal. Yet the state is deliberately circumventing it’s own law. If law is so arbitrary then what’s the point of it being law?

      Again, I think it’s just revenge for Brexit.

      1. As I have already said here: all illegal immigrants who arrive without papers of identification should be deemed to be Albanian and sent to Albania within 48 hours of arriving in Britain.

        Anyone got any better ideas?

    1. I heard he’d paid off thousands worth of student loans as well. I find that worrying in itself as it wasn’t necessary, it’s just a free handout for nothing. Now, someone. What causes inflation?

        1. I have never believed having a degree made me better than anyone else. Knowing some not especially bright but phenomenally hard working and at the other end intellectual geniuses who use their brains to hurt people.

          You treat people as they treat others.

          1. The scary thing is that the public sector (including ngos) will be the last refuge of these blue-haired graduates for as long as the scam continues going.

  32. Apparently Albanian illegal immigrants form a majority of the people now arriving on the South Coast beaches.

    An arrangement is being made with Albania for them to be sent back immediately to Albania. Albania is worried that so many of its population are leaving and they need more young men in Albania

    But how can you tell if they are Albanian if they have destroyed their passports and mobile phones and there is no way of their being identified?

    I think I have found the solution:

    All illegal immigrants who arrive illegally in Britain without identity documents will be assumed to be Albanian and sent to Albania within 48 hours.

    WIN WIN – We get rid of the immigrants we don’t want – Albania gets the young men it does want.

    (Like all good ideas this will never see the light of day!)

    1. Until we properly deal with the criminal tide using force they’re going to keep coming. We can’t take the entire word, we have international law, we must remove those here and stop any more coming. That’s not being cruel, it’s enforcing the law.

      1. If everyone who arrives illegally is moved to Albania within 48 hours then that will begin to address the problem.

        The trouble is that decisive and immediate action is needed and nobody in the government is prepared to act decisively on this matter

      1. A lot of the members of the RoP are white – not just those from Albania and Turkey but also those of Arab descent.

  33. Stuart Priest
    4 MIN AGO
    There won’t be any illegal immigrants going cold or hungry this winter. Nice warm hotels, three meals a day and a bit of spending money. I’m seriously thinking of taking the family to Calais, buying a dingy and then coming back to UK on that so i can spend the winter in a Travel Lodge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/08/26/energy-price-cap-bills-ofgem-live-news-ftse-100-markets/

    Everything is back to front. It shouldn’t, needn’t be like this.

  34. Good Moaning.
    May I recommend a little light paper shredding to sooth the troubled breast? Well, until the shredder heats up and refuses to work.
    Three humungous bags collected this morning – nice to see some return for our council tax.

    1. Well, Anne you’re a very lucky girl! Our binmen are on strike and we’ve been told to keep the rubbish indoors! Our younger daughter has 2 bags of soiled nappies waiting to be collected and the dump is closed! The joys of living in Scotistan!

        2. To be honest I’d get in the car and ‘deliver’ them myself, but the silly wee b*tch is in Denmark, opening an ‘embassy’! 🙄

      1. Apparently it’s recyclable as long as it’s bagged up separately. The problem is just in separating the shreds from other items in a mixed recycle bag.

  35. Are THESE the best private schools in the UK? Tatler unveils its nominees for its annual awards – including a posh prep with an X-factor finalist as a teacher and a secondary with Michelin-trained chefs
    Tatler magazine has unveiled its list of the top prep and public schools in the UK
    Alumni at famous schools include Tony Blair and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin
    Institutions range across the country from Berkshire to the centre of Edinburgh
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11145143/Tatler-unveils-nominees-preps-public-institutions-country.html

    My old school, rather surprisingly, appears in this list.

    BTL

    Why should private schools receive charitable status? Fair enough question but why should parents who have paid their taxes and paid for state education not have this taken into account? In France, for example, if you use a private school the amount the state would have paid to educate your child is effectively deducted from your fee. We sent our sons to private primary schools in France and these were so well run that it cost us nothing to do so. Imagine that a school in the UK charged £10,000 pa in fees and the cost to the state would have been £10,000 then the cost to the parents of sending their child to a private school would be £10,000 – £10,000 = Zero.

    1. My old school has gone excruciatingly politically correct, as you commented recently. I really can’t believe that parents are happy about this. (more fool them if they are!)
      One reason that our children were educated abroad was because more than twenty years ago, we could see the way things were going.
      No way would I pay UK fees to have my child indoctrinated by smug marxists.

      1. We had a student with us recently who was proud of the fact that she was on the school’s ‘inclusion committee’.

        Many leading public schools – including Gresham’s, where our older son was a pupil and where Bill’s MR used to teach – celebrated Gay Pride and Trans people. God knows what Blundell’s is doing but when I was there the punishment for being caught in an act of buggery was instant expulsion.

        We now have a situation where it is acceptable to smoke cannabis but not tobacco. Will the new order in public schools be that sexual intercourse of the traditional type will still be an expelling offense but anal intercourse with all sexes is to be encouraged.

  36. What took them so long ?
    https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=35756a8d97cfe8d5JmltdHM9MTY2MTUwNjMzNyZpZ3VpZD1hZjhkNmQxOC05ZjA0LTQ3MjctOTAzMC0xZGI1NTA2YTA3NDAmaW5zaWQ9NTEzNw&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=f98198fb-2521-11ed-b5cf-18c7645208d3&u=a1L3ZpZGVvcy9zZWFyY2g_cT1GcmVuY2grb2xpY2UraW52YWlzaW9uJnFwdnQ9RnJlbmNoK29saWNlK2ludmFpc2lvbismRk9STT1WRFJF&ntb=1

      1. Yes Phizz you’re probably right about that.
        The french cops would have had more boats to sell them.

  37. 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.

    FSU Online In-Depth: Free speech in schools

    Our schedule of online and in-person events for September to December kicks off on 13th September with an Online In-Depth. A panel of experts and campaigners will be discussing how and why free speech issues are coming up more and more often in primary and secondary schools. Unlike our usual online events, this one will be open to anyone who is interested in this issue, so please feel free to share the details. You can register here to receive the Zoom link.

    FSU supporters extract further free speech pledges from Tory leadership candidates

    The FSU’s campaigning tool has already empowered members to send over 4,000 emails to the Tory leadership candidates, urging them to adopt our Free Speech Manifesto. According to the FSU’s independent opinion polling, only two per cent of the public strongly agree that the Government is doing a good job of standing up for free speech, so it’s hardly surprising Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have been paying attention. The FSU Manifesto outlines key commitments for the next Prime Minister that would protect free speech in education, policing, upcoming legislation, workers’ rights and equalities.

    With less than two weeks to go until the announcement of the next Tory leader and Prime Minister, it’s clear that campaigning by FSU members has helped propel free speech to the top of the agenda in the leadership race.

    According to the Telegraph, both candidates are now likely to scrap clause 13 of the Online Safety Bill, which aims to regulate so-called ‘legal but harmful’ content, amid concerns it would grant the imprimatur of official approval to ‘woke’ social media firms to continue removing any posts that challenge their progressive agenda. A spokesman for Mr Sunak said that “his concern with the bill as drafted is that it censors free speech amongst adults, which he does not support”.

    At the Hustings in Manchester, Liz Truss also gave her firmest assurance yet that those parts of the Bill that pose a threat to free speech will either be ditched entirely or amended. (GB News). “What is right offline, is what should be right online,” she said in response to a question from the audience: “I believe in free speech… it’s important that adults are able to speak freely.” “Is that a commitment to amend the Online Safety Bill?”, asked host Alistair Stewart. “Yes, that is a pledge,” she confirmed.

    Mr Sunak also spoke out in favour of revising the Equality Act 2010 to ensure it cannot be misused to push an ideological agenda and degrade liberal values. When a student stood up in Manchester to tell how he was reprimanded by his college after posting messages on Twitter in support of the Government’s Rwanda deal, the former Chancellor responded: “I want to change the public sector equality duty so that universities are ‘forced’ to uphold free speech on campus”. (Telegraph). During his opening speech at the West Midlands hustings later in the week, Mr Sunak also remarked: “I want to take on this lefty woke culture that seems to want to cancel our history, our values and our [sic] women.” (GB News, Times).

    The FSU is delighted to see the leadership candidates addressing concerns about the Online Safety Bill and the Equality Act, but we want to see similar commitments to other issues in our Free Speech Manifesto: stronger protections for workers’ speech rights, the scrapping of the Orwellian ‘non-crime hate incidents’ and an end to political indoctrination in schools.

    If you’re a Conservative Party member and you haven’t already done so, please use our campaigning tool to email the candidates. If you’ve sent them an email, remember that the template can be tweaked to accommodate whatever free speech issues you’d now like to raise with Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss. And if you’re not a member the Conservative Party, please use our other tool to send your MP an email about the shortcomings of the Online Safety Bill.

    Gillian Philip fundraiser – show your support for a ground-breaking appeal!

    Last week, the Chair of the Society of Authors (SoA), Joanne Harris, was caught up in a row after appearing to mock J.K. Rowling after the Harry Potter author received a death threat on Twitter. The row continued this week with the Guardian reporting “fresh concerns” that Britain’s largest trade union for published writers had handled recent free speech controversies inappropriately. Speaking to GB News, FSU General Secretary Toby Young wasn’t surprised. It was, he said, “in keeping with Joanne Harris’s rather ambivalent relationship with free speech”. As the SoA’s Chair she had “repeatedly failed to defend numerous gender critical authors who are at odds with transgender activists, not just JK Rowling but also Gillian Philip, who is a member of the FSU”.

    With our help, Gillian brought an Employment Tribunal claim against her former publishers last year on the grounds that they terminated her contract to write children’s books because she expressed her solidarity with JK Rowling on Twitter. She alleges unlawful discrimination, and the case is a landmark in the fight for a woman’s right to state biological facts without fear of losing her job. Gender critical writers such as Kate Clanchy, Julie Burchill and Jenny Lindsay have all faced threats to their livelihood as a result of expressing gender critical views.

    But the case also has important repercussions beyond the gender debate. Despite top-drawer representation from Shah Qureshi of Irwin Mitchell solicitors and barrister David Mitchell, the preliminary hearing found that Gillian was not entitled to the protection of the Equality Act 2010 because she was employed as a ‘contract writer’ rather than as an ‘employee’.

    As the author Nick Tyrone pointed out recently for Spiked, temporary contract work like this, in which authors are “openly ripped off” and left with few if any workers’ rights, is a “major problem” in the publishing industry and one that, under Joanne Harris’s leadership, the SoA has made “little effort to tackle”.

    Whether contract writers are ‘workers’ is therefore an important question of law. Without such status, writers do not benefit from employment legislation preventing unfair dismissal or the protections of the Equality Act against unlawful discrimination. Maya Forstater’s case established that gender critical beliefs are protected under the Equality Act, but this judgement is rendered meaningless if workers can simply be described as ‘contractors’ and deprived of its protections. Unscrupulous employers are being empowered to side-step employment protections – by designating freelancers as ‘independent’ they have the power to silence writers and other precariously employed people.

    That’s why it’s vital we support Gillian as she appeals her case and defends her right to freedom of speech and the protections of employment law. The outbreak of creativity crushing close-mindedness in the publishing industry must be challenged and the legal rights of thousands of precariously employed people who make their living through creative expression must be defended. It is in everyone’s interests that authors like Gillian, who entertain and inspire us, enjoy the legal protections they need to express themselves freely and securely.

    Once again, we need your help. This appeal could be of ground-breaking importance for the publishing industry, determining not only the freedom of speech of contract writers, but also pay and conditions. Please join the fight and support Gillian’s crowd funder here.

    What WH Smith can tell us about the Online Safety Bill’s “hidden harms”

    Writing for the Spectator, Lord Sumption set out to uncover the “hidden harms” in the Online Safety Bill. The “real vice” of the bill, he said, is that the new category of speech it creates – legal but harmful – relies on an understanding of psychological ‘harm’ that is “almost entirely subjective” and “will vary from one internet user to the next”. The problem with legislation built around subjectively perceived notions of harm is that it is “liable to adopt, by default, the standard of the most easily shocked, upset or offended”, wrote Sumption. Faced with the need to censor categories of material liable to inflict certain types of harm on certain categories of people and threatened with enormous fines if they do not, he pointed out, the big social media companies will take the course involving the lease risk – “if in doubt, cut it out”. (FSU General Secretary Toby Young made a similar point on GB News).

    As if on cue, the offline world offered up a perfect demonstration of the dangers of attuning censorship systems to the subjective feelings of individuals, when a conservative journal was taken off WH Smith’s shelves thanks to a single complaint being filed by a customer who claimed to have been offended by its content. (Remix). The latest edition of The European Conservative, a journal of philosophy, politics, and culture, featured a cartoon that satirised the over-enthusiastic teaching of LGBT content in schools, and carried an interview with democratically elected Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

    In a series of Instagram posts, the offended customer said he was “shocked” that such “fascist filth” could be sold in a mainstream British retailer and shared a screenshot of an email exchange between himself and “Libbie”, a WH Smith Customer Service Co-ordinator, in which she confirmed the store had “taken the decision to remove [the publication] from sale”.

    The relationship an offline retailer like WH Smith has with its stock is inevitably less complex than the one a social media platform has with its user-generated content – at the last count, for instance, 300,000 status updates and 500,000 comments were being uploaded to Facebook every minute, with YouTube adding 500 hours’ worth of content during that same time period. Despite that relative lack of complexity, however, WH Smith’s instinctive response to a complaint from just one customer regarding “shocking” in-store content was still, in Lord Sumption’s terms, to “cut it out”. By default, the company had adopted the subjective standard of harm of the most easily offended individual.

    It seems unlikely that the automated content moderation systems currently employed by online companies will devote any more time than high-street employees like “Libbie” to the question of whether or not legal content for which they are editorially responsible should be censored once vulnerable minorities – or, as the Times pointedly remarked this week, the “manipulative pressure groups” that purport to represent them – have complained that such material is capable of inflicting psychological ‘harm’.

    Sousveillance – the FSU reacts to a growing threat to free speech on campus

    Students at Britain’s oldest drama school have been urged to report teachers’ ‘microaggressions’ using QR codes placed in classrooms. (Mail, Telegraph). The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (Lamda) has introduced a system of anonymous reporting for perceived slights or discrimination after consulting with its student body.

    This system allows the school’s trainee actors, directors and technicians to report their tutors using QR codes placed around the school, which they can scan with their smartphones to access official complaint forms regarding microaggressions. (In the world according to woke identity politics, ‘microaggressions’ are acts of subtle discrimination, including turning one’s back on people, using incorrect pronouns or raising an eyebrow when black students or staff speak). Once scanned, the QR code gives students access to the official Lamda ‘Microaggression Reporting Form’, which asks them to recount incidents of microaggressions “in as much detail as possible” and suggest what they “would like done in response” to these perceived aggressions.

    The FSU has legally represented many academics whose speech has been policed or silenced, and we are concerned about a growing trend in higher education institutions to utilise this form of surveillance – technically known as ‘sousveillance’ – in which members within a group monitor others within that same group, just like the Stasi’s system in East Germany during the Cold War.

    At Trinity Laban Conservatoire, for instance, an online portal now allows students and staff to log microaggressions anonymously, asking the reporter for details such as the date of the incident and the “protected characteristic to which the micro-aggression related”. The University of St Andrews also gives students and staff the option to report microaggressions anonymously online. Last year, the introduction of a similar reporting system was heavily criticised by Professors at the University of Cambridge. (Telegraph).

    Speaking to the Telegraph about Lamda’s new reporting system, FSU Chief Legal Counsel, Bryn Harris, pointed out that what makes sousveillance “particularly insidious” is that it leaves teaching staff to the mercy of “the most hyper-sensitive (or vexatious) student in the seminar room, and openly cultivates a culture of fear-induced blandness”. Not only that, but it “carries deeply unpleasant reminiscences of totalitarian practice”. As Dr Harris reminds us, the past is littered with examples of “academic careers [that] have been ruined by universities tolerating, and even inducing, a culture of student denunciation”.

    Thankfully, some higher education institutions have recently woken up to the new culture of intolerance that these systems are helping to cultivate – the University of Cambridge’s controversial ‘Report and Support’ website, for instance, was taken down just a week after its introduction. It’s time for university administrators at Lamda, Laban and St Andrews to follow suit and hit the ‘uninstall’ button on their own nascent sousveillance systems.

    The American Historical Association capitulates to the woke mob

    The President of the American Historical Association (AHA), Professor James Sweet, published an essay in the organisation’s magazine on the problem of “presentism” in academic historical writing. According to Sweet, an unsettling number of historians allow their political views to distort their interpretations of the past. As a historian of the African diaspora, he said he was “troubled” by the way contemporary narratives of the slave trade performed “historical erasures” to “confirm current political positions”. The problem, he argued, was that in “foreshortening and shaping history to justify rather than inform contemporary political positions” historians were “undermin[ing] the discipline and “threaten[ing] its very integrity”. In that context, he proceeded to (gently) question the basic premise of The 1619 Project, a revisionist text that portrays ‘white supremacy’ and ‘anti-blackness’ as foundational to American history.

    Within moments of this well-argued pushback against woke orthodoxies having appeared, “all hell broke loose on Twitter”. (Real Clear Politics). A Professor of History at Knox College led the pile-on, with a widely-retweeted thread calling on colleagues to bombard the AHA’s Board with emails protesting about Sweet’s column. Other tenured historians joined in, flooding the thread with profanity-laced attacks on Sweet’s gender and race, calling for his resignation, and, in the case of one Professor, apparently taking issue with historians offering any public criticism of the 1619 Project because such criticism would then be “weaponised by the right”.

    Reviewing Professor Sweet’s piece for PowerLine on the same day, Steven Hayward half-jokingly guessed at what would happen now that “the mob had been summoned”, ending his piece with the line: “Cue Prof. Sweet’s apology tour (and perhaps the removal of the article) in three, two…”.

    It was remarkably prescient. The next day the AHA tweeted a “public apology” from Sweet that reads like something he’d been required to sign at the end of a Maoist struggle session for academic wrongthink. He took “full responsibility” for the “harm” his essay had caused. He “regretted alienating Black colleagues and friends” (note the capital ‘B’ for ‘Black’, now mandatory in academia). He was “deeply sorry”. He “apologised” for the “damage” he had caused. He “hoped that he might redeem himself in future”. He was “listening and learning”.

    As FSU General Secretary Toby Young has long pointed out, apologising in the hope one’s contrition might make the outrage mob disperse isn’t a good idea. In fact, it tends to have the opposite effect, whetting its appetite for more concessions and confessions.

    So it proved in this case. Sweet’s apology duly excited his activist colleagues but did little to placate their ire. (PowerLine). The resignation demands continued, and the fact that this white male historian’s criticisms of the 1619 Project would now inevitably be used by “right-wingers, Nazis, and other bad-faith actors… in the service of white supremacism”, as Professor Kevin Gannon put it, was compounded by an apology that many of the gathered pitchfork enthusiasts regarded as insincere. (Such apologies are always insufficiently pious in the eyes of the woke mobsters.)

    In his original essay, Professor Sweet said he had recently “travelled to Ghana to research and write”, and that his first assignment while there “was a critical response to The 1619 Project” for a forthcoming piece in the AHA. No doubt the significance of the adjective “critical” won’t have escaped the attention of his hyperventilating detractors. To borrow a line from Steven Hayward: Cue Prof. Sweet’s apology tour (and perhaps the removal of the article) in three, two…

    Facebook call for feedback on Censorship Policy

    The Oversight Board of Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, issued a request for comment from members of the public in response to a request for guidance it had received regarding Meta’s Covid-19 misinformation policy, among other things. Toby decided to submit a comment, which he published on the Daily Sceptic. Here’s an extract:

    In the past two-and-a-half years, you have either removed, or shadow-banned, or attached health warnings on all your social media platforms to any content challenging the response of governments, senior officials and public health authorities to the pandemic, whether it’s questioning the wisdom of the lockdown policy, expressing scepticism about the efficacy and safety of the Covid vaccines, or opposing mask mandates. Yet these are all subjects of legitimate scientific and political debate. You cannot claim this censorship was justified because undermining public confidence in those policies would make people less likely to comply with them and that, in turn, might cause harm, because whether or not those measures prevented more harm than they caused was precisely the issue under discussion. And the more time passes, the clearer it becomes that most if not all of these measures did in fact do more harm than good. It now seems overwhelmingly likely that by suppressing public debate about these policies, and thereby extending their duration, Meta itself caused harm.

    Definitely worth reading in full.

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    Best wishes,

    1. Promises by Sunak and Truss are cheap, let’s see what they actually do when elected. Theresa May always did the exact opposite of her voter-pleasing pledges.

      1. Promises by these people are the words of criminals. If we go on accepting that they have any right to anything except a fair trial we are betraying the rule of law and our future.

  38. Migration has hit a new high as more than one million foreign nationals have been allowed to live in the UK in a year for the first time.

    Home Office data showed that the number of visas handed to workers, students, family relatives and other foreign nationals rose by 83 per cent in a year to 1.12 million, the highest on record, and up 70 per cent on pre-Brexit, pre-pandemic levels.

    It comes on top of a surge in illegal migrants crossing the Channel which have doubled to 24,000 in a year and a near 80 per cent rise in asylum applications since 2019 to 63,100, its highest level for two decades. The cost of Britain’s asylum system has surged past £2 billion for the first time.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/25/one-million-uk-visas-issued-year-migration-hits-new-high/

    1. Makes you wonder why they want to come here, as we are constantly being told what a racist, xenophobic, backward, right-wing people we are who inhabit these islands.

    1. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason that NICE have banned the sale of ephedrine nose drops just over a year ago. As a result my sinus headaches will continue unchallenged. The notion that anyone could actually manufacture crystal meth on a profitable scale by going round the chemists buying up wee bottles of a dilute solution of ephedrine is beyond insane. Have they not watched “Breaking Bad”?

  40. An email advertising a programme of creative stuff in the Borders arrived yesterday evening from the Arts & Creativity team at Live Borders! One item is described as below,
    “Another play for our littles, ‘Ginger’ is on tour across the borders week commencing November 14th. Ginger is a tale told through puppetry of a misshapen gingerbread person, discarded and marked for the rubbish. We follow Ginger as they try to find their place in a kitchen where all confectionary looks the same.”
    Now when I was little and for the subsequent sixty odd years a gingerbread man was, well, a man. Now, you may play “spot the pronouns”.
    And yes, they should probably have used the term “sweeties” as it is easier to spell.

  41. GB News has been interviewing the Duchess of Sussex’s sister. According to the Duchess of Sussex, ambition is an admirable characteristic in both men and women. But when it comes down to it is she merely trying to justify anything other than her own grasping self-seeking greed?

    Is the ambition to find a husband with great wealth and social rank so that you no longer have to pursue you own career the sort of ambition of which genuine feminists approve?

    How long will it be before the feminists turn against this absurd narcissist?

          2. Most of us have a certain level of sympathy towards gullible and stupid people who are bullied or exploited by determinedly ruthless people like the Duchess of Sussex. I like to think that I am relatively warm-hearted but I must admit that I find it extremely difficult to sympathise with Prince Harry in any way.

            When he is kicked out of his marital home, loses his children to his wife and has to return to the UK with his tail between his legs then will he be kindly welcomed or will he be treated with contempt by the British people?

            I must also admit that with each asinine utterance from The Prince of Wales – the man supposed to be his father – my sympathy and any remote feeling of empathy I might have once felt towards the most immediate heir to the throne vanish still further.

      2. According to my friends Stateside- most people are sick to death of the pair of them.

  43. Let’s stop messing about. The costs of using petrol, gas and electricity have not really gone up, in any kind of a “drill for it, process it, burn it, drive a generator, boil a kettle”, kind of way. They have been driven up by financial finagling and political ineptitude working together. The arguments against energy being “nationalised” are based on dogma and the possibility of managerial incompetence. Very well. So how could that be worse than we are experiencing and are going to experience over the coming year? We are being chiselled by foreign owned *companies, as well as our own. We have to take what they hand out.
    Then there is “public transport”. Not actually owned by the public, of course, but by foreign operators

    The thing about (foreign) businesses is that they will do the minimum to extract the most profit. That is their purpose. It is not to provide UK customers with low cost energy in order to promote business, and promote the economy of the UK ,or to keep the people the UK warm and healthy.
    Nor is it their purpose to provide fast, cheap, comfortable and safe travel to the people of the UK.

    Personally, I’d like all MPs to resign and for a General Election to be called, with all current MPs banned from standing.

    *EDF wholly owned by French government.
    Scottish Power, wholly owned by Iberdrola, largely owned by Qatar Investments.
    Abellio, wholly owned by Dutch State.

  46. Wordle 433 4/6

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

    1. Me too. Par 4.
      Wordle 433 4/6

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

    2. Wordle 433 4/6

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

    3. #MeToo Par Four
      Wordle 433 4/6

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

  47. Daily Quordle 214
    9️⃣7️⃣
    8️⃣4️⃣
    quordle.com
    ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ 🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟨⬜
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
    ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

  49. It looks like Stepson is going to lose his flat.
    Not such a bad thing, he’s totally unsupported there and some of his neighbours were viewing him as a soft touch.

    As a result though, I’m at home instead of being up in Northumberland for the Bellingham and Glendale shows Tomorrow & Monday as I’d planned, plus I’m having to de-kit the van so it can be used as a load carrier.

    On the plus side, according to the Community Psychiatric Nurse assigned to him, he may, at least, be entitled to free storage for his furniture and belongings.

    In the future? Hopefully warden controlled accommodation without the neighbours he has now.

    1. That’s dreadful BoB. A sorry state of affairs when ‘care in the community’ means neighbours can take advantage of a poorly man. Absolutely shocking!

      1. He was only sectioned as a result of the more sensible neighbour reporting the abuse.
        As a vulnerable adult, he’s been let down by The System since before his mother died nearly 30y ago.

    2. Oh, Bob.
      Every time I pass the old Severalls Hospital grounds – now covered in rabbit hutches and social housing blocks of flats – I get blood before my eyes.
      The place may not have been perfect, but the patients were cleanish, fed and warm. And there were people who looked after them 24/7/365. Not to mention regular medication to keep some form of control over their condition.
      It was an asylum, a place of sanctuary for those who could not cope with the outside world.

  50. That’s the money received for Mother’s house, Thank God.
    One stress point removed.

    1. I’ve given up talking to my mother about her home. I don’t want the money, but I don’t want the state to get it. I suggested she give it to my nieces and nephews but no, she refuses to give anyone the power over it. Apparently we want to get rid of her.

      I’ve no interest in what she does. I just want the state to lose out. Give it to charity if she wants, it’s not my money. Just don’t let the state get it.

      1. Check that she has a valid will.

        An intestate estate is more difficult to administer, and takes much longer.

        1. I thought that would be the case, but having acted as executor for my father’s will, and acted as administrator for my intestate uncle, there was very little difference.

  52. I bought a DT newwspaper yesterday, not done so since my much missed parrot died 2 years ago this month . I used the newspaper, spread out as a base under his tray to catch his droppings

    I was so shocked by the price … £2.80p.. unbelievable . not much change out of £5.

    The nice thing about newspapers like the DT is the smell of newsprint and paper , and the familiar crinkle as you unfold it , fold it etc.

    I probably won’t buy another one for a while .. the DT has always created some nostalgia in me , back to my parents day when we were all overseas, the thin air mail version where the newspaper was so thin and fine , and was easily torn … always a bit difficult to do the crossword then .

    Family have been matched , married , batched and despatched in those times long ago , and a dear Aunt of mine had a very nice huge obit written about her .

    The DT is so full of adverts and articles cover subjects that are not really worth reading .

    Oh well ..

    2. Afternoon Maggie.

      http://dailytelegraph.newspaperdirect.com/screenprint/viewer.aspx

      I read the Daily and Sunday Telegraph every day on my computer. It is not the DT online, it is the real newspaper, printed, and you turn the pages as you would the real thing. I’ve taken this for the past decade and it costs me £26 per month. That is 86p per edition. OK, you can’t smell the newsprint, but it’s still one hell of a way to read the newspaper. It is certainly worth looking into.

      1. The online version also costs £26/month. I’ve got a 3 month free trial and then it’s £9.99/month.

    3. Catching bird shit is an appropriate use for the broadsheets.
      I can’t think of many others.

    4. We still buy the Saturday one – no longer free with the cat food from Waitrose. It’s £3.50!!! Mainly because OH likes to see what’s going to be on the telly in the week ahead. I do usually read most of it.

      1. We find out what’s on the telly by looking online, iPad. Or switch telly on and look at the guide.

  53. 355398+ up ticks,

    Want Fries with That? Scientists Say Eating Worms Will Save the Planet,

    Did they give any reason for wanting to do that ?

    2. I wish I were a glow worm
      A glow worm’s never glum,
      ‘Cause how can you be grumpy
      When the sun shines out your bum?

  54. Question for you wiley investors:
    What’s a non-stupid thing to do with £55G where you can keep access to it (to pay French tradesmen renovating a house in France) but protect it from the catastrophic inflation that is stalking us and will eventually rot sterling and its bank accounts.
    I’ve thought of opening a ruppee account…
    Anything else, or anything wrong with that?

    1. Contract the renovations and get them done asap. But I dont spose that helps much! With Interest rates close to zero and a stock market crash in the wings you might be better off on a roulette wheel.

    2. Yorkshire Building Society have rate of 2.5% on savings. If you have had an account with them for 12 months you can open another E saver account at 5%.
      Premium bonds offer a better return with monthly prizes. You can save £50G with them.

    3. Put part of it into precious metals?
      Not sure what the tax deal on gold and silver is in France, but a dealer will usually buy them back from you.
      Some people are opening Swiss franc a/cs, but that’s another fiat currency of course. On the other hand, the Swiss have got lots of gold, so could potentially back their currency with it?
      Plus side is that the accounts are easy to open, and also to pay bills in the EU with, I’ve been told. IIRC you can take out ten grand at a time without them kicking up a fuss about money laundering or tax evasion.

    1. Permutate any of the following:

      Virtue signalling
      Legacy
      Grandstanding
      Hypocrisy
      Strategic ignorance
      Dangerous provocation
      Irresponsibility
      Incompetence …

  60. If we have a national emergency during the winter , looking on the really bleak side , say terrible floods , snow , landslides , coastal erosion , fires , explosions … where and how will people be rehomed , managed and kept warm and safe if all our hotels are full of unwanted migrants ?

    1. We just have to listen to all their moaning.
      But are never witness to the sucess and celebrations of their wonderful achievements. Perhaps Monday at Brixton carnival.

      1. A Poem for Black History

        In the matter of racial comparisons
        The media shouts to the moon,
        About all the historic achievements
        Of the Redskin, Spic and the Coon.

        Yet strangely, when strolling museums,
        The white man’s creations stand thick;
        But all we can find of those others
        Is a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

        No telephones, timeclocks or engines,
        No lights that go on with a flick.
        No aeroplanes, rockets or radios.
        Just a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

        Not one Sioux Indian submarine,
        No African ice cream to lick,
        Not a single Mexican x-ray machine,
        It’s a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

        So, remember when history’s the subject,
        And revisionists are up to their tricks,
        The evidence tells quite another tale,
        Of a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

        A poem by A. Wyatt Mann

          1. Check out the Kipling, below Andrew Lockwood’s post. They both imbue my current feeling about the invaders.

    2. Why is there a National BLACK Police Association, when there isn’t a National WHITE Police Association?

      A Trifle Racist, I would say.

  62. We have just bought one of these for the planned power cuts they keep saying we will get this coming winter. I get a degree of comfort from knowing it is in the cupboard under the stairs, just awaiting that moment. Our cooking facilities atm are electric, but we have a gas bbq outside (bbrrrr, those chill north-easterlies) with a cast iron ‘dutch oven’ and now this two-burner and grill, so at least we will be able to make a cup of tea or make some home-made soup.
    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Campingaz-Camping-Folding-Portable-Compact/dp/B00UALXY6Q/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1661527269&refinements=p_89%3ACampingaz&s=sports&sr=1-1

    1. Good idea. I bought one of those years ago. I liked going camping in my trailer tent but i didn’t like roughing it. Once the trailer tent was up with the awning i put up an enclosed annex. A bijoux three room camping experience !
      Though yours can be used on a table top or counter my version had fold out work tops with zip cupboards underneath.

      You would be surprised the amount of things you can create just with two burners. Doesn’t have to be just soup and tea.

      1. I shall have to look out my ancient copy of ‘Cooking in a Bedsitter’ by Katherine Whitehorn. It’s probably in the loft. I am quite incapable of throwing anything out.

        1. Brilliant book – kept me from starvation when I left home:) I passed my copy (which my mother had given to me) on to my son when he started university.

    2. A friend and his wife could cook a full english breakfast (when camping in the desert) on something very similar.
      When ever they asked to accompany me on an expedition, I never refused. 🙂

    3. I bought a similar one last year, because I thought there would be power cuts last winter. Our cooker is all-electric, so we would have been without any cooking facilities in the event the electric is cut off. The gas central heating would also not work, but we have a multi-fuel stove and plenty of logs, so we should be able to keep warm.

      I think it is much more likely that there will be power cuts this coming winter.

      1. Our central heating also won’t work – the pump requires electricity – which runs on LPG (no mains gas in the village) and the LPG also feeds a mock fire effect in the living room hearth which does not require any input by electricity. It is an expensive use of LPG but we won’t freeze, hopefully.

    4. I have a single-ring equivalent. Must buy some gas cartridges. Heating and hot water are gas (combi boiler). Shower is electric. At the last place (which was plagued by power cuts) I tweaked the central heating controls so I could plug them into a generator, for which I was thankful on several occasions. Storm Eunice proved how vulnerable I am to power cuts. My old petrol generator disintegrated, but a small ‘silent’ suitcase genny is on my current wish list.

      1. We need a Kristalnacht, here in UK. Burn the Mosques, Burn the Halal shops, drive the infidels OUT.

        1. That’s exactly what the government is afraid of and why they appear so apathetic.
          “The Beginnings” or ‘when the English began to hate’: by Rudyard Kipling, explains their fears.

          2. I am the same.
            My mother would read ‘The Jungle Book’ as a bedtime story along with some of his poetry.
            I’ve probably got a copy in one form or another of everything he published.

          3. This also strikes a note, I commend them both to Englishmen, everywhere:

            “For All We Have and Are”
            For all we have and are,
            For all our children’s fate,
            Stand up and meet the war.
            The Hun is at the gate!

            Our world has passed away
            In wantonness o’erthrown.
            There is nothing left to-day
            But steel and fire and stone.

            Though all we knew depart,
            The old commandments stand:
            “In courage keep your heart,
            In strength lift up your hand.”

            Once more we hear the word
            That sickened earth of old:
            “No law except the sword
            Unsheathed and uncontrolled,”

            Once more it knits mankind,
            Once more the nations go
            To meet and break and bind
            A crazed and driven foe.

            Comfort, content, delight —
            The ages’ slow-bought gain —
            They shrivelled in a night,
            Only ourselves remain

            To face the naked days
            In silent fortitude,
            Through perils and dismays
            Renewed and re-renewed.
             
            The Beginnings
            It was not part of their blood,
            It came to them very late
            With long arrears to make good,
            When the English began to hate.

            They were not easily moved,
            They were icy-willing to wait
            Till every count should be proved,
            Ere the English began to hate.

            Their voices were even and low,
            Their eyes were level and straight.
            There was neither sign nor show,
            When the English began to hate.

            It was not preached to the crowd,
            It was not taught by the State.
            No man spoke it aloud,
            When the English began to hate.

            It was not suddenly bred,
            It will not swiftly abate,
            Through the chill years ahead,
            When Time shall count from the date
            That the English began to hate.

        1. the one the rest of the colonials/usa like to concentrate on while ignoring their own misdeed.

          1. Your opinion is your opinion – nothing like that I know better feeling, I agree! The use of a word for one event does not presuppose ignorance perjorative or otherwise, of other events of genocide or murder.

    1. I’m not a lawyer but that looks very like criminal damage to me – as they are on camera arrest them!

    2. Blatant criminal damage. Arrest then, fine them until they’re penniless then fine them again. Their egos are absurd and they need to be broken.

    3. What they need is a wooden, non-petroleum based baseball bat, applied to their smug faces.

  65. Managed to burn out the shredder.
    Job done. Three more bags to go to the tip.
    I don’t think I can cope with all the excitement.

      1. Tartan rolls?
        Rolls printed up to look like dollar bills?
        Rolls printed to look recycled??

      1. I started on it for my mother – lots of confidential medical records my father had kept from his practice. Infinitely boring, so I waited until she went out and had a nice, illegal bonfire.

        Had another one when I’d sorted all the mounds of paperwork after she died, too. Toasted crumpets, then slathered them in butter in secret, as she wouldn’t have approved 🤣🤣

    4. I’ve converted my shredder all clean and fresh, to chop up apples for pulping and pressing to make my zyder.

      1. Smoke rising from the shredder – plus hot plastic smell – suggested that burning down Allan Towers to save a few quid was a non-starter.

        1. I’m guessing that there are two different sorts of shredder in this conversation. If Anne is shredding documents, it’s safe to say that – burnt out or not – it’s safe to say that her shredder won’t be making cider.

          For what it’s worth, I have a Fellowes office shredder which can cope with 8 sheets at a time, but it’s safer to limit them to five, and it’s important not to let the receptacle get too full.

          As for garden shredders, I had a Titan machine from Screwfix which devoured any/everything I threw at it. Don’t need it at the new place, so it was passed on to a friend with a rather more pressing need.

  66. Mothers house sale completed. Money received. All the crap is over – I hope.
    Removals not yet received in Norway, and there’s no response to emails or telephone. Have they gone bankruopt / stolen our stuff?? It’s worth bugger-all except emotionally.

        2. In the ‘Eighties, I belonged to a Friday lunchtime drinking club in Glasgow.

          We wore a ‘POETS’ tie – with a flag hoist of those letters on a navy background.

          Very smart – and mysterious to most landlubbers …

      2. Only in England (and Wales). Scotland had their August Bank Holiday on 1st August.

        Why do they have to make these differences? It just feeds the Krankie’s ego.

        1. But from what I hear from the local surgery, Monday is also seen as another Bank Holiday!

  68. And we’re free- for three days! No-one can badger us, pester us re appointments or come round and annoy.
    Next week it will start up again but we have three whole days to ourselves. And the weather looks very nice. I put the cushions out today so we can enjoy the sunshine.
    Huge and happy sigh.
    Edit for daft spelling.

    1. Be lucky, Ann. If I were closer, I might call in – just to be neighbourly, you understand.

  69. French politicians hit out at UK over English Channel ‘dumping ground’ The Independent
    The UK is putting the environment, fishermen’s livelihoods and public health at risk by pumping sewage into the sea, three French MEPs have said.
    “The Channel and the North Sea are not dumping grounds.” said Stephanie Yon-Courtin, a member of the European Union’s committee on fisheries and one of the statement’s signatories.

    Well, you stinking hypocrites, stop dumping your putrid, malodorous effluent in the Channel, turn the tide of mendacious rapists, thieves and chancers and return them to the sh*t holes and sewers where they came from in the first place.

    1. They need to look closer to home. For decades the French have been pouring raw sewage into the Med.

    2. 355398+ up ticks,

      Evening P,
      That would take care of the politico’s, whats your answer regarding the illegals ?

  70. Evening, all. The government has NO intention of doing anything about the migrants; if it had, it would have done it ages ago.

      1. Contrary to the MSM the high cost of energy is not the fault of Russia or due to the war in Ukraine. It is the fault of this government. And we most certainly should not be sending money, ammunition or “administrative” helpers over there. Ukraine is nothing to do with us.

  71. 355398+ up ticks,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    3h
    Queen Victoria once asked one of her Prime Ministers, regarding a foreign country, “Are they our friend?”

    He replied, “ We don’t have friends Ma’am, we have interests.” If only British PMs could understand this.

    It is in the French interest to flood our country with their unwanted illegal migrants. They do understand it.

    Macron hits back at Truss over comment ‘jury out’ on whether he is a friend or foe
    Ally claims her remarks were ‘light-hearted’

    https://gettr.com/post/p1ocxx08294

  72. This video that starts with Kipling’s ‘When the English began to Hate’ explains why Europe is slowly becoming a powder keg of eventual revolt against its dictatorial governments.
    I am amazed that it has not been blocked.

    https://youtu.be/oUMGr2r2_Qc

      1. Dylan Thomas:

        Do not go gentle into that good night

        Do not go gentle into that good night,
        Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
        Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

        Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
        Because their words had forked no lightning they
        Do not go gentle into that good night.

        Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
        Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
        Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

        Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
        And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
        Do not go gentle into that good night.

        Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
        Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
        Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

        And you, my father, there on the sad height,
        Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
        Do not go gentle into that good night.
        Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
        Dylan Thomas – 1914-1953

      2. Good afternoon on Saturday. I can’t find your email address. It must be somewhere – buy hidden.

        Posted your seeds at 11.15 today in Quiberon, France. Could you mail me when they reach you?

      1. If we had another ‘Old Ironsides’ (Cromwell not the boat) I’d join in the fight for a parliament that represented the people and (to miss quote Cromwell) ‘not sell their country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray God for a few pieces of money’ .

  73. A father passing by his son’s bedroom
    Noticed the room unusually clean and saw an envelope propped up prominently on the pillow. It was addressed, ‘Dad’. With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter, with trembling hands.

    Dear, Dad. It is with great regret and sorrow that I’m writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend, because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mum and you.
    I’ve been finding real passion with Stacy. She is so nice, but I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercing’s, tattoos, her tight Motorcycle clothes, and because she is so much older than I am.

    But it’s not only the passion, Dad. She’s pregnant. Stacy said that we will be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods, and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.
    Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that mari*juana doesn’t really hurt anyone. We’ll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people in the commune for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want.

    In the meantime, we’ll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so that Stacy can get better. She sure deserves it!
    Don’t worry Dad, I’m 15, and I know how to take care of myself. Someday, I’m sure we’ll be back to visit so you can get to know your many grandchildren.
    Love, your son, Josh

    P.S . Dad, none of the above is true. I’m over at Jason’s house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the school report that’s on the kitchen table. Call when it is safe for me to come home 😁

    1. At primary school, I used to put my report through the letter box and go for a walk round the block. Gave my mother a chance to calm down. The grades were fine- it was the behaviour. 🙁

          1. My favourite remark on my end of year report in the 3rd year was from my Geography master who wrote.
            Out of his depth and swimming feebly.

          2. I can’t remember what was on my final primary school report but suspect it might have been along the lines of, “Thank god, she’s left!”

        2. Oh God, I did that once on some homework I hadn’t completed. I still have cold sweats about the repercussions of that.

      2. I’ve never actually seen my son’s last report from school – he’s not quite sure what he did with it but it may be stuck up in amongst the roof rafters somewhere. Should make for amusing reading for posterity.

  74. Brexit has still not changed our addiction to foreign labour

    But this has costs – including, arguably, a lack of attention to the millions of British people not in full-time employment

    TELEGRAPH VIEW

    At the Brexit referendum, the public voted to take back control of the country’s borders. This meant ending free movement with the EU. According to some liberal Conservatives and Remainers, however, it did not mean lowering overall migrant numbers. They contend that the public is happy now that democratic control over immigration has been restored to the UK, and that how many people are admitted under whatever policy MPs decide is largely irrelevant.

    That argument, dubious at the best of times, is about to be tested to destruction. The latest visa and asylum figures from the Home Office are extraordinary. The number of work, study and other visas issued to foreign nationals has surged by 83 per cent to 1,115,099 in the 12 months to June. This is on top of the millions of EU citizens who were allowed to stay and work in the UK after Brexit, as well as those who manage to get to the country illegally.

    Some will be comfortable with these numbers. Foreign students attending British universities, for example, bring money into the UK, while some industries need migrant workers to function. But it is hard to believe that the scale of this influx will not have consequences. Can public services handle any extra pressure? Where will all these people be accommodated? We are still paying the price for the failure of previous governments to plan for rapid population growth via migration.

    The country’s continued addiction to foreign labour also has costs – including, arguably, a lack of attention to the millions of British people who are not in full-time employment. Many had hoped that this, at least, would change post-Brexit. Apparently, the Government has other ideas.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/26/brexit-has-still-not-changed-addiction-foreign-labour/

    A high proportion of BTL comments are critical: “It’s the fault of the lazy British!” Nowhere is there an analysis of how many immigrants are in work, what type of work, the pay etc. None that I have read so far make any reference to undercutting of UK workers, the scandal of bunk-housing, the failure to train, the cost of running a business. No one in politics or the media will answer the question: “How did we get here?”

    1. One of the comics on GB News last weekend came out with, “People say they don’t want foreigners coming here taking our jobs but my mum’s a foreigner and she’s never done a days work in her life”.

    2. Some time ago the Home Office announced that at any one time 90% of Somalis in this country are out of work, and 80% have never had a job.

      Has much changed since that statement?

  75. This immigration disaster will trigger a new political insurgency

    Mark my words: anger over the pace and rate of demographic change in our towns and cities is growing

    NIGEL FARAGE

    In recent years, the Conservative Party hoped and prayed that the issue of immigration had gone away. In a way, it did – certainly in the minds of the electorate. For a good long while after the Brexit referendum in 2016, polls showed it had slipped down the list of voters’ priorities. This was almost certainly because many people thought that exiting the EU would genuinely mean that British borders would become secure. They also believed that sensible levels of legal immigration were to be restored. How terribly wrong they were.

    The truth is that Boris Johnson’s government never had any intention of doing anything meaningful about immigration. We are at the end of yet another week of total humiliation. Thousands of new arrivals have turned up uninvited on our shores, escorted by the Border Force and the RNLI and in the full expectation that British taxpayers are going to fund any aspect of their lives that is immediately necessary (healthcare and housing being the obvious needs). Isn’t it time that politicians stopped treating the public like idiots? Shouldn’t they cease mouthing platitudes about desperate people fleeing war-torn countries to make perilous crossings in dangerous boats and start telling the truth?

    Albania is being emptied of their young men as they make their way to northern France in order to cross the English Channel, despite their country being a peaceful destination for English tourists. These people currently account for a large proportion of those coming here in small boats.

    Having said that, this particular method of immigration – boat – is in numerical terms pretty small beer compared with the immigration which is happening above board, so to speak. Home Office figures published this week show that a staggering 1.1 million people were granted settlement visas in the year to June 2022. Despite the endless Remoaner narrative that UK labour shortages are the fault of Brexit, work visas rocketed by 72 per cent compared with the pre-pandemic year of 2019. Indeed, there are now a record 6.3 million foreign-born workers in Britain legally who are considered to be active in the economy. That’s getting on for 10 per cent of the British population.

    Another liberal-metropolitan argument claims that, under this Conservative government, Britain has been too slow in helping others from different parts of the world, notably Ukraine. The latest Home Office figures blow a massive hole in this theory as well. There were 230,000 resettlements for the year to June 2022. That is the highest number ever recorded. It is thought that 70,000 of these people came from Hong Kong and 21,000 from Afghanistan. Most – 130,000 – came from Ukraine. According to Migration Watch UK, between the years 2005 and 2020, resettlements never rose above 7,000 per year. So much for the Remainer myth that post-Brexit Britain is run by cold, heartless Tories.

    Yet with such vast numbers arriving here by whatever means, something has got to give. The day that I knew leaving the EU would be possible was when the EU enlarged in 2004 to include former Communist countries with smaller economies than our own. Tony Blair went along with this scheme, opening Britain’s doors to unlimited numbers of people who were seeking a better life but without giving due consideration to the very obvious knock-on effects their arrival would have on his own citizens. Moreover, nobody in Britain was even consulted about the vast population expansion that ensued. It was just allowed to happen.

    Today, the same concerns that were raised in the Blair era about a population explosion lowering our quality of life still hold water. Whether it is the shortage of housing, less access to GP services, heavier congestion on roads or rising levels of crime from foreign gangs, the penny is about to drop. This time, however, it is the Conservative Party which has presided over the mess. It has wilfully misled voters – especially those in Red Wall seats – on the issue of mass immigration. For doing so, it may well pay a very heavy price. What is so concerning is that, if the Tories are dismissed from government at the next election, the British people could find themselves living under a Labour-Lib Dem coalition which actively entrenches the nonsensical Tory immigration policy, worsening the situation further still. This truly would be a vicious circle.

    The situation is so bad that I believe the moment for a new political insurgency is nearly upon us. Anger over the pace and rate of demographic change in our towns and cities – specifically at a time of deep economic difficulty – is growing. I led a previous political insurgency as the leader of Ukip. Britons may well find that the next insurgent leader in the UK, whoever he or she may be, is nowhere near as moderate as I was.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/26/immigration-disaster-will-trigger-new-political-insurgency/

    1. Any potential ‘next insurgent leader‘ will be chopped off at the knees long before anyone gets a chance to vote for them, Nigel, as you should well know.

  77. Latest Breaking News – M&S are now calling all their changing rooms, fitting rooms after getting thousands of complaints from customers upset that they came out the same gender that they went in as.

  78. More Latest Breaking News – Government set to announce energy price freeze.

    People get the price and then they freeze.

  80. If this mortal has offended….tough 😉
    Am off to bed- still battling fatigue.
    See y’all tomorrow. I want to sleep as long as I can.

  81. Theresa May is still ruining Britain

    CAMILLA TOMINEY, ASSOCIATE EDITOR

    It was during her disastrous Conservative Party Conference speech in 2017 that Theresa May announced that the government would publish a Bill to put a price cap on energy bills.

    Having earlier declared to a tabloid that she was “fed up of rip off energy prices”, between coughs, splutters and a protester handing her a fake P45, the former prime minister managed to declare: “We will always take on monopolies and vested interests when they are holding people back.”

    Clearly the cap on standard variable tariffs was designed not only with the best of intentions – but also with focus group polling in mind.

    Because something like it had originally been mooted by “Red” Ed Miliband, in between bites of a bacon sandwich. Given that the idea seemed to suggest that customers would get money off their bills, the public naturally lapped it up.

    Everyone was evidently so distracted by the wheels coming off Mrs May’s car crash address that they failed to notice the concerns being raised by bodies like the Competition and Markets Authority, which had earlier warned that a cap ran “excessive risks of undermining the competitive process, likely resulting in worse outcomes for customers in the long run”.

    And while Mrs May could not have predicted that Russia would go on to invade Ukraine four years after her Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Act 2018 received Royal Assent (notwithstanding Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea), the policy has proved to be one of many disasters on her watch.

    It has signally failed to hold down energy bills at the same time as destroying competition in the market, while pushing multiple suppliers into bankruptcy.

    We tend to remember Mrs May for her squandered majority and her inability to get Brexit done. But her legacy is fast proving even more calamitous than that.

    It is beyond ironic that she refused to clap Boris Johnson during his final Prime Minister’s Questions, when you consider that, if it wasn’t for her former foreign secretary, the Conservatives would currently be in political Siberia, with Mrs May considered even more of a political pariah than she is now.

    Arms folded, face like thunder, it seems the Maybot has been reprogrammed to forget just how bad her three-year tenure was. But we still remember.

    Consider the parts of her Brexit disaster that Mr Johnson couldn’t fix. Thanks to the MP for Maidenhead’s catastrophic mishandling of our negotiations with the EU, we have ended up with a Northern Ireland Protocol that serves both sides badly and which now needs to be reformed.

    It is all very well the Remainiacs, who thrived under Mrs May’s hapless administration, blaming Johnson for signing it. But the truth is that Brexit would have been all but lost had he not reached some sort of exit agreement with the EU after being handed a bag full of Brussels fudge by his bungling predecessor, and having been denied the option of no deal by a Parliament that Mrs May had allowed to run riot.

    Even today, we still have to endure those who drank the Chequers Kool-Aid arguing that we should rejoin the single market – as oblivious as ever to the constitutional consequences of reversing a once-in-a-life-time democratic mandate.

    But it gets worse. Witness the Modern Slavery Act – a piece of legislative virtue-signalling, introduced by Mrs May when she was home secretary, that is now being used by illegal migrants to avoid deportation, along with foreign murderers and rapists.

    It was classic Mayism; nobody’s idea of a public priority, and cooked up with so many loopholes that it’s now backfired disastrously.

    As former immigration minister Chris Philp explained to this newspaper earlier this month, the poorly drafted legislation – intended to protect vulnerable people from labour exploitation, domestic servitude or being trafficked for sex – is now being dangerously exploited.

    He said that he had witnessed Channel migrants denying they were victims of slavery, only to change their story to avoid deportation after speaking to their lawyers.

    Even more worryingly, he added: “I saw case after case where serious foreign criminals – including sadistic rapists and brutal murderers – used last-minute modern slavery claims to prevent deportation back to their home country.”

    Calling for a tightening of the law, he said that the Act, introduced in 2015, allowed “absurdly low levels” of proof of slavery and “no supporting evidence”. He also pointed to the UK’s “incredibly naive” application of a Council of Europe treaty to combat modern slavery. While France and Germany had applied a tighter definition of slavery claims, Britain was more lax – meaning it had 10 times the annual 1,000 to 2,000 claims of the two EU countries.

    Priti Patel, Mrs May’s successor as Home Secretary, is now having to clear up the mess by reviewing the Act “to make sure the system is about the recovery of victims rather than an open immigration route”.

    Then there’s net zero, rushed through on the nod just a month before Mrs May left office – with no debate and little scrutiny. As with the Modern Slavery Act, it was designed to curry favour with the sorts of tree huggers who are never going to vote Tory in some attempt to divorce today’s Conservatives from what Mrs May once described as the “nasty party”.

    But in reality, all the 2050 target has succeeded in doing is leaving a very nasty after-taste for ordinary taxpayers. The types of people who separate their recycling and would buy an electric car – if only they could afford it. The rush to decarbonise the economy, with no plan for how to achieve that over such a short period of time, threatens to become one of the most expensive mistakes in recent British history.

    We have also been forced to count the cost of Mrs May’s cuts to police numbers. Fine the coalition was committed to an austerity programme, but her decision, as home secretary, to slash budgets by 18 per cent in 2010, was a total disaster. Little over a decade on and despite attempts to reverse the cuts, lo and behold we’re now being plagued by a crime wave.

    From innocent Olivia Pratt-Korbel, aged nine, shot dead in her Liverpool home to machete wielding thugs rampaging through residential areas, to people being robbed of their Rolexes in the heart of Mayfair, there’s a sense of rampant lawlessness on the streets of Britain.

    Recorded crime in England and Wales is now at a 20-year high, according to figures released last month by the Office for National Statistics with some 6.3 million crimes reported to police in the year to March 2022. Yet just 5.6 per cent of offences reported to police led to a suspect being charged or summonsed – a new low.

    Part of it is down to a failure of leadership – but as any copper will tell you, the rot started to set in with Mrs May’s cuts.

    And to think we haven’t even got on to her pioneering the trend of giving the NHS billions for nothing in return (remember when she gave it £20 billion for its 70th ‘birthday’ in 2018?) or how she managed to toxify social care reform with her farcical “nothing has changed” u-turn. Now no politician will dare do anything brave to fix the system.

    There has been much criticism of Mr Johnson but the next prime minister may well find themselves devoting more time to unravelling the mistakes made by Mrs May – not the Big Dog to whom she refused to throw a bone.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/08/26/theresa-may-still-ruining-britain/

    1. One of the few politicians for whom I have any respect was Estelle Morris who resigned from her job as Minster of Education in Blair’s government saying, frankly, that she was not up to the job.

      Such humility would sit well with many incompetent ministers and especially the odiously evil Mrs May who was, without doubt the worst home secretary and the worst prime minister Britain has had this century.

      1. Didn’t that also apply to Alan Johnson, who resigned from his own post saying that he was not up to it?

  82. Goodnight and God bless all NoTTLe folks, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. from some poetry and commentry herein. You may just learn to fight for what is right in this crazy world today.

  83. Good night my friends. It’s late and I am getting tired. I read this DT headline too quickly and thought that Adultera Truss was about to try her hand at mammary surgery.

    Priti Patel set to be exiled to the back benches as Liz Truss plots cull of big beasts
    Home Secretary fights to save her job as leadership frontrunner plans shake-up of the Cabinet

    2. Patel’s achievements all sit somewhere around the square root of bugger all mark for all the good they will do. Mind you, this does not make her unique within the Cabinet: it would be hard to find a more useless and untrustworthy bunch of wastrels than that formerly led by the very worst of that stripe. Whoever becomes PM will have some monumental problems to address, the first being to form a functioning Cabinet from the sow’s ear that is the current bunch of Tory MPs.

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