Friday 27 January: Waste and incompetence have cost the Tories the support of loyal voters

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

670 thoughts on “Friday 27 January: Waste and incompetence have cost the Tories the support of loyal voters”

  1. Good Morrow, Gentlefolk. Here is today’s story:

    Who said poetry is dull?

    When me prayers were poorly said
    Who tucked me in me widdle bed
    And spanked me till me bum was red?
    Me Mudder!

    Who took me from me cosy cot
    And put me on the ice-cold pot
    And made me pee when I could not?
    Me Mudder!

    And when the morning light would come
    And in me crib me dribbled some
    Who wiped me tiny widdle bum?
    Me Mudder!

    Who would me hair so neatly part
    And hug me gently to her heart
    Who sometimes squeezed me till me fart?
    Me Mudder!

    Who looked at me with eyebrows knit
    And nearly have a king size fit
    When in me Sunday pants me shit?
    Me Mudder!

    When at night her bed did squeak
    Me raised me head to have a peek
    Who yelled at me to go to sleep?
    Me Fadder!

      1. ‘ Morning, Paul, I shan’t be around much this morning. Blood test (INR) at Moffat Hospital @ 10:00.

        2. Enjoy… or something like that. Remember to replace fluids afterwards . Guinness is a good option!

          1. Reminds me of my days working on the psychogeriatric wards.
            Doctors were being advised (pushed) throughout the autumn to diagnose anaemia in every old biddy on the ward. Christmas was a very stout time.

          1. No wards, just practitioners who will not fit into the surgery.

            Nearest A & E is Dumfries Royal Infirmary, over 25 miles away.

  2. Well done, Geoff and Good Morning.

    Despite being ensconced in a strange hotel room, you get the comments out on time.

  3. Third!!!. And NO, it is NOT my birthday and I am NOT 3 years old. (Good morning to all NoTTLers, btw.)

      1. Herr Oberst: Tom was the first poster today, you were the second and I was the third. Now I would have been second, because when Geoff’s link was posted on last night’s page, I immediately clicked on it and wrote “Second!!!” because I knew that Tom’s joke would be first. But then yours appeared, and I couldn’t find mine. Going back to the top I realised that I had failed to click on the “Comment” box. Aaargh.

  4. Report on BBC Radio 4 this morning. Possibility that HS2 may not reach Euston station and that passengers may have to take the Tube into central London. The Government hasn’t denied it officially. If this is correct HS2 will be the White Elephant of the railways.

    2. Nobody could have possibly predicted that outcome.
      When Boris went ahead with this EU project one instinctively knew that he was just another globalist stooge

    3. WTF? After ripping up acres and acres of rural England?
      They really do hate us, don’t they.

  6. Waste and incompetence have cost the Tories the support of loyal voters

    There has been no waste or incompetence, it has all been done with a purpose in mind.

  7. Morning all. I put this out here, but my “rant of the day” will follow shortly. This is just the warm-up act, as it were.

    “Tens of billions of pounds in additional funding will be required to keep public services running this year because of a collapse in productivity that experts blamed on weak management and working from home. Public sector productivity fell 1.3pc in the three months to September compared with the previous quarter, according to the Office for National Statistics. This compares with a 0.1pc increase in output per hour across the economy over the same period.

    TENS of billions of pounds in additional funding will be required to keep public services running this year because of a collapse in productivity that experts blamed on weak management and working from home.

    Public sector productivity fell 1.3pc in the three months to September – compared with the previous quarter, according to the Office for National Statistics. This compares with a 0.1pc increase in output per hour across the economy over the same period.

    It means productivity in the public sector is 7.4pc below pre-pandemic levels, compared with a 1.6pc increase in the equivalent economy-wide measure…”

  8. Morning all. I put this out here, but my “rant of the day” will follow shortly. This is just the warm-up act, as it were.

    “Tens of billions of pounds in additional funding will be required to keep public services running this year because of a collapse in productivity that experts blamed on weak management and working from home. Public sector productivity fell 1.3pc in the three months to September compared with the previous quarter, according to the Office for National Statistics. This compares with a 0.1pc increase in output per hour across the economy over the same period.

    TENS of billions of pounds in additional funding will be required to keep public services running this year because of a collapse in productivity that experts blamed on weak management and working from home.

    Public sector productivity fell 1.3pc in the three months to September – compared with the previous quarter, according to the Office for National Statistics. This compares with a 0.1pc increase in output per hour across the economy over the same period.

    It means productivity in the public sector is 7.4pc below pre-pandemic levels, compared with a 1.6pc increase in the equivalent economy-wide measure…”

  10. So, NTTLers, what do we think? Incompetence, a mistake or just plain deliberate? I’m going with deliberate.

    “TENS of thousands of EU citizens whose applications to stay in Britain were rejected may have been wrongly paid benefits, it has emerged.

    A data error meant European nationals who were turned down for settled status after Brexit continued to get payouts to which they were not entitled.

    The Home Office, which was responsible for the mix-up, is trying to recoup the money. It did not say how many people were involved or how much money is estimated to have been paid.

    It is feared many of the almost 150,000 EU citizens who were refused permanent right to remain in the UK may have continued to receive the cash.“

    3. Why would we be paying them benefits anyway? If you haven’t got a job and can’t support yourself…go home !

  12. Hello.

    OLT: I saw your message to me posted last night about how to get quickly on to the new page, followed your steps, but pressing “Control V” did not help in the least. I had to type the above “Hello” and click on “Comment” to get anywhere. Where am I going wrong?!?!?!

    PS: I know that many tech-savvy Nottlers are trying to help me, but it is only making me extremely frustrated, and I am tempted to quote the location to the James Bond film THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (Phuket).

  13. Good morning all.
    A tad below ½°C this morning and dry.
    Up for my drive to Lincoln via Colsterworth today.

  15. 370394+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Friday 27 January: Waste and incompetence have cost the Tories the support of loyal voters

    Truth be told,

    Friday 27 January: designed & activated treachery have cost the Tories the support of loyal voters who refused to recognise the rot triggered by shirt tail major odiously, rapidly, formenting daily
    via the wretch camerom, treacherous treasa, the dangerous batty turk, and now a WEF RESET bound political freak.

    Seventy years ago for services rendered the
    lab /lib / con / current ukip coalition would have earned the right to wear the iron cross

  17. Without Crimea, Ukraine will never win. 27 January 2023.

    There is no victory for Kyiv – or Nato – unless we give the Ukrainians the tools to seize back the peninsula

    The Ukrainian General Staff have set an amazing example for military planners in Europe. Their activities are methodical, professional and disciplined. Their understanding of operational design on the battlefield, and operational security, has never been matched by the Russians. So we can safely conclude that, with the right weapons, Ukraine can prevent a major Russian breakthrough just about anywhere on the battlefield. But more than that, Ukraine can retake Crimea this year.

    The Russians will never give up Crimea while they have one card left to play. Its loss would bring down the government and very probably destroy the Federation itself. It would be like America giving up Florida or the UK handing over Wales. It’s unthinkable. The Russians will go Nuclear rather than allow it!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/26/ukraine-will-retake-crimea-let/

      1. Saggy May, Boris and Rishi-Washi have done their level best to hand Norn Iron over to Brussels. The way the EU are decanting ‘refugees’ into ROI, it might be wise to man the beaches in Kintyre and Wigtown.

  18. Tirfor jacks & t’Lad’s new crash helmet loaded onto van, so after another mug of tea and I’ve taken the DT’s breakfast upstairs I’ll be off.

        1. Difficult to know who to believe. A research professor at MIT who doesn’t trust the FDA or Big Pharma or my non-existent GP.

          1. I don’t know if it still happens but in the good ol’ days GPs used to get free ‘educational’ seminars delivered in their Practice on the benefits of a drug company’s latest block buster…….(as well as various freebies)….

      1. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rare neurological disease that primarily affects the nerve cells (neurons) responsible for controlling voluntary muscle movement (those muscles we choose to move). Voluntary muscles produce movements like chewing, walking, and talking.

  20. G’morning all,

    Up at O Dark 30 today. The plumber’s coming. Cloudy start from what I can see and 3℃ outside with a Northerly breeze.

    We see from the Daily Gatesograph that the boys in blue are going all out to recruit illiterates in the name of diversity.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/26/applicants-functionally-illiterate-english-accepted-met-bid/

    Why is anyone worried? After all we’ve had foreign doctors who can barely speak English in the NHS for some time now. All the same, I think I’d be a bit put out if one of these cultural enrichment bobbies were to try to police me.

    1. Did you see that they predict Lodnod to be a majority-black city by the end of the decade?

      1. Hell, Paul, we all thought it had reached that status a couple of years ago.

        It’s certainly the European Caliphate of Londonistan.

      3. They havent counted all the ones hidden in sheds and woodpiles yet. Glad to hear you are on the mend.

      4. If it it racist to consider skin colour why are there only going to be black and brown but no white?

  21. G’morning all,

    Up at O Dark 30 today. The plumber’s coming. Cloudy start from what I can see and 3℃ outside with a Northerly breeze.

    We see from the Daily Gatesograph that the boys in blue are going all out to recruit illiterates in the name of diversity.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/26/applicants-functionally-illiterate-english-accepted-met-bid/

    Why is anyone worried? After all we’ve had foreign docotors who can barely speak English in the NHS for some time now. All the same, I think I’d be a bit put out if one of these cultural enrichment bobbies were to try to police me.

  22. Sugar tax may have prevented 5,000 young girls from becoming obese. 26 January 2023

    A study from the University of Cambridge found that the introduction of the levy in April 2018 coincided with an eight per cent drop in obesity levels in Year Six girls, rising to nine per cent in girls from deprived areas.

    Researchers from the university’s Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit tracked changes in obesity levels among children in England in reception year and Year Six, between 2014 and 2020.

    May have? Science at its finest!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/26/sugar-tax-may-have-prevented-5000-young-girls-becoming-obese/

        1. Good to be at home, thanks. Now I’m free of stuck-on wires, I had a shower! Bliss… and nice food, a beer, glass wine, telly, family, cats… I’ve done a half days work (Lead Engineer has fucked up the manning, lots of problems) I’m knackered and am about to follow Drs orders and stop work. So there!
          Thanks for asking. That was kind (or an attempt to get first dibs on a slightly used heart & top-quality arteries/veins…)

          2. Geoff has placed a reserve for your feet. He also wants you to throw in the shoes for free.

    3. Highly unlikely….!
      But the Government will be happy that Scientists have discovered that more tax is good for you!

  25. Today’s leading letter:

    SIR – I come from a family of hard-working, tax-paying middle-England Conservatives. Councillors, teachers, engineers, carpenters and accountants – all doing our bit for generations.

    I have been loyal to the Conservative Party for more than 35 years, but I have had enough of seeing my hard-earned tax contributions wasted by a Government that has no idea how to run the country.

    Philip Johnston was spot on. However, I will not be joining his Idiots and Loons Party, but rather Reform UK. I will be leaving the Conservative Party. It needs a massive shock to catalyse a complete overhaul, triggered by a Labour landslide at the next election.

    Nick Greatorex
    Kingston Blount, Oxfordshire

    I’m sure Mr Gretorex will not be alone in his exit from the Un-Conservative Party!

    1. He’s joining Tice’s crowd?
      Good luck with that.
      Anyone who attends a launch party for Matt Hancock’s book, and is photographed laughing and joking with said spiv, is not trustworthy.

    1. Perhaps someone better make sure that for every Church fire, there’s a mosque fire.
      In the name of religious equality, of course.

      1. I’ve just looked at the comments on the Daily Gatesograph, on which I’m shadow-banned. A fair leavening think as we do – Islam.

      2. I’ve just looked at the comments on the Daily Gatesograph, on which I’m shadow-banned. A fair leavening think as we do – Islam.

  28. Good morning all.
    Yesterday did anyone cover the article about dangerous overcrowding at London Bridge railway station?
    As I read it, I thought of True Belle’s son.

      1. Was that the one where many people were crushed to death through overcrowding?

        Then many years later…Hilsborough. Lessons not learned.

  31. Good morning, all. Dry, cloudy and calm in N Essex.

    Be afraid, be very afraid. Personal medicines and therapies created while you wait, what could go wrong?

    This from a regime that is struggling to get seriously ill and damaged people to the point where help is available.
    This scheme isn’t going to come cheap and as one of the UK Column presenters asks, “I’d like to know who the stakeholders are.”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/578b730b4d11ce14f6bfe9b46aa510da8f2d97f6e933f58e3e2a4d23767db500.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/714f2d1a5ed90776309d784d921e5e86739e4a673ed61a74c62f0531e0d5dfc9.png
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    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a5f0656acb07b105bb194e508f3cf51b4823d7ba6157017a6ab13be3c30c52d7.png

    UK Column – 25/01/2023

    1. …and this from an organisation that cannot produce auditable accounts.

      Who do you trust?

    2. So, just to sum up, you still won’t be able to get a doctor’s appointment, but they are changing the law on licensing in order to give you tailor-made medicines, and this news breaks the day after we learn that Pfizer is tailoring its mRNA covid booster shots to covid variants that it has itself developed.

      2. Well call me lucky but I rang our surgery at two seconds past 8 o’clock this morning. And I have an appointment at 11: 30 today.
        Lucky old me.
        This upper respiratory infection and continuous cough is driving me nuts.
        The receptionist insisted that I can’t have a prescription for medication sent to the pharmacy for collection. I hope I don’t pass anything on to anyone.
        A Mask will be worn of course.

        1. I use throat sprays like Chloroseptic and Covonia Oromucosal to keep those symptoms under control while my body fights the infection.

          Good luck.

    3. I think they’d be better getting the basic treatment stuff, appointments etc, right first before messing about with new techniques.

  32. Right, quick phone call to t’Lad and I’ll be off.
    See you again this evening one hopes!

  35. Morning all 😉 😊
    Waste and incompetence?
    Smug indifference is closer to the mark.
    Too interested in their own welfare and status to care a jot about the public.
    And another heritage Church bites the dust, 177 year old St Marks Church in St John’s Wood London, completely destroyed. ‘Electrical fault’ again, candle in the wind ?
    I doubt it.

    2. So many of these ancient stone buildings seem to be highly combustible. It’s a wonder they lasted so long. Must be a miracle.

        2. I sympathise, even though I hate the taste of whisky. Gin is so much more like proper manufactured lemonade so you don’t have to pretend to be an adult.

        3. The whole point of whisky is that it is an alcoholic beverage. What next, spotted dick without the spots?

          3. Speaking of puddings. Rick Stein does a Winchester steamed pudding which i am going to make. Served with a Grand Marnier butterscotch sauce.

          6. Based on a 1906 recipe…

            Winchester Pudding
            Makes 6 individual puddings (based on 2/3 fill of 150ml capacity metal pudding basins)
            Ingredients
            110g white breadcrumbs
            110g plain flour
            110g vegetable suet
            75g caster sugar
            Pinch of salt
            1 tsp ground mixed spice
            2 ½ tsp baking powder
            55g currents
            110g golden sultanas
            Zest of 1 large orange
            300ml whole milk
            10g butter for greasing moulds
            Butter the moulds.
            Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl, stir in the milk and fill the moulds 2/3 full. Cover with a square
            pleated baking parchment and pleated foil and secure with a string or elastic band and steam for
            approx. 45-50 minutes until risen and firm to the touch. Release with a knife (if required).
            These will need to be cooled, frozen prior to transport and microwaved prior to service.
            Grand Marnier Butterscotch Sauce.
            Ingredients
            175ml double cream
            50g butter
            150g soft light brown sugar
            2 Tbsp Grand Marnier
            In a pan bring cream, butter and sugar up to a boil and cook for 2 minutes, then stir in the Grand
            Marnier. Serve over the Winchester puddings with a side of clotted cream

          8. A chap from the Scots’ Isle of Bute
            Discovered some warts on his root,
            He put acid on these
            And now when he pees
            He toots on his root like a flute

            When I was a prurient schoolboy my brother-in-law, a solicitor in the City, sent me a green covered book published by the Olympia Press in Paris called Count Palmiro’s Book of Limericks because before the Chatterley Case such books could not be printed in Britain. (Remember that sexual intercourse had not been invented until 1963.)

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a2d5be85e6951dd66a5c5f8195cb3fe2a8d8ba4a1c16730c86359ae212bef854.jpg

        5. I have just entered a competition. It’s for a £300 bottle of Macallan 21 year old fine oak whisky. Contains alcohol. Wish me luck !

  37. Good morning all, earlier this week it was around 10°C but back to winter with -1°C yesterday and today. Bracing, as I womble along the seafront. Arran has changed from a winter wonderland to a grey shape lurking across the Firth.

    I’m going out, I may be some time…

  38. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6fa434302a8d08ffe227b6e604caa54c92491f24ae2f2f47c0987a9a371ee454.png
    SIR — It seems the unstoppable march of the idiotic Common Purpose-addled Left, in taking over the entire country, knows no bounds. Their insane clamour for illiterate police recruits, of any racial background (report, January 27) will backfire in a number of ways.

    Not only will these hapless recruits be unable to compile a coherent and lucid report, or a comprehensible and factual statement; their inability to present unambiguous, intelligible and incontestable evidence in court will ensure they shall secure few convictions. A concomitant ineptitude in engaging with the public will only reinforce this crass stratagem.

    It is now plainly well beyond time for a complete clear out of all of those in higher positions of influence in the country. Common Purpose needs to be replaced by Common Sense.

    A Grizzly B.

    1. It’s not the police who are illiterate, it is the foreigners pushed in to a role they are simply inappropriate for and have no business being in.

      We’ve already seen that of the 7 police officers charged, 6 of them were ethnics and 4 of those were arrested for paedophilia – let’s stop calling it blasted grooming, it’s child rape.

      1. The current police are not illiterate; but this report says that the government wants to recruit illiterate people, from minority races, to become police officers. How crass is that?

        1. It is absolutely stupid, but that’s what you get when diversity is forced on you from common sense.

          Of course, the other side is folk having to take witness statements an bungling what is written down/not understanding it leading to criminals getting off. Although, in this country who would know the difference between incompetence and judicial leniency.

          1. The Left are now omnipresent and omnipotent. And whose fault is that for permitting them to be so?

    2. Plus ca change.
      When rebel forces captured towns and cities in the Spanish Civil War, they then needed to recruit enforcers to do more of their dirty work.
      Spectacles and soft hands was a big ‘no’, but brutish, violent and semi-literate was a ‘yes’.

    6. Many happy returns, Citroen.
      (When the reverse gear on the steering wheel actually works.)

    8. Thanks Caroline & Rastus and all of you below for your felicitations. Grey and dull here today. Not a squeak from any of the children. Busy day ahead rewriting my will. {^:))

  41. ‘Morning All

    Quick Medley while I can as the ‘puter is playing silly buggers

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bfea53aeba8cd890f653a8b7d61b1f118547c5caf2f9df3144962b2b8acca736.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/674cd85e1fc8351ab293d2bec0382b2c6b20bf3ebc7eddc3cfa17d68ce5bbad3.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e170e09084e18e17d2008d042dcc2f3887c50b17f192267e01541086df979d9a.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a7aa58a0c30f22d0f64efba679a44100402aae7f859d78d597f4575c44d39099.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3cdde67a76c839c3982a98a3a5a776510af87ec802e065b05d8f4997dfda394e.jpg

    At least it won’t be outflanked………..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/10a0bec1d37f0357a45d067669d828818611165ba340feb7dcb893a77f7d06b4.jpg

    1. Notable that Dalrymple is espousing the very propaganda from 1984 – the same methods the Nazi’s used. The Left never change.

      1. That is true, the Left never do change. What has changed is that the Right are now more than ever complicit in actively (and passively) assisting the incessant, and now unstoppable, rise of the Left by being more and more tacit and ineffectual. Sitting on one’s complacent arse in one’s club, tut-tutting about how “things are not what they were” is as futile as it is idiotic. Time the Right pulled its fingers out of its arse and started fighting back.

        1. A dedicated anti-Marxist is the only sane thing to be. Socialism is only a useful half-way house to full-blown communsim.

        2. Eventually we will, but usually once the Left invade Poland or similar. Then after millions of lives are lost we defeat them.

          We won the war, but lost the peace. The Right don’t like fighting and wanted it over. The Left didn’t.

        3. Like Wibbles, are you going to lead the charge, George, or just sit in front of your pooter and tut- tut until the cows come home?

          2. At 78 and severely disabled my order would not be so much, ‘Quick march!” but rather, “Hobble. as fast as your stick/walker will allow” otherwise I’d be there with Wibbles.

            Sadly, it appears, without you.

    2. We don’t need more laws. We need fewer laws that bind our ability to defend our borders. Over time, supranational groups have eroded our ability to remove criminals. Those must be repealed, not yet more knots tied in an already knotted rope.

      1. Leave ECHR & ECJ, repeal Blair’s Human Rights Act, deny appeals on legal aid.

        That’s the shyster lawyers well and truly shat upon.

          1. You’ve got my vote. Those are the fundamental hinderances. This is why we’re continually screwed over. Someone says ‘you can’t do that…’ yet we gave the political class the power to say ‘yes, actually, we can.’

          2. Trouble is, Wibbles, they won’t.

            Which identifies their (the gov’t’s) continuing need to bring in more and more Jihadi, rapists and paedophiles, to sully our once beautiful and peaceful land.

      1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/24/fraudulent-asylum-seekers-put-us-risk/

        OR:

        he vicious killing of Thomas Roberts, an aspiring Royal Marine, was a ghastly act of barbarity. The fact that it was committed at the hands of a liar who took advantage of this nation’s generosity, misleading officials about his age in order to be taken in as an asylum seeker, should jolt us into action. We must implement every law available to us now to stop adults from claiming asylum on the basis of a false age. They don’t just exploit our laws, but often children too, in the process of conducting this fraud.

        Throughout my time as home secretary, I was always committed to protecting children and vulnerable people, in keeping with the traditions of our country. We open our arms to children in need.

        In 2019, for instance, the UK received more asylum claims from unaccompanied children than any other European country, including Greece and Italy, who have dealt with particularly large waves of migration. Since 2015, the UK has received, on average, more than 3,000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children per year. Those who claim we have a brutish policy, or that we somehow disregard those in need, are being dishonest at best.

        But our generosity has also been open to egregious abuse. The ages of asylum seekers are disputed in many thousands of cases. Worse yet, during the 2016-2020 period, some 54 per cent of disputed cases who claimed to be a child were found to be adults.

        For years, I have stressed how serious a risk this poses in terms of safeguarding. If people aged over 18 are placed in childhood settings, including schools, the dangers should be obvious. And yet, as Thomas Roberts’s tragic killing has proven, it was never just the safety of the young that was at stake.

        Everyone’s security is compromised, if those who lie so fundamentally about their nature are allowed to abuse our systems and institutions. There is a lot we can do now to fix it. The UK is one of the only countries in Europe not to use scientific age assessment methods to help determine a person’s age when they arrive into the country. Various scientific methods are used to assess age in, among others, Sweden, Norway, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

        The Nationality and Borders Act 2022, introduced under Boris Johnson’s administration and during my tenure at the Home Office – which has yet to be implemented by this Government – brought in important changes to strengthen and clarify the framework for determining the age of people seeking asylum. It brought forward plans to introduce a new National Age Assessment Board to set out the criteria, process and requirements to assess age, including using the most up to date scientific technology.

        This legislation – if implemented –should also enable front-line immigration officers and other staff who are not social workers to make reasonable initial assessments of age. Moreover, it would provide a requirement on local authorities to either undertake full age assessments or refer people to the Age Assessment Board for a full statutory assessment, when they have reason to believe that someone’s age is being incorrectly given, in line with existing safeguarding obligations.

        The problem with the current process is that it is highly subjective and often subject to prolonged and expensive legal disputes. In some cases, multiple assessments are required before confirming whether an individual is a child or not.

        The cost of repeated assessments and legal challenges can exceed thousands of pounds of public money. The result is prolonged uncertainty over many months, sometimes years.

        During such delays, we have examples of adults freely entering the UK care and school system, and being accommodated and educated with vulnerable children. The Nationality and Borders Act was designed to overhaul the process in order to avoid this. It could provide a consistent and robust approach to dealing with anyone whose age is uncertain. But only if it is implemented.

        Everyone across Government should work together to now put this tough legislation into action. It is a matter of national urgency.

        1. Big, big question.

          Why has The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 yet to be enacted?

          Answer please, Sunak.

  43. 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 turn the tide against cancel culture. You can share our newsletters on social media with the buttons at the bottom of this newsletter. If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.

    Gender conversion therapy ban – use our campaigning tool to write to your MP!

    The Government announced last week that it would bring forward a bill to ban ‘conversion therapy’ – not just with respect to sexuality, but gender identity as well (Telegraph, Times). This is a complex issue, and the FSU is concerned about the impact such a ban might have on the free speech of doctors, therapists, teachers and parents, not to mention religious leaders. To ensure ministers are careful about what speech the law actually bans, any proposed legislation will need to be scrutinised very carefully. For instance, would a ‘conversion therapy’ ban in England and Wales make it a criminal offence for a parent to object to their child taking puberty blockers? In the state of Victoria, Australia, which passed a ‘conversion therapy’ ban last year, it is. That’s why we’re encouraging our members and supporters to email their MPs, using our campaigning tool, and share these concerns. The link to the campaigning tool is here.

    Online speakeasy with Meghan Murphy – register for tickets here!

    Our next members-only Online Speakeasy is ‘Defeating Twitter Bans and Defending Free Speech’, featuring Toby Young in conversation with Meghan Murphy. Join us on Zoom at 7.30pm on Wednesday 8th March for this online Speakeasy with Canadian journalist, writer and podcaster Meghan Murphy – the link to register for the event is here.

    Meghan is the founder and editor of Feminist Current, a feminist website and podcast, and host of YouTube channel The Same Drugs. She has spoken up about the issue of gender identity legislation and women’s rights, including in the Canadian senate and the Scottish Parliament, and has had to endure repeated threats of death, rape, violence and censorship (Telegraph). On the topic of censorship, Meghan was permanently banned from Twitter in 2018 for saying – gasp! – that men are not women. Thankfully, the ban was lifted by Twitter’s new owner and CEO, Elon Musk, some four years later, in November 2022.

    The focus of her work for many years was on cultural analysis from a feminist and socialist perspective, though in a recent interview with Spiked she admitted that one of the things she gained from being banned from Twitter was “connecting with people who had been advocating for free speech for a long time” and she has since switched her focus to the fight for free speech. “You would hope people would understand why censorship and controlling speech for political purposes are dangerous,” she says, “but so many people don’t seem to get it.”

    You can find Meghan on Twitter here and Substack here. To whet your appetite for the FSU’s Speakeasy, you can listen to Meghan’s appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience here and her Triggernometry podcast appearance here.

    Regional Speakeasies – book your tickets here!

    Having held very lively regional Speakeasies in Cardiff, Manchester and Edinburgh, the FSU continues its ‘national tour’ in February, with events in Oxford (7th February), Cambridge (8th February), Birmingham (15th February) and Brighton (20th February).

    Come along to hear FSU staff members Ben Jones (Oxford), Karolien Celie (Cambridge), Tom Harris (Birmingham) and Toby Young (Brighton) discuss why free speech is worth fighting for. The Regional Speakeasies are a great opportunity to hear how our work is developing across many different fronts, including case work, research, campaigning and lobbying. In addition, there’ll be plenty of time for discussion, as well as socialising with fellow free speech supporters. Do come along to one and bring curious friends and colleagues, not forgetting to book your places via our Events page, which you can find here.

    Labour MP Rosie Duffield “bullied” and “silenced” over gender reform

    During last week’s House of Commons debate on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, Labour MP and prominent campaigner for women’s sex-based rights Rosie Duffield was heckled by her party’s own male backbenchers (Express, Mail, Sun, Telegraph). During her speech, she welcomed the Government’s move to make an order under section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 preventing the Bill – which would cut the time it takes to legally change your gender, lower the age at which you can do it to 16 and eliminate the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria – from proceeding to Royal Assent. Ms Duffield went on to ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, Alister Jack, whether he “recognised the strength of feeling among women and women’s rights groups and activists in Scotland that this Bill seeks to allow anyone at all to legally self-identify as either sex and, therefore, enter all spaces, including those necessarily segregated by sex, such as domestic violence settings, changing rooms and prisons?” (Times)

    Writing in the Times, Jawad Iqbal describes what Ms Duffield had to endure while asking this question as “appalling bullying” – and Parliament TV’s clip of her speech makes for uncomfortable viewing. As soon as Ms Duffield gets to her feet, the atmosphere turns nasty. Clearly uncomfortable, she struggles throughout to be heard over the abuse directed at her from her own benches. Lips curl. Heads are shaken. Facial expressions register unnecessarily theatricalised versions of ‘disgust’, presumably as much for the watching cameras as for the purposes of ostracising Ms Duffield. Just out of shot, Lloyd Russell-Moyle can be heard working himself into a spittle-flecked rage, barracking Ms Duffield throughout, while former minister Ben Bradshaw shouts “absolute rubbish” just as she’s defending the need for traumatised female victims of male-perpetrated violence to have access to spaces that are segregated by sex.

    “A woman Labour MP being shouted down by male colleagues for expressing her views?” queries Jawad. “Hardly a good look for the so-called progressive party.” And yet some of Ms Duffield’s colleagues see the situation quite differently. Speaking anonymously to Pink News, one Labour MP claimed that “[Rosie] thrives on the attention” and that “many” in the Labour Party “are getting tired of her constantly undermining us all and attacking colleagues”. You can certainly see why Ms Duffield this week chose to compare being in the Labour Party to an “abusive relationship” (Telegraph, Times, Unherd). The act of blaming someone or holding them responsible for a situation they didn’t actually create is a textbook form of ‘gaslighting’ – i.e., a particularly egregious form of emotional manipulation.

    Audio has also since emerged of Matthew Doyle, a senior aide to Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer, briefing against Ms Duffield (Guido). Mr Doyle was caught on tape dismissing the MP as “irritating” and “disingenuous” and suggesting it might be helpful if she “spen[t] a bit more time in Canterbury [her constituency]” rather than “hanging out with JK Rowling”. Quite what this “irritating” woman is supposed to bother her pretty little head with once she’s returned to her constituency and allowed her male colleagues to properly discuss the impact of Scotland’s Bill on women’s rights, Mr Doyle doesn’t say. Powdering her nose? Tending to some children? Smiling vacuously and speaking only when spoken to by male constituents? No doubt the Whips Office will pass along a list of domestic chores in due course.

    A party source has since claimed that Mr Doyle wasn’t briefing against Rosie (Guido). In response, Ms Duffield was quick to point out that whatever we want to call Mr Doyle’s remarks, their intended effect remains the same: “When women are considered difficult, these statements are obviously designed to undermine us. Sow a little seed of doubt… rumours that might catch on.” (Mail).

    Jawad Iqbal concludes his piece for the Times with the following observation: “If Rosie Duffield – a single mother, a survivor of domestic abuse and a passionate advocate for women’s rights – no longer feels welcome in Labour, then who and what is the party for?”

    Politically motivated financial censorship – a call for information!

    The FSU needs your help. We’re looking for examples of politically motivated financial censorship that you, or anyone you know, may have experienced or heard about.

    In the wake of PayPal’s attempt to deplatform the FSU last summer, Sally-Ann Hart and Andrew Lewer tabled an amendment to the Financial Services and Markets Bill. The amendment addressed “refusal to provide services for reasons connected with freedom of expression” and stated that: “No payment service provider providing a relevant service may refuse to supply that service to any other person in the United Kingdom if the reason for the refusal is significantly related to the customer exercising his or her right to freedom of expression.”

    However, the amendment was withdrawn after the City Minister promised Mr Hart and Mr Lewer that the issues it was seeking to address would be included in the terms of reference of a forthcoming statutory consultation about the Payment Services Regulations. That consultation has now begun, and it’s great to see that, as per the agreement with Ms Hart and Mr Lewer, it will now assess whether clearer guidelines are needed about when companies can withhold or withdraw services from customers for political reasons.

    We think this could be an important moment – an opportunity to check the creeping trend towards a Chinese-style social system in countries like ours.

    On the subject of the Government’s open-mind, it’s particularly encouraging to see that in the consultation (which you can see here), the Government makes it “very clear” that “the legitimate expression of differing views, is an important British liberty”, that it “does not support ‘cancel culture’” and that “regulations must respect the balance of rights between users’ and service providers’ obligations, including in relation to protecting the freedom of expression of anyone expressing lawful views”.

    In order to provide the Government with as many examples of financial censorship as we can, we’re asking our members and supporters to send us any examples they may have come across, particularly if it involves them. To be clear, we’re after examples of financial services companies (such as high street banks), payment processors (like PayPal) and crowdfunding platforms (IndieGoGo) either withholding or withdrawing services from customers because they disapprove of their perfectly lawful views.

    You can get in touch via our email address: help@freespeechunion.org. Alternatively, you can direct message us on Facebook (here), Instagram (here) or Twitter (here).

    Sign our Jeremy Clarkson petition!

    Last Friday, we started a petition urging the CEO of ITV not to sack Jeremy Clarkson from his job as host of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? It now has over 57,000 signatures.

    Whatever your view of his remarks about Meghan Markle in the Sun, it cannot be right that he should lose his livelihood as a consequence. Amazon has indicated it will not commission any more seasons of Clarkson’s Farm or The Grand Tour. Does he deserve to lose his job at ITV as well?

    Clarkson has apologised for any offense his comments caused and that should be enough. As a society, we believe in the possibility of redemption for hardened criminals. Why can’t we extend the same charity to someone whose only crime is to have said something offensive?

    We’d love to get the number of signatures up to 75,000. Please sign it here and share it with your friends. We need to send a message that it’s time to cancel cancel culture.

    Meta to reinstate Donald Trump (for now…)

    Facebook and Instagram parent Meta has finally decided to reinstate the accounts of former President Donald Trump “in the coming weeks”, two years after his suspension in the wake of the civil unrest in Washington on 6th January 2021 (Guardian, iNews, Mail, Sky News, Telegraph, Times). An announcement regarding Mr Trump’s accounts had been expected for some time, with reinstatement looking likely. Speaking in October, for instance, Meta’s President of Global Affairs, Sir Nick Clegg, said: “We believe that any private company – and this is really regardless of one’s personal views about Donald Trump – should tread with great thoughtfulness when seeking to, basically, silence political views.” (FT)

    Self-deprecating as ever, Mr Trump responded via his own Truth Social social media platform with the following statement: “Facebook, which has lost billions of dollars in value since ‘deplatforming’ your favourite president, me, has just announced that they are reinstating my account. Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting president, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution.”

    Meta originally handed Mr Trump an indefinite ban from both Facebook and Instagram in January 2021, accusing him of using their platforms to incite a “violent insurrection against a democratically elected government” (Telegraph). However, the decision was subsequently referred to the company’s Oversight Board. Despite upholding the decision to ban the former president, the board also criticised Meta’s decision to do so indefinitely, describing this as a “vague, standardless penalty” and noting that in doing so the company had deviated from its normal penalties.

    In response, the company announced that Trump’s suspension would be in place for two years (i.e., until this month) and that it would “look to experts” to help it decide whether to reinstate him after that.

    On Wednesday, Sir Nick announced Trump’s accounts would be restored. “The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying – the good, the bad and the ugly – so that they can make informed choices at the ballot box,” he said.

    Brendan O’Neill wasn’t particularly impressed. He thought he’d feel some relief “when the social media giant came to its senses”. Yet now that it’s happened – “now that Meta has decreed that Trump has served his time in the virtual wilderness” – all that he says he’s been left with is a sense of disquiet about “the historically unprecedented dominion this small clique of the woke rich enjoys over the liberty to utter”. (Spiked).

    Author and free speech campaigner Jacob Mchangama was more optimistic. Meta had made the right decision, he said, not least because of the emphasis the company’s statement seemed to place on its users’ rights to access information. Suppressing free speech is a “double wrong”, he continued, because it violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. Even if Trump’s rhetoric “fires up his supporters”, knowing what he’s thinking, and being able to criticise what he’s saying, is “likely a net advantage to democracy”. Anthony Romero, ACLU’s Executive Director, concurred. Our “collective ability to speak – and hear the speech of others – online,” he said, was important, and the biggest social media companies should therefore “err on the side of allowing a wide range of political speech, even when it offends”.

    Is the company’s position a reflection of Mark Zuckerberg’s stated belief that Meta is a “champion of free speech” (New York Times)? It’s certainly a point Sir Nick was keen to return to while doing the media rounds in the wake of the announcement. Asked by NBC News why Meta was reinstating Mr Trump he said: “We’re not trying to censor everything that everyone says in an open and free democracy. We think that open and free debate on the rough and tumble of democratic debate should play out on Facebook and Instagram as much as anywhere else.”

    Some left-leaning politicians and civil rights organisations denounced Meta’s decision. They argued that Jacob Mchangama’s “double wrong” of restricting speech and suppressing information is a price worth paying because some views (usually those that they happen not to like) are too dangerous for anyone to hear. Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, for instance, said that by allowing Donald Trump a platform, Mr Zuckerberg was “destroying our democracy”. The Anti-Defamation League claimed the company had chosen to “platform bigotry and divisiveness”. The NAACP, meanwhile, was “astonished” by the decision to re-platform someone who “can spew hatred, fuel conspiracies, and incite a volent insurrection at our nation’s Capitol building”. And so on and so forth.

    Maybe they shouldn’t get too worked up. For all its stirring talk about the importance of free speech, Sir Nick’s statement did go on to caution that Trump’s accounts would be reinstated with “new guardrails in place” to deter him from saying anything too inflammatory in future. “In the event that [the former President] posts further violating content,” he said, “the content will be removed, and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation.” Because the ‘violating content’ in question is any content that ‘delegitimises’ an upcoming election or is related to the QAnon conspiracy theory, it’s probably safe to say that Donald Trump’s second stint on Facebook will likely prove a whistlestop affair.

    According to US campaign group Media Matters, nearly half of Donald Trump’s recent social media posts on his own social media platform pushed election fraud claims or amplified QAnon content. A similar report by Accountable Tech calculated that over the past six months, Trump’s Truth Social posts would have broken Facebook’s rules more than 350 times – the equivalent of nearly two prohibited posts a day.

    Best wishes,

  44. Too, too true. And we only have two to muddle up.
    I dread our sons asking for names in baby photos. Our reply is a sure way to cheese them off bigly.

    Tom Utley in the DM.
    “One of the best pieces of advice I was given in the early years of our marriage was this: ‘Be sure to write your babies’ names on the backs of their photographs, because later you’ll forget which is which.’ ”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11681763/A-philosophers-warning-shouldnt-offer-advice-one-piece-advice-ignore.html

          1. Thanks pet! It was great fun! We missed you though, in your sparkly jacket! Although it may well have scared the natives!!

    2. My mum remembered the difference between me and my three brothers but in later years she would greet each of the guys with all three names. That way she knew she’d included the right one!

    3. A guy told his mate he was screwing a girl and her twin
      His mate asked how he told them apart
      The guy said “her brother has a beard”

  46. I do not share the adulation in which NoTTLers hold Andrew Bridgen. Anyone who lies on oath and cheats his family is not high on my list of favourite people.

    However – I am delighted that he is planning to sue that bastard Halfcock for damages for defamation. Halfcock demonstrated (yet again) his complete ineptitude by tweeting the slander that he had spoken in the Commons (and which was protected by Parliamentary privilege).

    1. I’d be a little suspicious of MSM smears. They may be true but I’d withhold judgement.

      1. Read the transcript of the civil suit…..the Judge’s description of Bridgen shows he s untrustworthy.

        2. It does not follow that ergo he is wrong about the dangers of the Covid injections.

    3. They always find things with which to attack people with whom I agree!

      Owen Paterson was pursued by one of the most odiferously foul pieces of excrement in the HoC – Chris Bryant the ex public schoolboy, ex CoE priest, homosexual and vindictive and spiteful onanist.

  47. Would anyone be able to recommend a decent dehumidifier? Our windows have been a bit watery almost every day during winter and there’s been concerns over mould. Certainly my asthma’s not much fun.

      1. It’d be for the kitchen or our bedroom, which is about 4x5m or 3x6m. Much obliged Phizz. I shall look into it.

        1. That one would be too noisy to sleep in the same room. You could run it through the day i suppose. £150 to £250 price range. You might find a quieter one. I haven’t looked further.

      1. Much obliged Alf, I hadn’t thought of this despite suggesting it to my gym! I use those little bag sachets you get in hard disk drives around my books, this is sort of scaled up.

      1. Normally I would agree, but it has been -4 outside some evenings. and the fight isn’t worth it. With two loads of washing there as well it’d be nice to not have them hanging about forever as well.

    4. We bought a cheap one (£60?) from Clas Ohlson, and it’s been running faultlessly for years now in Firstborn’s cellar. Bucket of water removed in less than a week.

    5. We bought a cheap one (£60?) from Clas Ohlson, and it’s been running faultlessly for years now in Firstborn’s cellar. Bucket of water removed in less than a week.

    6. We use this:
      https://www.meaco.com/products/meaco-12l-low-energy-dehumidifier-and-air-purifier

      Dehumidifiers are useful pieces of equipment. We had problems with damp for many years and black mould. In winter our north facing kitchen wall would be dripping with condensation with water pooling on the work surfaces. It exacerbated poppiesdad’s asthma and the black mould was unsightly as well as unhealthy. We were amazed at the amount of water that collected in the reservoir on a daily basis, and it solved our problem.

      After many years, we discovered the source of the damp problem. It was a leaking water pipe underneath the kitchen floor, discovered when we had a new kitchen installed. We still have a use for the dehumidifier, I use it when steam ironing and also for drying clothes inside during the winter months. Meaco also do a 20l size.

  48. Fire rips through heritage-listed London church
    Around 80 firefighters battled the blaze which fully engulfed St Mark’s Church in St John’s Wood
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/27/st-marks-church-fire-ferocious-blaze-rips-historic-london-church/

    The fact that No Comments are allowed under this article suggests that it was an arson attack by an enthusiast of an anti-Christian religion.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/309271b0537c57644f2584943d0420a1830bed3db1b680e1be696a67cd9bcda1.jpg

      1. Krauts, please, OLT, they haven’t been our friends since before 1870 (Franco-Prussian War).

  50. The unfortunate destruction of the church in St John’s Wood – the church will never agree to it being rebuilt. As they are hell-bent (literally) on closing churches and reducing the CofE to a sect – they will have the site cleared, the land deconsecrated, and sold for building….

    You read it here first.

    2. With the roof gone, it becomes a perfect building to repurpose. A few girders, a dome and some minarets would fit nicely. Alluah akbar…

    3. Comments in the DT have not only been stopped; they’re been deleted.
      There did appear to be practically a unanimous opinion as to the cause of the fire.

      1. Unusually, I shall wait for the result of the “investigation”. Some churches do have terrible wiring. When we put a new roof on our church ten years ago (the same age as the burned one) – the electricians were HORRIFIED at what they found…..

      2. A typical Gatesograph behaviour when a public opinion is revealked which they don’t like. I wish SWMNBO would let me cancel the subscription.

  51. Back from my stroll and it’s now a balmy 2°C.

    The first image is from the back of the 9th tee on Prestwick St Nicholas GC; looks like Brodick is enjoying a local shower.

    The second image shows the clubhouse to photo left and the Salt Pan buildings to photo right.

    The third image looks south towards the Carrick Hills with Ailsa Craig on the horizon. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cc11935cb12cc1b16e36984f5bf0419e149c10b455e8157e0fec28a230295d6d.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/df86a6d4479f6ce43143bfe52918f66beb63c3a6999ee57fa8361c356653d2f4.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7a4e804bca4dff4cc07a0cf68ad8d64032624de6fa1059bd31c4552b28618764.jpg

  53. Colonialism by Nigel Biggar review: defending the British empire, this book is spoiling for a fight. 27 January 2023.

    It could be racist; it also “contained respect, admiration, and genuine, well-informed, costly benevolence.” Cecil Rhodes, whom Biggar recently gained an unwanted level of fame by defending, apparently regarded Englishman and African as essentially the same, different only by degree of civilisation – and was this such a surprising assessment given the obvious technological advancement of the West? The arrival of Christianity eroded local cultures, for sure, but it also meant a war on widow burning in India or Female Genital Mutilation in Africa.

    The British Empire had its faults. What political system does not? This said its virtues far outweighed its vices. It dragged half the world out of darkness into the light, something that neoliberalism can never boast of. It destroyed slavery except in that country that most hated it. It was an unequivocal force for good. We shall not see its like again!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/colonialism-nigel-biggar-review-defending-british-empire-book/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

  54. Following my comments yesterday where a family, finding themselves with a dead EV, managed to get themselves going again with a pocket 12v jump starter here’s another story where using an EV created an even bigger crisis.

    The couple have done an excellent video of what happens when you’re stuck with an EV which may have plenty of main traction battery charge but not enough charge in the auxiliary 12v battery to connect the traction battery to the EV’s driving mode ( stable green car icon in driver’s cluster):

    https://youtu.be/-LS4MbaLlGw

    I suspect my Hyundai Kona is telling me of imminent doom with this pre-drive mode message:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de9366842dfc6d982a06ec8c517c18dc1469cae76ae939823af48e81dfde4960.jpg

    As you can see, there are two triangular warning lights – the big one and a smaller non-extinguishing light at the bottom right of the picture.

      1. An unresolved problem with thr 12v flat battery problem in non-starting EVs is that when the battery is tested at the EV dealer it measures OK.
        The dealer blames the EV owner for using the EV inappropriately but after being put back on the road many owners can come back in six months with the same problem.

        Furthermore it is not apparent, even from the handbook, if my EV should be fitted with an AGM or wet cell battery.

        I gave up calling the AA to my diesel car after getting a DPF filter warning light and then being referred back to the main dealer twice who unsuccessfully resolved the returning DPF diagnostic trouble codes.

        In the end I found it was waste of a dealer’s time and parking space to properly clean out a diesel’s blocked DPF – the diagnostic trouble code warning light could easily be fixed using an OBD2 diagnostic tool and the customer could be charged extra for it.

        EV owners likewise refer the percieved failure of EV 12 volt batteries back to the dealers who have now run out of suitable 12 volt replacements.

  55. Littlejohn in today’s DM

    It’s Judith Iscariot

    A new, gender-neutral production of Jesus Christ Superstar is being staged in Edinburgh, featuring a non-binary Jesus and a female Judas Iscariot.

    Presumably the lyrics will have to be changed, too. Mary Magdalene will sing They Don’t Know How To Love They. And the main number will go . . .

    Jesus Christ, Superstar,

    Walks Like A Man,

    But they wear a bra . . .

          1. 🙂
            The only time I got nicked for speeding was in the boys’ 2CV.
            I didn’t even realise it could get above 30 mph.
            I think we were all relieved when younger son’s girlfriend was driving it to work and it caught fire; blocked the rush hour A12 just past Marks Tey.

          2. A friend of ours had the opposite.
            She used to drive a Ferrari and she was stopped by the police who wanted to know how on earth she could keep it under the speed limit on a steep hill, where the sneaky sods had set up a radar trap.

    4. The latter is pretty much how we used to sing it at school! 🤣🤣

      Happy Birthday from a stormy Buenos Aires!

        1. Woken by a massive thunderstorm over Buenos Aires! I know how to live! 🤣🤣 Hips aching but enjoying my tango lessons to end, and the steaks are the best I have ever eaten – so yes, I am, thanks!

          Sending all the best in your direction.

      2. We performed a staged version at the secondary school I taught at. I was one of the Pharisees- don’t recall his name.

  56. Britain needs a political revolution even greater than Brexit
    Nigel Farage, Lord Frost and the writer Ed West discuss whether the Conservative Party should be reformed or replaced

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/britain-needs-political-revolution-even-greater-brexit/

    The two traditional political parties in France, The Republicans and the Socialists, have vanished from the French political scene remarkably quickly.

    Republican and Socialist candidates in the last presidential elections both scored under 5% and when Macron won his first election he had to found his own new party En Marche!.

    But could this happen in Britain with the parties of both Starmer and Sunak being completely eliminated?

      1. So you’re happy with Sunak and Starmer?

        I don’t like Macron at all but is he much worse than Sunak, Starmer and that pustular rash of acne, Ed Davey?.

        1. Hardly.

          I think Macron’s worse because he acts like a dictator in the making and I believe he would sell France and even the EU to the WEF, if he thought he could get away with it.

          1. “…if he thought he could get away with it.”

            And he thought there was something in it, for his self-serving self.

    2. Macron is a Rothschild protégé? Don’t think I’d want whoever the bwankers might choose.

    3. “But could this happen in Britain with the parties of both Starmer and Sunak being completely eliminated?”

      One may only dream – unless and until, those little vote-splitters get their act together.

    5. 370394+ up ticks,

      Afternoon R,
      The facts tell me and many others that the farage chap done more damage post referendum to eliminate any good he done in the run up. to victory

      He talked the talk but never walked ……

      The majority of in-house politico’s must be first incarcerated then only released after an in depth interrogation of each.

      Charge,

      Crimes against humanity to start with.

    6. The party names are there but the old parties are gone.

      Would Maggie T recognize what goes under the conservative name today?
      What would Reagan think of the Trump centered Republicans?
      Not forgetting Trudeau who has dragged the liberals so far left into woke climate rubbish that leaders from not that long ago hardly recognize the party.

      A shame that sheep still vote for the party name.

    7. We do. We need to abolish all political parties and return to the true constitution under Magna Carta and the Common Law

      1. Keep the parties, but enforce democracy, referism and recall then remove universal franchise.

        The vote can only be permitted to those earning citizenship.

        1. Party political control of government appoinments are what has got us into the present mess.

  58. You know when you are at a certain stage in your life, when your wife says,

    “You’re on a promise this weekend”

    And you’re thinking, “I hope it’s a mixed grill”.

    1. “…greed of our government and their billionaire friends…”

      Is she thick? As an honest question, I don’t understand it. The state is doing everything it can to make and keep energy unaffordably expensive. It doesn’t care about the consequences. Then there’s this silly child, seemingly utterly divorced from reality, spouting the tired, tedious anti capitalist rhetoric that allows her the freedom and time, not to mention the lifestyle, clothing, gadgets that allow her to behave as the spoiled, selfish prig she is.

    1. Something new to worry about, better buy some more toilet rolls in case the balloon goes up.

      1. The manipulation is unending. If by some chance Europe survives and there is a change of management in Russia more amenable then the next stage will be India and China.

    2. The problem is the Germans don’t want to fight the Russians and who can blame them. They’ve tried that before. Scholz knows this which is one of the reason’s he’s dragged his feet over the Leopards. They’d rather co-operate economically which is exactly what the US doesn’t want . Which is the real reason for their meddling in Ukraine.

    1. I love the way that the DM turns it around. The west send tanks and the headline says Putin has taken the conflict to a new level.

    3. In the fields of their own countries. Let them put their own houses in order like our parents and grandparents had to.

  64. Here’s Canadian journalist Donna Laframboise conducting an exposé of the UN IPCC and its workings. If you’re a climate realist it’s well worth 45 minutes of your time.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFEhRdODkok

    Tom Nelson Podcasts are a fantastic series of interviews with climate realists which provide a valuable on-line resource for people who wish to brush up their arguments against the climate and net zero lunacy.

  67. All Sorted at the docs this morning.
    Nice helpful young lady, slight trace of a European accent. It’s the British receptionists who can be more than awkward. Could be special training.
    I see that little git unfortunately known as the London mayor. Is continuing to badger and pressurise Hertfordshire Councils, Watford now. Inside the M25 to try a bring in the whole of that area under his control.
    Time to get rid of.

    2. The British receptionists get the same training as Librarians. Don’t tell Lottie i said so or there will be hell to pay.

      1. Elementary school librarians are different- it’s a very different job. However, you can go and stand in the corner.

      1. It would appear that they’ve decided to go all the way to Euston after all!
        Perhaps the cartoon shamed them, ha ha.

  72. Don’t think I was really in the mood for shopping today.
    I stood behind a chap in Boots who requested suppositories; the assistant asked if it was for constipation.
    I just stopped myself from saying “No, he wants to stick them up his … ah ….”

          1. Ah yes, I think you can get it from that big establishment on the Thames which is always mentioned during the Boat Race – The Harrods’ Suppository…..

          3. Pay attention. As she is always telling us, at the Beeb. They are all at it and up themselves.

          3. Meat and onion simmering, veg to go in a little later and a splash of red wine. It’s for tomorrow.

          5. I have had lamb and onions in the slow cooker all day. Hotpot tomorrow. Slow cookers are very cheap to run.

    3. Glad he didn’t ask for vaseline and was asked “Is it for Chilblains?”
      You might have been tempted to reply: “No it’s for chaps…..”

    1. There used to be one of those in Colchester High Street; clubbers for the use of.
      It rose as if from the grave on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings.

  74. Public want Prince Harry to be at King Charles’s coronation, poll finds
    Exclusive: Standard poll reveals 60 per cent want Duke of Sussex to be at father’s ceremony in May
    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/prince-harry-king-charles-coronation-poll-meghan-markle-invite-b1056078.html
    Maybe if Harry were to do some growing up, then OK. Otherwise, …

    But the furore over Harry and Meghan’s departure to California and the prince’s subsequent public criticisms of other royals lingers on.
    The poll found a striking age gap on whether he should be at the coronation.
    Three quarters of 18 to 34-year-olds say the Prince should be invited, with 15 per cent against.
    However, among the 55+ age group the split is 47 per cent “yes” and 42 per cent “no”.
    For the 35 to 54 age group, the divide is 65 per cent supporting Harry to get an invite, with 26 per cent taking the opposite view.

        2. Stupid boy – I know the story was in the Standard – I wanted to know who carried out the “survey”.

          It was Ipsos….marginally less biased than YouGuv.

      1. Frankly, according to SWMBO, he and his venomous wife can fcuk right off, get in a car, and fcuk off some more.

    2. Sturgeon of course doing that typical Lefty trick of smearing those who have exposed her hypocrisy.

  76. Colin the Tree Chap has just gone. Three trees felled and cut into logs (a lot of which require splitting – if you are free, Robert..??..!!) and a fourth half felled. He’ll be back soon….never knows when, just phones and comes round.

    Our plan is to stack all the logs that are the right size, move all the choppable ones to the wood store – so that when he does come, we’ll have more or less cleared the area. Colin works so fast and cleanly that it is very hard to keep up with shifting all the rubbish.

    1. You’ll be wanting this, then, Bill: Norwegian Wood: The guide to chopping, stacking and drying wood the Scandinavian way. An excellent read, and very informative.
      https://www.amazon.co.uk/Norwegian-Wood-Non-fiction-Book-Year/dp/0857052551/ref=sr_1_2?crid=27G4AQESN7DK5&keywords=norwegian+wood+book&qid=1674837629&s=books&sprefix=norwegian+wood%2Cstripbooks%2C121&sr=1-2
      Captures the romance of the. great outdoors, the nobility of the honest graft of wood chopping, and our close relationship with trees, it is also a stepbystep guide to preparing your wood store.

        1. I have a copy in yer Weegie. It’s actually quite fascinating. Comes with anorak with fur-lined hood… 🙂

          5. Second Son, yes. Firstborn, no. They are both completely bilingual, and it’s fascinating to hear their voice change as their language changes.
            In English, they have an English, slightly foggy voice, but in Weegie they have a voice with edges.

          6. Firstborn was born in the UK and lived there some 7 years. Second Son born here, and only ever lived here.
            Makes for other challenges – Firstborn doesn’t have a full set of culture from either country, as he had toddler culture from the UK and childhood/grown-up culture from Norway (fairy tales, TV shows, sayings, nursery rhymes, all that stuff) which has left him a bit disconnected from both. Now he has his own place and is well respected at work, he’s much more settled.
            Second Son is defo a Weegie, although with British passport.

          7. Do you just speak English at home – when the four of you are together? Or does a bit of Weegie creep in?

          8. Yes. that was the rule. They got Norwegian at school & with friends, so we insisted on English at home – otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to communicate with their grandparents – as happened to our Weegie + Aussie neighbours. That was very sad, their little girl (now in the Army!) couldn’t talk to her Grandma.
            Firstborn also now has some Finnish, Polish as well.

    2. Good afternoon Mr Thomas. My agency represents Robert and our fees are as follows. £50 per hour plus mugs of tea every 20 minutes and biscuits provided by you or £2000 for the entire job…without said biscuits.

    3. I should add that I am bloody knackered. I filled the barrow 20 times (1½ cwt roughly each load) and pushed it 100 yards to unload….

      Robert, eat your heart out!!

          2. I have to defer that until about 6.30. At 6pm there is the Food Production Club’s annual seed swap…. My attendance is required ( I have just been instructed…)

    1. 370394+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Advice to the electorate majority,

      “Ask not what your party can do for you – ask what you can do for your Country,”

  79. Thanks to Nottler FA yesterday I now know that the 12 volt battery drain on EVs is a major cause of catastrophic failure in EVs.
    This video explains why and raises important questions as to the viabikity of EVs as a replacement for petrol and diesel cars.

    If you watch this video is shows how a very expensive piece of vehicle can suddenly turn into a completely useless and potentially dangerous piece of s**t:

    https://youtu.be/xAZEBg3XLs0

    I’m about to do some further tests on my EV to check how the 12 volt battery behaves – here’s its initial state:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7b1fed987f49ca588764623750467689f1c821ebd41a0358a56906e744ceabab.jpg

    1. Same goes for a fossil fuelled car. It all depends on the old-fashioned battery – to open, start, run…

      1. I agree modern ICE cars dont work without batteries either.
        However what I and a lot others didn’t appreciate was that despite charging up an EV with tens of kilowatts of energy an EV has been programmed to save so much energy that it gives preference to the traction battery rather the auxiliary battery which turns it on.
        As a cosequence an EV can be full of energy ready for a trip but forgets to top up the small 12 volt battery needed to start it.

        That’s why the guy in the video raises his eyebrows!

        1. Can you adjust the settings of the car so that it prioritises keeping the smaller battery fully charged?

          2. I can’t help wondering if it is a possibility.
            So often such things get lost in the small print and the facility is already there, if only one knew where to find it!

          3. That seems highy desirable condering the unacceptable consequences of an unexpected breakdown of an EV car only a few years old.

            In fact the gizmo shown in the video has already been used by that EV owner to come to his mind boggling conclusions. He has deployed this 12 volt battery monitor because another IONIQ EV blogger revealed his findings to Hyundai and they downloaded software to his vehicle’s battery management system to address his EV becoming completely inoperable.

            The aggrieved blogger however called it a day and is selling/ has sold his IONIQ EV.

          5. I think his wife had a lot to do with it after she was criticised by the kids school teacher having delivered them late to school following her EVs breakdown.

          1. Basically yes lacoste,

            Essentiallly the modern EV has become a remotely programmable lithium battery on wheels that looks like an ICE car but whose software can be as unpredictable as the updates for Microsoft Windows.

            As a result its future as a mode of reliable transport is seriously in question.

      1. This is so funny because it’s true.

        The Hyundai Kona which I’m working on has done 187 miles after four months and its supplied 12v auxiliary battery is either completely flattened or fails to engage the main traction battery.
        There seems to be run on AGM batteries and Hyundai dealers are having difficulty in supplying Hyundai Original Equipment batteries.

        As FA says the 12 volt battery in EVs power everything in the vehicle including the startup procedure and auxiliary battery charging. He knows because he’s recovered so many broken down ones.

  80. Black man beaten to death (last year) by FIVE policemen.

    Not a squeak from BLM. Why? The cops were all black.

          2. There was some blackish chap blaming on the whites; I couldn’t be bothered to follow his thought processes.

    4. You’re all a bunch of clever clogs. Double bogie for me.
      Wordle 587 6/6

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

  83. Good evening all.
    Just back from my run to Derby, Colsterworth, Lincoln, back to Derby and home.
    Not a bad run!

      1. Stopped off in Asfordby going there and had an hour in Sutton in Ashfield for a bite to eat.

  84. That’s me for today. Very satisfactory – though knackering. Will join briefly tomorrow – as we are going to a wedding. Back (I hope and pray) about 7 pm. Have a jolly evening. I shall be exchanging seed very shortly. Hoping for new varieties…

    A demain.

  85. What is the point of fining an NHS Trust?
    Fine the people responsible for the death by all means, but taking money that would have been spent on healthcare seems madness.

      2. Remember, you always needed to pump the chain to get it to do a Niagra?
        Especially at night, that ger…dunk, ger…dunk, ger…dunk of someone trying to get a flush?

          2. Or wood. We had one like that in the loo when we moved into the house in south London. My dad eventually had the loo revamped.

    4. Where I lived as a young child, our house (built in 1949) had an outside toilet adjacent to a large outhouse, but we had a proper bathroom upstairs so it was only ever used if the bathroom was occupied and somebody was desperate.
      An old friend who, quite accurately accused by her sisters, posts ‘endless irrelevant rubbish and drivel’ on her farcebook page, shared that very image this morning and, for some unfathomable reason, tagged her daughter. This old friend has never lived anywhere with an outside toilet; her sisters will be laughing at her today.

      1. The pre-war maisonettes where I lived with my mum had an indoor bathroom with loo. Hot water in the kitchen from an Ascott geyser. It did the bath as well. For heating in there she used an old paraffin heater, which sucked all the air out and made me feel faint sometimes. The rest of the rooms were unheated but we had a coal fire and she used to keep the oven door open to warm the kitchen. She’d put her shoes in it to warm before she put them on.

        1. Mum’s rented place was similar. Built by Laing to a similar design to all Carlisle’s pre-war council houses, it (and next door) were one-offs. Tiny Kitchen, with a ‘pot sink’ and an elevated Hot Water Cylinder in the corner, fed only by a back boiler to the single coal fire. Cylinder was eventually moved upstairs, and I put in an early MFI sink unit plus rudimentary worktops. On the positive side, it did at least have decent sized rooms, apart from the kitchen.
          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5bc874c74924aa8ca6c81b113980ea37d403dabe94c648565ce2d771b277d92f.jpg

          Subsequently an owner made some changes – knocking Dining Room and Kitchen into one, and adding a garage. All of which I’d have done if Mum had owned the place…
          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/daaae0d36caebfd485aff37a92b2029abfb17cbd7a15a2e530b464961ee5081e.jpg

          PS I won’t mention that her solicitor advised her to decline an offer to buy it for around £1.4 k in the late sixties… 🙄

          1. My Scots Granny lived in a council house in Barrhead, outskirts of Glasgow. They moved in in 1922 and my mother was the first baby born there. One floor only, 2 bedrooms, a living room with fireplace, an indoor bath and loo and a fairly large kitchen with a flagstone floor. Somewhat cramped with 4 kids.
            Granny never had a fridge because she didn’t need one; the kitchen was freezing all year round. She did had a pantry with shelves for the food.
            To add to the ambiance, it backed onto a cemetery.
            Granny lived there until she was 87 when old age caught up with her and she went to live on her son’s farm. She died at 90.

          3. Geoff, did Laing build their houses using a plan based on the leaning tower of Pisa? Lol.

        2. Our first cottage had a large geyser in the bathroom; it also provided hot water to the kitchen. It needed frequent de-coking.
          When a service was due, we got a great deal of childish pleasure from running the kitchen tap when a visitor used the loo.
          Re-enacting Vesuvius in a lean-to bathroom never failed to produce satisfying shrieks.

        4. My grandmother lived in a terrace house and there was no indoor loo; one had to go to the end of the yard to use the facilities. No bathroom (tin bath in front of the fire) and the living room had a range hearth with a fireguard on which clothes were dried. My elder brother as a baby slept in the bottom drawer of a chest of drawers when my parents stayed there in the early years of their marriage. I’m glad to say that I was spared that!

    6. The house I grew up in dated from the 1920s, and had an indoor bathroom / loo. But the waste pipes from the bath and basin went outside into a hopper head, and would freeze at the drop of a hat. My granny’s loo was down the back yard, with no heating whatsoever.

      As it happens, first thing on Monday morning, I had no hot water at the kitchen sink. My first thought was that the combi boiler was buggered. It was minus 6.5 deg C outside, which is hardly extreme. But then I realised there was no cold water reaching the bathroom basin, loo or shower. Opened the loft hatch, wound up the heating, and set the oven to self clean. 90 mins later, all was sorted. I suspect that the pipe lagging in the loft isn’t quite right. I’ll call the company that does the maintenance on Monday. I’d deal with it myself, but (like Uncle Bill) I don’t do ladders these days…

      1. Firstborn’s house dates from the 1750s, and has an outdoor cludgie – updated in the 1970s to an indoors bog. Nobody uses the outdoor version, especially as it’s under 6 feet of snow…

        1. When I was engaged in the early 60s, fiancée’s little terrace house in Peckham, only had an outdoor loo, that was part of the Kitchen/Scullery/Bath at the back of the house.

          She was terrified of being visited by rats while seated, and dragged me out to stand guard, right in front of her, as she sat there with her knickers around her knees.

          Everything else was covered by her skirt.

          I suppose that it was part and parcel of being in love, that neither of us felt in the least embarrassed.

          1. Our first house was a step up from that. The outside door to the dunny had been bricked up with a window set in, and a door opened through the coal-house to the kitchen, so you didn’t need to go outside to use the dunny.
            No heating, though.

      3. My Uncle Les lived in a two-up, two-down ramshackle terrace in the 1950s (long since demolished). His kitchen sink had just a cold tap. Later a back boiler was installed beside the living room coal fireplace and a hot water tap sat alongside it. A hose was attached to that tap in order to fill the galvanised steel bath which was brought out from the back and placed next to the hearth on bath night.

        2. In the 1960s, when MB and I were looking for our first house before we got married, we viewed one brick semi that had a pump on the kitchen wall above the sink.
          It took us a while to work out that you had to manually draw on the mains to fill the cold water tank. The house dated from around 1900.

        3. ‘Ey up, all you NoTTLers, your toilet facilities were reet posh. You don’t know what poverty was really like. When I was a lass and wanted to go to t’lavvy, I had to pick up an empty bucket, catch a No. 47 bus to the river some five miles away, do the business behind a tree and empty the bucket into the river.

          (Now you can do your own post, e.g. “Pick up an empty bucket? That’s the height of luxury, we had to use an empty Dandelion & Burdock bottle” or “Catch a No. 47 bus? We couldn’t afford the bus fare and had to walk the full 5 miles – barefoot [no money for shoes].” )

      4. The lavatories at School House Blundell’s were outside the main building. One of the duties that a fag had to perform was to go and sit on the loo for ten minutes to warm up the seat for his fagmaster.

        In those days they were called bum fags but I suspect that term is not in use now that fag means homosexual. In spite of the reputation some public schools had at the time Blundell’s was very anti-homosexual in the early 1960s.

    8. We had one of those in Bath. Eventually it was brought indoors.

      Our loo paper consisted of squares cut from The Bath & Wilts Evening Chronicle, holed and hung on a string. Squares cut from the Green-Un were superior.

      I reckon our arses were blackened with newsprint after wiping.

      3. We have two bidets – one in the downstairs loo and another in the bathroom on the first floor.

    9. Ours was nicknamed “The Whitehouse”. We had to go out with candles in the dark until Dad finally put an electric light in. I am the second youngest of 12 (nine girls) and I was about 8 before we got an inside toilet.

  91. 370394+ up ticks,

    Functionally Illiterate’ Officers Recruited by London’s Met Police to Increase Diversity,

    Wot, gissa job.

      1. Good, thanks, to both questions!
        Makes one appreciate one’s wife, own bed, sofa, …

  95. Let the blame, oh silly me, let the Bame games begin:

    ‘We’re going to see acts in the bodycam that defy humanity’: America braces for release of footage of five police officers beating black man to death in attack that was ‘worse than Rodney King’

    I can’t help wondering whether there is a “back-story” here that isn’t hitting the Press.

    1. It’s very peculiar isn’t it? That ‘missing’ information! I wish I knew what it was.🤔

        1. OK let’s put out in the open – you talk about ‘Bame Games’ I was just trying to point out that you probably meant BLAME games but were too thick to proof read before posting.

          1. OK, let’s analyse my post without the spoiler, which was clearly far too much for your tiny brain to handle.:

            Let the blame, oh silly me, let the Bame games begin:

            See that first phrase? It says let the blame, then I change it to Bame in the final phrase to make my observation.

            You really are a jackass.

            And of course you can’t even spot the difference between to and too until after you’ve had your “oh how clever I am” dig

          2. At least I proof read my comment but you, you boorish thicko, thought that others would appreciate BAME rather than BLAME. I was just trying to give you the chance, without spoiling your original, to correct it but, no, you have to take umbrage (look it up)

            Obviously my ‘tiny brain’, obviously larger than thine, picked it up immediately. The wonders of brain-power.

            Now just go away and be quiet.

          3. Idiot.
            Look at it again, “blame” becomes “Bame” games.
            ie the Bames will be kicking off.

    1. There is (was) a very good state boarding school near Windsor which is allied to Nicholas Winton. Holyport College. Going a bit woke, but used to be (just about still is) a good school.

  99. I’ve not been able to read many comments today, so I’m logging off and away to bed.
    G’night oll.

  100. Evening, all. While the Cons have been wasteful and incompetent, I’d say that they’ve lost support mainly because they have not been in any way conservative.

  101. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk, I’ve a book to read.

    Hopefully falling asleep whilst doing so.

    1. Only one book? Reminds me of a Belgian joke; a woman was discussing with a friend what to buy her husband for his birthday. To every suggestion, the woman replied, “no, he’s got one”. Eventually the friend suggested a book … 🙂

        1. I think Sos is very clever with words. He is a good sort and I hope you and he can agree to disagree.

          I have in the past posted stupidly and allowed myself to be goaded by the likes of Cochrane and a few others.

          Take it from a friend that confrontation is not worth the candle.

  102. Goodness- what progress we have made on Nottle. We no longer discuss loo rolls but the actual loos and privies. Whatever can be next?

        1. About the bloke who had a telescopic urinal fall on him? I can’t get my head around what one is.

          One for the Darwin awards!

          1. No, I’m afraid far more basic than that- outdoor privies, frozen tanks and etc.
            Yes, I agree about the urinal and it’s very sad for the bloke but what a concept…a Wurlitzer type loo which falls and crushes someone.
            Mind blowing.

  105. Goodnight- up later and enjoying the fact that the weekend is upon us so we don’t have to get up too early.
    We both need rest although my husband is slowly improving.
    Byeee.

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