Friday 27 June: This divided Labour Government has hit the rocks in record time

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting 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.

609 thoughts on “Friday 27 June: This divided Labour Government has hit the rocks in record time”

  1. Good morning, chums, and thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe site. Wordle was a Par today. First on this page!

    Wordle 1,469 4/6

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

    1. Good morning Elsie and all
      Wordle 1,469 4/6

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

    2. #metoo.
      Wordle 1,469 4/6

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

    1. 100F isn't "scorching". It's just under 38C – about body temperature!
      Dear God, I wish people would stop using hysterical language!

  7. But, but, but, Johnny… I thought all of this hot weather was somehow 'cos of the recent re-election of Donald Trump! Lol. (Good morning, btw.)

  8. But, but, but, Johnny… I thought all of this hot weather was somehow 'cos of the recent re-election of Donald Trump! Lol. (Good morning, btw.)

  9. Good Morning from Co Antrim. Yet another wet, cold start to the day. We enjoyed nearly a fortnight of lovely weather in May, but since then, what must be the wettest and coldest June for some time. Looking forward to the supposed heatwave .

    2. Well stay indoors, listen to some music, read a book or do a jigsaw puzzle. Smiling Cobra. (Good morning, btw.)

    3. All those having a "heatwave" / Global armageddon, makes me jealous. I'm still often in a jumper it's so "fresh".

    1. Well get out gardening, and stop complaining, Ndovu. (Good morning, btw.)

      2. What brought on this attack of cheerfulness Elsie? You've got to be careful, you could harm yourself with all that positivity.

        1. I try to be cheerful at all times, BB2. It's rare these days when I blow a fuse and call people Silly Sausages and send them to the Naughty Step. Although, despite no nastiness being allowed on this site, I think I have got away with it so far undetected by the Moderators. Lol.

        2. I try to be cheerful at all times, BB2. It's rare these days when I blow a fuse and call people Silly Sausages and send them to the Naughty Step. Although, despite no nastiness being allowed on this site, I think I have got away with it so far undetected by the Moderators. Lol.

  14. Morning, all Y'all.
    Man, was there some rain last night! Whole place is saturated, and there are slugs everywhere – silly buggers slithering over the roads and pavements. No hedgehogs visible, sadly, to come and eat the slimy things.

    1. Slugs make hedgehogs ill so just as well they're not around to eat them. They and snails carry lungworm which make dogs ill too.

      2. Our chickens wont touch them either and they will eat just about any small critter that moves.

    2. I did a morning slug patrol and found quite a few of them on my plants. The recent dry spell has really helped to get some pumpkin plants well established, but they could still be destroyed by 4 or 5 large slugs eating all the buds away.

    4. I read somewhere in a gardening book that muscovy ducks are partial to slugs.

      2. Indian Runner ducks adore slugs and snails. We've only got one very old one left though, and she has to be lifted from her sleeping quarters and put near her little pond with food at hand.

      3. And foxes are partial to Muscovy Ducks. Ah, the circle of life – it means that I no longer keep poultry. I just can't bear it.

    5. I use beer traps. Sink a yogurt pot (or similar) into the affected area and fill it with beer. The slugs rush to drink it, fall in and drown. I am given the contents of drip-trays from my local for this purpose, so it’s a no-cost solution. It does means I have to visit the pub to collect but I just have to suffer that.

  15. Good morning, all. Sunny – unlike me. Same old, same old…. Boring, to say the least.

    2. Nonsense, Bill. But I hope you are feeling at least a little better than you were after your fall yesterday. You are in our thoughts.

        1. Bill: ever thought of getting together with your brother and writing some Fairy Tales? Might work well for the pair of you.

        2. Bill: ever thought of getting together with your brother and writing some Fairy Tales? Might work well for the pair of you.

    5. Try the following, Bill:

      Cully & Sully Tomato & Basil soup accompanied by bread, butter and a chunk of Stilton.

      To be followed by a glass of Red; Cheers!

          2. Wham down some more K&M, Bill, if you can find it. Also recommend PeptoBismol. KBO xx

  17. 408393+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    It was only a matter of time and criminal stupidity via the polling stations.

    The labour pedigree has been clear since "miranda" lifted the entry latch that followed by the rotherham sixteen plus year cover-up made it doubly so.
    Currently as political coalition work it was labour's term in office the torys (INO) had done their stint and enough to satisfy the WEF/NWO cartel, pass the baton time.

    The majority voter in tactical voting, gleeful spite, rub labs nose in it mode, played their part , as counted on.

  18. 71 years after a man first ran a mile in less than four minutes, no woman has yet to do so. I reckon JK Rowling is onto something.

    2. She had a go and was also helped in so many ways to achieve her goal.
      But didn't make it by a few seconds. Oh well……..

      1. 4:06.42

        Six seconds is a long way to go but I expect some transwomen are thinking of having a go at it.

        1. They should be encouraged to do so – it will just reinforce the fact that they have no right to compete in women’s sport!

      2. 408393+ up ticks,

        Morning S,
        Agreed, I was looking at it in a non political / humanitarian manner,as in facially.

        1. That doesn't make it better.
          It implies antisemitic support for Hamas, I doubt there are many British dairy farmers who side with Hamas.

          1. 408393+ up ticks,

            S,
            I posted with the innocence of heart no malice intended.

            “You doubt”, yet I would say with certainty
            there are none that side with hamas.

          2. To be fair, I had to double check that my understanding of shlomo was that it is a Hamas insult.

          5. 408343+ up ticks,

            Morning AtG,

            My comment was posted in all innocents of
            political context, and should be taken that way as in, farmer, milliband, nose.
            If any are offended please accept apology.

          6. It is, nevertheless, indefensible, ogga. Horrible. So are you adding yourself to the Jew-hating (growing+) minority on this site?

            I find this stuff so misleading and disgusting that I'm taking more and more time out. Same goes for Tom's lovely sister site.

            FFS delete it, man.

          7. 408393+ up ticks,

            Evening O,

            Tis your prerogative to think as you do, I posted with NO evil forethought just on the visual image.

      3. I agree. I found it very distasteful. However, it was a reply to the oroginal tweet?

    3. Shlomo is a Hebrew boy name meaning "peace" or "peaceful." It is derived from the Hebrew word 'shalom,' which conveys the notion of harmony, tranquility, and wholeness. The name Shlomo has significant historical and cultural importance, particularly in Jewish communities.

    2. Imagine that. A rape every hour.

      Dear life. Here's an idea. Let's look at who's committing the crime and then deal with that demographic harshly – to the point of breaking that demographic.

  21. Today Mrs M Ducks makes her debut as an FSB writer with The Infantilisation of the Modern Mind, continuing the theme of the psycological war we are being subjected to by those who seek to control us. Please welcome Mrs Ducks by reading and commenting on her article – it's a good one – and encourage her to write more.

    The fourth part in our series No War With Russia!, this time covering the Weapons of Mass Persuasion used in the propaganda war those controlling the MSM have been waging against Russia needs a few more comments, if you have some.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's electric power was sourced from Gas, 15.3%; Solar, 9.3%: Wind 38%; Imports, 12.6%; Biomass, 6.6%; Nuclear 15.8% and Miscellaneous, 2.4%.

    The figures for gas and wind today and yesterday again demonstrate both madness of reliance on 'renewable' sources and the equal madness of the economics it results in. Yesterday gas produced 31.5% of our power and wind 17%. Today, the figures are more or less reversed. Gas power stations are put on stand by and paid for not producing power.

  22. Morning all 🙂😊
    Sunny after a wet night.
    I think it's time another word could be used instead of 'government', this lot are not upto the mark in any way whatsoever. Overall public opinion has and is being totally ignored.
    Can anyone imagine what is actually going on behind the scenes ?

    2. It is funny that they keep blithering on about 'a mandate for change'. No, they were just elected by a minority of the voting population. That's not a 'mandate for change' – and what does it even mean? They use the buzzword as if 'change' is good, regardless.

      They're just pathetic, Left wing idiots sharing the braincell. Ignorant of the damage they are causing, arrogant enough to blame someone else, stupidly convinced of their own superiority and corrupt to ensure it doesn't affect them.

  23. Matty Taylor rightly brings this 2T injustice into the spotlight.
    Three years in prison for calling Axel Rudakubana a Muslim. LOL

    Political Prisoner No.832: Wayne O’Rourke The court heard among his posts on 29 July was a reference to the death of the three children in Southport, alleging it was a terrorist attack carried out by a Muslim.

    Meanwhile, Palestine Action are treated with kid gloves by the militant tyrannical combative aggressive Progressives.

    In a secret meeting, Palestine Action reveals its audacious plans to target military sites across Britain, sparking a wave of intrigue and concern.

    Remember.. if they could kill you, they would.

    1. Placing bets now for currently-on-remand Ricky “Slit-their-throats” Jones……

      Odds-on favourite is getting let off

      1. I liked this [slightly dated] FB comment on the case – "The bulge in carpet is getting bigger and bigger, there is only so much you can sweep under it before it becomes a gargantuan eyesore. Don’t know why everyone is getting so irate, this guy is going to get off with a suspended sentence and a slapped wrist at worst."

      2. Of course he will. The Left protect their own. Can't have a violent thug being sent to prison now, can we? No! Let's jali those complaining about the violence, that way there is no thuggery, rape, burglary, stabbings, murders, rape of children.

    2. I hope these military sites are issuing instructions to guards to use their weapons against intruders.

        1. Why are you suggesting Government would allow them to procure anything so shockingly white?

          What you are suggesting is disgraceful and bordering on something that would get you a stretch inside. By order, they would have been ordered to dye their hankies in a fetching and diverse shade of Pride Rainbow with plenty of pink.

      2. As if.. Brize Norton DEI commander Group Captain Louise Henton has orders to knit a white flag.. and in the words of Jeremy Clarkson
        Soldiers are dispatched to stand around looking at them. And they are only ever removed from the runway if they promise to go immediately to the nearest art gallery and throw some soup at a painting.

    3. Just recently two delivery drivers – both paki muslims – forced themselves into a house and raped a 15 year old girl.

      They got 2 and a half years. For paedophile rape.

      I think the Home office needs to be charged with these crimes. First the senior management are made accountable – that is, charged with the same offences – and then, when they've been decimated keep going. It is absurd. The gimmigrant savage must be kept out of this country.

      The other day as I waited at the doctors I see two Chinese parents with baby. An Indian mother and then stomped in two loud dindus – Iranians, I recognised the language.

      All speaking loudly in their own language. I am very, very tired of my country being treated as a doss house for bennies by those who have no interest in integrating and completely abandoning their own language, culture and norms in favour of our own, superior ones.

  24. Matty Taylor rightly brings this 2T injustice into the spotlight.
    Three years in prison for calling Axel Rudakubana a Muslim. LOL

    Political Prisoner No.832: Wayne O’Rourke The court heard among his posts on 29 July was a reference to the death of the three children in Southport, alleging it was a terrorist attack carried out by a Muslim.

    Meanwhile, Palestine Action are treated with kid gloves by the militant tyrannical combative aggressive Progressives.

    In a secret meeting, Palestine Action reveals its audacious plans to target military sites across Britain, sparking a wave of intrigue and concern.

    Remember.. if they could kill you, they would.

  25. Good morning all

    Coolish morning , might rain.

    New MI6 chief’s grandfather was Nazi ‘Butcher’
    Blaise Metreweli’s grandfather was a defector from the Red Army who became a German spy chief and participated in the murder of Jews and Ukrainian partisans.

    The grandfather of the new head of MI6 was a Red Army defector who went on to become a murderous Nazi spy chief known as the Butcher, it has emerged.

    Blaise Metreweli was announced as the Secret Intelligence Service’s first female spy chief on June 15 but little was known about the Cambridge graduate who completed MI6 postings in Europe and the Middle East before leading the agency’s technology division.

    However, German archives reveal that Metreweli’s grandfather was Constantine Dobrowolski, a Ukrainian who defected from the Red Army to become the Nazis’ chief informant in the region of Chernihiv. Documents held in an archive in Freiburg, Germany detail Dobrowolski’s life and were unearthed by the Daily Mail after Metreweli’s appointment.

    • Who really is the new MI6 chief? Here’s everything we could find

    Known as Agent 30 by his Wehrmacht commanders, Dobrowolski was born to a German-Polish father and a Ukrainian mother in 1906. He loathed the Soviet Union after his high-born relatives were killed and their estates seized following the October Revolution in 1917.

    Dobrowolski lived on the run for years, obtaining a fake ID and travelling to Moscow. He was caught in 1926 and served ten years in a Siberian prison camp for anti-Soviet agitation, antisemitism and forging his ancestry. He returned from Siberia in 1937 and immediately volunteered for the front when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.

    Dobrowolski defected to the Nazis at the first opportunity on August 4, 1941. He was paid a monthly wage of just 81 Reichsmark, around £250 today, for spying. He initially served with an SS tank unit which took part in massacres of Jews near Kyiv.

    The defector returned to his home district of Sosyntsia in September 1941, where he organised a 300-strong Ukrainian police unit. The force assisted German death squads in “clearing” the area, rounding up and killing local Jews.

    Dobrowolski signed off handwritten letters to his Nazi superiors with “Heil Hitler”. He boasted of “personally” taking part in “the extermination of the Jews” and said that he had killed hundreds of Ukrainian partisans. He was reported to have looted the bodies of Holocaust victims and laughed while watching the sexual assault of female prisoners, archival documents suggest.

    Dobrowolski rose to become a local intelligence chief. He first served as an inspector for the Hiwi, a collaborator force, before joining the Geheime Feldpolizei in July 1942. The Soviets put a 50,000-rouble bounty, worth £200,000 in today’s money, on the head of Dobrowolski, who they called “the worst enemy of the Ukrainian people”.

    He remained in Nazi-occupied Ukraine after the rest of his family fled the Soviet advance through the country in 1943, and became known as “The Butcher”, according to reports. Metreweli’s father Constantine was born to Dobrowolski and his wife Barbara in Snovsk, Ukraine on New Year’s Day in 1943, according to his Home Office naturalisation certificate.

    Dobrowolski eventually got safe passage for his wife and two-month-old son to flee towards Germany. The last record of Dobrowolski is from August 1943, a month before the Red Army took Chernihiv.

    After the war, mother and son eventually arrived in Britain, where Barbara married a Georgian-born man named David Metreweli in Yorkshire. Constantine took his stepfather’s name and never knew Dobrowolski. He is a respected radiologist and a veteran of the British armed forces, and raised Metreweli and her siblings in Hong Kong.

    The Foreign Office said: “Blaise Metreweli neither knew nor met her paternal grandfather. Blaise’s ancestry is characterised by conflict and division and, as is the case for many with eastern European heritage, only partially understood.

    “It is precisely this complex heritage which has contributed to her commitment to prevent conflict and protect the British public from modern threats from today’s hostile states, as the next chief of MI6.”

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/defence/article/new-mi6-chiefs-grandfather-was-nazi-butcher-2nkht325b?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawLLJupleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETByRGNuMldZTHVxRTN6TXFtAR6D7iCgWmDgnzpuQc3aoqNtuNgcJm6qUCaBYU9uCu_3QqosCLMkUrOGqxAaBA_aem_I5U5uvmY275XyX7sVbNpGA#Echobox=1751001911

    2. You never know until it's all too late.

      Nothing compares to the treachery of Sir Anthony Blunt.. many reckon/know he revealed Allied forces details to help Nazi counteroffensives in the Ardennes such as "Autumn Mist" etc.. in the last years of the war to ensure his beloved Russian army reached Berlin before the allies.

  26. 408393+ up ticks,

    James Frayne
    Farage and the Tories are destined to do a deal
    A new Right-wing movement is coming, regardless of what happens in the next few months

    Could this possible read as same old,
    same old,with new blood, and when this occurs have we an opposition party THIS TIME to oppose the deceitful treachery taking place.

    I am thinking this reform is a country mile ahead of the toxic trio as being "to pat"especially with them carrying all the Countries eggs in one voting basket.

    The whole set up looks familier, and to me reminiscent of the 2019 era

    1. Dominic Cummings:
      "The process needs to play out.. The Tories will ditch Kemi next year. If they appoint James Cleverly then they are done for good. If Farage cannot get beyond One Man & His iPhone.. then this will open the door for a new right wing party."

      1. Another one? What makes Cummings believe it will be any better than the last one?

        I once came up with the idea of resetting UKIP back to the original vision set up by Alan Sked. The importance being "independence", and not beholden to the received wisdoms of anyone. Nominally of the Centre, rather than the Right, but prepared and willing to consider anything on merit. It would have a libertarian streak, dismissive of political correctness and unafraid to speak one's mind and be damned, and yet humble enough to listen to argument and admit when they got the first draft wrong.

        Unlike Farage's outfits, it would allow and find a place for the likes of Godfrey Bloom, Tommy Robinson and Rupert Lowe on the premise of "one in every village", and that diversity of opinion broadens the debate rather than poisons it. They don't have to prevail if this is the wrong thing to do.

        As a patriot and an Englishman, I would like it to be modelled on the English village, rural rather than urban in outlook, with very much a bottom-up approach to political control. This is the Liberal in me that may be anaethema to Conservatives, but should I care?

  27. Sitting in my parent’s dining room working from Wolverhampton doing a lot of document reading and overlooking their garden. There are two magpies, futilely trying to get at their bird-feeder. Quite amusing. (But i am no fan of magpies or pigeons for that matter).

    1. I have one gooseberry Bush, every year the squirrels pinch all of the fruit.
      This year I made a framed covering using chicken wire. It kept them out. Then A family of magpies arrived, I only caught them doing it once but between them they had pulled the wire aside and got in behind it and had eaten half the fruits. Clever birds.
      The next attack will be on the olive Bush. The pigeons ate most of the damsons as soon as they had formed.

    2. Perhaps he was Sitting in his parent’s dining room working from Wolverhampton doing a lot of document reading and overlooking their garden.

      1. 408343+ up ticks,

        Morning KB,
        I was of two minds to put it as a reply to that post.

    4. I like Gus. Mongo will sometimes climb up beside Junior, but he prefers to put his head on the table to see what we're doing.

        1. That look…’you think you can get away with that, eh’……guessing a lady cat? A beauty 🥰

    7. Poor boy. If they have a camera on him they should also have a microphone so they can speak to him to keep him company.

  29. It's Friday – must be U Turn day!?
    From the BBC 'As we've been reporting, Keir Starmer's government is making changes to its welfare bill, offering a series of concessions to Labour rebels. It's not just Labour – MPs from other parties have also reacted to the prime minister's late-night U-turn.
    Shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately describes the U-turn as "humiliating". "We offered to help the government make bigger and better welfare savings to get more people off benefits and into work," she said on X. "But Starmer ducked the challenge – leaving taxpayers to pick up the bill."'

    As the BBC Political Editor put it "Three U-turns in a month. First, there was the slow-motion change of mind on the winter fuel payment for millions of pensioners. Then there was the decision to hold a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs, having previously said one wasn't necessary. And now this on benefits."

    1. Helen Whately is deluded if she thinks that cutting PIPs automatically gets the disabled off benefits and into work when their applications are routinely rejected by both prospective employers and privatised agencies contracted by Government.

      It shows me that Labour and Conservative are two cheeks of the same arse.

      1. If it helps, a vast number of applications are rejected. We had 102 for our last post. Of those, 70 % wanted a visa. Many more were sifted for 'ability' and then the last 5 were interviewed.

        It's an exhausting process and by no means says the other 4 we didn't take on were not superb candidates, they were. Did we write to say no? No, because these days it's too dangerous.

        1. Indeed. As with most policy, there has to be a sweet spot, and optimum level whereby everyone with talent and competence can find their niche and make a living, and employers are not forced to take on dross because there is nobody better.

          The last Labour politician to have considered this when formulating policy was David Blunkett when he was in Sheffield.

        2. So, you just leave interviewees hanging, don't tell them they didn't make it? What kind of hr is that?

      2. If it helps, a vast number of applications are rejected. We had 102 for our last post. Of those, 70 % wanted a visa. Many more were sifted for 'ability' and then the last 5 were interviewed.

        It's an exhausting process and by no means says the other 4 we didn't take on were not superb candidates, they were. Did we write to say no? No, because these days it's too dangerous.

  30. Excellent start to the day. Yesterday was a disaster:
    Wordle 1,469 2/6

    🟩⬜⬜🟩🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  31. My knee dressing is being changed at the local surgery soon.
    But I've promised my self scrambled egg on toast for breakfast I'd better get a move on.
    Slayders. 🤗

  32. LOL of the week.

    14-year old child told to delete footage on TikTok of Alisha Lehmann's Switzerland being hammered 7-1 by Under-15 team in friendly ahead of start of Euro 2025..

  33. Morning all,

    Tried accessing the internet using this Zenpad 3s 10 old dual band type 'n' tablet to an old radio router with G4 SIM using 2.4MHz WiFi to see if connection is stable.

      3. Angie knows how his router works. If my router has 4 x green lights, it's working and that's all I know. When the internet light turns red or the router looks fine but still isn't working, I turn it off and back on again. I do have oedema though, in the feet, which comes and goes but is troubling and linked to the heart condition.

        2. Is a "router" the box through which the internet reaches ones computer? I get confused becuase people also use the word "modem". And I think of it as a "livebox" because that is what the French supplier Orange call it!

          1. The word seems to be router rather than modem these days. I think it's the same thing.

          2. My first technical "thingy" was called a "router" – I called it The Rooster. Then the fashion changed and it was a Modem.

          3. A modem establishes a connection between your home and the internet, whereas a router is responsible for then distributing that connection to different devices in your home.
            If you're confused because you only have one hardware device that appears to do both, this is because most modems double as routers; these are typically branded as modem routers.
            The easiest way to tell the difference between a modem router and a router is by reading the box or the product description. A modem router will always be called a modem router.
            Livebox is an ADSL wireless router. Whatever that means.

          7. Thank you. Uncle Bill asked the question that was hovering in my mind. You've saved me from looking silly in front of my grandson.

          8. ADSL is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide.

            Poor mans fibre optic.

          9. Hello, Bill. I won't pretend to understand a word of AO'D's post, but you are correct.

            Modern routers comprise three parts the modem, the router (or network switch), which distributes the connection around your devices, bt cable or otherwise, and a Wi-Fi access point, which does what it says on the tin. Some ISPs refer to their router as a hub. Hope this helps…,

          10. Hello again, Geoff. What it helps me to do is seriously consider shooting myself every time I see anything technical. Aargh!

          1. 75% is three quarters of the way back to full health, Bill. KBO, as the great Winston said (Churchill, not Conner's dog.)

    3. And was it, Angie? I was at Infant School with a boy who did no lessons but instead fetched old radios etc in and spent days repairing them. Perhaps autistic, or just plain bored and also clever. And perhaps now working for government. Maybe you're related 🙂

      1. The fact that my comment was uploaded showed that the connection didn’t drop whereas if connected to a single SSID dual band router it did.

        Risking it with this c omment because I should be connected at 5MHz on the new dual band router wuth the old rablet.

        I used to be communication research and was brought uo in the era of disappearing manual switchboards.

        1. Aah, that's what causes my confusion. It's an old rablet which I am missing.

  34. A delayed Good Morning to all. Got a bit distracted this morning.
    16½°C and a bright start today with a couple of hours of showers forecast then dry for the afternoon.

    2. The top photo [of the meat on a skewer] reminds me of the kebabs ["a stampede on a stick", as one friend put it!] in the long closed Desperate Dan's in Edinburgh!

      1. I remember eating in a grill restaurant somewhere in deepest France. The place was full of French people and we only gained admission because my wife spoke French.

        There was a massive stone fireplace and grille. I ordered steak. A lady emerged from the basement with an enormous steak in her hand dripping blood and flung it onto the grill. She vanished and later returned, placed the steak in a griddle pan and sloshed half a bottle of brandy over it before mixing a jar of cream into the liquid.

        Meanwhile some of the Frenchmen were chatting away and pointing in our direction. My wife translated the words: “it is still galloping”.

        1. My only taste of horsemeat was in France………. I was not keen. Also tried some frogs legs……….even less keen.

          1. The meal was enormous and very tasty. The cream and brandy was a creamy sauce. The meat was beef I am sure.

            I noticed the French in the restaurant were mostly ordering shark steaks. I noticed they were having to jump up occasionally to turn their steaks on the iron fireplace grille. This was because the elderly lady remained sitting watching French TV (how do they do that?) in her semi-basement accommodation.

        1. May have been one in Dundee but “my” version was definitely in Edinburgh – went there once when the Commonwealth games were in Edinburgh!

    1. Not sure about him. He is exactly how the leftie government sees the Far Right farmers. Has some good points though. 🙂

  37. No, the holes are the Civil Service. The Lib Dems are the G-string that sort of covers it up, and the Greens the composting toilet.

  39. The Red/Green Rainbow Warrior, Nick-Nack Robinson the Radio 4 presenter, who talks through his nose and his arse at the same time, has turned on his Far-Left idols and criticized the Starmer gang with venomous enthusiasm. He only obeys orders from above at the BBC so who in the BBC hierarchy has fallen out with Two-Tier Keir? Very rare for the Left to openly disagree with each other in public. Winter fuel payments, Child rape-gangs enquiry and now Welfare payments reversal. Three cartwheels in a month. There are four wheels on a cart so expect another one soon. Sit back and enjoy it while you can – it can only get better for Britain.

    1. They have probably only fallen out with Starmer because he isn't spending money he doesn#t have fast enough.
      Nick Robinson's nickname when he belonged to Oxford University Conservative Association was "Red Robbo". Most people gain wisdom with age, but I guess he has the BBC instead (apologies to our lone standard-bearer of sanity there).

    2. "Nick-Nack Robinson the Radio 4 presenter, who talks through his nose and his arse at the same time"
      Credit where it's due. He's a man who can multi-task.

    1. He doesn't realise that no one – no one wants the net zero con?

      That said – if some folk do want the green hoax, then fine. Here's the bill.

    2. Millipede has done more, with his insanity, to turn people of off renewables than Just Stop Oil ever could.

  41. In Crawley
    4h
    (DT) reports that TTK may get a deal with France to return a small boat arrival in exchange for someone with a legitimate claim to be in the UK (joining a family already here, a so called one out one in arrangement)

    Bo Williams
    In Crawley
    2h
    At first glance this looks good, especially if it was 100% of arrivals. However it appears it won’t even be 50% of arrivals. But more importantly the moment they land in Britain some Human Rights lawyer, probably somebody TTK trained, will pop up and demand they have their claim heard. In reality I can only see a tiny fraction of them being deported and only in a few years after they have exhausted all avenues to remain, up to and including ECHR judgements.

    Monty
    In Crawley
    3h
    Complete and utter gaslighting.
    Once they are here- they are staying here.
    If anything- this 'deal' would mean MORE coming.

  42. I enjoyed the Platters' Great Pretender which was covered by Roy Orbison and by Freddy Mercury's astonishing version.

    On the other hand Starmer's Great Surrenders are less enjoyable:

    Surrender to the Public Service Unions on pay and conditions;
    Surrender of fishing rights to EU
    Surrender to Mauritius over Chagos Islands
    Surrender to EU and Spain over Gibraltar
    Surrender to backbenchers over welfare reforms
    Surrender to Islamic, racist anti-Semitic weekly outrages
    etc. etc.

    On the other hand he stood up valiantly and bravely against the dangerous, enormous Extreme Far Right and instructed the judges to impose heavy prison sentences on those who said politically incorrect things.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLRjFWDGs1g

    1. That is the wooftiest song/video I have ever watched. I doubt there is a real female in it. That song is a regular earworm and now I will have to suffer the image of Freddie and his bumboys prancing about like public-school boys in the dorm when the form master has left.

      I like Freddie's singing but that is a bit much!

  44. Mr Blue Sky
    45m
    Claims the UK has two-tier justice are "disgusting" and "wrong", the Attorney General has said.
    Of course he has said that. He also said that all those jailed last summer were, to quote him directly "trying to kill police officers – and I want to reiterate that, kill police officers" so cannot be compared to the mostly peaceful protestors in London.

    He also had a "professional obligation" to represent the likes of Gerry Adams, Shamima Begum and Osama bin Laden's right-hand man.

    Disgusting and wrong doesn't quite cover it………

    1. Hermer is a real R-sole. He has spent most of his career defending liars, crooks, rapists, murderers and terrorists – and milking the taxpayer for millions of pounds while doing so. He should be locked up then deported – to some Antarctic iceberg.

    1. My guess is that many of those cyclists are also motorists, and wouldn't dream of not stopping to let a pedestrian cross the road at a zebra crossing. Something must go to their heads when they ride a bike.

    2. Anarcho-tyranny.

      "Anarcho-tyranny," a term coined by writer Sam Francis, describes a state where the government is both excessively oppressive and simultaneously ineffective in maintaining basic law and order. It's characterized by the state aggressively regulating citizens' lives with numerous laws and restrictions, while also failing to enforce fundamental protections like preventing crime or maintaining public safety. Essentially, it's a situation where the government acts like a tyrant in some areas while exhibiting anarchy in others.

    3. Entitlement. I was nearly run down when I was on a pedestrian crossing and when I pointed out that it was my right of way I got a mouthful of abuse.

  46. More from the Biased Broadcasting Company: "Having led the Partygate investigation into Boris Johnson, [Sue] Gray was already unusually high-profile for an impartial civil servant. Her close colleagues were stunned when in 2023 she agreed to take up a party political role as Sir Keir's chief of staff."

  47. Beebsplaining
    50m
    A "leader" who describes his own MPs as "noises off"🤔
    A "leader" who has voted just 7 times , but has been abroad 27times in 12 months🤔
    A 'leader" who forces his own MPs to vote against a nonce inquiry, doesn't vote himself and then u turns to have one🤔
    How long will his cabinet support him over the mps and party🤔
    Even the Guardian are asking how much longer🤔 https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3c94c975ebee6a93563b4d5514dadc5799de79d4f28cc4f9a861dca3577d64ad.png
    Paleface
    2h
    Politics is all about choosing your priorities.
    The welfare U-turn will cost £1.5 billion by the end of the Parliament.

    UK illegal immigration and asylum-related costs are around £6.4 billion for the 2024-25 financial year.

    Intriguing
    Paleface
    2h
    It's 27bn a year. 6.4bn is just direct spend on services for recent arrivals.

  49. Mr Blue Sky
    41m
    Anyone remember the fragrant Lucy Powell and other Labour ministers claiming that if we didn't means test the WFA to save £1.5 billion, there would be a run on the pound?
    The cost of the capitulation on PIP – £1.5 billion………….

    Massey Ferguson
    Mr Blue Sky
    32m
    Yep, on the strength of Lucy's claim and current developments, I'm expecting S0r0s to short the pound🤣

    Special Kaye
    27m
    I used to worry that we might have a civil war. Now I worry that we won't.

  51. Still no proper rain in the forecast for the next 10 days or so for most of England, with hot weather hanging on in the SE. Here in Northants the last five months have seen under 50% of the average rainfall. What rain we have had has been in small amounts that have been of little use to anyone who needs it. Two hours of light rain last night – barely 2mm.

    Of course, Justin Rowlatt will be in his element…

    1. I would love to know how much rain falls on the planet as a whole and whether that total is fluctuating to the extent it is in Britain, I'm reasonably confident that some parts of the planet are getting exceptional amounts of rainfall. eg Australia

      1. Plenty of depressions have come off the Atlantic but many have been weak and have left in the west what little rain they have brought; north-east England has been very dry. Heavy and thundery rain from the south has gone west and east, bypassing the midlands.

    2. i got slightly wet walking home from the pub last night – it got a bit dark too while I was stumbling across the common………….but I don't think the rain came to anything much.

          8. Everybody had their own and I didn't notice anyone having another. It wasn't the cheapest place to go! My white wine +soda was £8.00! I made it last……….we all had plenty to talk about. I've known most of the girls since 1980.

    1. Angie didn't get her GCSEs – let alone go to university……….. but look where she is now!

      1. Showing off your bum and bust seems to create attention seeking jobs and salaries .

        Men are so dumb enough to fall for lickspittle like that..

        And of course Starmer has got that Lammy a prime job so as to take the word STUPID to a higher degree .

        1. Be fair Belle, how else was Starmer going to try and make himself look intelligent? He NEEDS Rayner and Lammy!

          1. Anybody who has been a schoolmaster knows full well that many of his dullest colleagues in the Masters' Common Room went to Oxbridge just as some of his brightest pupils were totally idle, did no work and did not do well in their exams.

            Some people peak at 18 and go downhill after that; some people don't show any signs of potential and then suddenly and unexpectedly flourish.

            Our first son peaked at the age of 13; the other at 25.

          2. School is a very unnatural environment that allows people to flourish who make a pig’s ear out of life in general.

        3. They pass Lammy off as a Harvard graduate but he only did a short part-time course tailored for black students. Much like Rachel from accounts and the Bank of England.

          1. He got his public school education because he was a black boy who could sing…….

        4. Not just showing off her large assets though! She also has the low cunning of a sewer rat, a brass neck and a skin like a rhinoceros.

    2. Angie didn't get her GCSEs – let alone go to university……….. but look where she is now!

    3. I’ve just had a fantastic business idea.

      Take our youngsters who can’t get a job or housing. Get them to Calais. Put them on a “small boat” (safe and not overcrowded). Get them to the RNLI pick-up point, throwing away their documentation en route, and then claim asylum. Job done.

    5. If migrants are a good thing, why is Rayner talking about "fair share"? Surely areas must be clamouring for their share of the blessings brought by migrants?

    1. As Churchill told us , "Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

    1. Looks like Gloucester Park on a Saturday evening. Not that i go there these days.

      1. Richmond Park is stiffed to the gills in the evening with packs of Muslims. It is very unwelcoming.

    3. The US worked as a land of immigrants when everyone dropped their native culture at the border and became American. Multi-culturalism kills countries. OK there are a few small communities like the Amish, but they are not seeking converts like islam does.

    4. I see there are calls to have Mamdani's citizenship revoked to have him deported. It wont get anywhere. But the man as Mayor of New York, lunacy. This is what the insanity of being a Democrat does to you. You happily vote for the destruction of your city by Islam and the extreme left.

      1. In Israel , didn't they parachute in?

        Security at Glasto will probably consist of the types we see at every supermarket, Arabic speaking /Urdu bullies ?

  58. Starmer “Deeply Regrets” Saying UK Risks Becoming “Island Of Strangers”

    Keir Starmer has told The Observer he “deeply regrets” his “island of strangers” migration speech and insisted he didn’t even know it echoed the words of Enoch Powell. And neither, apparently, did his speechwriters…

    Having forced his ministers to contort themselves into impossible positions trying to defend the speech in the first place, Starmer has now claimed it was a terrible idea and he was just a slave to his own teleprompter:

    “I wouldn’t have used those words if I had known they were, or even would be interpreted as an echo of Powell. I had no idea – and my speechwriters didn’t know either. But that particular phrase – no – it wasn’t right. I’ll give you the honest truth: I deeply regret using it…

    He delivered that speech just over six weeks ago. Not quite a world record for Starmer U-turns, but close…

    June 27 2025 @ 10:54
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/318f5c1e749b9f0a22f8375c82fdcf5f650216100164b21043b4b51056083c76.png
    Mill House
    29m
    In other words Two-Tier Keir regrets speaking the truth.

    1. I really hope he's PM when it turns ugly. He can't take all the blame – that's on the head of every government since Blair – but he certainly holds a very large responsibility for the Channel invasion from his days as a barrister. Just about everything he and his ghastly crew have done in office has been against the interests of the UK and its people. When the bodies are piling up in the streets, I want to see the bastard squirm. Of course, he'll probably blame Farage and the mythical far-right [sic].

    2. I really hope he's PM when it turns ugly. He can't take all the blame – that's on the head of every government since Blair – but he certainly holds a very large responsibility for the Channel invasion from his days as a barrister. Just about everything he and his ghastly crew have done in office has been against the interests of the UK and its people. When the bodies are piling up in the streets, I want to see the bastard squirm. Of course, he'll probably blame Farage and the mythical far-right [sic].

    3. More wisdom in Enoch Powell's little finger than is the whole of Keir Starmer and his odious government.

    4. More wisdom in Enoch Powell's little finger than is the whole of Keir Starmer and his odious government.

    1. Convert or have your ears drop off with boredom as they nag and nudge you to go to the mosque fifty times a day in practice, I think.

  61. Does anyone have any advice?

    Next door to Mum and Dad’s has put in for a horrible extension. They have objected, i objected.

    Then we have just found out revised plans were put in on 17th June (which no one was informed about) and the plans were given permission at the planning meeting of 20th. No one was informed about the changed plans.

    Can they so this?

    I should add. The neighbours are Indian and the plans are to double the footprint of the house – up, forward and back.

    2. Have you or your parents contacted the local councillor or been to the planning dept? Being cynical, your MP might be useful; especially if his or her majority is low.
      I suspect the changed plans and no notice would strengthen your case.
      How about other neighbours?

    3. You have to challenge the decision.

      A few years ago our next door neighbour, a Braintree District Councillor obtained planning permission to build two (or likely more) houses in a field behind our property. He had not advised the Parish council of which he was a member and had arranged illicitly for the village development boundary to be moved from our fence line to the other side of the field. I should add that the meighbour was conveniently the Chairman of the Local Development Framework Sub-Committee of Braintree District Council and as such charged with finding sites for development.

      After a lot of hard work and ferreting around we managed to have the planning permission quashed. We live in a Grade II listed cottage opposite the Grade I church and our neighbour’s property is listed Grade II*. The village is a unique survival retaining its mediaeval street layout.

      Key to this reversal was obtaining a letter from the Chief of Historic England for the three counties (Cambs, Herts and Essex) denouncing the development.

      Of course there had been secrecy and collusion among the Braintree District councillors, notorious both then and now for their dodgy dealings and strong Freemasonic connections.

      My advice would be to contest the decision and to consult someone versed in planning law to pursue the case.

      1. Apparently when the planning permission first went in, the Council put the notice in the lamppost. Mum saw it. Then a few days later it disappeared. Another neighbour said she saw the applicant cut the council notice down.

        Mum is in an awful state about it

        I objected and said it would set a precedent. Mum and dad have a huge plot – my grandma built our house back in 1964 (literally- she had a building firm) and the five houses next door, designed to look nice. And so this decision has upset the uniformity of the road. And it is personal for mum.

        I mentioned before, my grandmother’s husband (my grandfather) left her when mum was 3, and grandma worked many, many jobs to get by (including debt collecting, vegetables picking and managing a hotel in Newquay at the weekends) eventually building up the construction company. The flip side was mum and her brother were outsourced to anyone who would look after them.

        Edit. I don’t know how the Indians are going to build some of it as they won’t be able to get the scaffolding on one side. The parents live there and now the son and they are extending ot so they can get the grandchildren and their families in. You can bet your life they don’t pay any inheritance tax or capital gains tax.

        2. The council are obliged by law to ensure that affected parties are given notice of planning applications. This involves posting the particulars in the vicinity for public knowledge.

          In my case we enlisted almost the entire population of the village to object to the site allocation under the Local Development Plan guidance.

          It would help your objection if you are able to harness the objections of others who should all object in writing individually giving the reasons for their concerns. The issue you mention of proximity would be a concern if scaffolding is required for the construction. Other considerations are occupancy and size in relation to Council Tax rates, vehicular access and traffic numbers.

          Speak also to your local councillor and obtain their advice and reaction. Write to other members of the council and in particular address the chair of the planning committee and its members. Attend any council meetings and book a slot to address the committee in person.

  62. Patrick Christys commented on GBN last night that Starmer's "Island of Strangers" comment was intended to appeal to Reform supporters but actually just went down like a cup of cold sick (his expression not mine) with Labour voters.

  63. Good moaning (just).
    Phew.
    Managed to use my birthday theatre tokens just in time!
    That'll teach me to file things away under "L" for "later".

          3. It would take a W S Gilbert to come up with the lyrics. At least it's not hard to come up with rhymes for "Starmer".

      2. I've booked The Producers for 10th. September matinee.
        Looked at the expiry date and thought "eek".
        As ever, the stage version does vary from the film (which is one of my favourites). I'll be interested to see this production.

  65. As is being sung by Labour MPs and ministers who have been hung out to dry (too?) many times in this past year.
    "Oh ….. the Grand Old Duke of York ……."

    1. Military strategy is evolving all the time, and no faster than during a war. The moment an enemy weapon can be neutralised, then another system has to be deployed, which is not so readily dealt with. A victorious power therefore relies on ingenuity, flexibility and stealth, rather than announcing to one's enemy with plenty of notice one's military capability, and no capacity to adapt on the hoof to the chaos of the battlefield.

      The best weapons of war – the kalashnikov, the jeep, the Mosquito, the drone, are cheap to produce in quantity and losses are not serious. The 20th century habit of scorched earth destruction may secure a quick victory, if one has the advantage of surprise or the enemy is ill-defended, but its scale in this century may render any future administration of ravaged territory unviable for a very long time.

      In this century, we have the advantage of a great deal more precision in taking out an enemy cheaply. As so often in history, the Jews set an example. The brutality of their clearance of Gaza and the intimidation by Israeli settlers in the West Bank need to be contrasted with the brilliance of their exploding pagers (who'd have thought that remotely shorting out lithium batteries ubiquitous in mobile phones could be so deadly and cost pennies to deploy?), and devices that can fly into bedrooms and take out key enemy personnel as they sleep.

  67. Please be considerate and don't groan too loudly, it upsets the neighbours – and the local fauna:
    https://scontent-cdg4-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/512682565_10163354511477812_6847250706237175276_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p526x296_tt6&_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=833d8c&_nc_ohc=QgsmyOmjdDEQ7kNvwF7QVSX&_nc_oc=Adnga7KlRHNcPW37E_Ur9zQttsItLgsDGpJz1r5NNy__eVLzG9dJSL-1rD_NnCjXMSMY_HrtErtNtF_NpNbfOF-j&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-cdg4-2.xx&_nc_gid=T_ix69Z6dmSx2lqjDbIWBw&oh=00_AfPg2PqncZ4iWxjkN28Jpc9OP2XvSs4xTySipQcv1m_78g&oe=686459AF

    3. They're looking in the wrong place. They were in a local cricket team in Westmoreland – Appleby. I believe.
      in

  68. When I first encountered this poem by Sara Teasdale, it was during Lockdown when everything was still and the towns were deserted, devoid of people. Never before have I heard the Spring birds so happy, and it was like nature breathing a huge sigh of joy, spared of human ruthless profligacy.

    It was set to music by Tom Wells, a local composer, and I thought at the time the poem was also written in 2020, expressing what I was myself witnessing then. But, it was actually written in 1918 as a reaction to the First World War. Tom has very recently incorporated his setting within his 'A Song for all Seasons' cycle (premiered in Worcester on 14th June 2025), now at fifteen songs and still being added to.

    "There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
    And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

    And frogs in the pools singing at night,
    And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

    Robins will wear their feathery fire
    Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

    And not one will know of the war, not one
    Will care at last when it is done.

    Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
    If mankind perished utterly;

    And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
    Would scarcely know that we were gone."

    Sara Teasdale herself committed suicide in the 1930s.

      1. She wrote 18 years before her suicide:

        I Shall Not Care
        WHEN I am dead and over me bright April

        Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
        Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted,
        I shall not care.
        I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful

        When rain bends down the bough,
        And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
        Than you are now.

        Died aged 48. overdose

        2. Karen Robb, a village schoolteacher from Cradley, Herefordshire was a close friend of Tom Wells and sang in his choir, also committed suicide aged 48 in September 2020. Six choir members were allowed in the church to attend the funeral; the rest of us were socially-distanced outside in the churchyard listening on some rigged-up speakers.

        3. Do not stand at my grave and weep,
          I am not there, I do not sleep.
          I am a thousand winds that blow;
          I am the diamond glints on the snow.
          I am the sunlight on ripened grain;
          I am the gentle autumn's rain.
          When you awaken in the morning's hush,
          I am the swift uplifting rush
          Of quiet birds in circled flight.
          I am the soft star that shines at night.
          Do not stand at my grave and cry.
          I am not there; I did not die.

          The authorship of the poem is not clear – it has been attributed to Clare Harner and to Mary Elizabeth Frye.

          Very sadly we could not get to the funeral in person of the daughter of one of our best friends (Henry's godfather). She was crippled and blind and in her forties. However we had a video link and attended the funeral that way.

          This was read by her close friend who was also blind. She broke down in the middle but with great determination she pulled herself together and finished the reading.

  72. Uber-wokey Lorde opens Glastonbury festival with surprise set.. and comes out as Non-Binary (NB).

    For those that require translation here's Douglas Murray's useful Glastonbury LBGTQASBBOR++ glossary.

    Douglas Murray explains the colours of the clown car, and how they have nothing in common, other than I want a bit of that I'm Special Pie.
    L & G have nothing in common and don’t even want to be there.
    B = Bi now Gay later, everyone is suspicious of them.
    T = the mysterious gender unicorn nonsense.
    NB = look at me I want attention I've got a big announcement to make.
    Q = straight men that like to strangle women and ocassionally paint their nails.
    AS = never a bigger difference in human nature than AS & gay men.
    Brown & Black = massive category error.
    Blue = Smurf.
    O & R = People of Scotland that have been out in the Glastonbury sun too long.

    1. I'd point out to Lorde that gender pertains to language not biology and is a means of categorising inanimate objects but given the absence of a brain, perhaps it isn't inappropriate after all.

      1. That's a fact that has annoyed me for as long as this "gender" nonsense has been around. But there are some sites where you can't type sex without it being censored. The reason people like "gender" is that it lacks the honesty of sex so you can make ambiguous statements that are impossible if you use the correct word. There are a multitude of sexes sounds silly but a multitude of genders doesn't because it fudges reality.

    2. Woke will be dead and buried when the commentators revert to using the word 'Batsman' instead of batters….

    3. Woke will be dead and buried when the commentators revert to using the word 'Batsman' instead of batters….

  73. Uber-wokey Lorde opens Glastonbury festival with surprise set.. and comes out as Non-Binary (NB).

    For those that require translation here's Douglas Murray's useful Glastonbury LBGTQASBBOR++ glossary.

    Douglas Murray explains the colours of the clown car, and how they have nothing in common, other than I want a bit of that I'm Special Pie.
    L & G have nothing in common and don’t even want to be there.
    B = Bi now Gay later, everyone is suspicious of them.
    T = the mysterious gender unicorn nonsense.
    NB = look at me I want attention I've got a big announcement to make.
    Q = straight men that like to strangle women and ocassionally paint their nails.
    AS = never a bigger difference in human nature than AS & gay men.
    Brown & Black = massive category error.
    Blue = Smurf.
    O & R = People of Scotland that have been out in the Glastonbury sun too long.

    1. A hundred years ago our Prime Minister controlled 3/4 of the global population, now our potential Prime Minister can't count to eleven without taking a shoe off.

    2. BTL Comment:-

      Once again I have to ask someone to please advise me, what is Islamophobia?

      Why is Islam the only major religion to have it's own, personal ~ophobia? Is it REALLY due to RACISM??

      Strange that no other belief has such a suffix or slur added to its name.

      There is no Sikhophobia, Hindophobia, Jainophobia nor Buddhistophobia.

      Why?

      What is it about Islam that engenders ill feeling not generally felt towards the other religions?

      Why is that?

      Could it be that followers of those other religions do not have a tendency to blow themselves up in pop concerts or on London Busses and underground Trains?

      Nor, generally speaking, do they take part in the gang organised rape, sexual exploitation & trafficking of young girls.

      Perhaps if those proposing this could also take their bigoted blinkers off and take a broader, world wide look at the actions of Islamists in the wider world.

      The murder and mutilation of concert goers at The Bataclan or the 2019 Easter Sunday Church bombings in Sri Lanka for example.

      Even Muslims themselves are not safe from Islamic attacks as we saw in 2017 with the horrendous attack on the Rawda Mosque in Sinai and the murder of the Glasgow newsagent Asad Shah, murdered for wishing his customers Happy Christmas.

      Even Muslim clerics are not safe. Look at Imam Jalal Udin, also murdered in 2017 by an ISIS supporter for not being sufficiently "Islamic".

      Perhaps the problem lies not with the so called "Islamophobes" but within Islam its self?

  78. It's a nice one and very popular at funerals.
    I like "High flight" as well – so poignant, written by a very young man who died before he was 20.

    High Flight
    By John Gillespie Magee Jr.

    Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
    And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
    Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
    of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
    You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
    High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
    I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
    My eager craft through footless halls of air ….

    Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
    I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
    Where never lark, or even eagle flew—
    And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
    The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
    Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

    1. That’s a good one too 🙂 I follow Claire Milligan (YouTube) for drawing tips, she recently did a super Hedgehog one.

  81. Appointment with the nurse at 11:20 all sorted in 20 minutes. Lovely nurse, she wasn't quite sure if all the stitches were self dissolving I said I'd check it out with the hospital.
    They have to stay in a bit longer anyway.
    Very tidying looking job well done.

  82. 408343+ up ticks,

    The farmers treacherous plight linked to the foreign invaders is where the real battle will continue to be fought, all the rest outside our territorial waters ie foreign wars etc,etc, is deflection.

    We support the politico's and the toxic trio
    and kick the farmers into touch we deserve, as a nation ALL we most certainly will get in way of punishment for being white English, the kids don't deserve it but……..

    https://x.com/NoFarmsNoFoods/status/1938554119192522804 https://x.com/NoFarmsNoFoods/status/1938554119192522804

    Currently I see, if a move isn't made to rectify it, the farmers will be keeping the fishermen company, outside looking in.

  83. So busy chatting here I'd completely forgotten I had a machine load of washing to hang out………. and hadn't had any lunch……….. anyway hopefully the weather will stay dry and sunny for a while longer. I'm eating my plateful of fruit lunch now.

  85. Something to brighten up your day!
    https://scontent-cdg4-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/510382105_122162431856388052_8750509643634833130_n.jpg?stp=cp6_dst-jpg_p526x296_tt6&_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=833d8c&_nc_ohc=jBxIypwrOmEQ7kNvwEl8T_a&_nc_oc=AdkEN9m0LKRA0CpJi7nvXN6USoykN3EwXGsXUjofs2XEtY2z55vvHy9WdEpmC_SZAQzQaBUjmB3p_Zl1MUQ0GTHL&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-cdg4-2.xx&_nc_gid=oCkzMyJJQHi58nAZE4sszw&oh=00_AfPZUDSc3TY-yRsWIjEpyEncsDkWQfwyxJNnT140Kr7-ag&oe=686486F4

          2. Up to a point I might agree but that is not how this is being presented. There may be locations where they make a useful contribution to controlling the flow of some watercourses but they will eventually affect productive farmland and at that point a presumption will be made in their favour. Farmers will once again be presented as the bad guys. There's a worrying righteousness even amongst those promoting legal release.

            This is a small island and it's shrinking everyday. Turning good farmland over to conservation fads helps no one.

          3. The article is about illegal releasing of beavers. It was 'doing God's work' that amused me.

          4. If we're a small island that's shrinking, it's because of human population growth and endless new housing projects encroaching on the countryside, wild or farmed. Rivers are seeing excess sewage pumped in by water companies. I'd rather see a country with native species roaming than gangs of stinking young Muslim gangs. The Muslim ghettoes and enclaves are forcing our human native species to migrate into a shrinking countryside.

          5. The countryside would be under pressure even without recent immigration, as you point out. And close to a half of the post-1997 increase is European.

          6. Agreed, the UK's population is increasing rapidly at the same time as the indigenous population is decreasing. I would also point out that "half of the post-1997 increase is European.", yes, but what part of Europe? Albania and Romania spring to mind.

          7. Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary all joined in 2004. By the time of the referendum, there were 3 million EU nationals in the country. The majority of the post-2004 influx was from Poland and the Baltic states, although some from the east were in the EU before 2004 as guest workers and found their way here.

            Romania and Bulgaria joined in 2007. Albania is not a member.

          10. William, I don't think we're a million miles apart in our views, but I don't wish to get into an ongoing argument here. All the best. I'm sure I agree with an awful lot of your views.

          11. It wasn't meant to be (an ongoing argument)! Aggressive Islam is the most visible indicator of immigration but many of them come from families long settled in the UK. It was EU migration that upset so many people and contributed to the big rise in numbers but in the last 3-4 years it's been from just about everywhere.

          12. They are very destructive though, and they move along the rivers. In Germany, you see trees protected with wire netting and little electric fences along the banks of rivers, even in town centres.

          13. If they become too numerous then beaver pelts can make a comeback. It's like our deer population. There are currently too many and a good portion of them should be hanging in the butchers. Locally hunted venison is easy to come by here in Cornwall. Beavers, apparently, are tasty.

          14. They’re just a darn nuisance and there’s little upside to having them around apart from a bunch of greeniacs patting themselves on the back. Beaver pelts would be good, but I bet they will be protected.

          15. Protected until they didn’t need to be protected anymore and they become a commercial asset. On some rivers, at the right places, they could add to our relatively tiny mammalian population. They don’t have to be a nuisance. I’m no greeniac, but I would love to see some of our ‘native’ species back where they belong. Beavers were only extirpated from our rivers 4 or 5 hundred years ago.

          16. I am curious, how could they be a commercial asset? Having lived with beavers, they are just a pest in my experience. Unless there are some protected trees you want to get rid of and then you can say the beavers did it of course…!!
            My main fear is that they will be used as an excuse to allow flooding in the same way that (not) dredging is.

      1. Firstborn's place has beavers, and they really do make a point like a sharpened pencil.

      2. "Beaver: full beard or a man wearing one. Informal. an exceptionally active or hard-working person. Slang: Vulgar. a woman's pubic area."

  87. Shoots of hope for Britain's cherished ash trees
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg45zrex7jo

    "…scientists have discovered that ash woodlands are naturally evolving greater resistance to the fungal infection…"

    Or perhaps the disease is less virulent.

    However, it hasn't happened for another lost species.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/17922f5cbf611571385a2730f500fac27a490351f00ad851dab5b69e8f50bfc4.png
    There are elms in a hedgerow not far from me but as soon as they reach a few feet tall the disease gets them again.

    2. Ash are very mixed here, from doing ok to completely dead, but the ones in between haven't changed much since first infection so are still being cut down. Good logs.

          2. Yes, I suspect we may not be here too long – blink of an eye. Have you heard the ‘theory’ we came from Mars? 🙂

          4. Could be the same thing…where were we before tho…really the man (and woman) in the moon, chipped off from earth when it was snowballing..?

          6. Sorry, mola, kidding around…. The earth was covered in ice aeons ago, then as a snowball, then water, then the land, then life supposedly formed by a virus and a bacteria combining. The moon was formed after being struck off planet earth after a collision with a huge meteor…some of which only reoccur over hundreds or thousands of years, one reputed to herald the birth of Jesus. This is just one interpretation, seems as good as any (there are others) :-)) Kate x

          8. Thanks mola…for some reason only just got your mail, have saved it and will read later (first glance, looks good).

          9. Have you heard?
            It's in the stars
            Next July we collide with Mars
            Well, did you evah?
            What a swell party this is!
            © Cole Porter

          10. In 1999, I bought the complete works of CP – from the library – for £3.00 !!!

  88. Stephen Pollard
    Lord Hermer’s idiocy is boundless
    The Attorney General continues to embarrass himself and the Government

    27 June 2025 11:50am BST

    There is a long and ignominious tradition of idiotic comments by ministers thrust into the political centre-stage with no previous political background. But, fierce as the competition is, none of them come close to Lord Hermer for political idiocy.

    Speaking to the BBC, the Attorney General has said that accusations of a two-tier justice system are “disgusting” and “wrong”, posing “dangers” to the UK’s “essential institutions”.

    “I think it’s offensive to our police. It’s offensive to our crown prosecutors who are trying to apply the law in the best faith. It is offensive to the courts, where independent judges are applying the law to reach the right sentences”, he went on.

    We will come to the specifics of this in a moment. First, however – although you wouldn’t know it given Lord Hermer’s penchant for shooting his mouth off on whatever he seems to think matters – it is important to note that the role of Attorney General is not meant to be that of government trouble-maker-in-chief.

    It is meant to be that of a quiet, sagacious legal adviser. Lord Hermer, however, seems to treat it as a chance to pretend to be a heavyweight politician whose opinions the world needs to know.

    Last month, for example, Lord Hermer told the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) that both Nigel Farage’s Reform and Kemi Badenoch’s Tories had adopted Nazi ideology by asserting that national law supersedes international agreements, in reference to the idea of withdrawing Britain from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR): “The claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when conditions change, is a claim that was made in the early 1930s by ‘realist’ jurists in Germany, most notably Carl Schmitt”. It was a grotesque comparison for which he was later forced to issue a humiliating apology.

    Then there was his role in the handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which he asserted was about “honouring our obligations under international law” – even though the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion on the issue was not legally binding.

    It is remarkable how often Lord Hermer, a renowned KC, seems to speak before fully engaging his brain.Which brings us to today’s comments. Lord Hermer was referring to – dismissing, rather – accusations after the riots last summer, when it was argued that the rioters were treated unduly harshly.

    But he of all people will surely be aware that there is another element to accusations of two-tier justice, which he appears to have ignored altogether: the way in which the so-called Free Palestine marches have been allowed to continue with minimal intervention despite open chants calling for “globalising the intifada” (ie killing Jews) and support for terror against Jews.

    I simply do not see how it is possible not to accept that there is two-tier justice, when the hate marches have not merely been protected by the police – but when counter-demonstrators condemning Hamas or peacefully waving Israeli flags have been arrested.

    Hermer clearly fancies himself as some sort of moral conscience, when in reality he is merely the latest – albeit the most exalted and most egregious – of political buffoons embarrassing himself and the Government of which he is a part.

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

    Katy Taylor
    3 hrs ago
    Aaron Renwick not given a prison term in spite of being involved in riots and shouting and inciting violence and racist comments. All video'd.

    Lucy Connolly tweeted, but later deleted the tweet, 31 months in prison.

    2 tier???

    Alison Hopkins
    3 hrs ago
    Reply to Katy Taylor – view message
    Ricky Groves, mouthed off to a crowd about slitting throats, still awaiting trial. The man who set fire to the Koran, already tried and found guilty while the man who attacked him won't face a court until 2027.

    Philip Long
    3 hrs ago
    Hermer is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with this country. The smug, sneering, left liberal elite, who hate the UK.
    Paul Stephenson
    3 hrs ago
    Re: The Chagos deal. How much filthy lucre did Hermer make, or is in line to make, from "advising" the government of Mauritius?

    D Dobbie
    3 hrs ago
    Lord Hermer would be more suited and qualified to be Attorney General of Iran.

    Mathew Gubbins
    3 hrs ago
    Reply to D Dobbie
    It's funny you should say that! Currently, the government of Iran is looking to fill various posts, recently made vacant.

    Good remuneration and includes Life Assurance.

  92. Keith Toolmaker
    1h
    “international law important …. because it goes absolutely to the heart of what we’re trying to achieve."
    There is no International government. There is no president of the World. Where does this " international law" come from? Is it in the room with us now?

    Pincushion
    Keith Toolmaker
    1h
    And more importantly, when do the people get to choose which international laws to enact?

    Captain Sensible
    Keith Toolmaker
    1h
    It comes out of the bottoms of people like Lord Hermer.

    Lord Farquard
    1h
    Hermer: Two-Tier Justice Claims Are ‘Disgusting’

    Translation: "How dare the proles rumble our multiple tier justice system, designed to hold together the rapidly disintegrating multicultural project. Yes we hand long sentences to mums who tweet stuff contrary to the regime narrative on immigration while letting criminal immigrants who assault the police off with a caution. But it's for the sake of diversity.

  93. Bring it one here too.

    The court ruled 6-3 in favor of Trump, with all six conservative justices – including the three he appointed – siding with the president.

    The case arose after a battle between Trump and various judges in states far from Washington over his plan to end the right to birthright citizenship.

    Trump had issued an executive order that would deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of people who are in the country illegally, and several judges issued injunctions.

    The Supreme Court justices ruled those lower judges did not have the power to block Trump's policies nationwide.

    However, in a complex ruling, the justices did leave open the possibility that Trump's specific birthright citizenship changes could remain blocked.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14821151/Supreme-Court-delivers-bombshell-ruling-Trumps-plan-end-birthright-citizenship.html

    Friday's case stemmed from an executive order Trump signed when he took office that ended birthright citizenship – the legal principle that U.S. citizenship is automatically granted to individuals upon birth.

    Under the directive, children born to parents in the United States illegally or on temporary visas would not automatically become citizens, radically altering the interpretation of the Constitution's 14th Amendment for over 150 years.

    1. And they made it clear this was a ruling about the process and not a ruling on the Constitutionality of what he ordered.

      As the 14th Amendment states : "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States".

      This means that anyone born within U.S. territory, with limited exceptions, is automatically granted citizenship. Primary exception being children of other countries' accredited diplomats, who are not "subject to the jurisdiction…". BoJo had US citizenship because of the above Amendment – his father not being a diplomat.

      1. What I found interesting was the dissenting comment regarding the right to arm bears.

        Justice Sonia Sotomayor led the dissent.

        'No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates. Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship,' she wrote.

        A subtle way to put MAGA types against the citizenship being more difficult.

        1. She is quite correct, once you let politicians circumvent one Article of the Constitution, you have set a precedent. Imagine that nutty socialist from New York becoming president – he could "decree" gun control or swingeing tax changes, on the grounds of Trump having set the precedent.

          This SCOTUS has an issue in that Trump appointed 3 of the judges, and they tend to do what he wants. They are supposed to test cases against the "rules' set down in the Constitution, not try to change it through the back door. There is a formal process for change, but the administration does not want to go that route, as they would probably lose, plus it is a lengthy process, and we have a President who has the attention span of a hyper active Gen Zer.

          1. My big objection to it all is that Democrats go to lawfare as the first resort.

    1. It's a bit like Trump's great line;
      'They're not out to get me, they're out to get you. I just happen to be in the way!'

        1. Farage went off the boil when he sold his soul to Yusuf and turned on Rupert Lowe who was shaping up to be The Reform Party's far most effective person in the House of Commons.

  97. There are other words to describe him . . .
    https://scontent-cdg4-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/506714324_1127701616062175_5449137429892229348_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p552x414_tt6&_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=inL966NOsv0Q7kNvwHIkTXu&_nc_oc=AdkwldFfqAp5cZ0kODYtOPQU7WQTwuOfe4tKCuL3SramHOPyqVQO6Ds8o7-jEzNfNjfvPMXp8WaeIXPN64YfaT9b&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-cdg4-2.xx&_nc_gid=-RgEN2EcgMkxrIvAR3M2ig&oh=00_AfPEojyo1h6jjVcMroX4bRyUiX5V-sXYWXQMcyDepQgQnw&oe=68647D1D

    1. There's something very wrong with this cartoon – it makes Starmer look far better than he is in reality

      1. And he's wearing the wrong colour tie. And living in the wrong Downing Street house number.

  98. Wordle No. 1,469 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
    ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 27 Jun 2025

    A basic Birdie Three?

    1. Well done. Par for me.

      Wordle 1,469 4/6

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

    2. Well done – #MeToo – I was pleased with this one!!

      Wordle 1,469 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. If my first starter word doesn't work, try the next one

      Wordle 1,469 2/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  99. Afternoon all. Went to a meeting in Shrewsbury this morning which was a complete waste of my time. Then I dropped off some presents from France for a mutual acquaintance. By the time I had done that I didn’t feel like doing anything else so the studio and shed remain unpainted although I have the Ronseal and a suitable brush. When I shall manage that I have no idea.

    Why anyone should be surprised that Starmer and co have proved useless beyond measure I have no idea. Socialism has never worked and one only has to look back to the seventies to see how it works out in practice.

  100. Buenos tardes.
    As well as rats and cockroaches, we now have foxes roaming the hospital corridors.
    Our service is inclusive but…

  101. 408343+ up ricks,

    But,But,But, the majority voter has reform who tis possible could do a deal with the tory (INO) party,who are a segment of the lab/lib/con coalition party, who lest we forget have been highly successful in their endeavors to fatally cripple England these past thirty plus years.

    I do find trust in one party carrying ALL the eggs with no back up anti treachery, safety net party to, say the least, highly alarming.

    https://x.com/PWestoff/status/1938579965009616957

  102. Afternoon All
    Guess where the largest concentrration of helicopter flights in Europe is currently??
    Yup you got it Glastonbury
    Meanwhile acts and other assorted tossers bore on about the horrors of "Climate Change"
    Hypocrisy much??

      1. There’s a series of these videos, I didn’t notice one about “the most Nigerian Nigerian man” I must admit…

    1. 😆😅😁
      I remember doing something similar when I was making it.
      I might give it another go soon I'll get a starter going.

    2. Just in the middle of my rye sourdough loaf baking and I feel like that sometimes.

    2. No, it's an issue of hard pornography available to men, women, boys and girls et al.
      Never thought I would sound like Mary Whitehouse.

    1. Dont bother with the Times crossie today, Bill, it was a stinker! I gave up with about 6 clues unsolved!!

    1. and what's with the Plaid Cymru party hating the Welsh? Sinn Fein hating the Irish? and SNP hating the Scots?

    2. I'm fairly sure the old bat in white is entirely wrong about tax, and definitely wrong about the "been here before"!

    1. I rang the tinnitus hotline – they told me to leave a message after the tone…. Bastards!…..

  114. Trump hails 'giant win' after Supreme Court curbs judges' power to block his orders.

    BBC

  115. Apologies if anyone else has posted separately on this but I've just read that the new head of MI6 – one Blaise Metreveli – has a grandfather who was a mass-murdering Russian who defected to the Nazis in WW2 and presided over the killing of thousands of Jews and Ukrainian partisans – his nickname was 'The Butcher' (although there were a few nicknamed that, were'nt there?).
    Now call me old-fashioned but I would have thought that might be problematic in that role – whatever happened to positive vetting??

    Still, there's clearly no chance that she might be genetically inclined to that sort of excess, is there?
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e6194660476d8f1846e2213d7fb3dbb0635b6ee30392387d07d102f246e3e870.png
    Sleep well, everybody……

    1. I've just come back from the pub. Told a few people about this. Not sure anyone believed me.

      1. Hi there Mola

        I posted that from the Times this morning , and all I could think of was Anthony Blunt.

        The lengths that are done on any of us re DBS/ CRB checks , i needed that sort of thing when I was a school governor and also checks for other government things ..

        It seems standards have slipped .

        1. ‘Slipped’? No, having a demonic recent ancestor is the way to get ahead now.

    2. It is a bizarre story. Apparently he was a landowner before the Bolsheviks arrived and murdered most of his family…obv he hated the people who did that. So it's kind of logical that he joined the German side to fight against them. Ukraine has been horribly brutalised during the last hundred years. At a guess that is the origin of the Asov battalion's narsty leanings too.

      She sounds as dodgy as hell though, CV from the usual recruiting grounds and a head full of too many secrets.

  116. Fun fact from the DWP: 33% of Pakistani & Bangladesh adults have never worked.

    ..and don't intend to.. either, ever.

  117. Fun fact from the DWP: 33% of Pakistani & Bangladesh adults have never worked.

    ..and don't intend to.. either, ever.

  118. 'Night All
    Not just climate change…….
    "Open borders now!" chant the folks from behind their security fences in the "music" festival where you're not allowed to take part unless you've paid your way. The irony is off the scales.

    2. Anyone who is not outraged by this is mentally and morally retarded. Yet there are plenty of comments critical of Philp and Garner.

      I fear the end will come sooner than we think.

  120. A bit of bramble bashing on the upper level of "the garden" earlier on and saw the gooseberries up there are about ready, also a small number of raspberries, so went back up with a couple of containers.
    Then made a Cottage Pie and, after eating some, had another go at the brambles.
    Now yawning my head off and trying to stay awake.

    1. Agree, a giant red flag. No decent person should give the likes of Mandelson the time of day.

  122. After getting my new BT internet router which replaced the old copper cable connected telephone and supplied a fibre optic cable guaranteed to provide 900MBit/s data I have resorted to using my G4 mobile router in my bedroom to maintain the still functional dual WiFi band tablet that I am still using.

    I am now getting the following 2.4GHz WiFi signals in my bedroom:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0902ab7bfa7ba6d1ac4a21c88b728bcd4619c82946cb5f9826ff6932a9fa5825.jpg
    Guess which channel I'm on.

    My data rate is:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4634f1f9831d52088439ed4e005231195f4f8d29a5c04179cff9d9f2a07d140d.jpg and there's no chance of my connection dropping out because the SSID of my G4 mobile router has only one (2.4GHz) band – I've disabled the dual band SSID access to my BT router on this old ZenPad 3S 10.

    Edited cos I got my MBit/s and GHz mixed up – just like the new standards for internet over WiFi.

      2. User connection is set to automatic on both my dual band IEEE ‘n’ suffix and my IEEE ‘ax’ 6GHz WiFi tablets.

        I now find that I can connect automatically using the ‘ax’ but the ‘n’ does not. I can authorise my ‘n’ to attach to the dual band router’s single SSID but the dual band ‘n’ has to do its own search to attach to the dual band router.

        Basically my old ‘n’ tablet has become schizophrenic since the introduction of the latest WiFi standards. It looks as though standardising on WiFi 6 is the way forward using a high level of digital multiplexing.

        I can get the best data rate using my old schizophrenic ‘n’ after it finds the dual band single SSID router by itself.

        With my ‘n’ I am now achieving about 250Mbit/s connected at WiFi 5 at 5GHz. I hope I am still connected.

    1. For the slow (me), these are not sculptors, they're immigration and customs enforcement.

    2. Bateman did a cartoon of the Tax Inspector On the Trail of a Halfpenny in the 1930s. Some things never change!

  124. Some silver news.
    https://thesilverindustry.substack.com/p/mexico-joins-brics-silver-revolution?publication_id=1857579&post_id=166994569&isFreemail=true&r=28gmek&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
    China has just built a new deep water port in Chile. Mexico is moving towards nationalising silver mines. China buys a lot of partially processed silver directly from the miners, bypassing the price-fixing markets in London and New York.

    Ignoring the stock tips, there are some interesting numbers at the end:

    "based on current forecasts and growth trends suggests that about 222 million EVs will be produced globally between 2025 and 2030.
    Each silver solid state battery uses a kilogram of silver (new battery technology, better and safer than Lithium ion)
    Total weight of silver: 222,000,000 kg – In troy ounces: 7,137,455,400 oz (troy)

    To reach a total silver use of 7,137,455,400 troy ounces for the silver solid state battery—using the current total annual global mining output—would require approximately 8.6 years of the world’s entire silver mining output. (just for the mythical electric cars over the next five years)
    —
    Plus we have nut zero requirements for solar panels, armaments etc. It seems pretty obvious that the silver bandwagon is going to come off the rails at some point and the EVs are never going to be built because there isn't enough silver.
    So either they carry on manufacturing internal combustion engines or it's goodbye private transport.

    Does anyone else find themselves unable to believe that we won't just wake up one day and all this insanity will be over?

      1. They are making sure that they get all the silver which seems to be a fairly easy sum to calculate!

    2. This is getting beyond my understanding. I dont drive and don't have a car, thank goodness.

  125. My phone battery is red lining now, I'll call it a day.
    Back in the morning, early good night all 😴

    I'm so glad that I didn't go to Glastonbury 🤗😆 from what I've seen so far it looks bloody awful.

        1. Possibly. Did he even have a father and was he even a Scot.

          In the early seventies I visited Poland to meet a few people I had met in an architect’s office (Frederick Gibberd & Partners) and various social parties.

          I visited Poznan, Krakow and Warsaw but prior to leaving the UK was asked to take a few LPs of Rod Stewart’s song “Sailing”. I instantly regretted this at a party where the host played the damn ”Sailing” song as though on a loop.

          My flatmate at the time, the late Rosemarie MacQueen (Chief Planner at Westminster for several years who died too young) asked me to purchase a leather huntsman’s bag which were very popular with trendy women at that time. I never discovered what use was made of the leather loops under the flap intended for bullets.

      2. A very long time ago he was a singer in a band known as Steam Packet. I saw them on a couple of occasions but never really noticed Rod. I'm sure Maggie Bell was part of the set up as well.

    1. No, I do not buy that explanation. What I see is a big club and I'm not in it.
      They're all the same.

      1. Maybe, but context is everything.

        "Nigel Farage seemed tickled by a remark from British ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson at the 4th July celebration put on by the US embassy at Winfield House, the residence of US ambassador Warren Stephens. “Mandelson had just said that he had been telling the [Trump] administration that Reform has peaked too soon,” explained the party’s leader. Farage clearly found this hilarious. But it won’t be as funny as if Farage becomes the next prime minister and he is Mandelson’s boss."

        https://www.yahoo.com/news/lord-mandelson-made-nigel-farage-183835468.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly91ay5zZWFyY2gueWFob28uY29tL3NlYXJjaD9mcj1tY2FmZWUmdHlwZT1FMjEwR0IxNDk0RzAmcD1OaWdlbCtGYXJhZ2UrZHJpbmtpbmcrY2hhbXBhZ25lK3dpdGgrTWFuZGVsc29u&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABPZTnMyXaHtjnqjTdTAfRhc0skPQeEbrS_SklnM6eighttYi-nkZ61I0g4WZ63rwl81Nxibt9XGwo_d9yq1tw2JNHltC5cbxW6ToE8inLnjr47VxlzJlTj3-HDM_PYSpi7KlSe3xWMowQ_VOCWIDV_y_h_wwDDn_VLlaobhCIVJ

        1. Fair point, however (a) who gets invited to ambassadors’ parties? Dodgy people who the Establishment considers one of their own, that’s who! and (b) nothing that snake says would draw more than polite indifference from me because the likes of Mandelson are irrelevant to everything good and worthwhile.
          Farage shouldn’t even be emotionally engaging with that snake.

  128. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f0d215c9b9fb8db98df1774e18fd0b2c02d374008fa05aaf1553fb184e78ab50.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/05ab3870f9d12de515551a7fcbbbe746a6e7ef9b075ccc920777dc75b2af733b.png
    Michael Deacon's conclusion:

    At any rate, if that’s the sort of thing that today’s children are learning about, a GCSE in kerb-crawling can’t be far off. No doubt the nation’s well-heeled progressives will all be urging their offspring to take it. For all we know, at this very moment they may be eagerly enjoining them to forget about stuffy old Oxbridge, and take up the oldest profession, instead.

    “Come on, darling. At the very least you should get yourself a page on OnlyFans. Apparently there’s this marvellous young woman called Bonnie Blue who slept with more than 1,000 men, on camera, in just 12 hours. It just goes to show that if you’re willing to work hard, and set yourself an ambitious target, you can do anything you set your mind to…”

      1. Thankfully our grandchildren are all passed that as they’re in their 20s.

    4. 21 years ago and it's actually worse than they made it out to be, plus ça change.

  132. I went for a job interview at Evri. I said, "Sorry I'm late, I went to the wrong address."
    They made me regional manager.

  134. An Egyptian man has been deported from the US after kicking a customs dog so hard it flew into the air at an airport in Washington DC.

    Hamed Ramadan Bayoumy Aly Marie pleaded guilty to kicking Freddie, a five-year-old beagle who works with US customs officials to detect smuggled agricultural products at Washington Dulles International Airport.

    Freddie and his handler were on patrol at 6.30am local time on Tuesday when he detected a suspicious suitcase that had arrived on a flight from Cairo.

    Hamed Aly Marie, who owned the suitcase, spoke with a customs and border protection officer before he kicked Freddie “so hard that he was lifted off of the ground”, a federal complaint reads.

    The officers immediately handcuffed Marie before turning him over to homeland security for prosecution.

    Hamed Aly Marie, 70, pleaded guilty to kicking the dog on June 25 Credit: Alexandria Sheriff's Office
    They later found a raft of banned agricultural products inside his suitcase, including 25kg of beef meat, 20kg of rice, 7kg of aubergine, cucumbers, and bell peppers, 1kg of corn seeds, and some herbs.

    Freddie, who weighs 11kg, later required a trip to the emergency vet, where he was treated for contusions to his right rib.

    Marie was made to pay the $840 (£611) bill before being sent back to Egypt on a flight on Thursday.

    The incident took place in the baggage claim area of the airport, which is located in Virginia.

    Freddie with a CBP officer where he works at Washington Dulles International Airport
    Freddie with a customs officer at Washington Dulles International Airport
    Christine Waugh, a senior customs and border protection officer, said being caught with such an amount of food did not mean Marie could “violently assault a defenceless beagle”.

    Ms Waugh said custom officials “rely heavily on our K9 partners” and said Freddie was “just doing his job”, adding: “Any malicious attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.”

    “CBP will continue to work with our investigating and prosecuting partners to deal swift and severe justice to perpetrators.”

    Marie pleaded guilty at a court appearance on Wednesday to one count of harming animals used in law enforcement.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/06/27/egyptian-man-deported-after-kicking-us-customs-dog-into-air/?recomm_id=e9c02dc1-fd74-42be-ad09-0530c47bd8b2

    David Chapman
    5 min ago
    In Britain he'd have received no punishment because he is a protected minority ie anybody not white.

    Comment by Mike Byrne.

    MB

    Mike Byrne
    14 min ago
    If only we would do the same to the immigrants who break the law.

    Comment by Doug Kirkwood.

    DK

    Doug Kirkwood
    17 min ago
    This guy has got the same cold heartless eyes that the 9/11 terrorists had ?? Hopefully someone thoroughly checked out the contraband that he tried to smuggle into USA??

    Reply by King Kong.

    KK

    King Kong
    10 min ago
    Look at his sneer. Pure hatred.

    Comment by John Wright.

    JW

    John Wright
    19 min ago
    Here of course the dog would have been removed from duty for appearing to be acting in a slightly suspicious manner and the Egyptian would have received an official apology from the Home Secretary and granted leave to settle in the U.K. indefinitely.

    Comment by John BR.

    JB

    John BR
    23 min ago
    Had I been there he would be flying through the air holding his nuts.

    3. Whereas in Britain you can break a policewoman's nose and nothing will happen to you because racism.

      Paying the vet bill wasn't enough, the dog requires compensation for trauma suffered.

  136. Just back from the old girls’ reunion (40 years for us). When i left school, i didn’t bother with any of it but about 5 years ago my friends started nagging me to go. I flippantly said i would if they sang the school song at the end.

    So my friends made them start doing it – so i had to make good on my promise. Last year(my first time) unfortunately one of the really old girls had a heart attack and they had to call an ambulance and i had to leave (same drill as this year – i am getting up early tomorrow to go to Llanymynech to do the Offa’s Dyke path to Chirk; and on Sunday to Llandegla).

    Well, we sang the school song. It was fun. We are definitely a naughty year, even though we are approaching 60 in the next few years.

  137. RFree gear Keir
    Two tier Keir
    Never here Keir
    No idea Keir

    Can we have I'm outta here Keir?
    We can only hope

  138. Well, chums, a few words to all of you. I'm off to bed so will wish you all a Good Night. Sleep well, but I shan't see you any of you tomorrow. I am off to Oxford for the day and shan't be back until very late. So I'll see you all on Sunday morning, probably.

  139. Just did Saturday's Wordle in 6 (a Double Bogey). Someone might like to copy this on to Saturday's NoTTLe page. See you all on Monday after Oxford.

    Wordle 1,470 6/6

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

    1. Have a nice day Elsie.
      Definitely too many options today…
      Wordle 1,470 X/6

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

  141. Captain Sensible
    6h
    .nrut-U a seod reven eh taht mrifnoc ot em deksa sah remratS rieK riS

    1. They seem to be deliberately choosing the worst policies most likely to provoke a reaction from the public – picking on the weakest in society. They have focus groups to gauge people's reactions – they must know this. And we have more than enough migrants to kill 3/4 of the population if the food runs out, so why do they keep importing more?

    2. A classic example of how really stupid the majority of our political idiots really are.
      Absolute Wreckers.

        1. That doesn't seem to fit in with reality does it.
          Something in the air inside Wastemonster.

  143. Phew.
    Somehow my Disqus passwords were deleted and I've just had a pig awful job of logging on!
    For some reason the Google password manager appears to be trying to do too much.

    However, up early because of the DT's spare bloody phone!
    Coincident with planning to go and see Dr. Daughter tomorrow, Dr. Daughter's phone is on the blink and she is wanting for a new one.
    So, the DT charged her spare phone up yesterday to take up and lend to her and places it in her bag ready to go up.
    Unfortunately, the last time she used it she had set the alarm for 04:30, so at 04:30 this morning her spare phone began playing a bloody tune!

    2. Morning Bob 🙂😊
      Oh this modern technology eh, its difficult to understand how we all managed to make it this far in our world.
      Take care. 😉

Comments are closed.