742 thoughts on “Friday 27 September: Mud-slinging MPs do nothing to restore voters’ faith in Parliament”

  1. Assad regime used chlorine as a chemical weapon, says US. Thu 26 Sep 2019.

    The United States has concluded that the government of Bashar al-Assad used chlorine as a chemical weapon in May, marking the first confirmed violation of the ban on chemical weapons since Donald Trump authorized airstrikes in 2018 over Syria’s use of poison gas.

    “The Assad regime is responsible for innumerable atrocities some of which rise to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, told a news conference in New York, where he has been attending the UN general assembly.

    Morning everyone. This story has received coverage as far apart as the Toronto Star and the UrduPoint News and everyone in between. This is not because it is important in itself but has been released to bull up Mike Pompeo’s appearance at the UN. That said the story serves to illustrate the sheer mendacity and hypocrisy of the West’s opposition to the Assad government. The incident referred to as the attack of “May 19” or on “Idlib Province” is actually unsubstantiated and flatly denied its very existence by other parties. Pompeo probably chose it as a reference for this very quality of vagueness, since the most notorious of the supposed Chemical Attacks in Syria, such as the Douma Incident, have proved to be fabrications by the Jihadists and their MI6 mentors and would probably draw derision from his audience.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/26/syria-assad-chlorine-chemical-weapon

  2. https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

    Be careful what you wish for, Boris. There’s every chance the Tories would lose an election
    LEO MCKINSTRY

    The question is:

    Does Boris really want Brexit?

    If he does he will make an electoral pact with Nigel Farage and win a general election with a large majority.

    If he does not then he will lose the general election and Brexit and the Conservative Party will be lost forever.

    My fear is that Boris does not care and will sell out Brexit, the people and his party and be happy to go down in history as just a bonking buffoon who failed in the country’s hour of need.

    Let us hope to God that I am wrong.

    1. I hope so too, Richard, but I am prepared to wait another 35 days to see what happens before making a judgement on Boris. Indeed, let’s hope to God that you are wrong. (I shall not crow if you are.)

      2. Sorry Else, I was looking for ogga1, priceless, absolutely priceless. The naivety is unbelievable, but we all have our beliefs.

    2. We have a Supreme Court that has ruled against the Crown authority’s powers to suspend Parliament and a Parliament that has enacted a bill to withdraw the Prime Minister’s executive powers of negotiating the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

      When the affairs of state get this far out of control then events must just run their course.
      An effective leader may not necessarily care about the outcome but should let the parties who are still in the game be seen to take responsibility for the final outcome.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eb08cba21fdb8bf1ec5dac8c6a02c9697c865541ed23d4224aca37e253ef7d48.gif

  3. Good Morning Folks,

    Bright start here, nice Cheshire Cat moon staring back at me when I looked out the window earlier.

  4. Morning all

    SIR – I watched the House of Commons berate Boris Johnson for his use of the word “surrender”.

    The word is of French origin and means “to relinquish something”, which indeed he has been forced to do. He has lost his best bargaining chip in negotiations with the EU – the possibility of a no-deal exit.

    While Mr Johnson was calm and reasoned throughout, the level of anger displayed by some opposition MPs was quite shocking. Their hypocrisy in accusing him of being inflammatory was laughable, and bringing up the name of Jo Cox was abhorrent.

    Emma Jackson
    Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire

    SIR – Why should the Prime Minister’s use of the word “surrender” be condemned as inflammatory when his detractors repeatedly use the phrase “crash out” with impunity?

    Robin Bryer
    Closworth, Somerset

    1. SIR – Having watched and listened carefully to the parliamentary proceedings, I have no recollection of any intemperate or vulgar language used by the Prime Minister. Considering the amount of abuse aimed at him, he should be applauded for being restrained.

      One wonders whether those expressing their outrage at his apparently inappropriate language feel the same way about the Liberal Democrats’ banners and posters that bear the message “B——s to Brexit”.

      John D Berman
      New Barnet, Hertfordshire

    2. There’s another layer of people going around and around in ever decreasing circles?
      Read the DM letters (Greig permitting) at least there people are far more woke.

    4. Yes, Robin Bryer – reporters and other similar motor-mouths also frequently use “crash out”. This is no accident and is designed to demonstrate their right-on view of the EU in their respective media bubbles.

      ‘Morning, Epi.

  5. SIR – Most people will be concerned by the increased use of intemperate language in the House of Commons, and its potential consequences.

    However, the BBC has an important role to play, and I regret that Thursday morning’s Today programme reached a new level of bias, both in its choice of interviewees and the treatment they received.

    The low point came when Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, was allowed to go unchallenged after comparing the actions of the Prime Minister – deemed retrospectively to have acted unlawfully – to those of a shoplifter.

    Gordon Brown
    Grassington, North Yorkshire

  6. So we have a parliament full of William Joyces’s getting angry for being called the traitors that they really are, I don’t really understand what they are griping about.

    1. Betrayers, traitors, fifth columnists, subversives, cheats, backstabbers, collaborators, ..what else should we call those who work night and day for three and a half years to kick 17.4m voters in the balls?

      ‘Morning, B3.

  7. SIR – It is claimed that the Government broke the law when it advised the Queen to prorogue Parliament.

    Those who make such claims are not fit for pubic office, as it is clear that there was no established law against a decision that has only subsequently been declared unlawful.

    Whatever epithets may be applied justly to Boris Johnson, “lawbreaker” is not one of them.

    Alexander Hopkinson-Woolley
    Bembridge, Isle of Wight

    1. I have just read the summary of the Supreme Court Judgement and it is very complex and convoluted and supposes a lot about the PM’s reasonings. I find it surprising that the 11 judges were able to produce such a unanimous verdict and report in such a short time.

        1. Boris broke no law. Why did he cave in so quickly? The summary , like an EU directive or concession, is a maze of legalese obfuscation.

          1. He has enough battles on his plate (the EU, the House of Commons) without adding to them. Hence the “I have the highest respect for the Law but profoundly disagree with the Supreme Court’s judgement” line.

        1. The Law Gazette claims that nine out of the eleven are paid a generous stipend by the EU.

          Why do I believe the Law Gazette?

          Because if their claim was false they would be in great danger of being sued!

      3. So do I, Clyde. And now that the Supreme Court has decided to join in with the attempts to cancel Brexit, they are fair game for the spotlight of public disgust.

      4. I also find it surprising that the 11 judges came to a unanimous decision, especially as two lower courts gave differing opinions. One would have thought that the Supreme Court judges would reflect the fact that other judges had already disagreed over the legality of the Prorogation. But not only did they say that the matter was justiciable, but also the government’s actions were unlawful, and also that the Prorogation had never happened. For the judges to be of one mind on all these issues is astonishing.

          1. Bill – A caution to the politicians as to their future actions would have sufficed. By cancelling the Proroguing and making the long established power of prorouging illegal the court has gone beyond its remit and has offended our Queen and reduced her authority. I must add that my admiration for my Queen is undiminished.

        3. ‘Morning, Aeneas, for the squeaker to have the record of Parliamentary proceedings changed to say that the house rose on ‘n’ date and resumed on ‘n + x’ date without mentioning the prorogation is tantamount to a big lie.

          If the record states that there was no prorogation, then there was no court case either.

  9. Morning again

    SIR – Michael Mansfield QC believes that eating meat is a “crime against humanity.

    May I, on behalf of all carnivorous counsel, disassociate myself from his mealy mouthings?

    Howard Bentham QC
    Antrobus, Cheshire

    2. Somebody yesterday mentioned about needing big money to take somebody to court. Oh no you don’t. They are not like they are on telly and this QC idiot proves it. Do it yourself. Or get a public access barrister. The judges and the clerk of the court have to assist you, they can’t talk to you like you’re a bazza.
      Got any bazzas on here?

    3. We have to make allowances for Mansfield, Mr Bentham. He’s a bonkers leftie lawyer who considers himself important. Book to sell, perhaps?

      ‘Morning, Epi.

    1. It is staggering that such a statement can only be said by a foreign commentator.
      But then again, Yanis Varoufakis was himself shafted by the EU so knows what he is talking about.

        1. He also lectured at UEA and was in the same department (Philosophy and Economics) as my tutor who still lives in Norwich though he is now retired.

          Indeed we still see quite a lot of David (my former tutor) as my younger son, Henry, studied Philosophy and Politics at UEA.

          Apparently Yanis Varoufakis was a very lively wire in the Senior Common Room and was much liked.

  11. Brit blogger Jolie King warned she faces 10 YEARS in Iranian hellhole prison for flying a drone after a ‘show trial’ that’ll last minutes. 26 Sep 2019, 18:06.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/68105504332d91b171217c2bd51d6e9b57f939e3aa418306f6846f4583d6d234.jpg

    Ms King and Mr are not the only Australians detained in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.

    Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a researcher from the University of Melbourne, has reportedly been held in solitary confinement there for a year.
    She was accused by Iran of spying. Her supporters say she was simply studying a religious course at an Iranian university prior to her arrest in August last year.
    It has been reported Dr Moore-Gilbert has been sentenced to 10 years in jail.

    I am not I believe a cruel person or indifferent to the sufferings of others, especially if it is at the hands of governments, but my sympathies for these people are essentially nil. Aside from the not totally unrealistic suspicion that these people really are spies I ask myself what person with an ounce of sense would go to Iran at any time let alone now?

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10013562/instagram-influencer-iranian-prison-drone/

    1. Morning Minty

      I would not set foot in any Arab/ Muslim country , ever .. anymore.

      They turn so quickly … in fact their unpredictable behaviour must be similar to facing the disgraceful harridan behaviour of female Labour MP’s during PMQs.

      1. MB and I have said that never again would we visit Morocco.
        It was edgy enough 40 years ago, but now it’s an absolute no no.

        1. Will never ever shop in Bournemouth anymore either.. Language schools are in abundance .. and the glares and edgy behaviour of their students is quite unsettling .

      2. A few are safe but are very much the exception. Egypt used to be save but it is not so safe now due to Muslim extremist gaining ground there. It is similar in Turkey

    2. There’s stupid … and then there’s really stupid.
      Presumably Dr. Kylie’s education didn’t include reading the news.

    3. The Iranian authorities, fully understanding what their country is like, would identify any westerner staying there as being either a spy or insane.

    1. Corbyn, as a PM, would never be able to bring the UK people together. His policies would split the public even further

      1. The one thing that Brendan Cox has in common with Boris Johnson is that they both go in for extra-marital bonking.

    3. Well said, Piers. Agent Steptoe is a worm of a man.

      On second thoughts, that is unfair to worms, because they are infinitely more useful.

    4. His speech ends with “And so, we will be doing everything [Corbyn’s emphasis, not mine] to… remove [this Prime Minister] from office and to elect a Labour government.” Everything, Jeremy? Like removing him from office by a vote of No Confidence and forcing a General Election – actions which you failed to take when the Speaker recalled Parliament on Wednesday?

  13. Good morning thinkers

    Pouring cats and dogs, sharp showers, wind in the trees but still very mild in these Dorsetty parts.

    What do you think of this then.. deep breaths and stay calm !

    Group of 150 black broadcasters call on BBC to reverse ruling against Breakfast host Naga Munchetty over Donald Trump racism row

    Broadcasters including Lenny Henry have backed the BBC’s Naga Munchetty
    Ms Munchetty was criticised by the BBC for expressing her opinion on racism
    She was commenting after Donald Trump published an racially offensive Tweet
    The BBC said Ms Munchetty had breached the corporation’s impartiality rules

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7510357/Group-150-black-broadcasters-call-BBC-reverse-ruling-against-Breakfast-host-Naga-Munchetty.html

      1. That is Nagina. I used to refer to my boss’s interfering wife in Ostfriesland as ‘Nagina’.

    2. Yo T_B

      The following has been judged,as the mosterest lyingesterer sentence ever

      The BBC said Ms Munchetty had breached the corporation’s impartiality rules

  14. The anger of Conservative MPs being forced into the Chamber to be scolded at for irrelevancies when they need to prepare for their Conference is quite justifiable.

    The SNP, Liberal Democrat and Labour conferences have already taken place.

    1. Boris is better off without one to be fair, just imagine all the surrender monkeys turning up and getting all the air time.

      1. The Conference is still going ahead but in a cut down form. It would have been more expensive to cancel it

        I bet though if Boris was to propose legislation to cancel the conference season the opposition would vote it down.

        With all the recess Westminster has it could have its Conferences during one of the reces say the November one

  15. What is the vision for the nation on offer from sitting MPs and their challengers?

    All they seem capable of right now is spending huge amounts of legal fees (and Parliament is like a very expensive law firm) using up time complaining about their own hurt feelings, whilst neglecting the very real and far more pressing concerns of their constituents.

    1. Their vision for the nation is an EU vassal state with them taking their orders from Brussels, rubber stamping all their directives while getting lucrative jobs on the gravy train for them and their children and wives with the electorate left to vote for their puppet leaders, much as it is now to be fair.

      1. Morning B,
        The electorate have played a big part over the decades in constructing our current political standing.

        1. I put out an APB on you yesterday. Please pop up to the beginning of the day’s thread and see if you can answer my question. I’ll be really obliged.

          Yes, but why is your inference about talking down to the electorate? To you and I Farage is not what he seems. They are supposed to be our leaders so people look up to them. Take the police, (please!) everybody respected them, but now…

          Just remember that the UK is the first and only country to have a majority vote against the globalists. Go on the DM comments and see how many people use the word traitors. It’s very refreshing. To me all the MPs are traitors and anybody who voted Remain as well.

        2. I put out an APB on you yesterday. Please pop up to the beginning of the day’s thread and see if you can answer my question. I’ll be really obliged.

          Yes, but why is your inference about talking down to the electorate? To you and I Farage is not what he seems. They are supposed to be our leaders so people look up to them. Take the police, (please!) everybody respected them, but now…

          Just remember that the UK is the first and only country to have a majority vote against the globalists. Go on the DM comments and see how many people use the word traitors. It’s very refreshing. To me all the MPs are traitors and anybody who voted Remain as well.

          1. Well no even worse as at least some pretence of controlling those from outside of the EU is made

          2. I wonder how a government can properly budget to raise taxation and then fund public services when they have no idea how many people will come each year

          3. They cannot which is why the country is in a mes with all its service trying to cope with massive numbers of people who flood in each year whilst contributing little if anything to the economy

        2. The Blair Government would not let my Filipina then-girlfriend have a tourist visa to visit my country for three weeks, on the balance of probabilities that she might do something inappropriate, such as to marry me.

          Women are only supposed to marry other women.

          I broke off the relationship in the end, because there were no future prospects until she had had a chance to see my country for herself, as I had seen hers, and have a truthful idea what it is like, rather than a rosy fantasy. Living in the tropics, she had no concept even that snow was cold, yet her language had words for coconut that spread over two pages.

    1. Same as May, he has his own team of PR advisers, appointed by him and Mrs Engelson. And of course, just like May, they ensure that the advisers must not outshine themselves.

  18. Apathy

    Apathy in my view is why we have such a disgraceful bunch of useless and unaccountable MP’s. Have we ever had such disgraceful and low standard from our MP;’s before?

    This in my view has come about because 95% of MP’s feel they will be re-elected regardless of what they do or even don’t do so they feel they ca happily totally ignore the electorate and just do as they please

    The behaviour of most of these MP’s is unacceptable and in any normal job they would have been disciplined or fired but in the commons anything goes
    Interestingly it is many of the woman that are the worst behaving like demented screaming harpies

    1. Most MPs are now roughly the calibre of town councillors.
      For forty plus years they’ve had little responsibility because there’s always been Nanny EEC/EU to blame if things get sticky.

      1. Quite why we still need 650 of them when there is the EU. Scottish assembly. NI assembly & Welsh Assembly and Elected Mayors doing most of the work they used to do who know. Some MP’s though think we should have even more of them

        Quite clearly the MP’s have far to much spare time and far to little to do. The same applies in the Lords

        WE probably need no more than 300 MP’s and thats being generous and about a 150 Lords

        1. There is a crying need to reduce the number of constituencies from 650 to 400 max and return the House of Lords to the Hereditaries only and kicking out the surplus 700 sponging troughing life peers.

      2. Morning Anne .

        There is no dignity left .. either in Parliament nor in the media .

        Depressing and horrible.. and the political fish wives are an unattractive sight.

        1. The standard of the Male politicians is bad but the female ones seem even worse. What a sorry state we are in. WE need a total clear out of the commons

          1. Bumps at the front promotions. We interviewed some ghastly make-weights under Call Me Dave’s orders to include 50% females in the candidate line-up.

      3. Please! Tom Wells, the Musical Director of the community choir in the next village (which is actually a prestigious choir that can sell out 800 seats for its run of Christmas concerts) is also a district and county councillor and since May 2019 the Deputy Leader of Malvern Hills District Council.

        He lost his temper on the doorstep with a constituent who told him “I’m not going to vote for any of you – you are all useless”. He answered back “then don’t expect in six months anyone to sort out that planning issue on your doorstep”.

        Very many councillors are of very high calibre, but are stymied by national Government piling up their commitments onto the councils when there is only the deeply regressive Council Tax permitted to pay for them. Furthermore, there are so many rules imposed on councillors by others, that they are lucky to get anything done without being taken to court.

        1. Look up ‘town councillor’.
          I could have said ‘parish councillor’.
          From my observations, for every district/borough/county councillor with intelligence, there are at least five whose mental powers are somewhat limited.
          They are easily lead by the officers who prefer coasting along until they can pick up their gold plated pensions.

          2. Town and parish councillors are mostly amateurs, who work for nothing and just like to keep in with the neighbours.

            If you want a really damning description of an MP, how about corporate executive?

  19. Morning, Campers.
    I think we can see why our gun laws are so draconian.
    Only criminals are now able to sort out the disgusting rabble in Parliament.
    And don’t mention the ballot box as a solution.
    If – IF – we ever have a general election, neither Parliament nor the Chicken Supreme Court will allow a result that goes the ‘wrong way’.
    But then, a good selection of Peterboroughs will ensure that Spiderwoman and her ten good men and true will not be expected to bestir themselves.

  20. Morning, all. Rain through the night. Sun just beginning to burst through but more rain on the way.

    1. Morning DB

      Hope you are feeling better now.

      Gusty , wet and very wet ! Patches of blue , but don’t be deceived.. feels more like April weather really.

      1. Morning, Maggie. It appears that I have been a naughty boy. Apparently I am not to lift anything or bend over or whatever …. However, when you feel fit and well you tend to ignore such rules and I paid for it. I am fine, now.

        2. Good news. You only know you’ve done too much when you’ve done it.
          You know your body better than the doctors in terms of how you feel.

        3. When – as a child – I was called into the Head Teacher’s office and told to “Bend Over” I found it very painful. Now, when I drop something on the floor and “Bend Over” to pick it up, I find it painful too. I think that this proves that I have reached my Second Childhood.

          :-))

  21. I have decided that our politician are desperately needed elsewhere so I suggest we vote for them to all be seconded rto Syria to sort the political situation out there. They all claim to be such geniuses it should not take them back

    To control the budget I suggest we only but them one way tickets as I suspect most would not be returning

  22. ‘Morning All
    Well what a couple of days,firstly I note that it was soooooo important that Parliament returned to discuss Brexit that today they have all buggered off for a long weekend………….
    Secondly,what a sight,the screaming fishwives(of both sexes) in their coordinated fake outrage first about Jo Who and them about the lethal hurty words “Surrender” and “Humbug” which appear to have triggered mass death and rape threats,aye right,I can barely write them here without checking the magazine in my pistol prior to running amok.
    It’s all utterly fake,ably assisted by the MSM and all aimed at one end……………….Remain
    Parliamentarians?? I’ve shat better

    1. They all would have been much happier if they had stayed at conference/home. Absolutely nothing achieved by the traitorous litigants.

    2. Anyone who criticises a political opponent, under the Cathy Newman principle, is therefore guilty of inciting someone to issue death threats or even lay into said opponent with shotguns and knife. Stands to reason, don’t it?

      Therefore, from now on, only unintelligible baby babble, which can incite nobody and cause offence to nobody that matters, is permitted in the Chamber.

      When I can elect Tinky Winky? No, I am more Green-inclined, so it’s Dipsy for me.

  23. Should Legislation be introduce to make it a legal requirement that MP’s that defect to another party or become an Independent are required to stand down and face a by-election?

    2. I would amend that slightly. The requirement to call such an election should depend on the old party’s capacity or willingness to contest the seat, after it has selected a prospective candidate. It would then be under application from a Representative of the appropriate Party Constituency Association.

      It may well be, in the case of those Conservative MPs thrown out for disloyalty, that after the dispute that brought this about has been resolved (in this case Brexit), the Association and the Party may invite the recalcitrant MP back into the fold, and is prepared to keep the seat warm in the meantime.

      Those elected as Independents who then join a party need not face a by-election, since party labels are irrelevant in this instance,

      1. Well it is a given that it is down to the constituency party as to who they field as a replacement candidate. The old MP having defected is no longer a party member and ther party he or she defected to may not want him or her in that constituency

        1. Agreed. If Rushcliffe Conservative Association decide, in their wisdom, to allow old Ken Clarke to see out his retirement, that’s up to them.

          1. Part of the problem in my view is the Constituency party system. Very few people are members of a political party and even then the decision as to who stands come down to a tiny sub set of committee members. It is very much a select club. How one gets around this I do not no. Maybe there could be a system where you register as a party supporter but not a member and hat gives you the right to vote on candidate selection.

          2. How about joining the party? It is surely fair to presume that those who do not, don’t give a damn about who is put up as a candidate.

            I was last a member of a party in 1987. When I resigned my membership (or to be more precise, the party disintegrated and was then taken over), I gave up my right to select future parliamentary candidates of any party.

      2. These traitors will always be traitors and should be banished for life or they should join the Lib/Dems if they wish to stay in politics.

        We do not want the enemy within to still be within trying to undo Brexit even if a proper Brexit is achieved.

    3. You are certainly not the first person to think this.

      Dougas Carswell and Mark Reckless showed that they had a level of integrity completely lacking in the recent turncoats such as Soubry and her democracy hating brothers and sisters.

      If Boris does not change his tune soon over an electoral pact with the Brexit Party the the true believers in a proper Brexit shoul defect openly and honestly presenting themselves for by-election. These honourable people who put Britain’s independence ahead of anything else should include:

      Owen Paterson
      Steve Baker
      Mark Francois
      John Redwood
      Bill Cash
      Richard Drax
      Kate Hoey
      Frank Field
      Esther McVey

      for starters. Any other suggestions?

      1. I think this is a personal Cummings dislike thing, but I have to say, as a past contributor to the Brexit Party that some of Mr Farage’s recent comments have been rather odd.

      2. William Pitt the Younger
        The Duke of Wellington
        Sir Robert Peel
        Benjamin Disraeli
        Sir Winston Churchill
        Enoch Powell
        RAB Butler
        Margaret Thatcher

        Will these count? :•)

          6. ‘Morning, George, after they moved to Wales, I was amused by a local wag who stated, “Llantrisant, the hole with The Mint in it.”

          1. Rowntree’s made the tastiest chocolates and confections ever.

            Nestlé bought the company and trashed every product.

    6. Old English Spangles, especially the pear drop and aniseed flavours, were my favourites when I was nobbut a sprog. (I gave the treacle ones away!)

  25. Good morning all
    BTL comment on Dominic Cummings view on Remainers

    Awld Divil 27 Sep 2019 8:52AM
    In any society there are haves and have nots.

    The haves are intelligent, hard working and aspirational. We are not thrown into blind panic by life’s hiccups and we view every problem as an opportunity.
    For us, Brexit will create as many opportunities as difficulties and we will exploit each one of these to our advantage.
    Then there are the have nots. Ill educated, ill informed, indolent and lacking enterprise, these are life’s losers. For them the only opportunity Brexit presents is vent their resentment and frustration with life. They blame others for their own failure and refuse to admit their shortcomings.
    These people are to a man labour voters or brexiloons.

    1. I dislike this division of humanity intensely. In particular, I find the concept of “loser” American and really quite offensive.

      Very often, have and have-not status is delivered by destiny or fate. Simple illness or being let down by someone you rely on (divorce being the obvious example) can create a have-not situation where someone no longer has the strength or even the will to be hardworking and aspirational. Giving up hope is often a comforting alternative to relentless banging one’s head against a brick wall and getting nowhere.

      The generous-spirited approach to bad times is not necessarily to act as zoo-keeper doling out dependency, but rather restoring strength and capacity to raise oneself up. This is the best Conservative approach, and Tories should not descend into becoming mean-spirited just because it is trending.

      1. I agree with many of your points. However, the negativity of the majority of MPs is neither inspirational nor aspirational to their constituents or the country at large. Through this past 3+ years not one of then has given a rational reason for remaining in the EU. I recommend this saying, taken from a staircase landing at our granddaughters school, and should be written large in every school and MPs surgery.

        It is your attitude, not your aptitude, that will determine your altitude.

        1. I like Mark Twain;
          “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog”.

      2. I agree.

        Life isn’t black and white and a glance around any public place proves that. Fat, thin, small, tall, we’re all different – and that’s just the outside.

        Do I want to be a ‘have’, or even a ‘have not’ based on the criteria of the Div? No thanks.

  27. The Continual fake claims of huge food and Medicine shortages should we leave with no deal

    These claims are completely and totally false yet many politicians and mot of the Media present it as a Fact

    The claims all revolve around Dover and they seem to think everything comes into the UK via this one port. IT is true that Dover is our Largest Roll on Roll off port but it actually only accounts for just over 15%. So even if nothing come in via Dover and nothing was diverted to other ports we would only be 15% down

    The Ports of Dover & Cialis though have said they are a 100% ready for Br exit and anticipate no delays. Should any issues occur Dover & Calais have well rehearsed contingency plans to deal with it. Delays do occur at Dover due to bad weather and strikes and they are well prepared to deal with them

    Claims of only 40% of good getting through are just ludicrous and many politicians and media misreport that as only 40% of goods getting into the UK when the 40% refers to Dover

    Absolute worst case might be a temporary small drop in good getting in amounting to 1 or 2% for a week o so . Critical items such as medicines would not be impact

    2. Hi Bill,
      Very worried that you are concerned about medicines being delayed at Dover.

      However stupendously high intellects such as ours have worked out a brilliant innovative solution.

      We call it “The Bleriot Principle”

      …Hire an aeroplane and fly the medicines into Britain, thus avoiding Calais completely.

      We fully expect large royalties for this incredible idea- as no politician or civil servant has yet puzzled it out.

      1. I am not saying that. The politicians and media are. There will be no shortages of medicines due to Brexit it i just fear mongering by the REmainers trying to frighten people who are dependent on drugs

  28. Daily Brexit Betrayal

    That was it? This nothing-burger was it?

    This was why they wanted Prorogation to be stopped? Where were our

    esteemed Remain harlots for the debates on important issues like Hong

    Kong and Iran, on arms exports to Saudi Arabia, on Climate Change and

    above all on ‘democracy and the rights of the electorate’? Nowhere to be

    seen!

    The one debate these space-and-time wasters

    eagerly attended was on ‘language’, and of course on the question that

    Johnson must ‘obey the law’. ‘Language’ was also debated ad nauseam

    outside the HoC in our wonderful MSM where Remainers hold sway.

    Obviously, this was only about Johnson’s ‘language’. We’ll look at that

    as well.

    Firstly, one vote took place yesterday:

    would the House agree to a three-day recess early next week for the

    Tory Conference? No, was the answer: Ayes: 289 – Noes: 306, the Noes

    have it. It shocked even me when I read later that nine of the 21 ‘Tory

    rebels’ who had the whip withdrawn voted No (here). You do the maths … !

    Inevitably, prominent Remainers scurried to the MSM and ‘warned’ that this could, nay: would mean that Johnson might now prorogue Parliament again, the horror!

    These Remainers, swanning around the TV studios,

    had of course not been in the HoC when the Leader of the House, Jacob

    Rees-Mogg, answered a Labour MP who asked him ‘to to rule out

    prorogation next week’.

    JRM said that the prorogation, when it comes,

    will comply with the judgment of the Supreme Court and therefore meet

    the requirements of the Queen’s Speech process “and no more.” There was

    deadly silence in the Chamber following that answer. But I’m getting

    ahead of myself.

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-brexit-betrayal-friday-27th-september-2019/

  31. Why are we getting the constant nonsense of wanting to extend Brexit yet again. They have had over 3 years to reach a deal and have failed. They ill not reach a deal with another extension and in fact the EU may not offer one in any case . THe EU are highly unlikely to offer any sensible deal at present given what May did and what many MP’s are doing. In negotiation you dont give away any more than you need to and our politicians have undermined our position

    WE are well prepared for leaving the EU under WTO arrangements. This is not crashing our nor is it falling over a cliff. Trade will carry on with Europe

    The UK is a critical export market for the EU but they are not to admit that at present Once we level it will be a different story as it greatly strengthens our negotiating position.WE want to trade with the EU and EU companies want to trade with us. IT is the politicians that are currently the obstacle

  32. Nurse,NURSE !!
    I am reading Amber Rudd is prepared to take on the role of “Unity Prime Minister”
    That’s it,all the Al-Beeb comics can take a week off,no funnier lines will be written for ages

  34. The EU risks squandering its last chance to do a deal with Britain
    PIETER CLEPPE – 27 SEPTEMBER 2019 • 6:00AM

    The clock is ticking, not just for Britain, but for Brussels

    When it comes to EU negotiations, it is becoming ever clearer that the political consequences of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament are not particularly significant. Yes, it means that MPs have only lost two weeks, instead of five, to try to influence Brexit. But, more importantly, Parliament can’t really agree on much.

    There is no support, at least not yet, for any of the alternatives: a Brexit deal, allowing “no deal”, revoking article 50, an early election or a second referendum. Boris Johnson may have lost his majority, but there isn’t an alternative one ready to replace his government. There is only a majority for extending UK membership, something that doesn’t settle anything.

    The EU must really consider carefully whether it wants to waste the upcoming month in the hope that Boris is deposed, opening the way for either a “softer Brexit” or the reversal of Brexit altogether. The latter is something many in the EU now realise is unsustainable, given how difficult the UK would be as a partner, not least due to the 17.4 million voters that would feel betrayed.

    Given that Boris Johnson may also adopt a much more radical position on Brexit in the event of an election, in order to gain votes from the Brexit party, the EU would do well to realise a deal with him now is likely to be much easier rather than one later.

    Boris has been moderating his position, most notably by suggesting an all-Ireland agri-food zone, which would increase the number of checks on UK territory, in the Irish Sea. He has however refused to align Northern Ireland to the EU’s customs territory, as this would mean intra-UK customs checks. Instead he has proposed things like trusted trader schemes and technology as a means to soften the border. The EU considers this to be a big obstacle.

    Boris Johnson still wants to preserve the Good Friday Agreement, but by minimising border checks instead of avoiding them altogether. This has lead to EU accusations that he was no longer committed to the “frictionless” trade Theresa May signed up to but only to trade that was “as frictionless as possible”.

    As a European diplomat put it: “His proposals presuppose the management of a border . . . not the avoidance of a hard border, as was the clear commitment between the EU and the previous UK government.”

    The UK and the EU also seem to define what constitutes a “border” in a different way. Whereas the UK only sees it as a geographical frontier, the EU takes a wider view encompassing the all-island economy, thereby also defining checks away from the frontier as a border.

    The backstop is intended to protect the “Good Friday Agreement” and because of this, many equate it with this important peace accord, but as a new Open Europe briefing highlights, this is fundamentally mistaken. The backstop does not meet the same tests for cross-community consent as the Good Friday Agreement. Nationalists support it but most unionists oppose it.

    The backstop may on the contrary undermine the already weak institutions established under the agreement, as there are major doubts that it respects the important “Principle of Consent” in the Good Friday Agreement that any fundamental changes to Northern Ireland’s governance must enjoy support among both communities.

    The key difference between Boris Johnson and Theresa May is that the former is much keener for the UK to have an independent trade policy. Theresa May’s team seemed much more relaxed about this not materialising, by signing up to the backstop arrangement, which puts Brussels in charge of UK trade policy.

    Given that Boris is set on an independent trade policy and therefore tariff differences, which will necessitate some checks, this means that for a deal, “European leaders will have to make a difficult shift in the negotiating red line of having no regulatory friction on the border at all. That is a big ask” an EU source tells The Times.

    That is the case, to be fair, but surely asking for the UK to sacrifice an independent trade policy until further notice isn’t exactly a modest demand either.

    There is, however, cause for optimism, as the EU has been moving too, even though one needs a microscope to see it. For a start, there was the EU’s willingness to grant Ireland some slack on border checks in case of “no deal”, at least for a while. That’s good news, as it is sometimes forgotten that it’s Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium that are going to ask Ireland to protect the EU’s external border after Brexit, while Boris Johnson has pledged that “under no circumstances (…) will the (…) United Kingdom be putting checks on the Northern Irish frontier.”

    Secondly, given how leaky the EU’s external border is, it would be weird if Ireland were to come under intense pressure to deliver a perfectly protected border from those countries that fail in exactly that.

    We are talking here about Greek customs facing more than €200 million in fines for failing to act against a major Chinese fraud network dumping ultra-cheap clothing and footwear in Europe. And about the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam, those major gateways to the EU’s internal market, which are “leaking like a sieve”, according to Antwerp’s mayor.

    On this, we can spot some movement, as there were some rumours about tolerating the same lacklustre VAT collection in Northern Ireland as elsewhere in the EU.

    But apart from this glimmer of hope, nothing is moving on the EU side. EU negotiators have dismissed most UK demands for flexibility, which ultimately come down to tolerating a few extra holes in the external border, for the sake of peace. One such demand was to exempt small traders from being checked at the border.

    Even if Ireland would move on the backstop, flexibility from Ireland’s EU partners in tolerating a border that is at least as leaky as the EU’s external border elsewhere will be absolutely crucial in order to come to a deal.

    If Juncker is not just being diplomatic when stating that he thinks Boris is intent on a deal, he should realise the EU will need to move. In one month, “dealmaker” Boris may be replaced with “no deal Boris”. To quote EU negotiator Michel Barnier: “The clock is ticking”.

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

    BTL:

    tony gilbert 27 Sep 2019 7:03AM
    Bottom line is that the EU wants to protect its Single Market. But it wants us – the nation Leaving – to do the protecting.

    Why should we do that? – we owe them no consideration; if their SM needs protecting, let them do it.

    Bianca Mitchell 27 Sep 2019 7:18AM
    They’re stalling – if we’re forced into yet another extension into 2020 we risk being forced into adherence to clauses in the Lisbon Treaty that effectively trap us for all time in the EU.

    Who is stalling? 5th columnists in the Parliament, and the would-be overlords at Brussels.

    1. The EU does not care about the Good Friday Agreement, which has no reference as to how the border should be managed on any of its 35 pages.
      The EU would be happy with a united Ireland. We in the UK have been very casual and never pushed logic to its natural end. The Irish rugby team is all-Ireland.
      How can it be that citizens of different countries play in one national team?

  35. I love the daft politicians and Media that go on about Supply chains when they clearly have not the slightest clue as to what they are talking about. You hear them claiming that factories only have about 1 hours stoke and any delay will stop production. That is total bs. For a few items a factory may only have an hours worth of stock on the factory floor. It does not mean they only have an hours worth of stock. In most cases they carry at least one weeks worth of stock and for most items it will be considerable more. For item they only hold a very limited about of stock it is normally for items sourced locally so the factory producing the parts will only be miles away

    Any factory only holding one hours worth of stock or every item would never be producing much, A bit of bad weather for example could delay things by a week

    1. I do love the true story that BMW set up a JIT (Just in Time) process at one of its German factories. They ran out of materials and everything ground to a halt.

      1. The Japanese do it to a limit extent but it is only when their suppliers factories are with a few miles of their production plant and even then they tend to hold 24 hours of buffer stock

  36. Two builders
    (Chris and James) are seated either side of a table in a rough pub when a well-dressed man enters, orders a beer and sits on a stool at the bar. The two builders start to speculate about the occupation of the suit.
    Chris: -I reckon he’s an accountant.
    James: -No way – he’s a stockbroker.
    Chris: -He ain’t no stockbroker! A stockbroker wouldn’t come in here!
    The argument repeats itself for some time until the volume of beer gets the better of Chris and he makes for the toilet. On entering the toilet, he sees that the suit is standing at a urinal. Curiosity and the several beers get the better of the builder…
    Chris: -‘Scuse me…. no offence meant, but me and me mate were wondering what you do for a living?
    Suit: -No offence taken! I’m a Logical Scientist by profession!
    Chris: -Oh! What’s that then?
    Suit:-I’ll try to explain by example… Do you have a goldfish at home?
    Chris: -Er…mmm… well yeah, I do as it happens!
    Suit: -Well, it’s logical to follow that you keep it in a bowl or in a pond. Which is it?
    Chris: -It’s in a pond!
    Suit: -Well then it’s reasonable to suppose that you have a large garden then?
    Chris: -As it happens, yes I have got a big garden!
    Suit: -Well then it’s logical to assume that in this town that if you have a large garden that you have a large house?
    Chris: -As it happens I’ve got a five bedroom house… built it myself!
    Suit: -Well given that you’ve built a five bedroom house it is logical to assume that you haven’t built it just for yourself and that you are quite probably married?
    Chris: -Yes I am married, I live with my wife and three children!
    Suit: -Well then it is logical to assume that you are sexually active with your wife on a regular basis?
    Chris:-Yep! Four nights a week!
    Suit: -Well then it is logical to suggest that you do not masturbate very often?
    Chris: -Me? Never
    Suit: -Well there you are! That’s logical science at work!
    Chris:-How’s that then?
    Suit: -Well from finding out that you had a goldfish, I’ve told you about the size of garden you have, the size of house, your family and your sex-life!
    Chris: -I see! That’s pretty impressive… thanks mate!
    Both leave the toilet and Chris returns to his mate.
    James: -I see the suit was in there. Did you ask him what he does?
    Chris: -Yep! He’s a logical scientist!
    James: -What’s that then?
    Chris: -I’ll try and explain. Do you have a goldfish?
    James: -Nope
    Chris: –Well then, you’re a wanker.

  37. Reprimanded?? She should be sacked

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/14be824e54c89f01fe8fcaef42bc70354aa865807941fd78e85f4ca671c55c12.jpg

    As always with the Al-Beeb they used half the quote totally changing the meaning

    Look at the ,Facebook pages of Omar and Tlalib and they describe
    themselves as “Palestinian, American”. Trump’s context was “If you hate
    America so much and you think things are so bad then go back to your own
    country and then come back and tell us how to do things better”. But
    everyone selectively deletes the who quote and context.
    I note even when the Al-Beeb was forced to announce the censure they used the article to repeat the lies,they are beyond redemption

    1. Classic JR-M…and additional joy watching the questioner squirming under his barage of intelligence and good manners.

        1. Jacob Rees-Mogg has a way with words that flies over the heads of his opponents, or are presented in such a way that makes protest against them almost impossible.

          “Mr Speaker… Sometimes I have disagreed with you, but that has never reduced my respect.”

          […from the very low point that it was to begin with] are the possible unspoken words there. What a man. If he were Prime Minister we could be certain of leaving a very confused EU behind, with them wondering what he had just said and how they had ended up agreeing to refund us £400 billion for past UK investments in Europe.

          1. Of course JRM is a brilliant man.

            But why did he blot his copybook by voting for Mrs May’s Capitulation WA and why, a few years ago, did he support that sodomising anal enthusiast Mr Vaz joining another Quango?

          2. Nobody is perfect. I’m certainly not. But JRM did suggest an “alliance” with UKIP back when Nigel Farage was trying to run it, for the good of the country, so he has had the interests of the United Kingdom at heart for a long time. As for the Withdrawal Agreement abomination, there was a massive “project fear” also aimed at the Leaver MP’s at the time. Who knows which threat made him decide to back it? Was it the possibility of revoking Article 50 altogether and stopping Brexit in its tracks if the W/A didn’t get through?

            The W/A IS the trap, not this backstop nonsense. If it is passed then any corrupt politician can keep us tied to the EU for as many years as they like. Boris also voted for it and some people still support him. I know that Jacob Rees-Mogg is the type of real Conservative that had me voting for the party since I was old enough to.

      1. Morning AS,
        Re-activate it pronto, trial run with b liar.
        Jury sitting in judgement to be selected from
        long term UKIP membership, I trust no others.

    2. A government spokesperson didn’t say….We wanted to honour our dear leader but someone stole all the money so we decided to throw him in a ditch…..

    1. “Watson, this is no time for humbugs!”

      Sherlock Holmes – The Adventure of the Six Napoleons

  43. Princess Eugenie is reported to have called her elder sister Princess Beatrice a “big sissy”. Is this the same as a “big girl’s blouse”?

    1. Sort of.

      ‘Morning, Elsie.

      While I was typing this Missy snatched a mouthful of my Bircher muesli.

  46. Good morning all. I just wanted to share this with you all. It brought a tear to my eye… NOT.

    Rainbow Six

    14 hours ago

    It would take me about 100 comments on here to get 5 upticks if I
    excluded one particular reader. You’re just like GP, up each others
    arses, sneering at anybody who’s not in your little gangs. Typical
    middle class snobs.

    I lied actually..i teared up with laughter….

    2. I have been accused of being many things in my time but I can assure you, “middle class” is not among them. :•)

      [Although in my classroom at police training centre, a pompous sergeant instructor told the class: “No matter what background you came from, you are all middle class now!” Laugh? I almost did!]

      Who was Spectrum VI having a pop at?

      1. Morning, Grizz.

        I think as it was posted to me he meant me. I’m going to top myself now. I haven’t had enough likes, like.

          2. That is such a cute pic of Dolly..
            Pouring with rain here .. pelting down .. I expect the beeps and horns from the Solent are quite noisy this morning ..

            Feels as if the Channel is emptying everything onto us here .

    3. Rainbows comment does not reflect a mind that is accustomed to high level discourse and the debate of ideals on the complexity of their merits.

      They may just be young and expect to be on a channel where people can reply every 5 minutes to a comment and where “upvotes” are a reflection of popularity. I will upvote someone if I like their comment or to let them know that I have read their comment if they have replied to me, or if it is a particularly good cat or dog video.

      There was a very good one last night with ducklings that had tiny arms painted on them, chasing a cat.

      1. Oh, he’s had several pops at me as well, Meredith, because I picked him up on his sloppy posting and his inability to proof-read before posting his vitriol.

        While I’ve blocked PP because she is a tedious, repetitive parrot, I won’t block ROYGBIV VI because I enjoy watching him making an ar$e of himself, thinking he’s being smart.

        1. He said that he could go “full troll on me.” I felt that reflected poorly on hopes of another reasoned mind to debate with and learn from.

          I have discovered more in the past 5 years about the nuts and bolts of what is being done to us in the world than in the 25 years before that. Basic politeness can go a very long way.

  48. One of Jeremy Remainer’s better pieces…

    The global elite think Britain is a laughing stock. They’re wrong to be so complacent
    JEREMY WARNER – 27 SEPTEMBER 2019 • 7:00AM
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2019/09/26/Prometheus_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqmNxp8vwM9ZpTxbw7o193q6uEwyycWWxqgh1nlUDHdgQ.JPG?imwidth=1240
    Delegates at this week’s United Nations climate change summit, seemed utterly bemused by Boris Johnson’s references to Prometheus, who according to Greek mythology, was sentenced to eternal torment for stealing fire from the Gods for the betterment of humanity

    Global policymakers fail to recognise that complaints against their power may well have some currency

    In Greek mythology, Prometheus is the Titan who steals fire from the Gods to give it to humanity for its own advancement, and is then sentenced for his transgression to eternal torment. In the context of the climate change debate, the myth is particularly apt. Will technology deliver us from its own destructive nature, or has it already condemned us and the rest of the planet to torment and mass extinction?

    Yet when retold by Boris Johnson, in his usual inimitable style, at this week’s United Nations climate change summit, the point seemed entirely lost on his bemused audience, who looked on as if in the presence of a rambling, incoherent idiot. One assumes that the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, knew what Johnson was on about, but everyone else seemed completely nonplussed. Even the British contingent giggled in apparent embarrassment at their prime minister’s references to eagles returning to peck at the Promethean liver.

    Personally, I thought the speech was rather good, its central message being that it is “a trope as old as literature that any scientific advance is punished by the Gods”. Yet to many it was further evidence of the international laughing stock that Britain has become since voting to leave the EU.

    Outside the Anglosphere, it is virtually impossible to find any member of the governing classes who thinks that what Britain is doing is anything other than completely mad. “What has become of your country?”, is the refrain I’m constantly subjected to among business leaders and policy-makers when travelling in Europe and beyond. Once so moderate and pragmatic, a founding father of so many of the multilateral organisations charged with preserving the global order, Britain seems to this audience to be in the grip of a mass hysteria that has made it a pale shadow of its former self.

    I’m no lover of Brexit, but I can at least see the point of it, unlike many of today’s global establishment, who seem quite incapable of grasping its revolutionary appeal, or properly understanding the ill-defined yearning for change that it represents. Complacently trapped in the sterility of the status quo, they are like members of the Ancien Regime, oblivious to legitimate complaint and the urgent need, if they are to survive, for transformative adjustment.

    Comparisons with the shifting fortunes of the business landscape are instructive. In a well functioning market economy, any company that doesn’t move with the times will quickly find itself in decline and eventually out of business. The process of advancement is one of perpetual creative destruction, with the new eclipsing the old.

    All business people know this, yet it is remarkable how difficult it is in practice for transformative strategy to succeed in incumbent players, today more than ever with the new distribution platform of the internet to contend with.

    How to stay ahead of the game is the holy grail of managements everywhere. Few of the veritable library of management textbooks pretending to know the answer do much good. My particular favourite, still as relevant today as when first published nearly 30 years ago, is Robert Kriegel’s and Louis Palter’s If it ain’t broke, break it. Corporate survival is about a constant process of fixing. To fix something, you sometimes have to break it first. Yet companies will always resist ditching an apparently winning formula for something new.

    Institutions tend to be even more impervious to change than companies. In an uncertain world, this can be a strength, providing a reassuring degree of continuity. But it can also be an impediment. In their lack of flexibility, and infuriating love of imposed conformity, our multilateral systems of governance are putting their very legitimacy at risk. This is particularly the case with the European Union, which like the company that can’t learn from the loss of a major customer, bizarrely refuses to countenance the possibility that if one of its leading members votes to leave, there may actually be something rotten at the heart of its construct.

    The British insurgency is seen not as a sign of systemic failure on the EU’s part, but as an impertinence in which the member state blames its own deficiencies on the supposed iniquities of external forces. What should serve as a wake-up call is instead derided as having made the country a laughing stock.

    At international conferences, Brexit tends almost universally to be branded as an inward looking, isolationist endeavour out of exactly the same playbook as Trumpism. There is a mountain to climb in countering these perceptions, which are very much encouraged by the thought police of the multilateral establishment.

    Globalisation requires a degree of global governance, but the reach of its institutions is out of control and I fear is these days as much about self-preservation and aggrandisement as international solidarity and cooperation. They can laugh at Britain all they like. Yet in refusing to recognise the legitimacy of the current backlash they risk their own undoing.

  53. This is an APB for ogga1, ogga1 come in please.

    Or a BOLO.

    I need your help again, this Farage BOT on BB wont be said.

    Remember Farage’s pretty impressive speech in Jacksonville. To me Trump at the end of it does a look where he knows Farage has just given him the keys to the White House. So Farage get’s an invite to Trump Towers. But then didn’t relations cool rapidly or did I imagine it?

    Speech starts 12.00 if you didn’t see it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy2Kjnu_k_o

    1. I think you imagined it, Rainbow Six. Remember how President Trump, on his State visit, praised both Boris and Nigel?

        1. I’ve heard of double-U (it follows V and precedes X in the alphabet) but never quadruple-U, Rainbow Six.

          1. Yes, I was obviously in Pretty Polly mode. U U U U… and couldn’t think of a word due to light headedness.

            Didn’t you see what I wrote on your email?

            In reality I saw that one of my comments had been deleted and thought fack it I’m completely and utterly wasting my time amongst these…

    2. “Brexit Party MEP Alexandra Phillips: “One of our MEPs had a face-to-face
      meeting with Michel Barnier, who said to him ‘if there’s a no-deal
      scenario we’ll work straight away, immediately, on a free trade
      agreement.’ Isn’t that what we said all along?”

      @Iromg | @BrexitAlex pic.twitter.com/OmtvkTMWjt

      ”
      Precisely. And no 59billion…

      1. Yes. At the moment the EU have no need to negotiate with all our Remainer MP’s trying to block no deal. If they know we will remain no matter what why do they need to negotiate. The only slight concern the EU might have at present is the MP’s turned down May’s BRINO deal

        If we leave on WTO terms it will force the EU to really negotiate as the UK market is critical to the EU

        I cannot see the Germans wanting to see their car companies set up production plants i the UK

    3. Unfortunately, it’ll still take years as the EU is abysmal at trade deals. We will still get the blame by the Remoaners, because they can do no ill, and we can do no good.

    1. The extra shipping capacity government was buying to bring medicines into ports other than Dover may not be completely ready by 31 October.

      And I still don’t understand the logic of this fear mongering over shipping and medicines. Are they saying that the EU might mount a blockade in the Channel to stop our ships or something??

    1. Anyone who hadn’t realized the Labour benches are packed with gobby Marxist fishwives hasn’t been paying attention for the last few years.

  59. Guardian –

    ” Brexit: Experts warn any attempt to bypass law preventing no deal would fail – live news ”

    End of story. No problem.

      1. The Benn Act ‘prorogues’ the ability of the Executive to govern. Bercow has created this nonsense with his arrogant defiance of historic conventions of the House.

        1. How on earth do Bills—that violate other Acts, rules or conventions—manage to get passed into law?

          You simply cannot create a situation whereby two laws contradict or cancel each other out. If you did, then no one could ever be prosecuted for an offence under one Act if the second Act made his misdemeanour legal.

          [Repealing one Act by another is a different matter and not within the remit of this discussion]

          Billy!

          1. Legislation rushed through Parliament and not fully thought out. Rushed legislation = bad legislation.

          2. I think the Benn Act voted by parliament into law is thought to be a sort of bolt on which does not interfere with the Repeal Act. I reckon this is wrong because the Benn Act seeks to extend the departure date beyond that specified if no deal (Withdrawal Agreement) is reached.

            I suppose the other issue is whether it is legitimate for the opposition parties combined with Tory dissenters to take over the Order Paper with the connivance of Remainer Bercow. By this they presume to govern in place of the Executive by means of instructing the Executive to do their bidding.

            I described this mess as not so much a can of worms but a skip full.

          3. From the Speccie a couple of days ago:

            When Parliament thwarts the executive, that is the will of the people being expressed by the people’s representatives. Parliament cannot frustrate the Will of the People because its authority comes from those people; what it does, it does in their name and with their authority. And if the people are unhappy about that, they can choose another Parliament when the next election comes
            Members of Parliament exist to check and limit the exercise of executive power. Then they answer to the electorate for their actions.

            The members of Parliament are not checking and limiting the exercise of executive power. They have completely overthrown that power and assumed it for themselves, and no-one is checking and limiting them.
            They are explicitly not carrying out the will of the people, as per the referendum result. They are doing everything in their power to thwart the will of the people, overturning every convention to do so, and are point blank refusing to allow the people to choose another Parliament and being answerable to the people as they have refused to have a General Election. They will not even allow by-elections when they have changed parties, because they know what the people will say.
            You can excuse this and dress it up any way you like, but they have become an absolute, abominable disgrace. They are liars and charlatans. I sincerely hope the public will never forgive them, and that Boris ignores this complete over-reach by the judiciary.

          5. Implied repeal. Later Acts take precedence. Well, that’s what should happen. The Metric Martyrs used this defence but at the Appeal Court, Justice Laws rearranged the constitution to get HMG off the hook.

          6. “You simply cannot create a situation whereby two laws contradict or cancel each other out.” Oh, yes, yo can, Grizz. The Welfare Act says you must let your pet engage in natural behaviour or it’s an offence. The Hunting Act says you must not allow your dogs to hunt a wild mammal or it’s an offence. I regularly, when out with my two dogs, came across occasions when I had to stop them engaging in natural behaviour in order to comply with the Hunting Act.

    1. When he was a teenager, this guy called Grizzly used to wander hopelessly around the house, saying – ” There’s nothing to do. I’m bored “.
      Then he discovered girls.

      2. If you’d known the teenaged Grizzly you would have seen how tongue-tied and utterly clueless (and terrified) he was around girls!

          1. I was terrified of girls when I was at a boy’s boarding school.

            What bliss it was to discover at the age of 18 that they were human and that I was quite popular with them.

    2. …and now John Tapene is dismissed for not being inclusive enough and denying snowflakes a ‘safe’ space?

  64. Good morning, all.

    I know that most of us will be aware of the disgraceful scenes in the Commons on Wednesday when the Prime Minister, making a statement to the House, was shouted down and subjected to a barrage of abuse from assorted Labour Party harpies and others – notably the SNP rent-a-mouth Ian Blackford – who accused him of being a ‘racist’, a fascist liar and worse and inciting violence against MPs by using such shocking terms as ‘humbug’ and ‘surrender’.

    Female Remainiac MPs quEUed up to tell anguishing tales of “death threats” and how they walked in fear of their lives because of the menace of “far-right violence”. The daughter of “Pixie” Balls-Cooper rushed to the Press saying she was terrified that each time she bade her mother “Goodbye” it would be the last time that she would see her.

    The blessed memory of St. Jo Cox was invoked time and again to illustrate the clear and present danger that these courageous “wimmin” endured on a daily basis as they went about their business trying to stifle …….. whoops, I meant of course, to uphold democracy.

    Then suddenly yesterday ……. hey presto …….. a man was arrested in Birmingham for “kicking at the door and slapping the windows” at the constituency office of Labour MP, Jess Phillips, one of the harpies responsible for the atrocious behaviour in the HoC.

    Now that’s what I call serendipity.

    https://www.scotsman.com/news/crime/labour-mp-jess-phillips-says-man-arrested-trying-to-kick-in-door-of-her-office-1-5012338

    1. Morning DM

      Politics has just got to the point of no return .. Manners have been abandoned and the feminist shouty bints are a disgrace.. and have set a dangerous precedent .. We all viewed their haranguing of Boris with horror!.

    3. Some guy with mental health issues killed her. He was not a member of any group let alone far right. In the UK in my view e have many far left groups but almost no far right Groups. The only onesI can think of are the BNP. EDL & Britain first and all of them appear to barely exist now and would be lucky to muster a group off half a dozen. Non as far as I am aware have been involved in bombings knife attacks or shootings , at most they seem to have got involved in minor physical violence

      1. Sadly, he appears to have been sympathetic to AH, and the mental health stuff was fake or exaggerated. One hopes that in due course he will snitch on his accomplices, especially the persons who adapted and supplied the murder weapon.

  65. I’ve had a brilliant idea for a new on-line shop:
    “Dictators ‘R Us” among the first products in store will be:
    1) A “500 megapixel facial recognition camera four times more detailed than the human eye that can identify individuals from crowds of tens of thousands in streets or at sports stadiums”

    PS: South Wales police announced this summer that they would trial real time facial recognition technology and this month the practice was ruled lawful by the High Court. So how long before a law is passed banning all face coverings (with no exceptions)?

    1. There will be an exception.
      That exception will not apply to English widows wearing veiled hats at hubby’s funeral.

      2. What are planning, Mrs Allan?!?!?

        PS – I do hope you realise that I am joking, Annie. I wish your MB excellent health for many, many years to come.

    2. Forget megapixels, they’re almost irrelevant. You need to look at the Exposure value.
      EV is a number that represents a combination of a camera’s shutter speed and f-number, such that all combinations that yield the same exposure have the same EV. This allows you to capture a scene without making it too light or too dark i.e at night or on snow

      My PhaseOne has 180 mps and easily cost more than your car. They are used by Google for Google maps, but they are getting cheaper.

  66. Just wondering whether we have reached a point in history where it will be as rare as hens teeth to find and connect with a fair minded well balanced True Brit .

    I have really flip flopped around with political opinions recently re my opinion of Boris , but now , at the moment I see Boris as the strong Britannia figure head we need who will deflect the nonsense Corbyn and his cohorts are throwing at us all.

    1. This should have been done years ago, but the sort of Parliament required to navigate us through the Brexit icebergs safely is quite different to the sort of Parliament that would then steer us to port once clear of them.

      The doomladen Swedish prophetess admits herself to lacking the skills required to run the world after she has saved it from humanity.

      The representative parties required to discuss, negotiate and settle the UK’s departure from the European Union are fundamentally different to those required then to decide how an independent sovereign state is best placed to serve the public. Each set is extraordinarily unsuited to the task of the other. Any Parliament elected specifically to sort out Brexit should not, once this is done, linger on for five years dealing with the daily affairs of the nation that it was not elected to do.

      Therefore, what is needed is two parliaments – a National Commission to settle Brexit, which is then disbanded when the job is done, and the other to carry on the affairs of State as usual. Each requires separate elections and separate parties.

      1. So we’re buggered then. 75% of present MPs and Lords don’t want to leave the EU, so why would they go for a third, and independent, ‘House of Brexit’

        1. I don’t know for sure any more then you do, but after a lifetime of believing in politicians that are just deceiving us over the EU and world government the odds are on Boris letting us all down in the end, it is not as if he was a leaver until recent years.

          1. If Boris wants a proper Brexit he will form an electoral pact with Nigel Farage.

            If he doesn’t, he won’t.

      1. ‘Afternoon, George “…their accrued rights under the Vienna Convention.”

        Actually, their acquired rights under the Vienna Convention 1969.

        As the Supreme Court has identified, a different word can make a difference.

  68. LastMinute.com has failed to secure a booking. Then it must be “over to you Privy Council”:

    Brussels has ruled out negotiations at a crunch EU summit, thwarting Boris Johnson’s hopes of a last-minute deal.

    At a meeting last night EU-27 ambassadors were briefed that both sides remain far from an agreement, as diplomatic sources said that the only realistic options on the table were an extension or a no-deal Brexit.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/27/brexit-latest-newsboris-johnson-parliament-no-deal-barnier-conference/

    Presumably this will be plastered over the airwaves for the rest of the day. No Deal would of course help the Conservatives in the election when it comes.

    1. The problem with this idea is that the EU constantly lies. It is their reflex action. They always say “No!” Right up until the moment that they say “Yes!” We have seen this over and over again. It makes good television when people are seen to be running around from meeting to meeting late at night to “hammer out a deal.” It makes them look as if they are actually doing something, when the real deal was agreed months ago.

      The nightmare scenario is Boris coming back from that meeting in mid-October with the Withdrawal Agreement with the backstop removed (which the EU were always fine about removing, in spite of what they say publicly.) Boris then says that this is a good deal without it, and then the EU announces that there will be NO extension to Article 50 at all. It is the W/A or a No-Deal Brexit. Although I am sure that they will call it “crashing out.”

      Given the choice between forever Leaving the EU or passing the Withdrawal Agreement, the pro-EU MP’s on all sides will not be able to vote for it fast enough. It will give them several more years of plotting to keep us trapped in the EU in any way that they can.

      So let us hope that Boris has the United Kingdom’s interests at heart and comes back from Brussels without that polished W/A trap under his arm.

      1. Johnson will have one hell of a job selling the WA sans just the Backstop. The ERG, Farage, Lawyers for Britain et al. will be all over it like a cheap suit putting in perspective what the rest of that surrender document will mean for the UK. Giving up the fisheries alone will see his popularity plummet and when the military sell out, the costs, agriculture and the continued imposition of the ECJ are exposed…

        1. Who cares about any of that? That is, other than a few million plebs, you know, workers?
          The MSM are happy with WA. The BBC are deliriously happy with WA. The majority of MPs are happy with WA. Never mind previous rejections – WA is a way of staying in. Those ignorant dummies that voted for Brexit will be told to shut up as they will have had their Brexit.

        2. I’m sure he knows that. Difficult to see how he can get anywhere with the Remainer majority of his own party baying hounds to down him.
          Interesting times.

        3. Korky – Sadly I disagree. The fanaticism of the pro-EU drones cannot be underestimated. As is clear by now, they vastly outnumber those MP’s who want us to Leave. If the EU forces a choice between a “no-deal” Brexit and the W/A then they will pass it easily. They do not care about damaging the United Kingdom and our democratic process, as we have seen. The lonely members of the ERG, with 2 or 3 Labour people as well, will watch 450+ MP’s march through the lobbies to pass it.

          As for the EU – If they know that their hand-crafted W/A prison cell for the United Kingdom will pass if they threaten no extension, then why wouldn’t they take the chance? It would offer the EU this country bound and gagged on a plate, which is what they have wanted all along. If this happens, then it will delay our leaving for another 2 or 3 years “in transition” at least. Although they will just extend that date as well.

          Globalists do not care about popularity or being re-elected. They have their eyes set on prizes outside of the United Kingdom. Look at what Blair did to Labour and what Theresa May almost did to the Conservatives.

          If this does happen then we are going to need to vote these people out of office as soon as they let us. This country will be running out of time in a few short years.

          1. I can see your point about the choice of the WA or No Deal being foisted on the MPs, however, Johnson is also juggling with both the future of the Tory Party and his own. Today’s news has indicated that he has a legal move via the Privy Council to take us out on WTO terms.
            If instead he insists on WA v2.0 and it is ratified then the Tories will be humbled and may not survive as a functioning political unit and it will be Johnson’s fault.
            He has stated more than once that the WA is dead, he’s even on video making that clear, he told Tory MPs during the leadership election it is dead: if he reneges on that and the reply he gave to Owen Paterson re our fisheries then he will be seen as no better than May. A liar and a sell-out merchant who under no circumstances can be trusted.

          2. Korky – Yes all of that is well known but none of it applies if Boris is a globalist who has been working for the EU from the beginning, just as Theresa May was. There is a long list of others who are working for the EU and Boris has been far more pro-EU than Theresa May ever was. Boris even gave speeches to speed up the process of Turkeys joining the EU.

            The underlying point is that globalists do not care about politics in nations. They want to get rid of individual nation states altogether. So destroying the Conservative party and being wiped out at the polls does not matter to a globalist as long as they can progress their wider goals.

            As for the Privy Council moves – these do not matter either if he is going to bring the W/A back as that will be the deal that he forces past Parliament. His goal at the moment will be to delay anything happening that stops the W/A, just as Theresa May did. The EU only allowed her to be removed when it was obvious that she was going to get nowhere. Then they wheel out the replacement to get us into a position where the W/A will be passed after all.

            All that I have heard from Boris and the ministers around him recently has been a focus on the backstop. The W/A would be fine without it is the music that is being played now. The Conservative party certainly would be crucified if Boris and the Remainers in it did this, but that does not matter in the scheme of their bigger goals. It makes no sense to us, but it makes perfect sense to them.

            Sacrifice the Queen to win the game. The game is keeping the United Kingdoms borders open and money flowing to the EU. Whichever party is in power is not relevant to them. Except The Brexit Party – they would take us out of the EU in spite of all their machinations to keep us in.

            Sorry – long message. I keep forgetting that this is a new channel. Most of what I have just typed about the motivations of these people who are trying to run our lives is already known to those I have been speaking to for the past 2 years. It is odd to go back and detail them again. As I have just done so I am reminded why so many people are bemused by the seemingly suicidal actions of these politicians. It is just that they are playing a bigger game and the UK, its people and its political parties are expendable to them.

          3. Being new here you will not be familiar with my comments regarding May and others of her stripe, letters to my MP etc. I’m awake to the EU/Globalist threat and recently I’ve clearly stated that I hold doubts about Johnson and will only believe him if/when he gets us out with a clean break.
            His posturing and big talk as the man who will revitalise this country makes me uneasy as I feel that he could be putting on a show to gain popularity before he hits us with his sellout, hoping that the people will accept it as it’s from, “Good Old Boris.” If he turns out to be a fraud then a lot of people will be very disappointed and many very angry.
            Despite my lack of trust and my uneasiness about him performing to the gallery I feel he has to be given a chance and if he disappoints then he will deserve all the opprobrium he will receive.
            I follow John Redwood and he has confirmed that Johnson declared the WA dead, I can’t imagine the betrayal the consistent Redwood will feel if Johnson does turn out to be a fraud.

          4. I remember that night when Jacob Rees-Mogg finally realised that Theresa May was not doing her best for the United Kingdom, but was actively working with the EU against us. It is the only time that I have seen that look of almost “bewildered betrayal” on his face as it was sinking in.

            I hope Redwood does not feel the same. I also read his blog when I can remember to. I will give Boris a chance, but with his past history and the things he has been saying recently about the W/A, I don’t think we have any chance of him letting us have a WTO Brexit. We will know very soon now.

            If he does not then the struggle will continue that’s all. 🙂

          5. News on the wires that Brussels will not seriously negotiate with Johnson at the upcoming summit.

            The senior diplomats criticised Mr Johnson’s latest plans to replace the controversial Northern Ireland backstop, insisting: “They leave more questions than answers.”

            There’s that Backstop, again!

            Daily Express

  69. WARNING This program may have unsuitable for younger viewer or those of a nervous disposition

    What is it. Televised output from the commons

  70. Oh dear another court case in a court so old no one has heard of it

    And all over a highly contentious issue of a rug in a Pub.Any way it getting serious and is going to go before the Court of Chivalry. This court last sate in 1954

  71. Hospital regulations require a wheel chair for patients being discharged.

    However, while working as a student nurse, I found one elderly gentleman already dressed and sitting on the bed with a suitcase at his feet, who insisted he didn’t need my help to leave the hospital.

    After a chat about rules being rules, he reluctantly let me wheel him to the elevator.
    On the way down I asked him if his wife was meeting him.

    ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘She’s still upstairs in the bathroom changing out of her hospital gown.’

      2. As a Lehnwort it would be ill advised, da man nicht gegen die Aufzugtur lehnen darf. (as one mustn’t lean against the lift’s doors).

        Who said you can’t make puns if German?

          1. Henning Wehn can be one of the funniest things on TV. If I see that there is a program on with him as a guest then I will record it to watch on a night when the wine has been flowing.

            I think that the first time that I observed his wit he was on one of those game shows with 2 people on each side and he was talking about people in World War 2. He said that many of those older folks in Britain said how much they helped “doing their bit” to win the war. Then he said:

            “But many of them would have been schoolchildren at the time, and therefore would have been a drain on the countries resources. So, after a fashion, they were actually helping the nazi’s to win the war.”

            There was silence, then massive laughter and one of the others said “You’ve got to admire his balls.” 🙂

          2. When I lived in Germany I was a fan of HP Kerkeling. He was a comedian & great impersonator. Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to have crossed the Channel.

          4. Loriot war auch gut mit seiner weibliche Sidekick (Harmann?). Haste den Film “Papa ante Portas” gesehen?

            Das ist weil ich mit’m Schreiben der E-mail noch nicht fertig bin. Aber danke für die Bücher; ich habe viel Spaß bei der Lekture des ersten.

          6. Na ja, Deine Mail mit der Versandsumme konnte ich nicht mehr finden, so habe ich die Summe aufgerundet.

    2. That is a most peculiar junction.
      There is a mini-roundabout; the main road (Straight Road) has had a little kink put in it and the road to the left of the picture is wide and has the appearance of a main road as well although it leads from a number of residential roads.
      It is really quite confusing.

  73. Well that it, I am off golfing and will not be looking at any news channels today.

    The blessed St Greta is taking part in a climate protest in Montreal and there is a media feeding frenzy. The airwaves are full of pious broadcasters and kiddies espousing their pious BS. Naturally PM dressup is getting involved, he probably wants a selfie with her snarling in the background. The real emergency is the likelihood of me blowing my top if I get too close to

    After golf, I will go watch the bubbling chateau mongrel that just started brewing, a nice mix of about a dozen grape varieties that we grow.

    1. Ask her or the media any real scientific question s and they will not be able to answer . They will just go into climate change auto rant mode

    1. Is that where you are right now? Whereabouts?
      Seeing all the crushed lava is making me sort of homesick. We had a villa in Costa Teguise that we sold about 2 years ago. I like Lanzarote, even if some sneer. It’s mostly kept its charm where other Spanish resorts and island lost theirs.
      And there do seem to be a lot of stray cats. I think there’s a small charity that collects money to try and look after and rehome some of them.

      1. Not me. Our daughter went for a week, as a break from Londonistan. Like her dad, she likes cats and took these photos.

      2. There were lots of stray cats on Kephalonia when we went there in 1997. We fell in love with one in particular and very nearly brought her home. I’ve often wished we had.

      1. Hmmm,

        J, we only caught a glimpse of the black nanny this week .

        This couple are secretive and have their own agenda .. I think she is not as harmless as people think .

    2. He could do worse: Desmond’s OK – a lot saner than most of Harry and Trash’s friends and acquaintances.

      1. Desmond Tutu turned up at All Saints Fulham one Sunday morning. A friend of his, Walter Makhulu, retired to Fulham when he stepped down as Archbish of Central Africa and is a regular member of our congregation. Tutu had a big burly bodyguard with him, which seemed a touch unnecessary in nice middle class Fulham & Chelsea.

  76. This climate speech to the UN in 1992 looks virtually identical to Greta’s climate speech in 2019………

    https://twitter.com/CalebJHull/status/1177221680999124992

    Q. Who had a wallet newly filled with Britain’s foreign currency reserves way back in 1992 ?

    A. The same guy who allegedly is behind Greta………….

    https://twitter.com/socialm85897394/status/1120962268701835264?lang=en

    If the two speeches are linked to the activist billionaire as looks entirely possible, then knowing the involvement he allegedly had with Obama, I think it supports the theory that the climate debate is not about climate at all… but about supra national global control through the UN.

    After all, ”billions spent…. to undermine the nation state” supports that theory too !

    1. Is there some rule that members of the audience at these travesties of speechifying may not throw eggs and tomatoes at the speakers, or even just throw up?

    2. Not a single peep from either of these two vacuous, manipulated, brainwashed airheads about the ONLY crisis that threatens this planet.

      The out-of-control population explosion due to the overbreeding of just one self-centred species. Mankind!

      No one, and I mean no one, anywhere on earth, has the brains or the balls to discuss or do anything about that abomination to end all abominations.

  77. May one ask,

    COE has said that pointed knifes are a danger, will this also be applied to the bishops mitre, being as he could always lower his head and charge.

    2. Pointed knives are only a danger in the hands of morons. My set of expensive and very sharp pointed kitchen knives will be taken from me over my dead body (and probably a few dozen other dead bodies too).

    3. What about Sharp Pencils and sharp screwdrivers etc. You need pointed knifes in a kitchen as well if your cooking skills go beyond opening a packet

  78. ‘This isn’t a paranoid future nightmare. Fri 27 Sep 2019.

    So the FBI paid informants, including a convicted rapist, to pose as emissaries from al-Qaida and egg Batiste on to accept $50,000 with the promise he would spend it on guns and explosives. He never did. “Instead they wanted work boots and overalls, because they were construction workers, then ceremonial swords and horses to lead a protest to the governor’s house about living conditions in Liberty City.”

    Morris chucks up his hands, still agog, 13 years later. “Their idea was to push Sears Tower into a lake and swamp Chicago with a tidal wave. None of which is remotely possible. They might as well have wanted to invade Washington DC on hippos.”

    No one with any sense would believe anything uncritically that the FBI or for that matter any other counter intelligence organisation told them; witness the Skripal Saga in the UK. A story suitable only for the adult version of Jackanory. Even if we discard the influence of malign actors they are still dependent for their very existence on there being a threat. Hence the endless inventions. In other words their jobs are on the line!

    https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/sep/27/this-isnt-a-paranoid-future-nightmare-the-explosive-return-of-chris-morris

    1. Undertakers need corpses.
      Doctors need sick people.
      Military need enemies.
      Politicians need bribes.
      Spies need traitors.
      Failures need scapegoats.

    2. I doubt it – after all, they chose not to mark the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union in 2007.

      1. The photo is a bit misleading, Johnny, it’s a hen pheasant. You can’t see her long tail at that angle. For a minute or two I did consider her for the pot, but she’s more tame than game now.

  81. ”

    The SNP has given its most explicitsuggestion yet that it could back a time-limited government led by
    Jeremy Corbyn to prevent a no-deal Brexit.

    Party leader Nicola Sturgeon said she “agreed” installing the Labour leader or “someone
    else” after a vote of no confidence in Boris Johnson was the only”
    failsafe” option. ”

    Treasonous bitch. I wonder what the Queen thinks of her.

    1. And the SNP and Labour were saying Boris was not elected but they want to install an uncollected government

    2. It would be an unholy alliance of Remainers from Labour, the LibDems, the SNP, Change UK, Plaid Cymru, Green and Independents who were formerly Conservative or Labour. And this would be representative of the UK?
      Edit: spelling.

    3. Rather carelessly put though and he will be featuring later on the news as another hard-right fascist (even though he’s a bit of a Lefty). Had he started the other way around i.e. invoking past protests from the Peasants’ Revolt through Peterloo to the Suffragettes, it would have sounded better.

    5. Jo Coburn would have stopped Brendan in his tracks. Adam the EU BBC correspond is a much better presenter and has a good sense of humour.

  85. Just back from an hour’s walk to the site of the 7th century late gallo-roman cemetery. 27ºC. Gorgeous.

    The cemetery lies beneath a vineyard (what else?). About 15 years ago, the chap whose land it is decided to dig up his old vines and replace with a new variety.

    While excavating the vines, they discovered large amounts of stone tiles – coffin tops – and lots of bones. Also pottery. The MR and I spent several happy afternoons scavenging bits of stuff.

    No one knows about it now – except the owner!

        1. Its a bit of a challenge but given your location draw a circle with approx one hour’s walk radius on Google Earth Satellite version, discount any lakes, highlight vineyards (of which there will no doubt be many) and let the search begin….

          3. Vines about fifteen years old, probably a modern variety.
            Simplest thing to do is rent Mr T’s house for a week and ask about some good autumnal walks.

  86. So the Fishwife in Chief Sturgeon is now open to backing Labour to form an “interim Government”
    Straight out of the EU playbook,if you can’t win an election it’s time for a soft coup
    See Greece and Italy for details

    1. So in spite of trying to claim Boris was un-elected she is happy for an Un-elected government to be formed.

        1. Can we settle for her having a Cobyn Government in Scotland? Somehow I dont think she will be keen on that

        1. “If it had grown up, it would have made a dreadfully ugly child; but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.”

          Alice in Wonderland

      1. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.

        Or, in his case, the potential dying of his parliamentary stipend.

      3. That’s a face full of hatred. That’s what we’d be faced with when Labour get into government, as they inevitably will unless the electorate really see them as they are.
        Isn’t televised debates an eye opener?

    4. A twisted-up face, full of anger and hatred. That is the new Labour party now, when their mask slips away.

  88. Ireland says Britain could have to stay part of EU for 4 years after Brexit deal agreed
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/27/ireland-says-britain-could-have-stay-part-eu-four-years-brexit/

    Ireland’s deputy prime minister has said that even if a Brexit deal is agreed, Britain will have to remain part of the EU’s single market and customs union for up to four years to allow time to negotiate a free trade agreement.

    Does this idiot think his suggestion will make most British people vote for a deal rather than no-deal?

    1. And where did he dream that up from. A trade deal could be concluded within a couple of months if the EU wanted to negotiate. Kickjng the can 4 years achieves nothing

      Ireland minister is starting to wake up to the fact that it needs a deal with the UK

    2. I am fed up with Ireland telling us what’s what. Wh do they think they can bully us. It makes me mad as hell. (Ooh, sorry, hope that word didn’t offend anyone!).

      1. It offended my sensibilities because you wrote it with an ‘h’ instead of an ‘H’. 😉

  89. Leaving the EU

    When we leave the EU we will still be geographically in Europe, We will still be able to trade with Europe and they will be able to trade with us. WE will still be able to holiday in Europe & they will be able to holiday in the UK. Those that want to studying in Europe will still be able to do so

    The main difference will be we will no longer be connected to Europe politically and within the UK we can make our own decisions. Should we wish to support our still industry we can. Should er want to put limits on migration we can . We would be able to decide what to apply VAT to and what rates we apply or even do away with VAT if we wish. WE could do away with corporation tax if we wished and could replace it with another system. Leaving the EU gives us choice as to hat we do within the UK. WE could decide that for anyone moving to the UK that there is a qualifying period for benefits and the NHS and or social housing

  90. So, following the forthcoming Prorogation of Parliament, why doesn’t the PM write a very short Queen’s Speech, with just two pieces of legislation. 1) The repeal of the Been WA2 Act and 2) The abolition of the Fixed Term Parliament Act. In setting out his proposed legislation he should make a solemn promise that the Conservative Party will not field any candidates in the proposed GE in those seats where MP members of the opposition vote with the government in order to honourably uphold the democratically expressed wishes of their Constituents who voted by a majority to Leave the EU?

      1. They wouldn’t have to lie if they’ve already voted for the Queen’s speech and we’ve left the EU and a GE is underway….

  92. UK government say Ireland will have to become a part of the UK for 4 years or until the EU agrees a trade deal as this will avoid the need for a hard border between Ireland and the UK

  94. Politest politicians could win £3,000

    How about the Speaker does his proper job. Any MP’s shouting and screaming and standing up etc should be expelled from the chamber for 24 hours

  95. That’s me for today. Turned all cloudy and chilly. Just sudden, like.

    Definitely time for a glass of anaesthetic to warm me.

    A demain.

    1. Chucking it down now. The BBC will no doubt be claiming w it is down to climate change and it may endanger life

    2. Come on, Rik. You know what his and McDonnell’s stock reply will be, “The Venezuelans didn’t follow the true path of socialism, but we know that path and will get it right.” Deluded or what?

    3. What one always hears from the Left when confronted with failure upon failure of socialist economies is “Ah, but they did not do it properly. We will get it right.”

      Yeas, just like Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan. Both were “going to get it right” and both “regimes” ended in IMF bail outs and tears. The fact all these people are missing is that we live in a capitalist world, and trying to go against that tide will never turn out well.

  97. Be afraid, be very afraid’: MP Jess Phillips reveals death threats against her

    Perhaps she should consider her own behaviour

    On a program on tv, about Jess Phillips with Jacob Rees Mog, I remember her comment’s on the program, she said some of her fellow members in the Labour Party would stab Jeremy Corbyn in the back, but she would stab him in the front, now of all the stabbings going on in London, is she not encouraging violence, now she has the cheek to moan when it’s against her just to score browny points.

      1. I recall Jo Brand, the fat and unfunny comedienne, admitted to fantasising about throwing battery acid over right wing politicians in preference to throwing milk shakes.

        1. On holiday last week I met a Doppelgängerin for Jo Brand. She didn’t have the mock ginger hair & she was one of the nicest, kindest people I’ve ever met.

  98. The owner of the Daily Mail has emerged as the frontrunner to buy the i newspaper after being asked to enter exclusive talks by the i’s parent, JPI Media
    .
    Daily Mail & General Trust is involved in an auction of assets put up for sale by JPI Media, formerly known as Johnston Press, which publishes more than 200 regional titles including The Scotsman and Yorkshire Post.

    It is one of the few profitable bits of JPI, If they are selling that they must be in trouble

  99. Disabled children among social tenants blocked from communal gardens

    A tricky one this is what happens when you try to mix affordable and social housing with other housing. The other tenants are paying much higher service charges for those facilities and thats what in part fund the social housing. If you applied the h much higher service charges to the affordable and social housing they would as well become affordable

    Disabled children and former Grenfell residents are among social housing tenants being deliberately blocked from communal gardens, entrances and a car park on a multimillion-pound development in west London.

    Guardian Cities has learned that the housing association Octavia blocks access to the communal gardens of Westbourne Place in Maida Vale for social and affordable housing residents in order to avoid the tenants facing the “financial burden” of high service charges

      1. That’s the problem when they mix affordable housing with other housing. Affordable housing is achieved by a mixture of providing less i the properties ie they may not come with dish washer and carpets etc and will not be decorated to the same standard and will not have a concierge service etc. If people are paying for Luxury accommodation they expect a higher standard than you will get with affordable and social housing. The money for them has to come from some,where. Would the social and affordable tenants be able to affords up to £1000 a year increase ib service charge?

        The real problem is mixing social and affordable flats with the rest of the developments. It does not work well

  100. No doubt after Boris returns from the EU Summit which I think is around the 17th /18th of October no doubt all hell will let loose in the commons

    1. I suspect you will see the Speaker and the Supreme Court work together to try and seize Royal prerogative powers.

      Its dawned on them that the privy council can specify a commencement order on the Benn Act since it does not have a date – 32nd February 2978 would be a good time to do it.

      Oh – and the icing on the cake, Kate Hoey asked the Speaker if EU law took precedent over UK law, the Speaker said indeed it does. The Benn act is UK law, Article 50 is EU law.

      1. There is no guarantee that the EU would even offer an extension and the Benn act does not sound that specific so maybe an extension to the 1st of November

        1. The Eu would do what is in the interest of the EU and to the detriment of the UK. To wit. offer an extension on really punitive terms, on the basis that they think Boris will have to agree.

      1. Nor it does. But The Daily Mail gave it a lot of publicity, maybe Amazon hastily took it down.

    1. It looks as if those cars are parked illegally as I cannot see how hey got there without driving on the footpath

  103. Thomas Cook staff begin legal action over job losses

    Could be interesting as there is a bit of conflict between employment law and insolvency law

    More than 100 former Thomas Cook staff are taking legal action after losing jobs at the collapsed travel giant.
    They believe the firm acted unlawfully in the way they were dismissed and have appointed lawyers to seek redress through an employment tribunal.
    One ex-senior manager told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme Thomas Cook was still offering jobs just days before going bust.
    Ex-staff say Thomas Cook failed in its duty to keep them informed.
    Lawyers from one firm, Simpson Millar, told the BBC that thousands of former workers at the firm could be due some money.
    Employees are entitled to a Protective Award if they are made redundant from an office of more than 20 people without being properly informed – and are entitled to up to 90 days’ pay.

    1. Bert “Why did the monastery remain closed?”
      Ada ” I don’t know …”
      Bert “Because the Monasteers voted to leave …”

      1. Bert – “Have you seen my humbugs, Ada?”

        Ada ” Not now dear I’m sucking a fisherman’s friend”….

        2. I bought one on its 80th birthday but it wasn’t as I remembered it – possibly because it had stayed the same and I hadn’t.
          Dandy, Beano and Topper were my comics of choice all those years ago and even today, I prefer pictures to words.

    5. “Why has there been so much foul language in Parliament in the past few days Burt”
      “I heard the Attorney General saying that the House was full of turkeys waiting for Christmas Ada!”

    6. From the other side …
      Novice nun runs into Mother Superior’s office …
      ” Mother Superior, Mother Superior … the toilet seats are up!”.

  105. Phillips verbally clashed with fellow Labour MP Diane Abbott on 14 September 2016 over the gender composition of Jeremy Corbyn’s first shadow cabinet. After she asked Corbyn why he had failed to appoint a woman to shadow the great offices of state, Abbott accused her of being “sanctimonious” and pointed out that Phillips was “not the only feminist in the PLP (Parliamentary Labour Party).” Corbyn did not intervene.[26] Owen Bennett wrote in The Huffington Post that Phillips recounted: “I roundly told her to fuck off.” When asked what Ms Abbott did after that suggestion, Ms Phillips replied: “She fucked off.”[27] According to Diane Abbott in a January 2018 Guardian interview: “Jess Phillips never told me to fuck off. What was extraordinary is that she made a big deal of telling people she had.”[28] Phillips later apologised.[29]

  107. She dos not sound to be a particularly nice person

    n October 2015, Phillips sparked a social media storm after she mocked the Conservative MP Philip Davies for trying to get a debate about International Men’s Day. He cited men’s issues like increasing male suicides, lower life expectancy relative to women, male victims of domestic violence, low educational achievement by working class white boys and male experience of child custody cases.[38] Phillips openly laughed and pulled faces while Davies spoke, and then stated that: “You’ll have to excuse me for laughing. As the only woman on this committee, it seems like every day to me is International Men’s Day.”[39][40] Davies responded by stating that, “If a male MP had reacted in that way about the need for debate on International Women’s Day, there would have been hell to pay. It’s entirely possible you’d be removed from Chambers or have the Whip removed. I’m surprised she finds that a laughing matter.

  108. This just in – Met Police have foiled a right wing plot on the life of Labour MP Paula Sheriff. A 32 year old man has been arrested with the intent of throwing pork pies into heavy traffic as she walked past.

    4. Ah, I had to Google this nonentity and it turns out that she’s the fat cow that raised the spectre of Jo Cox in Parliament and was totally pi$$ed off by Boris identifying her ‘question’ as HUMBUG.

  109. Saudi Women Are Pushing the Limits of What They Can Wear

    In Saudi they want to discard the abaya whilst in ther UK they are being encouraged to wear it

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/saudi-women-are-pushing-the-limits-of-what-they-can-wear/ar-AAHVTkY?ocid=spartandhp

    Munira Al Mutairi sometimes wonders what it would be like to leave her house without covering herself in an abaya, the shape-covering cloak that Saudi women wear in public.
    “It would be a kind of liberation,” she said at a private residential compound in Riyadh. “I don’t want anyone to put conditions on me — that you’re a woman, you have to be like this, don’t show your face.”

  110. It won’t let me log in, keeps telling me my password is wrong and yet, it let me type this! Aah – that’s better!!

  111. Saudi Arabia will open its doors to international tourists for the first time as part of a broader push to cut its economic dependence on oil.

    On Friday, the kingdom will launch a visa regime for 49 countries and relax strict dress codes for female visitors.

    Tourism Minister Ahmad al-Khateeb described it as a “historic moment” for the country.
    Visas have until now largely been restricted to pilgrims, business people and expatriate workers.
    Saudi Arabia is also hoping to secure foreign investment in the tourism industry. It wants tourism to rise from 3% to 10% of gross domestic product by 2030.

    Foreign women visitors will not be required to wear the body-covering abaya robe required to be worn in public by Saudi women, but must still dress modestly. There will also be no restrictions on unaccompanied women visiting the country.

    “We have a culture. We believe our friends and our guests will respect the culture, but definitely it is modest and it will be very clear,” Mr Khateeb said.
    Non-Muslims will still not be allowed to visit the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and the ban on alcohol will be maintained.

    1. Tony • 29 minutes ago

      If you are getting bored with France and Spain, there is an alternative coming up –

    3. Any “any unaccompanied” woman who visits one of these culturally backward countries is taking a big personal risk.

      Also, since the Saudi historic sites are off limits, their legal system is medieval and there’s definitely no nice bottle of cold white wine waiting back at the hotel, so why would anyone want to go there?

        1. But hitherto, all women out and about had to be accompanied by a male. There will be many in Saudi who are very conservative about the interpretation of their faith and who knows how they would treat a single woman.

          Don’t forget, people from this “safe” country thought crashing planes into buildings in the US was the right thing to do.

  112. What to stop the Remainer parties calling a critical vote whilst most of the Conservatives are up in Manchester ?

    1. I think it is unwise to go ahead with the Conference. The Remainers are planning a meeting on Monday to discuss tactics to prevent a No Deal Brexit on 31 October. their tails are up. The BBC is still blatantly supporting the Remainers and has them on air at every opportunity to discuss their chances and possible tactics. Boris should be close to the HoC in these difficult times. I hope the Supreme Court notice that the HoC is taking its usual long weekend and probably next weekend as well thus reducing the number of days actually lost by the proroguation.

      1. Yes the BBC is keen to repeat he lie that we will have shortages of food and medicines. If they were to bother to contact the ports of Calais and Dover they would be told that they are a 100% ready for a no deal Brexit and anticipate no delays. Should any delays occur they have well rehearsed procedures for dealing with them as bade whether and strikes can and do cause delays and those delay can quickly be mitigated

        1. We keep the pantry full, as a bad winter could see us cut off and without power for long periods. So far the record is ten days.
          We will be in position to open a black market in tins of corned beef, tuna, and whale (a bit past its sellby).

      2. I record Sky News at 10 just so that I can monitor the brainwashing statements, fake polls, and general anti-Brexit / anti-Trump bias. By recording it I can just skip through the young royal stories and others that hold no interest. Last night I stopped watching to rewind and count the people who were interviewed.

        They started with Boris Johnson saying that it WAS a surrender bill and he would not apologise for saying so. They then had SIX hard-core Remainers giving comments over the next five minutes. From Jeremy Corbyn to Jess Phillips and her ongoing precarious grip on life with all of these hard-core Leavers who are gunning for her. Six of them defending remaining in the EU, followed by an an interview with the murdered MP Jo Cox’s sister who was commenting on her name being used.

        So that is seven people in a row after Boris. I think that is a record, even for Sky News.

      1. The Conservatives have no seats or marginals in Manchester. Could they not quickly relocate their conference to Westminster or Kensington – and this would also be useful for some impromptu Leave Demos outside Parliament next week …. they might even get to be able to throw some abuse at Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston, Letwin, Hammond, Soames, Rudd, and Paula Simmons and Jess Phillips.

  114. Remainers have turned Parliament into an anti-democratic monstrosity

    ALLISTER HEATH

    They have perverted the concept of parliamentary sovereignty to legitimise aristocratic rule by MPs

    There was a time when Eurosceptics thought that they were the new Roundheads, fighting to return power to Parliament, pitted in combat against the Remainers, a new generation of Euro-Cavaliers committed to the divine right of the EU to rule over us. It was a compelling tale, so it’s no wonder that the more extreme Remainers are seeking to appropriate a warped version of it for themselves. Their real aim is to cancel Brexit, and they’ve found a brilliant new way of dressing up their power grab in pseudo-democratic garb.

    Remainer MPs, we are told, are the true friends of Parliament; Brexiteers are on the side of the bullying executive; and the courts have stepped in to complete the 1611 Case of Proclamations that limited the Royal prerogative. So what’s wrong with the Eurosceptics? Didn’t they spend years demanding greater parliamentary sovereignty? Why, then, are they so angry at John Bercow for enhancing MPs’ role? Why don’t they support the Supreme Court’s revolutionary reinterpretation of the Bill of Rights?

    It’s a trap. The Remainers are proposing a new doctrine: a perversion of the old idea of parliamentary sovereignty and its replacement by a toxic concept which posits that MPs should have almost unlimited power. Instead of a representative democracy, Remainers want an elected oligarchy, a parliamentocracy, with MPs free to do whatever they wish once elected, with zero accountability. It would be like creating a hybrid between Lords and Commons, with MPs as heroic rebels, defying the bigoted voters, organising themselves into ever-shifting alliances, with manifestos merely a sick joke.

    A core component of this reactionary ideology is that referendums are illegitimate: Remainers who hated our constitutional traditions now love that aspect of them. Because the executive represents the 52 per cent, the Remainers want to strip it of any ability to govern. They are too scared to permit an election.

    To ensure their plan works, they want MPs to break away – de jure or de facto – from their parties, repudiate manifestos and leaders, revoke the Brexit they had previously voted for, and back an interim government. Jeremy Corbyn is too extreme, so the plan is to find an alternative useful idiot to lead this Rotten Parliament’s “government of national unity” (in fact, an exclusively Remainer group). Perhaps the most hypocritical part of this scheme is that Remainer MPs don’t want to rule: they seek to ensure that the EU stays firmly in control.

    Voters, who thought they had made an ideological choice by electing an MP as a member of a particular party, will be disfranchised twice over. The referendum will be cancelled; a sham plebiscite on a rigged question will be organised, presumably allowing 16 year-olds and non-UK citizens to vote. The hope is not just to revoke Brexit but also to discredit the very idea of referendums. A parliamentocracy mustn’t be confused with a democracy.

    Top lawyers – usually so ready to conjure up novel interpretations – don’t accept that the constitution has evolved to include referendums since 1975. Even the former Supreme Court justice Lord Sumption, who correctly writes that lawyers have usurped too much authority from politicians, is misguided on this. He welcomed the Supreme Court’s judgment because it “reinstates Parliament at the heart of the process”. He argues that “most of our difficulties over the past three years have arisen from the misguided attempt to insert a referendum into a parliamentary system”.

    That is catastrophically wrong-headed: we needed the referendum because most MPs had failed to represent the public’s view on such an important constitutional matter. The people are sovereign, not the MPs, who are merely their agents. The chaos has been caused by their refusal to follow those instructions.

    Eurosceptics who believed in parliamentary sovereignty never sought to give MPs absolute power. Tony Benn, a first-generation opponent of the EU, put it well: “Britain’s continuing membership… would mean the end of Britain as a completely self governing nation and the end of our democratically elected Parliament as the supreme law-making body in the United Kingdom.”

    But while he wanted Parliament – not Brussels, Strasbourg or Luxembourg – to be the place where law was made, he didn’t support an elected dictatorship of MPs. Benn separately argued that national sovereignty belongs to the people: “We lend it to our representatives to use for five years at a time… Any government or MP pretending to give away these sovereign powers without the explicit consent of the people is acting unconstitutionally.”

    My own Euroscepticism has little to do with parliamentary sovereignty per se – I’m more interested in the sovereignty of the individual – and all to do with restoring democracy and accountability and ensuring political power is decentralised. There is no European demos (people) – and thus no possible kratos by the demos (democracy, or rule of the people). Technocratic empires are a recipe for economic, social, cultural and political calamity.

    Politicians and majorities should not have unlimited powers over us: natural, inalienable rights ought to be enshrined into a form of superior constitutional law. But these should be grounded in national traditions: the US has its constitution, the French have their droits de l’homme et du citoyen, and we should have a new British Bill of Rights.

    The courts have a key role in enforcing them, though they must be prevented from descending into US-style judicial activism. Legislation will be required to curtail their role, limit judicial reviews and ensure government and Parliament directly control the appointment process. Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General, and other Tories are finally thinking in this way, an excellent development.

    Forget about binary battles between Roundheads and Cavaliers: it’s time for a radical five-way division of roles between the constitutional monarchy, the executive, legislators elected by the public, the courts and the people involved directly, with a new Swiss-style role for referendums by petition.

    The extreme Remainers’ vision is an anti-democratic monstrosity, an appalling abuse by a cosseted, privileged and delusional class harking back to a bygone era of deference. Brexiteers shouldn’t despair: there is nothing the British public hates more than being taken for fools.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/25/remainers-have-turned-parliament-anti-democratic-monstrosity2/

    2. The Remainers wish our sovereign Parliament reduced to a pale shadow of that which exists, as it shuttles between Brussels and Strasbourg and is called by the unelected EU Commission, the voice oif Democracy – unable to introduce any legislation and there only to act as a rubber-stamp for the directives handed down by the EU Commission.

      What’s not to like?

  115. Windows 10 computers.

    Who on earth decided that these complex machines should be unleashed on the general public?

    I’m currently helping my neighbour with her computer and have already filled two of my swear-boxes and reckon 90% of the guff the software creators have put on the machine could be done away with without any problem.

    Although I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if I’m struggling, what chance a first time elderly user?

    P.S. If the dummies who think getting people online and using I.T. involves the usual ‘chuck some public money at it’, they need to think again.

        1. it’s autocorrect it doesn’t always let you finish a sentence….

          “easiest version of Windows to set up on a wall and hurl bricks at it.”…..

      2. Don’t forget, Bill, it’s me that has to carry my swear-boxes down to the bank. As such, I’ll ignore your post.

        1. The main problem Microsoft and other software developers cannot resist adding in all sorts of unnecessary functionality. If you take Nero it started of as a nice little Software tool for burning CD.s. It is now a horrendous piece of bloatware and is best avoided

          1. That’s my point, Bill. Were they to do nothing, they’d be out of a job.

            There’s a screaming need for a basic machine which will do the basics for those who could benefit from the internet but who are put off by the complexity of current software.

            Unfortunately, the gravy train of organisations getting public money for ‘teaching people’ to use computers will take a lot of stopping.

            Here’s a good video which illustrates the problem as it was a few years ago, before it got even worse.

            https://ksr-video.imgix.net/projects/185158/video-148316-h264_high.mp4

      3. It’s bloated, full of cr*p and aimed at the lowest possible denominator. And that’s before the vendor installs all the freebies you don’t want/need.

        1. You do need a bit of skill to remove all the unwanted crap although some of it you are stuck with as it does not allow it to be removed

    2. Microsoft products are shit, Eddy. The are popular because the manufacturers know that the Sheeple will blindly buy its output, despite Microsoft knowing that its products are woefully substandard: both hardware and software.

      That is why the “Windows Phone” failed miserably and sank without a trace.

      1. I have used for many years both Apple IOS and Microsoft Windows on different machines and have tried various versions of Linux. None of them are foolproof or even “reasonably intelligent” proof – they all have problems and, as they have grown “better” over time, the potential for intractable problems has increased. My question to you, Grizzly, is “how on earth does one define ‘substandard’ when substandard is the standard?”.

        1. My question to you, Grizzly, is “how on earth does one define ‘substandard’ when substandard is the standard?”.

          My goodness, Enri, it’s not very often that I’m stumped for an answer but stumped I am right now!

          Is that a rhetorical question or is it the $64,000 question?

          1. Do you know, when I wrote the post I thought about saying that it was a rhetorical question. Sorry for the omission but I have just heard from a Nigerian gentleman who says that he happens to have $64,000 in a strong box and, if you give him your bank account details, he will transfer it to you.

          2. I know another one that will if you allow him to access your PC will fix it for free. You bank account though may get a bit lighter when you next look at it

          6. I used to have many phone calls from an Indian-sounding man (sometimes a woman) telling me that they were from Microsoft support or some such nonsense and that they could fix the problem with my computer. It is quite easy to keep them on the phone for up to about half an hour by acting IT-stupid and deaf so that you didn’t hear properly what they asked you to type in. I could do all sorts of routine chores while this was going on and, would you believe it, just as they were getting suspicious, I had to leave because of someone at the front door. As long as you disconnect your computer from your router, it is safe.

            I took the view that wasting their time for half an hour while actually not taking much at all of my time was half an hour less that these parasites could bother more vulnerable people with. I was never rude as I didn’t want to get abusive phone calls at 3am.

            I installed a BT phone (8600) with integral call-monitoring and blocking a couple of years ago, and haven’t had a nuisance call since. I rather miss my little sessions of parasite-baiting!

          7. I’ve been it touch with him. He tells me the cheque is in the post.

            He sounded ever so sincere, I was nearly moved to tears.

          8. He want to get in touch with the nice pensioner he befriended. HE has some temporary cash flow issues and would like this pensioner to send him £10K. It will of course be fully repaid when he has dealt with his cash flow issues

          9. Did you know that at least a trillion squazillion US dollars are lurking in Nigerian bank accounts, the whereabouts known only to the daughters, sons or work colleagues of deposed/killed former Nigerian heads of state? It’s the same with many other countries in West Africa. Why they need our foreign aid beats me.

      2. Unfortunately, Grizzly, most low-cost computers come with the latest Windows version pre-installed. Microsoft have always been known for bloat but seemingly have to add additional bloat to justify the cost of each version.

        Not only that, but the amount of unsolicited crap that gets dumped on people’s computers is bad enough for experienced users but for novices it’s totally out of order.

        For example, why should my neighbour have to delve into the bowels of Google Chrome to turn of the notifications which were driving her up the wall? Etc., etc., etc.

    4. Apple computers are hideously overpriced, rather like Japanese cars. But you get what you…..

      Also, your neighbour might consider a Google Chromebook; the software updates automatically, starts up quickly, easy to browse on the web.

          1. Thanks.
            I don’t think there was anything seriously wrong with it, just a combination of small things.
            For example, she couldn’t understand what ‘Bing’ was. It turned out that somehow, her default search engine had been changed to Bing. Also, she was getting multiple notifications from various sources without understanding why they kept popping up.
            All in all, confusing for an elderly lady.
            P.S. I did try a Restore operation but after half an hour with no apparent action and no activity wheel to indicate anything was happening, I searched for how long one should take.
            One individual had had a four hour wait without success and so I kicked that course of action into touch.

          2. Have you try CCleaner to stop all the unwanted stuff from starting? It’s quite effective in Windows 7.

          3. I did think about it, having used it in the past.

            As I said, I suspect there’s nothing seriously wrong with her computer and think much of her problem was to do with the usual junk coming down the line and with vested interests trying to get a foot in the door.

            As you’ll know, it only takes a click in the wrong place and the door is wide open to those interests.

          4. It has to do with monthly updates white unlike other versions reset a lot Microsoft settings to default.

    2. Posted to Ar$ebook with the caption, “These are the people that believe the UK should ignore the People’s desire to leave the EU:”

  117. Remainers fear a Cummings comeback could smash their ‘watertight’ masterplan

    BENEDICT SPENCE

    Anti-Brexit politicians are starting to doubt whether they have blocked no deal after all

    As Boris Johnson’s government veers from one crisis to the next, the phrase ‘classic Dom’ has entered the lexicon of the online commentariat, a sarcastic excoriation of the man hailed as a master tactician by Brexiteers and supporters of the Prime Minister.

    Dominic Cummings, so they say, thinks several steps ahead of his opponents – and so his opponents, both on the Remain side and in the Brexit Party, are delighting in what they see as his inevitable unravelling. But if it is to be his end, no one seems to have told him; if anything, he is positively reveling in the chaos around him.

    If his meetings with members of the press are to be believed, he’s finding things rather enjoyable – certainly more so than he did the referendum campaign, or his long periods in exile. Twice, now, he has cheerfully addressed the most senior members of the Labour Party in public – Corbyn a few weeks ago and McDonnell just yesterday – to goad and gloat over them, whilst he clearly took some pleasure in the way Karl Turner lost his cool with him in Westminster last night. And that was before he told Sky’s Lewis Goodall he was talking ‘bullshit.’

    Johnson’s government finds itself in the weakest position it could possibly have envisaged: Unable to wield power, but pinned in place by the opposition. And yet, it has managed to spin this to its own advantage. The Dead Parliament, as it was called by Geoffrey Cox, was not an off-the-cuff remark, but a line that will now come to encapsulate this period in history, and, what’s more, it was the demands by MPs to have Parliament recalled that gave the Government the platform to spread it.

    As MPs raged against the dying of the light, the record numbers of people tuning in to view the spectacle on BBC Parliament saw one thing: A chamber advertising its own uselessness. A perfect vehicle to illustrate the idea parliament is not serving the people, but opposing them.

    As the government itself has pointed out, much like the ‘£350 million for the NHS’ bus slogan in 2016, the opposition’s fervor is doing their publicity for them. If people weren’t aware Parliament was dead before the attempt at prorogation, they certainly do now.

    What comes next in the saga is intriguing. Sir John Major, the arch Remainer, tried to head off at the pass last night what he thinks the Government may try next to see the UK leave the EU without parliament’s say so. Despite David Gauke’s assertion that the so-called Benn Act is ‘watertight’, Sir John warned an Order of Council could prevent the implication of the act itself until after the October 31 Brexit deadline, circumventing the whole thing. It would surely lead to yet further legal challenges, and would, once again, feed into the ‘Parliament vs people’ narrative.

    Meanwhile, a further suggestion has been that Cummings could be planning for the Government to invoke EU law to get round the Benn Act, as Article 50, being a continental mechanism, trumps UK Law, to which the Benn Act belongs. It would be creative, to say the least, whilst also infuriating Remainers, and demonstrating to the public just how powerless UK law is in the face of the EU. Using the enemy’s strength against them? Very Sun Tzu.

    For all the sniggering at his failures so far, it remains Cummings who is the one setting fires, while Remainers rush from inferno to inferno trying to put them out. Maybe it’s all just a front, and it certainly doesn’t mean there is a master plan behind it, but for someone whose reason for being is razing the system he despises to the ground, that’s exactly where one imagines he’d want to be.

    Classic Dom, you might say.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/27/remainers-fear-cummings-comeback-could-smash-watertight-masterplan/

    1. The Man Of Many Names wouldn’t approve of this video.

      I look forward to the day when someone says our urban landscapes are a bit to monomelanic.

    2. Then there was the Ofsted inspector who said the Isle of Wight was a “white ghetto”. Compared to parts (most?) of London, it probably is.

      1. Did he by any chance own a house there and was making an oblique attempt to push up local property values?

        1. I read a follow up on him and that interview. Even though he apologized, it was fairly obvious he really thought that way. He also called the IoW locals “inbred”, presumably meaning not cross bred.

          1. Those were traditionally in Wisbech, Cambs but I understand it is spreading to Bradford, Luton and Leicester – among others.

            Incest, a game the whole family can play.

    3. Brillopad, and thanks for that, Grizzly.

      I’m heartened, not because of its ethnicity element but because we have young people opening their eyes to the top-down brainwashing we’re being subjected to.

      It’s the same with our local council, which basically tells us how we should live, keep ‘healthy’, stop smoking and engages in all manner of nannying on a grand scale.

      Let’s hope the worm is turning.

      1. “It’s the same with our local council, which basically tells us how we should live, keep ‘healthy’, stop smoking and engages in all manner of nannying on a grand scale.”

        Eddy, my experience of local council employees is that they can be the fattest, unhealthiest breed I have ever encountered, somehow coupled with a lazy air of entitlement. Or am I being unfair?

        1. I don’t have any dealings with the council, Harry, other than to give them some dosh each month and to put the bins out.

          I do, though, look at their Facebook page and it’s an unending barrage of the stuff I mentioned – as if anyone takes any notice.

        1. That is beautiful. Where I grew up looked like that. We were given a beautiful country to call our own.

          If they seriously think that we will not stop them giving it away to others then they are mad.

          1. MM,
            We had better get started then in a very
            meaningful manner because to my way of looking at the situation in many areas we are being surrounded.

    4. There are plenty of urban white ancestral British for whom the countryside is irrelevant…

      1. You think so, William, try taking it away from them, or restricting their access and listen to the howls.

        1. Not those who think it’s their right to trample all over it without regard but those who for whom it is an strange and alien place.

    5. Very good, I’m sure the BBC will be giving that young lady a weekly 30 minute show on how it is all progressing.

        1. Private Cole: He’s right. Why is it us? Why us?
          Colour Sgt. Bourne: Because we’re here, lad. Nobody else. Just us.

        1. It’s weird. I still get a kick out of putting together a really quick/rough Photoshop hack. If people like it, I keep the idea and may spend “proper” time working it to a full image. Done some good stuff that way.
          I thinks that’s why I don’t want to retire yet. Itr’s called fun.

          1. I have only made two, but that was because finding a font that was readable took so long that it put me off, and then I forgot which one I had found as well. Now I just use MS San Serif as Korky advised, and might make some more with captions. 🙂

    7. The attacks are unrelenting: this numbskull was at least forced to resign. Perhaps the growing squalor in Sad Khant’s Londonishitistan is more to her liking?

      A Lib Dem candidate has resigned after claiming people in her constituency voted Brexit because they were “white and don’t know people from other countries”.

      Kirsten Johnson, a pianist and composer, made the comments in an interview with BBC Radio 4 on Sunday afternoon, where she said North Devon voted for Brexit because it was “98 per cent white” and that “people aren’t exposed to people from other countries, they don’t travel a lot”.

      Daily Telegraph – LibDem Candidate Resigns

    8. Copied and posted to Ar$ebook in the hope that it reaches a wider audience. With a slight possibility it might, just might, make ’em think for once.

  120. Darned login box again. That’s each time today I have visited.

    Somebody out there is Disqus land needs “reprogramming”.

    3. I got the red not log in message in the reply box when I post but it went through when I just click again.

  122. Lou Dobbs just said someone is “funding chaos around the world”.

    Looks like that “someone” called in at Chaos Westminster.

    I wonder if someone has been naughty ?

    Looks like “Ukraine” might lead to some unexpected destinations.

    1. If only we could have the same level of trust in any of our politicians as this dog has in its owner.

  129. I think my 8 year old LG washer / dryer has had it.
    not only will it not empty or drain but it’s leaking
    from behind. The husband is emptying it manually
    via the little black pipe at the front and it’s still
    leaking around the back. The door won’t open too.
    But I think it’s had it and we’d better buy a new one
    instead of flapping around with it .
    Fortunately there isn’t anything in there.

    1. Really there’s nothing more unwelcome in a kitchen or utility room than a badly behaved washing machine.

    2. Check the filter. Usually accessed by a little door at the front bottom. Could be clogged by muck. Put a basin or tray on the floor and have towels handy as clearing a blockage will release the water out via the filter.
      Thus spake the Voice of (bitter) Exerience.

    4. If it has water in it it will normally not unlock. It could be the pump has failed but at 8 years old is probably not worth repairing. It could also be a as simple as a blockage in the drain hose so it is worth checking that. Years of soap and fluff etc plus limescale in a hard water area can clog it

      If the pump is working and the waste hose is clogged that could cause it to leak

    1. I was there a week ago. A lovely Indian lady wheeled me from Eurostar to Platform B & put me on the train to come home. I was absolutely knackered.

  132. The damage done to this country by this man cannot be exaggerated.

    Tony Blair’s diabolical plan has succeeded: more than half of young people are now at left-wing madrassas

    TOBY YOUNG

    Expanding the higher education sector was never about boosting social mobility

    The news that over half of England’s young people are going to university will be music to Tony Blair’s ears. According to the latest government figures, 50.2 per cent of 17-30 year-olds in England had participated in higher education in 2017-18.

    Back in 1999, when the figure was only 39 per cent, Blair set himself the 50 per cent target and less than 20 years later it has been achieved. The percentage of young people in England going to college or university is now even higher than in the United States, where the figure for 18-24 year-olds is about 40 per cent.

    Some people will welcome this news, believing that university is the surest route to upward social mobility. They will point to the fact that about a fifth of 18-year-olds starting university in England this year are from disadvantaged backgrounds. But the truth is that most of these students will be going to third or fourth-rate institutions and will soon discover that their degrees – which have saddled them with £50,000 of debt – have little or no labour market value.

    If you dig beneath these ‘good news’ statistics, you discover the stark reality. The number of disadvantaged students being admitted to the UK’s elite universities as a percentage of the total admitted is declining. In 2016, the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) published data revealing that of the 24 universities that comprise the Russell Group, seven recorded a drop in the percentage of disadvantaged students being admitted in 2015, including Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Exeter and Imperial College. It turns out that Surrey sent almost as many students to Oxford and Cambridge in 2012 as the whole of Wales and the North East combined. Only 50 students on free school meals were admitted to Oxford and Cambridge in 2014, an increase of just five since 2007, when 45 were admitted.

    The fact is, as the Social Mobility Commission’s State of the Nation 2016 report attests, Blair’s education reforms did little to increase access to Britain’s top universities for the most disadvantaged. Young people who grow up in poor households are six times less likely to go to Oxford or Cambridge and in 2010 not a single child on free school meals in the North-East got into either university. White working-class boys fare particularly badly when it comes to university participation – even the fourth-rate ones which have been reduced to making unconditional offers.

    A 2015 report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that white British pupils in the lowest socioeconomic quintile are 10 per cent less likely to participate in higher education than any other ethnic group in that quintile. According to a report published in 2015 by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, white boys on free school meals are the lowest-achieving group in Britain.

    Expanding the higher education sector was never about boosting social mobility. It was about churning out Labour voters – and in that respect Blair’s policy has succeeded like gangbusters. In the 2017 General Election, Labour had a 15 per cent lead among university graduates – and among 18-24 year-olds the gap was a whopping 35 per cent.

    The reason for this isn’t simply because young people always skew left of centre – after all, in 1987 Labour’s lead over the Conservatives among 18-24 year-olds was only two per cent. It’s also because in the past 40 years university lecturers have become much more left-wing. According to one recent paper, 18 per cent of academics identified as Conservative Party voters in 1989, compared to 37 per cent who identified as Labour. In 2015, however, the number of Tories had fallen to 11 per cent, while the number of Labour backers had climbed to 46 per cent. And of the rest, 22 per cent supported the Greens, and nine per cent the liberal democrats. Right-wing academics are now effectively outnumbered by left-wing academics by a ratio of 7:1.

    Universities aren’t engines of social mobility; they’re left-wing madrassas.

    Tony Blair has achieved his dream, alright. More than half of England’s 17-30 year-olds are bug-eyed anti-capitalists, ready to put a tick next to Labour at the next election. But given that Blair’s old party has been captured by an anti-Semitic, Marxist cult, it’s a case of “be careful what you wish for”. When Blair is carried off to the Gulag after being prosecuted by Seamas Milne’s ‘war crimes’ tribunal, he may regret his cry of “education, education, education”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/27/tony-blairs-diabolical-plan-has-succeeded-half-young-people/

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/71343bb91b2c7932f884bac77f6a001bb364e1c5266f4b534cbeb859c951b777.jpg

    1. 39% in 1999 was far too high. The country was better served when there were Colleges of Advanced Technology and Polytechnics had lots of vocational courses. John Major doubled the number of universities overnight in the earlly 1990s and now we have some really crummy “universities”.

      2. The “old way” where exams, from 11+ to “S” levels, sorted out the top small percentage who could really benefit from – and survive – an intense academic education, paid for mostly by the tax payer made far more sense.

        The CAT’s did a great job at turning out qualified engineers because of the required work experience and sponsoring companies. Local polys or C of FE’s produced a lot of really good HNC/HND qualified engineers as well as having all the craft classes needed to get City and Guilds qualifications. BUT all that pre-supposed a demand for engineering skills and talent, which is an area Britain has sort of walked away from.

        Germany is almost the only place that did not succumb to the siren song of easy money from the finance sector. And guess who has the strongest economy in Europe and is home to the best engineering companies?

        But Blair did get the NEED numbers down – which was his numero uno goal.

        1. Boy service in the armed forces helped educate the masses with technical know-how.

          I know, because I was one. A Boy Entrant at 15 1/2 I joined the Royal Air Force as a under/training (u/t) Air Radar Mechanic. Learned a lot and went on to serve 9 years, see the world, learn a language (German) and understand other people and cultures.

          Far more than the youth of today.

    2. A very early Good morning, William at 01:27, “But the truth is that most of these students will be going to third or
      fourth-rate institutions and will soon discover that their degrees –
      which have saddled them with £50,000 of debt – have little or no labour
      market value.”

      By the time the snowflakes come to this conclusion, they will have been brain-washed by the current, primary, secondary and tertiary education systems to believe that Bliars ideals are Gospel and should be proslytised the world over. I despair for the future.

  133. Evening, all. Busy day today; memorial service in the afternoon and a meeting in the evening. Some tight scheduling involved!

    2. At least that meeting above looks better than the one just before the referendum, where Scotland’s Nicky Sturgeon went over for a “High Level” meeting with Michel Barnier – It looked as if they had kicked the cleaners out of their break-room and Barnier just happened to be passing when he saw her.

      I could only find this one picture, but they had those little plastic coffee stirrers and the tiny plastic cartons of UHT milk on the table. Plastic cups for the water as well… There were better photos, but this was the best that I could find. 🙂

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/15a8b6aaf8b05642ed712c6fcc974cea3399794b2487f65e1be7d2dfde9f5e42.jpg

  136. Right, this will be ignored, as usual

    On Sunday, we leave to go to Spain, for a couple of months to stay in TinTent#1, on a campsite South of Alicante

    Where we are going has been flooded, and the locals are in trouble: their homes have been wiped out

    We left our TinTent in (covered) storage.

    We have lotsa bags/cleaning gear/ clothes etc for the locals, whose houses have been devastated by floods

    If the EU get nasty, we will bring Tintent home and never venture to EUroland again.

    We spend alotta money there

    As usual, the Politcians win, the people lose

    Just like Brexit

    2. Brilliant, well done , please take care .

      It was never meant to be like this , everything is turning so sour ..

      You have to do what you have to do.. none of us know the right answers anymore. more’s the pity .

    4. Best of luck – I hope your kind intentions are met with the thanks that they deserve. I’m sure that as the locals know you, they will be happy to see you.

    5. Could you put tintent on floats and paddle it over here? There are a lot of wonderful uncrowded roads in Newfoundland for you to explore.

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