Friday 28 April: If drivers are to switch to electric vehicles, the incentives must improve

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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488 thoughts on “Friday 28 April: If drivers are to switch to electric vehicles, the incentives must improve”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Johnny and the Toad

    Johnny was sitting in class, when the teacher asked what they did on the weekend.

    Johnny put his hand up and said “I put a banger up a toad’s arse and blew it to pieces!”

    The teacher replied, “You mean rectum, Johnny!”

    To which Johnny replied, “Wrecked ‘im? No, Miss… it fuckin’ KILLED ‘im!”

    2. Me too, Sir Jasper. Not literally, though, i.e. you go to your bed and I’ll go to mine! Lol.

    1. Not if you read the news it doesn’t…

      Edit. That’s me being sarcastic, having just read the Mary Wakefield piece above.

  5. If drivers are to switch to electric vehicles, the incentives must improve

    I thought that the long term goal was to get people out of cars altogether, once people have only the choice of electric cars then they can be controlled far easily than through the petrol pump.

  6. Good Moaning; and a grey wet one is a good excuse for moaning. On the plus side, I have a v. good excuse for not painting the fence.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/heres-why-the-nhs-is-broken/

    Here’s why the NHS is broken
    Mary Wakefield

    I was having tea with my neighbour in her second-floor flat when a man, a stranger, appeared in the room. This is quite a regular occurrence at Alice’s. She’s deaf and she can’t really walk so any number of agency staff have access to her front-door key. They materialise wearing gloves and usually a face mask, and because Alice relies on lip-reading she hasn’t a clue what they’re about to do to her. Is it bath time? Injection time? Oh, it’s fun to be housebound and old. This time the man had a clipboard which he consulted, then said: ‘We’re going to hospital.’

    Alice turned to me: ‘What did he say?’ Over the years, she and I have worked out a decent way of communicating, mostly though eyebrow raises: ‘What’s the world coming to?’ And shrugs: ‘What can you do?’ This wasn’t in our repertoire, so I turned to the man and asked: ‘What’s it for?’

    He looked at the clipboard again. ‘She has an outpatient appointment.’

    When the whole system is failing, nit-picking and nagging is all you can do while the ship sinks

    ‘But how is she getting there?’ I asked him. ‘Ambulance.’ He gestured to the window and, sure enough, there was one parked in the street below. Alice had fallen a few months before and broken her hip so the idea of a check-up made sense, but not much else did. ‘How will you get her down the stairs?’ I asked. The man looked at Alice’s set-up: bed, commode, armchair, all side-by-side with a Zimmer in front. Then he looked at Alice, who isn’t fat but isn’t bird-like either. And we were quiet for a moment, considering those two flights of stairs.

    Then Alice, who’d picked up the gist, began the painful process of leaning forward, gripping the Zimmer and tipping weight onto her swollen feet. ‘I’ll try. Though this is how I broke my hip in the first place you know.’

    ‘Stop!’ said the man, ‘we’ll reschedule. We need a stretcher and two people. Her file needs updating.’ He shook his head. ‘It should say she’s immobile and deaf.’

    ‘What does her file say now?’ I asked, peering over his shoulder. There was Alice’s name and address on a piece of paper and underneath that two words: ‘immobile’ and ‘deaf’. We contemplated this, the man and I. ‘So… what would you add to that?’ I asked him. ‘Nothing, really,’ he said, equably. ‘Then why have you come alone?’ ‘Cost-saving,’ he said, and shook his head at the sorry state of the NHS. ‘One man is cheaper than two.’

    ‘Shall we add something to the notes then, so this doesn’t happen again?’ The man looked horrified. ‘I can’t add anything to the notes! It’s not my business. It’s an automatic system!’ ‘Can you tell the hospital to add something then?’ He looked at me as if there was some basic fact I wasn’t grasping: ‘This is an automatic system. An automatic appointment.’

    I looked out of the window again and thought about all the octogenarians who might have fallen across London and might right now be lying with their own broken bones, waiting for an ambulance like this. The man was right. I wasn’t grasping it.

    ‘If you reschedule with these same notes, won’t the automatic system just trigger the same response?’ I asked. The man smiled and something about the Zen-like calm that had descended on him suggested that this wasn’t his first time at this rodeo. Perhaps he’d even been to Alice’s house before. She wouldn’t necessarily remember. Perhaps it would go on like this until Alice died, an endless series of ambulances and endless automatic rescheduling. I had the sudden, vertiginous feeling that there might be ambulances all over London idling in the streets waiting for outpatients they can never pick up; men with clipboards calmly popping in and popping out like cuckoos on a cuckoo clock.

    The government has, I read recently, spent £164,000 on a guide to ‘inclusive communication’ to ensure that clinicians ask patients their pronouns in exactly the right tone of voice, for fear of triggering offence. At the time I wondered how on earth cash-strapped management justified the spending when nurses were striking and patients dying for want of care. Now I see that when the whole system is failing, when various parts of the service just don’t connect any more, nit-picking and nagging is all you can do: have a meeting, print more posters, obsess on progressive protocol, give yourself the illusion of control while the ship sinks.

    Wes Streeting described the health service recently as ‘still salvageable’. It’s quite something to hear the Labour shadow health secretary so downbeat about ‘our’ NHS. But Wes is wrong.

    The man was by now sidling out of the door so I had one last crack at fixing this tiny broken link in the system. ‘Can anyone add to Alice’s notes? Who should I tell so we get two men next time?’ I asked. ‘Maybe her GP?’ The man said this gently, sorrowfully, as if there was no reason for me to meddle, and as if the process was all taking place exactly as it should. He needn’t have worried. I’ve tried to call Alice’s GP before. They never pick up.

    When he was gone, I turned to Alice. ‘Mistake. It was all a mistake,’ I mouthed. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll make a cup of tea… by the way, your hip, the one they operated on, does it hurt at all?’

    ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘There’s bits of me that are worse.’ So there’s your outpatient appointment, Alice.

    This was on Sunday, and shortly afterwards the government tested its emergency alarm and the air was full of shrieking and I had to resist the impulse to smash my phone to make it stop. Not because a nationwide alarm is a bad idea – I’m sure it works very nicely in countries that suffer from storms or tsunamis. But because of the impression it seemed to give of an efficient government which keeps its citizens so safe and well that all it has left to do is fine-tune the emergency protocol.”
    ————————————————————–

    And here is the reply from a chum to whom I forwarded this piece:

    “Just to add to the list of “moans”. Nurses want more pay? If they get more pay will it stop three nurses chatting about their love life, whilst I emptied 6 full pee pots in D****’s room which had built up all night and day. The smell was, to say the least, intense. Still, at least someone brought in his lunch whilst I bustled from bed to toilet emptying them one by one (had to walk past the nurses station to do so).

    I tried giving them black looks and then I decided to leave the last pee pot (full of pee) on the reception desk. No response whatsoever. Hey ho.”

    (The patient was having treatment for skin cancer.)

  7. Good morning all.
    A damp start today, a tad below 4°C with a mist clinging to the valley sides and a light drizzle.

  10. Morning, all Y’all.
    Sunny, but chill start -2C.
    Repairs to SWMBOs little red car yesterday did n’t happen, the parts were not delivered. Garage only thought to call her about it when part-way to garage to collect the car… try again today, hoping for more success. Also, a set of new summer tyres for Second Son’s car – that’ll set my bank account back a bit. Oh, well, it’s only money.
    Stress levels high at the moment, due to incompetent boss and too much work. Shouted at the car door for being difficult to open… maybe, like Sir Jasper, I should return to bed. Less likely to rip off someone’s head and shit in their neck that way. Grr!!

  11. Good morning, chums. Feeling a little tired this morning, so may well take things easy today.

    1. Morning Elsie, sometimes it is best to think that what won’t get done today can wait until tomorrow. Enjoy a restful day.

  12. King Charles gives his stamp of approval to diverse Royal Mail Coronation collection. 28 April 2023.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e764ea615de899dadaaaa615c4b603d0f5628d309902f8ed378ac299df61dbcf.png

    The 1st class stamp in blue ink features figures representing the Jewish, Islamic, Christian, Sikh, Hindu and Buddhist religions,and Royal Mail described it as being representative of all faiths and none.

    The King is known for his commitment to promoting multi-faith tolerance, and the background scene on the stamp captures the varied places of worship found around the UK, including a church and a mosque.

    Nothing of our History here! Nothing of its people and their achievements. Nothing of what we were! Stamps to celebrate their passing!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/04/28/king-charles-coronation-stamps-royal-mail-diversity/

        2. I’ve noticed on FB that if you mention the Great Reset then your opening post is automatically deleted, so I’ve started calling it The Considerable Reconstruction and it seems to be working.

          1. I always used to wonder how the people in Soviet Russia could be fooled. I know now! They weren’t!

        3. Interesting that his left ear got highlighted in the gloom (in that his ears have been a problem for the media in the past).

      2. Exactly. Just a slap in the face to the British people. Tyranny and Divide & Rule in one go!

    3. 373993+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,

      The true purpose of the stamps are of course to stamp out by omission, the high points of our history.

      The time is upon us I believe to lay in some serious rations, we will shortly see
      monetary bank robbery being old hat, food banks will be the targets.

      1. Using a traditional British art form to try and sell this dystopian future to us.

    5. I reject all of that, including Charles as King. I am fed up to the back teeth of having that political ordure shoveled on us from on high.

      1. Morning BB. I’ve just realised that I now hold the same view. I’m not a supporter of this Traitor King

        1. Those stamps really crystallise Charles’s promotion of all the hateful, damaging stuff that’s making our country such a horrible place to live.
          We need one identity, not these deeply divisive “communities,” and the eco-carp means cold, darkness and starvation.

          1. Yes. Chrystallise. The very word I used to myself. I’ve held off making a judgement on Charles but the stamps triggered something!

    6. At least the commonwealth is acknowledged. Not a whitey in the crowd, the resultl of trudeaus immigration drive.

    1. Sir Softy?

      As I respect the Tory leader’s every utterance I will in future refer to Sir Keir by the acronym ‘SS’.

      Henceforth his wife will be known as Lady SS, which will make her chuckle!

      (yes, I am aware)

  15. 373993+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Friday 28 April: If drivers are to switch to electric vehicles, the incentives must improve

    Surely the incentive must be along the lines of buy one get one free, the latter being a petrol / diesel vehicle.

    We could find ourselves a strike free nation but at a complete/ total standstill, many a fridge lorry becoming containers of rotting produce.

    All these futuristic prototype issues are being used now with a purpose, the purpose being to suppress, depress,make more malleable the herd prior to heading down the road to RESET.

  16. Good morning.
    I just bought a pale pink cotton summer dress, in the hope it might trigger England into remembering it’s supposed to be summer. Or even spring.
    Bit hopeful, I know.

  17. Good morning, all. Damp and misty.

    The climate change, I was going to type debate but the PTB are long past that and are turning deaf ears to sensible debate and so, nonsense seems the word to describe developments.
    From the Jaxen report on The Highwire this morning:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/965d1fb0ccc05d12d10a7226861d33597b153b4a5f338ea95901867acba76955.png

    Battlefield charging points seem to have been omitted from the thought process and as an aside, how large a battery does a 45 ton battle tank require?

    The attack on food continues. The restaurant, café and diner businesses will have to go and the people will have to get by on less…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3b199c7681347af4e8638561104482c9565640d66445cd67863c01d387550c6f.png

    …poor people are already feeling the hunger pangs.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/31573ba451a81fbed833a95275b11f6517e83a21326913ff6a975b0b36d40726.png

    Will pain not pangs be the order of the day for those undergoing surgery?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c3fb7d2102bf1e7260b528329cd3007ac2c91f369e539d818e7a77acffcdfea6.png

    Laundering, not the usual commodity i.e. money, but garments used in medical procedures appears to be the new big idea. Who is in line to make a big pile of dosh out of this move?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dccb557a5134fd5115a7f0612e7721b04db0f2e0c62d9e5ed0f921e779e0c9b0.png

    Excellent, as usual, Jaxen Report starting at 6:42 in this week’s The Highwire

    1. Presumably, the Geneva Conventions will be amended to provide for time off” when recharging…

    2. “All US military vehicles to be electric by 2030.” Thanks, Korky, best laugh of the day so far!

  21. Britain will be unable to keep the lights on with net zero power, MPs warn. 28 April 2023.

    Britain will struggle to keep the lights on using only net zero electricity as the roll-out of green energy lags far behind target, MPs have warned.

    Falling investor confidence and bureaucratic delays mean Britain’s efforts to produce entirely clean electricity are at risk of stalling, MPs on the cross-party Business Select Committee said.

    They are calling on the government to come up with a “coherent, overarching plan” to boost green supplies — or risk missing climate targets.

    TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE.

    Andy RoadKing.

    Net Zero is a dead end road to poverty, from a hysterical virtue signalling cult that offers a solution to something that isn’t a problem.

    I will vote for any party that offers us a referendum on Net Zero in the next election.

    I can’t argue with that Andy but there isn’t going to be one.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/04/28/net-zero-britain-will-be-unable-to-keep-the-lights-on-mps-w/

    1. I wouldn’t even trust a referendum after the blatantly fixed elections in the US. Some ideas are so stupid and malevolent that they don’t deserve a vote. Net zero is one of them. Just get rid of it!

  24. Morning, Peeps. Dull and overcast for now but with a promise of sunshine this afternoon, with max temperature of 16°C ‘on offer’ (That’s weather presenter speak). I am drlighted to see the return of the climate emergency, ‘cos the heating can go off!

    This is the leading letter today:

    SIR – We are being urged to switch to electric vehicles (report, April 26).

    I have owned mine for a year, after buying it second hand when it was about a year old. During this time I have discovered that its average range is 186 miles, compared with the 250 advertised. In cold weather this has dropped to between 140 and 150.

    I now find that its value has declined by nearly 30 per cent in the past few months, and apparently this has happened to most other EVs. I have spoken to two different dealer networks locally, and both told me that they can’t sell electric cars at present. Customers seem to have found out about the challenges of owning one.

    I am unsure whether to keep mine or switch to petrol or diesel. The Government’s hope that most people will adopt these cars is a pipe dream.

    Philip Kimberley
    Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire

    Had Mr Kimberley carried out even the most basic research he would not have gone anywhere the purchase of an EV! However, when the battery is effectively worn out in about six to seven years from now the cost of a replacement battery – if they still make one for his car – will effectively write it off. So he should dump it now and consider himself lucky to have got away with a loss of only 30%.

    The BTLs are so far unanimous – avoid EVs like the plague. Here are just three for now:

    Angus Long
    6 HRS AGO
    Petrol and diesel cars will be banned in the UK from 2030. That’s less than 8 years away. In the North East alone, there are hundreds of thousands of properties with no driveways where vehicles are parked on the road, often some distance away from the owner’s home. So across the whole UK, I wager the number will be in the millions.
    Current fuel stations are not structured to provide many electric charging stations. As they were designed and built to provide petrol and diesel for vehicles in about 4 minutes. So it begs the question, what plans are there in place to charge electric vehicles in these areas? Well to be honest, there aren’t any!
    Given we can’t, for obvious reasons, have power cables littering the roads and streets there are some key logistical questions that need answering. Where will the street charging stations be? How will the vehicles connect to them? Who will fund the charging and how will it be managed?
    This needs to be addressed now, otherwise in 2030 we are going to have total gridlock every day and utter commercial turmoil. Not to mention delays to emergency services and hundreds of stranded electric cars on roads and motorways.
    This is another example of overzealous, harmful net zero targets that will cause untold chaos and hardship to many and do nothing to impact the climate.
    FACT!
    A Net Zero Britain will have a Net Zero effect on climate control. So let’s not bother.

    Simon Bell
    3 HRS AGO
    I am staggered by the naïveté of people like Philip Kimberley. None of his revelations regarding electric cars are on the level of the third secret of Fatima. All could be discovered after five minutes on Google. Electric cars are the Betamax of the automotive world and most will become flower pots or rockeries within a few years. If you are a civil servant who works from home and does all your shopping online they might be suitable.

    tony gilbert
    2 HRS AGO
    “If drivers are to switch to electric vehicles, the incentives must improve ”
    If electric veicles and their infrastructure were any good, drivers wouldn’t need incentives.

    1. Nobody seems to get it yet.
      It’s not in the plan for ordinary people to own cars at all!

      1. The plan is for ordinary people to remain in their 15 minute neighbourhood aka open prison.

    2. Betamax was a good system – better than VHS. The same can’t be said for EVs vs ICEs.

  25. SIR – I’d like to see the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Grant Shapps, respond to Matthew Lynn’s article (Business, April 20).

    In particular, I would like him to explain why Britain is paying so much more for electricity than Europe, and why we are not doing more to develop our own gas and oil reserves in the North Sea and northern England – reserves that offer much greater security than, for instance, importing liquefied natural gas across the Atlantic.

    Alan Lyne
    Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire

    I think you are expecting rather a lot, Mr Lyne. If Grant ‘the dunce’ Shapps was appointed milk monitor it would still be well beyond his ability. His former promotion to Transport had him overseeing dumb motorways where people were killed in live lanes because of the absence of hard shoulders. Common sense should have told him in a nanosecond that they were inherently dangerous. If ever there was a promotion for failure…

    At least with him at ‘Energy and Net Zero’ (an oxymoron if ever I heard one) his famed incompetence should guarantee that his brief tenure there will limit the ensuing shambles.

    1. It’s never really been adequately explained why smart motorways have been operating for years on the Continent with no problems, but failed in Britain.
      Do more cars break down and need the hard shoulder in Britain?
      Or is it because Continental motorways have extra lay bys off the hard shoulders?
      Or perhaps the authorities there react more quickly to broken down cars on the hard shoulder to close it as a traffic lane (i.e. they have better cameras and watch them better).

      1. Good morning BB2 and everyone.
        There was a crash a few years ago on a hill on the A34 in which a family were killed. On a similar incline on the Continent, there would have been a ‘crawler lane’ available. But that would have cost more money, so some public sector individual or committee decided that children’s lives were cheaper than tarmac.
        As for your point, population density in the South of England is greater than that of most EU member states, likewise traffic density.

        1. They use the smart motorways for extra capacity on busy stretches near cities though, so traffic density is high.

    2. If Shapps was milk monitor his fridge would be filled with more cartons than the proverbial stick could be poked at.
      There is a proposal to destroy 32 hectares of green belt farm land on the edge of his constituency and build a solar farm. Right next to Shaw’s Corner.
      I’m sure he’s working hard with the land owners to make this happen.
      The land owners are not the farmers.
      Lord something or other.

    3. The renewable generators should be paid the agreed CfD price and no more. It is beyond belief that the eco systems promoted and subsidised by the state to free us from fossil fuels should be profiting from the present situation. The consumer has derived absolutely no benefit after these generators have been heavily subsidised by the consumer over many years.

    4. I can only assume he has some interesting photos and recordings of his fellow Conservatives.

    1. The politicians of all the main parties are determined to destroy Britain

      £1,600 per month = £19,200 (tax free) pa. for illegal immigrants.
      UK Old Age Pension after a working life making full contributions = £10,600.20 pa (Taxable)

      Why should they bother to legitimise their status and then look for work?

      1. The pension figure you quote is only for those who qualified after April 2016. Most pensioners receive a lot less than that.

  27. Morning all 🙂😉
    Chilly wet and cloudy. Not nice.
    And I personally don’t really or ever want to own an electric car.
    When we see other large towns and cities around the world on the news etc the places are rammed with gas guzzling vehicles. It’s not our responsibility to become martyrs to the vague and somewhat unclear values of our political classes and civil service. Let’s face the undeniable facts. Between them all on a regular basis, they eff up everything single thing they come into contact with, I don’t see that changing.
    Look what that idiot has done to our capital. If electric cars are such an important issue why his that arrogant little turd carrying out his hateful deeds. It’s just another obvious eff up.

    1. 373993+ up ticks,

      Morning RE,

      Much of it is voted in again,again & again the VOTING PATTERN dictates nothing will ever change if the polling booth is starved of radical change, support / votes,

      1. ‘If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.’

        [George Orwell]

    2. The police force employs far too many sadistic stupid brutes but they have to do so in order to strike a diverse balance between brutes and wokists.

    3. If that were me and the police ordered me to “lie on my belly” with “my hands behind my bike”, for that, I wouldn’t comply either. It’s totally disproportionate. By all means taser people with knives and machetes. But this is out of order. The man was not a threat. Plod has unfortunately lost his way.

    4. I would have a problem laying on my belly and getting my hands behind my back, especially after the shock of a tasering.

  29. Article in today’s DT (written by the usual suspect, one Rachel Millard):

    Britain will be unable to keep the lights on with net zero power, MPs warn

    Green power unlikely to generate enough energy to run the country without radical reform, says Business Select Committee

    By
    Rachel Millard
    28 April 2023 • 6:00am

    Britain will struggle to keep the lights on using only net zero electricity as the roll-out of green energy lags far behind target, MPs have warned.

    Falling investor confidence and bureaucratic delays mean Britain’s efforts to produce entirely clean electricity are at risk of stalling, MPs on the cross-party Business Select Committee said.

    They are calling on the government to come up with a “coherent, overarching plan” to boost green supplies — or risk missing climate targets.

    Demand for electricity is expected to soar as households buy electric cars and heat pumps.

    Darren Jones, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, said: “Ministers think that publishing strategies and releasing social media videos will deliver the energy infrastructure the country needs.

    “Its failed before and it keeps failing. Without a coherent, overarching delivery plan, the Government risks undermining the UK’s ability to generate, store and distribute the fossil fuel free electricity the country needs to hit net zero.”

    The Government wants to decarbonise the power system by 2035, as part of efforts to slash carbon emissions to “net zero” across the economy by 2050.

    Britain has made significant progress in cutting emissions from its electricity system, with wind turbines now producing roughly a quarter of electricity across the year.

    However, production is still dominated by gas-fired power stations, which supply more than a third of annual electricity and are a large source of carbon dioxide emissions.

    Ministers want to change this by boosting the amount of electricity generated from wind turbines and nuclear power stations instead.

    Gas-fired power stations are likely to still play a role but would need to be fitted with new technology to capture their emissions, or burn hydrogen instead.

    The overhaul will require billions of pounds of investment in new power stations, as well as new technology to help cope with greater levels of intermittent wind power on the system.

    However, the MPs on the business committee pointed to policies deterring investors, such as windfall taxes, as well as delays for new projects to connect to the electricity grid and “a cumbersome planning regime”.

    They warned that investors are being lured abroad, with the US offering billions of dollars of subsidies.

    Grant Shapps, the Energy Secretary, defended the government’s plans, noting it had succeeded in almost completely stripping coal out of the electricity system.

    Speaking as he visited Hinkley Point C, the nuclear power plant being built by France’s EDF in Somerset, he added: “I really started to appreciate the extent to which Britain has a total lead in this regard when I was at the G7 energy ministers [meeting] in Japan, where every country in the world is looking to the way that Britain has decarbonised.

    “So I don’t think we are going to miss it [the target] — there are challenges, grid connections is one of them. The grid connection problem is really a recognition of the fact that we have gone renewable so much faster than other countries.”

    The business committee is made up of four Labour MPs, six Conservatives and one Scottish National Party member. Members include Alexander Stafford, the Tory MP for Rother Valley, and Bim Afolami, Conservative for Hitchin and Harpin.

    In their report, they highlight how insufficient capacity in the electricity networks means that billions of pounds has to be spent switching off wind turbines because the electricity they produce cannot be moved to where it is needed.

    As well as seeking more investment into the electricity grid, they are also calling on the Government to reform the planning system to allow more wind turbines to be built on land, as well as out to sea.

    Joe Biden has created a major shift in investment towards the US with a $430bn package of subsidies.

    Mr Jones added: “The UK is now competing with the US and Europe for investment. Government must urgently make us an attractive investment proposition again and ensure that the pool of capital and labour available for building low-carbon energy projects is not lost.”

    As you might imagine, the DT readers are not remotely impressed:

    M Donovan
    1 MIN AGO
    This article is biased and misleading:
    -The inability of our grid system to function with fluctuating wind and solar energy was warned by energy technologists decades ago. The only secure solution is to replace the grid which (is) costing trillions.
    -One-quarter of energy produced by wind ‘across the year’? – and significant shortages in peak autumn and winter usage periods due to unchangeable geographic conditions in the UK — low/too high winds and low hours of sunlight for almost half the year for sufficient, affordable energy supply from renewables.
    –Is this one quarter number ‘theoretical capacity’ or actual production, we are never told.
    -Germany has dropped its 2035 target for EVs and heat pumps because with 47% of power sourced from renewables there isn’t enough energy; Germany also pays the top electricity prices in the world with accompanying decline in industry and widespread household fuel poverty
    -UK electricity prices have just become the highest in Europe where most countries remain seriously reliant on coal, gas and nuclear.
    -Germany has on an emergency basis been building back fossil fuel energy plants for years, including the largest coal fired plant in Europe, wind and solar has failed. The EU Parliament recently proposed re-branding gas as a green fuel, things are so bad.
    -On shore wind/solar infrastructure uses four times the land to produce electricity compared to fossil fuels and more compared to nuclear. Profit-making off shore wind locations
    -The UK taxpayer pays the highest wind and solar subsidies, many ‘internationally’ and has for years. For what? Department of Energy statistics show wind and solar significantly underperforming biomass ‘green’ technologies which isn’t ‘green’ at all producing equivalent CO2 to coal and gas.

    Nicholas Hazelton
    11 MIN AGO
    Will this madness ever end? The country is now in such a vulnerable position. There is no guarantee the lights will stay on. Further China is quietly amassing one of the largest, technically advanced, armies ever seen.
    Against this background the Wests politicians obsess over net zero, men in dresses, rewriting kids books and taking the knee. None of this will matter if China decides to act. They will cut the power lines, stop the import of goods knowing the wets won’t ever use nuclear weapons and the country will be defenceless and desperate after years of failing to invest in the military and the abject failure to extract the oil and gas under our own feet.
    China could just wait it out while we implode.

    William Brown
    4 MIN AGO
    Britain has decarbonised, I’ve just sold my donkey at “ we buy any donkey”.

    Article in today’s DT (written by the usual suspect, one Rachel Millard):

    Britain will be unable to keep the lights on with net zero power, MPs warn

    Green power unlikely to generate enough energy to run the country without radical reform, says Business Select Committee

    By
    Rachel Millard
    28 April 2023 • 6:00am

    Britain will struggle to keep the lights on using only net zero electricity as the roll-out of green energy lags far behind target, MPs have warned.

    Falling investor confidence and bureaucratic delays mean Britain’s efforts to produce entirely clean electricity are at risk of stalling, MPs on the cross-party Business Select Committee said.

    They are calling on the government to come up with a “coherent, overarching plan” to boost green supplies — or risk missing climate targets.

    Demand for electricity is expected to soar as households buy electric cars and heat pumps.

    Darren Jones, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, said: “Ministers think that publishing strategies and releasing social media videos will deliver the energy infrastructure the country needs.

    “Its failed before and it keeps failing. Without a coherent, overarching delivery plan, the Government risks undermining the UK’s ability to generate, store and distribute the fossil fuel free electricity the country needs to hit net zero.”

    The Government wants to decarbonise the power system by 2035, as part of efforts to slash carbon emissions to “net zero” across the economy by 2050.

    Britain has made significant progress in cutting emissions from its electricity system, with wind turbines now producing roughly a quarter of electricity across the year.

    However, production is still dominated by gas-fired power stations, which supply more than a third of annual electricity and are a large source of carbon dioxide emissions.

    Ministers want to change this by boosting the amount of electricity generated from wind turbines and nuclear power stations instead.

    Gas-fired power stations are likely to still play a role but would need to be fitted with new technology to capture their emissions, or burn hydrogen instead.

    The overhaul will require billions of pounds of investment in new power stations, as well as new technology to help cope with greater levels of intermittent wind power on the system.

    However, the MPs on the business committee pointed to policies deterring investors, such as windfall taxes, as well as delays for new projects to connect to the electricity grid and “a cumbersome planning regime”.

    They warned that investors are being lured abroad, with the US offering billions of dollars of subsidies.

    Grant Shapps, the Energy Secretary, defended the government’s plans, noting it had succeeded in almost completely stripping coal out of the electricity system.

    Speaking as he visited Hinkley Point C, the nuclear power plant being built by France’s EDF in Somerset, he added: “I really started to appreciate the extent to which Britain has a total lead in this regard when I was at the G7 energy ministers [meeting] in Japan, where every country in the world is looking to the way that Britain has decarbonised.

    “So I don’t think we are going to miss it [the target] — there are challenges, grid connections is one of them. The grid connection problem is really a recognition of the fact that we have gone renewable so much faster than other countries.”

    The business committee is made up of four Labour MPs, six Conservatives and one Scottish National Party member. Members include Alexander Stafford, the Tory MP for Rother Valley, and Bim Afolami, Conservative for Hitchin and Harpin.

    In their report, they highlight how insufficient capacity in the electricity networks means that billions of pounds has to be spent switching off wind turbines because the electricity they produce cannot be moved to where it is needed.

    As well as seeking more investment into the electricity grid, they are also calling on the Government to reform the planning system to allow more wind turbines to be built on land, as well as out to sea.

    Joe Biden has created a major shift in investment towards the US with a $430bn package of subsidies.

    Mr Jones added: “The UK is now competing with the US and Europe for investment. Government must urgently make us an attractive investment proposition again and ensure that the pool of capital and labour available for building low-carbon energy projects is not lost.”

    As you might imagine, the DT readers are not remotely impressed:

    M Donovan
    1 MIN AGO
    This article is biased and misleading:
    -The inability of our grid system to function with fluctuating wind and solar energy was warned by energy technologists decades ago. The only secure solution is to replace the grid which (is) costing trillions.
    -One-quarter of energy produced by wind ‘across the year’? – and significant shortages in peak autumn and winter usage periods due to unchangeable geographic conditions in the UK — low/too high winds and low hours of sunlight for almost half the year for sufficient, affordable energy supply from renewables.
    –Is this one quarter number ‘theoretical capacity’ or actual production, we are never told.
    -Germany has dropped its 2035 target for EVs and heat pumps because with 47% of power sourced from renewables there isn’t enough energy; Germany also pays the top electricity prices in the world with accompanying decline in industry and widespread household fuel poverty
    -UK electricity prices have just become the highest in Europe where most countries remain seriously reliant on coal, gas and nuclear.
    -Germany has on an emergency basis been building back fossil fuel energy plants for years, including the largest coal fired plant in Europe, wind and solar has failed. The EU Parliament recently proposed re-branding gas as a green fuel, things are so bad.
    -On shore wind/solar infrastructure uses four times the land to produce electricity compared to fossil fuels and more compared to nuclear. Profit-making off shore wind locations
    -The UK taxpayer pays the highest wind and solar subsidies, many ‘internationally’ and has for years. For what? Department of Energy statistics show wind and solar significantly underperforming biomass ‘green’ technologies which isn’t ‘green’ at all producing equivalent CO2 to coal and gas.

    Nicholas Hazelton
    11 MIN AGO
    Will this madness ever end? The country is now in such a vulnerable position. There is no guarantee the lights will stay on. Further China is quietly amassing one of the largest, technically advanced, armies ever seen.
    Against this background the Wests politicians obsess over net zero, men in dresses, rewriting kids books and taking the knee. None of this will matter if China decides to act. They will cut the power lines, stop the import of goods knowing the wets won’t ever use nuclear weapons and the country will be defenceless and desperate after years of failing to invest in the military and the abject failure to extract the oil and gas under our own feet.
    China could just wait it out while we implode.

    William Brown
    4 MIN AGO
    Britain has decarbonised, I’ve just sold my donkey at “ we buy any donkey”.

    Andy RoadKing
    2 HRS AGO
    Net Zero is a dead end road to poverty, from a hysterical virtue signalling cult that offers a solution to something that isn’t a problem.
    I will vote for any party that offers us a referendum on Net Zero in the next election.

    1. M Donovan makes the same mistake as many others. The article says wind produces a quarter of electricity (yeah, right) but Donovan then says a quarter of “energy”. The two are not synonymous: only about a quarter of UK energy use is electricity. So wind is at best one quarter of one quarter, ie one sixteenth.

      1. “…only about a quarter of UK energy use is electricity.”

        It’s not even that much. It’s a fifth. Wind turbines provide less than 5% of our annual energy requirement.

    2. Net Zero, Decarbonisation, it sounds like they want to remove as much of the vile CO₂ from the atmosphere as possible. Greenhouse gas evil!

      Here’s a company that explains how to pump it up. From 2015, but even so it tells the CO₂ story.
      “Grow room and indoor greenhouse growers online agree that for optimum plant growth, you should enrich the air around the plants with carbon dioxide (CO2) during the daylight growth cycle. Photosynthesis (plant growth) requires light, nutrients, water and CO2.

      If you give your plants the perfect amount of light, water, and nutrients, the limiting factor in their growth will be the amount of CO2 in the air.

      While normal outdoor CO2 levels (about 400ppm) will achieve normal plant growth, doubling or tripling the CO2 levels can increase the growth rate. However, above 2,000ppm CO2 becomes toxic to plants, and above 5,000ppm CO2 becomes potentially harmful to people. Most experts agree that 1,500 ppm is the maximum CO2 level for maximum plant growth, although any CO2 level between 1,000ppm and 1,500ppm will produce greatly improved results.”

      https://www.co2meter.com/blogs/news/41003521-co2-calculator-for-grow-room-or-indoor-greenhouse#:~:text=Most%20experts%20agree%20that%201%2C500%20ppm%20is%20the,1%2C000ppm%20and%201%2C500ppm%20will%20produce%20greatly%20improved%20results.

    3. MPs…

      …are calling on the government to come up with a “coherent, overarching plan”

      Under which rock(s) have these MPs been hiding? Recent governments, and especially this current crop of no-hopers, do not plan, especially in a coherent manner, they work to a laid out agenda. No serious thought involved.
      Evidence? Look around at the disaster area the UK has become.

  30. Good morning, my friends.

    Mark Steyn and Tucker Carlson must be strictly controlled by the MSM. The lucidity – or should I say ‘communication skills’ or should I say dangerous mendacity – of this pair are not at all acceptable as far as the PTB are concerned so they have both been removed.

    Was it Tucker Carlson’s truth-telling about good versus evil that did for him?
    Kathy Gyngell : April 28, 2023 The Conservative Woman

    TO THE delight and relief of millions around the world, Tucker Carlson broke his silence yesterday, courtesy of Elon Musk’s nearly liberated Twitter and perhaps in response to Musk’s offer to give him a new platform there.

    Open debate, Carlson said, is no longer allowed on US media: ‘Both parties have reached consensus on what benefits them and they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it. Suddenly the United States looks very much like a one-party state.’ At the time of writing (midday yesterday) this one and half minutes had been viewed more than 38million times.

    ‘When honest people say what’s true they become powerful’, he goes on. For a fearful establishment with its huge vested interest in the fraudulent status quo, Carlson’s truth turned him into a terrible one man threat. It was only a matter of time, his huge popularity being both his defence and the catalyst of his downfall.

    And don’t underestimate his appeal and reach. Tucker Carlson Tonight, a top-rated programme since 2016, a leading programme among the 25-54 demographic with millions of viewers per episode, in March drew the highest audience on cable TV, averaging 3.251million viewers per show, Epoch Times reports. Carlson’s increasingly forthright, counter establishment critiques were making him more popular not less. Following their Carlson announcement the Fox Corporation took a nearly $1billion hit.

    So why did they risk this? Theories abound – to damage Trump’s re-election prospects being the most popular. But that still does not explain the sudden timing or what triggered it. That the motive has been around for a while is clear, but what was the cue? It seems to me that it’s more than probable that it was the speech he gave to the Heritage Foundation, America’s leading conservative think tank, after last Friday’s show (which turned out to be his final show), about society-wide spiritual and moral decay, that did it for him.

    Delivered at the Foundation’s 50th anniversary celebration, Carlson’s speech was not just a political or a social and cultural critique, but a full-on in your face spiritual rebuke. At its core is his belief (that many of us have also arrived at) that present-day battle is no longer one between policy options but, quite simply, between good and evil. This, not from a ‘devout’ man, went viral.

    The full transcript has been posted on the Daily Signal and you can read it here.

    It is a remarkable speech in that it is manifestly about virtue, faith and spirituality and their total collapse in America’s leadership and establishment. It is a terrible indictment. I suspect it may have proved too much for the Murdoch digestion.

    Referring first to the honesty of Kevin Roberts, the President of the Heritage Foundation, Carlson starts with a blast at the falseness of those running Washington institutions, invoking God, the while: ‘The key question about anybody who runs any institution in Washington is: How false is this person?

    ‘God sends messages . . . There clearly is meaning. The point is the man who runs Heritage is not false at all. In fact, my assessment of him was, he’s completely real. He’s an honest person. He means it. He’s not playing a role.’

    His uncompromising moral and spiritual attack on the leadership of the institutions he grew up with continues.

    ‘The people remain noble and decent . . . We have good people. We have terrible people in charge. And not just of our government, but of the institutions that I grew up in, the Episcopal church, my high school, I can just go on and on and on. They’re all run by weak people.’

    He chides us for failing to understand the first lesson of history (that we failed to grasp following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of a conflict that ‘every part of our politics revolved around’) which is that: ‘Nothing is permanent except our own demise and God’.’ We didn’t get that.

    His explanation of things he would have thought impossible in his country is framed in these terms: ‘If you told me then that [last] week the Department of Justice would’ve indicted a group of people – people I don’t agree with, by the way, on a lot of different issues, black nationalist, socialists from Florida, not my demographic – but would’ve indicted them for criticizing the US position, the Biden administration’s position on the war in Ukraine and charged them with felonies for which they’re each facing ten years in prison, if you told me that could happen here, I would’ve laughed at you . . .

    ‘You look around and you see so many people break under the strain, under the downward of whatever this is that we are going through. And you look with disdain and sadness as you see people you know become quislings. You see them revealed as cowards. You see them going along with the new, new thing which is clearly a poisonous thing, a silly thing. You know, saying things you know they don’t believe because they want to keep their jobs. If there’s a single person in this room who hasn’t seen that through George Floyd, Covid and the Ukraine war, raise your hand. Oh, nobody? Right. You all know what I’m talking about.’

    Though he says ‘the country’s really going at high speed in the wrong direction’ in ways that are unfathomable, exactly what he does in his speech is to fathom them: ‘You’re so disappointed in people. You are. And you realize that the herd instinct is maybe the strongest instinct. I mean, it may be stronger than the hunger and sex instincts, actually . . . And it takes over, unfortunately, in moments like this, and it’s harnessed, in fact, by bad people in moments like this to produce uniformity. And you see people going along with this, and you lose respect for them. And that’s certainly happened to me at scale over the past three years.’

    He explains that there is no longer any rational debate: it is a myth. The war he says we are engaged in is a spiritual one and we need to change our understanding to that. Carlson is clear – it is not about left or right, not about the best outcomes of this policy, but (dreadfully) about good versus evil.

    And that, the mindset we need or must face up to, I think, was the trigger for his dismissal.

    The rest of the main part of this great speech follows here:

    ‘I don’t think we’re watching a debate over how to get to the best outcome. I think that’s completely wrong. And I should say at the outset, I’m an Episcopalian, so don’t take any theological advice from me because I don’t have any. I grew up in the shallowest faith tradition that’s ever been invented. It’s not even a Christian religion at this point, I say with shame. But I’m just saying this as an observer of what’s going on. There is no way to assess, say, the transgender movement with that mind-set. Policy papers don’t account for it at all. If you have people who are saying, “I have an idea. Let’s castrate the next generation. Let’s sexually mutilate children”, I’m sorry, that’s not a political debate. What? That’s nothing to do with politics. What’s the outcome we’re desiring here? An androgynous population? Are we arguing for that? I don’t think anyone could defend that as a positive outcome, but the weight of the government and a lot of corporate interests are behind that. Well, what is that? Well, it’s irrational.

    ‘If you say, “Well, I think abortion is always bad. Well, I think sometimes it’s necessary”, that’s a debate I’m familiar with. But if you’re telling me that abortion is a positive good, what are you saying? Well, you’re arguing for child sacrifice, obviously. It’s not about, oh, a teen girl gets pregnant, and what do we do about that and victims of rape. I get it. Of course, I understand that, and I have compassion for everyone involved. But when the Treasury secretary stands up and says, “You know what you can do to help the economy? Get an abortion”. Well, that’s like an Aztec principle, actually. There’s not a society in history that didn’t practise human sacrifice. Not one. I checked. Even the Scandinavians, I’m ashamed to say. It wasn’t just the Meso-Americans, it was everybody. So that’s what that is.

    ‘Well, what’s the point of child sacrifice? Well, there’s no policy goal entwined with that. No, that’s a theological phenomenon.

    ‘And that’s kind of the point I’m making. None of this makes sense in conventional political terms. When people, or crowds of people, or the largest crowd of people at all, which is the federal government, the largest human organization in human history, decide that the goal is to destroy things, destruction for its own sake, “Hey, let’s tear it down”, what you’re watching is not a political movement. It’s evil.

    ‘So, if you want to assess . . . I’ll put it in non-political or rather non-specific theological terms, and just say, if you want to know what’s evil and what’s good, what are the characteristics of those?

    ‘And by the way, I think the Athenians would have agreed with this. This is not necessarily just a Christian notion, this is kind of a, I would say, widely agreed upon understanding of good and evil. What are its products? What do these two conditions produce? Well, I mean, good is characterized by order, calmness, tranquillity, peace, whatever you want to call it, lack of conflict, cleanliness. Cleanliness is next to godliness. It’s true. It is.

    ‘And evil is characterized by their opposites. Violence, hate, disorder, division, disorganization and filth. So, if you are all in on the things that produce the latter basket of outcomes, what you’re really advocating for is evil. That’s just true. I’m not calling for religious war. Far from it. I’m merely calling for an acknowledgement of what we’re watching, which is not one . . .

    ‘And I’m certainly not backing the Republican Party. I mean, ugh. I’m not making a partisan point at all. I’m just noting what’s super-obvious. Those of us who were in our mid-50s are caught in the past in the way that we think about this. One side’s like, “No, no, I’ve got this idea, and we’ve got this idea, and let’s have a debate about our ideas”.

    ‘They don’t want a debate. Those ideas won’t produce outcomes that any rational person would want under any circumstances. Those are manifestations of some larger force acting upon us. It’s just so obvious. It’s completely obvious. And I think two things: One, we should say that and stop engaging in these totally fraudulent debates, where we are using the terms that we used in 1991 when I started at [The Heritage Foundation], as if maybe I could just win the debate if I marshalled more facts. I’ve tried. That doesn’t work. And two, maybe we should all take just ten minutes a day to say a prayer about it. I’m serious. Why not?

    ‘And I’m saying that to you not as some kind of evangelist, I’m literally saying that to you as an Episcopalian, the Samaritans of our time. I’m coming to you from the most humble and lowly theological position you can. I’m literally an Episcopalian. And even I have concluded it might be worth taking just ten minutes out of your busy schedule to say a prayer for the future, and I hope you will.’

    The question and answers that followed can be accessed here.

    1. “Was it Tucker Carlson’s truth-telling about good versus evil that did for him?”

      Indubitably so, Sir, without a five o’ clock shadow of a doubt.

  32. Muslims fighting Muslims, committing atrocities .

    Why are we evacuating Sudanese people who DEMANDED independence and got it in 1955.

    WHY are they seeking sanctuary in the UK , when they kicked us out of the Sudan .

    Why are we wasting time and money on these people , this country cannot cope with such a cultural change , even though the mad King seems to be encouraging them?

    1. Old Macmillan talked about the Wind of Change in Africa.

      But this wind has proved to be a very ill one indeed as it has brought nobody any good apart from the greedy despots and criminals.

  34. Good morning all,

    Cloudy at the McPhee’s but warmer with the Westerly wind, 12℃ forecasting 17℃. At last! Off with the thermal underwear.
    Off to see offspring and grand-offspring today so not much from me.

    Good to see the penny dropping about EVs in the letters.

  36. People say “What sort of planet are we going to hand on to our grandchildren”

    We don’t have any grandchildren, but my children were respectable and sensitive to their surroundings , not spoilt or materialistic .

    But … here and in other villages we have Womble moments during the month where we have to clear up after people who should know better re dog poo bags, food wrappers, plastic bottles , vape things, those small cannisters and much more .

    Volunteers bravely clear rubbish in all weather from the tourist trap beaches down the road , and help clear laybys of foul stuff .

    The older generation work very hard helping to clear up .. in our day I think the main rubbish issue were ciggy packets and stubs , ah and chewing gum .

    Fly tipping is also disgusting. A very common sight , plus deer carcases , badgers and other road kill.

    In this area you cansee the magpies and crows picking down to the ribs , so that is the job that corvids do, tidy up .

    https://www.birdsofpooleharbour.co.uk/osprey/osprey-webcams/

    She has laid 3 eggs .. amazing , and the black plastic bag has vanished

    1. I think the plastic bag is still there, but has been covered by other nesting material. you can still see it in the aerial view.

      Well done Mrs Osprey! I expect the bigger chicks will eject the smallest one.

      1. 373993+up ticks,

        Afternoon M,

        My good heavens I do declare, a romantic twist to burke and hare.

    2. At least the Resurrectionists had the decency to hand the corpses over to the trainee doctors for honest cash.

      1. 373993+ up ticks,

        Afternoon Anne,
        Trouble with them was they started making live peoples dead.

  38. Back in July 2021, as a direct consequence of the UK leaving the EU, I was contacted by the Swedish migration authorities and advised to apply for permanent residence status.

    I had to send them copious documentation showing them my income and longevity as a property owner in Sweden. I was charged a standard fee of SEK2,000 and had to present myself at an immigration centre (in December 2022) where my photograph and fingerprints were taken, and my UK passport was scanned, for my permanent residence card.

    My application was successful and my card was sent to me in February this year.

    Yesterday I received another letter from the Swedish migration service. In it they explained that they had to charge me the SEK2,000 fee as a matter of course when my application was received. They have since examined my application again and, in line with their rules, and because of some obscure agreement with the UK government over cases such as mine, they have decided that I follow all their necessary criteria and have refunded me the SEK2,000 fee I paid, in full.

    This is better than being slapped across the chops with a pickled herring.

          3. I wonder if you have read the short stories of Damon Runyon, an American writer whom I discovered as a schoolboy thanks to my maths teacher? He wrote a story about Dark Dolores.

          4. I haven’t. All I know about Runyon is that he wrote the book upon which the musical Guys and Dolls was based.

    2. Something to savour! It’s not every day that the government gives you some of your own money back!

    3. When they contact you, do the Swedish authorities write to you in Swedish or English – or both?

      1. Normally I get a letter from Migrationsverket written in Swedish with the same letter translated into English on the reverse side. On this last occasion, however, it was just in Swedish.

          2. That’s him alright. Though i don’t know who the fella in the red striped apron is.

          3. I taught him all he knows! 😉

            The Swedes love him and have claimed him as their own.

    5. Somehow that reminds me of President Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, on 19th November 1863:

      “… that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that
      government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not
      perish from the earth.”

        1. He “lent” Johnson oodles of cash. £800,000. While J was PM….. Then was magically appointed beeboid Chairman.
          Amazing, really.

          2. I know – the shocking thing is that the vile media are linking the two things!!

          3. The official statement…

            “We accept and understand Richard’s decision to stand down. We want to put on record our thanks to Richard, who has been a valued and respected colleague, and a very effective Chairman of the BBC. The BBC Board believes that Richard Sharp is a person of integrity.

            Richard has been a real advocate for the BBC, its mission, and why the Corporation is a priceless asset for the country, at home and abroad. He has always had the impartiality of the BBC and a desire to see the organisation thrive at the forefront of his work as Chairman.

            “We understand that the UK Government is moving swiftly to begin the process of appointing a new Chairman of the BBC, in line with the terms of the BBC’s Charter.”

          5. Woah there Bill. You’re not suggesting the BBC is corrupt are you?

            I imagine though he resigned not because he’s as bent as an Allen key, but because it was a Tory he gave money to. That’s probably why the BBC want rid of him.

    2. Too far from right ?
      They’ve run out of money to pay his salary as well as Lineacre ?

        1. Gawd! They’re touting the odious Muriel Gray! After the Glasgow School of Art went up in flames….twice! What a shambles!

  40. A ray of sunshine for us.

    All the places on our French courses this summer have now been taken and we are already getting bookings and plenty of enquiries about our two courses during the October half-term.

    We seemed to have survived economically – I put it down to our resolute cynicism about the efficacy of the Covid 19 gene therapy.

    1. Hope you insist that all students have at least three jabs…!!

      Did your former GP ever get her job back?

      1. Good morning Bill.

        Our lovely Françoise is still very busy in the parish but has not got her job back yet. The whole thing is under legal processes at the moment.

          1. You are right – it will go on for ever – rather like the case in Bleak House of Dedlock vs Dedlock

            I am sure you must have enjoyed Lewis Carroll’s observation about Father William

            “You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak
            For anything tougher than suet;
            Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—
            Pray, how did you manage to do it?”

            “In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law,
            And argued each case with my wife;
            And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
            Has lasted the rest of my life.”

    2. You don’t put it down to so many people are thinking of leaving England and need to learn French ?

    5. Good. All small businesses have taken a hammering by stupid, ignorant politicians and their apparatchiks.
      On the plus side, at least you’re of no interest to the CBI.

  41. Heroic British nationals Vladimir Kara-Murza and Jimmy Lai mustn’t be left to Russia and China’s mercy
    The Government is not doing enough to defend two UK nationals who are bravely resisting the dictatorships of Putin and Xi
    Chris Bryant and Mark Sabah : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/27/vladimir-kara-murza-jimmy-lai-russia-china-persecution/

    BTL Percival Wrattstrangler

    This man Bryant must be one of the most repulsive, vindictive and nasty extreme socialist MPs in the House of Commons. What on earth is the DT doing accepting and paying for articles from him?

    1. If the Establishment is making heros out of these two men, they are probably up to no good. Sorry, I have become increasingly cynical about a government that consistently lauds and rewards scoundrels and ignores or persecutes honest people.

  42. Well I got absolutely no where with my phone call this morning to try and find out when my appointment will be for the cardio treatment.
    I was told June yesterday, fortunately that’s not the case now, which is good as we have a short break booked near were my sister lives in thartt Narrfolk.
    As the request for appt was only submitted on the 11th of April, nearly two years after the problem started. They haven’t had time to processes the application. Blaming strikes of course. But i’m not convinced by that at all. I’m not burning my bridges with a hospital swap until I have had advice from the GP tomorrow.

    1. It’s a disgrace and I feel for you. My husband has been told to go and get blood tests. The surgery won’t do it if it’s for the hospital and, although his mobility is much improved, he can’t walk the distance from the bus to the path lab.
      The NHS is not fit for anything and I think that they simply don’t give a damn anymore…only about themselves. Patients are an inconvenience.
      I’ve got 4 weeks to go until my appointment, if it goes ahead, and who the hell knows what could happen in the interim.

      1. Contact the PALS for your hospital and someone shold be able to arrange a porter with a wheelcahir from bus stop to the path lab, or there could be a local volunteer car service such as Help the Aged (which appreciates a modest donation).

      2. I seem to have landed on my feet with my new GP. He examined me. Made an appointment with the breast unit. Gave me a prescription and also took blood. All in one appointment. A week after the breast unit he phoned me to see how things were going.

        You and your husbands treatment is appalling in comparison.

        1. As Stig says, it really is a lottery. You and he have had very good care but others, in particular Eddy, are being made to jump through all sorts of hoops.
          Two nights this week I have had to take paracetamol to get me through the night, not last night but today it’s killing me- literally probably 😉
          KBO.

        2. My best mate has been receiving some excellent treatment recently in Bedfordshire.

        3. It’s very variable, isn’t it. We’ve got no complaints about our GP surgery. I keep away as much as possible, but my OH has had very good attention from nurses and doctors. Never the same doctor twice running but he’s seen them all now and they do all have his records on the screen.

        4. Our old friend post code lottery.
          Your health – and possibly your life span – should not depend upon a combination of letters and digits.

  44. What’s the difference between a rock band and a jazz band?

    A rock band plays three chords in front of 50,000 people. A jazz band is pretty much the other way round.

    1. Excellent! I shall borrow it and send it to a friend of mine who stood in for Brian Jones on the guitar when Brian Jones had taken so many drugs he could not play.

      Like Brian May this friend of mine has a Ph.D – but his is in Chemistry rather than Physics. He was at one time Britain’s leading javelin thrower and his athletics coach was Mick Jagger’s father hence his association with the Rolling Stones.

      However, instead of ending up dead in a swimming pool my chum ended up teaching in a West Country public school and being a housemaster!

  45. Brigitte Bardot may be on the way out. I admire her stand against ‘certain culture’s’ practices. She has been fined many times for expressing her concerns. The Frog elite don’t like to hear the truth.

    In their April 28, 2023 issue, France Dimanche exclusively reports that the 88-year-old former actress was hospitalized in Toulon in the greatest of secrecy. Our colleagues say more about the reason for this hospitalization. She was reportedly admitted for “severe respiratory failure. Brigitte Bardot would then have been in intensive care for several days. I believe she has discharged herself and returned to her ‘chateau’ to be with her beloved animals.
    https://img.over-blog-kiwi.com/0/95/25/27/20170722/ob_015d20_s-l1600.jpg

    2. Replies are suggesting it’s very old news – maybe something to do with the Carl Beech scandal.

    1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ac49b60351aeff296a19aa4b9c9a2fdce3a599c95ad94c3117fb9e7107a1049f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9a816a018f8f2d87cd14742373970007f20d087f448f9c5eb1fdd0481b2b2da5.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cef6e764fc8c2e9608171ef383ab5ce16165281b31d505b7a6480fc414d31070.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3a27079332674d633c5fde2db7a35dc0683fecc03992b8376c6de8cefb0215d7.jpg
      Not me, Philip lad.

      Today is Friday so I thought that (for the first time in my life) I’d knock up some pitta bread. I’m more than chuffed with the result. They were delicious (well, the one I ate was). I smeared some home-made mayonnaise (avocado oil) inside one, half filled it with a dozen leaves of fresh lettuce then stuffed some baked chicken nuggets inside it.

      Yum!

      2. On a phone call yesterday I gave Brucie a lesson in bread baking. He was going out to buy one of those baking machines. For about 400 dollars. You must be made I said. You could buy 12 bottles of wine for that 🙃😊

  52. What kind of brain is capable of the chain of thought that leads from Brecon Beacons, Beacons, fire, smoke, co2 , climate change and is then compelled to change the name because of that deranged association?

    Don’t they realise the peaks were used as high points for Beacons back in the day, because that was how people communicated before electricity and all that jazz?

    They are no longer used as beacons of communication because this is the modern age, but the name remains as a reminder of the path to the now, you know? History.

    These people cannot stand for a path to the now from the past, they hate it, it stands in the way of their world building, their ideology, they are sick puppies indeed no different at all to the Taliban who blew up the ancient Buddha statues because they could not stand how they got here and what is told everyone about them.

    Evil..

        1. His testiculary duty to be done, to be done
          Oh a transe’s scrot is not a nappy one -nappy one!

  54. Why is penny-pinching Charles depriving us of the spectacle we all crave?
    A Coronation should be a moment for glittering majesty and memories, not performative penny-pinching
    Judith Woods – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/04/28/why-a-penny-pinching-coronation-is-a-mistake/

    Ms Woods can speak for herself – my craving level for this pompous spectacle is considerably lower than hers.

    BTL : Percival Wrattstrangler

    He has made too many gross errors of judgement since becoming King. His knee-jerk reaction to take the side of that mock African, Marlene Headley (Ngozi Fulani, ) rather than the side of Lady Susan Hussey, his mother’s long-term loyal friend, is typical of this – as are his views on the WEF and global warming. I suppose you could argue that he can’t use the brains God didn’t give him!

    1. The price of the coronation bric a brac is hardly inclusive. £75 for a cup and saucer.

      1. No bric or brac over here, the coronation is being all but ignored by the media and politicians at all levels.

        The village idiot hasn’t announced if he will be going. After his disgusting behaviour at the Queens funeral, a polite refusal might be welcome.

    2. A glittering Coronation would be absolutely fine if it wasn’t some mingy celebration of all that is bad about living in Britain.

    1. It’s absolutely hopeless in London. Cyclists taking over and motorists can’t get anywhere.

    3. Was at a major arterial roundabout yesterday. Traffic lights and everything to manage it. People still broke rule no 1: DO NOT ENTER UNLESS YOU CAN LEAVE IT.

      Instead, they poured out whenever they could and brought the whole thing to a standstill. For hours. Thing is, if you don’t do that in Southampton you don’t move. You just sit there, as other traffic jams up, pushes in, ignores the rules and snarls up while the bloke behind you tries to ram you for obeying the law.

      1. Over three decades ago, pre-bypass, there were roadworks on Portswood Road between Swaythling and Portswood with traffic lights either end, new sewers I think. The traffic light controlled section included the junction with Belgrave Road which was NOT traffic light controlled.
        Consequently people using Belgrave Road as a rat run to get out of Southampton were simply tagging onto the end of the queue leaving the town on the main road giving no chance for the traffic going into the town to get past even when they had the green light.

      2. The multi roundabout leading eventually to the A40 at Hemel Hempstead is quite a challenge.

    4. My Dutch sister-in-law assures me that there are very many accidents involving cars and bicycles in Holland. They are a menace.

    1. Well as the original woodcuts were done by our neighbour, I have to say they are beautifully drawn…. but I guess he was commissioned to include the wokery.

        1. He’s designed several lots of stamps for the Post Office. I would imagine they gave him the specifications they wanted.

    3. Like his ancestor Charles I he’s a traitor to his country, religion and people!

    4. I spotted the subtle reference to Jesse Owens in the stadium, and that KC3’s vision of the future excludes private cars and also that there are no aeroplanes flying nor pleasure craft upon the waters.
      But beautifully drawn.

    5. I spotted the subtle reference to Jesse Owens in the stadium, and that KC3’s vision of the future excludes private cars and also that there are no aeroplanes flying nor pleasure craft upon the waters.
      But beautifully drawn.

    7. Not good.
      I’ve got a few full sheets of the C&D engagement and wedding stamps somewhere, not sure if they are worth much now.

    10. Too political. I don’t know about a new reign, but it could be the last reign. Vive la republique!

  58. The worldwide car market started going into turmoil in 2022 when the UK ceased its incentives to buy new EVs, US states kept them and Tesla dramatically slashed its EV prices. This has particularly affected China where a lot of vehicles are made. Never more so than this year in 2023 when the revelation that the whole world (well 99% of us) is now poor finally hit us. The upshot of this is that ironically EVs have become so cheap that China can’t sell them without dumping them as cheaply as second ICE (Internal Combustion Cars). This has resulted in Chinese dealers smashing up ICE cars to remove them from the market and storing unsold EVs in car graveyards.

    Chinese car maker BYD can now produce EV cars cheap enough to compete with ICE cars in Europe. Having already acquired MG dealerships in the UK, Chinese MG EVs are getting a name for cost reduced electric versions. BYD is soon set to follow but by how much cheaper in today’s cash impoverished society?

    https://youtu.be/SydYo9f5hwQ

    1. There’s nothing wrong with an eleectric vehicle if you’re pootling to the shops and back a few times a week. They’re easy to drive, boringly so, the range isn’t an issue and, if you’ve an on street charger they’re easy to charge too.

      However, in the UK energy is expensive because the state wants to force down usage to meet pointless net zero targets. Many folk don’t have a driveway at all, and have to park on the street. With the insurance and tax exemptions now re-added, and no doubt soon to come crippling taxes for travel – effectively making every road a toll road – there is no point buying one. This is why big government is determined to ensure we have no choice.

      It is not EVs that are the issue. The problem, as is always – is the state breaking the market.

    2. When I was teaching in Manchester, we decided to rename our 4th year Lit classes instead of referring to them by the stream numbers. So we came up with 4 Novel, 4 Poem, 4 Story….when we got to 4 Play we saw a problem. We stuck with the stream numbers.

    1. My OH always opens the car door for me. He’s an old-fashioned gentleman, as was his father.

      1. As does mine when we get a cab and so do all the cabbies pretty much. Courtesy is still around.

    2. My OH always opens the car door for me. He’s an old-fashioned gentleman, as was his father.

  62. Apropos the self-immolation of Lord Sharp of Practice in the County of Dodgy Dealings – let us not forget that he was a manager and pal of Fishi’s….

  66. Post-Brexit Britain is drowning in red tape
    Leaving the bloc may provide the opportunity to scrap EU laws, but we are creating new regulations of our own with worrying enthusiasm

    Ross Clark : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/28/social-democracy-britain-is-drowning-in-red-tape/

    BTL : Percival Wrattstrangler

    One of the arguments that the remainers did not use effectively and which probably cost them the 2016 referendum was that a determined and meddlesome British Jobsworth or civil servant can probably impose more inconvenience and red tape than anyone else in the world including the famed French functionaries.

      1. 🙂 He’s just back from the friseur. Annual trim ready for the summer (I am the eternal optimist!).

  68. OT – for several weeks I have had an ingrowing toenail. Normally, they right themselves – or a bit of gentle finger work solves the problem. It became very painful, so, today, I went (for the first time ever) to a chiropodist.

    It’s a corny job – but the chap is one of life’s foot soldiers. Whatever he did made the toe heal….

    Over to you, NoTTLers – I feel a pun thread coming on….

    1. You should have read “Pilgrim’s Progress” while the chiropodist was doing his work.

    6. I have an appointment with a podiatrist (Britt-Marie), for exactly the same complaint, on May 8.

    9. Hello Bill and all. Back from Cyprus holiday and had CT scan of thorax and optician appointment today.

      I had ingrown toenails on both big toes some years ago. I think I had a procedure called an avulsion, cut a sliver of nail top to bottom including cut the root on the same line then an injection Ito the base of the toe to kill that part of the root. No further problems.

  69. Another Birdie Three today: that’s five-in-a-row!

    Wordle 678 3/6
    🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
    ⬜🟩🟨🟨🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Wow. Par 4 for me.

      Wordle 678 4/6

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

    2. Bloody bogie for me. I’ve been playing around with initial words and will go back to my old one.

      Wordle 678 5/6

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

      2. These days literacy is so appalling people think it doens’t matter. Every time someone writes cant when they mean can’t they should be flogged.

        1. You softie you- you’re talking to an English Lang. and Lit. teacher and a children’s librarian. I used thumbscrews;-)

  71. ‘Night All

    A very Nottl Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/411fae505b12fe1c190addf8a297cae4b3a0c45408f01dc1c6c971cb7c02fea3.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ce3ee3d62f81c58eca40db808c1c457b989c2998cd81bcf95c7d09927cde439a.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1d16f9d3190262d7eabd9f5992924dc5533bfd381b5bae26439d200d79cb102e.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c818209fdca604de1a4aaf0cdd9e0ebc0ade60ef11e6282aa6491294f738286.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c178e5c4d2894f11a9515e25b94ddc66a2ae4934eed9f561d30c9a258199be6e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d70650e0515670e5297e4ed07e51bbe3ea8117460e20a57384bf052f70371eff.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/86811bda432ef6c66789f8f30ece7d32a9a4eeb2721108a6c0c7f4ad4d92f769.jpg

    1. I only scored 90% on the first one – I cannot truthfully say I am a “bit” fed up with the BBC, and I’m not proud to be British any more.

    6. The gollum one is interesting as the statist fervently cling to the truth that you ‘were not forced’. They refuse to accept that their threats had anything to do with it – despite that being the intent. It is a bizarre, insane doublethink of absolute hypocrisy.

      A bit like telling someone to shoot themselves or they will be shot. At the end of the day, it’s your choice and yours alone. They had nothing to do with it.

    1. Well, there is that terribly successful woman who has destroyed John Lewis.

      Or Abbottotamus, of course.

          3. Dido Harding….former “boss” of TalkTalk and then in charge of the nonsense known as Track and Trace.

          7. It wasn’t nonsense LoL.

            It produced lots and lots of taxpayers’ money for the deserving friends of politicians.

      2. Ah, the serial meeter who bounced around every department so fast to ensure she both achieved absolutely nothing and never stayed in place to take the responsibility for what little she did?

        The civil service seems replete with such serial unachievers.

    2. How about someone who can direct generally with flair and competence and honesty?
      What does their sex or gender have to do with it?

    5. Considering this is the BBC I’m not remotely surprised. It hates this country at a fundamental level.

  73. I see the far-left, millionaire fluckwit, ex-wendyball tapper Linesman is sounding off that the beeboid Chairman should not be a political appointment.

    It really IS time that he was shut up once and for all.

    2. “…the beeboid Chairman should not be a political appointment…”

      …because the members of ‘independent’ panels have no political or sociological thoughts of their own whatsoever.

  75. That’s me for this dreary, grey, drizzly, chilly day. Only bright spot was having toe sorted. And he charged what I thought was a remarkably fair price of £30. I expect Young Phil would have given him a tip, as well!!

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. A man on safari in Africa came across an elephant with its foot stuck in a trap. He approached carefully and spoke to the elephant in a soft reassuring voice. Keep still and i’ll get you out of this mess. He spent half an hour, and was successful in his mission. As he went to step away the elephant approached him gently and whispered in his ear. Saying, I am a magic elephant and I can grant you a wish of a lifetime to thank you for what you’ve done for me.
      The man whispers I wish I had a sex organ the same size as yours.
      The elephant nods and say this will happen when you reach your home country.
      A week later after a wonderful time he step off aircraft and fell in half.

  79. I do not understand why GB News and this site also, are so obsessed with what is going on in the USA. Farage used to focus on the boat people and Steyn used to report on the rape gangs.
    Now all they want to rabbit on about is Trump and Carlson. Why? It is not relevant and the focus should be on what is going on here in the UK. We have enough problems in this country to sort out and that is where the energy should be expended.
    The USA is not our ally; the USA is for the USA only- always has been and always will be, no matter who is president.
    I can anticipate some of the replies to this but I do wish that what passes for a government here and a TV channel that calls itself the people’s channel could concentrate on what is important here in the UK.

    1. The US election not so much, but Carlson has a fair following in the UK. Also, Murdoch owns a lot of the press and media here too. Sacking someone as high profile and popular as Carlson is a bold step by Mr Global, that brings the ongoing battle out of the shadows and into the light a bit. Maybe a few more people will realise that it’s not the 1980s any more, and if they don’t get off their arses and do something about it, then their comfortable lives will turn cold, dark and inconvenient before being curtailed sooner than they had hoped.
      (present company, who are so clued up that clues are coming out of their ears, excepted)
      The issues facing the US are pretty much the same as those facing the UK. When the dollar goes, the pound will go too.

      1. I don’t give a damn. So called journalists should report the relevant news. Journalists should not have followings. They are supposedly there to present facts not their opinions.
        Personally I don’t follow any news reader- I form my own opinions and do not need biased opinions from any side.
        List the problems in the UK….NHS, strikes with many others also, illegal immigration, knife crime and street violence, Kahn in London and other cities curtailing people’s freedom of movement and etc. But no, let’s fuss and worry about who might run/win the US presidency and the sacking of a pompous overblown Fox news reporter.
        I am cross tonight and I’m sorry if you think it’s directed at you- it isn’t- it all just makes me angry.

        1. I don’t think we get much actual news in the newspapers at all, from any country. Looking at the UK papers makes me cross to see what they prattle on about.
          Carlson is a commenter, not a newsreader.
          I suppose things will have to get even worse before most people wake up. Sorry, that’s not really helping is it.

        2. The problem is, LotL, that all the mainstream media – all of it – has been bought up. Therefore journalists are not at liberty to report on anything that is of real interest and concern to us – if they did, they would be wasting their time, the editor (bought) would see to that and their efforts simply wouldn’t get printed. Ditto with the tv, radio. They will all have been told firmly not to rock the UK boat probably on pain of losing their job and pensions. They will also have been told to direct our eyes and interests away from encouraging any form of dissent with froth and opinion pieces – you can see it all the time, every day, oh look, a squirrel, and off the media thankfully charges, bit between the teeth. It is desperately concerning, and the media are much to blame for our downfall. And if the media is presenting us with this stuff, then the catastrophes which will soon be coming our way are minimised in the eyes of a greater part of the public, many will be reassured and look no further because hey! – if the media are concerned about things happening across the Atlantic, and Kate and William in Aberfan, then their reasoning will go that things can’t be too bad and there is nothing much to worry about. Their vague sense of unease and disquiet will subside and be soothed.

          The media is owned now by Blackrock and Vanguard. These takeovers and buy-outs happen without us ever hearing about them. There is no independent journalism Blackrock and Vanguard also own Pfizer and many other firms, I have a list somewhere. I expect if you dig deeper you will find Gates and Soros in there, too. Remember Blair saying three or four years ago that they had their people in place all over the world? He wasn’t joking and we have been neatly netted.

          1. Your first paragraph was spot on. Your second paragraph was nonsense. Vanguard, Blackrock et al do not “”own” Pfizer or any other public company listed on the world’s stock exchanges. They may have a minority investment in them – in the same way that if you have a pension fund or unit trust investments you probably have a (smaller no doubt) investment in those same companies.

        3. I agree with a lot of what you say, Ann, but no way do I agree with your description of Tucker Carlson as “a pompous overblown Fox news reporter”.

    2. It is less frustrating looking at another country. I I look at Britain I just find it so bad I would rather watch anything else. All I can do is vote.

      1. Voting does not achieve anything…if it did, it would have been abolished years ago.
        On a lighter note, we are going to watch an ‘Allo ‘Allo special on channel 5. Laughter is needed.

    2. A very nasty compilation, and no, I don’t recognise it anymore. Will be speaking to my brother on the weekend, who still lives in Richmond, and will ask him about life there now.

    3. Its interesting that in our village just outside Cardiff, there was only one black chap until recently. Now I see new darker people wandering up the main street every time I’m out. I cannot object to individuals but it is the imposition of a different mass culture and values that worries me. Last time I went into the city I found it quite hideous and felt like an outsider. I will not go again apart for essential visits.

    2. I hate to say this, but I don’t care where any of them are seated, I shall not be watching any of it.

      1. Me neither. If I had any lingering doubts that it would make me want to vomit, the horrible, patronising, unrealistic stamps promoting Agenda 2030 have dispelled them.

        1. I never thought that I would not be a supporter of the monarchy. But its a bit like politics at the mo, I will not give my vote to the conservatives but I cannot support the other lot either. We are truly stuffed! I shall go out for a walk and miss all the black singing.

      2. Nor me although I’m playing at a party in the local care home in the afternoon

      3. I’m going up to London for it. I’ll be staying at the Victory Services Club – my plan is to be somewhere along the route in the am to wave a flag then back to VSC to watch the ceremony on TV. 😀👑👑🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

        1. Make sure to stoke up on breakfast at the VSC. Set you up it will. If you are in uniform you won’t have much trouble getting a black cab.

  82. I know it’s early but I didn’t sleep well last night. And I have an appointment with a doc at 8 am tmz. Up at 7am. Just a cuppa and Breakfast when I get home again. 🤞
    So I’m off for a read. Jack Reacher.

      1. 373945 + up ticks,

        Evening M,

        I was the same, but then employing open mindedness most conspiracy theories were judged to be unbelievable, yet….

          1. 373945+ up ticks,

            M,
            I do take it to be a case of time will tell, but to me very little holds any surprises any more.

  87. David Atherton
    @DaveAtherton20
    More tomorrow, but Sweden found 79% of people granted asylum had returned home on vacation.

    Apparently in Sudan a Channel migrant man granted Leave To Remain 3 years ago returned home. He is demanding he & a family of 10 are rescued & allowed to come to Britain.

    1. Its no secret, the dogs in the street know it, but it cannot be said. The gov does not have the backbone to state the obvious or that travel to Sudan was not recommdnded. We are stuffed.

      1. 373945+ up ticks,

        Evening FA,

        In Stevenage the goose step would be more of their choosing.

    1. This imported scum are heathen. Deport. No ifs and no buts just deport. We should not have to pay to feed and clothe this utter scum in our country. Get shot of the bastard and do it promptly.

      1. You will notice that there is no deportation order.

        The judge obviously wants him to stay.

  92. Evening, all. If drivers are to switch to EVs they will need to be a) reliable, b) affordable and c) have a decent range with plentiful charging points that work and fit the car.

    1. True, Conners. Which is why I believe it will eventually be agreed by everyone that EVs are useless in reality.

    2. The whole idea of forcing people to purchase electric vehicles is yet another globalist scam. The intention is to force people to abandon their petrol and diesel vehicles and I presume leave the wealthiest to travel unhindered in the electric vehicles they, and only they, can afford.

      There are several problems with this lunacy and its offshoots. For example you simply cannot run an army with electric driven tanks and other armoured vehicles as some jerk in the US has proposed. There are no charging points on a battlefield and even if in some dimwits mind there are these would be taken out via attacks on the electrical grid.

      We live in truly mad times. I remain dumbfounded by the extent to which even our own political class are prepared to lie and repeat the lie time and again.

      Electrical vehicles are already obsolescent. Their range is limited to trivial travels close to home because we have no infrastructure to support their charging requirements. I know it seems and sounds as a good idea but it is the precise opposite.

      We are told that improvements in battery technology are imminent. A friend of mine was the Research Director at Brown Boveri now ABB in their plant at Neckarghemund in Heidelberg. He told me that there were severe limitations in battery power because of the limitations in storage and that nuclear fusion was a dead end.

      Franz Gross died a few years ago and he had patented several battery power principles and definitely knew his stuff.

    3. The whole idea of forcing people to purchase electric vehicles is yet another globalist scam. The intention is to force people to abandon their petrol and diesel vehicles and I presume leave the wealthiest to travel unhindered in the electric vehicles they, and only they, can afford.

      There are several problems with this lunacy and its offshoots. For example you simply cannot run an army with electric driven tanks and other armoured vehicles as some jerk in the US has proposed. There are no charging points on a battlefield and even if in some dimwits mind there are these would be taken out via attacks on the electrical grid.

      We live in truly mad times. I remain dumbfounded by the extent to which even our own political class are prepared to lie and repeat the lie time and again.

      Electrical vehicles are already obsolescent. Their range is limited to trivial travels close to home because we have no infrastructure to support their charging requirements. I know it seems and sounds as a good idea but it is the precise opposite.

      We are told that improvements in battery technology are imminent. A friend of mine was the Research Director at Brown Boveri now ABB in their plant at Neckarghemund in Heidelberg. He told me that there were severe limitations in battery power because of the limitations in storage and that nuclear fusion was a dead end.

      Franz Gross died a few years ago and he had patented several battery power principles and definitely knew his stuff.

    4. Add. d) fast charging.

      Not unknown for people over here to drive 2,000 miles when they go on holiday. You can refill an ICE vehicle in a few minutes, how long does even a fast charge EV take to be ready for another 250 miles?

      1. Yes, I thought that after I’d posted. Like most things ideologically driven, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

  93. Well, folks, despite saying that I planned to take things easy tonight, in actual fact I worked pretty hard on decluttering and did a good hour’s work in the garden. So now I’m off to bed, so I’ll wish my NoTTLer chums a hearty Good Night.

Comments are closed.