Friday 29 April: Those who failed care homes when Covid struck must accept the blame

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

528 thoughts on “Friday 29 April: Those who failed care homes when Covid struck must accept the blame”

      1. The dogs were desperate to go out into the garden at 6am … I was half asleep .. eldest dog spent the longest penny ever .. and younger one chased a scent wich was either a cat or a squirrel .. I wandered out in my jimjams to supervise them. Lucky for us the garden isn’t overlooked .

        1. Sorry, Maggie, on the original site posted, Devonian in Kent posted at about 3 o’clock this morning.

          The site now appears in duplicate.

      1. good morning all. (BTW this is vw posting, Alf is not quite ready yet).

        This is a race that I, for one, will not be entering!

      2. The 1C claimed in the forecast for here last night turned out to be min 5.8C at 1.45am. Their models really do NOT understand coastal situations…

  5. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    The DT’s leading letter:

    SIR – Sir James Eadie QC, who represented the Health Secretary and Public Health England in fighting the claim that the Government acted unlawfully by failing to protect care homes from coronavirus, claimed: “As the evidence demonstrates, the defendants worked (and continue to work) tirelessly to protect the public from the threat to life and health posed by the most serious pandemic in living memory, and specifically sought to safeguard care homes and their residents.”

    The evidence, however, demonstrates exactly the opposite.

    This approach might work in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, but here such a disconnect between reality and the people at the top should result in a jolly good clear out. Heads must roll.

    Philip Wilson-Sharp
    Fordwich, Kent

    We need a jolly good clear out in both Westminster and Whitehall, but it isn’t going to happen.

    2. Mother was fine until she entered hospital, where after a stay of some weeks, she tested positive for COVID – clearly imported despite the measures.
      That she has an immune system that can block radiation, she was just slowed down a bit – not bad for 93 years old…

  9. SIR – Visiting restrictions in health and social-care settings are having a devastating impact.

    It is deeply concerning that visiting is still forbidden for many hospital patients. According to another of your reports earlier this month, one in eight hospital trusts prevents relatives visiting patients, despite the ending of all community Covid restrictions. This is also true of countless care homes, where rolling lockdowns and over-interpretation of testing guidelines are leading to isolation, neglect and abuse of vulnerable residents.

    The freedom to visit loved ones in health and social care settings is a fundamental right. To deny it is inhumane and cruel. Unsurprisingly, isolation and loss of social contact have a devastating impact on physical and psychological health. Without the support of family and friends, health outcomes are poorer, as patients and residents lose hope, sometimes even the will to live, and often refuse treatment. Campaigners also warn of widespread and shocking safeguarding issues involving medication, hydration, hygiene and lack of basic care.

    Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Mental Capacity Act 2005 could and should have protected against this situation arising. Instead, this legislation is being wilfully misinterpreted as an excuse to keep people isolated in care homes and hospitals as if they were prisons.

    We are failing the most vulnerable members of our society. Families must be allowed full access to support and advocate for their loved ones when they need it most. It is now beyond urgent that the Government, local authorities, the NHS, the Care Quality Commission and other regulatory bodies take action to end all unlawful visiting restrictions and stop this unnecessary suffering and neglect.

    This is another multi-sig letter (one of two today) from a collection of MPs and Peers. My message to them? Stop whining and do something about it!

    1. (vw posting again). I thought the government, or some such, had decreed that hospitals should allow at least 1 hour”s visiting now. Why are people accepting these measures?

      1. No accept – no visit.
        Kick up a fuss, and they set security on you, or call the Polis, and it’s you who’s in the poo, not the institution.

  10. SIR – Instead of summoning journalists, should the Speaker not be banning phones and tablets from the Commons Chamber?

    Robert Ascott
    Eastbourne, East Sussex

    Couldn’t agree more, Robert Ascott. It was a bad day when phones and similar devices were permitted in the chamber. Surely to God they can manage without them during debates?

    1. The fact that so many require to have them in the Chamber is an indication of how puerile /sterile many of the contributions to the debate must be. I doubt any who contribute to these threads could stand more than 10 minutes listening to the guff spouted in there……

      Morning Hugh and all.

    2. But they are Very Important People.
      They need to see what their voters have for breakfast or whether Jemima saw a pot hole on her way to school.

  11. SIR – Amid Westminster’s bickering, two ministers stand out for actually knowing what they’re talking about: James Heappey (Armed Forces) and Ben Wallace (Defence). Both are ex-Sandhurst officers; both are familiar with military strategy and tactics; and both are actively supporting Ukraine’s use of Nato weapons and its attacks over the Russian border.

    This is a deadly war, in which one side has hugely underestimated the other. It won’t be won if faint hearts within the EU fail to enable Ukraine to do whatever it takes to defeat Russia.

    Sergei Lavrov’s lapse from Vladimir Putin’s “it’s an operation, not a war” to being “essentially at war with Nato” enables the West to take the gloves off.

    Doug Morrison
    Cranbrook, Kent

    1. In “winning” the war, how many Ukrainians will die and be maimed, in comparison to quickly “losing” the war?

    2. Oh dear, Doug – just because those two were in the military for a while doesn’t mean they know anything about strategy and their support for Ukraine using NATO weapons suggests that they know very little about reality and politics. And, remember that Wallace was filmed in February 2022, saying that the Scots Guards “kicked the backside” of Nicholas I of Russia in the Crimean War, and could do so again.

  12. SIR – For my first year as a student in 1959, I received a grant of £76 to cover all living costs and purchase of books.

    One term in digs proved to be beyond my means, so I rented a small room at the top of a Victorian house, with a single gas ring for cooking.

    I soon discovered United Cattle Products, which supplied cuts of meat, from nose to tip of tail (Letters, April 28), and I cooked many delicious meals in one pot. I still delight in tripe and onions, and oxtail.

    Martin Mayer
    Heskin, Lancashire

    Oxtail…yummy!

    1. ‘United Cattle Products’ – That’s a misnomer for a start – sounds like Disunited Cattle Products would be a more accurate description!

    3. Oxtail – fed it at school, it is truly disgusting. I’d rather vomit snails.

    1. Been there, done that! In my defence I was just one day out, whereas you managed a whole week!

  14. SIR – Sarah Bacon (Letters, April 20) suggests that the extra cost of slow cooking cheaper cuts of meat would negate any savings.

    A typical electric oven uses less than 1kW per hour and even less when slow cooking at lower temperatures. So an extra two hours’ cooking would cost little more than 50p, whereas buying cheaper meat could save pounds.

    Peter Forrest
    London N6

    The oven is too quick, Mr Forrest; a slow cooker emits delicious smells for much longer!

    1. TBF, a cast iron casserole dish in a very low oven produces the best result. It gives the dish a depth that slow or pressure cookers cannot produce.

      1. But, but, but…, Annie, doesn’t the cast iron dish ruin your teeth when you pop it into your mouth and try to crunch it? Lol.

    2. I had a slow cooker years ago but gave up using it. I much prefer my cast iron pot on a back ring on a low heat.

    3. I don’t want cheaper meat. I want to buy high quality ingredients. What i want is cheaper energy, by scrapping the waste of money that is green subsidy and taxation.

  15. 352272+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Friday 29 April: Those who failed care homes when Covid struck must accept the blame,

    IMO corporate manslaughter at least until
    a premeditated case can be proved
    appertaining to reset, replace, resettle.

    These politico’s have proved their worth surely to those that are supporting & voting
    purely based on the party name, when the
    genuine Conservative soul of the party has long, long ago departed.

    Those supporter / voters must ask themselves in all honesty ” what are we
    condoning with our vote”

  16. This is the other multi-sig letter I mentioned earlier. It comes from some of the usual virtue-signalling wokery:

    SIR – The world gets through 500 billion plastic cups each year. In Britain plastic pint cups are one of the worst offenders. Rarely recycled and totally valueless, they remain strewn across the landscape after big nights out, music festivals and sporting events.

    From British festivals, it is estimated that almost 70 per cent of plastic pint cups will end up in landfill or, most likely, the environment, where they will languish for centuries. Plastic cups are the sixth most commonly found plastic item in Britain’s rivers, and the eighth on the nation’s beaches.

    Plastic pint cups also taint the experience of buying a round. Britons are routinely charged £7 for a pint of beer, yet are forced to drink it out of a cup that often ruins the taste.

    These cups are a relic of a bygone age. That’s why we’re calling on the Government to ban them without delay. Innovation will only happen if we take away the cheap plastic option, and many safe alternatives are already available. This legislation would be no impediment to business and would benefit our environment and our social experiences hugely. It’s high time Britain poured itself a plastic-free pint.

    1. Norway replaced plastic containers with waxed cardboard. These cannot be recycled, due to the way, so go to landfill.
      Glass, aluminium and steel cans are 100% recyclable.
      Just saying… the “green” solution often isn’t, and is often worse than the “ungreen” previous condition – like electric cars.

    3. Round here it’s masks, not plastic cups, that litter the streets (and trees, bushes, walls, etc).

    1. He’s clearly a German seal who likes to bag the sun loungers! A Frenchman mind tell the creature to phoque off!

  18. A long straight drive down the fairway, followed by a 150 yard seven iron to within one foot of the pin and a little putt wordle in birdie three today.

  19. Upon browsing the BTL commrnts this morning I see that the slave trade is once again front and centre.  Here’s a couple of them:

    Leslie Ayre29 MIN AGO

    Why are some people in the West Indies (and elsewhere) demanding that the Queen and the Royal Family apologise for the slave trading actiities of others which happened two centuries ago? Why? – the Queen wasn’t and isn’t engaged in slave trading

    These same people demand reparations, usually in cash – who determines how much who benefits, and where does the money come from?

    In one of the phgotographs in this newspaper a man in the West Indies was holding a placard saying “you stole us, you sold us…….”. Firstly we didn’t steal them now or at that time – their own people “stole them and sold them”.

    In another report, a person said that when the UK left after independence it didn’t even leave behind a university. It beggars belief that despite continued support of these countries after independence they still consider the UK to be oppressors and should bank roll everything the want – but not necessarily need.

    Slave trading – including its modern version is deplorable, obscene at best, but why should the Queen, the Government or even me be blamed, and why should I pay reparations?

    Olivia Wilde9 MIN AGO

    This nonsense that our royalty are powerless to reply to the rudeness and humiliating vitriolic rhetoric coming from the Caribbean countries In this day and age on their latest visits-by Invitation Incidentally-Is seriously outdated.

    These countries CHOOSE to be In our Commonwealth and that point should be accentuated when any criticism Is thrown our way; no-one has been press-ganged Into membership and are free to leave at any time.

    Their wilful Ignorance In the part their own people played In the slave trade before we came along and how our Navy lost many lives In stopping It In It’s tracks elsewhere for decades after the abolition In this country.

    There were many other empires In the world besides ours, so why just target good old blighty all the time…because we don’t ever retaliate ever, perpetually cowed by the Left.

    Maybe royals could say In answer to the Incessant demands of financial reparations, along with the demanding an apology from the Queen, Is that they are sorry they feel that way, but they are all free to leave whenever.

    Also, by reminding them of all the Aid that has come their way over the decades via their former “oppressors”, along with all we gifted to them when we left them largely to their own devices, by way of advancements ranging anything from agricultural, educational, Industrial, healthcare to democracy, laws and language; they are their reparations.

    Plus Charles should make a mental note to himself, that on ascending the throne, to disband the Commonwealth In It’s entirety, with no access to residency here and no British passports handed out like confetti as they have been In the past.

    1. Never complain, never explain. Telling these whingers that everything they have was built by us and that their own tribal chiefs sold them is not going to happen, so they should be ignored. They’re just bandwagoners.

      Interestingly it’s always the permoffended wasters who blither on about this sort of nonsense. The people who’ve made something of themselves don’t look back with bitterness and greed, they look forward to their own lives from their own merit.

  20. BTL comment under a report about the latest ‘top’ snivel serpent defending shirking from home.
    “If working from home isn’t causing these problems, it must be the ability of the staff.”
    Short, and to the point.

    1. Another BTL comment under the article: “He would say that wouldn’t he!”

      2. For poor/tight NOTTLers:

        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/28/top-civil-servant-says-working-home-has-zero-bearing-passport/

        Top civil servant says working from home has ‘zero bearing’ on passport chaos

        “Permanent secretary claims Government criticism ‘ignores reality’ as answers are demanded of French company behind call-centre issues

        Charles Hymas, Home Affairs Editor28 April 2022 • 8:59pm

        Matthew Rycroft took over as Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office following the resignation of Sir Philip Rutnam in 2020 Credit: Bebeto Matthews/AP

        One of the country’s most senior civil servants has put himself at odds with the Government over working from home by issuing a public statement in support of the beleaguered head of the Passport Office.

        Matthew Rycroft, permanent secretary at the Home Office, said that where the Passport Office’s director-general worked had “precisely zero bearing” on the crisis engulfing her organisation.

        The Telegraph disclosed on Wednesday that Abi Tierney, the £160,000-a-year Passport Office boss, has been working from home in Leicestershire, 100 miles from its headquarters in London, as well as from satellite offices around the country.

        On Thursday, she and other officials were due to be hauled into the Cabinet Office by Steve Barclay to explain how they were going to tackle a passport applications backlog and ten-week wait that threatens the summer plans of tens of thousands of holidaymakers.

        It also emerged that a French call-centre company at the centre of the chaos also runs the helplines for Britain’s much-criticised Ukrainian refugee schemes.

        Boris Johnson earlier this week went on the offensive against working from home, criticising “post-Covid manana culture” which he claimed had crept into the public sector, while also reportedly threatening to “privatise the a—” out of the passport service.

        Jacob Rees-Mogg, the cabinet minister in charge of government efficiency, has issued a warning to senior civil servants to return to their offices and has even taken to placing sarcastic notes on empty desks, declaring: “Sorry you were out when I visited.”

        But Mr Rycroft took the unusual step of releasing a statement on Thursday in defence of Dr Tierney that could place him in opposition to some ministers.

        Mr Rycroft said: “This story totally ignores reality. Abi is a hugely talented leader, heading up our world-class visa and passport operations. With sites spread across the UK, Abi works day-in, day-out with teams around the country delivering vital services for the British public.

        “Abi’s work location has had precisely zero bearing on the current situation with passports, which has largely resulted from a drop in applications during the pandemic. Our teams are working flat out to meet the demand.

        “We are proud to be spreading opportunity and talent across the country, moving away from the outdated notion that everything must be done in London.”

        Mr Rycroft, the most senior official in the Home Office, earlier this month warned his boss Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, that the policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda lacked “sufficient evidence” to demonstrate the scheme’s benefits.

        Home Office officials said Dr Tierney worked the “vast majority” of her time at passport offices around the country including London and “occasionally” at home, but would not publicly be more precise.

        ‘Working out of London’

        A source said Mr Rycroft was not supporting working from home but the right of officials “working out of London”. Asked if there was a risk of appearing to clash with Mr Rees-Mogg’s campaign, the source said: “Yes, potentially, but that’s clearly a debate that is already happening in Government.”

        The source pointed out that Nadine Dorries, the Culture Secretary, had accused Mr Rees-Mogg of a “Dickensian” approach in “measuring bodies behind desks”.

        The permanent secretary at the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has previously extolled the virtues of working from home because it gives her more time on her exercise bike.

        It came as Dr Tierney hauled in the boss of the French company behind the passport helpline chaos for a carpeting over its “unacceptable” performance.

        She demanded improvements from the boss of Paris-based Teleperformance over complaints of unanswered calls, delays of up to four hours in answering customers and failing to provide accurate information.

        The company, which is now bringing in hundreds of extra staff, has also been responsible for running the help lines in the much-criticised Ukrainian refugee schemes, where there have been complaints that it has been unable to update applicants on the status of their visa application.

        On Thursday it emerged that only a fifth – some 11,100 – of the 51,300 Ukrainians granted visas under the Homes for Ukraine scheme had arrived in the UK. Some 16,000 of the 34,900 Ukrainians granted visas have entered the UK.

        Teleperformance did not respond to a request for comment.”

        2. Abi is working flat out… teams to meet demand.

          OK. Tell me how many passports a day are being processed – or the status of the current work. What’s the velocity of output? I assume there are stages of application consideration, where are the metrics to show the slump and now the ramp up? What has Abi done to improve that? What hinderances has she removed? Do they need better equipment? Can slow teams be identified? Is output increasing year on year? If productivity is going up, is the headcount going down, or going up? Are more workers needed to do the same job, or fewer? Is the service providing value for money, or just rolling in cash?

          All these things can be monitored. I’ll bet they’re not.

          Efficiency is important because without it – in the private sector – you can’t do as much which means you don’t get paid as much which means you don’t pay your mortgage. Without the same ethos applied to the public sector, it will never change.

    1. On April 23, I joined RT journalist Roman Kosarev on a visit to the location, in the town of Mangush. What I saw were new, orderly grave plots including some still empty ones – an extension of a cemetery that already exists at the spot. No mass pit. Many of the graves have placards with the names and dates of birth of the deceased when available, and the remaining plots were numbered according to burial.

      Morning Bob. This is plainly apparent even in the Satellite Photographs! The graves are distributed evenly along one edge of the cemetery!

      1. These remarks from the article sum up what the Western media reports about Ukraine are:
        “I’ll repeat what I’ve said on Western media reporting on Syria (which in my experience, from on the ground in that country, is largely dishonest): those who promote these hoaxes and war propaganda have blood on their hands.

        After the countless lies emanating from Western corporate media, I would hope people would exercise critical thinking whenever a new claim is pushed, particularly when it is repeated in chorus by the usual suspects.”
        This is another stupid article in todays Telegraph
        “Putin has now made his fourth calamitous error”
        I don’t see what the errors are. He says what he is going to do and then does it.
        The most absurd I have seen is trying to compare Putin to Hitler by comparing Hitler’s hand shaking from tremors with Putin making an ordinary gesture and pretending that they are the same. I watched this years Midnight service in the Cathedral with Putin in attendance. He looked perfectly normal, if a little tired.

    1. Dear freekin’ life, I DON’T CARE! They’re ALL crooks. All scum. All on the make, all rule breaking wasters. Get on with fixing the economy, cutting taxes and cutting waste.

      1. Good Morning, Veritable Beauty

        More likely Janet Reger according to my sources.

    3. Will this mean that Starmer backs off as far as porte gateaux is concerned?

  24. Good morning, all. Grey and dreary day – as promised.

    Last night we watched a prog on BBC4 about the restoration of Notre Dame. The beeboids had, of course, got the preening, self-obsessed exhibitionist Worsley to present it. She was unutterably bad. BUT – the people she spoke to were among the most skilled artisans in France – wood, glass, stone – and were quite fascinating. Their quiet pride that their work ill last for 500 years (unless another slammer starts another fire) was most moving.

    I commend the programme.

    1. It was fascinating. The skills and knowledge of the restorers was impressive – to put it mildly. How on earth did they ever acquire all that knowledge to begin with?
      How did they even know where to begin? Obviously they couldn’t just line up the skips and charge in.

        1. Every time I see such programmes, I wish those types of careers had been mentioned when I was at school.

          1. Up on Portland there are stone mason classes in the quarries for any one who wants to try their hand at chiselling .

            I visited a class and saw some amazing stuff . The sound of clinking and tapping wasn’t for me though.

            Very dusty atmosphere but the workmanship was so precise . Some people are just talented , whether it is with wood carving or stone or sculpture work .. and even stained glass window work is an absolute art form .

            We have to admire stone masons from centuries ago . How on earth did they manage to do heavy stuff at such great heights .

      2. To answer your question, craftsmen & artisans & qualified local tradesmen still exist around France.
        Plenty of old buildings, plenty of work for them.
        And France has an industrial sector that requires engineers and technicians.
        IMHO, at a guess, the French educational system together with subsequent vocational training (aka apprenticeships) was not devastated by the double whammy of Labour’s Shirley Williams (Baroness Williams) and the Trades Unions back in the 1960s.

      3. To answer your question, craftsmen & artisans & qualified local tradesmen still exist around France.
        Plenty of old buildings, plenty of work for them.
        And France has an industrial sector that requires engineers and technicians.
        IMHO, at a guess, the French educational system together with subsequent vocational training (aka apprenticeships) was not devastated by the double whammy of Labour’s Shirley Williams (Baroness Williams) and the Trades Unions back in the 1960s.

      4. To answer your question, craftsmen & artisans & qualified local tradesmen still exist around France.
        Plenty of old buildings, plenty of work for them.
        And France has an industrial sector that requires engineers and technicians.
        IMHO, at a guess, the French educational system together with subsequent vocational training (aka apprenticeships) was not devastated by the double whammy of Labour’s Shirley Williams (Baroness Williams) and the Trades Unions back in the 1960s.

      5. ‘Morning Anne. I couldn’t agree more. As I said to Mrs HJ during the programme, project-managing our modest building work here wasn’t plain sailing so the replacement of the roof must have been incredibly difficult. However, I imagine the roof survey conducted in, I think, 2014 will have assisted as it included precise measurements of the timbers, as well as photographs.

    2. I’m afraid that the presence of “posh Bubble” as the presenter put me off!

    3. I love watching programmes where they involve people with great skill, even if I don’t like what they are working with – marquetry, for example. I find it unutterably fussy, but have great respect for those who create it.

      1. The Repair Shop is very good for that – I marvel at the skills of its personnel.

    4. Is it? The sun is blasting through my window and drying the bathmat as I write. Looks to be a warm one in ‘Ampsheer’. today.

      1. Bright and sunny here too in my bit of ‘Ampsheer. I think Bill has his own personal cloud that follows him around.

    5. Good morning Bill

      I watched that as well , it was brilliant , awesome and you are so spot on about the artisans .. really appreciate their skill and knowledge .. and weren’t the timber yeards something else .

      The beautiful stained glass windows are incredible .

      One of the best progs I have viewed for ages .

      Miss Worsley caught the attention off Moh .. her eyebrows were skewiff.

      1. She somehow seemed to be trying to push past the facts to present her self instead.

    6. How is the MR doing Bill, have her spirits bounced back? Do hope she’s gradually putting the disappointment behind her.

    7. ‘Morning, Bill. Yes, a good programme but it would have been even better without the smug and repetitive Worsley, who seemed to treat the subject matter as a vehicle for her massive ego.

      Incidentally, I cannot believe that no one has investigated the cause of the fire. The phrase ‘restoration work’ frightens the life out of insurers (not that ND was insured) and very strenuous fire precautions are required, particularly with such an important building. The presence of scaffolding indicates either the careless use of heat during the work or that it provided relatively easy access for an arsonist. Their reticence to disclose their findings makes me suspicious. Pity Worsley didn’t pursue the point in the hour-long programme.

      1. Perhaps some workman’s fridge caught fire and he left the door open and departed without telling the vicar there was a minor problem in the rafters. It could actually happen you know.

      2. I usually like her seemingly frank and straight forward presentations. But this time she seemed to on edge and presenting her self rather than the facts and the fantastic work the french craft people had been carrying out. She was very privileged to have been able to get up close to all the wonderful structured workmanship.

    8. ‘Morning, Bill. Yes, a good programme but it would have been even better without the smug and repetitive Worsley, who seemed to treat the subject matter as a vehicle for her massive ego.

      Incidentally, I cannot believe that no one has investigated the cause of the fire. The phrase ‘restoration work’ frightens the life out of insurers (not that ND was insured) and very strenuous fire precautions are required, particularly with such an important building. The presence of scaffolding indicates either the careless use of heat during the work or that it provided relatively easy access for an arsonist. Their reticence to disclose their findings makes me suspicious. Pity Worsley didn’t pursue the point in the hour-long programme.

    9. Totally agree Bill, shame all those lovely trees had to be sacrificed to rebuild after the ‘electrical fault’. I hope the electrician is in the slammer.
      She annoyed me as well she must have been on something.

    10. I wondered if she’s in any way related to the Worsley family of Hovingham Hall but it seems not though the full birth name of the Duchess is Katharine Lucy Mary Worsley.

      I once saw Lucy Worsley march confidently in to the mens loos on the 6th floor of New Broadcasting House. Someone grabbed her coat from behind and pulled her back. (For some reason, the loos are confgured differently on that floor to all the others. Hence her mistake.)

  25. “Why men have started watching porn in public. It isn’t currently against the law, but the habit is an act of aggression against women every bit as damaging as flashing.

    …..This week, many Conservative MPs were left “shell-shocked” after attending a meeting with Chief Whip Chris Heaton-Harris to discuss misogyny and sexual harassment in Westminster. That there’s a problem is undeniable. Currently, 56 MPs are being investigated for sexual harassment, including three Cabinet ministers and two members of the shadow cabinet. Last week also saw cross-party outrage at the accusation that Angela Rayner was using nefarious leg-crossing to undo Boris Johnson at the Dispatch Box.

    But the meeting’s most unpleasant but relatable revelation – for most women – came when it emerged that a Conservative MP had been seen watching porn on his phone in the chamber of the Commons, witnessed by a senior woman MP and a female junior minister. …….”

    I remember my Grandmother teaching my sister how to keep a hatpin in her hat and use it on any roaming hands. Why can’t today’s wimmin do the equivalent, why didn’t the two women MPs just ask the offending MP to stop, If necessary in a loud voice to embarras the offender? Why can’t wimmin simply demand of any offender to not watch stuff in a public place such as a bus. I agree men shouldn’t do it in the first place, but what do these offended ladies actually want to happen?

  26. What would get the Fishwife booted out? Obviously nothing as minor as eating babies for breakfast, so could we start the rumour that she wears pyjamas adorned with the Cross of St. George?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/04/28/ferries-fiasco-grilling-leaves-floundering-nicola-sturgeon-looking/

    “Ferries fiasco grilling leaves a floundering Nicola Sturgeon looking seasick

    SNP showcased its finest talents at First Minister’s Questions, from its gift for spin to dodging accountability

    28 April 2022 • 7:25pm

    The Scottish National Party has many winning qualities – at least at election time. Favourites include a gift for spin, for ducking accountability and frittering away public cash like drunken Keynesians on a run ashore. Another is always doing the opposite of what Westminster is doing, however frivolous or petty the matter of divergence.

    In Holyrood on Thursday, the SNP deployed all these virtues in spades. At First Minister’s Questions, Nicola Sturgeon was quizzed on the SNP’s ferries fiasco – botched Ferguson Marine contracts estimated to have cost the public £250 million – and the mystery of the accompanying documents which had vanished into thin air (or perhaps down the back of the shredder). Her usual composure had evaporated, leaving a floundering Sturgeon on the hook – and all the telltale signs were there: jerky head-wobbling and mutinous scowls into the middle-distance.

    Where was that all-important email approving the contract, asked Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross. Sturgeon, selecting a novel diversionary tactic, reminded him that there were still plenty in the public domain that hadn’t mysteriously disappeared – just not the one the Auditor-General wanted. The Mona Lisa might have been nabbed from the Louvre, but at least the Jacques Louis-Davids were safe. Bizarre though this approach seemed, her MSPs erupted with canned applause worthy of a nineties sitcom.

    Ross continued his persecution with a sarcastically raised eyebrow. Sturgeon’s defence, he declared, was on a par with “A big boy did it and ran away – and now the dog ate my homework”. But Sturgeon quickly changed tack. Posing as a fearless employment champion, she cited the 400 workers whose jobs were saved when Ferguson’s dockyard was taken into administration after the contractual blunder. “It was and is an achievement”, she crowed. “I know jobs don’t matter to the Conservatives, but they matter to this Government!” Too true – at £625,000 per job “saved”, the SNP must care very much indeed.

    What would it take for SNP to apologise?

    Little can be done in tandem with Westminster for the SNP – not even something as fundamentally dull as the census. They’d decided to delay it by a year while the rest of the UK plugged ahead, in their words, “to ensure the highest possible response rate” (and naturally, the creation of a super-Scottish version of the forms, with gender self-ID and no box for just “British”). Unfortunately, the opposite occurred; a flimsy 74 per cent turnout compared to the near-universal response elsewhere in the UK. A census taker once tried to test me, I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Glenmorangie.

    SNP spokesman Angus Robertson had been hauled in for questioning that afternoon, though the Presiding Officer had cut his statement down to five minutes, since everyone knew about the delay already. He still managed a “fulsome apology” that was leaked to the press before Holyrood – though he refused to admit the decision itself was a mistake.

    With census-gate expected to cost taxpayers an extra £21.6million, after which the low turnout might render the data useless anyway, there could be few more glaring political own goals. What exactly would it take for the SNP to apologise? And more to the point, if you can’t run a census, how do you expect to run a country?”

    1. Last figure I heard was that 63% of census forms had been returned. We are being chased to return ours. Or rather to return the second one that they sent. We decided not to fill in the form online*, but telephoned the appropriate Census hotline and gave our details to a robot. Nothing happened. We tried again and actually spoke to someone. We received a form 3 days later, Completed and returned. Then we received another, presumably via the first phone call to the automaton, the return of which they are now chasing.

      * The official notification letter of the Census explaining timescales etc, helpfully pointed out that if you were going to be unable to complete a form online, there was a website you could go to for more information! (Yes, really.)

      1. I got an email to say I had not completed the online form so I went back and completed it again. Same email a couple of days later so I told them to stop bothering me.
        I fail to see the relevancy of what your job description was 30 years ago – and told them so

  27. From today’s DT:

    BBC licence fee on its way out in funding overhaul

    A White Paper on the broadcaster’s future included the Government’s intention to explore alternatives to the licence fee

    ByAnita Singh, ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR 29 April 2022 • 12:42am

    Ministers have signalled the end of the BBC television licence fee as they laid out plans to seek a “fair and appropriate” alternative.

    A Government White Paper on the future of broadcasting said that the landscape had changed significantly since the licence fee was last reviewed less than a decade ago.

    “Technology has revolutionised how, when and where audiences can access and watch content,” the paper stated.

    “An increasing number of households are choosing not to hold a TV licence, as fewer people choose to watch live TV or other activities that require a licence.

    “Should this trend continue as expected there are clear challenges on the horizon to the sustainability of the licence fee.”

    The Government said it would look at how other countries fund their public service broadcasters in the review.

    It also warned that the BBC must do more to address impartiality, despite the corporation already setting out a 10-point action plan which promises to ensure that a breadth of viewpoints are reflected in its coverage.

    The Government said it would also scrutinise Ofcom’s role as regulator of the BBC, and ask if the system needs improvement.

    Currently, anyone with a complaint against the broadcaster must take it directly to the BBC and can only refer it to Ofcom if they are dissatisfied at the end of the corporation’s process.

    The paper added: “The BBC needs to address issues around impartiality and groupthink and to do so it needs to make material and swift progress.

    “The Government also wants to see the BBC taking steps to reform over the next six years. This includes taking action to improve its impartiality, which is central to the BBC’s mission and to maintaining trust with audiences… While the action plan is a good start, changes are necessary and they need to be delivered.”

    The Government’s mid-term Charter Review will look at how effective the BBC’s governance and regulation is “in enabling progress against our ambitions for greater impartiality, more accountability for its editorial standards including the handling of complaints, and a BBC that represents the breadth of the audience it was established to serve.

    “This is not just about how well the BBC is doing – we also want to look at the effectiveness of the framework by which Ofcom holds the BBC to account.”

    A BBC spokesman said: “We look forward to engaging with the Government on both the forthcoming mid-term review and then the national debate on the next charter. The White Paper recognises the BBC’s critical role in supporting the UK creative sector and we remain focused on delivering great value for all licence fee payers.”

    * * *

    “We look forward to engaging with the Government on both the forthcoming mid-term review and then the national debate on the next charter.”  Oh, really? The hell you do!

    Anyway, late yesterday I saw a DT article about the BBC’s abandonment of its decision to ‘go for the yoof vote’ – why, then, was the BBC 3 channel resurrected quite recently instead of remaining on the interweb?  Money to burn perhaps??  It also suggested that expenditure on programmes for the older viewer is to be increased.  My search for the article continues…

    1. “fair and appropriate” – they removed the licence fee for NRK here in Norway, and added it to income tax instead – so, there is no way of avoiding paying. That is what you will be getting.
      The only fair way is to make it subscription-only.

      1. That is what the BBC would like, and then it would annually increment every year like clockwork, no more annoying dealing with the public, no more enforcement costs, no more charter about impartiality, just more money, from everyone being taken regardless.

    2. I had a tv licencing letter come through. The usual tripe: you’re watching a TV and you’ll be fined, with the tiny small print in between adding the ‘if and ‘you may’.

      We’ve never owned a TV, nor watched it. When iPlayer was free I’d watch Neil on the Daily Politics, the odd recommendation from this forum but that as it. Over the next few months we’ll receive a deluge of increasingly threatening, abusive and obnoxious such letters demanding we give them money. Eventually a bloke might come over – one tried to force the handle the last time.

      1. Twas ever thus Wibbles – my mother died in 1989 and had never owned a TV. She had however been hounded for years by the licencing people. They were threatening and borderline abusive, especially to an elderly widow living alone.

        2. The ‘enforcement officers’ have no powers. You don’t even have to speak to them. Ignore the letters, if they come to your door either don’t answer it or just close the door on them. They have no right of entry nor can they pester you. NEVER let them in. The only evidence they can get for a prosecution is by you talking to them or letting them in. There are NO detector vans. They are salesmen trying to sell you a licence, which you may not need, to earn commission.

          1. She always did ignore the letters and I don’t think any enforcement people visited.

      2. I’m rather disappointed in that In haven’t had a threatening letter from the BBC for a long while. Do you think an outraged letter accusing them of neglect would go down well? All I want is for routine to be restored.

    3. “Currently, anyone with a complaint against the broadcaster must take it directly to the BBC and can only refer it to Ofcom if they are dissatisfied at the end of the corporation’s process.” I tried that. The BBC overran their self imposed timescales, they ignored the complaint, obfuscated and eventually ceased to reply.
      Then on to Ofcom. They required the whole thing to entered on to their form. Copies of the correspondence, which were neatly typed, not holograph, and were all dated, were not acceptable. I gave up, just as this process intends. To struggle on for another couple of months was pointless. At best Ofcom would agree, and the BBC would print a very small statement on page 1001 of their website.
      Time would be better spent reading the collected speeches of Enver Hoxha.

      1. Many moons ago I used to listen to radio Tirana for entertainment its propaganda was so outrageous. Pricked up my ears one day at reports of the blood of the workers flooding the streets as they were shot down and mauled by police dogs, backed up by machine guns. It turned out to be a the usual mundane strike by the Daghanam Car factory. I think Enver Hoxa then went on to be the Director General of the BBC. if not him, certainly one of his acolytes.

    4. I’m not optimistic. They will probably replace it with a flat levy on everyone who has a broadband connection.

  28. Welcome to the Free Speech Union’s weekly newsletter, our round-up of the free speech news of the week. As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join, and help us turn the tide against cancel culture.

    Reasons to be cheerful about Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter

    On Tuesday, Twitter’s board accepted the billionaire Elon Musk’s bid to buy the company. Predictably, according to Mick Hume in the Mail, “left-wing pundits, academics and right-on celebrities instantaneously declared themselves terrified that the richest man in the world might dare to do the unthinkable and allow those with even a slightly different opinion from their own to exercise freedom of expression online.”

    Was it “terror,” though, or some other emotion? Writing about “the great Musk meltdown” for Spiked, Andrew Doyle pointed out that child psychologists have often observed “that when babies cry, what we assume is an expression of discomfort is in fact a form of rage”. The collective mindset of woke social justice warriors, he went on, “approximates a kind of arrested development, an inability to engage in reasoned discussion or to understand that, when it comes to persuading others of your point of view, tantrums have limited utility”.

    Whatever the cause, it was all rather good fun – “almost worth the $45 billion purchase price in entertainment value alone”, as our General Secretary Toby Young put it in the Express.

    Comedian Kathy Griffin Tweeted that Musk was a “media-thirsty, vindictive white supremacist”. Civil rights activist Shaun King deleted his account, fearing Musk’s “white power” and apparently fretful that “white nationalists” would now be free to roam the internet, targeting and harassing people. (Shaun himself is white, needless to say.) One preternaturally long-lived journalist – who, although never having won a Pulitzer, must surely have been a contemporary of the man himself – went so far as to warn that “today on Twitter feels like the last evening in a Berlin nightclub at the twilight of Weimar Germany”.

    Beyond all the histrionics, though, how will Twitter change under Musk’s ownership?

    Largely, if not entirely, for the worse, according to the BBC. In a remarkably gloomy piece, the reader has to endure academics declaring that an already bad situation will get worse if all the “decent people” (i.e., them) exit the platform, Amnesty International worrying that Musk will turn a blind eye to violent and abusive speech, Joe Biden expressing his “concern”, US Senator Elizabeth Warren warning of “dangers for democracy ahead”, celebrities panicking about an impending uptick in xenophobia, the EU querying whether Musk will adequately protect platform users… and so on.

    Of course, it’s right and proper for a public service broadcaster to allow those voices to be heard. But what about the voices of those on the other side of the argument; what about people who believe that things might, you know… actually get better?

    After all, Twitter could hardly be said to have an unblemished record when it comes to free speech. Too often in the past, “harassment” has been conflated with relatively innocuous forms of behaviour in order to justify the deletion of accounts on political grounds. The same could be said of “mis-” or “dis-information”. Those of us who are cheering Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter would no doubt point to the suppression of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story or the ban on former President Donald Trump as emblematic examples of Twitter’s violations of basic tenets of free speech. Many gender-critical feminists too – and even satirical website Babylon Bee – have been censored in the past simply for stating biological truths, or raising important questions about women-only spaces.

    That’s why, unlike the BBC, the FSU is cautiously optimistic. Our press release (which you can read here) welcomed the news that Twitter had accepted Musk’s offer. Importantly, it “encouraged” Twitter’s new owner to:

    Initiate a public discussion on the platform about how best to adhere to the principles of free speech while, at the same time, discourage political opponents from engaging in vicious personal attack or trying to cancel each other. As a crucial first step, Twitter needs to regain the trust of all sides across a range of contentious political issues.

    Regaining the trust of all sides. That’s a key point for the FSU. People need to re-learn how to talk to their opponents, to be open to changing their minds, and not to dismiss alternative viewpoints as evidence of dishonesty or hatred. That wasn’t possible when the gatekeepers of the online public square silenced voices that didn’t parrot their own insular worldview. Now, at least, we have hope that in the near future it might be.

    Free speech includes the right to be offensive, Mr Speaker

    Last weekend, The Mail on Sunday ran a story in which anonymous Tory MPs accused Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, of deliberately crossing and uncrossing her legs to throw Boris Johnson “off his stride” during PMQs. Rayner’s “enchantment effect” (as the Mail described it) was, they claimed, reminiscent of Sharon Stone’s famous reveal in the film Basic Instinct.

    Was it a good idea for the Mail to rehabilitate what Joanna Williams described as “the kind of sexism best left buried with Benny Hill”? Who knows. What worried the FSU rather more was that in the storm of controversy that ensued, condemnations rained down with such hyperbolic ferocity that for a while it felt as if the principle of a free press might be washed away. Parliamentarians on both sides of the house were worryingly quick to render a perfectly legitimate newspaper article – one that they just didn’t happen to like – as evidence of some wider, structural malaise, namely, the sexism supposedly endured “routinely” by all women in Parliament.

    Rayner herself claimed that both sexism and classism were behind the Mail’s story. Labour’s Harriet Harmen described it as “creepy”, before breezily suggesting that changes to the parliamentary code of conduct were needed to render misogyny punishable by suspension from the House of Commons. Conservative Caroline Nokes went further, suggesting that the journalist responsible should lose his parliamentary pass and be subjected to a grilling from a committee of MPs. Surely, though, Nokes’s plan would amount to little more than “censorship dressed up as an attempt to protect women”? If carried through, it would also have the effect of making access to politicians dependent on ‘good behaviour’ – that is, only writing what MPs want to hear.

    Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle waded into the debate too. It was, he thundered, “demeaning, offensive to women in Parliament” and would “deter women who might consider standing for election”. He then summoned David Dillon, the editor of the Mail on Sunday, and Glen Owen, the journalist who wrote the story, to meet with him to discuss the offending article and, presumably, attempt to ensure that no similar articles were published again.

    The Telegraph’s Sam Ashworth-Hayes described Hoyle’s attempt to “act as de facto press regulator” as indicative of “a startling naivety”. If he’d stuck to making a brief statement, he added, criticising the behaviour of the unnamed Tory MPs whose comments were reported, “then people on all sides of the political fray would have had little to criticise”. Instead, Hoyle turned it into a matter of press freedoms, “a fundamental issue which, as David Cameron before him quickly learnt, is best left untouched”.

    The next day, the Mail led with news that neither the Mail on Sunday’s editor, nor the article’s author, would be keeping their appointment with Lindsay, and followed up with a robust defence of their story.

    The FSU stands squarely behind the Mail’s defence.

    “So what,” wrote Toby for ConHome, “if some female MPs and their male ‘allies’ found the article offensive?” Someone, he added:

    Should draw Hoyle’s attention to the words of Lord Justice Sedley in Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions (1999): “Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having.”

    It’s not that the Mail on Sunday’s article wasn’t contentious. It’s just that, as Toby pointed out, it was “so obviously within the bounds of protected speech, as set out in Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, that Hoyle shouldn’t need reminding that free speech includes the right to demean and offend”.

    Thankfully, the Speaker has since backpedalled, stressing that he’s a “staunch believer and protector of press freedom”. But he’s stopped short of withdrawing his summons, which Toby believes is a mistake:

    Even if he had no intention of removing Owen’s lobby pass on this occasion, he must be aware that that was the veiled threat he was making by demanding he and his editor come to his office. He should withdraw his summons, admit his error, and never try to interfere in the freedom of the press again.

    Museums and the woke war on the past

    First it was statues. Then it was street names, clocks, country homes, mathematics, Thatcher’s Cider company and even Shakespeare. Now, though, “left-wing radicals” appear to be eyeing up museums for a spot of decolonisation, reports the Mail.

    The Imperial War Museum made headlines last November, staging a woke rap at the end of Remembrance Sunday’s traditional two-minute silence; a rap which the Mail described as “a vile attack on (among others) Churchill and a rant about race”. This week, we learnt that Ipswich Museum’s bosses are looking to hire a “social justice champion” who will be paid £35,000 to help “address the legacies of imperialism, patriarchal power structures and inherent biases in current displays”.

    Also in the news this week was Arts Council England (ACE). According to the Telegraph, ACE are using millions in taxpayers’ money to encourage “decolonisation” at smaller English museums. The organisation wields quite a bit of power in the sector, principally because museums are required to obtain ACE’s official accreditation. That’s obviously a tricky task for smaller museums, so an advisory body, Museum Development England (MDE), was recently established to help them navigate the process. A recent MDE training programme offers us a clue as to the type of “help” they’ve been providing. The programme assists managers in laying “the foundations for equity and inclusion at [their] museum”, reminds them that the history they’ve been curating their whole careers has largely been written by “white, wealthy” men, and provides them with “inspirational” examples of best practice in decolonising museums. The need for museums to launch inclusion “action plans”, “champion social justice and equity” and unpick “racist narratives” is also emphasised.

    Quite whether hard-pressed, under-resourced managers at institutions like Wigston Framework Knitters Museum, the National Glass Centre and the Isle of Wight Bus and Coach Museum need that type of help is a moot point.

    Interestingly, the Telegraph describe the training as “voluntary”. But will those sessions look or feel “voluntary” to museum staff? The training is, after all, provided by an organisation that exists to help them navigate ACE’s accreditation process. And it must surely be common knowledge among practitioners that MDE receives £3 million in annual funding from ACE. Would museum bosses feel confident rejecting “voluntary” training offered by an advisory body with such close links to the sector’s accreditation body? The concern, surely, would be that non-attendance will render them incapable of swearing fealty to all things “inclusive” in the ACE’s accreditation documentation.

    Mavericks, apostates, contrarians: all are welcome at Forum

    Editors are “terrified of being accused of wrongthink if they allow a book to be published which is deemed to be out of bounds. I think it’s pathetic.” So says George Owers, boss of Forum, a new publishing imprint offering a home to cancelled authors.

    There’s certainly enough of them about to make a good business case for a venture like Forum. Back in 2020, for instance, Kathleen Stock, then professor of philosophy at Sussex University and a gender-critical feminist, had a book on female philosophers abandoned by OUP because it was deemed “too controversial”. Kate Clanchy, a teacher of 30 years whose memoir Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me won the Orwell Prize for political writing, saw her decade-long relationship with Picador aborted earlier this year following a cancel-culture maelstrom. And last year the Hachette Book Group dropped Julie Burchill’s Welcome to the Woke Trials: How Identity Killed Progressive Politics over her tweets about Islam. Reflecting on that cancellation for the Critic this week, Rosie Jenkinson remarked that “there’s more than a hint of irony that a book by a woman criticising the cancellation of women was cancelled”. (Reminder: We helped Julie get the rights back to her manuscript and found her another publisher.)

    Owers says he won’t take on cancelled authors for the sake of it. “If what they’re arguing is of no merit, or is pure provocation with no real argument, I don’t want to publish it,” he said. He does, though, see the outfit as a first step in challenging the “stranglehold” the industry finds itself in. “In a year’s time,” he says, “we hope Penguin and Picador will be terrified of us.”

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    Best wishes,

    1. I’m doomed. I still use one the late Auntie Agnes’ saucepans, proudly stamped “Made in England’.

    3. “But what about the voices of those on the other side of the argument; what about people who believe that things might, you know… actually get better?”. You cannot mean Russians, surely?

  29. I am sure i am not alone in this feeling,…. but…have you ever awoken and as the memories come flooding in from the night before and you think…OMG ! At least it was for a good cause. :@(

        1. Oi !
          It was the closing night for my favourite restaurant. Carole and Larry are retiring after 20 years. Selfish batsards !
          Charity night for Open Sight Hampshire.
          Auction and raffle. I’m broke now. Not really. I shouldn’t enter auctions when i have had a drink.
          There were 8 courses each with a glass of wine from the region where the food came from. Plus Gin. :@(

          1. Yo Fizz

            It will all come flooding back to haunt you, when the Video gets on Faceache

          7. Caroline drinks very little; I drink at the upper end of moderately at social events. The great advantage of this is that we share the driving – I drive to a party; Caroline drives home.

          1. Obviously not the Apple task bar. Time remaining… 345324 hours. Only for it to finish ten minutes later.

    2. Many years ago I worked with a guy who awoke one morning to find himself covered in cuts and bruises. It turned out that he’d got very drunk the night before and tried to leapfrog a parking metre. He got stuck on top of it and just fell off but didn’t feel a thing, being so drunk. Sadly not for a good cause.

      1. Whoops…. I wasn’t that drunk. I find my friends…much like here …help to moderate my behaviour. It’s a case of…what would my dear Aunty think of me. It helps me be a better person.

      2. When I was at college there was a great pub we used to go to, especially in nice weather as it had a lovely garden with lots of picnic tables. Pints of really good (strong) cider and cheese and onion sarnies.
        One night, on the way back to the res we passed some roadworks with flashing light signs. We decided that we should have one and carried it back to the res. It was placed tenderly outside the house mother’s room.
        We heard her next morning before we saw her!

  30. Apparently monkeys get stiffies when they see women but when they see men disguised as women they don’t get them!

    Could studying apes be the answer to the trans row?

    Frans de Waal’s Different: What Apes Can Teach Us About Gender and Gender-critical feminism by Holly Lawford-Smith argue for binary biology

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/could-studying-apes-answer-trans-row/

    While the Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal was studying at Utrecht University in the 1970s, two male chimpanzees were kept on the top floor of one of the buildings. Each, whenever a woman came anywhere near them, would sport “a prominent erection”. Yet “they barely looked up” when de Waal and a fellow male student approached wearing dresses and wigs. How did they discern femaleness, wondered de Waal – he ruled out their sense of smell, which is shown to be no more acute in chimps than in humans.

    3. The voice perhaps? Even dogs and cats respond to human voices and all the old jokes aside, castration doesn’t alter the male voice unless it’s done before puberty.

    1. Surprised the comments are still open. If these people are teaching plain lies, they should sacked for bringing the institution into disrepute. It is those HR managers who let them get away with teaching such tripe who are responsible.

      1. Surely it’s whoever o told them that is what they must teach who should be sacked. In this woke world it will be difficult for the trainees to protest – they’d probably be slung off the course.

      2. This is not about ‘teaching’ midpeople, it is all about thw Wokists excercising control over what is to be taught.

        The Great Reset and WEF stride ever forwards

    2. If there aren’t any trainee midwives who openly laugh in the faces of the people teaching this, then it’s already too late.

    3. Peeing kidney stones is supposed to be quite painful, dropping a sprog must be right up there with childbirth!

  32. 352272+ up ticks,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    21s
    How about Africans recognising their own guilt?

    The transatlantic slave trade was only possible because Africans enslaved other Africans & sold millions over the centuries to Islamic slavers.

    European countries only got in on the act much later. Slavery was recognition as an abomination by the British public & campaigners succeeded in ending slavery in the British Empire. The Royal Navy then swept slavers from the oceans.

    Islamic doctrine still recognises slavery. Its in the Koran.

    Guyana’s president calls for ‘meaningful’ apology over slavery after meeting Boris Johnson — Sk

    Guyana’s president has called for an apology from the UK over its role in the transatlantic slave trade after meeting Prime Minister Boris

    1. Yo ogga

      You KNOW really that all the slaves taken from Africa were collected by whole fleet of Routemaster busses,

      designed and built by is Brits in the late 1700’s, then stored in thick forests until Mr Diesel invented his engine

  33. I see Biden is trying to massively increase aid to Ukraine – I wonder how many of those billions will end up in enterprises linked to the Biden family?

      1. Some of those destroyed buildings would have been targeted by his Nazi pals to get rid of the evidence.

        1. I’m expecting a false flag nuclear explosion to get rid of major trafficking evidence, the sort they really, really do not want us to know about. This last year has been a real eye opener.

    1. Kids sat there holding petrol pumps is idiotic – yes, the pump can be deactivated, but those kids need to be removed and zip tied together.

  37. I’ve had a nasty attack of cognitive dissonance,I actually agree with the Guardian!!

    “Further arming Ukraine will only destroy it. The west must act to end this war now.

    By providing arms but avoiding military intervention western leaders are
    prolonging this hideous conflict. Talks are the best way out. The longer
    this war rages on, the more Ukrainians will flee their homeland, and
    the more devastation will be wrought upon their homes, cities, industry
    and economy.

    Yet the west’s current approach of supporting
    Ukraine’s war aim of defeating the aggressor, and providing arms for
    that purpose while pointedly avoiding direct military intervention, is
    guaranteed to prolong the war. Russia’s progress may be slowed, but it’s
    highly unlikely to be stopped, far less pushed out of Ukraine, and in
    the meantime the grinding destruction and hideous war crimes will
    continue.

    No day goes past without some senior western politician
    proclaiming that Ukraine will be “successful” and that Russia is
    “failing”. This is certainly morale-boosting. But it is clearly
    nonsense.

    The fact is, as time goes on, more towns and cities are
    destroyed and then fall to the Russians. In two months, the area under
    Russian control – originally just the breakaway parts of Donbas – has
    grown to perhaps five times the size. If Russia continues to suffer
    “defeats” at this pace, then in another two months the entire south of
    Ukraine will be in ruins, cities such as Odesa will resemble Mariupol,
    and thousands upon thousands more Ukrainians will have died.

    Worse,as the war goes on, and more towns are destroyed, it becomes less
    likely that Ukrainians who have fled to other countries will ever
    return, because they will have no homes or workplaces to come back to.
    How many citizens of Mariupol will ever return? If Russia’s aim was to
    exterminate the Ukrainian nation, then the west’s approach is helping to
    do just that.

    Surely, if the lives of Ukrainian people are our
    concern then the west has to do something to stop the war – now.
    Encouraging the Ukrainians to continue, however just their cause, is
    merely making their country uninhabitable.”

    1. I have said for some time that we are adding fuel to the fire and boosting the bravado of Zelensky. Less support would have applied more pressure for negotiations.

    3. The guardian is part of the problem! It has pushed a big state, high tax agenda along with massive public spending, huge commitment to Left wing green ideas that have made us reliant on external suppliers for our materials.

      Yes, we, the West need to step in but they mocked Trump endlessly, they hate Boris, they hate the necessary conservative philosophy and they are desperately pro EU – the original cause of the conflict – and pro immigrant.

      The guardian is representative of everything that has made this country weak and diminished on the world’s stage.

    1. yeah, but it’s just a red herring to keep our attention away from the fascist coup.

    1. They should have gone to Birmingham Cathedral – they’d have been welcomed…..

    2. I thought worship in public places was banned? Where’s the anti discrimination lobby to demand more women be involved, the equality and diversity crowd to ask where the white folk are.

      Why is it all one sided?

  40. Two British humanitarian workers ‘captured by Russian troops’. 29 April 2022.

    Two British volunteers providing humanitarian aid in Ukraine have been captured by Russian troops, according to the organisation.

    The non-profit Presidium Network said the two men had been detained by Russian forces at a check point south of Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine on Monday.

    “The Foreign Office is doing all it can to support and identify these two people,” Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the International Trade Secretary, said.

    The Presidium Network said the men, both civilians, were working as part of a project in Ukraine to help provide food, medical supplies and evacuation support.

    Humanitarian aid workers more commonly known as spies!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/04/29/ukraine-news-russia-war-latest-putin-nuclear-donbas-nato/

    1. Forgive me, but were they warned not to go, and that there wold be no support if there were problems?

    2. Maybe not spies, maybe just idealists who don’t have the common sense to realise what being in a war zone could mean.

      Don forget that anyone brought up on a diet of XR, BLM and other misbehaving protesters will think that they can just do their virtue signaling without repercussions of any kind.

  41. Good morning. I was impressed by this update on both the Russian gas situation and on the present reality of the military situation in Ukraine, including the real depth of stupidity of our own ministers in managing it. And as the Telegraph, rather than Pravda, is quoted as well this seems made for us here!

    https://youtu.be/tOETRuXNJ9M

  43. NTTL appears quite schitzophrenic today and updated comment banners don’t appear in any machination.

    1. Here are the comments from the other site:

      20 Comments
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      NoToNanny
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      NoToNanny • 3 hours ago
      Very quiet here for a Friday morning – has everyone gone to Minty’s other Friday?

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      Stephenroi • 4 hours ago
      Thumbnail

      Opprobrium?

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      Aeneas Stephenroi • 2 hours ago
      Is that one of the Formula 1 circuits?

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      Araminta Smade • 4 hours ago
      There’s something amiss here! There appears to be two Fridays!

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      NoToNanny Araminta Smade • 4 hours ago
      Elucidate, Please, Minty?

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      Araminta Smade NoToNanny • 4 hours ago
      Thursday 28 April: Justin Welby’s political salvoes set him at odds with public opinion
      >>>Friday 29 April: Those who failed care homes when Covid struck must accept the blame.<<<< Click on this one Nan! 1 • Reply • Share › Avatar Araminta Smade • 5 hours ago Man killed at Lakeside shopping centre in Essex. 29 April 2022. Police were called to reports that a man had been attacked at Lakeside shopping centre, in Thurrock, at 4.30pm. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency services and Essex police confirmed they have opened a murder investigation into the incident. It is believed the man was attacked by two men, who have been described as black or Asian. One of the suspects was reportedly wearing blue ripped jeans, a white T-shirt, black trainers and a black puffer jacket, carrying a small bag, and the other was wearing a blue tracksuit and white trainers. “I want to extend my condolences to the family after this awful attack,” said DCI Scott Egerton. “At the time of the assault, this area of the shopping centre will have been busy so I believe someone will have seen what happened. “I need them to contact my team of dedicated, specialist officers and staff. “I know this attack will cause concern but at this stage we believe this is a targeted attack and there’s no risk to the wider public.” This was what American Television calls a “Hit”. Almost certainly about drugs and the elimination of a rival. It occurred at half past four in the afternoon during one of the busiest times of day. The killers were completely indifferent to both which tells us that they no longer fear the police or indeed the judicial process. https://www.theguardian.com…

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      Bob of Bonsall • 5 hours ago
      Good morning.
      The start of our last day in Wild Welsh Wales.
      After leaving the camera alone on Wednesday, I noted the battery had perked up a little yesterday morning, so I took it on our ride up the Ffestiniog and it actually stayed working!

      The Double Fairelie that hauled us up to Blaenau:
      Thumbnail

      Passing Blanche on the way up:-
      Thumbnail

      Up at Blaenau:-
      Thumbnail

      And on the way back, passing the reservoir for the hydro-electric power station that necessitated the construction of a new bit of line:-
      Thumbnail

      see more
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      Tier5Inmate Bob of Bonsall • 5 hours ago
      But all three trains are going in the same direction.

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      Bob3 • 5 hours ago
      Those who failed care homes when Covid struck must accept the blame

      Well as we suspected back in the day, this all now looks like a coordinated plan to kick start the pandemic with some shocking death statistics
      Didn’t Sweden and other countries do the same thing with the same outcomes?

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      Oberstleutnant Mod • 5 hours ago
      Yaay! Fame at last! Banned from tw@tter because I commented that the Rayner woman, with her slit skirt, looked like a slut!

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      Araminta Smade Oberstleutnant • 4 hours ago
      Morning Oberst. What with Belle’s expulsion from the Telegraph and the news that all letters are being sent to the Editor there one wonders if this is a concerted drive to get rid of the awkward customers and build a compliant base!

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      Oberstleutnant Mod Araminta Smade • 3 hours ago
      And the excitement in the US over Musk’s purchase of Twitter – where they are looking at regulation.

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      Sue Macfarlane Araminta Smade • 3 hours ago
      Gosh,Minty! Do you think that’s a possibility? 🤔

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      Stephenroi Oberstleutnant • 5 hours ago
      Slut shaming not allowed then?

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      Oberstleutnant Mod Stephenroi • 3 hours ago
      Seems not.

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      Sue Macfarlane Oberstleutnant • 5 hours ago
      Oh well done, Obers! Great start to the weekend! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

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      Bob3 • 5 hours ago
      Good Morning Folks

      Sunny bright start here

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      Araminta Smade • 7 hours ago
      Morning everyone.

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      Devonian in Kent • 9 hours ago
      ‘Morning, Geoff. My thanks to you as always.

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      1. Note no discussion about the colour of the offenders – they were black, by the way – just the clothes they were wearing. OK, got it. You want to avoid talking about black violent gang members over drugs. Fine, but stop pretending we’re idiots you can keep lying to.

  45. 352272+ up ticks,

    I did say some time ago the cry would go out
    for the services of Tommy Atkins from the
    political brass neck baskets, a similar cry will echo through the streets for Tommy Robinson plus when every lab/lib/con current supporter / voter has a paedophile
    islamic neighbour.

    Britain to send 8,000 troops to Eastern Europe
    ‘Show of solidarity and strength’ as UK bolsters Nato forces with one of the largest deployments since the Cold War

    By the by the waiting list for medical treatment, housing, schooling, even getting into nick is getting longer by the day courtesy of arrival bridgehead established & maintained by the political overseers at DOVER.

    1. 8000 Troops? That’s nearly all of them. According to the figures there are 153,290 Regular service personal. 33,850 Navy. 86,240 Army and 33,200 Air Force. There are more than 445,480 civil servants. I suggest that those currently working from home are sent out next. – and half the MPs too.

      1. HMG is insane. We should not be sending troops. Or munitions, for that matter. They obviously want WW3.

      2. 352272+ up ticks,

        Afternoon P,
        I have said in prior post’s there should be a squad of MPs leading by example
        and reviewing the situation from a forward position.

  46. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4cc4a33333ddb1fa8951dee3002ce3fcab6237632452f46cc9c3fa9308888449.png RAF hero’s Victoria Cross sells for world record price.

    A VICTORIA Cross awarded to an RAF pilot who landed his plane despite being mortally wounded in a near-suicidal raid has sold for a world record £682,000.

    Sqd Ldr Arthur Scarf took off for a mission to attack a Japanese air base just as enemy planes arrived to divebomb the RAF aerodrome in Malaya.

    Despite seeing all the other aircraft that were due to accompany him on the raid get destroyed and several of his colleagues get killed, he carried on alone and encountered enemy planes lining up to fire at him.

    He used his brilliant flying skills to complete a successful bombing run on the Japanese air base in Thailand but was shot several times by close-range cannon and machine gun fire.

    Barely conscious, he somehow kept his grip on the controls and crossed back over the Malay-thai border.

    He carried out a “miraculous” forced landing in a paddyfield, allowing his two crew members to escape without injury.

    Sqd Ldr Scarf was rushed to the nearby hospital where his wife Sally, a nurse who was pregnant with their child, was based.

    She donated two litres of blood to try and save him. As he was wheeled into theatre for surgery, he told her: “Don’t worry, keep smiling, chin up.”

    He died a short time later, aged 28, from wounds to his back and chest.

    He was posthumously awarded the VC, the highest decoration for gallantry, which his widow received from King George VI after the war.

    The medal was sold by her family with London-based auctioneers Spink & Son to raise awareness of his heroic service.

    It was bought by an anonymous bidder for £550,000, with extra fees taking the final figure to £682,000.

    Only 26 VCS have been awarded to RAF personnel, half of which were following the death of the recipient.

    Sqd Ldr Scarf’s medals set a world record for an RAF VC, eclipsing the £290,000 hammer price for Flt Lt Bill Reid’s in November 2009.

    “He thought only of his duty and put himself last,” said Marcus Budgen, head of the medals department.

    An astonishing story of an exceptionally brave man. What stands out for me though, in this stor is how rough the workmanship on the highest military honour seems to be. I would have expected the highest standard of craftsmanship to have gone into the making of this medal. Instead it looks like it has been stamped out or cast, very roughly, in a school workshop and not even finished properly before being awarded. I would have expected much better quality for an honour of this rank.

      1. I’m guessing that is a modern, up-to-date, plated and highly-polished version. It only remotely resembles the rough-cast one in the original photo.

        2. The bronze from which all Victoria Crosses are made is supplied by the Central Ordnance Depot in Donnington. This metal is cut from cannons captured from the Russians at Sebastopol during the Crimean War. Believe they are running low on the metal.

    2. A medal is not enough. The memory of the sacrifice and honour should be carried onward, as a duty all the political class should uphold and seek to aspire to.

  47. For those who missed it, my 1st post on the other page with pictures:-
    Good morning.
    The start of our last day in Wild Welsh Wales.
    After leaving the camera alone on Wednesday, I noted the battery had perked up a little yesterday morning, so I took it on our ride up the Ffestiniog and it actually stayed working!

    The Double Fairelie that hauled us up to Blaenau:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d0fc1166c23c59bb26e2dbc0971105581b84a378de1c1041c589668eb162d05b.jpg

    Passing Blanche on the way up:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/304906a63e398af3d42b5463bd06962679fdcf5d574fd305d682f9a91dcc50c5.jpg

    Up at Blaenau:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/38892600d3c97b41b2fd4c3afeda361d8dfae8cb2e795712d423a7c328096c6a.jpg

    And on the way back, passing the reservoir for the hydro-electric power station that necessitated the construction of a new bit of line:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fe9cc044ffeba5b9b45f0eaf1fed10009cf6773244f5e17d4eb72383aaa8a86d.jpg

    2. And a couple more:-
      A view from the Dduallt Spiral up the line as we pass over.
      The original route carried straight on instead of looping round:-
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/56c07d54339f1998e2f40b90ae82bbb970bb11d0230b9e9db9bd5d50becb0965.jpg

      Looping round back onto the original route off the Deviation.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3aa8a5fc6dbe74618cf0688c4b92a85a55a9965fc1f822402bae38e65067b1a5.jpg

      Coaling and watering the loco at the end of the shift;
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bc98a3ed08f6c6ce34eba392df86b22231688aefd92f2eec2735eaa619a3d9a7.jpg

      And, to finish with, last night’s sunset.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8f8ddd3d8c63e2295cd10aa5a2503608c9ac9f51b3541dff0d4c2577a00b8242.jpg

      2. The sunset is stunning. The backdrop is magnificent. The colours and shades are beautiful. It is all so timeless and evocative. It brings to mind a world we once had without all this digital stuff.

  48. What on this planet has been happening on here today ??

    I’ve had a night mare this morning with Barclays Bank one of our debit cards has now been declined three times for no apparent reason, once after filling the car at a garage just as well i had enough cash to pay for the petrol. Trying to resolve the issue meant logging in on line which ran out of time twice and when i did finally get to speak to someone her accent was so strong i could hardly understand a word she was saying, we had end the call. There is no other way of contacting them, there use to be a message service on line that’s been removed, 21st century and you can’t even email customer services like many other too big for their boots companies, now it is impossible to make personal contact to have a difficulty dealt with.

    1. Barclay’s complaints:

      Please call us on one of these numbers.

      From the UK: 0800 282 3901
      From abroad: +44 (0)207 116 74881

      If you’d like to make a new complaint

      Select option 1 when you call.

      We’re here to help Monday to Friday from 7am to 8pm, and Saturday from 9am to 5pm.

      Chances are it’ll be another queue and voicemail, demanding entry of a thousand numbers for no reason but it’s a start?

        1. This is why I bank with first direct. I call them, a person answers. I like that. It’s old fashioned these days.

          2. I’ve been with Barclays since 1969. Never had any problems – yet! But the nearest local branch is now 15 miles away.

          3. We had a whole up and running bank in our village now we have to drive to WGC and pay for parking to use the nearest bank.

          7. Their fraud people were good a couple of years ago when my card somehow got cloned and scammed. They were onto it before I was and replaced my card very quickly. The fraudulent items were removed from my account.

          8. A few years ago I paid a friend some money by transfer in Toronto for a guitar kit they sent to me. Someone at their local bank tried to use my account to buy petrol but is was blocked Immediately. There was no way they could have gained my card number. Some dodgy person in the bank i guesse.

          9. I bank with First Direct, too. It took me three or four goes just to order a replacement chequebook. Did I know I could do X, Y, Z? Yes, of course I did; I just didn’t want to. Do I still want to order a cheque book? Of course I do, that’s why I’m contacting you!

    2. If it was contactless you may be required to put your card in the machine and use the pin number.
      Just a suggestion as it’s happened to me.

      1. You’re right they did ask me to do that but i could not remember the number off hand, it’s our joint account i hardly use it. If i’d made a mistake it still wouldn’t have worked. And there was a queue behind me. Of course I thought tap and pay would have worked.
        But i’m actually talking to a very helpful young man right his moment.
        Strangely he can find no recorded incident of the card being declined.
        The young man is trying sort it out now.

        1. As it wouldn’t work on our Barclays ‘pinsentry’. The result now is, I have to go to an ATM and unlock the pin on that particular card, i’ll take the base ball bat with me just in case. 😏

    3. Barclays are appalling – when I was trying to close my late mother’s accounts the service was terrible. They made payments from a supposedly frozen account, gave me a web address to monitor progress which I couldn’t access without the card that they had cut up on day 1, and then gave me another address which didn’t even mention bereavement as one of the drop down menu options! These people couldn’t organise twins into two watches!

    4. Worth mentioning that if you use ‘Pay at Pump’ at a UK petrol station, the card issuer now puts an automatic stop on £100 until the transaction is successfully processed. That has been the policy in France for a long time.

    1. Why can they not spell the headline? It’s won’t, damnation. Not wont! That’s something completely different!

        1. Americans don’t do English.

          Yanks do not persuade people to do things, they “convince” them! AAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!

      1. She is a Danish MEP, I can’t remember her name, I think it is Andersen, her first name might be Christine… I am sure someone will put me right! She is very forthright, there are quite a few videos of her speeches around, probably on youtube. The first time I heard her I was gobsmacked, it felt like it was for the first time someone was really on our side. And with a voice.

        1. Thanks ppm
          If only we had 1 politician like that it would be a bonus.
          We have the worst lot of politicians I have known in my lifetime.

      1. Well, no they’re not as bad here, but they very well soon could be in view of legislation going through Parliament and I realised she was referring to the eu; in fact it is a cri de coeur for the whole of humanity.

        1. Are you suggesting, following the latest Basic Instinct revelations in the HoC Chamber, that BBC Parliament could well become a Pay-per-view porn channel? 😉

  52. Colour me surprised……….

    “Asylum seekers take government to court over Priti Patel’s plans to send illegal migrants on a one-way ticket to Rwanda.

    Two asylum seekers who came in Britain in the backs of lorries this year
    have instructed lawyers to bring a legal challenge to Priti Patel’s
    Rwanda deportation policy.”.
    Wonder who’s paying the lawyers…..
    Oh wait…….
    “We must be mad,literally mad”

    1. Good grief. I’ll bet the lawyers are delighted.

      How on earth can two ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS manage to sue HMG? You really couldn’t make this up. This country is lost.

      1. 352272+ up ticks,

        Afternoon VW,

        Any views on who lost it ? could it have been the electorate after all they have tried hard enough over the last three plus decades.

        1. Regarding Brexit, ogga, which I am fully in support of, HMG is stacked with moaning Remainers! as the snivel serpents are. The public did their bit but the MPs … not so much. They’ve all got far too used to the EU making the decisions for them.

          1. 352272+ up ticks,

            Afternoon VW,
            The public done their bit in voting out
            then promptly returned to supporting
            pro eu party’s lab/lib/con and their quest in semi returning to brussels, they are still at it.

            The majority of the electorate are sufferers of serious Stockholm malady
            the love of lab/lib/con is still being sealed with a kiss X

    2. I wonder who suggested that? perhaps underworked (ha ha ) ‘uman roits lawyers

    1. Let them worry – and stop the legal aid for all the court cases. Let them fight it from Rwanda.

    2. “Asylum seekers take government to court”
      Has their spoken English become so good they’re able to do that?

    3. That Patel didn’t remove legal aid from refugee removal status was an obvious blunder.

      1. Since the hapless Major Everything that is brought bare by governments of this rapidly failing country goes directly against the grain of public opinion and they still expect people to vote for them.
        Why can’t someone from the armed forces or even retired from organise a rebellion ?

    4. So the people that broke the law to get here are taking our government to court, nice.

    5. More looming problems and more trouble directly caused by our Gutless bunch of useless politicos.

  55. British Virgin Islands premier arrested on cocaine charges in US sting operation. 29 April 2022.

    The premier of the British Virgin Islands (BVI) has been arrested in a sting operation in Miami on charges of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and money laundering.

    The BVI governor, John Rankin, confirmed in a statement that Andrew Fahie had been arrested on Thursday morning, saying: “I realise this will be shocking news for people in the territory. And I would call for calm at this time.”

    Surprise. Surprise.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/28/british-virgin-islands-premier-arrested-miami

      1. The pic doesn’t do that jacket justice. It’s all embroidery and sequins that shift in colour as i move about. The restaurant will re-open with new people. I will see how good they are.

          1. You’ve missed the boat, Max. http://www.lauros.co.uk/
            Larry is/was one of the judges of the Roux Scholarship. That’s how good he is. They deserve their retirement but i feel a little bereft.

            No one could ever accuse me of having taste !

      1. Good to see you – did you see the birthday greetings posted on 26th April?

        1. Yes thanks, I did. And I thought I replied directly to you. Apologies if I didn’t, I need to check.

          Yes, I replied (with thanks) to your post on Monday 25th.

          1. As I say – very good to see you here and we hope you’ll be more regular!

            I think I mentioned my sister nicknamed her daughter, Harriet, Haricot Beans!

      1. I remember. No one could forget that. Did you audition for Monsieur Butterfly? :@)
        Good afternoon, Richard.

    7. Looking good! (Actually much better than that, but I don’t want to encourage you!)

  57. Okay, I visited a friend yesterday afternoon 20 miles away.. leaving Moh behind in charge of younger dog .

    I took older dog with me , because pals dog is the same age and they just doddle along , as we did in a beautiful untouched bluebell wood taking loads of photos.

    Anyway I arrived back home 4 hours later , tiring drive , heavy traffic .. Son and husband incapable of putting together a meal with out instruction … yes true..

    Asked Moh how his afternoon was , and he said some foreigner had rung him up from O2 and discussed sim reductions and other deals .. He accepted apparently , but after I arrived home and after supper he had another phone call which lasted an hour ( he was in another room) and came back and told me he was going to recieve a free gift today.

    Son had come home early , midday , I was shopping , and son answered the door to DPD … 2 parcels ..

    Moh arrived back home from golf an hour ago… undid the 2 packages … idiot idiot idiot … 2 brandnew Iphones … .

    What on earth is going on .. has he been scammed ?

    Steam is now venting from this house hold … because … well because … he does silly things .

    2. They are probably signed up to a 2 year contract that will probably be the thick end of £1k each. I would worry that sometime they will be hit on by serious scammers who will be after whatever money you have in the bank. Unusual for a pilot, we are normally careful with money and tight as ‘ell! Look for the cooling off period in the contract, I think there has to be one.

    3. In future you should instruct MOH and son when receiving a call from a foreign sounding voice to ask caller for instructions on how to prepare an Indian takeaway. If caller additionally insists on sending a free offer then they should ask for a Just Eat courier poppadom box with delivery reference GRATIS.

    4. Sounds as though he’s signed up to a contract phone with O2. As the deal was done over the phone, there should be a cooling-off period in which he can change his mind.
      Edit: I see Kaypea has already made the same point.

    5. Sounds as though he’s signed up to a contract phone with O2. As the deal was done over the phone, there should be a cooling-off period in which he can change his mind.
      Edit: I see Kaypea has already made the same point.

    7. Yo T_B

      Instruct him to do as I do.

      Talk about your health, suppturating piles, bad breath, incontinent, foreever pharting etc

      If thy say that they can help you, arrange a date and time that they can come and clean ‘The Heads’ after the mess you made in Line 2 above

      Then they hang up.

      1. Good idea , but sadly if I suggest anything , he doesn’t listen because he knows best .

        I always say if I get a phonecall like that SPEAK UP I CANNOT HEAR… then what what what what what .. village idiot stuff.

    8. Yo T_B

      Instruct him to do as I do.

      Talk about your health, supprating piles, bad breath, incontinent, foreever pharting etc

      If thy say that they can help you, arrange a date and time that they can come and clean ‘The Heads’ after the mess you made in Line 2 above

      Then they hang up.

      2. Saw my first swallow today, Maggie. It did not a summer make (although it was very warm for a change).

    3. The woodpecker(s) were hammering about yesterday, and screaming about the place, as they do.

  60. I was looking out of the kitchen window after lunch. The insects were droning around, hovering and buzzing over the new-mown lawn. We have one species that has the silhouette of a Russian Mil-6 helicopter, but is slightly bigger, so we do not go out there much.
    However, the house martins are back! It seems bit early, as we usually reckon mid-May. We hope that they will survive the very cold nights

    1. You have an insect bigger than a helicopter? No wonder you don’t go out much! I saw my first swallow today; they were nesting in one of the stables.

    2. Horace did it not occur to you that the house martins are wearing feathered duvets?!

    3. Horace did it not occur to you that the house martins are wearing feathered duvets?!

  61. 352272+ up ticks,

    Fact,
    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    3m
    Parliament has plenty of incompetents, buffoons & villians – BUT, it has been a principle of our Parliament for centuries that MPs cannot be removed, except for Treason – & traitors make up the biggest category sitting there but nothing happens to them.

    MPs should & must be inviolable – the crooks & sleazebags left their to remind the voters to be more careful how they vote next time.tt
    ·
    https://gettr.com/post/p17l5bx2114
    .

    2. I don’t think “inviolable” is a good choice of word – it means “that must be respected and not removed or ignored”. Perhaps “should be beyond reproach” would be a better description of what standard should be expected of MPs.

      1. The crime is still on the statute books, but Blair removed the death penalty as I recall. Thinking ahead, obviously.

    2. Christ, I bet they thought that was funny – having a wail at one of the homes of the red and white cross.

    1. I got it in 2 today. Pure luck that the first word I chose began with the same three letters. Yesterday I struggled to get it in 6.

    2. A ‘Magnificent’ Two for me today, sweetie … x
      Wordle 314 2/6

      🟩🟨🟨⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Bog standard four … again!
        Wordle 314 4/6

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

          1. In the Eng Lit dept at the school where I taught in Manchester we though that instead of calling them 4-1, 4-2 etc we would use literary terms. So we came up with 4 Novel, 4 Poem, 4 Story,,, it was when we arrived at 4 Play that we decided it wasn’t a good idea!

    5. A weird 4.
      Wordle 314 4/6

      ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Only, if the West was interested in the truth they would know it is going exactly as the Russians planned it. As I have said before. They make no secret of what they intend or of what they are doing. I think, in large part, that is why Russia is censored. Because the West wants people to believe in outright lies about what is really going on.

      1. When politicians have abused our trust as they all have done – and especially after the last two years – and when they have censored the truth it is difficult to believe anyone.

    2. Surely Putin can see frontal recession when it’s sitting right in front of him. 🤔

  67. Apart from the excellent point made by this Twitterer, I note with horror that the Americans are pouring money into “helping” small and medium sized agro businesses in Ukraine.
    I guess that’s this year’s harvest gone then. I did wonder how they were going to manipulate the grain shortage for this winter, given that the Russians have been very careful to avoid disrupting the planting season.
    https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1519710402518597633

    1. John Deere must already be well established in Ukraine as farmers have been seen using these tractors to harvest captured Russian tanks. They must have some use for military hardware down on the farm although it does seem to go against the grain. 🤔

  68. Neil Parish, named as porngate MP, has the whip removed. Just leaves him with the dog collar and furry hand cuffs…

    1. As I’d never heard of him, I looked him up. This is what some wag posted on Wikipedia:-

      Parish is married to Susan, and has two children and two grandchildren. Neil is also a fan of Crusaders F.C. and attends games as often as his masturbating to porn permits.

      Tory MP Neil Parish has whip removed while he is investigated for allegedly wanking in the Commons

      1. I see that he’s the MP for Tiverton so I expect the boys and girls at Blundell’s will be giggling pruriently.

  69. Boris Becker had been jailed for 2 and a half years.. it could’ve been 7 years .

          4. Two dozen is generally the accepted number of virgins who went to the ball. But opinions and recollections may vary as to whether the function took place at Inverness or Kirremuir?

    2. He will be back commenting on Wimbledon with the BBC in no time.

      Edit: Expect Rolf Harris to be rehabilitated any time soon on the BBC and Jimmy Savile too, if they can revive his corpse.

      1. Matt Hancock on They Think It’s All Over:

        “He’s ginger. He’s German. He’s called ‘Boris’. Good job he didn’t go to our school!”

      2. Matt Hancock on They Think It’s All Over:

        “He’s ginger. He’s German. He’s called ‘Boris’. Good job he didn’t go to our school!”

    3. I will always remember Becker when he was 17 winning Wimbledon. His subsequent career is sad 🙁

  70. That’s me gone for this cold day. Let us hope that tomorrow WILL be warmer. I need to spread lawn-sand and don’t fancy that when it is cold….. They SAY it will rain on Sunday – hence the lawn treatment.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain – DV.

  74. Have had it. Had to buy a new sodding mobile today as the other packed it in. 3 can’t or won’t change a battery so I went to Argos and bought a phone for half what 3 were trying to rip me off for. Had to walk miles and navigate past tons of construction and other sh*t. Then did the shopping.
    Home and now getting to know a new phone which seriously is the last thing I need right now.
    Nice bit though…the guy at the check out in Asda that we call Jabber-Jaw because he never stops talking. Anyway, I moaned a bit about having to get a new phone & etc and he asked if I had the little pin thingy to open the old one to transfer the sim card. No, said I. Well, he took off the one he had on his key ring and gave it to me. I was overwhelmed. It was so kind of him.
    As I often say, there are some total bastards out there but there are very kind and decent people and I/we shouldn’t forget that.

      1. Not sure but he works in the Bournemouth Asda. He’s not cute though Plum;-)
        How’s the sherry tonight? I stocked up on my Pinot….needs must ;-)))

          1. Indeed. He’s OK but never draws breath;-) But he is kind, as demonstrated today and always helpful.

  76. For all those who are interested in world politics (I appreciate that is not all NOTTLers!)
    https://goldswitzerland.com/all-hell-will-break-loose/
    This is an interesting point of view. Not sure if he has any ulterior motive for playing down the WEF, but who knows, maybe he is right.
    Also, bear in mind that he represents a gold investment company. Still, it is an interesting read.

  81. Evening, all. Phew! What a change from yesterday – today was (relatively speaking) a scorcher! I managed to cut both lawns, but I was shattered. My neighbour told me a few weeks ago that her father had been put on a Covid ward when he went in to hospital for something else at the beginning of the panic and he subsequently caught it and died. I don’t think that story is a one-off.

    1. I wonder if the hospital ‘treated’ him with midazolam, remdesivir, or intubated him to the max? It seems many who go into hospital or catch it in hospital don’t come out.

      It has been really cold here in the east today!

          1. 1st old man: “Nice out, in’t it?”
            2nd old man; “Yeah, but best put it away, here come two…”

          2. Two well endowed gentlemen get caught short on a bridge over the river:

            1st gentleman: “Cold tonight, isn’t it?”
            2nd gentleman: “…and deep!”

        2. Mild !!! I had beanie hat, woolly muffler and thick fleece on when I took Poppie out for her walk mid morning. It was 7 C.

          2. I wore a tweed coat when I went to see my racehorses this morning and I absolutely sweltered! I dressed for a chilly wind going straight through me at the top of the gallops and I should have worn a cotton top and sun factor 30!

  82. Our failure to protect care homes was the original sin of lockdown

    If we’d focused on shielding the vulnerable population rather than restricting everyone’s freedoms, we would be in a better position today

    SUNETRA GUPTA

    It is curious that many who persist in their belief that focused protection of the vulnerable population during the pandemic was unworkable do not find their imaginations stretched by the possibility that the same intervention might have worked at the level of the entire population.

    We now know, from bitter experience, that community-wide interventions did very little to alter the natural course of the pandemic and served only to delay the inevitable in countries such as China (once hailed as a paragon of infection control) where it was possible to seal the borders at the outset. Even a cursory acquaintance with epidemiological theory would tell you that the likelihood of interrupting the spread of an epidemic through restrictions on movement is vanishingly small.

    Certainly, it can slow down the spread but only if such draconian measures are implemented very strictly over the period where this might be deemed necessary. But more often than not, these interventions will have a very minor impact on the dynamics of a pathogen in its acute phase of growth while causing endemic diseases to disappear transiently. This is, of course, exactly what happened – leaving us now to deal with the perverse consequences of delaying infection with some normally harmless viruses. Focusing our efforts and resources on the clinically vulnerable population would have avoided some of the problems we now face.

    It is not surprising, in this context, that the release of potentially infectious residents back into care home settings would be regarded as a serious offence. But, as very thoughtfully argued by Fraser Nelson almost a year ago, it can hardly be regarded as the sole reason that so many lives were lost to Covid-19 in those settings. As it is looking increasingly likely that the acute epidemic phase occurred before March 2020, it is far more plausible that the care homes were seeded by movements from within the general population than by the covertly infectious residents returning from hospital.

    There are two lessons to be learnt here.

    The first is that we should have immediately shielded care home residents upon hearing that a new virus was abroad that was killing elderly people. This could have been achieved by redistributing the residents into smaller groups where they would be cared for by live-in staff. Permitted visitors would undergo routine testing and undertake periods of self-isolation to minimise the risk of introducing infection. The specific details would have to be worked out by the experts in the field (indeed, I feel somewhat impertinent even making these suggestions) but it cannot have been harder than locking down the whole population and would certainly be achieved at a fraction of the cost.

    It is not locking down earlier that would have saved lives but rather instituting focused protection immediately that could have averted deaths associated with Covid-19.

    The second lesson is that it is fruitless to trace the source of infection to a single event. Ironically, Matt Hancock’s message of “Don’t Kill Your Granny” did just that. It concentrated the blame that should have been dispersed within the community upon an individual. In our normal lives, many die of infectious disease but we collectively absorb the guilt of infecting them. We could not function as a society otherwise.

    Perhaps Mr Hancock is not entirely to blame for the care home crisis, but I will never forgive him for striking fear in the hearts of the innocent with this utterance.

    Sunetra Gupta is professor of theoretical epidemiology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/29/failure-protect-care-homes-original-sin-lockdown/

    1. Professor Gupta is one of the “good guys” BUT, we know that Matt Hancock ordered 2+ years supply of Midazolam which was used up in a few months in the care homes, behind locked doors. It’s reasonable to assume that that’s what killed many of the elderly residents.

      As Klaus Schwab explained, the purpose of lockdown was to crash the economy and drive wealth upwards.

  83. Perhaps Europe’s elites are for once, at least in part, correct – they don’t want to sacrifice all of Europe to Putin’s madness. BTL is largely in agreement with the piece.

    What an appalling mess it all is.

    Europe’s pacifist elites would rather sacrifice Ukraine than admit that they were wrong

    Even now, defeatists on the continent are using disingenuous arguments to justify their refusal to help Kyiv

    JULIET SAMUEL

    It started well. Some months ago, before the war started, I was sitting in a kitchen listening to an Austrian and an Englishman arguing over whether Germany would ever abandon its prostrate position on Russia. The Austrian argued that norms can change quickly and that Nord Stream 2 would be finished if Vladimir Putin really tried to take Kyiv. The Englishman was pessimistic. Berlin would never change, he said.

    The Austrian was right. In a measure of just how fast things can shift, Latvia’s foreign minister Edgars Rinkēvičs this week told the Politico website that he thinks NATO might even at some point soon agree to send fighter planes to Ukraine. The idea was so abhorrent to Joe Biden’s dithering White House a few weeks ago that the US publicly slapped down Poland for making the offer. Yet, here we are.

    What’s changed is not just our understanding of Mr Putin’s original ambitions in Ukraine, but also the spectacular inability of his military to fulfil them.

    Western intelligence, which was pinpoint accurate on the likelihood of war, nonetheless expected Kyiv to fall within days, in line with Russia’s own estimation of its advantages. Instead, at the cost of an estimated 15,000 soldiers, its biggest Black Sea battleship and countless million rubles’ worth of equipment, Russia has retreated to a more modest ambition of taking a bigger bite out of the Donbas – and even there it is struggling.

    This seems like the natural moment to help Ukraine press its advantage. That, surely, is the right way to read the speech made by the Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, this week, in which she declared: “We are doubling down. We will keep going further and faster to push Russia out of the whole of Ukraine.”

    The West ought to send “heavy weapons, tanks, aeroplanes”, she said, voicing a position she has held privately for some time on the supply of planes to Ukraine’s forces – and which is supported by our Prime Minister.

    Yet there’s something about Ms Truss that drives a certain sort of plaintive male just wild with rage.

    The Guardian immediately published a slew of commentary claiming that the Foreign Secretary was “fanning the flames of war” and “recklessly inflaming Ukraine’s war”. Instead, these sages helpfully suggested, we ought to be thinking of concessions to “award” Russia, like recognising his annexation of Crimea and handing over south-east Ukraine.

    And these defeatists have their allies abroad. Last week in Germany, 20 prominent journalists and academics wrote an open letter to their chancellor, Olaf Scholz, demanding that Berlin stop sending arms to Ukraine.

    UN chief António Guterres chose this week as the right moment to hand Mr Putin a badly needed propaganda win and visited Moscow to glad-hand the Russian president – figuratively at least – across his big, shiny, anti-Covid table.

    The self-styled peaceniks make all sorts of arguments against the West’s involvement in the war, but among the most disingenuous is the idea that NATO’s help for Ukraine risks “escalating” the conflict and “causing World War Three”.

    In fact, the biggest risk of escalation is the scenario in which Russia starts to win its war of aggression. If Moscow could show the world that Europe is weak and that NATO is a busted flush, it would have no reason not to carry on with Mr Putin’s ambition to rebuild the Russian Empire, increasingly provoking the West in a way that is far more likely to lead inadvertently to a disastrous, global war.

    Instead, with Russia’s military bogged down, hemorrhaging people and equipment, and Mr Putin’s nuclear war bluffing ignored, no one serious is now talking fearfully about his army’s next target.

    Still, certain Western doomsayers cannot help themselves. It’s as if they secretly crave defeat. Germany, for example, seemingly underwent a dramatic conversion to the cause of freedom when the war started. But the Englishman in the argument wasn’t entirely wrong. For all the changes we’ve seen, Berlin’s default setting is still to prefer crippling weakness over commitment to its allies.

    Why, for example, does the German government have to be pushed into defending Europe and helping Ukraine on pain of humiliation at every decision point? Mr Scholz finally agreed to let Ukraine buy tanks this week after suffering a massive defeat in the Bundestag, following months of stonewalling and refusal. Yet the signs are that his government is planning to backtrack on its grand promise to bring defence spending up to NATO’s minimum of 2 per cent of GDP.

    After everything – the invasion, the massacres and the rhetoric of religious war and neo-fascism emanating from Russia – Mr Scholz is still in hock to his party’s discredited, stubbornly pro-Moscow establishment. And instead of hanging their heads in shame, Europe’s elites are as keen as ever to lecture this country on the importance of the “rule of law” and “democracy” if any Brexit issue arises to give them the pretext.

    Nor do we need the advice dispensed from others who have been so embarrassingly wrong about relations between the West and Russia over so many years. Edward Snowden, the US intelligence whistle-blower now based in Russia, has at least had the decency to pipe down since loudly panning the West’s claims that Moscow was about to invade. But others like Noam Chomsky cannot help themselves.

    The Left-wing academic was at it again earlier this month, claiming incredibly that Mr Putin actually “wants peace” though, he admitted, only “on his terms”. The key move, the sage Mr Chomsky advised, would be to “try to find out” what those terms are.

    This is something the former residents of Bucha have had some experience in finding out, to the eternal shame of Moscow and its apologists.

    The free world has come a long way since early February, when it seemed possible that NATO was going to be a passive bystander in the fall of Kyiv. Yet too many Western elites still struggle to have the courage of our convictions, even as Ukraine’s people are dying for them.

    These so-called pacifists still claim to own the moral high ground, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine has revealed that their doctrine is not really one of peace, but of prostration before power.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/04/29/europes-pacifist-elites-would-rather-sacrifice-ukraine-admit/

    2. That is an insult to this country and all the true British people. Why do these invaders constantly get away with this?

        1. Where next?
          Westminster Abbey?
          When do we make a stand against this archaic and alien culture?

          1. “………When do we make a stand against this archaic and alien culture?”

            We never shall unless and until we have politicians who love Britain. The longer this does not happen the less likely that Britain will survive in any meaningful way.

    3. Still, at least they didn’t manage to get 140,000 in there.

      Small Heath Park, Birmingham, 2018

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e4a1532e5c1b695ea66cb13adfed87965a09711619cde6f94ad551cbcbc52549.jpg

      https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/incredible-pictures-show-140-000-muslims-celebrating-eid-in-birmingham-a3864281.html

      A spokesman said: “This celebration is one of the most important in the Islamic religious calendar and it’s an opportunity for us all to come together in peace and unity.”

      Peace on their terms, of course.

      Numbers were down a bit in 2019…

      https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/04/thousands-muslims-celebrate-end-ramadan-birmingham-park-9799538/

    4. This is illegal, as is prayer in a park – where are the police?

      Helping out XR.

    1. He could buy Trudeau for a thousand dollars.
      We would give more if you give us time for a decent whip round.

  90. 352312+ up ticks,

    The electorate in the United Kingdom have seriously got to get their shite together in regards to the home front & the politico of the lab/lib/con hierarchy coalitions yearnings to return to brussels.

    Supporting & voting for the party name
    regardless of consequence is also ringing the death knell for these Isles.

    https://twitter.com/IanCockerill2/status/1520270363309002752

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