648 thoughts on “Friday 29 November: This election is about confronting Mr Corbyn’s Left-wing ideology”

  1. Morning all. Here’s the first two letters.

    SIR – I am a 36-year-old husband, father of two children and an employee at one of England’s many small- and medium-sized enterprises.

    I was a strong supporter of Tony Blair, but I am scared of what could happen to the United Kingdom if Labour was accidentally voted in.

    Jeremy Corbyn is a Marxist, a communist who has no respect for religious minorities like the Jews.

    He has no clear Brexit plan and wants to remain neutral in a second referendum (which in itself is a sign 
of disrespect for the first referendum result).

    He wants to deny children the fundamental right to a private education, and furthermore redistribute their private school funds and property to the state.

    He has shown support for the IRA. (My brother served in the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment and did peacekeeping duties in Northern Ireland.)

    Finally, in business he will scare away foreign investment.

    It’s this Left-wing radical ideology that we need saving from.

    Jason Anderson

    Sittingbourne, Kent

    SIR – I was astonished to see NHS staff in uniform at Wednesday’s Labour press conference, handing round copies of the document that Jeremy Corbyn claimed, completely mendaciously, showed the NHS would be up for sale under a Tory government.

    Even if his claim had been true, what on earth were NHS staff doing acting as walk-on extras at a party political event?

    Roger White

    1. SIR – I have just sent my postal vote. My vote cannot now be changed, so does this mean I can stop listening to the garbage talked by all of the political parties?

      Can I turn off the television and radio as soon as anything vaguely political comes on, with a clear conscience that I have already made my choice?

      When I wake on the morning of December 13, I hope I will discover the country on the right road to a successful future and we can all get back to a more stable life. The past three years have been an unsettling time for everyone.

      Sue Pomeroy

      North Petherton, Somerset

    2. I’m not sure how true it is, but there was a suggestion yesterday that those were not NHS staff but actors??

      1. I made the same point…but having seen the militancy displayed by some medical staff in the past 2-3 years, perhaps they were the real thing?

        ‘Morning, B.

    4. Quite so, Roger White, which is the same point I raised here, too. Such poor judgement on the part of the medical staff. I wonder if they realise that they have been used not by what was once Labour but a Marxist-led rag-bag of a party? If not then their naivety is breathtaking.

      ‘Morning Epi.

    2. I wonder If the little guy is the respected Glasgow University pollster Professor John Curtice

  3. Morning again. No Muslim signature I see. I wonder why?

    SIR – As people involved in inter-faith relations from three different faith communities, we write in support of the Chief Rabbi’s critique of Jeremy Corbyn (report, November 26).

    He emphasises the convention for religious leaders not to get involved 
 in party politics, but says he was compelled to intervene when a red line had been crossed on prejudice 
and racism. This brings to mind the observation: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is 
for good men to do nothing.”

    The abject failure of Mr Corbyn to deal with anti-Semitism shows, at best, a high level of tolerance for the “longest hatred”.

    There is also great concern in Asian communities about his policies.

    It is a mystery why this self-declared anti-racist is rupturing community relations rather than nurturing them. We live in a multi-faith society and 
one task of a prime minister is to bring communities together.

    As proud Britons and people who have voted for the Labour Party, we think that a Corbyn premiership would do the opposite.

    Dr Peter Chadha

    Interfaith officer of the British Sikh Association

    Zaki Cooper

    Co-chair, Indian Jewish Association

    Alpesh Patel

    Chair, City Hindu Network

    1. That would be the religions that don’t have the suffix ‘phobia’ tacked onto them to stifle discussion.

  5. Morning again

    SIR – Lord Lamont (Comment, November 27) claims that the Tories need a new Tebbit to fight Labour.

    I agree. So why don’t they unleash Michael Gove?

    Professor Alan Sked

    London School of Economics

    London WC2

        2. I must admit I didn’t even realise it was happening.
          Shame, really. I couldn’t make a conscious decision to avoid it.

    2. ‘Morning, Epi, Sked, as usual, gets it all wrong. The weaselly little Gove is no match for Tebbit.

  6. The melting ice statue of Boris on Channel 4 gets publicity. Boris wisely sent Michael Gove to deputise for him in the Climate debate but despite protests from Gove and Johnson’s father, widely publicised, Gove was not allowed to participate.

    1. Do you think as I do that Boris, like Trump, sees through the climate fraud but cannot reveal his scientific acumen until after he is elected for fear of frightening the snowflakes and the illiterate greens?

      1. I think Boris is learning to deputise and allowing the experts in his party to debate the issues and take the flack.

          2. As they say:

            You know your over the target when you get the pedantary flik.

            (sic your, pedantary and flik to save another few flicks)

      2. Late last night in a discussion on LBC it was posited that Johnson does not do detail and therefore he was loath to expose himself to the biased and contemptuous Channel 4 and worse, the forensic interrogation of Neil.
        Johnson’s bluster around his “brilliant deal” has on a number of occasions exposed the real worry that he is either lying through his teeth or completely out of his depth in understanding the “deal’s” implications for the UK. It’s clear that the ERG have been promised something definitive and sufficiently convincing that they have taken the decision to support Johnson’s rehash of May’s disastrous WA/PD. If he fails to deliver, either through ignorance of detail or deliberately reneging on his promises he, and the Tory Party, will be in real trouble.

        1. As a politician I wouldn’t dream of going anywhere near Channel ‘Fluck the Tories’ 4 for one of their silly, self-important shouting competions – sorry, debates…

          ‘Morning, Korky.

      2. Well said, JN. I do hope that BoJo, should he win the election of course, will have these two on his to-do list.

  9. I know that it’s our money but it’s not enough. How about sacking some senior rozzers?

    Former Tory MP Harvey Proctor wins 900k payout from Scotland Yard after it was proved he lost his home and job as a result of being accused of belonging to the non-existent ‘VIP paedophile ring’ invented by fantasist ‘Nick’
    *Harvey Proctor is to receive £500,000 compensation from Scotland Yard
    *Former MP was falsely accused of being a killer by a fantasist known as ‘Nick’
    *Met also agreed to pay nearly £400,000 towards the 72-year-old’s legal bills

    2. Surely costing the poor old taxpayer nearly £1M should result in at least one senior plod being sacked? I suppose that would set a bad precedent for politicians?

      1. Pour encourager les autres, does that work in the public sector? Many failures drop out with large payoffs and then resurface elsewhere on very nice sinecures with additional pension rights. Then there’s the really well regarded who, after a catastrophe, gain promotion, move out and then move back in to the top job. The Met, of course, have the current prime example of that with their Commissioner.

        1. Police who have transgressed retire early with full pension, going away party and presentation of gifts. It’s probably in the Employee Handbook. The term I have used, “transgression” includes; private use of vehicles, embezzlement of funds, accepting bribes, sexual assault of colleagues, failure to investigate properly, misplacement of evidence, murder of the innocent, wrongful arrest, and so on.
          Did someone say “Venezuela”?

          1. Apropos sexual assualt of colleagues – a little story:

            Two WPC dog handlers on the beat. One says “I’m cold I left my knickers at the station”. The other says “let the dog have a sniff of your fanny and he’ll fetch em”.

            The dog returned 20 mins later with her knickers, a truncheon, 2 broom handles and 3 of the desk sergeants
            fingers.

    3. Confiscate the plods’ pension pots to pay the money.
      That should make ’em sit up.
      A business owner who makes poor decisions can lose everything. Why should these pampered twerps not take responsibility for their stupidity?

    2. Good morning DB

      Could be a fine day for once . We have a line of molehills in the garden .. Dare I ask , are bowling greens immune to the presence of moles?

  12. Conservative Party Housing Policies
    Not much mention has been made of the Conservative party housing policies but they have some interesting policies
    One policy is of 95% mortgages with a 25 year fixed rate of course there are risks with such long term fixes but probably not at current interest rates
    Allow councils to use the money they raise from developers through the planning process to give low-paid local people a discount of up to a third on some of the new homes build.
    Reform leasehold, including by banning the sale of new leasehold homes I think this is only for houses as for flats you do need some kind of body responsible for the building and grounds
    Bring in a “better deal for renters”, including abolishing no fault evictions and requiring one “lifetime” deposit that moves with the tenant.
    Change planning rules so infrastructure such as schools and GP surgeries have to be built before housing.
    Protect and enhance the green belt.
    End rough sleeping by the end of the parliament: part paid for with proceeds of a 3% stamp duty surcharge on foreign buyers.
    Support the residents of highrises with the removal of unsafe cladding

  13. Morning, Campers.
    I’m sure Richard Littlejohn will be pleased to learn that he thinks the same way as I do.

    “Police were called to cinemas across Britain after violence broke out at the screening of a controversial new film.
    At the Gaiety, in Manchester, more than 1,000 teenagers rioted. There were similar troubling scenes in London, at the Gaumonts in Lewisham and Stratford.

    Some of the youths were carrying knives, which they used to slash seats. Fighting erupted on the New Kent Road as crowds spilled out of the Trocadero, near the Elephant and Castle.

    Shop windows were smashed and fireworks aimed at the police. Two officers were taken to hospital after being hit by flying bottles. A number of arrests were made.

    The riots sparked a moral panic and led to the film being withdrawn by its distributors because of fears about the safety of other cinema-goers.

    Sounds familiar? But this isn’t about the new movie Blue Story, which was pulled this week after seven coppers were injured while attempting to break up fights between rival gangs at the Vue multiplex in Birmingham.

    No, this was in 1956, at the opening of Rock Around The Clock, starring Bill Haley and his Comets. The gang members involved were tail-coated Teddy Boys, rather than today’s designer gangstas.

    Back then rock’n’roll, not drill rap, was widely seen as a corrupting influence. And flick knives, not machetes, were the Teds’ weapons of choice.

    Eventually, sanity prevailed and Rock Around The Clock was shown everywhere, with beefed-up security. Which only goes to prove, yet again, that there’s nothing much new in the world.

    And what if, through some kind of time tunnel, today’s street posses clashed with their 1950s counterparts? My money would be on the Teds, machetes or no machetes.

    One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock rock… ”

    Depressingly, any surviving perps would now be in their eighties.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c6bd6a645ad584bfc7f094bc5d3672afc35442c914d92237673403792eff03e9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6325ec51ccb4aea67fd0d9bf970e239598e88ab0ecbd0d7207bb3e51fde74efc.jpg

    4. Teds. We mods were far more civilised. The competition was not about how many flick knifes, or how wide your shoulder pads were, but how many foglamps you could get on the front of the Lambretta.

  14. A woman bought a new £100,000 Jaguar car and proudly drove it off the showroom floor to take home. Halfway home, she attempted to change Radio Stations and saw that there appeared to be only ONE Station..?

    Unimpressed, she immediately turned around and headed back to the dealer.

    Once back at the dealership, she found her salesman and began, rather excitedly, to explain that her radio was not working, and they must replace it immediately, since she only had ONE Radio Station.

    The salesman calmed her down and told her that her car-radio was voice-activated, and that she would only need to speak aloud the type of music that she
    wanted and the car would find it.

    She got into the car and started the engine and then said the words “Country Music,” and the radio changed to a station playing a Dolly Parton song.

    She was satisfied and started home. After a while she decided to try out the radio and said “Rock ‘n’ Roll;” the radio station changed and a song by the Rolling Stones came from the speakers.

    Quite pleased, the woman continued driving.

    A few streets from her house, another driver shot through a red light, causing her to slam on her brakes to avoid a collision.

    The woman angrily shouted, “Fucking Arsehole..!”

    The Radio immediately tuned into, a Party Political Broadcast from Jeremy Corbyn.

  16. Sent to us by a chum. Apols for the capitals; that is how it arrived.

    “CAN YOU IMAGINE THE NUN SITTING AT HER DESK GRADING THESE PAPERS, ALL THE WHILE TRYING TO KEEP A STRAIGHT FACE AND MAINTAIN HER COMPOSURE!
    PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE WORDING AND SPELLING.
    IF YOU KNOW THE BIBLE EVEN A LITTLE, YOU’LL FIND THIS HILARIOUS! IT COMES FROM A CATHOLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEST.

    KIDS WERE ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. THE FOLLOWING 25 STATEMENTS ABOUT THE BIBLE WERE WRITTEN BY CHILDREN. THEY HAVE NOT BEEN RETOUCHED OR CORRECTED. INCORRECT SPELLING HAS BEEN LEFT IN.

    1. IN THE FIRST BOOK OF THE BIBLE, GUINESSIS. GOD GOT TIRED OF CREATING THE WORLD SO HE TOOK THE SABBATH OFF.

    2. ADAM AND EVE WERE CREATED FROM AN APPLE TREE. NOAH’S WIFE WAS JOAN OF ARK. NOAH BUILT AND ARK AND THE ANIMALS CAME ON IN PEARS.

    3. LOTS WIFE WAS A PILLAR OF SALT DURING THE DAY, BUT A BALL OF FIRE DURING THE NIGHT.

    4. THE JEWS WERE A PROUD PEOPLE AND THROUGHOUT HISTORY THEY HAD TROUBLE WITH UNSYMPATHETIC GENITALS.

    5. SAMPSON WAS A STRONGMAN WHO LET HIMSELF BE LED ASTRAY BY A JEZEBEL LIKE DELILAH.

    6. SAMSON SLAYED THE PHILISTINES WITH THE AXE OF THE APOSTLES.

    7. MOSES LED THE JEWS TO THE RED SEA WHERE THEY MADE UNLEAVENED BREAD,WHICH IS BREAD WITHOUT ANY INGREDIENTS.

    8. THE EGYPTIANS WERE ALL DROWNED IN THE DESSERT. AFTERWARDS, MOSES WENT UP TO MOUNT CYANIDE TO GET THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

    9. THE FIRST COMMANDMENTS WAS WHEN EVE TOLD ADAM TO EAT THE APPLE.

    10. THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT IS THOU SHALT NOT ADMIT ADULTERY.

    11. MOSES DIED BEFORE HE EVER REACHED CANADA THEN JOSHUA LED THE HEBREWS IN THE BATTLE OF GERITOL.

    12. THE GREATEST MIRICLE IN THE BIBLE IS WHEN JOSHUA TOLD HIS SON TO STAND STILL AND HE OBEYED HIM.

    13. DAVID WAS A HEBREW KING WHO WAS SKILLED AT PLAYING THE LIAR. HE FOUGHT THE FINKELSTEINS, A RACE OF PEOPLE WHO LIVED IN BIBLICAL TIMES.

    14. SOLOMON, ONE OF DAVIDS SONS, HAD 300 WIVES AND 700 PORCUPINES.

    15. WHEN MARY HEARD SHE WAS THE MOTHER OF JESUS, SHE SANG THE MAGNA CARTA.

    16. WHEN THE THREE WISE GUYS FROM THE EAST SIDE ARRIVED THEY FOUND JESUS IN THE MANAGER.

    17. JESUS WAS BORN BECAUSE MARY HAD AN IMMACULATE CONTRAPTION.

    18. ST. JOHN THE BLACKSMITH DUMPED WATER ON HIS HEAD.

    19. JESUS ENUNCIATED THE GOLDEN RULE, WHICH SAYS TO DO UNTO OTHERS BEFORE THEY DO ONE TO YOU. HE ALSO EXPLAINED A MAN DOTH NOT LIVE BY SWEAT ALONE.

    20. IT WAS A MIRICLE WHEN JESUS ROSE FROM THE DEAD AND MANAGED TO GET THE TOMBSTONE OFF THE ENTRANCE.

    21. THE PEOPLE WHO FOLLOWED THE LORD WERE CALLED THE 12 DECIBELS.

    22. THE EPISTELS WERE THE WIVES OF THE APOSTLES.

    23. ONE OF THE OPPOSSUMS WAS ST. MATTHEW WHO WAS ALSO A TAXIMAN.

    24. ST. PAUL CAVORTED TO CHRISTIANITY, HE PREACHED HOLY ACRIMONY, WHICH IS ANOTHER NAME FOR MARRAIGE.

    25. CHRISTIANS HAVE ONLY ONE SPOUSE. THIS IS CALLED MONOTONY.”

      1. I never learned how to touch type so if I look at the keyboard I don’t see what I am writing on the screen and if I look at the screen I cannot see what I am doing on the keyboard.

        I used to be pretty good at spelling but since using a word processor I make far more mistakes.

    4. Good Morning Anne

      Excellent – Many thanks for posting this. I have passed it on to my friends who will appreciate it.

      1. It looks like an ice tray where the water has partially frozen and the liquid water appears to be moving like an air pocket.

    2. Morning Aoe,
      It resembles a jelly mold holding semi
      liquid diarrhoea stools, if selected from within house, very apt.

  18. Today would be my late mother-in-law’s 114th birthday.
    I’m not sure she’d be too chuffed at it being renamed Black Friday.

        1. Good question, they would hate to have to start again, like one of those Domino challenges that stops half way or worse just a few short of a new record..

        1. If they continued at that record breaking rate it will all be over before our next PM is elected!

          And I suspect that a considerable number of the trees planted would be dead by Christmas if they succeeded.

          6. It’s not before time. I wish they had more respect for trees in Brazil, Congo, Indonesia, Russia…

            I have long argued for this, and once went to college to study horticulture as well as working in a specialist bookshop for three years.

            For every tree that is going to make it to maturity, you need to plant six. Three will die within the first couple of years, two will be thinned out as they grow, and one will make it to maturity and bear fresh seed.

          7. We planted a silver birch in our garden 19 years ago – it was a free “milleniun tree” from Alpen breakfast cereal. It’s now a beautiful tree, in all seasons.

          8. I’m sure your tree will talk fondly in its own language for many decades about the wonder of those who eat Alpen for breakfast.

            I planted an ash for the Millennium to replace an old elm that had died. Since then, I put in a chestnut and some cherry and plums from my garden, and my neighbour put in an oak and some lime.

            I have two birches – one I put in about 25 years ago at the front, but had to cut off the top where it started to shade my solar panels. I hung the garden gate and a handrail for the steps on it. It continues to thrive though. The other is one my niece grew from seed, but didn’t have room for in London, so I said I would give it a good home. It’s now eight feet tall and also doing nicely, especially after I sprinkled some flowers of sulphur to acidify the soil slightly, since the leaves were going yellow.

          9. Birch leaves are supposed to turn yellow in the Autumn. My neighbour has one & it looks splendid atm.

        2. Ethiopia in 1985 had a population of around 40 million, I believe.

          Since Live Aid and all that carry-on, the population is now around 112 million.

          Three times as many people waiting for the next drought/civil war/famine combination as before.

          1. In the ’80s Ethiopia could, in a good year, comfortably feed its population with an occasional drought causing famine to keep the numbers down.
            Now it struggles to feed its population even in a good year.

    4. 300 million seedlings planted by 23 million volunteers is what I heard on the radio this morning.

      Come back in 12 months and tell us how many survive.

  22. Sorry to drone on….

    “50,000 drone owners face £1,000 fine as registration deadline …
    https://eandt.theiet.org › content › articles › 2019/11 › 50-000-drone-own…
    2 days ago – Tens of thousands of drone owners could be risking a £1000 fine for not signing … for drone owners and operators in the UK with drones weighing over 250g. … unable to present proof of registration, you could be hit with a £1,000 fine”

        2. ‘Morning, Mags, they saved us (The Church PCC) a fortune in scaffolding, by doing a drone survey of the roof and tower. The money saved in The Fabric Fund went towards re-tiling the North roof, complete with ‘bat’ tiles.

          We are doing all we can to preserve this little 13th Century church that acts as the village hub – we have no shop, pub, village hall or school. No bank, Post office or bus service. It’s a lovely, quiet little village (pop 117 white racists according to 2011 census).

          2. ‘Current Needs’ are not of our making, it’s a disaster of our Government’s making, backed up by the Contemptible Parliament that has just been prorogued for a General Election to be held. I can only hope that your friend, Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, holds the balance of power and uses it wisely to start putting this country right:
            1. Strengthen Border Farce to be a real force with fast cutters patrolling the coastlines.
            2. Air Traffic Control alerting Border Force to small aircraft landing, wherever

            With the borders secure and the people smugglers bandjaxed we can then start on several concurrent courses

            =3. Incorporate the boundary commission’s last recomendations
            =3. Replace the Lords with hereditaries only
            =3. Repeal the European Communities Act 1972
            =3. Revoke Article 50.
            7. Inform the EU that we are willing to trade under WTO terms unless they have a better plan.

            Then, in the following week, get on with re-organising the country by removing all the local assemblies and the Wee Pretendy Parliament and brief the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Secretaries as to their respective duties.

            Inform the Minister of Health to remove most NHS Administrations, replacing them with a Matron and such admin staff as she may require. Stop recruiting graduate nurses and take on those willing (and able) to learn on the job under identified Sisters Tutor.

            Now, I’m tired of running the country and am willing to hand over to others better (provably) qualified than I.

            Happy now Ogga?

          3. Oh, somewhere in there, remove the BBC’s licence fee – force them to survive (or die) on their own abilities.

          4. NtN,
            It is not my needs that have to be satisfied but the needs of the many that have suffered whilst the keep in/keep out voting pattern has continued to be acted out regardless of consequences that have killed, maimed, raped & abused many innocents.
            Where you got “my friend nigel ” from I have no idea, far from it, the group Brexit good, only in my book misinformed in many respects, the “nige” highly suspect.

            More so since Margret Thatcher was politically knifed in the back the lab/lib/con coalition party have been a pro eu asset and as such found support& votes over the years from the electorate.
            They have acted not in a beneficial way for the country but in a vote & whinge mode.

          5. Ahhh in that case your village will be targeted for many homes and more diversity .. sorry but you have had the good times .. just like our village now almost a small town if the 470 new homes get built !

          6. Small chance, Mags, we’re three miles up a single track lane with (so-called) passing places. Any developer would have to undertake to widen that to a road plus other lanes leading to similar small villages. I think all the farmland surrounding the village protects us as well.

            Best Beloved has already put in an objection to a small development of three houses, each with a double-garage, where the exit would be onto a blind bend on one of those single-track lanes.

          7. Minchinhampton (about two miles from here) is a large village and our nearest post office. The pub was closed in 2012 but has just reopened after extensive refurbishment and all seems to be going well. It was bought by the owner of Superdry and he’s put a lot of money into the refurb – the old building looks very good now.

            I don’t know if you saw “A Casual Vacancy” – a JK Rowling series a few years ago, but the scene where a couple were sitting in a window and saw someone drop dead in the street was filmed there.

          8. No pub? Then it’s a hamlet, not a village Tom! Move to a village with at least 3 pubs straightaway! ;^)

          13. There are around 20 houses on our little hillside enclave, depending on where you draw the boundaries between our hamlet and the next one. Our only facility is the lamppost, letter box and the fortnightly rubbish collections; also a redundant phone box. We love it here and don’t want it to change. Hopefully the NT common very close to us will stop any newbuilds.

          14. Sounds familiar J. I wish you and your enclave every success, for this and these are what originally made Britain Great – and not just geographically.

          19. 13C, eh? Wonderful! I love old churches, they have a lovely atmosphere of calm and, well, God.

  23. Daily Brexit Betrayal

    In an orgy of virtue-signalling they were trying

    to outbid each other as to which party would ‘de-carbonise’ our country

    the fastest – but no word about the EU’s latest Green crap, no word

    about the protests of farmers in France, the Netherlands and Germany. This article

    looks at what planting all those trees would mean in real life. Nothing

    could be better to show up the inanity of those ‘green’ proposals,

    their lack of any common sense! Quentin Letts in The Times summed it up:

    “It ended with

    personal eco-lifestyle intentions. Sturgeon promised to try to fly less.

    Swinson said she had an electric battle bus. Corbyn told us to grow

    lavender and boasted that he went round his house turning off the

    heating (poor Senora Corbyn). Price said he was going to put his baby in

    non-disposable nappies. Boris and Nigel, you made a wise call.” (link, paywalled)

    So – what about Brexit? The latest MSM reports

    are about panic breaking out in both Labour and Tory High command.

    Labour is desperately trying to gain back Red Leave voters, even

    throwing Ed Miliband into the fry as ‘Brexiteer’ (no, me neither … and

    where is my free owl?) See here, see this about ‘a huge cash injection’ into Corbyn’s campaign, see this (paywalled) report

    about some Labour PPCs telling their constituents that they would vote

    Leave when Labour gets in and there’s a 2nd Referendum – just gimme your

    vote!

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-brexit-betrayal-friday-29th-november-2019-13-days-to-polling-day/

  24. Morning Each,
    ” This election is about confronting corbyns left wing
    ideology”
    Partially correct, in the main it is showing that the odious,
    treacherous, self proven politico’s are still in play & still finding support / votes via the nose holding, best of the worst, party first, keep in / keep out, three monkey brigade.
    Behind the facade of vows, promise, pledges, NEVER to be fulfilled the take over of these Isles continues successfully.
    Positions of power ie mayor’s etc,etc now have a very strong leaning to being of a foreign nature and many of that element hold no love of England / GB, as have been proved.

    1. I think that Iain Dale is incapable of being disinterested and impartial.

      This would matter far less if every presenter with left wing views were balanced by a presenter with right wing views.

      It would be interesting to see a discussion between Andrew Neil and Iain Dale – but it could never happen.

  26. To VOTE – or not to VOTE. That is the question.

    Boris
    Corbyn
    Swansong
    Brexit
    Other
    Destroy voting slip

    Trouble is we have so much freedom we don’t know what to do with it.

    1. Consider yourself lucky my choices, remainer Tory, remainer Labour, remainer Limp Dum, remainer Green, spoil voting slip or stay home.

      On reflection, not a hard choice at all.

        1. My take on it is quite simple, if we fail to leave democracy is dead, ask Alexa if she agrees.

        2. There was a young trans called Alexa
          Whose friends found it so hard to sex her.
          If they called her a him
          Just one glimpse of his quim
          Made them seek a pronoun that won’t vex her.

      2. Good morning, old chap.

        The trouble is that a proper Brexit is not on offer unless Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party can hold the balance of power in Parliament.

        Why is Boris Johnson so reluctant to tell us that his ‘brilliant Brexit deal’ will keep us enslaved to the EU for the foreseeable future – which is why he gives us bluster and waffle rather than hard facts?

        I am sure that this is why he is so scared of facing Andrew Neil who will completely expose the truth about Johnson’s plans for a non Brexit Brexit.

        1. Your insight is spot on, worth a million upticks.
          I’ll just get them from the uptick tree, you know where it is, just to the right of Corbyn’s money tree!

        2. That will be the only one of those Neil programmes that I will watch. I thought the rest are a waste of time, and I’m glad I didn’t waste my time in watching them….

          2. Yes I saw the clips on Corbyn. I am just so fed up with politicians’ lies. I think the clips are fine – in fact I hardly watch any politics on TV any more. I will watch Bojo though. I would like someone actually asking him pertinent questions, for once, and Andrew Neil is the one person likely to get the chance.

        1. Generosity to a politician, nah, never going to happen to any of those standing in my constituency.

        1. Of course you can, I’m not the Nanny, I’m the one who’d tell her to fluck off, only I’d get a whipping for it; I just politely tell her ‘No’.

    3. It is a hard choice, but I always vote. Women didn’t gain the franchise just for us to throw it away.

        1. No – I don’t like compulsion. But I do think we should vote, one way or another. I hope the weatther will be kind on 12th December as if it snows we will not get the car out and I’m not doing a five mile walk for it. I’ve left it too late for a postal vote as I’ve always gone in person.

        2. I think we should have an official “None of the above” which actually had some political effect – i.e. enough of those and some other method is chosen/or none get in. The trouble with the none get in is that people are then completely unrepresented rather than partially (OK majority) represented.

          What we can do about the muslim/postal vote is up to the politicos to change. But they won’t. I’ve never known such a shower in my life.

    5. Morning PT,
      Following the regular voting pattern will bring about the eventual downfall of these Isles as can be seen by the last 4 decades trend.
      Do you want that sooner than later ?

    1. The trouble is that they are not having a go at him for the right reasons. Why is nobody in the MSM making a serious effort to put his ‘Brext Surrender to the EU Deal’ under proper scrutiny. Bring on Andrew Neil.

    2. I heard the first 10 minutes or so of his hour on LBC this morning. He managed to insert his, “Get Brexit done,” mantra out in his first answer to a question that had nothing to do with the EU. The remaining few minutes that I listened to were forgettable waffle such that I cannot recall what he was talking about. I dread to think what Neil would do to him.

      1. He’s good at spouting forgettable waffle, but he tends to get flustered and stuttery when required to think on his feet. I think he should delgate the Neil interview to Gove.

      1. Afternoon B,
        Rest assured the R-soles will find another category , inadequacy is the cause, better they call me racist than they beat their wives or
        elderly parents.

  30. Npower to axe up to 4,500 jobs under closure plan
    And Corbyn thinks they make vast profits . The main reasons Energy Bills are so high in the UK is all the Green levys and costs the government has loaded on to them
    Energy firm Npower is cut to up to 4,500 UK jobs as part of a plan to make it more profitable.
    Three call centres are under threat of closure, at Houghton le Spring, near Sunderland, an office in Hull and one in Worcester.
    Unions called the action a “cruel blow” for the company’s workers in the run-up to Christmas.
    Under the restructuring, Npower’s owner E.On will merge computer systems to save money.
    “The UK market is currently particularly challenging,” said Johannes Teyssen, E.On chief executive.

    1. ” Npower’s owner E.On will merge computer systems to save money.”
      I laugh and I laugh and I laugh…..

    2. The sudden find of redundancy by powerful remote entities is frightening.

      Genuinely, I hope these chaps get decent severance. That, if nothing else, should be one thing enforced by government. Something like redundancy pay is one month for a years service, 3 months for 2, 6 for 3 and so on. However that might just force higher redundancy enforcement. Ah feck it. Too tired. Have those pushing the redudnancy be the ones paying for it in person.

  33. Grenfell fraudster jailed for lying about sleeping in tower
    A man has been jailed for fraudulently claiming thousands of pounds meant for genuine Grenfell survivors after lying that he was sleeping rough in the tower when it went up in flames.
    Alvin Thompson, 51, defrauded the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea out of more than £95,000 in total by pretending he escaped the fifth floor after being woken by the smell of smoke.
    He claimed he had helped people escape from the burning building, stepping over bodies as they got out, but there was no evidence of him being near the tower.
    Thompson was convicted of two counts of fraud at Isleworth Crown Court on Wednesday and today sentenced to five years and six months in prison for the first count and four years for the second count, to be served concurrently.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e35ffd83c1db05819d4a3c26e10261a464d29e02abc25cb8424f63276a94131f.jpg

    1. Labour used to pray for good weather on Election Day, as the turnout of their voters would be greater. That’s why they introduced postal voting for all.

    4. Faogagagagahc showing his ageist arrogance again.

      He needs to learn that the welfareist is a lazy waster who won’t go outside if it’s cold. Labour rely on such people.

  36. Crime in Progress review – the secret history of the Trump-Russia investigation. Luke Harding. 28 Nov 2019.

    Three years on, the authors believe the dossier was mostly right. Many of Steele’s allegations have been borne out or have proved “remarkably prescient”, they argue. Others remain “stubbornly unconfirmed”. A handful – including a claim that Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen met with Russians in Prague – “appear to be doubtful though not yet disproven”. Cohen and other Trump friends are in jail.

    Morning everyone. Harding is one of that small band of UK/Russia propagandists who live on the edge of the Intelligence world and are part independent and part MI6 mouthpieces. The article as a whole is a review of a new book out by the people who the Clintons commissioned to dig up the dirt on Trump and is also publicity for one of his own. It also acts as a mini alternative history, replete with omissions, innuendo and unfounded speculation, of the story of which the Steele Dossier formed a large part. A gauge of the reliability of both productions can be made in the above quote. The construction of it is notable in the amount of weasel words contained within it.

    One would expect the authors to support the Steele Report since they instigated it on the instructions of the Clintons and to refute it now would lead to both private and criminal charges of conspiracy. Note the niggardly “mostly” which allows for anyone pointing out the errors in it and which acts as a denial of the old adage: Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. If there is one lie why should we believe anything in it? As to “remarkably prescient”; prescient in what? The dossier is supposedly an account of Trump and his associates activities in Russia, it contains no forecasts. The reason for Harding’s reticence about Cohen is that this is dangerously near to libel territory. There is no evidence that Cohen was ever in Prague in 2016 let alone paying off the Russians How near can be seen in another quote from Fritsch, one of the co-authors of the book which is not in the article.

    “We believe it’s credible. Whether it’s true or not is another matter,”

    Now that is really really weaselly!

    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/28/crime-in-progress-glenn-simpson-peter-fritsch-review

    2. Hmmm. “It’s a lie – but I believe it.”
      Eh?
      “Well, it’s my “Get Out of Jail Free Card”.”
      That does not make sense.
      “Maybe not. But I work for the Clintons. I can’t just resign.”

  37. Good Morning, all

    Nothing of interest in any newspapers today. England are being feeble in the 2nd NZ Test in Hamilton

    This is the depths of clickbait the the DT has stooped to
    In Australia, sex workers can now be sued for ‘incomplete service’ – we can’t let Britain go the same way
    JULIE BINDEL

    Has anyone found anything worth discussing?

  38. Michael Gove storms studios of ‘biased’ C4 with his OWN film crew to demand a chance to represent the Conservatives in their climate change debate – but is rebuffed in favor of the ice sculpture because he is ‘not the party leader’ 29 November 2019.

    Michael Gove dramatically stormed Channel 4’s TV debate on climate change last night, demanding producers let him stand in for Boris Johnson.
    The Prime Minister had refused to take part in the debate on climate change, but Mr Gove offered to step in at the 11th hour yesterday – only for the broadcaster to say it would ’empty-chair’ the Conservatives.

    He turned up with his own crew which tells us that it was a fix. The truth is that Boris is ahead in the polls and he doesn’t wish to make any gaffes that might affect this. Hence his unwillingness to make any appearances including Neil!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7737031/Michael-Gove-blasts-rivals-Tories-replaced-Channel-4-debate-ice-sculptures.html

    1. Johnson and his advisors have seemingly taken the decision that he will lose less support by not appearing in debates rather than take part and be exposed as being short on detail but high on waffle. He’s on LBC at 09:00 for an hour answering listeners’ questions. It could be quite tough with Ferrari in the chair but a lot easier than facing Neil with the smell of blood in his nostrils.

      1. Today programme (Justin Webb) has given John MacDonnell an uninterrupted political broadcast.

        Will the BBC hang tough in negotiations over the Boris Johnson interview?
        James Forsyth – 28 November 2019 – 10:40 PM

        So, will Boris Johnson sit down for an interview with Andrew Neil? Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon have done theirs while Jo Swinson and Nigel Farage are scheduled for next week. The Prime Minister hasn’t yet agreed a time for his.

        Given how tough an Andrew Neil interview is, just ask Jeremy Corbyn if you doubt that, it is hard not to be cynical about the Tories’ scheduling issues. Boris Johnson is, though, offering to appear on the Andrew Marr show this Sunday. This offers an easy solution to the problem. The Tory leader, who is clearly free on Sunday morning, could simply record his interview with Andrew Neil then and it could be shown that evening. I understand that the BBC have proposed a solution along these lines.

        The BBC is not without cards to play in this negotiation. If it offers the Prime Minister a chance of an appearance on Marr regardless of whether he does the Andrew Neil interview, it will completely undercut its own position. However, if it makes clear that it is Neil or nothing, then the Tory leader will be more likely to agree to be interviewed—and scrutinised—in the same way that the other party leaders are being.

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

        BTL:

        The Meissen Bison • 9 hours ago • edited
        As with Ch.4, The BBC is making the mistake of believing that the media tail is entitled to be wagging the politicial dog when the truth is surely that it can only offer a platform which may or may not be accepted.

        The wider public can draw its own conclusions if, for example, a number of party leaders accept to be interviewed by, say, Andrew Neil and one of them refuses but the idea that any individual can effectively be subpœnaed to appear in a TV studio is absurd.

    1. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve stopped flying simply because it’s become such a fooking awful experience.

      Morning, Belle.

      1. Morning Anne,

        Travel is a ghastly experience anyway . Even a trip to the shops is riddled with anxiety . Some car parks don’t accept cash for tickets .. I DO NOT possess a modern mobile phone , so I don’t do car parking apps .. Moh has a state of the art gadget, but I don’t .. Am I missing out?

        1. I realised the other day that I have absolutely no reason to visit the town centre.
          Apart from parking hassle and expense, it quite simply sells nothing that I can’t get elsewhere.

          1. I hardly go into Stroud – if I do it’s not for shopping but to see people. The same applies to Cirencester – I meet the ‘girls’ I used to work with and have some lunch. I hate shopping and only buy the food we need, and the occasional item of clothing.

        2. The app is easy to use and useful if you haven’t got any change. Also, if you buy say an hour but find its not enough you can extend the session without going back to the car.

          That said, however, there should always be an option for cash too. Not everyone has a smartphone and even if one has, signal can be weak, battery low etc etc

          1. Morning to you..

            When Moh comes out with me , he will use his phone .. but I feel that to track where you are and which carpark you are using is rather forensic.

          2. ‘Morning, Stormy. I thought that extending a stay is not normally permitted, i.e “No return within 2 hours” or similar?

        3. You can use your contactless debit card if you don’t have enough cash. I do that when i go over to Cirencester. I’ve never used the phone app though.

      2. Ditto. If I can’t make our (rare) forays into Europe by Eurostar then we don’t go at all.

        ‘Morning, Anne.

    2. Nice day because it’s not raining or because the Moh is away golfing?

      ‘Morning, Belle.

      1. Morning Peddy..
        Nice day.. glad to see it .. Have been awake during the night too long.

        I have so much jaw pain again .. Saw my dentist a few days ago .. he thinks pain is referred.. am seeing a bod in December re the gland that caused concern 2 years ago ..Had the all clear then . I am sure my bite is out of sync due to previous dental work a few years ago.. Or perhaps I am just getting older and creakier!

  43. Yo all

    Astana show just how far Manchester United have fallen with comeback win in cold Kazakhstan

    FC Astana 2 – 1 Manchester United

    A Europa League group game against the champions of Kazakhstan is thousands of miles away from where Manchester United want to be and amid the bitter cold of this shivering landlocked nation came another stinging reminder of how far they have fallen.

    Astana had not picked up a single point in the Europa League and had scored one goal before this, yet they have now beaten the former champions of Europe. Forget the fact this was virtually a youth team; forget that the United side that starts against Aston Villa on Sunday will not include any of these names, this was still a bad defeat.

    Oh dear, what a shame never mind

    Good job Fergie has moved on, otherwise the Man TeamU would still be out there, playing ‘Fergie Time’ until Brexit was sorted

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/11/28/astana-vs-manchester-united-europa-league-group-stage-live-score/

  44. BREAKING NEWS
    Reports of shots being fired on London Bridge and several people on the ground. No further details

    1. Police confirm ‘incident’ at London Bridge amid reports of shots being fired. More follows…

      2. Pictures on social media showed several police cars on the bridge, with a lorry stopped across the central reservation of the dual carriageway bridge.

        Police have cordoned off the bridge.

        Pavements on both sides of the bridge have large bollards on to prevent vehicles. They were installed after the 2017 London Bridge terror attack.

        London Ambulance Service have tweeted they are on the scene.

        1. Unarmed racist Brits attack innocent knife wielding Muslims demonstrating their love of Allah!

    2. ‘On the ground’ has more than one meaning.

      Quote from the police on the scene .

      A Scotland Yard spokesman said: ‘We are in
      the early stages of dealing with an incident at London Bridge. Please
      follow @metpoliceuk for updates.

      ‘If you are near the scene, please follow the directions of any officer on the ground’.

      1. Please follow any Police vehicles speeding away from the scene (especially if they are flying a White Feather Flag)

        They will guide you to a Safe Haven

        1. But don’t try to get a lift in the one carrying a top Met Plod. It will be securely locked.

  45. Mercedes-Benz owner Daimler to cut 10,000 jobs worldwide
    Daimler, the German carmaker that owns Mercedes-Benz, has said it will shed at least 10,000 jobs worldwide as it seeks to fund the switch to electric cars.

    Daimler personnel chief Wilfried Porth told journalists the number of jobs lost would be “in the five figures”.

    The move comes days after rival Audi said it would cut 9,500 of its 61,000 jobs in Germany for similar reasons.

    Daimler said the car industry was going through “the biggest transformation in its history”.

  46. Pro-democracy triumph in Hong Kong has shown mainland China what’s possible. MALCOLM RIFKIND. 28 NOVEMBER 2019.

    President Trump has just signed a Congressional Act that would require an annual assessment of the state of human rights and the rule of law in Hong Kong. If, as a result of Chinese interference, human rights had been seriously damaged Hong Kong would no longer be treated as truly autonomous and would be subject to the same US tariffs and sanctions as the rest of China.

    I wonder if we could get Congress to pass an Act to check on the state of Democracy in the UK? Probably not. Rifkind for one would end up on the sanctions list. This hypocritical pontificating on the state of other nations by the corrupt and antidemocratic members of the UK Elites is actually rather repellent. It speaks of an arrogance and blindness that is almost pathological. All are evil except us, who are beyond reproach because we hold only the best of intentions!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2019/11/28/pro-democracy-triumph-hong-kong-has-shown-mainland-china-possible/

    1. We must not forget that Rifkind and Straw both proved themselves to be political prostitutes selling their integrity – or rather complete lack if it – to anyone who would buy.

      Sheer filth.

    2. He’s a hypocritical bag of effluent who refuses to see that he’s the fascist oppressor denying democracy.

      Their hypocrisy is mind boggling.

  47. Daily Mail owner snaps up i newspaper for £49.6m
    Who knows what logic there is behind this. Is it just about buying out the competition? They say they will keep it as a separate paper at present but for how long I wonder

  48. A man has been shot and killed by officers on London Bridge, police have told Sky News.

    A person is believed to have started attacking people with a knife and was then shot dead by armed police.

    Sky’s home affairs correspondent Mark White said: “An attacker, we believe armed with a knife, started attacking people and that armed police were deployed. We believe that alleged attacker has now been fatally shot.”

    Five people are belived to have been injured.

    https://news.sky.com/story/police-dealing-with-incident-on-london-bridge-amid-reports-of-shots-fired-11873505

        1. Christmas Market time. I’m sure some of Merkel’s guests will not disappoint their host nation.

          1. But remember! Terrorism will not change anything about our lives! The concrete bollards are decorative, not truck stoppers. Those armed police are a demonstration of all the new investment we’re making – they are not there for protection.

            That CCTV is to record lovely children playing for council adverts.

            The lies, the nonsense they spout is ludicrous.

          1. Camera shifts away at appropriate time.
            When will they decide his ethnicity or will that be a State Secret ?

        3. The Bliar Witch is sueing the Met.

          As they shot him (dead?) and it is unlikely the case will get to court, she has submiited a claim for £5,000,000+ for loss of earnings from the Legal Aid Budget, by not being able to defend him.

          1. Yes. He’s the bloke who took it off him. If he was using it as a weapon his grip is entirely wrong.

            Besides. Look at the bloke.

        6. One down, many thousands more to go. Thanks Blair.

          He had a choice not to try to kill people. He could have just ranted on a forum and made a cup of tea.

          The funny bit is the bloke dashing away with the flat cap on fiddles with his hair then puts the hat on again. Just how utterly pathetically poncy is he?

  49. COFFEE HOUSE – Channel 4’s climate change debate was a sham
    Brendan O’Neill – 29 November 2019 – 1:24 PM

    I’ve seen some mad political debates in my time, but none as bonkers as last night’s climate debate on Channel 4. It summed up beautifully how unhinged climate-change alarmism has become.

    It wasn’t a debate at all, in fact. Everyone in the studio agreed that the end of the world is nigh, that mankind is polluting himself out of existence and that if we don’t take action right now against plastic straws and cotton buds — seriously — then our kids will inherit a barren planet.

    It was less a political debate and more a self-help group for politicians in the grip of apocalyptic dread. It was a public display of chattering-class hysteria and it clarified precisely nothing about the serious political issues facing the UK.

    Channel 4, being the most PC, eco-aware, arch-Remain broadcaster, set the scene with a ridiculously emotionalist short film before the discussion started.

    We saw piles of rubbish in some unnamed Third World country. We saw floods. We saw bushfires in Australia and then — really tugging at the heartstrings now — an injured koala bear. The koala bear was rescued but then it died. You did this, you stupid, polluting inhabitant of an industrialised society — that’s what C4 was essentially saying to the great unwashed of the UK.

    The short film provided an unwitting insight into the cultish ethos that now surrounds the eco-debate. The idea that fire and floods are some kind of punishment for humankind’s hubristic behaviour is straight out of the Old Testament. The only thing that was missing was plagues of locusts.

    The non-debate swiftly descended into diktats from our eco-politicians about the sacrifices we must all make if we want to push back the apocalypse.

    Nicola Sturgeon boasted about having banned cotton buds in Scotland. The Scots were also the first to ban plastic straws, she said. Such historic achievements! Jo Swinson got emotional over the fact her young kid has never seen a hedgehog (or a squirrel, I presume…). There’s a political vision you never thought you’d encounter: ‘See more hedgehogs — vote Lib Dem.’

    Channel 4 News
    ✔
    @Channel4News
    ” I don’t think my five-year-old has actually seen a hedgehog.”

    Jo Swinson, leader of the Lib Dems. #ClimateDebate

    Because Swinson can’t go more than five minutes without slagging off Brexit, she also described Brexit as a ‘climate crime’. Yep, Brexit is so evil it is now facilitating the end of planetary life as we know it, by removing the UK from climate debates in the EU.

    Everyone promised to make sacrifices. Adam Price of Plaid Cymru said he would put his one-year-old in washable nappies and start riding a bike to work. Australia’s koala population can rest easy. Jeremy Corbyn says he already does his bit — he’s always turning off the heat in his home. He said he has a ‘miserable’ attitude to heaters.

    ‘Miserable’ summed the whole thing up. This was eco-miserabilism writ large. It was an orgy of downbeat, doom-laden, anti-progress blathering. Where were the arguments for going nuclear? For investing more in genetic modification? Nowhere.

    We had a glimpse of the censorious streak in environmentalism, too. Heaven help anyone who criticises any of this eco-guff. Sian Berry of the Green party said we have to do what the science tells us to do, rather than what is ‘politically expedient’.

    This strikes me as pretty anti-democratic. Science doesn’t tell us to do anything. All science can do is study and report on the natural world. It is down to politicians — and, more importantly, the people who elect them — to decide what to do in society. When Berry and others say we must obey the science, they are really treating science as a God-like force that instructs us all to live smaller, meeker lives.

    Unable, unsurprisingly, to win the argument for economic restraint in the democratic sphere, the political class prefers to marshal the allegedly unquestionable power of science to make us change our ways.

    It was a sad and unwittingly comical spectacle. Politicians coming together to try to outdo each other in the eco-signalling stakes. What we really need in the green discussion is an injection of reason. The world isn’t coming to an end, mankind is not a destructive force and our key priority should be liberating humanity from poverty, not weeping over a koala bear. If someone had said that, it would have been a proper debate.

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

    BTL:

    sir_graphus • an hour ago
    Just seen climate protesters walking round Berkeley Sq. A helicopter is hovering above them. I’m not sure whether it’s there to keep an eye on them, or just to cheese them off.

    Dragnonwell • an hour ago
    “Jo Swinson got emotional over the fact her young kid has never seen a hedgehog…” Could it be, due to Nicola’s disastrous policies, that her fellow countrymen have been reduced to eating them?

    GaryMac • an hour ago
    According to Guido, the sculpture that replaced Boris had a map of the world with Israel cut out of it
    If that is true, the entire board of Channel 4 should resign by the end of the day.

      1. It’s ironic that the Green Party has the only leader with a STEM degree. Sian Berry has a degree in Metallurgy from Trinity College, whereas the rest makes sorry reading :
        Johnson : Classics at Balliol College Oxford
        Corbyn : Trade Union Studies at North London Polytechnic (failed)
        Swinson : Management at LSE
        Plaid Cymru : European Studies at Cardiff

    2. Afternoon Z,
      I searched high / low our settee in our front room in front of the telly & seen neither hide nor hair of a squirrel or a
      hedgehog,cannot remember ever seeing one there.

    3. Maybe Swinson should let the sprog out of the house after dark. That’s when hedgehogs (nocturnal creatures) are out and about.

      If you see a hedgehog out in the daytime, the chances are that it’s got something wrong with it and it’s in trouble.

      And this ignorant woman, falling over herself to shout her ignorance over the TV wants to be PM?

      1. And anyway most children make far too much noise – any wild life has run away before they have a chance to see them. I can’t say I remember seeing a hedgehog before I was a teenager at least though I had seen a koala before I was 10.

    4. “Swinson … described Brexit as a ‘climate crime’.”

      Really? Does someone have the timing of it (I’m not going to sit through it – I logged out when ‘Apocalypse Now’ began).

    5. If Scotland has banned cotton buds, how does the Scottish National Gallery clean its pictures?

    6. It’s this idea that ‘science’ should make the decision.

      The problem is, it’s *their* science. The one where they get to say what the answer is rather than actual science – the sort where a hypothesis is presented and evidence is collected on both sides of the debate, publicly, properly reviewed rather than tosh invented.

      The Left don’t like science. Science proves them wrong.

  51. ” More video appears to show members of the public tackling a man on
    London Bridge before police intervened. Police pulled people off the man
    and then appeared to shoot him.”
    This is obviously a war crime. Shooting a man when he is down. Let’s hear what the UN say/

    1. Shot him with a taser. not quite the same. ABC in the USA showed a pic of tower bridge and not london bridge. why do people jump to conclusions rather than wait for the facts.

  52. ” Police have nothing about the motive of the apparent attack, but counter terrorism officers are involved in the investigation.”
    The motive is obvious. He wanted to kill people.

        1. What is she going to do now the Trustee controls all her assets and she is only given a limited amount of pocket money

    2. Yo clyde

      Just send all your banking details to Mr Rashid. via Bill Thomas of course. He will sort empty your account

    3. Nationalisation strikes again. I don’t bank with them, but I tried for my cousin this morning and had the same result. What an outfit.. Used to be OK until RBS took over I believe.

    4. Now headlining on Sky News. Very amusing really since there was a large article in the DT yesterday about how AI is taking over the world. And Nat West can’t even make a 1980s TP system work reliably.

  56. Off topic in so far as it isn’t about the election but this recorded discussion with Douglas Murray and Andrew Doyle (aka Titania McGrath) on “Resisting Wokeness” is worth a watch if you have an hour to spare.

    Apparently they’re both routinely accused of being “fake gays” so they begin by sharing a joke about the lengths they’re prepared to go to to fake it. Then it gets serious. Towards the end a primary school teacher in the audience shares her experience of coping with a pupil who decided to identify as the opposite sex and demanded their name be changed in the school register. She refused and explained why.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIJPUX6SYu4&t=3033s&app=desktop

    1. I’ve seen a hooker dancing. She owned the floor. Suddenly this space surrounds her and men just gravitate like a belt around a planet. She looked amazing, she moved like nothing I’ve ever seen.

      And then she left with me to the shock of all the blokes and the glares of the other girlfriends. One hell of a woman.

    1. Must come from a Conservative source. Baroness Warsi said the Tories have a problem with Islamophobia.

    2. Inevitable wasn’t it. If there wasn’t one the BBC would nip out and invent one to blame on their fictional ‘Far Right’.

  58. Looking for a film to watch, I pondered the apparent fact that the Americans make lots of war and action films about their recent wars. Films on Iraq and Afghanistan.
    I cannot think of any British films about the Falklands, or Operation Palliser, or our interventions in Libya and Syria, or our “peace-keeping’ in the Balkans.

      3. Bloody Ken Loach needs to be reminded he’d not have a job without a market capital system.

        That wretched spoiled pointless Lefty has never grown up.

    2. Oy, Bruin. Check your council schedule! Get the wrong day and you could be fined for blocking the pavement.

      2. I rocked up to feed chum’s cat and saw the binmen put a sticker on it. So I took it off and threw it in the bin.

        Bluntly, we’re not allowed – by EU law – to throw away over a certain amount of waste.
        To meet this stupid arbitrary rule, we pack anything above this in a container.

        Those containers get shipped – on a giant boat – to Africa.

        Africa gives us a certificate of proper disposal.
        And then chucks it in the sea.

        The EU is the reason there’s a plastic island in the sea. It’s their fault for forcing ‘green’ targets on us. To meet those targets, we pollute the oceans. Then the EU complains about it!

        It’s utterly and completely insane. Not even the Corbyn funny sort of insane. It’s toxic, poisonous, polluting disgusting and it is entirely the fault of the EU.

    2. Aaaaannnnddddd ….. here’s the script.
      Kept himself to himself.
      Always said ‘good morning’.
      A* student.
      His Nan’s in bits.

      1. They are already using weasel words. He may have been mentally disturbed and carefully avoided the use of the word Islam

  61. Saw a headline earlier today. France planning to ban Black Friday sales.
    So the Socialists want to stop you spending what’s left of your own money after they have taxed it to hell & gone, in the way that you choose.
    What a surprise.

  62. Met Police assistant commissioner Neil Basu tells reporters: “I can confirm at approximately 14:00 GMT today police were called to a stabbing at a premises near to London Bridge.
    “A male suspect was shot by specialist armed officers from City of London Police and I can confirm that this suspect died at the scene.”
    Good.

    2. It will have cost Labour at least 1 vote, or 15 depending on how long he has been here and how many postal votes he has registered for. But Labour won’t be too concerned, as our politicians from all parties are shipping in large numbers of replacements for him almost daily.

    3. Why?

      Corbyn’s default response will be: “Diversity is a strength and the community of London will join hands together in this awful time. The police should be on guard for any reprisals and Far right behaviour’.

  64. Train disruption caused by a refuelling fault has come to an end but commuters have been warned a signalling fault will continue to cause problems for services via Sheringham until the end of the day.

    One would have thought they would have a backup system even if it meant pumping the fuel by hand

    The fault meant the operator’s diesel trains were unable to be fuelled, and left trapped in the Norwich depot.
    Services to and from Sheringham were also affected, and customers also advised not to travel.

  65. Re the incident in the City of London. The City has a very long history of dealing with troublemakers in a way that ensures they can’t make trouble again…..

  66. Black Friday ‘could break buying record’

    Ignoring the one about how to milk sheep, I’ve not long since come in after a trundle around town.

    In one 25 yard stretch of one back street there were 19 bags of rubbish dumped.

    Add in all the litter floating around and bearing in mind that all the above involves people buying stuff, where’s the ‘austerity’ we hear so much about?

    1. I commented on the Mail that it was all black folks and middle easterners spending our welfare money while we were at work earning it.

      They didn’t like that very much. Doesn’t stpo it being the truth though.

      1. I don’t know about that but I do see thousands of cars, umpteen mobile phones, cigarette smokers, tattoos, take-aways a go go and overweight people on my travels around.

      1. In the last split second you can see his arms moving up, which explains the 2nd shot. You cannot take any chances that he is trying to press a button that could send nails and ball bearings sleeting through everybody standing nearby.

        The fact that he was wearing a fake explosives vest makes it almost certain that he is islamic. In their messed-up view of reality, they get to go to heaven if they are killed in an attack on the infidel (us.) They don’t want to be taken alive.

        That is one more follower of islam who has discovered that their beliefs were a crock, and that there is no reward in the afterlife for murderous dogs such as him.

        1. They must hate us so much .. We provide succour and solace and what happens .. mayhem , nightmares .. and the xenophobic distrust and distaste returns once more .. The healing will NEVER EVER happen ..

          Don’t lecture us about addressing Islamophobia anyone … just keep your mouths shut , Liblabtards .

        2. Shoot the swine! Stop shouting at him to stay still, he’s a murderous religious fanatic! Empty a blasted clip into his face!

    2. Disabled in a response to a report by the copyright owner.

      I.e – take that down as people will blame the fuzzy wuzzys and we want to protect them.

      We are so utterly F*ed as a society.

      1. Well, maybe the copyright owner has sold the film to a news service or newspaper. Or, maybe the copyright owner has been traced by our security people and the film has been seized in the interests of security, fair trial and social cohesion. (Well, we wouldn’t want to upset a jihadi’s granny, would we?)

  68. There are many very brave people .. civilians and police .

    We DO NOT want Corbyn and McDonnell and Abbott and Khan saying the terrorist should have been captured and questioned and negotiated.

    1. Questions that will not be asked…
      Q1. Are you a member of ISIS?
      Q2. Do you slaughter/torture innocent people?
      Q3. Do you wish to kill all infidels and bring about a new Caliphate?
      Q4. Do you consider the mass rape and murder of Westerners to be normal behaviour?

      Actual questions asked.
      Q1. Would you vote for Corbyn/Labour?
      Q2. Would you like the Halal option on the menu at the Ritz while we sort out a nice 6 bedroomed house for you?

    1. “Talking through his turban” – I presume the Conservative election candidate was attempting to interpret the saying “talking through his hat”. A rather old-fashioned idiom. Perhaps he should have realised that someone was bound to take offence, and instead used a similar expression e.g. “talking out of his arse”.

  71. Can some one let Cressida know if it is safe for her to come out of her basement bunker at the yard

    1. Wow. A whole 3% of our total energy supply is currently coming from Wind Power.
      And zero, zip, null, nada, zilch from solar.

  73. Nicked from RealArthurDent

    Here is the news for the next 24 hours. You heard it here first.

    Incident + 1 hour “No indication that this is a terrorist incident”
    Incident
    + 2 hours “Police confirm they are treating this as a terrorist
    incident, but currently believe it is an isolated incident with unknown
    motive”
    Incident + 3 hours “Police warn public and media not to speculate about the identity of the perpetrator”
    Incident + 4 hours “Police have identified the perp as ”
    Incident
    + 5 hours “Relatives of the perp have said there was no indication that
    he had been radicalised, always seemed “very nice, quiet, family man”
    Incident + 6 hours “Perp had some history of mental health issues”
    Incident + 7 hours “Perp was known to the authorities”
    Incident = 8 hours “Criticism grows of authorities’ reaction to the incident”
    Incident
    + 9 hours “Independent Police Complaints Commission are investigating
    the use of a firearms by Met Police officers; two officers have been
    suspended on full pay”
    Incident + 10 hours “Labour, Lib Dems, Greens,
    BBC, Channel 4 call for an independent inquiry into the execution of an
    innocent British citizen with mental health problems”
    Incident + 11 hours “Met Police increase presence around mosques throughout London due to fear or reprisal attacks”
    Incident + 12 hours “Relatives of victim of London Bridge incident say “Don’t Look Back in Anger”, we don’t blame him”
    Incident + 24 hours “Red Squirrels stage comeback across Central Wales, approaching English Border”

    How did I do?

    3. Big city, usual, get used to it, lone wolf, not religious, shut up about Islam, racists, yadda yadda.

    4. Somewhere in the middle: leftie telling of how many right wing plots have been foiled by the police, and not to forget St Jo.

    5. They clearly all sing from the same songsheet. No need for any investigation just damage limitation. For the sake of social cohesion when there never will be any. It will one day blow up in their faces and i hope it is their family that suffers the worst of it. Traitorous bastards.

      1. The innocent suffer all the time.
        Treacherous bastards are those that continue to support the political treacherous bastards in westminster knowing full well of their past actions.

      2. The ramifications of the Ulster plantation did not end in the 17th century, as McAleese is well aware. They continue to this very day. It doesn’t matter how well intended or badly intended your plantation is. You cannot alter a country’s demography in such extreme ways without creating centuries of conflict.
        https://nationalparty.ie/mary-mcaleese-and-the-new-plantation-of-ireland/#

        People with “Norman” surnames like Darcy and Mandeville are still wealthier than the general population 1,000 years after their descendants conquered Britain, according to a study into social progress
        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8424904/People-with-Norman-names-wealthier-than-other-Britons.html

        The policies of today, especially mass immigration from certain countries, will have repercussions that this country will probably never recover from.

    7. You’ve forgotten the shrine – complete with T-lights, balloons, teddies, garage flowers and ‘not in our name’ notes scrolled in crayon.

  74. I wonder if Pretty Polly will be watching the Graham Norton programme tonight. GN’s special guests are Hilary Clinton and her daughter.

    Here is the blurb from the on-line Radio Times

    It’s not the first time that Hillary Clinton has graced Graham Norton’s red sofa, although back in 2017, when her booking was clearly a massive coup for what is, after all, a frothy chat show, it almost didn’t happen. She hobbled on set wearing a surgical boot having slipped down a flight of stairs earlier in the day. Her delicate condition probably wasn’t why Norton didn’t give her a Paxman-style grilling although there were some tasty morsels to chew over during their surprisingly relaxed chat. Her anecdotes about Trump’s inauguration, for starters.

    She appeared solo last time presumably because a person of her gravitas does not want their recollections interrupted by some comedian’s irreverent story about their flatulence or similar. However, tonight she’s joined by her daughter Chelsea, co-author of The Book of Gutsy Women, in which the pair have written a sort of love letter to inspirational female figures. The other guests are Jamie Oliver and David Mitchell, who may not be inspirational female figures, but should be good value in terms of entertainment.
    SUMMARY
    Guests include US politician Hillary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea, co-authors of The Book of Gutsy Women. Superstar chef and campaigner Jamie Oliver promotes his latest cookbook Veg, while comedian and actor David Mitchell talks about his collection of satirical columns, Dishonesty Is the Second-Best Policy. Plus, Kesha performs her current single Raising Hell.

    1. Did a quick search to see who her “gutsy women” are – don’t know or care about most of them.

      https://www.stylist.co.uk/people/hillary-clinton-chelsea-clinton-gutsy-women-who-have-inspired-them/311625

      I have a few suggestions and there are many more.

      Abbess Hilda of Whitby
      Eleanor of Aquitaine
      Isabella of Castile
      Elizabeth the First
      Artemisia Gentilleschi
      Nell Gwyn
      Madame Pompadour
      Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun
      Annie Kenney, Christabel Pankhurst et al

      And of course Lady Thatcher
      And Ayaan Hirsi Ali
      And Brigitte Gabriel

      1. No list of “gutsy women” would be complete without mentioning Fionnghal Nic Dhòmhnaill.
        ;¬)

    2. It would be interesting to find what the Clinton’s (and all Labourites and Democtats) real views oh LGBTuiism really are

      Not the ones spouted for the MSM

  75. It doesn’t really feel like Christmas these days until after your first terror attack. Time to put the tree up.

    3. This person must be following the adage “walk a mile in the other man’s shoes”.
      The question is, “where did he nick yours?”

      1. ‘Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that who cares? He’s a mile away and you’ve got his shoes.”
        — Billy Connolly

    4. Actually, that makes me feel rather sad, to be stuck with shoes that are so far the wrong size, but maybe it’s being they’re too big than too small.

  78. General election 2019: Can the UK ban live animal exports after Brexit?

    Claim: Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that under EU law “you cannot ban the shipment of live animals”.
    Reality Check verdict: He is right. Under EU single market rules, no member state can ban live animal exports, although the EU does put a number of animal welfare restrictions on exporting them.

      1. Elton John could wear the badge, when ‘off peak’ as he performs.

        Infact most of the BBC ‘men’ could as well

      1. Shadow Home Secretary and Shadow Chancellor. It’s because they couldn’t get her on one seat.

    2. Will a billion trees be sufficient to take out of the atmosphere all the additional Carbon Dioxide that will be generated by building a million council houses and heating and lighting them for generations? It’s clear that our politicos’ knowledge of the energy required in making bricks, roof tiles, thermal blocks, cement, machining wood etc is at an all time low. Add in the transportation, the machinery to clear and prepare the ground and the carbon footprint is enormous. Why bring people from a low carbon footprint part of the World to the opposite part and keep on bleating that we need to reduce our standard of living to meet UN targets. Talk about burning the candle at both ends – they’re rather sooty and non-green as well.😎

      3. Corbyn compared Ethiopia’s tree planting program to one we could adopt.

        They are four times larger than us and only have 40 million more people. I also doubt that we have 66 million people. Shops estimate closer to 73 million. Bluntly, there are too many people in this country.

        Thanks Blair. The population was shrinking. The people we wanted to have children were having one. The ones we didn’t want are having 4 or 5. The ones we utterly didn’t want 8 or 9, with many born deformed.

  81. DM Story

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7739099/Mogg-gone-Boris-Johnson-hints-Jacob-Rees-Mog-sacked-Grenfell-Tower-disaster-gaffe.html

    Mogg gone? Boris Johnson refuses to confirm Jacob Rees-Mogg will remain in his Cabinet after the super-rich MP was forced to make a humiliating apology for saying that Grenfell Tower fire victims lacked ‘common sense’

    Mogg sold his soul to Boris Johnson and in so doing sold out a proper Brexit. Boris has now refused to pay the thirty pieces of silver promised to Mogg and serves Mogg right.

    I look forward to the traitors Baker and Francois also being betrayed by Boris Johnson. It will serve them right too..

    1. BJ will be an idiot if he gets rid of ReesMogg as RM is the only Tory who puts his point across clearly and calmly. And what’s the point in BoJo “betraying” Baker and Francois when BJ himself is about to betray us all. Remember when John Prescott punched that bloke for throwing an egg at him – all Blair said was “that’s just John” or something like it. Johnson needs to grow a pair and explain that RM has made his apology and that’s the end of the matter.

      1. Politics is a very dirty business which is why so many politicians of all parties are so very deeply despised.

    2. But they did lack common sense. Well, at least a third of them did because the other residents escaped before the LFB rescinded their ‘stay put’ policy.

    3. Evening R,
      I did post long,long, ago, trust NONE.
      The for agin political brigade are of the same pro eu ilk the whole issue is
      orchestrated in-house.

    4. And another from the DM:

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7739355/BBC-bans-Boris-Johnson-Andrew-Marr-agrees-Andrew-Neil-interview.html

      BBC ‘bans Boris Johnson from appearing on the Andrew Marr Show unless he agrees to be interviewed by Andrew Neil before general election’

      Boris Johnson has been banned from appearing on the BBC ‘s Andrew Marr Show until he agrees to be interviewed by Andrew Neil before the election, it was claimed this afternoon.

      Boris Johnson’s yellow streak has been exposed. He is terrified of Andrew Neil who will take his sell out WA to pieces and will expose it for the abject surrender to the EU and capitulation to the remainers in Britain that it is.

      1. Yes, but who do you want as PM on December 13 ?

        PM Johnson ?

        PM Corbyn ?

        There is no other realistic outcome.

        1. With one we’re completely f*cked; with the other we’re completely b*ggered – as you say we have no other choice.

  82. Ah Bless,yes the Al-Beeb censor the incident
    aaaannndddd “We musn’t speculate on the motives”
    Je Suis officially sick of this shite

    1. By this time tomorrow she will have been joined by thousands more like herself and ‘murdered’ will be the accepted term.

        1. ‘Phobia’ is defined as an irrational fear, dislike or hatred. ‘Islamophobia’ speaks for itself.

          Given the track record of Muslims with respect to terrorism, war and aggression, there is absolutely nothing, nothing, irrational about my dislike of Islam and all that goes with it.

          1. That chap murdered innocent people.. he executed them cold bloodedly , and he attempted to execute others ..who sadly ended up badly injured..

            Once again the psychological impact will be with the whole country this evening and forever again.

      1. I’m afraid I responded to her, suggesting the police should have asked her to talk him into dropping his weapons and promising that his bomb was a fake.

        1. 🙂 That’s one of the reasons why I don’t twatter.
          I’d be gaoled for the rest of my natural!

    4. Fair dues Laura. Next time a man runs toward you shouting for a loo and a snack bar you ask the police to arrest him.

      As for the state killing people, I’d bet you’d happily support the European Arrest warrant, wouldn’t you? Bet you also think the ‘Far Right’ should be ‘deplatformed’, don’t you?

      1. I’ve just upset Helen4Yemen over at the Speccie, for referring to “Allahu Ackbarriers” at Christmas markets. Hopefully, she doesn’t have a vote, since she spells ‘neighbours’ the American way…

    6. “State murder doesn’t sit well with me.”

      Well, she wants to stop supporting the Marxists then, who have murdered 100 million civilians in the past century.

      On her page it now says: “Great, got some ring-wing maniacs fans tweeting me sh1t. :-(”

      You don’t say my dear? Perhaps it is because you have accidentally wandered over the line from your fantasy world into the real one. You don’t like it do you? Why don’t you scurry back to the Unicorn farm with its “safe spaces?”

      You are a member of the LGBT community, and the friends of this wimp who was shot today will have a special greeting for you in the future. They do not like you very much and are not shy about showing it.

      1. She’s got short purple hair. Of course she’s a leftie and LGBT. When you parade around looking like that, you’re definitely not trying to attract a mate of the opposite sx. Or join the Young Conservatives Association.

    7. He appeared to be wearing a suicide vest. Would you have volunteered to get closer?

      The fact that he had been wrestled to the ground is irrelevant. As soon as the officers would have seen that vest they would try to eliminate the danger posed.

      Well done to all the brave individuals, civilian and police, who acted as they did.

      1. I was slightly confused by the Bbc report, which said the Police shot him, lifted his jacket up, noticed an explosives belt, and then shot him again – presumably in the head to stop him setting it off.

        1. The whole thing is confused as one might expect.

          The police can do nothing right merchants will be calling for an inquiry. The police can do no wrong brigade will be calling for more such robust action.

          I think every terrorist/stabber should be shot on sight, followed by an inquiry where any benefit of the doubt exonerates the poor so-and-so who has had to pull the trigger.

          1. A man stabbed people on a bridge. The police – law enforcement – shot him. Killer neutralsed, nothing more to be done apart from to clean and reload the gun.

      2. Just watched the moments leading up to the ‘suspect’ being shot. An armed policeman suddenly backs away from the target and takes aim, the screen then went black but a shot and a female squeal were heard. The armed officer’s reaction was sudden: was there a suspicion that the ‘suspect’ was trying to detonate the vest?

        1. I would not be surprised, and I think it much better in circumstances like this attack to shoot first.

          One dead terrorist that can’t be interviewed is better than multiple dead police and bystanders had if been a shrapnel-filled suicide vest.

        2. These kids just don’t understand. These nutters want to get to a crowded place, kill people with a knife and then blow themselves up, throwing ball bearings through the skulls of children to kill them simply because they believe in a demented fantast that we don’t.

        2. It is a shame that the fragrant Laura was in no position to give everyone the benefit of her judgement on London Bridge this afternoon.

        3. I have just scrolled down her last 10 comments and found these 2 gems:

          “Just heard that Jacob Rees-Mogg said that everyone in Grenfell was thick and deserved to die because they are poor and immigrants. What an absolute Tory bastard!! Disgusting!! Get these evil Tory bastards out and arrest him!!” (November 5th.)

          “Andrew Neil is a far right mouthpiece puppet!! Wouldn’t let Jeremy get a word in edge ways. Disgusting treatment of our next Prime Minister. Sickens me that this bigoted oaf is lauded by so many simpletons. :-(” (November 26th.)

          “Women” such as her are a great gift to the planet. People who are as stupid as she is drive people away from the Labour Party. Which can only be a good thing.

        4. There’s quite a few on Twitter who see this and the 2017 attacks as a Tory conspiracy, and they can all vote.

    8. It takes a very special type of stupidity to write something as nasty as Whitehawk has done. One of my son’s old schoolmates is an armed response officer in the City of London Police and his wife gave birth to their second child only a few days ago. My first thought was for him and his safety at this time. Also, I have great sympathy for those caught up in this horror, especially those who lost their lives. I care not a jot for the PoS who went out today to kill and maim. He behaved like a rabid animal and received the only cure for such animals.

  85. I am right in saying it was safer when the Kray twins
    ruled the london roost ?
    Proper home bred crooks none of this foreign muck.
    Why does the electorate think there is still a need for more of these types ? why did the electorate think there
    was a need in the first place ?
    Why do alternating governments insist that the guest’s
    be given succour again & again at the tax payers expense?
    Why via the ballot box does the tax payer agree with the government, again & again?

  88. So typical the way the Police Spokesman urged us all not to jump to INAPPROPRIATE conclusion. Clearly, that way lies the hazards of ISLAMOPHOBIA and HATE CRIME – something with which this killer will never be accused of or charged with.

    Me, I’m decidedly islamoaverse. Yet, I bet we had more additional muslims today within the UK – they (officially) increased their numbers by 300 per day over the 10 years from 2001-11. No doubt that increase will be supplemented by those crossing the Channel this weekend, either by dinghy or in lorry containers.

  91. The world needs a new word to counteract “Islamophobia” as a hate crime.

    Lewisduckworth’s islamoaverse is a good starter.
    I’ve also seen islamaware, which is getting there too

  92. As you alll realise, at times I really thick but, I am more cleveresterer than most MSM journalists and ITV reporters (there were 3 of them at London Bridge on the 6 o’clock news.)

    How can the murdering soul still be described as The Suspect His guilt is known, he was prevented doing more damage by passers by

    They did not ‘Suspect’ him: they knew the barsteward was trying to kill people.

    His name, ethnicity, background etc should be made known to us all now.

    Compare how, even when dead, he is being protected. Now read this

    A remark by a Conservative general election candidate about a Sikh politician’s turban is being treated by police as a “hate incident”.

    Philip Dunne, who is seeking to return as MP for Ludlow, Shropshire, said Labour rival Kuldip Sahota was “talking through his turban” during hustings in Church Stretton on Wednesday night.

    West Mercia Police said it took such reports “extremely seriously”.

    Mr Dunne declined to comment when approached by the BBC.

    He has previously apologised “unreservedly for the offence caused”.

    1. He should console himself that had he said “talking through his hat” he would have been in much, much deeper dindu.

      1. Try Battenfacts, the only politico whose stance in warning of the dangers of islamic ideology have never
        wavered.
        In point of fact the only politico
        along with Lord Pearson to want to acknowledge it at all.

        1. Oddly enough, I suspect that that would have been more acceptable to the perpetually offended on other people’s behalf

    2. Making a joke about turbans is a hate crime. Murdering British citizens is an expression of different cultural values.

  93. Just got back on scene. No indication on the Beeb or Guardian that this was an Islamic attack. Is this actually confirmed anywhere ?
    Remember, Baroness Warsi said that the Conservatives have a problem with Islamophobia.
    I see two people were killed by the err… suspect.This is not good. I hope it is not pushed under the table.
    Is there a link to the ethnicity of the guy ?

    1. One indication. Boris’s referemce to ” British Values “. I assume they will call him a racist.

  95. More police and technology will not deter the Islamostabaddict..

    Knives and bombs and the unspeakable message that I will not repeat .. are here in Britain .. We the British , have uninvited guests who HATE us .. who want to harm us .. we also have large groups of people who want to kill EACH OTHER.. tribal gangs .. who bully and cajole , who commit atrocious crimes and flood our market towns with drugs .

    I think the UK is nurturing monsters , sub species of the human race.. Just glancing through national press , we see faces of rapists , baby killers, wife murderers , female mother monsters , male madman who torture animals , thieves, scammers , liars, conmen, con women , all sorts of monsters have come to the fore , just like in other countries .. but we didn’t ask for hordes of antisocial Muslims who have no respect for the country they have bedded down in.

    What are we going to do .. hasn’t anyone any answers.. are we immune to all this now?

    1. Evening TB,
      Who brought them in ?
      Who continues to allow them in ?
      If the answer to that is the politicians & political parties, who supports these political parties ?

    3. Belle, we are not immune for the simple reason that if the people do not eventually rise up and take the political class down, we will die out, killed off by our own politicians; and for what? What is in this madness for them? Ideological purity or riches beyond that of Croesus?

      1. Easy Q: when we’ve been out bred and have died off, who’ll pay their welfare bill?

        These people don’t work. They are an unproductive economic drain – I take no pleasure in that, it’s simple truth. So.. who is going to pay?

    4. What I foudn funny was on the one hand Blair sent the military off to kill these people.

      On the other, he kicked off the door keeping them out and invited the horde in, fed them, housed them at our (Conservative voter) expense, feted them with endless freebies to remove any need to learn the language or remotely integrate.

      When the military got back, lawyers started suing them – again, using Conservative voters money – for killing the people the government had said to kill.

      Now, I know it’s been a long day. I know I’m a bit off my trolley, but could someone, please tell me that that behaviour, that whole sequence of event is absolutely flip flopping nuts?

  96. A reiteration in case it’s too far down..
    True_Belle • 3 hours ago

    There are many very brave people .. civilians and police .

    We
    DO NOT want Corbyn and McDonnell and Abbott and Khan saying the
    terrorist should have been captured and questioned and negotiated.7

    Phizzee True_Belle • 44 minutes ago

    Questions that will not be asked…
    Q1. Are you a member of ISIS?
    Q2. Do you slaughter/torture innocent people?
    Q3. Do you wish to kill all infidels and bring about a new Caliphate?
    Q4. Do you consider the mass rape and murder of Westerners to be normal behaviour?

    Actual questions asked.
    Q1. Would you vote for Corbyn/Labour?
    Q2. Would you like the Halal option on the menu at the Ritz while we sort out a nice 6 bedroomed house for you?

    2. Well done Phizzee

      I didn’t see your reply . Very cleverly put .

      Well, how many more outrageous copycat acts of slaughter are planned .. or was that one act today an impulsive moment of sheer spite and malice .. inspired by fellow Mosque brothers after Friday prayers?

  97. ‘This country will never be cowed’: Boris responds to London Bridge attack. 29 November 2019.

    ‘I’ve just been briefed by the commissioner and assistant commissioner of the metropolitan police about the events at London Bridge this afternoon. While this is an ongoing investigation, the police can confirm that this was a terrorist incident.

    My thoughts are first with the emergency services, the police, the bravery that they showed in going towards danger as they do.

    I also want to pay tribute to the extraordinary bravery of those members of the public who physically intervened to protect the lives of others. And for me they represent the very best of our country and I thank them on behalf of all out country. I think we’re all very saddened to learn that some people have been injured in this event and our sympathies are very much with them and with their loved ones.

    I can assure everyone that anyone involved in this crime, in these attacks, will be hunted down, will, be bought to justice. And I think the message that we send to them and anyone associated with this type of attack is one that will be familiar and that is that this country will never be cowed or divided or intimidated by this sort of attack and our values, our British values, will prevail.’

    I thought you would all like to read this sick making drivel!

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/11/this-country-will-never-be-cowed-boris-responds-to-london-bridge-attack/

    1. Yeah ,yeah all those Akbarriers made of Korancrete all over our bridges and around our christmas markets patrolled by men with automatic weapons are just the latest fashion statement

    3. And Johnson remains attached to the idea of shovelling in as many more as he feels that he can get away with. Completely clueless about cause and effect.

    4. Erdogan has promised to send to Europe 50,000 Islamic State fighters freed from Kurdish prisons. He argues they are not “terrorists”, nor are Turks terrorising Syrian villages after Trump gave the green light to the annexation. Only those who oppose him are “terrorists”.

      Why is he to be welcomed to a NATO conference in England next week?

      2. Evening Jeremy. Well Turkey is in NATO so they cannot ignore him. Worse it is probably its most important member next to the United States!

    5. Er, is the PM aware that the jihaidis who commit these outrages have a support network of around 6,000,000 like-minded people in this country?

      1. Er yes they are Horace, which goes a long way to explaining their spineless acceptance of any provocation!

  98. Slightly off topic but I fear that Macron’s comments and Erdogan’s responses today might well trigger attacks in France.

  99. Can anyone confirm or otherwise the use of, “Nothing to do with islam,” by a politician?

  100. As I flee into the night I have just checked the twitter page of that rather silly young lady who said in her stupidity that the police should have arrested that man and not killed him as: “state murder doesn’t sit well with me.”

    I hope that her fragile mind does not snap, and that she won’t be found dangling in the wind tomorrow morning. She normally gets 2 to 6 people replying to her infrequent hardcore pro-eu comments, hitting a high of 48 when calling Andrew Neil a bigoted oaf for his Corbyn interview. She must have thought that Twitter was a nice safe space for her empty ideas.

    So far tonight she has had 4,400 comments calling her stupid, ignorant, a snowflake and brainless for her words. She unwisely responded by telling people to use their intelligence, which has received a further 1,800 messages about how dumb she is. These numbers are rising constantly.

    She would appear to have discovered the real world. I would imagine that it would be a bit of a blow to find out so many strangers are united in their opinion that your own world view is bl00dy stupid. This might be a valuable learning experience for her about reality though. If she makes it through the night.

    https://twitter.com/laura_whitehawk

  101. A comment from elsewhere Ouch

    I was
    thinking about today’s incident compared to the normal stabbings in
    London, and then had to stop myself as I realised what I’d actually just
    thought…

    “the normal stabbings”

    How did it come to this?

    1. There is no difference. If you pussyfoot around and don’t tackle a problem when you see it, whether it is Afro-Caribbean drug dealers or Muslim jihadists, the result is the same. If you are afraid of tackling criminals because to do so would be disrespect for their ethnicity, they will have no respect for you. If you jump on them fast and punish them appropriately without over-consideration of their ” human rights ” they will learn fast.

    1. How are the mighty fallen !! The supreme elegance of the Astaire-Rogers films, compared with this noisy modernistic trash. And Cyd Charisse was definitely the ugliest woman he ever danced with.

      My personal opinion…which has not changed since I first saw her when I was young.
      The equivalent of moving from ” From Russia With Love ” to ” Skyfall “

        1. Sad how women age badly. Brrigitte Bardot was the prime example.
          Lucky us men keep our charms.
          (Apologies to NTTL ladies who are of course exceptons)

          1. Yes, some of us are hoping our stunners have a go at The NOTTL Calendar! (Sorry, outrageous joking).

  105. An Early Release on an Electronic Tag?

    Boris Johnson and the Conservatives?

    This Party has specialised in Closing Stable Doors and ignoring the Elephant(s) in the Room.

    Theresa May, Amber Rudd, Dominic Grieve, David Gauke – 4 particular heads (Home Secretaries / Attorneys General) which should be Hung in Shame (plus all those who held these posts underLabour 1997-2010. .

    2. When will the authorities accept that these Islamic extremists simply cannot ever be rehabilitated or reformed or trusted.

      2. They do not believe that muslims can be such terrible individuals. They think islam is like Christianity, it is not. It is a violent ideology and can not be changed. But as discussion is not permitted, nothing will change.

  108. The Broadcasting Media’s Motto on a day like this is to use a famous quote from a well-known film:

    “Tomorrow is another day”.

    By Tuesday, it’ll be as if nothing’s happened and we’ll get back to worrying about “islamophobia”.

    1. By Wednesday, they’ll be using another famous quote from that same film:

      “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn

      1. Its a long article, but here is the start to give you the gist.

        Nearly two decades ago, the artist Alison Lapper, born with no arms and shortened legs, agreed to pose, heavily pregnant with her unborn son, Parys, for a sculpture in white marble that was to spend two years on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. She did so, she says, because she wanted to create a piece of history that challenged ideas of prejudice and difference, but it was not only that. ‘I thought, “How amazing would it be to have a sculpture that is going to live longer than Parys and me? A sculpture that would be around for a very long time, even when we are not.” I had no idea that Parys would die aged 19.’

        Today, Alison Lapper is engulfed in grief, having lost the son whose very birth was something of a miracle. On 13 August, Parys Lapper was found dead in a hotel in Worthing, a tragic end to the gradual decline in his mental health. His death was a consequence of what is thought to have been an accidental overdose from his drug addiction, mixed with his heavy medication for ongoing depression. The depression and the addiction were inextricably linked, feeding each other, but kicked off, his mother thinks, by the combination of low-level cannabis use that began around the age of 11, and a growing awareness of his mother’s disability through teasing at senior school.

        From around the age of four, Parys would say to his mother, ‘Why are people staring at us?’ ‘And initially, I’d say, “It’s because you are so beautiful, babe.” But as he got older, I had to be honest and say, “Because I am like this, son. And they think I can’t cope with you.”’

      2. Alison Lapper’s first interview following her son’s death: ‘All I ever wanted to do was love him’

        “Nearly two decades ago, the artist Alison Lapper, born with no arms and shortened legs, agreed to pose, heavily pregnant with her unborn son, Parys, for a sculpture in white marble that was to spend two years on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. She did so, she says, because she wanted to create a piece of history that challenged ideas of prejudice and difference, but it was not only that. ‘I thought, “How amazing would it be to have a sculpture that is going to live longer than Parys and me? A sculpture that would be around for a very long time, even when we are not.” I had no idea that Parys would die aged 19.’

        Today, Alison Lapper is engulfed in grief, having lost the son whose very birth was something of a miracle. On 13 August, Parys Lapper was found dead in a hotel in Worthing, a tragic end to the gradual decline in his mental health. His death was a consequence of what is thought to have been an accidental overdose from his drug addiction, mixed with his heavy medication for ongoing depression. The depression and the addiction were inextricably linked, feeding each other, but kicked off, his mother thinks, by the combination of low-level cannabis use that began around the age of 11, and a growing awareness of his mother’s disability through teasing at senior school.

        From around the age of four, Parys would say to his mother, ‘Why are people staring at us?’ ‘And initially, I’d say, “It’s because you are so beautiful, babe.” But as he got older, I had to be honest and say, “Because I am like this, son. And they think I can’t cope with you.”’

        His primary school years were happy, but once Parys hit senior school, experiencing the confusion of adolescence as well as losing a granny figure to cancer, he started to become more withdrawn.

        The story Lapper tells is so desperately sad. And yet in what is perhaps her second act of profound bravery – the first being 
her determination to have Parys in the 
first place, despite criticism and judgment from almost everybody around her – she wants to relive the tragic story of her son’s demise because of the message it gives about mental-healthcare provision for young people in the UK.

        The little boy about whom she has said, ‘It was me and him against the world, it really felt like that,’ ended up emaciated at six stone (he was 6ft) and emotionally lost to everybody. It is estimated that his body lay undiscovered in the hotel room for three days. He could no longer live at home because of escalating violence caused by his drug addiction. Since being sectioned, aged 16, he had been moved from place to place, including a unit for anorexics and a hostel for asylum seekers, both a result of what appear to be desperate measures, and for want of an alternative. By the end, he was in B&B/hotel accommodation. His support worker had a caseload of more than 40 people. He had been knocked over by a car, held at gunpoint and beaten up after being lured into a robbery. The police had become a part of his life.

        I meet Alison Lapper first in Westminster, in front of the Houses of Parliament, as part of the latest campaign by YoungMinds, the charity pushing for better mental-healthcare for 14- to 25-year-olds. With its powerful group of young advocates, it is presenting a petition, signed by 70,000 people, to each of the party leaders calling for ‘whoever forms the next government’ to ensure a cross-government strategy to establish improved mental-healthcare provision for this age group.

        Alison photographed at home this month
        Alison photographed at home this month CREDIT: KATE PETERS
        The aims of the Act Early campaign are clear: ensure provision starts with the awareness of triggers; a consideration of social factors that might contribute; better online support for young people who are struggling (mental-health decline can be rapid); more online support for parents and carers, including those in the first stages of mild concern who are unsure of where to go; early intervention in every community, be this through drop-in centres, hubs or charities able to prevent a situation from escalating; better resources in schools; and reform of the Mental Health Act to strengthen the rights of young people in inpatient care.

        So many of these things speak exactly to Lapper’s experience. ‘I had thought about setting up my own charity, but then I realised I would have more impact if I joined the YoungMinds campaign.’

        Lapper is a powerful figurehead for the latest petition. She contacted YoungMinds a week or two after losing Parys. She was – still is – lost and confused at how her beautiful, healthy son gradually got pulled into ‘a black hole’.

        ‘I wouldn’t want other parents to go through this,’ she says. ‘By the time it got really bad, I phoned the authorities and said, “My son needs help,” but that help wasn’t what Parys needed by then. He was treated as a naughty boy.’

        Marc Quinn’s sculpture of Alison on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square in 2007
        Marc Quinn’s sculpture of Alison on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square in 2007 CREDIT: TIM GRAHAM
        There is no doubt that drugs complicated the treatment. Parys would not volunteer for rehab, and yet his addiction meant his severe mental illness could not be adequately treated either. ‘I am not trained 
in mental health. When it got bad, he struggled with me, I struggled with him, we struggled with the situation together. It felt never-ending. Every time he was moved, there was a new doctor, a new psychiatrist. And when he got to 18, he was considered an adult, and yet he couldn’t even wash. But I wasn’t allowed to have a say.’

        It is a familiar story. Central to Parys’s demise seems to be the way in which the current mental-healthcare system is unable to care for an adolescent who has both a severe mental-health illness and an addiction. ‘And yet,’ says his mother, ‘it is well known they often go hand in hand.’

        While Parys Lapper’s life ended in tragic circumstances, it began with nothing but hope, love and a conviction to make an unusual family situation work. His conception was ‘a happy accident’ (Lapper is not in contact with Parys’s father), and that she carried him almost to full term was not only an act of determination on his mother’s part but also something of a miracle. ‘I’d always been told I wouldn’t be able to carry [a child]. I wanted Parys so badly, but [even so] I almost didn’t have him because of the pressure. People said things like, “What if he’s like you?”’

        His birth by caesarean section was recorded as part of the BBC documentary Child of Our Time, which charted the childhoods of 25 millennium babies. The documentary cameras stayed with mother and son for more than a decade. It showed how Lapper supported them both financially, as a member of the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists association (which provides its artists with a salary), fed Parys herself, changed his nappy with her teeth and lay with him beside her ‘24/7’. She used a little electric cushion to lift him up and down off the floor. Within four weeks, he had learnt how to wriggle on top of her to feed. ‘The midwives were blown away by how he knew what to do.

        ‘It was such an unusual thing to see a 
single mother, a disabled woman, with 
a healthy limbed baby,’ says Lapper. ‘But I loved Parys with all my heart and soul. And I agreed to the documentary because I hoped I would show people what you can do. But now I question it. I did it to prove to everybody that we could, but because of what has happened, I do ask myself, “Did Parys need that level of exposure to the media? Should I have done it?” I don’t know. I had always thought I was doing something positive and that it would be good for him.’

        She begins to cry. ‘I suppose I am questioning everything now,’ she says, almost desperately. ‘All I ever wanted to do was love him… Sorry, sorry… It’s so raw still. I miss him so much. I just want him back.’

        The programme tracked them as Parys grew into a happy, active little boy who could outrun his mother. Initially, he protected her, in terms of being the able- bodied of the two, but was protected by her, through her love and devotion. ‘He learnt very quickly that when he fell over and hurt himself he had to run to me for a cuddle because I couldn’t run to him.’

        With no arms with which Lapper could cuddle him, they found a unique way in which to express their love. ‘I remember Parys being told by a teacher to climb off my [wheel] chair, where he would sit on the arm. The teacher said to him, “You’ve got legs, haven’t you?” And I said, “Excuse me, this is the way my son and I hold hands. This is how we love each other.”’

        However, circumstances were stacked against them. Aged 11, Parys, who was dyslexic, left his small junior school in Shoreham, Sussex, to join a much bigger local academy. He moved up with his primary school friends, which mitigated his mother’s nagging concern about the school’s size.

        On holiday in the south of France in 2000
        On holiday in the south of France in 2000 CREDIT: REX
        Three things happened around this time. He learnt his half-sister (by his father) had taken her own life aged 22. His surrogate ‘granny’, who had read to him as a child (Lapper is also dyslexic), and chased him around the garden playing tigers, died from cancer, at a point when it looked like she was about to recover. And then a support worker who lived with them made an allegation that Lapper was sexually abusing her son. The claim was fully investigated and disproved, but the process of investigation, Lapper explains, was devastating and involved the questioning of Parys.

        ‘I felt judged and disgusting. By [the allegation] hurting us, he hurt. Life was hard for him. I realise that now. I felt like I couldn’t protect him.’

        It precipitated her own descent into mental illness. ‘Parys and I felt watched the whole time. [At the beginning] I had so many people on my back, people constantly asking questions like, “How can she look after this baby?”’

        With this fresh trauma, it was like all her previous strength and determination evaporated. Her mental resolve to prove the world wrong collapsed. The woman who had been placed into care at birth, but had built an independent life for herself as an artist, finally could no longer cope. She estimates that for around three years she could barely bring herself to get out of bed, although she is quick to say that the mental-healthcare she received via her GP was fantastic. Her treatment, as an adult, appears to have stood head and shoulders above that of her vulnerable son, for whom more complex, nuanced provision seems to have been lacking.

        During this time, Parys’s physical needs were met by helpers in the home.

        She says now that she thinks Parys began smoking cannabis when he was 11 or 12. By 14/15, ‘dodgy’ people were knocking on the door and Parys began asking her for money. He was still ‘the old Parys’ but he would say, ‘Mum, if you don’t pay these people, they are going to beat me up.’

        Around the age of 13, he also asked her to stop attending parents’ evening because of what some people at school would say about her the following day (calling her ‘a crip’, she says). ‘I stupidly assumed that Parys was with all his own friends. They shielded him from it, but internally he was struggling.’

        Of his change, she recalls, ‘It was 
very gradual.’

        By the age of 16, Parys had gone off the rails. His drug use became serious (although she does not know quite what he was taking). He was moved into a special unit of the school. He left with no qualifications and was becoming prone to violent episodes. By this time, Lapper was fully dependent on support workers who lived with her, none of whom could cope with Parys’s violent unpredictability. The ‘old’ Parys was disappearing, replaced instead by a young man who smashed things, hung around with frightening people and had stopped communicating.

        On a basic level, Lapper says her son had no connection with anybody who was trying to help him, nor with her, apart from rare flashes. Social workers were always female, when what she felt he needed was a supportive, non-judgmental man in his life (the significance of male role models for adolescent boys has been proved in studies). When he was finally sectioned – ‘I was scared of him. It’s a terrible thing to say about your son but he wasn’t the Parys I knew any more’ – he said to her, ‘You always promised me I would never be taken into care.’

        ‘And I had,’ she says, through tears. ‘I had always promised him that [from the beginning]. And I failed.’

        From the age of 18, when he was extremely ill, his mother had no say whatsoever over his care.

        She shows me a picture of him before his full decline. He is a beautiful 14-year-old boy, captured in the picture kissing the nose of a dolphin. ‘That’s my Parys,’ she says. ‘We had amazing times together.’

        When the police arrived at the house that last time, she automatically thought, ‘Oh no. What’s he done now?’

        And when she heard the news, so preventable but by that stage so predictable, ‘I howled and howled.

        ‘I can’t believe he’s gone,’ she says, and then repeats, ‘I can’t believe I have lost him. But I just can’t sit and do nothing. Why would I let other parents go through the hell that I am going through?’

        The night before Parys’s funeral on 29 August, his body was brought back to the family home. In reverse of how it had been in infancy, when Parys as a baby had intuitively wriggled on top of his mother to feel her warmth and to be fed, Alison Lapper, aged 54, lay down on the floor next to his 6ft frame to feel his body against hers for the last time. ‘And he looked so like he had when he was born,’ she says. She had done the same in the funeral home, where they had laid him on the floor so that she could reach him, not with arms but with body contact.

        He was cremated. His ashes, along with some of his hair, will be used to make a diamond wedding ring, which she will wear on her left toe when she marries her fiancé, Si, next year.

        ‘Parys destroyed himself,’ she says. ‘What I [and he] needed was prevention.’ By the time she picked up the phone to say, ‘I need help,’ it was too late.

        The artist Mark Quinn’s famous white marble statue of Parys in utero is, Lapper thinks, ‘somewhere in Italy’. But when Parys was three months old, Quinn sculpted mother and child again, only this time, Lapper was cradling her healthy, perfect baby in her lap.

        Quinn recently contacted her, Lapper explains. He has promised to send her a maquette of that sculpture, in which she was captured in the delight of new motherhood, with her ‘miracle’ baby, their unusual journey together yet to begin.

        It will not ease the pain, but it will be something.

  111. The next step if this incident follows the established pattern will be for The Guardian to claim the security services overlooked warnings coming from, in no particular order, his family, a mosque, or ‘community’. If they did not know why not? Had he been stopped earlier The Guardian could have printed a jolly good article about civil liberties and snooping!

    1. Good morning, Geoff and thank you.

      My bedtime is ‘Sailing By’ – and the shipping forecast on R4 …

  113. I had a heated debate with a colleague over lunch today regarding the election.
    She is a life-long Limp/dem supporter and tried to convince me they were our only hope.
    I retaliated by saying they were undemocratic trying to trash the democratic vote of 17.5million people.
    After three years of Mrs. May I could no longer vote Tory therefore I
    would vote for Jeremy Corbyn. She left in a huff saying she would never speak to me again should i do so….

    Am I bovvered…..

      1. A discussion with an ardent EU fanatic has him still blaming me for our discussion.

        I said ‘No, we both spent the evening ignoring the partners, both of us.; and the response is ‘Yes, next time you stop it.’ Not having that I said ‘Nuff said, we were both responsible.’

        Why can’t the Left accept they are wrong? What’s wrong with them?

    2. Do a protest vote – I’m nor going to vote for someone I despise simply to put some else I despise’s nose out of joint…

  114. TBR!

    YOUR DAILY BREXIT BETRAYAL – Friday 29th November 2019 – 13 days to Polling Day
    Posted by Vivian Evans | Nov 29, 2019 | Brexit, Editorial | 6 |
    You are needed to fight the Establishment

    Forget Brexit, forget BRINO, forget Leave and Remain: that’s not what this GE is about. It’s about the ‘survival of the richest’, of the Establishment. They are fighting against us, not for us. Nothing demonstrates better the huge democratic deficit, the rift between us, the electorate, and them, the Establishment, than the current state of the election campaign.

    If you still believe that our Establishment parties were interested in the fate of our Nation; if you still thought that the PPCs fielded by the Establishment parties were more knowledgeable and therefore better than you; if you still hoped that the leaders and prospective ministers proposed by the Establishment parties actually know what they are doing – let me tell you: don’t! Forget it. This time it really is different. This time, the clay feet of all of them, from the Leaders downwards, have been revealed for all to see, thanks to our helpful MSM.

    Those same MSM are now openly revealing their bias, their clay feet, scrambling to show how relevant they are, how well informed, how impartial. In their self-glorification they regard themselves as being above the politicians and their unsavoury fight for seats, but in their self-ascribed wisdom they’ve overlooked that we uneducated peasants out here have long recognised that they also wear no clothes.

    Last evening’s Ch4 ‘debate’ on climate was just one case in point. More on that below. First there’s the complaint by the BBC that the Tories have taken a quote from one of their reporters ‘out of context’ for party political interest, and that could ‘damage their image of impartiality’! Read all about it here – the comments below that report say it all.

    However, looking at the comments in the paywalled DT I was shocked to see so many blatant antisemitic ones praising Corbyn. It seems the DT moderators can’t keep up with removing them as fast as they come in. These are the ‘storm troopers’ of Corbyn. How far they’ll go is illustrated in this report, about Iain Duncan Smith being told by the police that he needs a bodyguard. It makes me wonder how many other PPCs are putting up with this sort of vandalism. If they’re men and not so prominent, I don’t think it’ll be reported.

    But never mind all that – we must talk about ‘Climate whatever’ because that’s where the yoof votes are! Ch4, to make itself look relevant, had “The Leaders” debate on this issue. Johnson and Farage declined to attend so Ch4 set up two ice sculptures in their place. Sadly, they were not images of either of them, else I would have watched this useless waste of time to see them melt. The sculptures were of our planet. What elegant symbolism!

    That this wasn’t really about ‘tackling’ this latest “Climate [insert horrific expression of your choice]” but about blatant electioneering by another ‘impartial’ TV channel became obvious when Ch4 denied Michael Gove taking part: this was a ‘Leaders Debate’ only! Why the Greens were allowed to field their deputy leader is a secret Ch4 can keep. You can read reports here, here and here, paywalled here and here.

    In an orgy of virtue-signalling they were trying to outbid each other as to which party would ‘de-carbonise’ our country the fastest – but no word about the EU’s latest Green crap, no word about the protests of farmers in France, the Netherlands and Germany. This article looks at what planting all those trees would mean in real life. Nothing could be better to show up the inanity of those ‘green’ proposals, their lack of any common sense! Quentin Letts in The Times summed it up:

    “It ended with personal eco-lifestyle intentions. Sturgeon promised to try to fly less. Swinson said she had an electric battle bus. Corbyn told us to grow lavender and boasted that he went round his house turning off the heating (poor Senora Corbyn). Price said he was going to put his baby in non-disposable nappies. Boris and Nigel, you made a wise call.” (link, paywalled)

    So – what about Brexit? The latest MSM reports are about panic breaking out in both Labour and Tory High command. Labour is desperately trying to gain back Red Leave voters, even throwing Ed Miliband into the fry as ‘Brexiteer’ (no, me neither … and where is my free owl?) See here, see this about ‘a huge cash injection’ into Corbyn’s campaign, see this (paywalled) report about some Labour PPCs telling their constituents that they would vote Leave when Labour gets in and there’s a 2nd Referendum – just gimme your vote!

    Tories are warned about not becoming complacent (e.g. here). It seems that some Tory writers are trying to make the Johnson BRINO more palatable by claiming that Leavers don’t care, they just want ‘Brexit done’, according to polls (paywalled here) while others warn that Labour could still rise and rise (paywalled here). Apparently, LibLabCon are taking the latest polls so seriously that they’re suddenly changing their campaign strategies:

    “The Conservatives and Labour have redoubled their efforts to woo Brexit voters after a polling model for The Times indicated that they held the key to the election. Boris Johnson will rally voters for a final push to “save Brexit” and Jeremy Corbyn will attempt to shore up support in Labour’s so-called red wall, which has been revealed to be crumbling fastest in Leave areas. Jo Swinson, meanwhile, made her most personal attack yet on Mr Johnson as all three parties changed tactics in response to the YouGov research that put the Tories on course for a majority of 68.” (link, paywalled).

    Only in this report did I find a veiled reference to TBP, relating to Cummings’ warnings which we mentioned yesterday. Are there ‘secret’ polls which we’re not told about? And why is it so traumatic for the Tories to lose some seats to TBP, if that is what those ‘secret polls’ indicate? Are the Tories not happy about getting help in the HoC by proper Leavers? That’s a rhetorical question – the Tories are not about Brexit, they’re about winning seats for Johnson.

    What does all this tell us about the state of our democracy? It tells us that the establishment is only going through the motions, they do not give a hoot for our consent. The bribes offered in the past weeks demonstrate this: old-fashioned vote-buying with our own money, as if we cannot do simple calculations!

    If this election weren’t so important for us who want Out, it would be ridiculous, especially when we see that these oh-so-clever election strategists are now taking polls ‘for real’. We dumb plebs out here know full well that they are meant to influence us, the voters, according to the old saying that one million flies can’t be wrong …!

    With less than two weeks to go expect more panic electioneering, expect no reports at all on TBP, expect the sell-out of Brexit and our democracy. As the campaign intensifies some new Project Fear scenarios will surely appear – and anyway, don’t you like more trees?

    Remember: they are exclusively fighting for their own livelihoods – ours, Brexit, Democracy are totally irrelevant in that fight. You know what to do: do as Cummings told you and talk to friends, colleagues, family. It’s no longer about Blue, Red, Yellow and Green. It’s our fight against the Establishment, parties and MSM rolled into one. It is a fight for our democracy, our country, Brexit, and indeed our lives. So:

    KBO!

    1. As the First Minister for Scotland has apparently had meetings with a George Soros sponsored organization…. is it reasonable to ask if UK Prime Ministers have had similar meetings, and, if so, what was the agenda and outcome ?

      https://www.euractiv.com/section/economy-jobs/interview/johnson-i-was-hired-by-soros-for-black-wednesday/

      I ask merely because British policies appear virtually identical to George Soros policies, who has an extremely generously funded lobbying organization, ”Open Society”, close to Westminster on Millbank, funded with £52,000,000 by him in 2018, dedicated to promoting his ”values”.

      Is there a connection ?

      ”Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) … Founded in 2010 under the sponsorship of financier, philanthropist, and left-wing activist billionaire George Soros, the organization promotes an expansion of left-wing economics education in a search for a new statist economic policy consensus.”

      https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/institute-for-new-economic-thinking/

      That looks virtually identical to Scottish politics.

    2. Sadly he’s right. If Boris gets in and forces the horrific withdrawal agreement – the slavery act on us, the country will be obliterated.

  115. Hmm. Sky News are not hanging about with their “islam is peaceful really” narrative. They are filming a live segment and standing behind the reporter are 3 islamic people, including a woman with her head covered, holding up signs saying “#love will win. Terror will lose.”

    Those signs are professionally made and the people must have hotfoot it to get to the Sky News reporter this early. You might almost suspect that they know the very nature of true islam will inevitably cause an increasing number of murderous attacks, and they had the signs ready-made just for this purpose.

    It is nice of Sky News to film their report with them standing just behind their anchor. They must get out the message that islam is peaceful. In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, as we can see across Europe and in those countries where they have high numbers.

    2. Well, if they came up with their prepared signs, and got them in front of the cameras so quickly, perhaps they knew it was going to happen?

  116. Politicians no longer have to play to the tune of our biased broadcasters

    Charles Moore

    A general election is the only time when we the people can decide who should govern us. It follows that the only entities which matter during an election campaign are the voters and those seeking to get elected.

    A general election is therefore the period, more than any other, when the media should live up to their name. The word “media” means channels of communication. Those channels should be as clear and open as possible, not clogged by the broadcasters’ views. That is why those broadcasters – the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 – which have privileged means of communication and money-raising, also have public-service obligations imposed by law. It is also why those obligations are particularly strict during election campaigns.

    Read Charles Moore’s latest column on telegraph.co.uk every Friday night from 9.30pm
    If you count how much airtime the broadcasters allot to each party during elections, you will find they are pretty fair. They make sure that the letter of the law is observed. They concentrate instead on violating its spirit. There are two ways they do this. The first is to skew the agenda. The second is to set the rules of debate and try to punish any politician who challenges them.

    Channel 4’s leaders’ “debate” on Thursday about climate change was a classic of the genre. It did both at once. Taking the hypothesis of a climate “emergency” as a fact, the programme began with a short propaganda film about the wickedness of polluting homo sapiens – shots of deforestation, smog, plastic in the sea and a koala bear burnt by forest fires. This was contrasted with the goodness of a saintly few – Extinction Rebellion and Sir David Attenborough.

    In this frame, the five party leaders present – representing Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, the SNP and Plaid Cymru – knew which side their sourdough bread was non-dairy buttered. Channel 4 had set up a competition in which the winner could only be whoever proposed the most extreme measure for saving the planet. All the politicians happily played along, ensuring little genuine debate. I was surprised that the Greens did not argue for achieving a zero-carbon economy in time for Christmas. (Even the Tories’ promise of reaching the target by 2050 is unachievable.)

    Two leaders – Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage – did not take part. Suggesting their absence showed they did not care about global warming, the chairman, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, explained that these criminals were represented in the studio by ice sculptures of a melting world.

    The Tories had not, however, refused to take part in the debate. Instead, they had proposed to send Michael Gove, the well-qualified former Environment Secretary, rather than Mr Johnson. Channel 4 had refused. Mr Gove turned up anyway but was turned down. There was film of him being barred by the producer. (Also present, wandering over from the Channel 4 “spin room”, was Boris’s father, Stanley, without whom no public occasion these days is complete. I sometimes wonder if he has delighted us long enough.)

    The Conservative Party has now complained to the regulator, Ofcom, that Channel 4 broke its rules of public-service impartiality, which it blatantly did. There is dark muttering about clipping the channel’s wings once the election is past.

    Probably Channel 4 does not much mind. Now that people under the age of 30 have lost the age-old skill of turning on a television, the old-style broadcasters are desperate to reach them online by putting up the clips most unfavourable to politicians. Out of the debate a story was created with the just the narrative which Channel 4 sought – nasty, Right-wing leaders don’t dare face the righteous wrath of whoever might be watching, so they can be turned into ice sculptures as if by the Witch in Narnia.

    Far be it from, me, a journalist, to say that politicians should not be held to account, especially at elections. But even further be it from me, and anyone who believes in a free society, to accept that broadcasters in privileged positions should act as if they were the High Court of Politics and drag politicians in for a series of show trials.

    Our leaders have no moral obligation to accept the shape of the room, the framing of the questions, the other members of the panel, the interviewer, or anything else. The Prime Minister, in particular, has a positive duty not to let himself be dragged down to the level of opposition parties who are not responsible for government.

    In the old days, leaders felt they had to appear on television, because of the narrow range of technology available. I hear people contrasting Margaret Thatcher’s courage in facing hostile programmes with the evasiveness of modern politicians. She was brave, but when she became Prime Minister there were only three television channels and only two providers. If she wanted to be heard, she had to use them.

    That is no longer the case. As Donald Trump has brilliantly realised, technology now makes it possible to cut out the middle man in public communication and say what you want to whomever you wish to address. It is perfectly possible to fight an entire campaign without ever darkening the doors of a terrestrial TV studio.

    And not only perfectly possible, but perfectly sensible. If you study traditional big-name broadcast interviews, you will see what an odd genre they have become. Because the broadcasters are constantly comparing themselves with their rivals rather than thinking about the voters, all their effort goes into finding cunning ways of catching politicians out. Consequently the leaders going on the programmes have to train up to fight back against the outsize ego opposite instead of working out what is most valuable for voters to hear.

    When politicians try to escape this trap and decline to be interviewed, they are accused of “running scared”. Actually, it requires considerable strong-mindedness to refuse to take the BBC, Channel 4 etc at their own estimation and walk away from their deceitful limelight. At present, Mr Johnson is avoiding an interview with Andrew Neil on the BBC. This is an entirely rational position, although Neil – unlike the Channel 4 people – is not guilty of political bias.

    As Neil’s interview with Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday showed, he is outstanding at catching out ignorance or inconsistency. Boris, though as clever as anyone, is often confused about details and cannot remember his past words accurately. Why agree to show himself to disadvantage if he does not have to?

    By not appearing he risks the charge of cowardice. By doing so, however, he risks making big, bad news out of what would probably be a minor error. Then the medium gets in the way of the message. Voters will form their own judgments. There may be some game-playing in the way Mr Johnson’s advisers are handling this. I would not be surprised if, after a bit of muscle-flexing, they do decide to let him face the fearsome Neil and thus magnify his credit if he acquits himself well.

    But behind all this lies the same issue as lies behind Brexit – one of who has control. Rather like the struggle throughout the 19th century for votes for all adults, the fight today is for a more direct relationship between the people and those they elect. This must include a fight to cut the broadcasters down to a smaller size. Time to put down the mighty from their seats, or rather, sets. Let this be the last election where the telly conspires to affect the result.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/29/politicians-no-longer-have-play-tune-biased-broadcasters/

  117. FFS

    LONDON, Nov 29 (Reuters) – A man who

    stabbed two people to death in London and injured three more on Friday

    before being wrestled to the ground by bystanders, in what the

    authorities called a terrorist attack, had been convicted of an

    “Islamist terrorism-related office”, The Times newspaper reported.

    He

    was released from prison about a year ago after agreeing to wear an

    electronic tag, The Times said, citing unnamed government sources.

    (Reporting by Costas Pitas; Editing by Sandra Maler)

    http://news.trust.org/item/20191129214206-8tk83/
    Words Fail Me
    Edit
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7c22ff9985f0ebf33522707a18d2eb0e2164064207b853984edf34d6479a1db0.jpg

  119. DT ELECTION COUNTDOWN

    Boris Johnson’s predicted Commons majority slashed from 80 to 12 in a week, poll of polls reveals

    If Mr Johnson had had the integrity to be honest about his Surrender Brexit deal and been prepared to make an electoral pact with Nigel Farage leading to a genuine Brexit then we would not be facing the death of Britain’s’ hope for independence from the oppressive EU and the extinction of Britain with a Corbyn led government.

    Johnson’s hubris, arrogance, waffle and lack of substance has led to this monumental cock up.

    Will the pathetic buffoon ever be forgiven?

    1. No. He’s a pompous, overblown windbag. We can despise the stupid May, but Boris at least has some brains. Pity that he seems to have no nous.

Comments are closed.