Friday 30 April: Let those who have been vaccinated resume normal human greetings

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/04/29/letterslet-have-vaccinated-resume-normal-human-greetings/

493 thoughts on “Friday 30 April: Let those who have been vaccinated resume normal human greetings”

  1. Right at this moment, Warwickshire Colleges Group, which has taken over Malvern Hills College in Worcestershire, has closed the college, centralising courses in Evesham 20 miles away, and put the site on the market for lucrative housing development. No doubt there is a bonus in there for somebody.

    Councillors on the Independent-run District Council have put a Community Asset notice on the college, which the owners are now applying to have lifted. There is currently a moratorium on disposal of the site until August, to allow enough time for community groups to raise enough money to buy the site at full market value. The local Conservative MP, Harriett Baldwin has expressed her support for a community buy-out, as has the Town Council. They are attempting a whip-round among the locals.

    There has been complete silence from the County Council, who are normally charged with the county’s education, as well as the social value of the college in a town with a large pensioner population. The County’s Council Tax take is many times bigger than that from any of the other authorities. There is currently an election for county councillor elections, but all the campaigns have chosen to keep silent over this, and every other issue, concerned about an informed electorate rocking the boat.

    The policy of every political elite since Thatcher has been to hive off such community assets into the private sector, where they can be disposed of to the highest bidder, who can make the most money for themselves out of it. That is business, and that is the “Free Market” which is paramount over all other issues. This has been the way under Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May and considering what he did about Earls Court when he was Mayor of London, it seems unlikely Johnson’s administration will wander from this Right Wing orthodoxy.

    The nation needs its local educational assets to rebuild after Covid, and to develop vocational skills after Brexit, when we can no longer rely on foreign institutions to provide for us. It seems though that that our masters deem we should close them down, and concentrate instead on matters concerning woke lobbyists,

    This is where we are at. I have six candidates to choose from at the county election:

    1. The sitting Independent District Councillor
    2. An old UKIP sweat, who has stood many times and is now standing as an Independent.
    3. A long-serving Berkshire Lib Dem councillor, ousted there in 2015 and now trying her hand here.
    4. An unknown new candidate for the Reform Party, living in my village.
    5. An eager Conservative, who carried out an unsuccessful campaign at district level against two senior Independents.
    6. A Labour environmentalist, adopting the local Greens’ policy of support for local small businesses.

    I have met or communicated with the sitting Independent (who was helpful and authoratative but “realistic”), the Tory (who was sympathetic and enthusiastic) and the old UKIP sweat (who didn’t have a lot to say about local issues). I have had just one leaflet so far, from the Lib Dem, which didn’t give much away other than motherhood and apple pie.

    How should I vote, and would it make the slightest difference to the prognosis for the college?

    1. First time I have ever been first. Normally, I like to leave this honour to the more deserving!

    3. These matters are decided by bribes. That is now my firm belief based on observation and thought. Some of the atrocities that have been perpetrated especially as regards the built environment can only have come about that way. Elegant sandstone buildings demolished to be replaced by blocks of flats made from concrete, plastic and cardboard to a “design” possibly created by a blind alien.

    4. We’ve had no communication from any candidates- I have no idea who is standing or what they stand for. Maybe I won’t bother this time. Or maybe that’s just what ‘they’ want.

      1. If you do nothing else, J, on May 6th, please go to the polling station, get your ballot and if there really is no-one you would vote for, mark, in black ink, the paper at the bottom with “None Of The Above“.

        If enough people would do this, it will start to expose the shambles our so-called democracy is.

          1. Good luck with that, Horace, always assuming that your postal vote ends up on the right pile but be prepared to be voting for SNP or even Alba.

            I refused a postal vote as the whole system is corrupt.

      2. I’ve just had an email from the Independent district councillor:

        “…The short answer to your question is that you should vote for me! The longer answer is that the Independent Group on MHDC are the people taking active steps to preserve the college and, as you rightly note, I am a member of that group. To the best of my knowledge, there has been no input from Worcs CC.

        As you may have seen in the Malvern Gazette recently, WCG were extremely upset when details of negotiations emerged in public, so I will not discuss those. Please rest assured though that strenuous efforts are being made by Independent-led MHDC to find a way to acquire the college for the benefit of the community.

        By the way, I’m disappointed that you haven’t received one of my leaflets. We were out distributing in Leigh about 10 days ago and I fear you have been missed. For that I can only apologise. I enclose an electronic copy of my leaflet and would also point you to my campaign Facebook page…”

      3. Another email from my MP:

        “…I can confirm that I have spoken extensively with the Council Leader Simon Geraghty and as a result County Council Cabinet Member Marcus Hart has written to the Education and Skills Funding Agency in support of the covenant. During the purdah of an election campaign, they are constrained in what they can say.

        I think the last thing the County needs at this moment is a change in control, so I hope you will vote for the impressive Karen Hanks to represent your interests at the County Council. …”

  2. Morning everyone. Paranoia Post. Switched on this morning and my desktop picture was changed!

    2. Morning Minty, you know what they say, “they are all jealous since you conquered your paranoia” 😉

  4. Morning, all.
    Got some science for you.
    The graph below shows, in absolute numbers and beside that, %ages, of where people became infected in Oslo. The interesting bit is the biggest source of infection was… being at home! Just where we were all instructed to be! And the safest places – pubs and restaurants…
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/024846118fbdfaae5cf7b83860ea6349a93163386148566a7d7186c63d1b8058.jpg
    What’s not explained is that how are the numbers related to actual movement of people – so, was everyone infected at home because everyone WAS at home, and nobody infected in pubs because the pubs were shut?

  7. ‘Let those who have been vaccinated resume normal human greetings’
    And let them join us unvaccinated folk that never fell for it all so much

  9. Russians Weigh In On Putin’s Gift Of A 10-Day Paid Holiday. 30 April 2021.

    Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued an order making the entire period from May 1 through May 10 a paid nonworking holiday. The extended vacation will encompass the May 3 Labor Day holiday and Victory Day, which is marked on May 10 this year.

    There’s a lot of whinging in this article but my baser instincts tell me that Vlad is onto a winner with this move!

    https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-may-holidays-putin-social-media-reaction/31229806.html

  11. Complete with Roguesses Gallery

    Our lady in… ALL senior UK ambassadors are now female as Menna Rawlings is appointed as top diplomat to France
    All of the UK’s most senior ambassadors are female for the first time in history
    It comes as Menna Rawlings was appointed Ambassador to the French Republic
    Mother-of-three Mrs Rawlings, 53, joined the Foreign Office in 1989

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9527721/ALL-senior-UK-ambassadors-female-Menna-Rawlings-appointed-

    https://youtu.be/GcMd1F1acSo

    1. I suspect the Carrion Slut’s hand in this, “Oh, Boris, baby, wouldn’t it be nice if all our Ambassadors where lovely, caring women, so much more likely to negotiate rather than throw down ultimations? Think, lovely Ambassadrices”

  16. Mng all aside those liaising with earlier. It seems someone found the keys and let the customers out of the Islington Wine Cellar:

    SIR – Now that Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer, has said that it is “incredibly safe” for people who have been fully vaccinated to meet up (report, April 29), the Government should allow us to embrace those we’ve missed for so long.

    This will not lead to a pile of dead bodies, so let’s get on with it – now.

    Dr Richard Soper
    Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

    SIR – Our well-being has been severely affected by the Covid crisis.

    The danger now is if we continue to delay our return to normal life, the danger is that the economy will be destroyed in the process. Many livelihoods have already been ruined.

    It is time for us to live with the virus, and for those who deem it necessary to protect themselves to do so.

    Tom Berglund
    London W8

    SIR – In the Downing Street briefing on Wednesday, Professor Van-Tam referred to the Covid peak in January as the “third wave”. Later in the briefing we were told we must avoid a third wave later this year.

    I’m confused – as, it appears, is the Government.

    Barrie Bain
    Wadhurst, East Sussex

    SIR – It is quite likely that, once all those who rush off abroad this summer return from their holidays, we shall experience yet another peak of Covid cases, which will then run into the winter. This will be exacerbated by the fact that many young people will be travelling unvaccinated.

    We all need to continue to exercise much caution when mixing with others, and get used to the fact that, rather than returning to pre-Covid life, we are going to see a new normal in which we have to live with the virus.

    Bob Kingsland
    Stroud, Gloucestershire

    SIR – As an older person who has abided by all the rules for the past year and is fully vaccinated, am I now going to be prevented from going abroad because I do not have a smartphone, and therefore cannot use the NHS app?

    Dr Robert M Richards
    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    SIR – Zoe Strimpel (Comment, April 25), discussing the travel restrictions in Australia and New Zealand, describes the citizens of these countries as being imprisoned and living a miserable existence.

    As a New Zealander living in Auckland, I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. I can drink in a crowded pub with my friends without fear; I can shop at a crowded shopping mall without wearing a mask; and I could have watched the recent international cricket in a packed stadium.

    Life here feels as normal as it did before Covid. The economy for the most part is booming.

    Gerald Rodden
    Auckland, New Zealand

    Referendum rules

    SIR – To lose Scotland from the Union would be to lose a talented people.

    Together, the Scots, the English, the Welsh and the Irish have, over the past 300 years, created the four great democracies: Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. No other colonial power was so successful. We can continue this success as a Union and, in this fast-changing and insecure world, we need as many friends as we can get.

    But if the SNP (which is not the same as the Scots) succeeds in having another vote for independence, why should it dictate the rules? Last time, it unilaterally lowered the voting age to 16 in the hope that this group would support independence. If there is another referendum, why cannot the UK as a whole decide the rules of the game? The loss of Scotland would affect the entire UK population, and therefore all citizens should be able to make their feelings known.

    The very least the Prime Minister can do is propose this and see why the SNP opposes it, as it surely will.

    Professor M M R Williams
    Eastbourne, East Sussex

    SIR – In the run-up to the Scottish parliamentary elections, it has often been assumed that an independent Scotland would automatically become a member of the European Union.

    Would Spain accept this?

    Michael Bird
    Lancaster

    Stalwart scents

    SIR – Ah, Soir de Paris (Letters, April 29), I remember it well, along with that other stalwart of the Woolworths cosmetic counter, Californian Poppy.

    Pamela J Preece
    Shepton Mallet, Somerset

    SIR – The undefined electric-wood-leather smell in train carriages to Littlehampton in my childhood in the early 1950s, coupled with the aroma of buttered toast delivered by the white-coated attendant when we went through to the Pullman car, remain with me still. Sunny days.

    Paul Loxton Edwards
    Canterbury, Kent

    SIR – In Reading in the 1950s, the department store Heelas, which was a branch of John Lewis, contained a florist. As you entered, the scent of roses, freesias, carnations and many other flowers was incredible.

    Today you’re lucky to catch the slightest whiff of a rose in a florist.

    Cynthia Lyons
    London NW4

    SIR – The undefined electric-wood-leather smell in train carriages to Littlehampton in my childhood in the early 1950s, coupled with the aroma of buttered toast delivered by the white-coated attendant when we went through to the Pullman car, remain with me still. Sunny days.

    Paul Loxton
    Canterbury, Kent

    Cheap Labour

    SIR – I welcomed Sir Keir Starmer’s appointment as Labour leader following the dark Corbyn years, even though I am a Conservative supporter. Any government needs viable opposition.

    However, I fear Labour has fallen into the opposition trap of criticising government for the sake of it, and the row over the refurbishment of the Prime Minister’s flat (Letters, April 29) is a classic example.

    Labour is floundering for political capital by making cheap, shallow and pointless accusations of sleaze.

    James Hare
    Helmsley, North Yorkshire

    SIR – Crimes against good taste in decor? Maybe. Lack of judgment in high office? Almost certainly. But, as they say, Boris is Boris.

    Even so, I wish he wouldn’t give those who are out to get him, chiefly the BBC, so much ammunition.

    David Empringham
    Warwick

    Cladding crisis

    SIR – I bought my first flat shortly before the Grenfell Tower fire and am now trapped in it, unable to move on in life because the cladding crisis means it cannot be mortgaged.

    I face bills that could range from £10,000 to £100,000, the possibility of financial ruin and losing my career – all due to something for which I have no responsibility or culpability.

    On Wednesday Parliament voted for the fifth time not to provide leaseholders with protection from massive state and industry failures. The Government’s post-Grenfell response makes a mockery of the Tory claim to be the party of home ownership, and risks bankrupting a generation of first-time buyers.

    I have been a Conservative supporter and member since I left school, and have always voted for the party. However, as a result of this crisis, I will be unable to vote for it in the forthcoming local elections.

    Carter Stephen
    Portsmouth, Hampshire

    Forgotten abroad

    SIR – There is a Basra Memorial to the dead of the First World War. The dead, some with known names, of other “forgotten” armies are not so fortunate.

    How many readers have heard of the Persia and Iraq Command, known as Paiforce? My father served in Paiforce – mainly with Indian solders – and died in a typhus epidemic. He was initially buried in a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Ahwaz. In the 1950s, he and other soldiers were disinterred and reburied in the military cemetery in Basra.

    Saddam Hussein’s regime later flattened the cemetery. To our family’s knowledge, the remains of Paiforce soldiers of various ethnicities and beliefs remain scattered and forgotten in a hostile land.

    The Basra Memorial commemorates the First World War. There are other “forgotten” armies, some named, many not so fortunate. Surely a memorial at the National Arboretum would be fitting, especially as so many other ex-servicemen and women are now being properly remembered.

    Judy Bullard
    Buckfastleigh, Devon

    Road alert

    SIR – Many moons ago, as a schoolboy, I had a hand-operated klaxon horn (Letters, April 28) attached to my bicycle – to warn motorists.

    Tertius Jardine
    London W4

    The box of things never to be thrown away

    SIR – While clearing my mother’s house (Letters, April 29), we found a tobacco tin neatly labelled: “Keys that don’t fit anything.” It was full.

    R W Clack
    Bredgar, Kent

    SIR – After my mother-in-law died we came across a bag of old keys in a cupboard, only one of which had a label. On it was written: “KEY.”

    Mike Bucher
    Haddington, East Lothian

    SIR – Susan Fleck’s husband is right to keep everything (Letters, April 28), as you may need a strange object for an unexpected repair. I have a large box labelled: “Look here first.”

    Kate Brandwood
    Embleton, Northumberland

    SIR – Many years ago, while helping to clear out an elderly lady’s flat, I found a large bag labelled: “Holey cardigans.” It was full of cardigans with holes in them.

    Janet Milliken
    Capel-le-Ferne, Kent

    SIR – My father kept a “bag of nothing” in the garage.

    Ruth Wells
    Chislehurst, Kent

    Smart motorways can make breakdown safer

    SIR – Jane Thompson (Letters, April 27) uses her experience of a faulty hybrid car to imply that smart motorways are inherently more dangerous in an outside-lane breakdown situation.

    Smart motorways are designed to ease congestion. With four lanes available, speeds can be limited to 50 mph or less. Breaking down in the outside lane would therefore be less dangerous than if the vehicles around you were travelling at the usual speeds of 70 mph, 80 mph or more.

    Andrew Adamson
    Chichester, West Sussex

    SIR – We are told to “go left” if we break down on a smart motorway. Fine, if you are in lane one, but what if you are in lanes two, three or four, and surrounded by fast-moving vehicles?

    If you do manage to exit your car via the nearside door – possibly by climbing over a central console – where are you supposed to go?

    Further, I understand that electric cars are programmed to perform an emergency stop in the event of a malfunction.

    Bruce Chanter
    Potters Bar, Hertfordshire

    SIR – As an above-knee amputee who needs help to get out of a car, I feel very discriminated against on smart motorways. I would not expect my passenger (if I had one) to bring my wheelchair round into the live lane and I can’t climb over any barriers.

    Smart motorways have been brought in with no consideration for me or my fellow disabled drivers.

    Steve Cattell
    Hougham, Lincolnshire

    1. In the first pub i worked in at the grand old age of 16 there was a board with all the keys on.

      All were labelled. One was labelled chewing gum. We didn’t have a chewing gum vending machine.

      Not too difficult to guess what it was for.

      1. mng, indeed. Note the final “letter” from Steve Cattell. Taking the “knee adage” to an extreme, emotive woke level or his former profession was stealing cars / wheelchairs and has now figured out he can no longer go hopping over barriers on motorways

        1. Good morning.

          A bit early for me. I don’t quite follow your point.

          *out of coffee error.

          1. he was trying to send mixed messages covering very “angle”. Or basically does he seriously expect to climb a barrier in the middle of a motorway with one leg? And why would he do it? Funnily enough re coffee, I’d just topped mine up as you were posting

    2. “Together, the Scots, the English, the Welsh and the Irish have, over the past 300 years, created the four great democracies: Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.”
      Not to forget India.

  17. Joe Biden won’t get away with his great leap backwards

    The President’s mission to turn the US into a Scandinavia-style woke social democracy is built on economic nitroglycerine

    DOMINIC GREEN
    29 April 2021 • 7:00pm

    Joe Biden’s hundred days in the White House haven’t been as disturbing as the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom, but there have been plenty of alarming images along the way, and not just the clips in which Biden glazes over and lapses into gibberish.

    The Trump presidency was a kamikaze assault on the tired formalities of Washington, DC. The Biden presidency is shaping up to be something even more frightening. It describes itself as a counter-revolution in the name of normality, but its acts reflect a collective flight into unreason.

    It’s not just that the only thing worse than pretending racism isn’t a problem in America is to insist that racism is the only problem in America. And it’s not just that Biden came into office talking about “unity” and “healing”, but is ruling by racial division and partisan antipathy, and letting the intellectual pestilence of wokery and Critical Race Theory into preschools.

    The United States now has the largest government debt in the history of the world. The Biden administration’s response is to print and spend even faster. The goal, as Barack Obama called it in 2008, is “fundamentally transforming the United States of America”.

    The Republicans cry “socialism”, but Biden isn’t a socialist. His great leap forward looks backwards. He wants to complete the work of FDR and LBJ, and finally equip the shining city on the hill with an omnipotent central bureaucracy and comprehensive welfare system. Call it the United States of Scandinavia, a low-growth, high-security social democracy.

    In March, the Democrats passed the American Recovery Act, a $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill. Something had to be done, even if the stuffing of the bill with more pork than a sausage factory was as unseemly as it was inevitable. But the relief bill was more than a new New Deal. Its welfare provisions pick up where Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty left off.

    Next came the American Jobs Plan, price tag $2.3 trillion. Again, Biden looked back to LBJ’s future. The Jobs Plan, the White House says, will “invest in America in a way we have not invested since we built the interstate highways and won the Space Race”. Perhaps Biden will celebrate by inviting Harry Belafonte and Dean Martin to perform at the White House.

    On Wednesday night, Biden announced the next stage in his spending spree. The American Families Plan is a $1.8 trillion bundle that includes European-style policies such as child tax credits, paid family holidays and free community colleges. It also surrenders to Obama’s partners in big-state corporatism, the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries.

    Biden won’t allow the government to negotiate prescription drug prices, which are disgracefully high. And he won’t alter eligibility for Medicare or expand Medicare benefits, both of which would move the US closer to an NHS-style “single-payer” system. So Obamacare will stagger on, healthcare will continue to be the monopoly of private corporations, and Big Pharma and the private insurers will continue to define healthcare policy.

    To pay for this, Biden will give the IRS more money and more power. This is also why his administration is pushing for a global corporate tax. And that is where the Democrats’ delusions of social democracy on endless credit run smack into the reality of an altered world.

    The Democrats’ unspoken assumption is that they can print and spend without limit because the US dollar will remain the world’s reserve currency forever. After all, the deficit-loving administrations of George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump got away with it. But Biden is doubling down on a gamble on America’s fate in an increasingly unstable and hostile world.

    In its first hundred days, the Biden administration has caused the rapid deterioration of every significant foreign relationship. The Alaska summit that was meant to reduce tensions with China turned into a public slanging match – which Secretary of State Anthony Blinken lost.

    Next, Biden needlessly insulted Vladimir Putin and rattled sabres over Ukraine. Putin has withdrawn his ambassador to Washington and his aides speak of closer security cooperation with China. Tensions with Turkey have risen, not least due to America’s belated decision to recognise the Armenian genocide as a historical fact. While Erdogan’s fit of pique was perhaps inevitable – and a price worth paying – it nevertheless bodes ill for Biden’s promise to stabilise NATO. And then there is the attempt to revive the Iran Deal. Biden’s revival of the cringing posture of Jimmy Carter has encouraged the mullahs to spin those centrifuges that much faster.

    On the bright side, Biden has told off the rest of the world about their carbon emissions. Most of the US media is thrilled about this. But the world sees a nation that has lost the plot, and a President who has no idea what he’s talking about. Biden’s first hundred days confirm that Obama was right. America really is being fundamentally transformed – just not in the way that most Americans have in mind. As for what goes on in Biden’s mind as he presides over this slo-mo unravelling, who knows?

    Dominic Green is deputy editor of The Spectator’s US edition

  18. In 20 years time
    Grandson – “what did you do in the great pandemic, granddad Boris”
    Boris ” Well Grandson, I did lots of stuff and was well decorated for it”.

  19. Good morning, all. It has rained – quite a lot – during the night. Strange to see puddles.
    There is no breeze (aka gale) either.

    2. We have just had a light fall of snow. The kind that is composed of big wet flakes, that soaks like a heavy drizzle. Not quite cold enough for the snow to lie.

  21. Vladimir Putin ‘behind’ UFOs seen in Pentagon footage claims US Senator. 29 April 2021.

    Video revealed by the Pentagon shows US warships being surrounded by unidentified flashing objects, thought to be drones. But Harry Reid, Democrat Senator from Nevada from 1987 to 2017, claimed Russia “is involved” in the objects shown the footage.

    When asked who could be behind them, he added: “Always remember Russia, the Soviet Union, is run by a man who ran the KGB.

    “They had as many as 31,000 agents at one time.

    “So Russia is involved in this, no question about it.”

    Though I have little time for the inhabitants of Westminster I have always considered them in general superior to those of Congress. A view happily confirmed here!

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1430017/Vladimir-Putin-news-ufo-usa-footage-leaks-pentagon-Harry-Reid-navy-aliens-ont

      1. Those behind provocations that threaten the core interests of our security will regret what they have done in a way they have not regretted anything for a long time.

        At the same time, I just have to make it clear, we have enough patience, responsibility, professionalism, self-confidence and certainty in our cause, as well as common sense, when making a decision of any kind. But I hope that no one will think about crossing the “red line” with regard to Russia. We ourselves will determine in each specific case where it will be drawn.

        Morning AW. Extract from Putin’s speech last week. The first time he has ever made a threat in public! He’s not fooling!

        http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/65418

        1. his “red line” speech was done in the knowledge he’s on solid ground and there’s nothing US, NATO et al can do about it. He called their bluff and exposed them all and sent a clear message who’s “calling the shots”

          1. Thank the Lord he is not an idiot (Biden) or a megalomaniac (Soros/Gates) or insane (E.U).

          2. talking of Demented Joe. Joint Address / State Of The Union Ratings:2017: 48 million (Trump) – 2018: 46 million (Trump) – 2019: 46.8 million (Trump) – 2020: 37.2 million (Trump) – 2021: 11.6 million (Biden) 81 million people sllegedly voted for him. What happened to all those dead voters?

          5. talking of Demented Joe. Joint Address / State Of The Union Ratings:2017: 48 million (Trump) – 2018: 46 million (Trump) – 2019: 46.8 million (Trump) – 2020: 37.2 million (Trump) – 2021: 11.6 million (Biden) 81 million people sllegedly voted for him. What happened to all those dead voters?

    2. The earth shattering news for me was that Putin ran the KGB,
      A lot of history books need re-writing!!

      2. He was the power behind the throne. Or possibly the power behind the power behind the throne. Obviously. Or rather, secretly. He must have been pretty good at it.

        1. I have it on good authority that he also led the tank squadrons at the battle of Kursk.

        2. I’d have to check the timeline but i’m pretty sure that Putin was a civvie working for the local council in St Petersburg when the KGB was disbanded.

          3. A Russian friend of mine doing maths research at the university in 2005 exclaimed “Pah! Putin! He is KGB!” and with it the unspoken words, but loud and strong in her vehemency ‘I spit on him!’

    3. What the Demoncrat Senator is suggesting then is that Russian technology is far in advance of anything the Americans can do?

  22. I posted a copy of this very funny video here,what happened to the cop??

    Suspended without pay……..

    The leftards have no sense of humour…………

    Happily normal people have dug deep to support him

    “Sadly, while LeBron was praised by his peers for his threat against

    the Cop, Silvester was SUSPENDED for simply making fun of him. (Liberal

    privilege, I guess)

    Anyways, after Silvester was suspended, his friend Gannon Ward launched a GoFundMe

    to support the officer. To the dismay of the entire left, the fund

    raised over $70k in 24 hours. Once it hit that milestone, they decided

    to donate additional proceedings to the families of fallen officers and

    the fund then surged to over $120k!”

    https://trendingpolitics.com/cop-gets-suspended-for-mocking-lebron-james-on-tiktok-then-his-gofundme-explodes-past-120k/?utm_source=ilmf&utm_medium=klaviyo

    1. Le Bron James gets (earns) $100 million a year. He is apparently “worth” $500 million. He is a very good basketball player but is typical of he arrogant, racist and downright unpleasant black “sportsman”

      1. You are very well informed.

        Why do these coons have such weird Christian names? Was Mr Le Bron the slave owner who sold him into penurie?

          1. mng Sue. I’d heard of the name and that’s it. So aside basketball, being arrogant, racist and downright unpleasant, is he any good at anything useful?

          2. Nope! Typical product of unmarried 16 year old mother, father absent due to multiple law-breaking activities, gets a break playing basketball and happens to be very good at it (not as good as Michael Jordan or Magic Johnston) makes a huge amount of money and sues white policemen! His latest tweet says he’s sick of seeing blacks killed by whitey! Brainless and gormless!

    2. Since this is now commonplace, he should have expected shitstorm by accepting anything from anybody.

  25. French generals who warn of ‘civil war’ face ‘forced retirement’ says head of country’s armed forces. 30 april 2021

    The head of France’s armed forces has pledged to punish 20 French generals and 18 French active soldiers, including officers, who signed an open letter warning of the risks of impending “civil war” at the hands of “fanatics” and Islamists, saying they have breached their “duty of reserve”.

    Regarding the generals, ”each one (will go) before a senior military council, ” General Francois Lecointre told Le Parisian newspaper, and could be “delisted” or “put into immediate retirement”.

    Yes let’s shoot those messengers; they are telling us things that we don’t want to hear!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/29/french-generals-warn-civil-war-face-forced-retirement-says-head/

      1. They are getting their surrender in first this time so there’s no fighting!

  26. Call me mean-minded (and many do), but I find the carefully choreographed “informal” photographs of the Woke Wales family as offensive as the carefully staged ones of Brash and Trash.

    It is the War of the Lenses, folks.

  27. 332146+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    Friday 30 April: Let those who have been vaccinated resume normal human greetings
    This does sound like to me we, the peoples, are asking
    when at this stage of the game after all the political deceit & manipulation that has been / is being witnessed
    we should be “telling” the overseers the way it is going to be.

    Action speak louder than words regarding many issues one that springs to mind is fast approaching & that is the 6th May.
    You cannot have both,as in a lab/lib/con/green vote &
    retain self respect / decency / patriotism.

  28. The Difference Is Reality

    A group of psychiatrists toured an insane asylum that was renowned for their progressive rehabilitation methods.

    The doctors began by meeting with some of the patients. The first patient they visited was a young woman. She was practising ballet. One of the psychiatrists asked, “What are you doing?”

    She replied, “I’m studying ballet so when I get out of here, I can possibly join a dance troupe and be a productive member of society.”

    The doctor, quite impressed, said, “Wow, that’s wonderful.”

    The next patient was a man reading a book with a stack of books next to him. The same question was asked of him, “What are you doing?”

    “I’m studying biology, science and chemistry so I can enter medical school when I get out,” the patient replied.

    Room after room they witnessed the incredible success and attitudes of the patients. That is until they finally reached a room the asylum’s director was reluctant to open.

    Finally, the director was persuaded to open it. Inside was a naked man balancing a peanut on his very erect and stiff penis. The reaction of the psychiatrists was one of utter shock, as one of them stammered, “My God, what are you doing?”

    The patient looked up at the psychiatrist, with a wide grin, and said, “Hi, I’m David Lammy) I’m fucking nuts and I’m never getting out of here!”

    We wish!

  29. 332146+ up ticks,

    breitbart,
    Authorities Intercept 375 Illegal Aliens Crossing English Channel in One Day, Highest Daily Attempts This Year

    Has the governance party requisitioned a ferry ?

      1. 332146+ up ticks,
        Morning HP,
        May one ask,
        Do the governance party return the inflatables to the
        ” smugglers” with return loads in mind ?

          1. 332146+ up ticks,
            HP,
            For a return load calais to Dover moreso , boats mean votes
            even a small % of the lab/lib/con coalition surely are getting weary of pulling the trigger on both feet in the polling booth,
            so party numbers need topping up.

      1. 332146+ up ticks,
        Morning Bob,
        Will this treacherous issue cause a ripple in the voting waters on the 6th May one wonders.

  30. I may be missing something. No one has suggested to me, as far as I can recall, that I should be vaccinated against the bubonic plague. The Black Death caused very high rates of mortality, up to one third of the population in most of the world died. Outbreaks recurred sporadically, including the Great Plague of London in 1665, and a small outbreak in Australia around 1900. Four years ago in Madagascar over a thousand people were infected and nearly 200 died.
    Here the death rate from Covid-19 is less spectacular, around 1-2% of those infected. A figure that is statistically not very significant. While it was sensible to err on the side of caution when so little was known, that was a year ago. We no longer need to do that as we can accept our fate. Why destroy society for a generation when the reality is that comparatively few people are at serious risk?

    1. Good Moaning, HP.
      The act of simply being alive has been medicalised.
      Yet again it has been suggested that all adults – regardless of their blood pressure readings – should take some form of pill “just in case”.
      Doctors feel important, the NHS can whinge about being ‘flooded/overwhelmed’ and the pharma companies can clock up the profits.
      (Sorry about correcting a whizzo typo)

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/29/adults-could-cutheart-attack-risk-daily-blood-pressure-pill/

      1. Moaning? I have not yet begun to moan, but when I do…
        What I would like to see published are the figures for salaries and wages ( standard and overtime) for each NHS Trust for the periods, of March 2019, 2020 and 2021.
        I suspect that the NHS staff have been “stressed” because they have been asked to work continuously during their working hours.
        ( I worked in a factory. The workers worked non-stop for eight hours with three breaks, morning tea, lunch, and afternoon tea. It was unremitting and hard going. It was normal.)

        1. Dealing with sickness and death is more stressful than shifts in a factory.

          I too worked in a factory and the worst part was boredom.

          1. You are right, of course. Yet nursing and doctoring are vocations. That view may be simplistic and out of date to an extent. My point is not really the staff, but the propaganda. What I am suggesting is an objective assessment that can be compared to the propaganda.
            (What the BBC would call a “reality check”.)

        1. I knew 2 aunts & 1 uncle as blood relatives – there were probably another 6 or 7 but they died in the early 1900s before they were 5. I had another aunt who died aged 35 – she died before I was born.

          They young died of diphtheria, TB, tetanus, measles ………….- my 35 year old aunt died of TB. deaths.

          My generation of the family, born in the 40s & 50s have all exceeded their 70th birthdays

          1. My grandfather and all but one of his siblings died of TB. That sibling lived to his 90s, as did his mother, the only survivor of her parents’ family of 13.

            However, my cousins, who were my contemporaries have all died – aged 57, 60 and 61.

  31. Good morning all.
    Bright & sunny this morning with a mere ½°C on the thermometer, but it ought to warm up as the day goes on.

    A nasty incident in Israel I see.

    Israel stampede: Dozens killed in crush at religious festival in Mount Meron – latest updates
    More than 40 people, including children, feared dead and 50 injured at massive Lag B’Omer gathering

    At least 44 people have been killed and a hundred injured after a stampede broke out at a religious bonfire festival in Israel attended by tens of thousands of people on Friday.

    The stampede, one of the deadliest civilian disasters in Israeli history, occurred during the annual celebrations of Lag B’Omer at Mount Meron.

    Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said he was praying for the victims following the “great tragedy”.

    It was not immediately clear what caused the stampede, but some eyewitnesses said a group of attendees slipped on steps, which in turn caused more people to fall.

    The crowds, mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews, were gathering to honour Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a second century sage and mystic who is buried at the Galilee tomb.

    Media estimated the crowd at about 100,000 people.

    Large crowds traditionally light bonfires, pray and dance as part of the celebrations.

    Eli Beer, director of the Hatzalah rescue service, said he was horrified by how crowded the event was, saying the site was equipped to handle perhaps a quarter of the number who were there.

    “Close to 40 people died as a result of this tragedy,” he said.

    What happened – how celebration turned to tragedy
    The incident happened after midnight. Videos circulating on social media showed large numbers of ultra-Orthodox Jews packed together in tight spaces.

    Lag B’Omer commemorations include all-night prayer, mystical songs and dance.

    The ecstatic crowds packed the Mount Meron slope in defiance of Covid warnings by health officials.

    Witnesses said people were asphyxiated or trampled in a passageway, some going unnoticed until the PA system sounded an appeal to disperse.

    Police sources told Haaretz that a stampede started after some people appeared to slip on steps, causing dozens more to fall.

    Videos posted on social media show thousands of people struggling to flee the chaos.

    Witnesses describe the horror
    A 24-year-old witness, identified only by his first name, Dvir, told the Army Radio station that “masses of people were pushed into the same corner and a vortex was created”.

    He said a first row of people fell, and then a second row, where he was standing, also began to fall from the pressure of the stampede.

    “I felt like I was about to die,” he said.

    Zaki Heller, spokesman for the Magen David Adom rescue service, said 150 people had been hospitalised, several dozen in a serious or critical condition.

    Army Radio, citing anonymous medical officials, said the death toll had risen to 44.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/30/israel-stampede-dozens-killed-crush-religious-festival-mount/

    1. Most unfortunate for the injured, the dead and their families.

      This always seems to happen at very large religious gatherings.

      2. I’ve never really understood the supplication of religion it must be the inventiveness of it all. There’s never been anything proven one way or another, but still millions are addicted to mythology and hourly homage.

        1. Looking for a Big Parent, to make it all better and tell them what to do, so it’s an easy life and not their fault.
          Should grow up a bit.

          1. And suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune.
            Was it Leon Trotsky who said god was invented for man by man.

    1. My most lasting memory of Hebden Bridge is that every kitchen window was seemingly at the front of the house and sported a bottle of Ecover washing up liquid.
      Morning, Maggie.

      2. ‘Morning, Anne.

        Apropos, Mags’ comment re Hebden Bridge, could ‘Ecover’ have been a signal of like-minded sexuality?

        1. I thought the sign used to be a box of Tide soap powder placed in the window. If it was placed upside down , then it meant the coast was clear . .?

          2. ‘Morning Bob . .

            Correct . !. . I racked what brain I have, trying to remember the washing powder brand. .
            For the life in me, I couldn’t think what the acronym “TIDE” might have stood for . . .
            It was more of a cry into the night, expecting at least one of our contributors would know the correct brand . .

    3. I am ashamed to say that I have never been to either Hebdon Bridge or Cornholme and I very much doubt if I shall ever do so.

      Reminds me of the bourgeois obsession with respectability of “What will the neighbours say?” in Llarerggub in Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood.

      Now that Peddy has retired from the scene I hope the poster of the above notice in Cornholme would forgive a little bit of pedantry from me.

      Those who have difficulty adding an s to a word ending in a y should heed the following: If the word ends in a consonant followed by a y (e.g. pony) you have to drop the y and change it to ie before adding an s – ponys – should become ponies; however if the word ends with a vowel followed by a y (e.g. donkey) you just add an s without having to drop anything. As I said to my classes if you are Irish donkeys you will drink Irish whiskeys but if you are Scottish ponies you will drink Scotch whiskies.

      2. Good morning Richard .

        I have just googled Hebden Bridge .. look what I found!

        Gay-friendly
        Known as the lesbian capital of the UK, Hebden Bridge is said to have more lesbians per square foot than anywhere else in the country. One of the most inclusive towns in the whole country, this is a welcoming place where people are encouraged to be themselves.

        https://theculturetrip.com/europe/united-kingdom/england/articles/12-reasons-hebden-bridge-is-known-as-the-greatest-town-in-europe/

          3. We had to larrff the other night on BBC Look East ‘news’ the presenter had such a strange outfit on and such high heels her feet must have been at a 60degree angle. We thought she might have been trying to win a bet.

      3. That grammatical rule is one we learnt in the infants’ class at my very small village primary school in the 1950s.

        1. In retrospect, J, it’s amazing that I do remember that which I was taught at school.

          The caveat is though, that long-term memory is the last to go.

          Have I posted this before now?

  33. Are private schools really worth the money any more?
    Sexual-abuse allegations, a fall in the number of Oxbridge admissions and ever-increasing fees – is it time to reassess independent schools?
    Harry de Quetteville: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/0/private-schools-really-worth-money/

    You would have thought that the Conservative Party and The Daily Telegraph, a so-called conservative newspaper, would actively support private enterprise. What better example of private enterprise is there than independent schools? Remember that those who pay for their own children’s education save the state state the cost of doing so which is why Cameron – who pretended to be a Conservative – was a complete hypocrite in sending his own children to state schools in the hope of gaining political brownie points for himself.

    I don’t think the pseudonym used by the poster of this BTL comment will deceive many Nottlers!

    We have two sons. We live in France but they wanted to go to boarding school in England for their Sixth Form studies. One went to a traditional independent ‘public school’ in Norfolk; the other chose to go to a state boarding school in Leicestershire.

    They both got comparable “A” level or IB results, both went on to get good university degrees and both, still in their 20’s are in good jobs and have already bought properties with their respective girlfriend/fiancée.

    The incredible difference between the two school systems was the dedication of the staff to extra-curricular activities.

    The one in the independent school was able to engage in the following: school plays, the school choir (he went on a choir trip to France and acted as translator as he is bilingual), the debating club, the Sixth Form Cultural Club, the Model United Nations (he twice led the school team to the Peace Palace in the Hague for debates), sailing, shooting, rugby team, swimming team, he wrote articles and poems for the school magazine and was the sacristan in the school chapel.

    His brother who went to the state school was offered none of these opportunities.

    1. I am surprised that the one that went to the independent school had any time at all for studying.

      1. He got a 2.1 in aerospace engineering and is now termed by his company as a senior design engineer who makes considerably more money than we do! He still keeps up with his extra-curricular activities and sings bass in a regional choir and is passionate about hang-gliding. motor bikes and cars.
        His brother also got a 2.1 and works in computers and is about to finish his external M.Sc in Computer Technology.

          1. They seem a very successful family do they not Phizzee? Unlike my own that closely resembles a dysfunctional cross between the Borgias and the Beans!

    2. We had quite a few of those activities at my grammar school in the 1960s – have state schools stopped doing extra – curricular activities?

      My sons at their state grammar school in the 1980s were never very sports minded but those activities were available to them.

      1. At my Comprehensive we were allowed an hour after school if we could get 10 others and a teacher involved. I set up a fossil club and arranged a trip to Sandown.

          1. He was a great guy. And my tutor.

            Most of the rest of them dressed like witches in long flowing black and kaftans.

          1. There was a better school in my catchment area but my parents couldn’t afford the uniform.

            ***gives Bill a Churchill salute…

      2. It would not surprise me if extra curricular activities had ceased; they were becoming increasingly difficult to organise before I retired and that was over twenty years ago.

        1. Probably too many child protection hoops to jump through.
          I used to enjoy going on trips with my younger son’s class at primary school – I was at home mostly as I worked evenings and weekends, and they were glad to have a few responsible parents to go along.

    3. Public as in private schools are run in more of a business like manner. They have to be successful to survive.
      State schools run with the wind in mind, any which way it blows.

  34. Internet quote of the day….

    “I’ll take “I’m a vampire” any day over “I’m a polyamorous adult baby
    transwoman otherkin and my pronouns are Yellow and Kumquat.”. Best quote
    ever.”
    No,me neither………….

    1. 332146+ up ticks,
      Morning TB,
      The tories ( ino) will not let them get away with that, I mean the in your face Dover illegal entry campaign leaves lab standing in the treachery department alone & way behind.

    3. The state protects it’s own. Always has.

      Imagine a world where, if anyone were to investigate and find corruption the officer could be removed, immediately. Of, there might be a few who thought they’d get away with it, but the majority, after seeing those swing would mind their manners. It’s a lack of democracy. A knowledge there is nothing we can do about their incompetence, arrogance, stupidity, greed and corruption.

      1. Do you remember When Trump threatened jail for any civil servant taking bribes?

        Our Canadian friends tell us that the Canada Immigration website crashed that evening.

      2. Do you remember When Trump threatened jail for any civil servant taking bribes?

        Our Canadian friends tell us that the Canada Immigration website crashed that evening.

    4. That probably explains why Surkeer is making such a fuss about some wallpaper.
      Who was that labour MP who spent thousands on decorations a few years ago his name escapes me……and MP for post it notes… “There is no money left in the kitty”. We have used it all on our personal expenses. Mortgage swaps three kitchens etc etc. They have no shame.

        1. I saw a photograph of AH Blair earlier this week, he’s allowed his hair to grow he looked a bit like Hess eltine, i’m so glad i had mine cut yesterday it was beginning to be a tad embarrassing with the distinct possibility of looking like a wealthy nasty (spl) old git.

    1. Much depends on how you phrase coward. I think they’re incredibly brave to continually lie, cheat and steal from the tax payer, to be so blatantly corrupt, incompetent and callous. That takes guts – or a lack of shame.

        2. 332146+ up ticks,
          RE,
          They see NO variation in the voting pattern so take it everyone is politically
          happy / content, I mean it would only be fools that continued to support a party that had an anti membership / indigenous peoples agenda, would it not ?

    2. Morning all, I can’t even be bothered to walk the 6 minutes to cast a vote none of them deserve my support.
      But as an ex Londoner i would certainly go out and vote against that POS Kahn.

      1. 332146+ up ticks,
        Morning RE,
        Then they take it by proxy, as to them you are satisfied with the status quo shown by NOT voting.

      2. I’ve always used my vote – women fought long and hard to get it for us.

        But this year we’ve received no information from any candidates – I didn’t apply for a postal vote so is it worth a five mile round trip to vote for an unknown quantity?

        1. I appreciate that Ellie but it’;s my way of coking a snoop at them. In fact our local councillor lives next door but one from us. I’ve known her for many years and with everything i could muster I still just can’t be bothered.
          More so since i saw a photograph of her in the Conservative jargon printout posing with a bicycle. She doesn’t even own one let alone ride.
          I expect certain communities around the UK will be fusing the postal voting system to their full advantage. Again.

        2. Apart from a flyer (well, letter, really) urging me to vote for two candidates for the Parish Council, no-one has made any effort to get my vote. We have three elections here. Surrey County Council, Surrey PCC, and Normandy Parish Council (which resigned in its entirety a few months ago).

          Since the polling station is a four mile round trip on foot, I obtained a postal vote, which I sent off yesterday. Four candidates for the County, so Lib, Lab and Con were rejected, and the “Residents for Guildford and Villages” candidate got my vote. The PCC was easy. Of five candidates, three are LLC, and can be discounted. The remaining two are independent. One is the incumbent, the other his predecessor, Kevin Hurley, who spoke impressively at a UKIP conference a few years ago. Tick.

          Finally, I had to choose up to eight of nine Parish candidates. I’m new here; I don’t know them from Adam. In the end, I rejected the one who declined to put her address on the nomination form.

          It’s a shame there was no Reform/Reclaim representation. Perhaps I should have stood for one of them. I still smile when I think of UKIP winning my old ward in 2014. Admittedly, it was because the Tory candidate’s agent had missed the deadline for nominations, but George Johnson took 51% of the vote (prophetic, perhaps), and was a damn good County Councillor.

    3. I was appalled by the headline that the “Tories increase lead”…..

      We really are stuffed.

        1. I have lost count of the times I have said this country is totally effed up now. Finished. Everything the political classes come into contact with they wreck.

          1. Happy Friday Eddy. Politics attracts the worst in society as its the best way to legally rob the poor blind & have them thank you for it by re-electing you again.

          2. It’s taken me some time to reach this stage but there is nobody on the planet i would vote for. Just for fun I might just go along with a black felt tip and spoil the paper.

      2. You should have read the entire article – I bet it went on to say “Tories increase lead in petrol…..”

      1. Cheer up Bert it could be worse……….Bert ….Bert….BERT ……BERT….are you still alive ??

        1. Ada: “With so much time at home we could redecorate and refurnish our home Bert”
          Bert: “But Ada, we don’t vote Conservative!”

    2. Bert……… “Since Covid struck I think I’ve lost my taste Ada?”.
      Ada……….”You’re lucky then Bert, I think I lost my teeth”.

    3. Ada: “With so much time at home we could redecorate and refurnish our home Bert”
      Bert: “But Ada, we still don’t vote Conservative!”

  38. 332146+ up ticks,
    breitbart,

    CHANNEL MIGRANT CROSSINGS AT NEW DAILY HIGH
    Will this alter the LLCG coalition voting pattern in any way, right up until the time the local imam says enough is enough.

  39. Lovely weather out there now!

    Sleeting quite hard at the moment………..
    May Day tomorrow………

    1. If so, that should be followed immediately by the removal of diplomatic status of all the individual members of the EU.

    4. 332146+ up ticks,
      Morning DM,
      As I posted yesterday the thin edge of the reset / reentry wedge the “deal” is being activated, many of us tried to warn the herd, but, the herd consuming copious amounts of lab/lib/con coalition
      loco weed, won the day via the polling booth trough.

      1. As a columnist stated in last week’s Sunday Times, there is a determination amongst sections of the Civil Service to get us back into the EU.

        His comments, in a long article, appeared extremely sensible and believable.

        1. Getting us back into the EU would instantly “cure” our illegal migrant problem – as the EU would say we had NO borders, therefore anyone who got into Europe could walk into the UK unhindered . . . Millions would come, hands out. We would be TOTALLY destroyed within a few years. . . . Exactly Merkel’s plan as we headed for the referendum.

          2. And rebuild the Soviet in the West. Too bad the Soviet in the East is now heading into democracy, capitalism and maybe even Christianity.

        2. Undoubtedly. To the CS the EU is the ideal: power without responsibility.

          It is desperate to force us back in.

        3. 332146+ up ticks,
          Afternoon J,
          It has been my belief all along, the rubber stamping appeared to stop post 24/6/16 but IMO services rendered to brussels continued in other ways.

          We done a great deal of damage to the governance politico’s
          which will NEVER be forgiven in my book.

          The last near on five years have been an exercise benefitting
          brussels in damage limitations.

          The reset, replace, ratchet driven by the same voting pattern that has done / continues to do the damage still condoning
          the ” party” first mode of voting travels on.

    5. When will they wake up to the fact that, despite having a flag and an anthem, the EU is certainly NOT a state or sovereign nation.

      1. The old saying – ” If you keep repeating it long enough people will believe it is true “. Seems like what the EU is doing.

      2. Ah, you see to the fanatic Left wing civil service heads the EU is a country. They support it’s ideals and want to promote it. .It isn’t, but by making it so they secretly promote it’s status.

        All against our will.

    6. Is there any point on which Boris Johnson is not prepared to surrender? Reports on the news last night showed the dire consequence on both fishermen and those in Northern Ireland of his capitulations on these two key areas. Has he no judgement, integrity or foresight at all?

      I wish he would just go taking his manipulative bed-mate with him.

      But who will replace him?

      1. Me! I shall rule fairly and well into a golden age of peace and prosperity.

        The first thing to do is create the arks. A rusted hulk where all the liars, cheats, thieves and criminals will go with teh civil service management at th helm.

        This will then be sunk.

    7. The Eu is a political organisation. It is not a country. May as well give the IMF the same status.

    8. Taken from another article:

      “How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg?” asked President Abraham Lincoln, who answered his own question:
      “Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”

    9. Does this mean that all the countries in the EU will no longer have their own ambassadors and diplomatic staff?

    1. You have a thing about this group, Hatman! Anyone might think you like blonde girls…!!

  42. Mrs McLaughlin, a prominent pro-independence campaigner, said: ‘Lest anyone be in any doubt. Zionism is akin to fascism. #genocide’

    Let’s be clear: the Left, the Nazi’s were the ones responsible for the holocaust. In her demented, psychotic mind, mass slaughter is a good thing. The Left – Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao were responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of millions, for warfare on a horrific scale. Not the Right, not the Jewish people. Her sort. McLaughlin is the fascist. .

    She’s nuts. Utterly deranged. The evil abuses of the National socialists was horrific. They were the fascists. They the oppressors, the abusers.

    It is pure doublethink. Her entire mind is incomprehensible. Up is down, left is right. These dumb creatures must never be allowed near politics.

    2. The story to which Wibbling is referring:
      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9528819/SNP-election-candidate-forced-apologise.html

      I’m sure she’d get on well with Paul Mason:
      “…I want to see politicians and public figures proactively and strongly refute Covid denialism. As with full-blown fascism, ignoring it does not make it go away.”

      https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2021/01/covid-deniers-have-been-humiliated-they-are-still-dangerous

    3. “The SNP last night said Mrs McLaughlin had apologised for her ‘choice of words’ but denied that they could be construed as anti-Semitic.” Words pretty much fail me!

    4. “The SNP last night said Mrs McLaughlin had apologised for her ‘choice of words’ but denied that they could be construed as anti-Semitic.” Words pretty much fail me!

  44. They’re not on our side are they…………

    “A 71-year-old Christian pastor who was arrested after preaching from the

    Bible on Tuesday described his treatment as “shameful,” as he

    was accused of making homophobic remarks by defining marriage as a

    relationship between a man and a woman outside Uxbridge Station in west

    London, and led away in handcuffs, questioned in a police station, and

    held overnight.”

    (watch the video)

    https://sputniknews.com/uk/202104281082754024-christian-pastor-arrested-in-uk-for-saying-marriage-is-between-man–woman—video/

    1. I very much fear that we have all become spineless and will put up with any amount of excrement being poured upon us – unlike the members of the TUC before Maggie sorted them out.

      If you have not heard this song I do hope you’ll listen to it

      “Are we going to take it lying down?
      “No, we’re not, we’ve got our rights,
      No, we wont’ give up without a fight,
      What the bosses get?”
      “The money!”
      “What the workers get?”
      “The blame!”
      And it’s time they stopped treating us like prawns in the game.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEzET7n7lpc

      1. Yet… in a true market economy an individual unhappy with their employer… leaves for a better job.

        In our suffocated, high tax, big state environment mobility is limited.

        1. “There is no shortage of bicycles” – Norman Tebbitt.

          I joke. However anyone who was between jobs when lockdown started was in a very bad place with no wage and no furlough pay, I think. Moreover the range of reasons for being fired now extends well beyond the “hand in the till”. Saying something untoward on social media can now get you fired and black-listed.

    2. 332146+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Rik,
      Why are these political governance
      groups lab/lib/con/greens AKA mafia soldiers still entertained via the polling booth by the peoples ?

    3. In times of madness telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

      The bible defines marriage as between man and woman. Yes, there is a lot of tripe in the bible, and it’s mostly a re-written and re-written guidebook from the oldest man in the village to keep the tribe alive (I’m writing a story about that) but such as it is.

      Gays had civil partnerships. Then gay marriage was forced on us. There are some insitutions that underpin society. When you fiddle with them, society fractures and eventually breaks. Being gay is a choice, one any individual should be able to freely make but it remains a choice. That choice does not give individuals the right to subvert society.

    4. Absolutely disgusting.

      Rapists roam the streets of Britain, BLM supporters steal and burn, woke liberals destroy buildings, statues and traditions with impunity and the W⚓s, charged with protecting the rights and property of the British public, are actively supporting and encouraging them by arresting and imprisoning elderly men and women who wish to rightfully express their thoughts and opinions on the morality of deviant unions and perverted lifestyles. Shame on them and their political masters who created and support these travesties of British justice and freedom of speech.

  45. Simon says…go out and buy this CD.

    Vaughan Williams is the perfect composer for our turbulent times

    A new CD captures an exceptional performance of the composer’s Sixth Symphony, recorded the night before concert halls went dark in 2020

    SIMON HEFFER

    Sir Antonio Pappano has, for almost 20 years, been Music Director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. I have lost count of the number of times that his brilliant musicianship has saved an otherwise grim opera production there. He is a superb conductor, and his understanding of Wagner ranks him with Kempe, Keilberth, Solti, Knappertsbusch – and even Barenboim, whose assistant he was at Bayreuth in the 1980s; he is not far off Fürtwängler.

    Perhaps less well known – until the recent announcement that, in 2024, he will take over as chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra – is Pappano’s range beyond opera. He has made acclaimed recordings of Rachmaninov, Richard Strauss, Mahler and Elgar. His interest in English music should come as no surprise: Pappano, for all his Italian blood, was born in Essex.

    His latest recording, on his future orchestra’s own LSO label, is of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s two most combustible symphonies –the Fourth (in F Minor) and the Sixth (in E Minor) – recorded live at the Barbican in London in December 2019 and March 2020 respectively. What a magnificent disc it is.

    Vaughan Williams wrote his Fourth Symphony in the early 1930s. His musical idiom had been darkening since the Great War: his 1925 choral work Sancta Civitas was reflective to the point of introspection; his orchestral Job: A Masque for Dancing of 1930 created a sound world that occasionally blazed with hell fire; and his Piano Concerto of 1933 was criticised for being unduly percussive. The Fourth Symphony, building on all this dissonance and aggression, confirmed that Vaughan Williams was no longer just the pastoral composer everyone had presumed.

    William Walton, half Vaughan Williams’s age but himself finishing a majestic symphony, heard the Fourth and raved about it. Walton knew his own music reflected the age, and seemed to recognise that Vaughan Williams’s did, too. Impressed critics queued up to draw inferences about the composer’s anger at the rise of Hitler. Vaughan Williams’s second wife, and biographer, Ursula, said the work was provoked by a paragraph (it was not revealed about what) that he had read in The Times. Perhaps the most likely explanation for his rage was the announcement of the Dorking bypass (he had just moved there).

    The performance of the Fourth on Pappano’s recording fell on the evening of the 2019 general election; it is high-octane, flawless and ferocious, and takes its place among the two or three best renditions of this much-recorded work. The clarity of sound is astonishing – one might almost be there – and what, in his sleeve note, the conductor calls the “bewildering audacity” of the work is utterly apparent.

    The performance of the Sixth took place in very different circumstances, in the same hall, on the night before all concert halls and theatres were ordered to close because of the pandemic. Regular readers may recall my obsession with the Sixth symphony: I think that I have attended every London performance for the past 40 years, and this one will stick in my memory for two reasons. First, the hall was only about a quarter full. Fear of catching Covid was already rampant and many ticket holders did not venture out; the audience that did come was certainly the hard core of Vaughan Williams aficionados. For us, at least, the risk was worth taking – and that is the second reason.

    I think this is the 37th recording of the symphony and, as with that of the Fourth, it is also one of the best. The detail of the playing is exceptional, and Pappano seems absolutely to have understood the work. There is just one moment in the first movement, where the time signature changes from 12/8 to 4/4, and some of the woodwind seems to miss a crotchet rest, where purists will raise an eyebrow. Otherwise the conductor gives an electrifying account of this greatest of English symphonies, with the picture it paints of a time of turmoil, battle and survival.

    This is repertoire greatly different from the bulk of Pappano’s work, and on this evidence, one must hope he uses his time at the LSO to delve more deeply into English music, for like another great Italian conductor – Barbirolli – he has a feel for it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/classical-music/vaughan-williams-perfect-composer-turbulent-times/

    1. Heard Sturgeon on the wireless this morning.

      Cripes she’s a tiresome oaf. ‘Scotland was taken out of the EU without our consent, that was ‘done’ to us’ – oh give *over*! We held a referendum. You lost. The gravy train moved away from you.

      Then she blithered on about how Scotland was against Nuclear war and wanted to get rid of the submarines.

      Then more blithering about how they paid their own way and when independent would continue to use Sterling…

      She’s an oaf who should be presented with independence and punishment. Brutal, cruel punishment and it should be made clear it is her fault.

        2. What a good idea – and when the € collapses within the next two years with or without the EU imploding upon itself, where will she turn to?

          Oh 1707 all over again but I doubt we’d have the clout to bail her out, even if we wanted to.

      2. If the English were given the vote on the dis-union of the United Kingdom the result would be overwhelmingly in favour. They will never be asked.

        1. An interesting question for her is whether she would prefer a LEAVE UK vote from voters in England, Wales and Northern Ireland or a STAY IN UK vote from the people exclusively in Scotland.

          Let the people decide – but what if the wrong people give the right result or the right people give the wrong result?

      3. Is she unaware of the fact that we can see that she does not herself believe in referendums!

        Her view is that she only believes in referendums which give the answer she wants.

        First referendum on Scottish independence : WRONG REULT

        Britain leaving the EU : WRONG RESULT.

        If the another referendum on Scottish independence isheld and it produces a vote to stay in the UK she would not accept it because it would give her the WRONG RESULT.

        1. Possibly a teeny-weeny bit fascist. Ms Freeman who has just now demitted office as Health Minister is a life-long communist. But that was OK.

      4. I doubt if anyone likes her. Her government over the last few years has done nothing good for Scotland or the Scottish people. However, the Westminster governments have done nothing good either. A trip around the inhabited areas rather than the tourist spots tells its own story.
        Austria is very picturesque all over, it seems. Whereas Scotland is a post-industrial dump. Austria has slightly larger population than Scotland. It is highly industrialised although it has no natural resources. Scotland has oil, natural gas and coal and is not allowed to use them*. Scotland has what used to be called a “branch ” economy. The HQ of many businesses are elsewhere. Cutbacks come here first. Then they stay here.
        It is hardly surprising that the Scottish voters want something better.

        As for currency, a country, however small, can use its own currency. Or, it can use a major world currency such as the £sterling, the US$ or the Swiss franc. Such use is difficult to stop,. Major purchases in Uruguay such as cars are often priced in US$

        *Which is why I’ve chosen well-off Austria to compare with Scotland.

        1. Finland is very similar to Scotland..the population is near identical,the vast majority of the population is in 5 or 6 cities with large parts of the country uninhabitated.
          Roads and emergency services must be maintained as does medical services.
          For goodness sake don’t compare Police numbers or Covid death toll.

      5. Sturgeon keeps referring to Scotland being dragged out of the EU “Against its will”

        Yet in the run up to the EU referendum, Nicola Sturgeon called for what became known as a triple lock where all four UK countries would have to vote for Leave otherwise, it could not go ahead.

        In theory, she was advocating a position where a remain-voting Scotland could keep a leave-voting rest-of-the-UK in the EU.

        Against their will. What a short (and selective) memory she has.

        She would happily drag Shetland an Orkney out of the UK. Against their will.

  47. Reflecting about the competitive Royal family photographs, I suppose it is really:

    The Wars of the Poses.

    I’ll get me crown and sceptre.

    1. Daft as it is, I – and my chums – played a lot of quake 2 at university. That got me into networks and…. the rest is history.

      1. We didn’t have network’s in those far off days but about forty years ago but I won the prize at an Adabas training course. That did not set me up for an Olympic career in anything except code mangling.

  50. Cummings’s new anti-Boris alliance aims to topple the Prime Minister
    The former aide is deeply dangerous for No10 – and not only because of his stash of emails and quotes

    FRASER NELSON : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/29/cummingss-new-anti-boris-alliance-aims-topple-prime-minister/

    I wonder if Johnson always surrenders to his harlot just as he surrendered to the EU in agreeing to first a disastrous WA and and then a total capitulation of a deal. If this is the case then Cummings left under the insistence of Ms Symonds rather than at the prime minister’s request and Boris is paying for his craven concupiscent weakness.

    BTL comment

    Did Boris Johnson get Brexit done?

    Ask those in Northern Ireland; ask the fishermen; ask those in financial services, ask those travelling across customs borders being met with obstruction and vindictive paperwork at every turn?

    The answer is that Johnson gave us chaos and destruction – he did not give us Brexit.

    No deal with the treacherous EU was the only answer and if the buffoon Johnson had any integrity, honesty, common sense and backbone he would not have caved in so easily.

    There must be a better person to take charge than Johnson – but who is there?

        1. With a name like Larry – I wouldn’t bank on it….”Shut that Flap!”…..

  52. First British police officer convicted of belonging to neo-Nazi terrorist group jailed for more than four years. 30 April 2021.

    The judge told him: ‘I consider what you did to be very serious and you have harmed public trust in the police by your deceit’

    The judge has obviously led a protected life since trust in the police evaporated several decades ago! The MSM always make a song and dance about National Action; an organisation noted primarily for nothing more than reading things other people disapprove of, it has never successfully killed anyone or so far as I can discover inflicted anything more than hurt feelings on its victims. It’s place in the hierarchy of terrorist gangs can be attributed to nothing more than that the Government felt the Muslim Gangs who occupied the top twenty places were being discriminated against.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/ben-hannam-neonazi-met-police-officer-jailed-banned-terror-group-national-action-b932587.html

    1. The poor sap was also convicted of possessing amateur drawings of unclothed children (my words); I trust that those fascists in the National Gallery will cancel Peter Paul Rubens and other continental artist perverts and take their punishment.

    1. Albert’s been turned. He’s appearing in TV adverts promoting the merits of smart meters.

      2. Grizz has so many interests. Painting, cooking & baking, birdies and other things tool shed like. He often goes off for a bit. He did make one post the other day.

        I also know other people who are in contact with him so if anything happened we would know.

  57. I rarely take below-the-line comments from the Telegraph to start a talking point, but this one from Isabella Maeer on today’s letters page grabbed my attention because it looks at a humble form of amusement from an angle I had never considered before and has me thinking about it in an entirely different way.

    Isabella Maeer
    30 Apr 2021 12:42PM
    Off topic.

    People wonder how we have created a snowflake generation and the assumption has been mollycoddling to the point where natural defences aren’t developed.

    I think there is another dimension, playing cards, especially as in the old days when a trade was involved….focuses the mind.

    Every card game involves making decisions and developing judgement, and when you make the wrong choices and it costs you, you sharpen up.

    In the olden days there was few board games and cards once bought, lasted forever, so were popular and with no television out came the cards. Everyone was involved, especially the children who subtly learned social skills just sitting at a table and seeing all the interaction.

    Now just where does on-line learning and screen focussing cut it. It doesn’t promote social skills, it doesn’t even begin to develop judgement, even going to school these days engenders propaganda.

    The beauty of cards is to buy even a decent set is cheap and packaging minimal. You can play on your own but even better with family and friends.

    It wouldn’t take much to promote the idea and unhook the world from flimsy, flashy packaging with no substance and entailing little social interacting.

  59. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1d0835c43ea7925527627e0d64c8b20593e38ac1/0_0_1500_937/master/1500.jpg?width=720&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=98c2d6c24a74174948575af3c0640413
    The pier, Clacton-on-Sea, 1938

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/21d7dc83a26a7fbb9227085d76fbd4000e83ec34/0_0_1500_941/master/1500.jpg?width=720&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=d3743dd8fafe7f38750b5d75c03922a0
    Eastbourne pier, 1931

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/319eab3e785242223cfdc4a92740943f0534d975/0_0_1500_964/master/1500.jpg?width=720&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=c902ad1496ba87d075820aca75ae4aae
    The Harbour pier, Margate, 1920

  60. 332146+ up ticks,

    breitbart,
    Mr Farage reflected on the similar low spirits Brexiteers felt when after three years following the vote to leave the European Union, the UK was still in the bloc.

    “In 2019, three years after the Brexit referendum, it hadn’t been delivered, it looked like it was lost and yet “we” were able to rally the grassroots,” Farage said.

    Old leggit omitted to say the part he played in helping
    create today’s odious stance as a nation.

    Aiding & abetting agents of treachery within the uKiP nEc, standing down after stitching up party non members at £25 a pop, making sure johnson made good.

    The Trump chap had better watch his six.

  61. Yippee!

    Trial of British paratroopers accused of murdering IRA leader COLLAPSES as judge rejects pair’s 1972 statements that were ‘dressed up’ as new evidence by prosecutors
    Judge said the statements could not be used in the case against the two men
    He said it was ‘remarkable’ that two ex-soldiers weren’t interviewed by the PSNI
    Joe McCann, 24, was shot dead as he ran from police and Army in Belfast in 1972

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9529781/Trial-British-paratroopers-accused-murdering-IRA-leader-COLLAPSES.html

    1. Let us hope that this is the last of these speculative witch hunts on behalf of the IRA.

    1. She’s demonstrating who will actually control whisky exports if the SNP gets its independence dream

    2. That was before Soros called.

      Treasa signed up to two Soros compliant policies in her final weeks as PM

      1) Legal Net Zero which has Soros’ fingerprints all over it.

      2) The UN Migration Pact which Soros also wanted.

      Then she disappeared on a speaking tour and eight free to attend one hour identical speeches ”earned” her approx $1,250,000 plus expenses.

      https://www.tatler.com/article/theresa-may-earning-100000-a-speech-on-lecture-circuit

      At a uni on Rhode Island, the next booked speaker was none other than the arch money launderer Bill Clinton.

      Now she’s doing even more highly paid speeches on Zoom !

      I wonder where the money really came from ?

      1. And the MSM are more concerned with the Bonker’s soft furnishing than his soft negotiating ability.

      1. Yeah, she could have refused to sign the UN Invasion Pact, unlike that traitor who sneakily did so.

    4. It is the usual trait of Conservative politicians to talk the talk but to do sweet Fanny Adams.

      Mrs May also said: “No deal is better than a bad deal.”

      The brain bereft bonker is going deaf as a result of too much fornication and he misheard what she had said – he thought she said ‘A bad deal is better than no deal‘ and so, because the uxorious idiot has recently got into the habit of doing what women tell him to do, he has secured for us a spectacularly disastrous and treacherously bad deal.

    3. My sherry ah more, lovely as a summer drink
      My sherry ah more, distinct as the glasses clink
      My sherry ah more, pretty little one that I adore
      You’re the only drink my heart beats for
      How I wish that you were mine
      In a cafe or sometimes on a crowded street
      I’ve been near you, but you never noticed me
      My sherry ah more, won’t you tell me how could you ignore
      That behind that little smile I swore
      How I wish that you were mine
      La, la, la, la, la, la
      La, la, la, la, la, la

    4. I’m getting “loudly” pissed listening to Black Sabbath (Heaven and Hell Album) followed by Ronnie James Dio tribute album and also looking forward to the Tigers game tonight (As a Saints supporter I shall be cheering for Ulster…)

        1. Half the year will be over then so they will start to close things down for the winter

  70. “We may be equal in the eyes of God, we should be equal in the eyes of the law, but we are not equal in the eyes of our fellow men.”

    Peter Hitchens discussed the idea in 2012. The Stick Insect got a mention. And note that the hurt feelings nonsense was started by the Thatcher government.

    It’s a long read at 3,000 words.

    The Thought Police are slowly hammering nails into the coffin in which our liberty will soon be buried

    The Daily Mail, Thursday 26th July 2012

    IS it in the film of ‘Far From the ‘Madding Crowd’ that the closing scenes show Farmer Boldwood, condemned to death for the murder of a rival in love, sitting gaunt in his narrow cell, listening to the prison carpenter making his coffin? Something like that.

    This rather unpleasant image comes to mind again as I read a pamphlet I wrongly neglected when it first came out ‘The Rise of the Equalities Industry’ by Peter Saunders, published last November by one of the better think tanks, Civitas.

    We are not sitting in a cell. Nobody has told us we are to die in the morning. But if we listen carefully we can hear the hammering, sawing and planing of the crude coffin in which our liberty is to be nailed down and buried. Or perhaps it is the scaffold on which it is to be guillotined (no honest British gallows for this execution). We listen, we don’t understand what we hear, and we do nothing. Probably it is too late to do anything anyway.

    The pamphlet attracted very little attention at the time, as such work often does. Finding it on one of the slithering heaps of unread material in my office (and planning, as I am to take two weeks away from my desk to write the index of my own new book) I thought ‘This could be interesting’, and picked it up. So gripped was I that I was still studying it two days later during the interval of a very fine open-air ‘Hamlet’ (performed in the majestic courtyard of the Bodleian Library in Oxford last week).

    I think Professor Saunders (interesting as he is) does not know the half of it. The real nature of these matters is known only to those of us who were part of the revolutionary project and have defected from it. But he has done a lot of the necessary spadework, and those who read his work will find they have at least understood the architecture of the new totalitarianism which is slowly but relentlessly rising out of the ruins of British law, the wreckage of our mixed constitution, the remains of our limited government, and the void where our impartial civil service and competent, thrifty local government used to stand. If we had a properly educated middle class, which knew how to think instead of what to think, I don’t think this project could succeed. But the enemies of liberty began, very wisely, by wrecking the schools and the universities.

    What’s it about? First of all, it comes close to grasping why egalitarianism is such a danger. For me, ‘equality’ is not a particularly attractive objective anyway. Why should it be? But I always find people are shocked when I say so.

    Let me explain. Equality before God simply exists, for the religious believer, as an absolute in Eternity. It reminds us that no human worth, achievement, wealth, fame, beauty, honour or praise has any importance before the throne of the Heavenly Grace. We brought nothing into this world and we can assuredly carry nothing out. We should live our lives in this knowledge. But the idea that this should in any way be reflected in some sort of absolute material equality, in this life, is fatuous. We all have different gifts, and in many cases these gifts do not shine very brightly in this world, however glorious they may be in the next (and vice versa). Kindness, hospitality, charity, generosity are all required from those to whom much is given. Equality is not.

    Equality before the law is more persuasive, and is certainly an ideal to be aimed at, even the certain knowledge that it might be approached but cannot be attained. But any practical, wise and experienced person knows that this equality is a fantasy, and will always remain so. Also, that any serious attempt to achieve it will suffer from the usual defects of Utopianism – it will fail, people will be killed and imprisoned in the process, and at the end of it the law will be more unequal than it was to start with.

    Material equality is plainly absurd, cannot be brought into existence and is only maintained as a propaganda fiction in societies whose elites keep their privileges secret through censorship, and preserve them inviolate through terror. It is not desirable, for if all are rewarded equally, and people vary in their talents and energies, then many will suffer, talents will wither unused and corruption will be widespread. Some instances: under the Soviet system, all doctors, good or bad, were paid the same. It did not take long for the acute citizen to find out who the good ones were, but their services could only be secured through bribes. The same rule applied to places in better schools, or the allocations of apartments in better districts. Elite privilege carried more weight than bribery, but was in itself corrupt, as it secured the silence and uncritical support of those (the ‘Nomenklatura’) whom the elite admitted to privilege.

    I know more about this than most, because during my time in Soviet Moscow I was able to live in a Nomenklatura apartment, with the Brezhnev and Andropov families as my near neighbours. I have never had such magnificent quarters – 14-foot ceilings, chandeliers, oak parquet floors, a sweeping view of Moscow from the University to the Kremlin on one side, and of the Moscow River on the other. And this was in the Homeland of Equality.

    As a foreigner I could not take advantage of the dacha (country cottage) in the forest outside Moscow, which came with the apartment, as it was too close to an anti-ballistic missile launch site which I was not supposed to see. Nor did I qualify for entry to the special secret restaurants where the elite ate, or the special elite shops where they bought their privileged supplies of fresh meat and vegetables.

    Nor was I allowed to use the special hospitals, in lush gardens behind high walls, where the elite were treated. But these things existed, and my experience of this secret inequality was only the foothills. The truly powerful Communists lived in secluded woodland mansions with battalions of servants, and roared down the city streets along special (Olympic-style?) lanes, which were heated in winter so that they never iced over. So much for material equality. Later, as the Bolshevik privileges faded, I had to pay for my Moscow privileges with hard cash, the way you do anywhere else.

    Professor Saunders explains that the equality pursued by the British government is not, as it pretends, the equality of treatment (which is more pernicious than it sounds); nor is it equality of opportunity (which is the only kind compatible with a free society). It is *equality of outcome*.

    Professor Saunders shows that this is the hidden, third element on which the entire strategy is based’. It is clear, when you study the actual rules, that equality of outcome is the aim (the attempt to get universities to lower their standards so as to equalise their intake is the clearest and most blatant example of this).

    But ‘nothing is said explicitly about …equality of outcomes’.

    He shows his lack of knowledge of the enemy by saying ‘Unequal outcomes unthinkingly get used as evidence of unequal treatment’.

    I challenge that ‘unthinkingly’. There are undoubtedly people who have thought about this, though they do not include the Equalities Minister, Mrs Theresa May. Mrs May, once a doughty opponent of all-women shortlists for MPs (She said ‘I’m totally opposed to Labour’s idea of all-women shortlists and I think they are an insult to women. I’ve competed equally with men in my career and I have been happy to do so in politics too’) mysteriously and so far as I know without any explanation later reversed her position, just in time for the Cameron era. She then more or less welcomed Harriet Harman’s Equalities Bill, the legislative basis for the greatest expansion of thought control in modern Britain.

    She said: ‘I look forward to working constructively with them on ensuring that we have workable and practical legislation to provide for a fair society.’ Miss Harman thanked her for her ‘broad welcome for the package’.

    No wonder then that the Coalition is now ‘committed to the most radical form of egalitarian thinking – the belief in equal outcomes’. The Tory party, having failed to oppose the Harman Bill, is now finding that it is bound to follow it. No use blaming Nick Clegg. They sold the ass long before they got together with the Liberal Democrats and should stop pretending otherwise. As ‘equality’ has now started to apply to class as well as to sex, race, sexual orientation, we are fast reaching the stage when an economic policy might have to be rejected because it allegedly threatens the equal rights of ‘disadvantaged’ economic groups. The courts might well rule that it did so. People’s Republic, here we come.

    Professor Saunders also points out that this process has not been the result of popular demand, but the wilful programme of the 1960s university generation, in London and Brussels. ‘For almost fifty years, progressive politicians have been introducing laws designed to *change* the way people think and behave about issues like these, rather than to reflect them. Especially in more recent times, the law has been sued as an ideological battering ram, both by Westminster politicians and by Brussels, to forcibly redefine social norms’.

    He traces the salami-slicing method by which a small body designed to stop racial discrimination has grown into the enormous and costly Equality and Human Rights Commission (itself a branch of the unjustly-ignored Fundamental Rights Agency based in Vienna).

    From protecting people against insults and outrages, it has taken on the task of ‘promoting’ equality, and now increasingly it has the power and the money not merely to promote it but to enforce it, through employment codes of practice supported by trade unions and decisive in the outcomes of tribunals, fines, the withholding of government contracts and ultimately the civil and criminal law.

    Equality, of course, doesn’t mean what it used to mean. Linked with ‘diversity’ it means that Christianity is no longer the accepted religion of this country, but one among many faiths, equal to them all and (like the rest) slightly more equal than Islam, because the British state is nervous of Islam and does not want to upset it. The effect of this is actually to make Christianity a slighted and discouraged faith, as it has to be reminded from time to time of its lost status and its new subservient role.

    State employees, as we have found in a series of cases, can get into trouble for trying to spread a Christian message at work or to act at work according to Christian principles (how long before this applies to those who do it too noisily outside work?). I have yet to hear of this happening to members of any other faith. But I am sure that there will soon be a concerted assault on the remaining Christian presence in the state schools, beginning with dilution of entry requirements and the power to give preference in hiring teachers to members of a faith, and ending in effective abolition.

    I suspect a similar fate faces the English language in time. The estate of Marriage is also now ‘equal’ to ‘any relationship’, which once again means that it has been stripped of its former privileges and needs to be reminded of its new, diminished status by being treated with some coldness by bureaucracy, and not acknowledged in official documents (I believe the words ‘husband’ and wife’ are increasingly disappearing from forms, replaced by ‘partner’).

    From a legitimate concern for the victims of racial discrimination, what Peter Simple long ago called ‘The Race Relations Industry’ has jumped the logic barrier into other areas which are wholly different (see my chapter on the important differences between – for example – racism, sexism and homophobia in my book ‘The Cameron Delusion’ (originally published in hardback as ‘The Broken Compass’) for a demolition of the idea that the three are the same, or can or should be treated in the same way. There’s also an exploration of the important switch from ‘racialism’, namely a moronic, indefensible discrimination on the grounds of skin colour to ‘racism’ (in which racial prejudice is falsely equated with defence of indigenous cultures) , which I recommend to any interested reader.

    As Professor Saunders points out, decades have gone by during which there has been no serious intellectual challenge to this wobbling mountain of tripe. Positive discrimination exists in all but name. Even supposedly conservative private firms adopt the rules of equality and diversity.

    But the EHRC is in fact the nucleus of a Thought Police. Since the Macpherson report dispensed with any need for evidence for an accusation of ‘racism’ (the same of course applies to the other isms and phobias) the subjective wounded feelings of anyone can create a thought crime. The adoption of ‘racially aggravated’ categories of crime, with much heavier sentences than non-aggravated offences, has given the police and the CPS enormous power to pursue people who say out loud (or are accused of doing so) things which the new elite don’t like. The recent bizarre prosecution of Cinnamon Heathcote Drury, charged with ‘racially aggravated assault’ of a Muslim woman in Tesco (thrown out by a jury) shows how vulnerable anyone is to such accusations. Yes, she was acquitted. But many people wouldn’t or couldn’t have risked a jury trial, something increasingly difficult to obtain.

    And the modern British jury is an unreliable defence. Political correctness, egalitarianism and poor education have all found their way into the jury room, and the majority verdict has destroyed the power of the obstinate Henry Fonda character to resist a rush to judgement (see the chapter ‘Twelve Angry Persons’ in my book ‘The Abolition of Liberty’).

    Actually, I suspect we are just at the very beginning of a process which will end with a true Thought Police. The police themselves are feeling their way, cautiously. They would like to act more, but it is too soon. Remember those bizarre inquiries one Welsh force made about public figures who had allegedly been disrespectful of the Welsh? I asked them what law they were applying. They never answered. But I suspect they had in mind Section 5 of the Public Order Act of 1986, a sloppily drafted and silly piece of work originally aimed at football hooligans (now the subject of a worthy campaign for reform whose fortunes it will be interesting to observe).

    Section 5 makes it an offence to use ‘threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour’ or to display ‘any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting’ within the hearing or sight of a person ‘likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby’. Combined with Lord Macpherson’s view on what constitutes a racist incident, this is of course irresistible, especially once police, CPS, the Judges’ bench and the Appeal courts have all been thoroughly politically corrected, a process close to completion.

    I think the police officers who in 2005 and 2006 investigated various public figures who had said unfashionable things about homosexuality (one of these was Sir Iqbal Sacranie, then head of the Muslim Council of Britain, another was the Christian pro-marriage campaigner Lynette Burrows) on the radio were also relying on the same Act. Again, they never followed through (see below for the reason why not). At the time they said homophobic racist and domestic incidents were ‘priority crimes’. They then told the media ‘We can confirm that a member of the public brought to our attention an incident which he believed to be homophobic. All parties have been spoken to by the police. No allegation of crime has been made. A report has been taken but is now closed.’ Note that remark ‘which he believed to be homophobic’. In law, that’s all that is necessary.

    The Public Order Act 1986 is the law used against the elderly preacher Harry Hammond, who was arrested (yes, he was) after being pelted with lumps of mud, pushed to the ground, pelted with mud and abused by homosexual rights campaigners (who were not arrested). He was then successfully prosecuted before magistrates for annoying them.

    An appeal, held unusually after his death, failed. He had held up a placard bearing the words ‘Stop Homosexuality’, which was his basic message. He had offered no personal insults. One fascinating feature of this case is that the two police officers at the scene disagreed openly about what to do, and gave evidence on opposite sides in the courtroom. The younger, more PC police officers who are now pretty much universal have for long been trained in equality and diversity. There is a steady dribble of cases of preachers and others arrested and sometimes tried for speech code offences of this kind. My guess is that the police and the CPS they are restrained mainly by the existence of a strong free press. There is a steady dribble of cases of preachers and others arrested and sometimes tried for speech code offences of this kind.

    Well, listen to the sound of saws and chisels. Lord Justice Leveson is busy making a coffin for that. And when the strong free press is gone, wait for the knock on the door. The Marxist writer Antonio Gramsci is well on the way to scoring his first victory, and the European regions on these islands will be the first to learn that revolutions don’t always happen through noisy and violent convulsions. Indeed, the most effective revolutions take place while people are looking the other way, as everyone has been. All the buildings are left standing. But the laws, liberties, traditions, morals faith and loyalty are destroyed, and carted away to some place of desolation where the remnants can be desecrated and burned. Quomodo sedet sola Civitas (you can have fun looking that up).

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2179321/The-Thought-Police-secretly-hammering-nails-coffin-liberty-soon-buried.html

    1. “Quomodo sedet sola Civitas (you can have fun looking that up).”

      Who needs to look it up? It’s a well-known quote from the Bible – Lamentions 1:1 and Hitchens missed out the final part of the sentence.

      The full sentence reads “Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena populo” ….. (How the city sits solitary that was full of people) and are the words of Jeremiah as he laments the desolation of Jerusalem, after its people were taken into captivity by the Babylonians.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt3-ASjBofE

    1. Quite right too.

      Women should have no rights.

      Doesn’t run away to hide.

      Chooses death by guillotine.

  72. That’s me for the day. Useful rain overnight – all the water-butts are full again. Still decidedly cold but much less northerly wind. Much the same tomorrow, apparently

    I’ll leave you with this thought. We give in to the slammers; to the IRA; to the EUSSR and France and Germany; We give in to the eco-freaks and climate changers and the alphabet brigade; we give in to BLM and XR and the violent thugs among us; we give in to the blacks who kill each other by not even bothering to report their crimes. What on earth has happened to a once great nation?

    A demain.

    3. Yesterday the flower of Britain’s youth perished in the Great War.

      As for today and tomorrow, the towns and cities of European countries are being gradually lost to the ‘slammers’ as you call them.

      1. “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”
        –Marcus Tullius Cicero (possibly)

    2. ‘Border Force’ should be renamed:

      ‘Border Balderdash’, or ‘Border Bingo’, perhaps …

    1. Oh. come on. She was just one not particularly white woman who wasn’t killed by a policeman (as far as we know).

      Had she been black or a slammer – millions would have bought garage flowers to leave to rot near where she was killed. As well as organising endless protests

        1. And why hasn’t the Woke Duchess of Middletonshire been there (anonymously, of course) to put down her posy – as she did with the young, pretty, white Clapham Common victim?

          Just asking.

  78. 332146+ up ticks,
    Dt,
    Politicians are showing utter disregard for children’s welfare
    Forcing children to wear masks in classrooms when no one has bothered to calculate the risk is unconscionable.

    Getaway,
    Has anyone, politico’s lab/lib/con coalition / current member voters calculated the risk of continuing their voting pattern in regards to the JAY report and the DOVER intake ?

  79. Off topic.
    Apologies to those I had not replied to earlier, I have suddenly received a number of responses “out of the blue”.

    1. Fools are soon parted from their money…………I wouldn’t support any of those “causes”.

    2. More ammunition to the Chauvin defence team for an appeal. Payment (albeit after testifying) to prosecution witnesses?

      1. I saw that the Federal authorities were ready to arrest Chauvin instantly if he had been acquitted and then charge him with hate crimes.

  82. Evening, all. If the vaccines are doing their job, we should have established herd immunity (and certainly the sainted NHS should not be over-whelmed, which was the point of the lockdown in the first place), so everybody should be able to resume normal human greetings (and their life).

    1. 332146+ up ticks,
      Evening C,
      You seem to forget four rather large obstacles that being, lab/lib/con & a supporting cast of fools

    2. Yes, you would think that, wouldn’t you, but it seems our Political Masters have other ideas.

  83. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-56950484
    The bastard beat the shit out of a 17-year old girl with mental difficulties, CS-sprayed her, when she was asking for help.
    Good thing he didn’t have a firearm, or he would probably have shot her.
    Following the hearing, the girl’s family said in a statement: “Rather than helping her as he should have done, he violently assaulted her, using up to 34 baton strikes and CS spray.”

    3. PCs R us – beat up old ladies and young girls, anytime, anywhere – the more mental the better.

      …and they wonder why we despise them!

  84. Today is exactly 16 years since my last ever TV licence expired and I abandoned TV. £2504.50 saved to date. I am much the better informed for it.

  85. Today is exactly 16 years since my last ever TV licence expired and I abandoned TV. £2504.50 saved to date. I am much the better informed for it.

      1. The suspect must be thinking he’s unlucky. Who’d have thought that the police would’ve had the intelligence to work out that they could catch up with him at the next lock?

        1. Would that constitute a ‘Lock-In’ rather than a ‘Lock-Down’ – or an old fashioned ‘Lock-Up’ ?

    1. …and who brings you the wonders of TB – just about eradicated in Europe until we became all diverse – innit?

      1. …or No F**king Taste – smirky little bitch. Did she set the fire to burn her useless parents out?

  92. Popping back in,watching Film 4 Ad Credit 89.4% APR
    My saving rates .03% APR
    Someone is taking the pith

    1. They are taking a bit more than the pith, Rik, quite a bit mo….. yikes!! 89.4% APR!!

  94. Off early in the morn with Best Beloved (driving) and Dotty (hoping for ‘Walkies’) to go to Snottingham and pick up side tables (American – end tables) bought on eBay by BB while selling ours ( I just do what I’m told) so I shall wish you, one and all a wonderful, dreamy Goodnight and may your God bless you.

      1. That was a load of bullshonet and people were waking up to the fact, which is why they changed the name first to Climate Change, then to Climate Emergency.

    1. obesity, depression, Alzheimer’s, ADHD, autism, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, kidney disease, and inflammatory bowel disease, brain, breast and prostate cancer, miscarriage, birth defects and declining sperm counts.

      In the past year anyone dying from the above in the the UK will highly likely have died from COVID infection.
      2020 was the year which a vision of an almost disease free UK became a reality.
      And that was all achieved by following the science – or was it common sense as Greta claims?

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