Friday 30 July: Electric-car owners will lose money feeding power into the National Grid

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/2021/07/29/letters-electric-car-owners-will-lose-money-feeding-power-national/

740 thoughts on “Friday 30 July: Electric-car owners will lose money feeding power into the National Grid”

          1. Hi Alf! Just popping in very late to wish you a very Happy Birthday! Hope you and vw had a good lunch, and enjoy the rest of today! 🎂🍾🎉

  4. Good morning all.

    I had a flat white after my lunch yesterday, which has kept me awake all night, so going back to bed to catch some Zzzzzz.

      1. Yes, thank you.
        Necked a St Germain, my favourite apéritif, while my friend parked the car, then scrumptious fresh whitebait, followed by the sea bass with a Breton Cidre. The French Eton Mess for pud, then that fateful but delicious coffee.
        I was greeted by all the old staff (it’s been nearly 18 months since I was last there) and the only newbie was a beautiful half-Japanese girl who served us.

        1. The whitebait was very good – I had the sea bass last month but this time the chicken. We had the cider as well. Last month was the first time we’d been back since last summer when we ‘ate out to help out.’ There’s more of a staff changeover there though.

      1. Good day. We need the rain – and, for this old codger, it means no watering cans required!

  6. Britain, climate change and the reality of extreme weather events. 29 July 2021.

    ‘Extreme weather will be the norm,’ says the Guardian. Britain is gaining a more ‘violent’ climate according to Sir James Bevan, chief executive of the Environment Agency. ‘The UK is already undergoing disruptive climate change with increased rainfall, sunshine and temperatures, according to scientists,’ wites the BBC’s ‘environmental analyst’ Roger Harrabin.

    Morning everyone. I watched parts of the BBC News yesterday and they have unequivocally adopted the position (it was the lead story) that Climate Change is not just coming but is already here. All recent weather anomalies in the UK are irrefutable demonstrations of this fact. There is no argument.

    This is of course a step change. We have gone from inquiry to certainty in a day. Someone made a decision! What prompted this sudden conversion? Well one suspects that with the Covid Crisis winding down another distraction might well be useful!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/britain-climate-change-and-the-reality-of-extreme-weather-events

    1. Yet some people still believe that the BBC is going to all this trouble of informing us about the perils of climate change out of the kindness of their hearts and their virtuous selfless agenda to help save the planet.

      1. Morning Bob. I don’t think that there are many Nottlers who believe that! The BBC is a Woke propaganda platform with powerful Globalist protection!

      2. Yesterday, I was phoning from my car in a crowded car park. Another car appeared, obviously looking for a space, so out of the kindness of my heart, I pulled out of my space to let them have it.
        I soon regretted that, when out popped a family of morons from the swanky four wheel drive monster, with the Dad wearing a T shirt proclaiming THERE IS NO PLANET B.

        1. Perhaps you are mistaken, blackbox2. (Good morning, btw.) Perhaps Mickey Mouse’s planet Pluto has been joined by Popeye’s planet Pluto. (I typed “Bluto” but the auto-correct changed it to “Pluto”. Drat and double-drat!”

          :-))

    3. Nothing to do with Carrion then?

      “Green Squeeze was my delight,
      Green Squeeze my heart of gold
      Green Squeeze was my heart of joy
      And who but my lady Green Squeeze.
      I have been ready at your hand
      To grant whatever thou would’st crave;
      I have waged both life and land
      Your love and goodwill for to have”

      ?Good Morning all.

    4. Nothing to do with Carrion then?

      “Green Squeeze was my delight,
      Green Squeeze my heart of gold
      Green Squeeze was my heart of joy
      And who but my lady Green Squeeze.
      I have been ready at your hand
      To grant whatever thou would’st crave;
      I have waged both life and land
      Your love and goodwill for to have”

      ?Good Morning all.

    5. Nothing to do with Carrion then?

      “Green Squeeze was my delight,
      Green Squeeze my heart of gold
      Green Squeeze was my heart of joy
      And who but my lady Green Squeeze.
      I have been ready at your hand
      To grant whatever thou would’st crave;
      I have waged both life and land
      Your love and goodwill for to have”

      ?Good Morning all.

    7. Sir James Bevan is a former diplomat. I fail to understand why the CEO of the Environment Agency does not have any relevant qualifications in this area e.g. geology, hydrology, land management etc.

      Now, he’s an expert on climate change!

    8. Sir James Bevan is a former diplomat. I fail to understand why the CEO of the Environment Agency.does not have qualifications on any relevant discipline e.g. hydrology, geology, land management etc.

      And, apparently, he’s an expert in climate change too!

  7. As I subscribe all of 2.50 a month to the Delingpod, I get this column from James Delingpole via email now and then.
    You probably won’t agree with everything he says, but I do believe that most people are not angry enough at how the media is complicit in the vast dishonesty of our age, Biden being one of the worst examples. Of course, they can’t admit he’s got dementia, because then someone might ask why they didn’t publicise the illegal contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, or those very odd graphs that showed a vertical rise in Biden votes in key swing states either.
    The media is staying silent as we sink into authoritarianism, and we don’t expect anything better from them.

    From Not My Spectator Column: Do You Believe In Fate, Neo? by James Delingpole

    The Spectator party used to be the highlight of my year: all the amazing, talented, brilliant, witty, often now quite famous friends I’d made over the years- hacks, politicians, celebs, writers, liggers – all packed together at the height of summer in a garden near Westminster with lashings of excellent booze. I wouldn’t have missed it for all the tea in China.

    But this year I Can’t Be Arsed it and regretted it not one jot. What would I have said to my former friends turned sell-outs and collaborators and traitors? Would we have talked about the ‘vaccine’ and why I refuse to take an experimental gene therapy I don’t need and which could possibly kill me? Or about the ongoing scandal that the leading nation of the free world has been occupied by the Chinese Communist Party with a senile crook pretending to president? Or about Britain’s surprisingly rapid descent into fascist tyranny?

    Possibly but I doubt it because to judge by the columns many of them have written or not written in the last 18 months, these aren’t subjects they feel particularly comfortable discussing.

    Which is odd. Weird beyond measure in fact. It’s as if, during the Second World War, every scribe in the land had reached a tacit agreement that there would be certain subjects that would not be discussed for duration. These subjects would include: Hitler; rationing; Stalin; conscription; the sinking of the Repulse and the Prince of Wales; anything to do with Burma, Malaya or the Pacific; and the Blitz.

    Well I don’t want to live in that crazy world of theirs. Things are quite crazy enough without the added burden of not being allowed, for whatever bizarre reason, to tell the truth about it.

    So that’s what I’m going to carry on doing, regardless of how many friends I lose or how many mainstream publications decide I am beyond the pale. If no MSM newspaper or journal ever publishes me again, I couldn’t care one jot. If not a single one of my old friends ever speaks to me again, I couldn’t give a toss either. That’s because I’m happy in my skin and I can sleep at night, knowing that I’m one of the very few journalists out there still doing their job: pursuing the truth without fear or favour.

    Here is a comment someone sent me just a moment ago in response to my podcast with Right Said Fred:

    Watching your descent into journalistic failure has been the absolute highlight of all this. Just look at the pathetic manchild you have regressed to it. From an oxford grad to a conspiracy theory peddling failure. Perfect, it really is.
    I’m sharing it with you because it gave me such pleasure. Imagine being so incensed that you cared enough to post such a comment from whatever squalid basement smelling faintly of stale semen that you happen to dwell in. Imagine thinking anyone is going to take you seriously when you can neither write grammatically, nor type a word like Oxford without an initial capital.

    I think we are currently living through just about the worst times any generation has ever had to endure. Obviously, there have been individual pockets around the world where the suffering has been greater – Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, the Ukraine during the Holodomor, Raqqa under Islamic State etc – but the difference between now and every other era is that there is no escape. Every country you might consider fleeing to has the same old problems because the people who are really in charge of this totalitarian takeover – let’s call them the globalist elite – have a power no tyrant has ever have before. Thanks to the internet, thanks to surveillance technology, thanks to central bank control, thanks to our inability to exist without smart phones, thanks to a myriad reasons, finally the bad guys are close to being able to run the whole world as a single entity.

    But grim though it is, I’m not complaining. These are probably also just about the most interesting times any generation has lived through because the stakes are so high, the baddies so evil they make Hitler look like a rank amateur, and the importance of ordinary people so paramount.

    It really is up to us now. Trump doesn’t have a plan – in fact he was probably one of them all along. There are no white hats anywhere who are going to ride to our rescue. All we’ve got going for us is numbers (we are many and they are few) and God. I do like it, I must say, having the most powerful force in the entire universe and beyond, someone who loves us beyond measure and can crush our enemies as we might squash a mosquito, on our side. What I’m less happy about, I’ll have to admit, is all the shit we’ll have to go through before God does eventually triumph and we go to join him in heaven for the life everlasting.

    I’m predicting: increasingly vicious pogroms against those of us who refuse to take the death jab, possibly culminating in physical violence or incarceration; deliberately engineered famines and geo-engineered weather disasters; a horrific death toll from ADE responses among those who’ve taken the experimental gene therapy; cyber attacks; currency collapse; gangs roaming the land, raping, thieving murdering; ever increasing authoritarianism; guillotines for political prisoners; the creation of a slave class ruled over by a cruel, vicious elite which view us ordinary folk as mere cattle.

    Obviously if I’m proved wrong, I’ll be delighted. But this is the path we’re on and the only thing that will stop it – resistance from the people – is currently looking not much on the cards because so very few people are awake.

    Those of us who are awake, though: my what joy it has brought me to be among such beautiful, wise, enlightened people. If I could spend the rest of my life living a simple life on an island just with them I would. Unfortunately, I don’t think the baddies intend to give us that option.

    One odd thing I’ve noticed on my journey in the last 18 months is how many of my fellow travellers (unfortunate expression I know…) have turned to God. But not as an act of desperation, as far as I can see. More as an acknowledgement of the extraordinary nature of the times we are living through: that this is perhaps the ultimate battle between good and evil, as foretold in the Bible, and that for such a struggle what you need more than anything is the spiritual armour of the Almighty.

    Which, you may not be totally surprised to hear, is the subject of my next book – my first in ruddy ages. I’ve spent a decade looking for the right subject, beginning half a dozen books which never came to anything because I got distracted or because I lost interest. This one WILL get written because it’s a matter very close to my heart and because I think it’s a key part of my holy mission to save the world (which I’ve often mentioned flippantly in the past but which I now suspect is real). Sorry if that sounds crazy, but there it is.

    Let me conclude by thanking you all for your support and understanding. And may I apologise for my utter crapness in replying so late or sometimes never to your messages. It’s not that I don’t love you or that I don’t care – I do very much and I love hearing from you. Problem is, I’m torn in so many different directions right now: I’ve got my Breitbart day job; I’ve got my podcasts; I’ve got trying to hold my family together; and now I’ve got this book I’m writing (copies of which some of you will of course be getting as part of your Special Friend deal…). Admin – including replying to correspondence – tends to fall by the wayside and I really wish it were otherwise.

  8. Border Force in trouble in Kent. A large number of women and children, illegal immigrants, are confined in an office in Dover in some cases for 10 days. This is because Kent Council is not housing such individuals and no doubt other councils are reluctant to take them.
    Border Force is not allowed to keep such people in detention for such lengthy periods of time. [ BBC Radio 4 News this morning]
    England hasn’t room for these illegals and successive governments have done nothing for many years to stop such illegal immigration.
    Politicians are to blame for the dire straits the country is in these days.

    1. If the RNLI has to get involved as its principle purpose is ‘to save lives at sea’ the government should threaten to remove its charitable status if it does not return those trying to enter Britain illegally to France and leave them on the shore there.

      Why should those who support what used to be an excellent organisation be expected to continue to subsidise it now that it flaunts the fact that it is aiding and abetting people to break the law? Instead of paying millions of pounds to France to mock their stupidity and do nothing why doesn’t the ludicrous government subsidise the RNLI to return illegals to France by paying for their fuel bills instead?

      1. Far too sensible, Richard, old troop.

        We will be expected to give up our spare rooms to this load of festering crap.

      2. The RNLI claims that they pick up those who are “in distress”. Funny how the same people in their flimsy unsuitable vessels are never “in distress” until they are out of French waters.

    2. 336027+ up ticks,
      Morning CS,

      “Politicians are to blame for the dire straits the country is in these days”

      May one say, whilst I and many others were pounding pavements seeking support for the REAL UKIP party
      prior to the treachery, that being the only party that called for controlled immigration.

      Many of the electorate were also busy doing the same for the mass uncontrolled immigration / paedophile umbrella party’s, successfully returning them to power again,again,& again.

      The bog man anthony charlie lynton initially lifted the latch, con / lib, party’s, members, voters promptly followed suit continuing for decades with no respite we are now suffering via the polling booth actions.

  10. SIR – For anyone bringing up a young family, a dishwasher (Letters, July 29) is an essential tool that helps prevent the spread of enteric bacterial and norovirus infections.

    Washing-up by hand merely assists the spread of these pathogens.

    Peter M Hills
    Andover, Hampshire

    Another lunatic who prevents his children developing immunity by expose.

      1. Temperatures in a dishwasher can be high enough to kill the COVID virus whereas the global population will be extinct before climate change has time to reach them.

          2. I think that if a virus is capable of causing an infection, you can refer to it a live.

    3. Well there is exposure and exposure. If anyone in the family – including pets – licks their plates, it’s nice to know that the plates have been disinfected.

      You can put children’s toys in the dishwasher as well. I once had a whole army of Playmobil figures, and their little hands grip the wire baskets perfectly to keep them safe (they were going into storage).
      You can also steam salmon in it.
      And wash your washing up brush too.
      And fridge shelves.

    4. Well there is exposure and exposure. If anyone in the family – including pets – licks their plates, it’s nice to know that the plates have been disinfected.

      You can put children’s toys in the dishwasher as well. I once had a whole army of Playmobil figures, and their little hands grip the wire baskets perfectly to keep them safe (they were going into storage).
      You can also steam salmon in it.
      And wash your washing up brush too.
      And fridge shelves.

    5. Clearly, not capable of washing up in hot detergenty water, followed by a hot rinse, then air-dry (or am I replying to the thread about Izal?).
      Morning, all Y’all!

        1. Nope. Just replying to the whazzock who cannot wash up properly. It’s not that complicated!
          I use the above method for pans, cooking bowls and good knives, all else goes in the dishwasher.

    6. How on earth does he suppose people managed before dishwashers were around? And increased the population?

      1. We only got our first dishwasher after our our dishwashing sons moved out of home. They were a little miffed IIRC.

  12. Better locations existed for the Holocaust Memorial. 30 July 2021.

    Had the Imperial War Museum been chosen from the outset, this project would have gone forward with great good will from all concerned. It is a great shame that such an important matter was unnecessarily turned into a divisive planning, environmental and cultural battleground.

    The best place for a Holocaust Memorial is Israel!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/07/29/better-locations-existed-holocaust-memorial/

    1. Bit ironic building it now, to remember the 6 million Jews exterminated by the Germans when we are in the middle of a program of vaccinating the whole planet with an experimental drug, we just might need a much bigger memorial in the future.

      1. It would be a little premature but we should really put one up for ourselves while we can.

        Here once resided one of the most brilliant races in Human History. Their achievements are unparalleled. They were not conquered but Betrayed and Destroyed by their own leaders!

      2. It would be a little premature but we should really put one up for ourselves while we can.

        Here once resided one of the most brilliant races in Human History. Their achievements are unparalleled. They were not conquered but Betrayed and Destroyed by their own leaders!

    2. As I mentioned yesterday, the country’s finest memorial and museum are at the IWM just a short walk from the proposed site. Why have this one so close?

      There is also a kinder transport statue/memorial at Liverpool St Station.

    3. As I mentioned yesterday, the country’s finest memorial and museum are at the IWM just a short walk from the proposed site. Why have this one so close?

      There is also a kinder transport statue/memorial at Liverpool St Station.

    4. Why 75 years after the event?
      Is the memorial a symbol of Virtue Signalling or Holocaust Porn? Discuss.

  13. Good Moaning.
    A trip down memory lane?

    http://theoldie.co.uk/blog/izal-and-bronco-the-toughest-toilet-roll

    “Izal and Bronco – the toughest toilet papers

    Things might be bad in the crisis – but at least we aren’t reaching for the Bronco. Quentin Letts explains

    Potter down the loo-paper section of a supermarket aisle today and you will be confronted by a baffling range of products. Will it be ‘Skin Kind’ paper, infused with aloe vera, or ‘Gorgeous Comfort’ quilts? How about ‘Gentle Clean’ rolls decorated with pictures of puppies, ‘Shea Butter 3Ply’, ‘Tissue Cream’, ‘Velvet Triple Layer’, ‘Cushelle Fresh Linen’, ‘Quilts with Plush Cushiony Layers’ or ‘Andrex Natural Pebble’?

    Gone are the days when the choice of bog paper, like Brexit, was ‘soft or hard’. Soft, known by manufacturers as ‘crêpe’, was plain, white tissue paper. Hard was in later years probably one of two brands, Izal or Bronco. In earlier times, there were also such stalwart makes as Bulldog, Samson, Medipathic, Victoria and British No 1 Thin.

    Hard toilet paper was opaque, crinkly, scratchy. Dreadful stuff, really – but cheap. It tended to be favoured by schools, nationalised industries and other ‘facilities’ where the management did not nurse particularly tender feelings towards the clientele. In Whitehall, hard loo paper had ‘Government Property’ stamped on it, either to prevent thefts or to remind civil servants that Big Brother was even with them on the crapper.

    Generations of schoolchildren used hard ‘bumf’ as tracing paper – jolly handy when you needed to draw a map of the Isle of Wight or Rutland. In its prime function it was less praiseworthy. Hard toilet paper often had a slightly waxy, disinfectant coating which made it less than fully absorbent. Skiddy, too. Sometimes, no amount of it would bring a decent polish. You would hear the chap in the neighbouring cubicle huffing and puffing as he gave his hindquarters the most tremendous scouring.

    My parents ran a boarding school and I had to put up with hard paper both in term-time, at the school where I was sent, and during the holidays back home. A cold, dank jacks with a swinging chain and the whiff of medicated Izal – this is one memory of my childhood. It was even used in the loo reserved for the school’s staff. This caused grumbles in the teachers’ common room but my father blocked his ears to them. Talking of blocking, rolls of hard paper would occasionally be thrown down the bowl by infuriated users. Despite that wax coating, they swelled to double their size in the water. This led to frequent flooding.

    The Romans used sponges on sticks. A website called toiletpaperworld.com offers the information that toilet paper was invented c 50BC by the Chinese, using pulped bamboo. In 1391, the emperor of China reportedly had loo paper made in 2ft x 3ft strips. Only royalty had access to it. ‘The Bureau of Imperial Supplies began producing 720,000 sheets a year,’ says the website. Either the Chinese royal family was enormous or they had beautifully shiny bottoms.

    In the dissolution of Britain’s monasteries, more than a few old books were torn up for the WC. Colonial Americans used corncobs and leaves, while others preferred straw and sawdust. In time, these were replaced by strips of old newspaper. At the beginning of the 19th century the Fourdrinier brothers perfected the manufacture of continuous rolls of paper in England; and by 1880, the British Patent Perforated Paper Company was producing toilet paper. It was not until the late 1920s that soft tissue paper became economically feasible and ‘splinter-free’ rolls hit the market, one manufacturer marketing its wares as ‘Mr Thirsty Fibre’.

    Izal is no longer easy to find, and Bronco appears to have gone down the khazi for good in 1989. And if that brings tears to our eyes, it may only be the memory of using the stuff.”

    1. My mother favoured the flat packs of Jeyes. She always shunned the soft rolls my aunt liked. At work later on we had Government Property rolls.
      We don’t seem to have coloured rolls now- it’s white or off white 🤔 – no longer can we match the paper to the tiles.

      1. I agree. where has the coloured – let along the seasonally decorated – bog paper gone?
        This New Puritanism is a bu88er.

      2. My grandmother had a built-in Jeyes flat pack holder in her lavatory. It was the size of two of the wall tiles and was a b****r to fit the new box!

      3. We used a brand called John Wayne – tough as hell and takes sh!t from no man!

    2. In Edinburgh Council premises, offices, and schools each sheet of the hard paper was printed with the legend “Edinburgh Cleansing Department”.

    4. The actor John Mills recounts in his autobiography how he tried to make ends meet as a toilet paper salesman. Under threat of the sack for lack of sales, his final desperate attempt was to a pub landlord, from whom he got a free drink but no sales as yesterday’s daily rag was free. Toilet paper’s loss is our gain.

      1. I remember using square of old newspaper when the Izal ran out – all that newsprint getting everywhere. And we all had white underwear then too!

    5. The actor John Mills recounts in his autobiography how he tried to make ends meet as a toilet paper salesman. Under threat of the sack for lack of sales, his final desperate attempt was to a pub landlord, from whom he got a free drink but no sales as yesterday’s daily rag was free. Toilet paper’s loss is our gain.

  14. Police ‘will take 20 years to be ethnically representative of communities without quotas’. 30 July 2021.

    Police forces will take 20 years to become ethnically representative of their communities unless they introduce quotas or minimum targets for black and ethnic minority recruits, say MPs.

    The all-party Home Affairs committee said it was “completely inexcusable” that, nearly 30 years after the death of Stephen Lawrence, black, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) officers represented just seven per cent of the police service when they made up 14 per cent of the population.

    Within twenty years it will be the Islamic Orthodox Religious Police!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/30/police-will-take-20-years-ethnically-representative-communities/

    1. They don’t seem to realise that not all areas have 14% bames – some fewer and some many more.

      2. Good morning, Ndovu

        It must be a very moot point as to whether race relations would be improved in predominantly white areas if ethnically diverse police were imposed upon them.

        After all the PTB seem to think that race relations would be improved if there were more ethnically diverse police officers in areas of high ethnic diversity so why wouldn’t race relations be improved by having fewer ethnically diverse police officers in white areas?

        1. ‘Morning, Bill, when I was in training in the Royal Air Force, a Polish Squadron Leader entered the class one morning, looked at various statistics and asked the Corporal Trainer, “Corporal, why are these boys below the class average?” and it took several agonising minutes for the explanation of how averages were arrived at before the Sqdn Ldr left, more baffled than satisfied.

    3. It’s worse than that, Jim. The 2011 census had less than half of London’s population as White British/Irish, and increasing immigration and White Flight since then has probably pushed that figure to around 40%. Thus the Met needs 60% of its staff to be non-White British/Irish. Good luck with that.

      As an aside, I wonder if there are any other capital cities where the indigenous people are outnumbered by immigrants

    4. It’s worse than that, Jim. The 2011 census had less than half of London’s population as White British/Irish, and increasing immigration and White Flight since then has probably pushed that figure to around 40%. Thus the Met needs 60% of its staff to be non-White British/Irish. Good luck with that.

      As an aside, I wonder if there are any other capital cities where the indigenous people are outnumbered by immigrants

    5. It’s worse than that, Jim. The 2011 census had less than half of London’s population as White British/Irish, and increasing immigration and White Flight since then has probably pushed that figure to around 40%. Thus the Met needs 60% of its staff to be non-White British/Irish. Good luck with that.

      As an aside, I wonder if there are any other capital cities where the indigenous people are outnumbered by immigrants

    6. It’s worse than that, Jim. The 2011 census had less than half of London’s population as White British/Irish, and increasing immigration and White Flight since then has probably pushed that figure to around 40%. Thus the Met needs 60% of its staff to be non-White British/Irish. Good luck with that.

      As an aside, I wonder if there are any other capital cities where the indigenous people are outnumbered by immigrants

    7. Its seems that Whites are underrepresented in the criminal fraternity, what steps will the present government be taking to end this discrimination? Will they introduce a quota for criminals by race & ethnicity?

    8. Why must the police represent the people? Why must any organisation? Just hire the right people regardless of the colour.

      Lefties! Stop being racist!

  15. Morning all

    SIR – It is proposed that electric car owners could connect their cars to the National Grid and allow the energy in their batteries to take some of the load at peak times (report, July 28). But such use would seriously compromise battery life.

    A typical lithium-ion battery has a life of about 1,000 cycles. For a car like a Tesla S, a 100kWh battery costs about £10,000. So each charge cycle costs £10 – or 10p per kWh – in battery wear and tear alone.

    This sum of 10p per kWh is nearly twice the current wholesale price of electricity. Unless car owners are prepared to bear the extra wear on their batteries without compensation (and who would?) the price of electricity would have to increase very significantly.

    Secondly, it is said that ministers are currently drawing up rules to make all public charge points have smart charging – in other words, they will only work in off-peak periods.

    Advertisement

    Does this mean that if I am driving from London to Manchester, and need to recharge at Birmingham, I will have to make an overnight stop?

    Andrew Chantrill

    St Mawes, Cornwall

    SIR – Your timely report on the possibility of blackouts because of electric car charging quotes a suggestion that smart charging will solve the problem.

    But smart charging currently is just a vision and does not accomplish the huge changes required to make an all-electric car future viable. Changes must be made to the generation and distribution of electric power, as well as to our expectations of driving.

    Assuming that the 30 million or so vehicles on the road today were all electric and were all plugged in at 6pm for overnight charging, then, if they were using standard 3.7kW chargers, there would be an instantaneous demand on the grid of 111 gigawatts. That is just over the equivalent of 34 Hinkley Point Cs – or the total electricity generating capacity of the United Kingdom in 2019. What mechanism – apart from electricity blackouts – will stop this happening?

    Advertisement

    ADVERTISING

    The National Grid’s annual Future Energy Scenarios has for a few years talked about “demand management”. The 2020 edition often mentions “societal changes”.

    Anyone who thinks that in a decade or so we’ll all be carrying on as normal, driving around whenever we feel like it in nice, clean electric vehicles, is living in a fantasy world.

    Dermot Flaherty

    Southampton

    Placeholder image for youtube video: JJHxuQ_TueI

    SIR – I see that the transport select committee has highlighted the disparity in pricing between home and public charging of electric vehicles.

    Before castigating the charging providers, they should have a word with HM Revenue and Customs, which has just ruled that public chargers must apply VAT at the full rate of 
20 per cent rather than the domestic rate of 5 per cent.

    Malcolm Benson

    Beckenham, Kent

    1. I have boringly repeated that we have the technology to draw electricity from cables laid under roads. No batteries required. New roads would be.

        1. I do not know. However, these things should be looked at very broadly. An end-to-end cost/benefit analysis should be carried out. The social aspects also need to be considered.
          This is not done for anything as far as I can tell. Not on wind farms, not on so-called “recycling” or any of the mad impositions resulting from an insane response to quack suppositions about climate and fossil fuels, and any other lunacy that half-baked child scientists dream up. I merely suggest that there may be alternatives that do not require the planet to be ripped up for rare earths by child labourers working for the Chinese.

          https://www.railengineer.co.uk/trams-without-wires/

          1. In fact, the half-baked ideas are often worse than before (another Schlimmbesserung).
            Take replacing plastic straws with waxed paper ones… you can recycle the plastic, but not the waxed paper. Same goes with replacing metal cans for food with plasticised, aluminised cardboard ones – the plastic, aluminium and shiny printing make them unrecyclable, cans just need melted.
            Shift from glass bottles to plastic ones… lighter, but nowhere near as recyclable.
            Shipping plastic for recycling to the Far East, who get paid, then throw the bloody stuff in the sea to form a new contine t in the central Pacific. Maybe we could house gimmegrants there?
            Bah!

      2. That would work well, Horace. Cables only needed under the major roads, vehicles could revert to battery power for minor roads. But – the problem of generation and supply to the point of use still remains. Is there enough copper in the world?

        1. That’s the idea. As I say, these things need to be looked at thoroughly. Thing is though, copper can be reused. Some of the stuff being used in electric cars and mobile phones is rare and gets dropped into landfill.
          Of course, if we could find a fuel that is in plentiful supply, easy to extract and purify, easy and cheap to transport without loss and can be used in very efficient engines that would certainly be better than battery cars, or under ground pickup lines. (Oh, hang on…)

          1. Sir, Sir …. Sir ……. I’ve got an idea, Sir……
            We could call it petroleum; apart from Dimbo Minor who can’t spell; he could call it petrol.

        2. At £6900 per tonne. The late Buckminster Fuller observed that economic growth correlated with growth in the energy supply and also dependent on copper production.

        3. At £6900 per tonne. The late Buckminster Fuller observed that economic growth correlated with growth in the energy supply and also dependent on copper production.

        4. Development of one technology spurs on others, often by the need to overcome problems and/or reduce costs. For example, steam engines, heated by coal, need to be lubricated. They were originally lubricated by tallow, but there was a side effect of damage to the metal by acid from the hot tallow. Then mineral oil was tried and it worked better.
          If we in the West set out to do something we can generally succeed. It depends on what we set as objectives. Nikola Tesla was looking at transmitting electricity wirelessly.

          James “Paraffin” Young
          https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/James-Paraffin-Young/

    2. I have boringly repeated that we have the technology to draw electricity from cables laid under roads. No batteries required. New roads would be.

    3. “Assuming that the 30 million or so vehicles on the road today were all electric and were all plugged in at 6pm for overnight charging, then, if they were using standard 3.7kW chargers, there would be an instantaneous demand on the grid of 111 gigawatts. That is just over the equivalent of 34 Hinkley Point Cs – or the total electricity generating capacity of the United Kingdom in 2019.”
      Yes… and what about getting the electrons to the charging point? The grid needs developed enormously, too. Say hello to ranks of pylons marching over what little of the countryside hasn’t been turned into identikit housing estates.

      1. ‘Morning, Paul, “… turned into identikit housing estates“. Or 500 acre solar ‘farms’ as are intended to surround our rural Suffolk village.

        I put farms in quotes because it is not a farm in the true sense of the word – in fact the solar power station ruins farmland.

    4. Electric Cars
      I read this morning’s DT Letters in bed on my smartphone, after bypassing the paywall in the usual fashion. There was a short 12-minute film, by a Telegraph reporter I think, on his experiences with borrowing a Mini Electric for a week to see if it was practical for a London-flat-living guy like him, doing not many miles.

      First thing he found was that he had to change his local Supermarket (which didn’t have a suitable charge-point) for one much further away which did. He also needed to leave his car overnight in a multi-storey car park 10 minutes’ walk away because it had the nearest available (and suitable) charger point. The overnight parking cost him £22.

      However, he did love the quietness of the car, especially in heavy traffic when there was no fuel consumption between occasional stop-start moves.

      Then he tried a 60-odd mile trip to Burford and needed to plan carefully for the return journey. He had subscribed to one of the several Network charging schemes, but when he stopped to charge up, the charger was on a different subscription network. And so it went on.

      At one point, when he had managed to find a charger point in a large car park and was sitting in the Mini for 45 minutes while it achieved a substantial charge, he calculated how much Carbon Dioxide he had saved over the week compared with a petrol Mini.

      He realised that he needed to plan ahead a lot more, so that if a particular charge point shown on the ZapMap app had already just been occupied (for typically half an hour or more plus your own charging time) then he should choose one that had several alternates (of the right type) not too far away. Sounds like a nightmare to me!

      My Sister-in-Law’s brother (does that make him a Brother-in-Law?) bought a Mitsubishi PHEV hybrid vehicle several years ago. He charges it at home all the time, using ‘free’ electricity from his roof array of photovoltaic panels. Being retired, he rarely drives much more than 20-30 miles, so this works out well for him.

      But on one occasion when he was running out of charge and decided to turn on the Internal Combustion motor, a glitch in the internal charging setup meant that the battery that was needed to start the IC engine had been unused for so long that it was flat! Oops!

      I am 80 years old now and have concluded that if I HAVE to go electric, the only type of vehicle I would buy is a hybrid – if they are still available. And I will make sure to use the IC engine occasionally to keep its own starter battery charged.

      I am not convinced that all this green electrification will work. Even with charging points on every lamp post, what on earth will flat dwellers do? And don’t get me started on electricity generation. I live within 6 miles of one of the Thames estuary wind farms and frequently see the windmills still. I understand that in windless conditions they must be turned occasionally, using electricity from the grid, to prevent their bearings and shafts from being damaged. Where is the fallback going to be?

      1. In a word, blackouts! Oh and, of course, those with “smart meters” will have their supply curtailed.

      2. ‘Morning, Rough. Hybrids will also require petrol stations to continue in use but they will be fewer and further apart.

    5. The Youtube video is in an idealised situation, running around London in the main with just one long distance run, that proved problematic with finding fast charging points that were available for use en route. One stop took an hour and 15 minutes but the driver ended by virtue signalling that he had saved the planet from 23Kg of CO².

      Oh, frabjous joy!

  16. SIR – A study has found that shielders were eight times more likely than the general population to test positive for Covid (report, July 28).

    This is catastrophic news for those like my wife and me, and their families. Clinically extremely vulnerable people have endured 16 months of what amounts to voluntary house arrest, shunning all human contact and hardly ever leaving the premises. In the belief that we are minimising our risk, we have continued this non-lifestyle even as the rest of the population begins to return to normality,

    However, the study seems to suggest that what we have had to endure has been a waste of effort. Can anyone offer me a crumb of reassurance?

    A C J Young

    Egerton, Lancashire

    2. Can anyone offer me a crumb of reassurance/

      I’m sorry ACJ. I would like to, but I suspect that when it is all added up, it will be found that everything that was done was actually counter productive and that we would heve been better just taking Beecham’s Lemon and keeping warm!

    3. Can anyone offer me a crumb of reassurance/

      I’m sorry ACJ. I would like to, but I suspect that when it is all added up, it will be found that everything that was done was actually counter productive and that we would heve been better just taking Beecham’s Lemon and keeping warm!

    4. Can anyone offer me a crumb of reassurance/

      I’m sorry ACJ. I would like to, but I suspect that when it is all added up, it will be found that everything that was done was actually counter productive and that we would heve been better just taking Beecham’s Lemon and keeping warm!

    5. Ignore that claim. It is highly misleading and irresponsible. It uses data from a time when relatively very few non-vulnerable people were being tested. Illustrating this in numbers, if vulnerable people were tested at, for arguments sake, 80 times the rate of non-vulnerable people then shielding vulnerable people would actually be 90% less likely to catch Covid (8/80 = 10%; 100% – 10% = 90%).

    6. “Can anyone offer me a crumb of reassurance?”
      No. You’ve been had.

    7. Cue the Twilight Zone theme tune.
      The UK has adopted a weird philosophy whereby the NHS has become the state religion and only truly unhealthy people are the Righteous Ones. If you happen to be relatively healthy, you are either white & privileged, or a fascist.

      Edit: obviously I feel sorry for those born with certain conditions.

    8. You should have switched off the BBC and never ever believe a politician.

  17. Back to earth

    SIR – You were correct to call the Marble Arch mound, which has closed after two days, ridiculous (Leading Article, July 29). But even more absurd are those foolish enough to have wasted £4.50 on the non-view.

    Gavin Littaur

    London NW4

      1. No, Gavin is a slightly eccentric collector of postal memorabilia,etc, a Phil Hat A-list.

  18. Back to earth

    SIR – You were correct to call the Marble Arch mound, which has closed after two days, ridiculous (Leading Article, July 29). But even more absurd are those foolish enough to have wasted £4.50 on the non-view.

    Gavin Littaur

    London NW4

  19. Russia and China accused of posing daily threat from space. 30 July 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f028eafe5e98b8232195c073cdfe6aee3948dbb11ad2eba1355234bf48d1b8c0.jpg

    Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston said Moscow and Beijing were engaging in “questionable” activity such as flying satellites within “close proximity” of others, as well as more “dangerous activity” that could destroy other satellites, on a daily basis.

    He also said that they were gathering intelligence, and that future conflicts would be “won or lost in space”.

    Is that a branch of Tesco’s?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/29/reckless-russia-china-causing-threats-space-daily-basis/

    5. Oh dear how terribly white, not one is a Coloured or a Mustafa or disabled or transitioning to another gender or to another species, this really wont do!

      1. Must go to Specsavers.
        I thought you’d written Christ and you felt that Boris should be walking on the flood water.

  22. RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Ministers are telling us Britain is getting back to business but all the bike lanes and closed roadswith the economy on life-support is sheer madness
    *
    *
    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/07/29/22/46065883-9841221-image-m-18_1627593180975.jpg
    *
    *
    This finger-lickin’ lunacy has no limits

    Today’s edition of You Couldn’t Make It Up comes from Toronto, Canada, where a food writer has declared that eating with a knife and fork is racist.

    What most of us would simply consider to be good manners is apparently ‘dripping with the control and shame of colonialism’.

    Joshna Maharaj says children should be taught to eat with their hands. ‘European table manners were imposed on conquered peoples in an attempt to civilise them.’ Yes, people eat differently in different parts of the world.

    I once saw the American political pollster Frank Luntz pick up a Yorkshire pudding from his plate of roast beef, butter it and eat it like a bread roll.

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/07/29/22/46042829-9841221-image-a-21_1627593311400.jpg
    Chef Joshna Maharaj (pictured) said the practice of teaching children that they shouldn’t use their hands at the table is ‘dripping with the control and shame of colonisation’

    Would it have been ‘colonialist’ to correct him?

    This culture wars nonsense inevitably crosses the Atlantic, like the Black Lives Matters madness. So it can only be a matter of time before we are all forced to eat with our fingers, or at least the ethnically appropriate utensils.

    This could prove tricky. I don’t mind eating curry with naan bread in a balti house, but I’ve never mastered chopsticks.

    Still, using a knife and fork will probably be considered a hate crime.

    Now that everything’s ‘racist’ there’s no limit to this finger-lickin’ lunacy.

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/07/29/22/46066801-9841221-image-m-28_1627594268084.jpg
    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/07/29/22/46066799-9841221-image-a-29_1627594278993.jpg
    Angela Rayner (right) is the ‘dead spit of Catherine Tate’s stroppy teenager Lauren’ (left), says Mail reader

    I’ve always thought Labour’s gobby, bovver-booted deputy leader Angela Rayner looked familiar.

    Now Mail reader Jim Ryan, from Manchester, has put me right. She’s the dead spit of Catherine Tate’s stroppy teenager Lauren.

    Am I bovvered?

    2. Which hand should one eat with? The one you wipe your ar*e with, or the other?

    3. Strange talk coming from the side of the Atlantic that doesn’t know how to use a knife and fork anyway

    4. Interesting that the chef admits people needed civilising!

      European table manners were imposed on conquered peoples in an attempt to civilise them.’

    1. Celtic Fiddle – that is the attempt by the Republic of Ireland to do down the UK’s demand to leave the EUSSR.

      1. Good Moaning & happy Friday Bill. Its a great pity that the UK doesn’t tow all the migrant boats crossing the channel past the south coast to the west & release the tow once they are in sight of Irelands south coast & let the EUSSR deal with the problem that they created.

        1. The Irish would just give them a ferry ticket.

          Ireland for ever, England for jobs!

      1. Of course you can’t see them – they’re scared by the lightning so are hiding under the trees {:^))

      1. A very happy birthday to you, I hope that as the years go by there is yet more beauty to behold, may there be many more.

  26. Good morning from a dull, damp & drizzly Derbyshire. The overnight rain has subsided to a penetrating fine drizzle and it’s 9°C in the yard.

    Looking at the letters concerning electric cars, it is obvious that the targets the Government is trying to follow are far too extreme and will cause a huge amount of problems and unnecessary expense. But het ho, it’s only taxpayers’ money they are wasting.

    1. Big fat state doesn’t care. It doesn’t have to care. It’s just forcing a damaging, destructive ineffectual mess on us without thought or consideration.

      1. 336027+ up ticks,
        Morning W,
        May one ask, WHO put such an odious big fat state overseeing group in power once again,again,again………

        1. You may, ogga1. May I ask, why do you keep posting the same observation once again, again, again?

          1. 336027+ up ticks,
            Morning EB,
            Lest we forget, the truth repeated will eventually be taken on board.

            Besides, check the voting pattern as in being repeated again,again,& again, there lies our major problem.

          2. …to the point of boredom and skipping reading the posts, Elsie – and Good morning, just. 11:58.

      2. So, one of the smaller contributors to CO2 in the world is going to cut its emissions by a small amount, whilst the bigger contributors increase their contribution by a large amount. Net effect – large rise for the world, bankruptcy for the smaller contributor. Strange logic.

  27. 336027+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    I do believe desperation is showing via the political overseers in regards to the mass jaboree, could it be as we approach the genuine flu season that could see peoples saying “ere I got flu & it ain’t no different than that there covid”

    Dt,
    Hospital figures for Covid cases ‘misleading’
    Government accused of making ‘flawed decisions’ after NHS finds quarter of virus patients had other cause of admission

    Dt,
    Covid test and trace revolt as growing number refuse to hand over contacts’ details
    As economy falters in face of the ‘pingdemic’, official figures show compliance has fallen by almost 10 per cent in the past month

    Yellow stars are on the ID menu could ear notching ID-ing jabbed
    peoples also be lined up, would the herd go for it, is it a lab/lib/con coalition vote winner ?

  28. Russian State TV Host Couple Owns $4 Million in Moscow Real Estate, Navalny’s Allies Claim. 30 July 2021.

    Jailed Kremlin’s critic Alexei Navalny’s outlawed Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), on Thursday published an investigation on YouTube claiming that Russian state TV hosts Yevegny Popov and his wife Olga Skabeeva own Moscow real estate worth more than 300 million rubles ($4 million).

    Anne Robinson is reputedly worth £40M; most of it extorted from BBC viewers via the Licence Fee. She is almost certainly not at the top of the tree!

    https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/07/29/russian-state-tv-host-couple-owns-4-million-in-moscow-real-estate-navalnys-allies-claim-a74649

    1. Linneker… there are loads of BBC celebs who have staggering amounts of money. Clarkson… So, some Russkies do it too… who’d a thunk it?

    2. That’s because they are amateurs. Now, if they had spent some time training at the BBC….

  30. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/117895853c083101376c827e5b6a6b6d52ba5d41d6b7739044624caac16eef83.png If somebody out walking in Africa were to be killed by a lion, no doubt the victim would be blamed, for entering the animal’s space. I see no difference here. The cow has no choice about where it is kept, whereas victims choose to enter its space, despite plenty of publicity about the dangers.

    Good to see, this morning, that an old and well-respected commentator from the old DT letters’ page days — JDavidJ — is still around and kicking on the “virtual” newspaper version of the DT.

    1. Good morning Mr G, and everyone.
      No memory of JDavidJ!
      Jennifer SP would have sounder advice, but here are my humble suggestions:
      -When walking in the country, carry a stout stick.
      – If you have boots with protected toecaps, wear ’em.
      – Never go between a cow and its calf, nor allow your dog to do so.
      – Bullocks tend to be frisky.

      1. Good morning, Tim.

        JDavidJ was one of the more respected commentators on the letters’ page (DT own column) from the late 2000s until that forum’s demise. I’m sure that some of the senior NoTTLers from that era (AnneAllan, Bill Thomas, True_Belle, and a few others) have good memories of him).

        1. The only one I remember is FabianSolutions who was allegedly a DT staffer called Kate Day. Her job was to post silly stuff to wind up the comments . AmFagash is the latest incarnation.

        2. JDavidJ was the first to post the use of the formatting symbols, well before Disqus put them in the comment box footer.

      2. The cow & calf bit applies in spades to moose & calf, deer & calf, and bear and cub. Ewe and lamb, too.

  32. 336027+ up ticks,
    But surely it fly’s in the face of Health & safety to pick them up two miles of the french coast ( yesterday post) and bring them 19 miles
    to England, has the RNLi a covert deal with macron, are the british overseers still brussels assets ?

    Lifeboats Boss Defends Channel Migrant Pick-Ups as ‘Humanitarian Work of the Highest Order’

    Why do these org. / overseers still find support, now there a question that needs an urgent answer.

    1. Does the RLNI not have the right to drop off those”rescued” at the nearest accessible harbour ?

      1. 336027+ up ticks,
        CS,
        I would say so, but then macron would say they were being invaded.

      2. Clydsider, as far as we know, it’s a requirement.

        However the Woke boss of RNLI was on TV yesterday, wailing about “the terrible times these poor people have been through”

        He didn’t mention the fact that if they hadn’t paid good money to go on an unsafe and unlicenced ferry, they wouldn’t be in danger.

      3. Clydsider, as far as we know, it’s a requirement.

        However the Woke boss of RNLI was on TV yesterday, wailing about “the terrible times these poor people have been through”

        He didn’t mention the fact that if they hadn’t paid good money to go on an unsafe and unlicenced ferry, they wouldn’t be in danger.

  33. That’s The Way To Do It

    There is a powerful emperor who needs a new head Samurai, so he puts the word out. A year passes and on the same day, three people showed up to apply for the position: a Japanese Samurai, a Chinese Samurai and a Jewish Samurai.

    The emperor asks the Japanese Samurai to demonstrate his abilities. The Japanese Samurai opens a match box and out pops a little fly. He flicks his sword and the fly drops dead on the ground in two pieces.

    The emperor exclaims, “That is very impressive!”

    He then asks the Chinese Samurai to demonstrate his abilities. So this second Samurai also opens a match box, releasing a fly. He flicks his sword twice, and the fly drops dead on the ground, in four pieces.

    “Amazing!” exclaims the emperor, turning to the Jewish Samurai. “And what can you do?”

    The Jewish Samurai opens a match box and out pops a fly. He flashes his sword in an intricate flourish, filling the room with a wooshing wind from the speed of his blade.

    Then he puts down the blade, but the fly is still buzzing around!

    The emperor, disappointed, asks: “After all that fuss, why is the fly not dead?”

    The Jewish Samurai smiles and says: “Circumcision is not intended to kill, Emperor-san.”

  34. Fine BTL comment:

    “Morgan is one of the biggest pimples on the very spotty arse of mainstream journalism”

          1. Moron’s brass neck is so thick – those multitude of chins need lots of support – and his employers know that he will say ANYTHING for clickbait, thereby ensuring advertising income for those employers.

            The fact that he can give polar opposite opinions, whilst caring not a jot, gains him employment, if not credibility.

  35. The Daily Human Stupidity (from today, for a change).

    Dr Richard Budgett, the IOC’s medical and science director, said: “Everyone agrees that trans women are women.” [DT, 30/07/21]

    Who are these “everyone”, you vacuous and dangerous clown? Budgett is fully in the vanguard of the accelerating decline in human intelligence levels.

    1. I wonder if the good doctor would take the same view should a trans woman rape his daughter….

    3. Tw@t, they still have XY chromosomes.

      You can cut out your genitalia, fashion female ones and grow moobs but you cannot surgically alter your chromosomes.

    4. No, a woman is a woman. A man taking drugs is a man taking drugs.

      I find it so odd – a man pretending to eb a woman is a transman, or transwoman?

      One day – hopefully soono – we’ll end this nonsense of indulging them and actually look at the problems these people are clearly suffering so they don’t escape into a fantasy world.

    1. But officer – I was hoping they might send some of their food scraps out for me

  38. 336027+ up ticks,
    Makes one proud to be a Brit…. my @rse,

    Dt,
    One of the victims highlighted in the report, referred to as Anna, was placed into the care of foster parents whose son was her abuser.

    Anna was then forced into an Islamic wedding with her abuser after becoming pregnant at the age of fifteen, all of which, she claimed, was sanctioned by Bradford authorities.

    Listen up, for more of the same a lab/lib/con support & votes is a must.

    A replica of rotherham,rochdale, etc,etc, nation wide.

  39. Welcome to the Free Speech Union’s weekly newsletter. This newsletter is a brief round-up of the free speech news of the week.

    Preacher Hatun Tash slashed with knife in Speakers’ Corner attack

    Christian preacher and former Muslim Hatun Tash was slashed in the face at Speakers’ Corner on Sunday. She has been a persistent critic of Islam, and, as media reports noted, she was wearing a Charlie Hebdo t-shirt at the time of the attack. We wrote to the Metropolitan Police on her behalf in June urging them to take her safety seriously, following previous altercations and threats. She has every right to speak her mind without fearing for her personal safety. Speaking to GB News, Brendan O’Neill said the assault on Hatun shows, again, a “growing culture of intolerance” towards critics of Islam. Writing about the attack in Spiked, Brendan criticised the widespread failure of the press to report on the story with the seriousness it deserves. Ben Sixsmith compared the knife attack to events in Batley. Writing in UnHerd, he said: “There is no other context, in Western societies, in which speech, even irresponsible and offensive speech, raises the serious and immediate risk of being stabbed in the head.” Hatun subsequently spoke to the Times about the repeated physical assaults she has suffered at Speakers’ Corner. Newsweek noted our support for Hatun.

    “Pronoun pledge” for Scotland’s civil servants

    The Scottish Government is to ask its 8,000 civil servants to add their pronouns to their email signatures as part of a “transgender inclusivity drive”, the Telegraph reports, despite 60% of staff surveyed opposing the move. The option for staff to leave a comment about the proposal was removed part-way through the survey to “minimise any negative responses”, according to emails disclosed under a Freedom of Information request.

    FSU Advisory Council member Andrew Doyle said of the initiative: “What this is actually doing is signalling to people ‘I believe in gender identity ideology and so should you’… So often these initiatives that are intended to foster inclusivity end up creating division.”

    Former Woman’s Hour presenter Jenni Murray is opposed to the move. She wrote an article in the Daily Mail in which she said:“The use of pronouns is a political statement. It suggests a belief that gender identity overrides sex and, increasingly, we are seeing more and more women expressing their concern that what they believe, that sex matters, is slowly being eroded.”

    Labour investigate MP for liking gender critical tweet

    Labour MP Rosie Duffield is being investigated by the party for liking a tweet that said trans people were “cosplaying as the opposite sex”. Debbie Hayton, the trans journalist, has written a piece for the Spectator about the hounding of the MP. Josephine Bartosch notes the support of SNP and Conservative MPs for Duffield, but says “Sir Keir Starmer appears to have gone missing”. Mark Epps has written a piece for Counterweight about leaving the Labour Party, in part because of its stance on trans issues.

    Alex Massie demolishes the craven silence from the politicians and groups who should be defending JK Rowling in the face of death threats for her view on the trans debate. Charlotte Runcie writes about the latest monstering of Rowling for the Telegraph. Jenny McCartney in UnHerd highlights the case of Matt Thompson, an LSE Gender Studies student, who gave an academic paper addressed to gender-critical women (abused as “TERFs”, or trans-exclusionary radical feminists) that said: “Picture this: I hold a knife to your throat and spit my transness in your ear. Does that turn you on? Are you scared? I sure fucking hope so.”

    Why are so few men defending women’s rights in the trans debate, asks Julie Bindel.

    We’re supporting our member Natalie Bird, who was barred from seeking office by the Liberal Democrats for 10 years after she wore a t-shirt with the words “Woman: Adult Human Female” on it. The party said she was “transphobic”. She’s now raising money to fight a legal battle against the party. You can contribute to her fundraiser here.

    A teacher has been sacked for obstructing the campaign of a transgender child to be elected head girl. The teacher had also reportedly failed to challenge pupils who called the transgender candidate “disgusting”.

    Taxpayers’ money funnelled into “decolonising” initiatives

    £11 million of taxpayers’ money has gone to a group called Advance HE, which incentivises universities to “decolonise” their curriculum and introduce unconscious bias training. Lord Wharton, chair of the Office for Students, says the campaigns Advance HE runs “could undermine free speech and interfere with academic freedom”.

    Meanwhile, a new student group calling itself LSE Class War is calling for the LSE’s Hayek Society to be banned on the grounds that its existence is “harmful to marginalised students”, and for private school students to be barred from the university. FSU founder Toby Young was quoted in the Daily Mail on the story: “The statements of LSE Class War read like the work of a satirist. Do a group of upper-middle class students at one of Britain’s most exclusive universities really want to wage war against posh people? Or is this a prank designed to take the Mickey out of privately-educated student activists? Unfortunately, we know from experience that student demands that should be treated as a joke are taken deadly seriously by those in authority, so the Free Speech Union stands ready to defend the Hayek Society if there’s any move to ban it. Universities should be places where students are exposed to a broad range of different ideas, not a woke echo chamber.”

    Schools and councils push woke social theories

    Brighton City Council has embraced critical race theory, writes Adrian Hart in Spiked. Employees must attend anti-racism training, and schools have been told to teach “key aspects of racial literacy” in a hyper-racialised approach to education.

    Ann Widdecombe called for free speech to be taught in schools in a conversation with our Advisory Council member Andrew Doyle on GB News. We’ve called for free speech to be included in the Department for Education’s list of “British values” which must be taught in schools following the brouhaha in Batley.

    Olivia Hartley has written a piece for the Critic in which she explains why the country’s top independent schools are racing to embrace wokeness.

    Is the end of cancel culture in sight?

    New data has found that the youngest Generation Z cohort in America – those aged 13 to 16 – are quite strongly opposed to cancel culture: 59% of this group have a negative view of it. Zaid Jilani offers a theory as to why: “Millennials came of age at a time when the internet was slowly introduced into every facet of our lives. They still have a bit of separation between the internet and the real world. When someone is piled on or even fired for an embarrassing old tweet or Facebook status, a millennial’s first impulse is often to think that this person simply shouldn’t have shared that thought online… Gen Z, on the other hand, has grown up immersed in the internet and social media. To them, the barrier between what’s personal and what’s public is fluid, and many Americans of this age don’t find it particularly unusual to broadcast everyday life and thoughts to the entire world. A puritanical mindset that seeks to persecute people over the expression of their beliefs is hard to reconcile with a world where so much of what was once private is now public.”

    A poll for the Spectator has found that 40% of the public would support the government censoring books with “sexist, homophobic, or racist” comments.

    Sarah Ditum compares cancel culture to Harlow’s social isolation experiments involving monkeys in an article for UnHerd.

    Culture war corner

    Tanya Gold argues in the Telegraph that the culture wars are not yet widespread in Britain. But a woke cultural elite have tremendous power across society and Adrian Wooldridge writes in the Telegraph about the spread of “woke” ideology throughout the global elite. Harry Miller asks why North Yorkshire Police are being coy about their recent “Intersectionality Conference”. It reportedly featured a “critical race theorist” who charges £1500 a session, but the force has refused to reveal the list of speakers. “In this climate of censoriousness, is it so surprising that Right-wingers and even centrists remain loath to put themselves forward for prominent appointments?” asks our director Douglas Murray in an article on Alan Rusbridger’s recent appointment as the editor of Prospect.

    Andrew Tettenborn of our Legal Advisory Council writes for Spiked about Ofcom’s latest push to ensure that all television programmes are “inclusive”. A new report by the regulator says programmes must reflect “the diversity of the UK” and “include the accurate portrayal of protected characteristics”. Can opera survive the culture wars, asks Heather Mac Donald, after the Scottish Opera apologised for casting white singers as Mao Zedong and Chou En-lai in Nixon in China. The National Galleries of Scotland are due to review their entire collection for links to slavery and colonialism, according to a report in the Times. Bel Mooney rejects the racialisation of writing and the obsession with an authors’ ethnicity in an article for Conservative Woman.

    Law

    The Telegraph has criticised Government plans to reform the Official Secrets Act, significantly curbing press freedom. Under the new proposals, journalists who publish state secrets would be punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

    A tribunal has ruled that “referring to a work colleague as a grandparent counts as age discrimination even if they are one”. Melanie Phillips said the judge took “such an expansive view of the word ‘discrimination’ that it evacuated it of meaning”.

    Police are investigating after former nurse Kate Shemirani compared NHS staff giving people Covid vaccines to the Nazi doctors tried at Nuremburg.

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    Best wishes,

    1. Little did I realise – as I propped up my eyelids during grammar lessons – that the word ‘pronoun’, would play such an important role in my life.

      1. If I were a Jock snivel serpent I would gladly oblige their diktat. I would sign myself:

        Grizzly; Chieftain, Clan Grizzly-Of-That-Ilk; Mr (but you may call me ‘Sir’); male, XY, I stand to p•ss; hairy chest; baritone voice; Adam’s Apple; no tits.

    1. Moor it 3.5 miles out – sounds like a plan – it’ll be fun if they set it afire!

      Sorry, no water to put it out.

    2. Grease-Smogg is so slimy and slippery he has to get special shipments from the Limpopo River. Not only does he need to keep his personal slithery levels up to scratch but the fever trees that flourish on its banks can top up the general fear levels if they fall too low for the government’s liking.

    3. What are “green skills”? Do I have to wear a red frock and glue myself to a public building à la XR?

      1. 336027+ up ticks,
        Afternoon SE,
        Plant a tree could be a one , a bloody great MONEY tree that is.

      1. 336027+ up ticks,
        Afternoon M,
        That could be said of many of the tory (ino) party, highly suss by me on trips to the wire regarding the mayday
        critter.

        A tory (ino) type onion party layer upon layer of treachery bringing tears of frustrated anger among decent peoples.

    6. Given that the market has no need for these jobs, when the state forces tax payers money into creating that need, tax payers money will be needed to train these people – no doubt in a state approved way. The market has no place here. It’s all big state.

      That’s a recipe for poverty and misery. Not wealth and growth. The state’s obsession with the idiocy of green will make us poorer, unhappier, and set us bac hundreds of years technologically. We will be shoved into the Dark Ages of supersitition, paranoia and ignorance – led by arrogant imbecilic fools.

      1. 336027+ up ticks,
        Evening W,
        All that is true but the polling booth dictates that the herd are content.

  42. Further to last night’s comments on the lifeboats etc. Last radio news I heard before snoring had someone saying how awful it was that migrants are sleeping on the floors of the offices in Dover – sometimes for weeks – and it is so sad.
    So are the hotels all full now??? – if so where are they going? To the homes of the celebrities who said they were all going to take some in??? Or the homes of all the MPs who want them?

    1. The Balls/Cooper property complexes should have room for many immigrants.

      1. I thought they had already housed dozens and were paying for their university education….{:¬)

    2. Those supporting massive, uncontrolled gimmigration should have 5 move in with them. They then feed and clothe them and they are responsible for the crimes those gimmigrants commit. This continues for a minimum of 10 years.

      The pro gimmigrants will very swiftly change their minds. They’re fine while they can force other people to take the risk and pay the bill but when they’re handed it they show themselves nothing but hypocrites.

  43. Anyone who still believes this disgusting government has good intentions towards the people should seek help immediately. Proof yesterday when the government disinterred Raab, probably to prove that he is still around, to push the job/jab line. These politicians have total disconnect with the people and reality: when, in the past, did Raab ever express such views? Yet he trots out the words as if he has held extreme views his whole political career: a political chameleon like the rest of them.

    I live in hope that the people will awaken and see what is going on but my hope is dashed every time I see masked individuals – several this morning – out walking in the sunshine and with a stiff breeze blowing garden refuse bags about. Dead from the neck up just about covers it.

    https://twitter.com/RWTaylors/status/1421032265036058624

  44. 336027+ up ticks,

    breitbart,
    THREAT OF VACCINE PASSPORTS JUST ‘A LITTLE BIT OF COAXING AND CAJOLING’, CLAIMS SENIOR MINISTER…

    Plus a touch of gentle rough handling, merely a tidying up exercise, now where have I heard that before…….

    2. It’s possible of course that the £200,000 “surge” donated in one day came from a single source. There are quite a few potential suspects for whom that sum is a drop in the ocean.

    3. Seems that Brian Moore might have sustained some sort of damage during his playing career!?

        1. His best ‘skill’ in rugby was winding up the opposition pack, then ducking behind his second row for protection. All in the game.

      3. Apparently he was sexually abused as a child by a teacher and this, he explained, was why he had the reputation for being excessively aggressive in the front row of the scrum. He has always been rather chippy which does not make him easy company.

        1. I enjoyed both his autobiographies. The second one brought up the abuse, if I recall correctly. I’ve always thought he was one of the better analysts when I have heard him commentate.

          1. Me too, sos! He pulls no punches, is objective and writes/speaks very well. I certainly don’t consider hm to be ‘dodgy’ in any respect.

          2. I believe he also qualified as a solicitor by doing his articles in the same way as BT.

          3. He is the best rugby commentator around. If only the TV companies would only appoint one commentator per match rather than the coffee club that is now apparently standard

          4. Agreed.

            He qualified as a referee just so that he could understand and explain what was happening and why.

            He’s certainly one of my favourites of all commentators on other sports.

    4. He is a non practising Solicitor, dodgy, very dodgy character, perhaps BT can confirm. 🤣

      1. I know nothing of him except that he was once a hooker. As solicitors are known in the USofA.

    5. Moore was a solicitor at a Nottingham chambers who played rugby for Nottingham during the amateur era. He was the best hooker in the country and Harlequins wanted him to play for them but he refused to leave Nottingham, where his career was based.

      Harlequins couldn’t pay him to leave but, since that club was run by extremely wealthy businessmen and well-connected establishment types, they made Moore an offer he couldn’t refuse. They enticed him to move to Harlequins by providing for him a well-remunerated job as a solicitor at one of the top London Inns of Court.

      He never looked back.

    1. We have had two Saturday BBQs cancelled two weeks running.
      The excitement is not so intense now is it ?

        1. We haven’t seen some of the people for 18 months,…… now the weather has it in for us !!

          1. Can you not arrange something inside? You could still have your burgers and ribs.

          2. It’s a ladies circle sort of friends club it goes back many years and it’s complicated, we have to share certain dishes and take our own wine and main courses.

    4. I’m with him all the way. Anyone approaching me with a hypodermic syringe will find his arm parried by my machete.

  48. Recent words of wisdom from Stephen Harper, Canadas last decent conservative leader:

    the adolescent egos of the woke university crowd is not an alternative governing philosophy for any society.

  49. More words of wisdom

    You can vaxx some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not vaxx all of the people all of the time.

  59. Desperate isn’t a strong enough word to describe this action.
    Who takes a barely tested potion from a syringe administered by a spare part NHS – I’m presuming NHS but I could be wrong – worker at a bloody theme park? What next, Mr Whippy vans blasting out Greensleeves on all the estates? Informed consent, my arse.

    https://twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/1420834513018662913

  60. Do you like to read a good murder mystery? Not even Law and Order would attempt to capture this mess
    This is an unbelievable twist of fate! At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science (AAFS),
    President, Dr. Don Harper Mills astounded his audience with the legal complications of a bizarre death.

    Here is the story:

    On March 23, 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus, and concluded that he died from a

    shotgun wound to the head. Mr. Opus had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide.

    He left a note to the effect indicating his despondency. As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by

    a shotgun blast passing through a window, which killed him instantly.

    Neither the shooter nor the deceased was aware that a safety net had been installed just below the eighth floor
    level to protect some buildingworkers, and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide

    the way he had planned.

    The room on the ninth floor, where the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man and his wife.

    They were arguing vigorously and he was threatening her with a shotgun! The man was so upset that when he
    pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the pellets went through the window, striking Mr. Opus.

    When one intends to kill subject ‘A’ but kills subject ‘B’ in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject ‘B.’

    When confronted with the murder charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant, and both said that they
    thought the shotgun was not loaded. The old man said it was a long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the
    unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident;

    that is, assuming the gun had been accidentally loaded.

    The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple’s son loading the shotgun about six weeks
    prior to the fatal accident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son’s financial support and the son, knowing

    the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would
    shoot his mother.

    Since the loader of the gun was aware of this, he was guilty of the murder even though he didn’t actually pull the trigger.

    The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

    Now comes the exquisite twist…

    Further investigation revealed that the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over the
    failure of his attempt to engineer his mother’s murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23rd, only
    to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window. The son, Ronald Opus, had actually
    murdered himself. So the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

    A true story from Associated Press.

    1. Sorry to pour cold water:

      “A story this good should be true. Alas, it’s not. There never was a suicidal Ronald Opus, a feuding, shotgun-wielding older couple, or an increasingly confused medical examiner trying to get to the bottom of things. But there is some truth to it, for there is a Don Harper Mills, and he did tell this very story at a meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

      Here’s how Mills explained his involvement with the story in a 1997 interview:

      I made up the story in 1987 to present at the meeting, for entertainment and to illustrate how if you alter a few small facts you greatly alter the legal consequences. In 1994 someone copied it on to the Internet. I was told it had already garnered 200,000 enquiries on the Net. In the past two years I’ve had around 400 telephone calls about it — librarians, journalists, law students, even law professors wanting to incorporate it into text books.”

  61. ‘Afternoon, all.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/835232dd439950618a00493cdf0304943bd76f16e6a0a41faae6450b721047cd.png

    This letter in today’s DT caught my attention and I’ve a tip for any NoTTLer who finds him/herself similarly threatened while taking a daunder in the countryside.

    When confronted by aggressive kine, I face the offending beasts and quickly shrug off my coat. Holding it to one side like a ‘capote’, I offer it to them and as they come at me, I execute a perfect ‘Veronica’. The brutes go charging by, totally confused and thus unable to continue their attack.

    1. “Written from my hospital bed – where I am recovering from being gored…”

      Good day, O Monarch etc. Personally, I avoid cows. I am the grandson, cousin and nephew of farmers. They taught me a thing or two about cattle. Large, unpredictable and very strong, heavy creatures.

        1. I suspect some of those who get bothered, or worse, by cattle are those fanatical fundamentalist “ramblers” – the kind who will deliberately walk right across a field of crops “because that is where the path is”, rather than walk an extra 100 yards or so round the edge.

          I have encountered some of these wazzocks -and explained that they could get even better enjoyment (because I assume that is why they are, er, rambling) by going a bit further. Their rage at such a suggestion is almost funny!

          1. I once went out with a group of ramblers when I was visiting friends in Sevenoaks (they were members so I went with them). It seemed all very earnest!

          3. Oh yes! Anoraks, cagoules, hiking boots, gaiters … Plus maps and compasses and rations.

          5. It was a while ago (early to mid-seventies); I don’t think that affectation had arrived at that time.

  62. Today’s topic: V2G

    OVO has been running a Vehicle to Grid trial called V2G which the Government is getting all excited about because the UK can then rely solely on renewable energy and not gas for periods of peak electrical demand or Chinese nuclear power as a base load.

    What is more, this idea is even more attractive to people like David who has bi-directional EV charger and makes £900 a year by leaving his car on the drive.

    One trialist, David from Luton, said, “90% of the time my car is sat doing nothing. You have a huge energy storage device sitting on your drive. You’ve invested all that money in a car, so why not use it more of the time, rather than have it sitting doing nothing.” Spot on, David!

    On a typical day, David charges his car when the grid is off-peak, at 15p/kWh. He drives to work and back, then plugs in again at home. In the evening, David and his family use the car battery to power the lights and various appliances and devices in his home for a few hours.

    Then at bedtime, any excess power is exported from his vehicle back to the grid when prices are at a premium, 31p/kWh. David has made a profit of almost £900 in a year. Seems it’s not only his charger that’s smart!

    https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/electric-cars/vehicle-to-grid-technology

    1. And when the battery has been drained and he needs to drive somewhere… pop out the AAA cells, I guess.

    2. A problem I can see here is that the use of your EV will be governed by an ‘intelligent’ OVO app on your smartphone.
      To achieve David’s annual V2G income he can’t afford to heat his house with electricity. Furthermore you have to tell the ‘smart’ OVO app on your smartphone when the electrical supply to your home is at the cheapest rate. You don’t know this because the Government has got you to install a ‘smart’ meter where the rate changes at least every 30 minutes depending on how other people’s ‘even-more-smart’ V2G chargers have decided to charge their EVs.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ded06751c43b6c20898c711e1d5c5f9f1769a0f8a7c2a7da048e2fade6139208.jpg

      There is a flaw in this idea that artifical intelligence can solve the forthcoming UK electrical supply shortfall.

  63. To cheer you all up – here is an article from this week’s Spectator by Damian Thompson:

    “Last week, walking into a branch of Waterstones in south London, I made way (or so I thought) for a pixie-faced man in Lycra who was theatrically hauling his bike into the shop. It seemed a bit of a liberty, but these days cyclists are godly folk who can do anything they like, especially in the eco-obsessed puritan commonwealths south of the river.

    Then a querulous voice piped up behind me. ‘Excuse me! You just pushed past me and my bike.’

    I think it was the ‘and my bike’ that did it. Pixie Face headed for Waterstones’ mandatory display of anti-racist memoirs, bleating about ‘manners’ while caressing his affronted vehicle. And I went off on one, as I always do in these situations.

    ‘Look, mate, you’ve got mental health issues,’ I said. ‘First you insist on dragging your bike into a bookshop, then you pick a fight with a total stranger, now you’re talking to yourself.’ He muttered something about social distancing. ‘Says the man not wearing a mask,’ I replied in feigned outrage.

    By now he was regretting his pushing-past allegation, but there was no stopping me. ‘You need to see a therapist before your problem gets totally out of control,’ I bellowed. And then I stormed out, before my anti-cyclist rage got the better of me and I said something even more unpleasant.

    If you’d asked the other shoppers which of us had mental health issues, I doubt they’d have nominated the cyclist. I have a history of fighting with strangers. I don’t start them, and I’m not horrible to everybody: if someone nice asks me directions and I know the answer, then they get hosed down with helpful charm. But as soon as I hear the dreaded ‘Excuse me!’ that precedes an accusation of not looking where I’m going, pushing past or talking too loudly, then hostilities escalate quickly.

    I can think of only one episode that didn’t end nastily. I was in the Brompton Oratory, self-importantly explaining the rubrics to my companion, when a red-haired Irish lady hissed at me to shut up. ‘Only if you stop singing out of tune,’ I said. She bristled, thought for a minute, then leaned back and whispered: ‘It wasn’t me singing out of tune. Twas my friend.’ And that’s how I got to meet the late, great Mary Geraldine O’Donnell, who when she wasn’t telling her beads was falling off bar stools. Goodness, how we miss her.

    Why am I so drawn to these conflagrations? I suppose I find them cathartic, so long as I get the last word. Recently, though, I’ve caught myself biting my lip rather than opening fire. Where once these things happened once or twice a year, now supermarket aisles have turned into sniper alleys; the readily offended are everywhere, just waiting to blow your head off.

    It’s Covid, of course. The other night I was in Sainsbury’s, where masks are now optional. But a portly lady in her seventies, steel-rimmed glasses glinting menacingly, was taking no chances. She kept executing a sort of clumsy pirouette in order to keep the unmasked lepers at least eight feet away. And there are so many like her: pensioners — especially the type who wait to read the bill before fishing out their bloody purse — and, less forgivably, younger people whose hair-trigger tempers remind me of internet trolls. You wonder if, after a year of lockdown, casual social interactions are being poisoned by the indignation and sarcasm encouraged by social media.

    At any rate, my spat with Pixie Face has encouraged me to hang up my spurs. Instead I shall mull over past victories, if you can call them that. Such as an altercation I had with a Boots pharmacist in Queensway, c. 1997. (It’s always Boots. Their pharmacists are the ones who like to remind everyone of their professional expertise, even ringing up doctors to query their prescriptions.)

    I wanted to buy a cheap generic anti-histamine as a sleep aid. ‘We don’t sell it for that purpose,’ said the pharmacist.

    ‘But you sell the same chemical at 17 times the price as a branded sleep aid,’ I protested.

    ‘It’s not the same drug,’ he said, in the authoritative tones of a spokesman for Public Health England. But I knew it was, so I asked him to check. He told me he didn’t welcome customers telling him how to do his job and ordered me out of the store.

    I’d lost the fight over the drug, but there was still time for a parting shot. When I reached the door, I called out: ‘It’s not my fault you didn’t get into medical school.’

    His jaw dropped open. Bullseye.”

    We are not alone…!!!

    1. Damian Thompson still around. I used to take great delight in making posts on his DT blog that were not to his liking but were still within the rules, he had a thing for rich tea biscuits & David Cameron’s fondness for sticky toffee pudding and I would upset him by suggesting his beloved rich tea biscuits are liked by stray dogs especially if another dog had marked his territory on them !

    2. Wonderful article!
      Vets will tell you that medics are failed vets, medics say that dentists are failed medics, and pharmacists …well, they dispense, innit!

    3. Wonderful article!
      Vets will tell you that medics are failed vets, medics say that dentists are failed medics, and pharmacists …well, they dispense, innit!

    4. Response to the obituary of Mary O’Donnell in the Times newspaper:

      There isn’t a single item in this obituary (other than the cause of death) that makes me feel even the slightest bit of sympathy toward
      the deceased. Strange indeed.

      I agree.

    5. He seems to enjoy conflict. A bit sad really.

      I used to become furious in the supermarket and my blood pressure would go through the roof.

      Then one day i decided to become an observer.

      Slow deep breathing.

      It also worked a treat for my anxiety about flying.

      1. I know the feeling though. Yesterday, at the checkout in Morrisons, ahead of me was an old bat (though, to be fair, younger than me) who was engaged in a long conversation with the cashier. So engrossed was the latter that she slowed the scanning down till it seemed like one item a minute – or slow motion – (I know it wasn’t – just felt like it.) Then, of course, old bat took an hour to pack her bags and transfer them to the trolley. THEN, took out her purse and – paid some of the bill on her credit card and some by cash. Then topped and tailed the conversation and left. I was seething – we only had half a dozen items….but the MR just let it all float past her. At the time, I could have killed both the old bat ad the cashier…just like that.

        While I try to ignore these things – it is the complete selfishness of people such as the old bat – who clearly didn’t give a toss that a long queue was building up – that gets me. Like people who step off at the bottom of an escalator and STOP DEAD..

        GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

        My lifelong fear of flying disappeared after I had spent an hour on the flight deck on my first trip to the States – and been up there for the landing. Never had a qualm since.

        2. Bill, I understand the escalator bit totally – MOH does it – and complains when I then shove her out of the way – and ask her if she has ANY concept that the other people behind her are STILL moving. Argument every time.Thank god she never got behind the wheel of a car.

        3. You ‘orrible little man.

          How much of a rush are you in?

          We have all ‘been there’.

          Being a cashier can be a bit dull and a bit of banter can improve their day. The old bat as you call her may have no other interaction with anyone all day long.

          Like i said. Deep breaths. Added to that….SMILE !

          3. Headshot, push kick to clear the corpse. Rack the automatic shotgun (yes, I know you don’t need to) and shout very loudly through a gas mask ‘movemovemove!’ while they scan things.

            I will confess to once buying someone’s shopping though. This girl was in the queue buying an absurd amount of truly dreadful bleach and some cleaning stuffs and didn’t have the right monies. As she pootled off in tears to the cash machines I said ‘let me’ and paid for it. Was only about £40 and I wanted to get on.

            People say it was philanthropic. I know it’s selfish as I wanted to go home.

        4. When I worked in Selfridges in the 80’s there were nouveau riche Arabs who’d shop with their extended family and sit granny on the floor at the foot of an escalator surrounded by all their purchases. They also used to crap in the changing rooms but that’s another story!

          I guess I needn’t be anxious about flying any longer. We unvaxxed lepers won’t be allowed to fly.

          1. Dearest Sue…there must be something that keeps you there. I can’t imagine what though.

          6. Yo, Sue. For a while, I was involved in a Measured Term Contract with the Post Office (known as ‘Consignia’ at the time), for ‘reactive maintenance’. A frequent request was to replace toilet seats; apparently these were anathema to a certain demographic, so they were ripped out and thrown out of the nearest window. Great Portland Street being a case in point…

        5. I’ve never had a fear of flying; my first trip as a passenger in an Auster was magic! I’ve taken the controls of several aircraft (and a glider) since.

          1. In my case the anxiety was brought on by…

            Packing…what have i forgotten.
            Getting up at 3am.
            worrying about my dog.
            Airports in general.
            Throwing a lighted cigarette into the back of a Spanish taxi cab and wondering if i would get away with it.

            I don’t really have a fear of flying. It is the disconnect.

            One apartment i rented in Malta, the landlord was also a qualified pilot and for a price i got to fly in his little plane all around the islands. Loved every minute of it.

          2. As I am an obsessive list-writer (and start long before the date I’m due to leave) it’s rare I forget anything. Getting up at 03.00? I won’t have gone to bed! I have a friend who dog-sits for me. Airports are the pits, but a necessary evil to fly. I don’t smoke 🙂

          3. Where Spanish taxi drivers are concerned i would recommend a cigarette. The effing bandits.

          4. In Greece, when driving from the old airport to the centre I caught one taxi driver pressing a button that caused the fare dial to whizz round. I bellowed in his ear, (I can shout very loudly) and he was so shaken that his finger froze on the button and we both watched it carry on spinning. When we got to the hotel he wasn’t going to charge, but I paid the usual fare, just no tip.

          5. Arrived at destination.

            Waved for a taxi.
            Got in. He didn’t bother to help with my luggage.
            Give him the address to the apartment.
            He gets on the main road and after him fiddling with the meter it goes off.
            Then he seems to get lost.
            Suddenly he is unable to understand any language i try.
            I phone my landlady and give him the phone.

            By this time i already know there is going to be a show down.
            Eventually arrive at apartment.
            300 euro. I tell him to go fuck himself.
            He says ‘I will call the police’.
            Suddenly he speaks English.
            I told him to call an ambulance too because he would be needing it.
            I chucked 20 euro at him and as he looked away i threw my lit cigarette in the back of the taxi.

          6. I had done that run so many times that I knew most alternate routes and the various fares. The most common scam was using the more expensive of the two tier pricing for the whole journey.

          7. Casablanca was worse. Not only did he want me to buy a new car he also wanted me to put his children through school.

            The airport back was worse though. I had some local money to get rid of and for a box of tea she wanted to charge me £800.

          9. When we arrive “in good time” at the airport, the MR sometimes mutters that we could have caught the plane before…!

            I have spent a life preferring to be an hour early than five minutes late.

          11. Same here – hate lateness without a very good reason. A friend repeatedly missed her dental appointments, giving various excuses, I warned her she’d be thrown off the list – – -naaaa – won’t do that she said – – she was – and complained bitterly.

          12. All holiday travel starts at 03:00. Dunno why, but you need a vacation to get over it…

        6. Been there far too many times.

          Shopping should be treated like a raid by the SAS. Rappel down from a helicopter, smash through a plate glass window, fancy combat roll through a checkout, grab a basket, belt through the aisles shooting anyone talking and blocking your way or pushing a trolley from the side.

          When you’re done, kick the dozy bint wafting about with the tokens, pack all the stuff, smash another window, grab the dangling ladder and away. Total time, 8 minutes for a full shop – and that’s slow. Casualties? Who cares. They were in the way.

          Even Junior’s got the hang of it. He’s even shouting ‘go go go!’ as soon as we’ve parked – which, if you must drive is done using a handbrake turn.

          Oh, and a few blobs of c4 on the ‘I’m lazy and park in the disabled spaces because I think I’m entitled’ BMW drivers.

        8. Quite. I took the 520 bus to Guildford this morning. Of the three waiting, one was my masked next door neighbour, one wasn’t going anywhere at all; he just wanted a free copy of the Metro.

          On the outskirts of Guildford, a chap boarded the bus. “A return to Guildford”. The driver pointed out that there wouldn’t be a bus in the opposite direction until next Tuesday, but “he could catch the 17”. “£2.70, please”. “How much?” “So I need to get the 17?” He asked this every two minutes until we reached the Friary Bus Station.

          One wonders why this guy doesn’t have a disabled bus pass. He had two crutches, after all. Me – I have a disabled bus pass, which, yesterday, enabled me to climb the Hog’s Back in both directions, to do some stuff at Seale Church. Who needs feet…

    6. Keep it up, Bill, and join the fray, these loonies need taking to task.

      The parting shot might be, “Don’t you dare to offend me!”

  64. BTL Comment /Observation:

    “We need to vaccinate the unvaccinated because the vaccines don’t work for the vaccinated”.

    1. Common sense was abolished in 1997. It had been on the brink for some years.

    2. Natural immune responses work better than artificial (ie vaccine) ones. That’s what I’m banking on, having had the plague and survived.

  68. Wondered if anyone has been watching the GB Women’s Olympic football matches? Heard it stated at the outset they would ‘Grovel to Marxism’, so wonder if they did? They’ve just been beaten by the Australian team in the quarter finals. My hope is that the Aussies were too sensible to kneel, but can this be confirmed by anyone who saw start of match?

      1. Came across Breitbart report that the Aussies didn’t kneel. However, pundits are predicting a USA Sweden final – both are ‘kneelers’.

  69. Mate just rang – told me of an electric van – yes – the ALL electric van – which had broken down on a local roundabout – straddling two lanes – couldn’t even put hazards on – couldn’t push it out of the way – – chaos – and the driver going ballistic. Presumably not a fan of them.

      1. Definitely Hampshire. Traffic lights – on a roundabout – huge road works with nothing being done, poor visibility on the roundabout and someone using their telephone while driving.

        2. Whilst I can understand part-time traffic lights during the peak hours, having them on all the time, even in the quiet small hours, is bloody infuriating.

      2. The local supermarket is going to need a very large dud battery recycling bin…..

    5. Surely it would be the ABC of design to have the engine and the hazard lights working off separate batteries?

    3. If it’s not incoming muzzies getting stroppy with the locals, its incoming muzzie birds!

      Egyptian Geese!

    1. Vaccination UK is a branch of the NFS apparently. I did a search and found their page where they state that boys as well as girls are now eligible for an HPV vaccination. from Year 8. The NHS is suggesting that 13 year old children should be vaccinated against an STD, or in “old money”, VD?
      As schoolteachers are in “loco parentis” we may expect more medical interference with under age children by the State, against the wishes of the parents, maybe even without their knowledge.

  72. That’s the roof frames up, at last. Just need the panels, some tightening, and we’re done.
    Yaay!

      1. Need to charge phone, shower, & finish celebratory beer first.
        Coming later.

    3. Due to the weather I got sweet FA done up the garden.
      I did, however, get some of the clutter in my sitting room into the storage container the DT’s got stuffed with her mother’s stuff and also got the back of the van cleaned out after the soil transporting before the rain started.

  73. Afternoon, all. Will be off again shortly to watch a recording of the racing, having just paid the hated TV tax (at the third attempt; the Post Office won’t do it, I needed a “Pay Point”, which didn’t prove easy to find). Nearly £160 to be indoctrinated, socially engineered and bored to death most of the time!

    1. Afternoon, Conwy. Look on the bright side. There is always Clare Balding….{:¬))

      3. Thankfully, since the Beeb lost the contract for presenting racing, la Balding has been absent from the transmissions. Instead we have Francesca Cumani*, Sally-Ann Grassick (for the Irish angle), Adele Mulrennan**, Alice Plunkett*** (for the jumps) and a couple of other female presenters who appear less frequently. I am delighted to be able to say that, in the main, they are very knowledgeable indeed.

        *Daughter of trainer Luca Cumani and an ex-rider in amateur races

        **Married to jockey Paul Mulrennan and an ex-rider herself
        ***Married to Badminton winner and eventing medallist William Fox-Pitt and also an ex-rider.

  74. What a relief. I was just soooo worried for her:

    Labour’s Apsana Begum, 31, collapses and weeps as Cobynista MP is found NOT GUILTY of £64,000 council flat housing fraud she blamed on her ‘hard-drinking’ ex-husband

    1. What a good thing he’s her ex husband. With his alcohol problem, he’s hardly a good Moslem and she could be tainted by association.

    2. I thought of placing a bet that she would get off. But at 100 to 1 one it wasn’t worth the risk.

    4. I bet you are already working on a Crowdfunding webpage to assuage her distress….

        1. In the light of the Not Guilty verdict, would my learned friend consider amending the last part of his reply?

  75. A Spekkie article.

    The population of Scotland is 5.5 million: annual drug deaths per million people – 234
    The population of the East of England is coasting up to 6.5 million; it includes cities and also borders on London: annual drug deaths per million people – 32.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-horror-of-scotland-s-drug-death-epidemic

    The horror of Scotland’s drug death epidemic

    Drug deaths in Scotland have reached their highest-ever level, with Scottish government figures recording 1,339 fatalities in 2020. When the statistics for 2019 were published last December, confirming Scotland as the drug death capital of Europe, Nicola Sturgeon was forced to sack her drugs minister and pledge a £250 million investment in support and treatment services. The current drugs minister, Angela Constance, need not worry about her position just yet. Today’s numbers reflect the final year of her predecessor’s watch, but they nonetheless make for brutal reading.

    Constance has called them ‘heart-breaking’ but that is far from adequate. 2020 was the seventh year in a row in which the death rate went up. For a country with a population of only 5.5 million, it is a grievous tally: higher than the annual death toll from Aids in Niger, three times the number killed in the Philippines’ drug war over the same period. Drugs killed more people in Scotland in 2020 than a year of Saudi airstrikes in Yemen.

    During their first 12 years in power, the SNP cut funding for drug and alcohol services by 53 per cent

    The Scottish government is taking a scattergun approach to the problem, investing in more residential treatment and pushing the UK government for more powers on ‘overdose prevention facilities’. The reason for the eclectic — some might say unfocused, others might say panicked — response from Nicola Sturgeon’s government is that no one is entirely sure what will work and SNP ministers must be seen to be doing something. Sturgeon herself admitted in April that her administration ‘took our eye off the ball’ on drug deaths. The truth is much worse: during their first 12 years in power, the SNP cut funding for drug and alcohol services by 53 per cent, an action followed by a 160 per cent increase in drug deaths.

    This issue makes the Nationalists queasy because the blame can’t be pinned exclusively on big, bad Westminster. The SNP has been running the show for 14 years. It has had the powers and the funds to invest in treatment and support and simply chose not to — until the spiking death rate shamed them into action.

    Even a government that was activist about these matters would be daunted by the challenges thrown up by Scotland’s drug culture. For one, the biggest killer these days is not the heroin habit made famous by Trainspotting; it’s ‘street valium’, a benzodiazepine that can be picked up for 50p a pill on the streets of Dundee and Glasgow.

    There is also the problem of a UK government that remains hostile to safe injection sites, decriminalisation and medicalisation of a social pathology the criminal justice system is wholly unsuited to addressing. The underlying issue, however, is the Scottish government’s lack of vision — or even just a clue — for tackling the problem. It is bordering on a macabre experiment in just how thoroughly and consistently a government can fail the most vulnerable before it faces some sort of electoral consequence, or at least acquires a functioning conscience. What is happening in Scotland is a mass human sacrifice of people who are treated as less than human because they don’t vote and their stories are not sympathetic enough for the front pages.

    A sensible, if modest, step forward would be for Holyrood to pass Douglas Ross’s Right to Recovery Bill. The Scottish Tory leader wants to create a legal right to drug treatment, including the right to be admitted to a residential programme. There’s a lot of sympathy for the idea across the board at Holyrood, including from Nationalists who think their government should have thought of it first. Ross says getting the bill over the line will require the SNP to ‘wake up, stop stalling and support it’ and he points to the recent precedent of Holyrood rushing through Covid laws in three days.

    A right to recovery is all well and good but it wouldn’t cut out the core of Scotland’s fatal drug culture: criminalisation. Prohibition doesn’t stop people wanting drugs and punishment doesn’t deter them from acquiring them through illegal means. Abstinence will work for some but for other users, the task is to manage risk and reduce harm. That means moving away from prohibition and towards an approach that puts safety first.

    If hard drug-taking is going to happen — and it is — it should happen in lawful, safe, medical environments in which consumption can be better monitored and regulated, and overdoses and other adverse reactions managed by medics. Until we accept the need for this kind of reform, we will have to get used to the grim sobriquet of the ‘drug death capital of Europe’ because it won’t be going anywhere.”

    1. The SNP government has been “a macabre experiment in just how thoroughly and consistently a government can fail” in every aspect of their responsibilities.
      To be fair, the preceding Labour government in Scotland was desperately awful, as was the Scottish Office under the Conservatives.

      1. I can’t agree, Horace. Having lived and run a business here for 40+ years, this administration is by far the most inept, inefficient and soul-destroying. We sold the business 3 years ago because the country is in such a dreadful state.

        1. I agree that the current bunch are the worst. However the previous bunches were bad.

    2. “For one, the biggest killer these days is not the heroin habit made famous by Trainspotting; it’s ‘street valium’, a benzodiazepine that can be picked up for 50p a pill on the streets of Dundee and Glasgow.”

      By strange coincidence, the two cities where SNP activism at its strongest is to be found.

      1. You are not suggesting that Mrs Murrell hands out “wee pulls” to would be voters?

        2. “Oh glowering city on the Silvery Tay
          Where Wee Krankie’s voters hold sway
          Alas, it pains me to have to say
          Dulling the senses with drugs is the only way
          That your inhabitants can cope with daily strife
          And the vicissitudes of life”
          — William Topaz McGonagall (poet and tragedian of Dundee)

    3. If you woke up every morning in Glasgow & saw on TV that wee Jimmie Krankie was still your First Minister, wanted to enslave you back in the EUSSR & was busy destroying jobs & the economy & wanted war with England, wouldn’t you be suicidal & take drugs ?

        1. Good Evening Geoff, I’ve been to Glasgow several times, the last time was well over 25 years ago in August, as far as I recall the porridge was thin & it rained 4 days & nights & I ended up buying an umbrella and a folding plastic mac. I have no idea how Glasgow looks nowadays but I recall it as a gray, somber and depressing city .

    4. Nicola Sturgeon was forced to sack her drugs minister

      Why, he was doing his job

      Now, if he were the anti-drug minister, that would have been a different matter

      Same as the Police and Crime Commissioner” is the second part of his title just to keep the first group, ‘the Polliss’ in employment

    5. I cannot agree with the last paragraph – sorry, I do not think that taxpayers should be responsible for providing “lawful, safe, medical environments in which consumption can be better monitored and regulated, and overdoses and other adverse reactions managed by medics” for morons to spend their time in drug-induced la la land.

    6. A Allan,
      Difficult to obtain evidence, but some addicts die after being deliberately overdosed. Either they are hopelessly in debt or, more dangerously, they may have slender financial resources which are coveted by their mates.
      Imagine being killed for a piece of 9ct gold, or a debit card. Coroners aren’t interested, so the only way to spot these events is through statistics.

    5. The contract for the proposed plane will not be going out until 2023.
      The RAF is looking to invest in a privately held company that produces a novel organic refining capability to generate a more stable and higher calorific fuel than Jet A-1 using apples and lavender.
      The RAF is also considering the use of rubber wind-up motors.

      Only one of the above statements is false.

    6. The RN already has lots of zero-carbon ships (well until they get engines anyway)

    7. BTL Comment

      Robert Spowart
      As if the UK’s Armed Forces hadn’t been made enough of a laughingstock by Government Polict already.

    8. Sorry, Hat, there is no such thing as British Air Force, the only one we have is The Royal Air Force – the only one in the world and we don’t need to identify by country as all others have to.

      NoToNanny, Cpl, Royal Air Force, Rtd.

  78. Apparently Mr Biden has suggested that people will be offered $100 for getting both of the recommended Covid jags. I do wonder, given the election fiasco, whether some individuals may not be able to get vaccinated a number of times? Anyone being vaccinated a 100 times would make $5000. I could see foresee a change in the statistics. I think that areas such as Detroit are going to see some very high rates of vaccination take-up.

  79. A prediction. The Royal Navy has been sent into the South China Sea, now considered by the Beijing government to be a Chinese lake. The Chinese have promised to harass the RN ships. If things go awry, then the Chinese might take direct action. The Chinese will have recognised that the UK government doesn’t have enough balls to equip a billiard table, so won’t be worrying about any response.

    1. Placing absolutely every possible loss into one set of accounts so that all the bad news is in the open and then hopefully new management can get enormous bonuses after turning the business around.

      1. I am grateful to m’learned friend for explaining.
        I thought kitchen sinks were for washing-up. Silly me.

    2. Usually means a new Finance Director has been appointed and he’s keen to ensure all the bad news coming is disclosed in the last year’s set of accounts (for which he / she had no responsibility) thus he /she starts with a very clean sheet…

        1. You’re not a REAL sportsperson if you don’t have mental health issues.
          Its all the rage now although having to go cold turkey on Ritalin because its banned in Japan can also induce some issues if you’re a female gymnast.

  83. Slightly long-range shot of new roof (lean 2) on barn… Some panels still to get, & bolts to tighten.

        1. We built everything that’s not red… Seems ok, lasted 2 winters now. Just filled in the last 2 frames closest to rhe camera (took a break last year to repaint the house).
          Knackered now, rehydrating with cold pils.

  85. 336027+ up ticks,
    I am bloody sure they draw lots to see who is going to be on the, keep
    it in-house, opposing side.

    breitbart
    More Than 50 Tory Rebels to Vote Against Discriminatory Vaccine Passports: Report

  87. That’s me for today. Some sun; some showers; the odd heavy downpour.

    Have a nice evening.

    A demain. I hope.

  88. Evening, Nottlers!

    Some of you may remember me posting a BTL comment on Independence Daily, referring to the Coronavirus Bill, and various provisions in it. Well I wasn’t sure what had or had not been passed into law, and neither were some others. So a very readable explanation about what is, and what may be, a threat to our liberty is set out below.

    Draconian Laws
    Written by Mary Curran

    I’m writing this in response to a comment by Flyer here which alarmed and puzzled some of us.

    Regarding “Power to remove you from your home and your family and be forcibly vaccinated. Freeman, [7 Feb 2021 at 02:00:49]”:

    I couldn’t find anything corroborating this but would be eager to hear from anyone who can. This is mentioned on this website. As far as I can see there is no evidence as yet that this is happening here in the UK.

    Regarding the other draconian measures, many /all of these became law 16 months ago. We are all only too familiar with most of the effects of the Coronavirus Act, passed into law on 25th March 2020, with no debate or vote, giving the Government emergency powers.

    And of Section 45 C (3) (c) Of The Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 giving ministers limitless powers to act in response to anything they perceive as a major threat to public health, which gives the legal basis for most of the regulations.

    But most people seem to have forgotten or not noted some of its worst horrors to which Flyer has drawn to our attention, and which should not be forgotten but shouted from the rooftops; so here is a short summary to refresh memory…

    I am certain that the Government intend to renew the Act again in September and doubtless forever if they can, as always ignoring all protests. We must not let these horrendous powers remain in place. They are totally disproportionate at present; furthermore, I maintain that they would never be justified under any circumstances because they would always be abused.

    Particularly insidious are the extraordinary powers in Schedules 21 and 22 of the 2020 Act including:

    Far-reaching emergency powers that will allow the police to detain and isolate people who may be infected and a danger to the public and force them to be tested
    New rules speeding up the process of cremations.
    Streamlining the death management process and funerals
    Measures requiring only one doctor to sign off medical certificates confirming deaths and removing the need for inquests to be held with a jury.
    People can be detained under mental health laws if one doctor rather than two deems that they are in need of urgent attention.
    Section 97 of the Act requires the Health Secretary to report to Parliament on key provisions in the Coronavirus Act every two months. The seventh review was published on 27 May. These reviews are allegedly committed to discarding Provisions that are unnecessary and disproportionate so why are Schedules 21 and 22 still on the statute books? Schedule 21, which gives police, immigration officials, and public health officers the power to detain ‘potentially infectious’ people, has been used by police unlawfully many times to detain healthy and innocent people.

    And schedule 22 is allegedly to deal with local outbreaks for which legislation already exists so why is it being retained?

    Both Schedules have been used to unlawfully charge and prosecute dozens of people.

    The Statutory Instruments, almost 500 of them, the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations 2020, were made under the Public Health Act1984 to enforce so-called “lockdown” restrictions. This was fraudulent as the spirit of the 1984 Act was to deal with infected individuals, not to quarantine the entire nation. The statutes might have been passed under the 2004 Civil Contingencies Act but Government chose not to do so, to avoid scrutiny.

    Robin Tilbrook and others raised various legal challenges, which would surely have succeeded in a just world.

    Big Brother Watch says that “only 6.5% of the Statutory Instruments are subject to the ‘draft affirmative’ procedure, meaning that they require approval from both Houses of Parliament before coming into force. Many of the most significant SIs, such as those which enacted lockdowns have been laid under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 – section 45R of which allows the Secretary of State to bypass Parliament, “by reason of urgency.” The result of this is a pandemic response almost entirely characterised by executive decision making – with Parliament and democracy side-lined at almost every step”.

    Then the whole thing was designed to confuse; most people complied with “rules”/”laws”/ “regulations”/ “guidance”/ advice” which might be unlawful and ultra -vires,” just to be on the safe side”.

    These statutes were not uniform across England, N Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, which added to the confusion.

    The good news was that the first wave of convictions at least were all quashed thanks to Big Brother Watch and on their website, say “If you received a fine, whether you paid it or not, tell us in confidence”.

    People are waking up now, and coming together. More doctors are speaking out; special mention to Dr Sam White.

    As Flyer says we must keep up the momentum. Maybe learn a few lessons from the French? Even if there is another surge of Covid or flu or whatever other crisis they can wheel out, we must always remember that civil liberties are not negotiable especially with the kind of leaders that we currently have.

  91. Just noticed a difference in the beeb news – – – – “official estimates” – in relation to covid figures – – -getting vaguer !!!!!!!

    2. They’ve been doing that for some time – the “guesstimate” of numbers actually infected.

    2. Dalia Stasevska, who was apparently wrongly blamed for the ‘Rule Britannia’ nonsense last year.

  93. This is excellent…

    Police in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, were forced to intervene with tear gas and truncheons after right-wing political activists attacked the participants at an LGBT+ pride march outside the walls of the president’s office.
    At least one officer was injured during the scuffle, which took place on Friday and saw ultranationalists doused with incapacitating spray. No information on arrests has been made public.
    The rally, which took the form of a rave and saw participants strip off to dance to electronic music, had been called in support of Ukraine’s LGBT+ community as the country’s parliament considers a new law on discrimination and violent attacks against protected groups.

    In May, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal brought forward a bill to the Verkhovna Rada that would outlaw discrimination based on skin color, language, sexual orientation or gender identity. The move was adopted as one of the conditions of the Association Agreement that would pave the way to membership of the European Union.

  94. 336027+ up ticks,
    May one ask,
    If there ever a threat being waged daily against the peoples of these United Kingdom Isles by the governance overseers the lab/lib/con coalition we are witness one now, if NOT why has this ruling NOT been applied at DOVER on the arrival of the first boat ?

    Beware repress,reset,replace campaign in operation.

    And of Section 45 C (3) (c) Of The Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 giving ministers limitless powers to act in response to anything they perceive as a major threat to public health, which gives the legal basis for most of the regulations.

  96. Henry Morton Stanley is a giant of history. Toppling his statue would be a disgrace

    Toppling Henry Morton Stanley’s statue would be a grave injustice against one of our greatest explorers

    TIM BUTCHER

    It is one of the great “what happened next?” moments of the 19th century. The year was 1877, the month August, and Henry Morton Stanley, a pushy, ambitious and vainglorious journalist, for this newspaper as it happens, had just solved the last great mystery of African exploration. He had unlocked the secret of the Congo River.

    Since the 1480s, Europeans had known about a massive river belching into the Atlantic close by the Equator. Portuguese mariners who first recorded it had an unscientific measure for its power. Several miles out to sea, they recorded, a cup could be dipped into the ocean and the water found to be “sweet to drink”.

    But for centuries that was pretty much all the outside world knew of the Congo. Its watershed, navigability, relations to the upper Nile and the Great Lakes, all were unknown. Cataracts at the mouth and tropical disease kept outsiders at bay – an 1816 Royal Navy upstream expedition killed all but 18 out of a crew of 56.

    So, when Stanley, having set out from Zanzibar on the other side of Africa almost three years earlier, finally battled his way to the river mouth, it was some feat of exploration.

    The battle cost him dear: all three European companions perished, more than two thirds of his 352-strong bearer party either died or gave up. Even his five dogs, including a bull terrier called Jack adopted from the Battersea Dogs’ Home died. Stanley himself lost about a third of his body mass, his hair turned snow white and large periods of the trek were lost to malarial unconsciousness.

    But it is what he did next which I find so intriguing and what I feel should be considered when Stanley falls under the Black Lives Matter spotlight. As the denizens of Denbigh in North Wales consider whether to take down a statue erected 10 years ago to honour their most famous son, Stanley’s subsequent course of action should be borne in mind.

    By 1877 he was a global phenomenon, a sort of celebrity blend of Neil Armstrong and David Beckham. African exploration was the era’s Final Frontier and Stanley’s talent for fame was well established. His “Doctor Livingstone, I presume” coup was by then six years old, notoriety he had leveraged artfully into a lucrative two-book publishing deal before even setting off from Zanzibar. There was also the small matter of writing for The Telegraph. Not many reporters disappear for three years and still have space waiting for them.

    So, Stanley had every reason to head north from the river mouth. Fresh glory and gold awaited him in Europe. Yet he did the exact opposite. He headed south. It was a decision that would delay by many months his return home and all the medals, awards, speaking opportunities and comforts that awaited him.

    And the reason he turned south? He felt he owed it to his surviving Zanzibari bearers to get them home. Using his clout he persuaded the captain of a Royal Navy warship, HMS Industry, to enrol his bearers onto the ship’s company as supernumeraries. The numbers changed unexpectedly when the 108 bearers became 109 – one of the women gave birth. The point was he knew it would be wrong to abandon those who had not abandoned him.

    The reason Stanley needs to be remembered is that, more than any of the other explorer greats of that age, he changed history. Before Stanley, Europeans treated Africa as a way station for ships trading in the East. After Stanley, Europeans recalibrated, they went inland.

    Although a naturalised American he offered the country of his birth, Britain, his geographical gold dust: a chart of a vast river reaching 1,100 miles into Africa, one that could be the spine of a new colony. London demurred. Leopold II, King of the Belgians, did not.

    Stanley fired the starting gun for the Scramble for Africa, changing the history not just of a continent but of the entire colonial project. To blame him, the trigger, for the sins of those who came after would be as historically half-witted as it is disingenuous.

    Was Stanley a supremacist? Undoubtedly, he was. But colonialism, whether by Europeans over Africans, or Persians over Arabs, or Zulus over Ndebele, or Han Chinese over Mongols, or seaborne Danes over Angles, or Spanish conquistadors over Andean Indians, has through history forever been predicated on ranking, often along racial grounds.

    Jan Smuts, the revered Boer-born general and statesman, is famous for having written the uplifting Preamble to the United Nations Charter, poetically invoking “We the Peoples of the United Nations …” Yet he was an unabashed supremacist. When he attended the Paris Peace Conference after the First World War, his submissions included references to “barbarians” incapable of running parts of Africa.

    But was Stanley a racist? I don’t think so by today’s standards. He was human with all the ambiguities that implies. And his achievements, good and ill, deserve to be remembered.

    Former Telegraph war correspondent, Tim Butcher is the author of ‘Blood River – A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart’ and ‘The Trigger – Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War’.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/30/henry-morton-stanley-giant-history-toppling-statue-would-disgrace/

  97. The monopolistic NHS must answer to the nation

    At present the health service seems neither answerable to the government nor accountable to patients

    HENRY HILL

    When the Attlee Government was setting up the National Health Service (largely by reorganising existing services), legend has it that Nye Bevan summed up its ethos thus: “If a bedpan is dropped in a hospital corridor in Tredegar, the reverberations should echo around Whitehall.”

    The trade-off was simple. The UK’s previously patchwork network of charitable hospitals and private medical services would be nationalised. In return, the Health Secretary would be personally accountable to Parliament for the new NHS’s performance.

    Yet this week saw Sir Malcolm Grant, the founding Chairman of NHS England, warning Sajid Javid that he “cannot run the NHS from the sidelines”, and to avoid anything which might look like “micromanagement”. On the face of it, this seems fair enough. Whatever Javid’s individual qualities, the broad basis of our system is that the Cabinet is a rotating pool of (hopefully talented) generalists. It is probably unrealistic to expect each new health secretary to be able to pilot so unwieldy a machine as ‘our NHS’.

    But if this is true, then it in turn poses serious questions about accountability. The latest NHS bill, which could potentially allow the Health Secretary to give orders to NHS England, is primarily about unwinding many of the controversial, market-based reforms introduced under the Coalition in 2012. It can therefore be seen as an attempt to replace one form of accountability with another.

    If the Health Service isn’t going to be downwardly accountable to patients-as-consumers in a market model, it needs to be upwardly accountable to ministers-as-officers. Without the ability to direct, Javid’s role in our parliamentary system becomes a sham. What use is it for MPs to summon the Health Secretary to account for this or that aspect of the NHS’s performance, if he has no power to shape it? For that matter, how are the voters supposed to hold the Health Service to account, or drive change, if we end up with both parties leaving the public sector machine to run itself and, per Sir Malcolm’s advice, focusing on finding it more money?

    This is not a new problem. One need only look at the press reports of Ken Clarke at the inquiry into the infected blood scandal. He was a health minister when it happened but has no difficulty disavowing responsibility. Nor is it confined to healthcare. Remember when Chris Grayling was excoriated for the woefully botched roll-out of the new railway timetable? Amidst national chaos, MPs summoned the then- Transport Secretary to explain himself. And he reported that he hadn’t been directly involved in drawing up the timetable at all. And at least in these areas a member of the Government remains at least theoretically accountable.

    Beyond that lies the world of public appointments, where huge amounts of power and money are vested in independent people chosen by independent panels drawn up by independent panels – and not obviously answerable to anyone. Ministers are not specialists, and sometimes they will make mistakes. But whilst it might displease the mandarins, the NHS is simply too big and too important to be allowed to run itself. Ordinary people need a chance to exercise control over the institution that could mean life or death for them or their loved ones. At present, private healthcare is only an option for a privileged minority.

    The rest of us must be able to look to Parliament – to write to our MP, to hold the Government of the day responsible. Without that special political oversight, the NHS is too much like an ordinary monopoly. And ordinary monopolies are bad for consumers, and get broken up.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/30/monopolistic-nhs-must-answer-nation/

    We’ve read it all before. We must look to the continent instead.

  98. Headline from the DT:

    “Carpe Diem Latin will be taught in state schools to end its ‘elitist’ status”

    Et etis brutes….!

    1. Stop all the French malarkey and bring back Latin, I’ve been saying that for years.

      1. Why not both? I did French & Latin, the other form did French, Latin & German. I did German later, in my thirties.

        1. I did French, Latin, German and Spanish during my years in grammar school.

          10. Yes, thanks.
            You asked me earlier and I replied. Going back there for my birthday.

            To recap, I had the whitebait, followed by the bass, followed by the French version of Eton Mess

          11. I apologise for butting in as it were. I would like to wish you a very good lunch and a happy birthday.

          23. Latin, French, German and Russian to O Level; the latter 3 to A Level.

        4. That is all very well but how can we teach modern day teachers to teach anything?

        5. I did Latin and French to “O” level.

          But Caroline is a truly exceptional linguist: it is impossible to tell which is her mother tongue as she speaks French, Spanish, Dutch and English with no trace of a foreign accent in any of the four. She can also communicate fairly well in German and Italian and is learning Turkish as we keep out boat in Turkey.

          I speak French but not as well as I should but when we have students with us we adhere to a strict French Only Conversation rule and Caroline can correct my mistakes rather than demoralising the young people staying with us. My greatest problem is my accent – I only have to say Bonjour and a French person can immediately identify me as being English.

          1. I speak Swedish with a German accent, and when I returned to Blighty in 2005, for a while I spoke English with a German accent.

          2. You are both very fortunate to have each other! Caroline is indeed very talented, and so are your sons.
            I did French and Latin to A level – scraped through French and failed miserably at Latin. I did somewhat better with the German more than 20 years later, but I guess I was more motivated. Sadly it didn’t stay very well in my head and is now very rusty.
            Eradicating an English accent must be very difficult and probably only achieved by being bi (or multi) lingual from an early age.

  99. A message from Mr Slape Head of the Co-op Bank:

    “Over the coming weeks we want to make sure our colleagues and customers continue to feel safe now formal Government restrictions have been eased. If you are visiting us in branch then please continue to wear a face covering and keep a safe distance from others.
    On behalf of myself and all my colleagues at the bank, thank you for your continued support.”

  101. Let Joy be unconfined….

    From the DT:

    “Chinese nuclear power plant shut down over cracked fuel rods
    Taishan plant that has been closed for ‘maintenance’ uses same reactor technology set to be installed at new UK plants”

    There’s a lot more to this story over on ZeroHedge…

    1. I met him once.

      He is a big chap. If i ever needed a new front door he could just stand there.

      1. No! That would have been unfair 14 tons of steel against 8 oil barrels lashed together with two ladders and a couple of table tops. They were having fun (note the skipper wasn’y keen on having his photo taken!)

    1. Just sent her 50 squids. I didn’t even get an invitation to meet Princess Anne !

      :@(

      2. That’s very sweet of you! Will reply in the morning 🌄. I don’t have the HHH emails on my phone.

        1. Actually i didn’t want to meet a Princess i just wanted to kiss a frog…but hey ho…You’ll do. :@)

    1. Let’s all go down to Dover and claim to be refugees. Then they’ll have to give us free pizzas…

  108. Just had a text – then realsed It was from phone mate gave me – got a delay feature on texts – type it then set a time and day for it to be sent – good fun can be had.

    1. I’m beginning to like her.

      Of course the Bank of England is entirely independent….. *snorts…

  110. I saw the interview this evening on GB News of Jennifer Acuri given by Mark Dolan. She claimed to have had a sexual relationship with Boris Johnson over a period of four year when he was married to his second wife.
    The woman seems to be deranged but if it is true that she had a long sexual relationship with him it certainly reveals that Johnson lacks both taste and judgement.

    1. We already know that Johnson is a scoundrel and a charlatan. We have known this for some time, an assessment reinforced by his catastrophic and self interested handling of the fake virus ‘pandemic’.

      As you surmise, Richard, the Fat Turk is devoid of judgement and morals. He comes from a family of notorious reprobates and is a piece of shit.

      Quite how this turd achieved his premiership remains a total mystery to me but I suspect his friends such as Nathaniel Rothschild have a lot to do with it.

      How poorly we are served by our political elite. They have sold us down the river for a pot of gold.

    3. If they are dragging her out of the closet it must be that Johnson is showing a spark of independance and is resisting the drive to lock us down again.
      He will probably cave in as usual.

    4. If they are dragging her out of the closet it must be that Johnson is showing a spark of independance and is resisting the drive to lock us down again.
      He will probably cave in as usual.

  111. Just to send us all to bed cheerful:

    The next Covid variant could kill up to one in THREE people: SAGE warns doomsday scenario is ‘realistic possibility’ and UK’s vaccine roll-out may even speed up mutant strain’s emergence
    SAGE today warns a future Covid mutant strain could be as deadly as MERS
    No10’s expert panel say coronavirus mutates most when it is in high prevalence
    Group warns strains could become more resistant to vaccines and antivirals
    Joe Davies for MailonLine – https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9844701/SAGE-Covid-variant-kill-one-three-people.html

    1. The only thing that will kill people are the vaccines. These experimental jabs are designed to do precisely that.

      The vaccines are causing any number of irreversibly induced medical conditions and create super spreaders of those who have submitted to them. This is so bloody obvious, I should have thought, to the thickest of numbskulls.

    2. That is good news. One in three of the houses of Parliament are going to die horribly.

      Let me see…

      Liar f%cking Johnson
      Liar f%cking Patel
      Liar f%cking Raab
      Liar f%cking …..oh just add all you like.

      1. Every one on a dinghy claiming they are fleeing for safety – – from Europe !!!!!

    3. So first it was one jab, then ttwo, then a booster {and flu} – -and now they say all that could be wrong? SAGE not really a good choice of title

  112. One of our athletes has fallen BEFORE even getting to the first hurdle at Tokyo.

  113. I hear that my native Peckham and Leytonstone have done well at the BMX event in Japan. Were there a police sirens in the background to motivate the riders?

    1. I had a house in Leytonstone. The local Maccie D’s was great if you wanted to score drugs.

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