Friday 6 June: Rachel Reeves promised economic growth but has delivered stagnation

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

589 thoughts on “Friday 6 June: Rachel Reeves promised economic growth but has delivered stagnation”

  2. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe page.

    Wordle 1,448 5/6

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    1. Good morning Elsie and all
      We took ages on this one and had to resort to eliminating some letters!
      Wordle 1,448 5/6

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    2. My relatives were spared going ashore on D-Day.
      My Great-uncles were in reserved occupations, my Father was making atom bombs, my Uncle Jack was a gunner in a Sunderland. Dry feet all.
      Respect to all who took part.

      1. My grand father was on the lead minesweeper. There is a statue of him on the caisson at Portland.

      2. My father went over in August 44, mind you he had spent the previous three years in the desert, like so many of his comrades.

        2. My father was tucked up in a bed on the verandah outside the TB ward at Haslar.
          Arguably, his life was preserved by contracting Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

      4. One of my uncles was in the commandos, Fourth Special Service Brigade, and came ashore near Caen. I have a framed commemorative certificate from the commune of Sannerville whch says, 'At the entry to Sannerville "Repose 2175 héros, aviateurs, fantassins et marine anglais mort pour la Liberty". (Fantassins are infantry). "From the Ashes and the Blood Liberty Flourishes"
        My uncle was lucky and survived but was injured later in Italy. I knew nothing of his. or my other uncles, exploits during the war. They never mentioned it.

        1. Good on them!
          I believe only those who were nowhere near the sharp end talk about these things. Those with first-hand experience keep schtumm.

    1. Where's a shyster lawyer when you need one?
      All those poor German victims.
      Thank goodness they were mainly white males.

  5. Sherelle Jacobs
    It seemed as though nothing could stop the Reform juggernaut, but Yusuf may have done it

    Nigel Farage must find a new chairman very quickly and show that the party is capable of unity

    05 June 2025 8:03pm BST
    Sherelle Jacobs

    Until now, Reform has seemed an unstoppable insurgent force in British politics. Nigel Farage’s startup party is on the brink of smashing the two-party system, with a real chance of consigning the Tories to political irrelevance. The once breathtaking idea that Reform could replace the oldest and most successful party in democratic history has grown banal, with voters and commentators shrugging at its apparent inevitability.

    As Farage’s party triumphs in council elections and seizes what were once among the safest Labour seats in the land – such as Runcorn – the idea that Reform could win the next election, and oust Keir Starmer after just one term had started to look not just possible but probable.

    Reform has spooked its rivals not only with its slick media machine but its drive to mine the country’s new political talent from outside the stagnant Westminster pool of former spads and PPE graduates. The upstart is courting former FTSE bosses, army veterans and magistrates.

    But the resignation of the party’s chairman, Zia Yusuf, could prove a major blow to Reform. If the party wants to maintain its momentum, it will have to get its act together – most importantly addressing serious concerns over internal party discipline and Nigel Farage’s leadership style.

    Perhaps the biggest question facing Reform is whether it has what it takes to be a serious party – as the circumstances of Yusuf’s departure highlights. All is not well at Reform HQ.

    I first met Yusuf – who has been dubbed Nigel Farage’s “chief general” – several months ago at Winston Churchill’s old haunt, Kettner’s. We talked about Reform’s “wargame” strategy.

    I found Yusuf to be impressive – not only a zestful and successful entrepreneur, but an epic brain with a forensic attention to detail. He is as intellectually interested in the minutiae of council elections as the global rise of the New Right. I genuinely wondered whether Farage – a doer rather than a thinker, a street fighter rather than a strategist – had found his political soul mate, the yin to his yang.

    Now though the political love affair is over with Reform, if not with Farage. The party leader went out of his way to praise the departing chairman. Yusuf has been instrumental in planning and coordinating Reform’s ground war in rustbelt seats, building constituency parties, creating the party’s database and spearheading its DOGE projects in local councils. Much of Reform’s grassroots strategy is cleverly inspired by the Lib Dems’ pavement politics.

    Disillusionment with the major parties is strong, but Reform still faces an uphill battle to build up a presence in key battleground seats, and make a mark in councils up and down the country. Such a challenge requires discipline, persistence, a close grasp of local issues, and an ability to pluck and nurture grassroots talent. With Yusuf now gone, it is not clear who will take up this task. Reform will have to find someone quickly to take on the chairman’s role.

    The party will also have to nip in the bud its dangerous inability to keep discipline. Yusuf has departed after falling out with Reform’s Runcorn by-election victor, MP Sarah Pochin, after calling her “dumb” for questioning Keir Starmer about banning burqas during PMQs.

    This seems like a classic case of clashing egos. When I spoke with Pochin on the campaign trail in Runcorn, she struck me as fearlessly strident, a trait that perhaps stemmed from her career as a magistrate.

    As she told me: “It’s not always helpful to have people in politics who are from the Westminster bubble or the ivory tower. I’ve spent 20 years in court in Chester. I’ve done search warrants. You name it, I’ve seen it.”

    It’s not hard to envisage that such a character might be tempted to defy the party chairman who may have tried to block her PMQ debut.

    Therein lies the conundrum of Reform. Nigel Farage is keen to bring an end to the cult of career MPs and radically alter the breed of politician in Parliament, enriching the political ecosystem with people who have been successful in their own right in various walks of life.

    But the problem with interesting, spirited people whose souls have not been ground down by the political machine is that they don’t like to toe the line.

    The Right-wing insurgent parties of the past failed because they were infiltrated by racists and kooks. But Reform may implode paradoxically because the calibre of its candidates is too high, in a way that actually renders them depressingly ill adapted to the game of politics.

    If the party wants to stay the course, Farage will have to build up a team of people who are capable of cracking the whip.
    Most importantly of all, Reform will now need to reflect on whether it is a serious party. Allies of its ousted MP Rupert Lowe have been grumbling for some time that it isn’t. They point to Farage’s “adolescent insecurity” and the party’s pathological aversion to deep policy thinking.

    There are exceptions like Richard Tice. He has a detailed interest in everything from NHS reform to overhauling benefits. He has a granular and experimental attitude to problem-solving – having recently floated the question of whether the UK can balance the books in part by stopping voluntary interest payments by the BoE on extra bank reserves from the quantitative easing programme – a topic that goes over the heads of most MPs. But Reform as a whole has yet to understand that intellectual work is not a luxury but a necessity.

    The reason that the Tories succumbed to soggy nihilism is that they lacked a disciplining ideology. If politicians are not confident in their beliefs, their plans and precisely how they can achieve them, they inevitably succumb to egoism and infighting. When a party has concrete policy priorities, it is also easier to negotiate with single-minded MPs about what issues the opposition should be grilling Labour on – and what is just performative populism that puts off undecided voters while pandering to your base. It is not clear that Reform entirely understands this.

    During my exchange with Zia Yusuf back in December, he asked me if I thought his party had a shot and I simply told him it was Reform’s to lose.

    That, I think, still stands. Reform has the chance to make history. But it risks snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

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

    Nick Smith
    10 hrs ago
    Personally I think the party will continue to progress. As for banning the burka, that could be a vote winner.

    Andrew McDonald
    10 hrs ago
    Dream on, Reform voters aren't going to be put off by squeamish liberals. Banning the burqua is not a vote loser.

    1. Sherelle is deluded "global rise of the New Right." my left buttock. No such thing, it's fascism all around, with endless screwing-down of control, endless idiot regulations.

    2. Is Reform still a limited company owned by Farage? He promised to make it a properly constituted political party. But when? Like UKIP and the Brexit party he has to be in sole control and look what happened there. The future of Reform is not assured.

      1. I agree. It's clear that Reform is not intended to be a normal political party, and it certainly won't harbour the views of the very voters it is trying to tempt into voting for it! (see Habib, Lowe)

          1. I agree, but it’s just logical if you accept that Reform is controlled opposition, whose job is to win the next election and push through slavery legislation that people wouldn’t accept from another government.
            I used to think that Labour’s job was to take us through the financial reset (could still happen) and Reform was supposed to play the Winston Churchill role and give us hopev of a bright future in the dark days, but I’m not so sure now that they’ve hammered two of the most prominent hope-lenders.
            If people think these plots are fanciful – they’re not. This is how political schemers think.

      2. This was what caused the rift with Ben Habib.

        Farage hates opposition from within his party so Lowe had to go too.

    3. Here is the Parliamentary exchange. Pochin was highlighting Starmer's hypocrisy. He had a choice between being a dutiful little EU lover or pandering to a damaging demographic that co-incidentally guarantees several Labour held constituencies remain just that. Oh, and a minor detail of the future that could be inflicted on our granddaughters.

      "Pochin asked Starmer: "Given the Prime Minister's desire to strengthen strategic alignment with our European neighbours, will he, in the interests of public safety, follow the lead of France, Denmark, Belgium and others and ban the burka?"

      Starmer responded: "I'm not going to follow her down that line.""

    4. The trouble with Yusuf was that he was a Muslim first and the Reform Party Chairman second.

      He loathed Rupert Lowe for saying that all illegal immigrants – including those already here – should be deported; and when the new Reform Party MP had the audacity to suggest that the burqa should be banned he resigned.

    5. His quitting or resigning is a good thing and will increase Reforms voter base. His fear of a burkah ban shows him for the Islamic slave he is. He also might fear for his family, but he should have thought of that earlier. Hopefully the party can now move towards fighting the growing Muslim power base.

      1. If that is Yusuf's final reason for leaving (there seems to have been a build up to the event) then Reform have dodged a bullet.
        It would seem that despite the appurtenances of westernisation, the Muslim core still remained.

      1. Morning, Phil. A big storm going through Dorset but will be followed by sunshine for the rest of the day.

  10. Morning, all Y'all.
    Raining. But then, it's a holiday weekend (Whitsun), so rain is required, according to specification for summer holiday weekends.

  12. Peter Thiel is the backer of Trump's Vice President, JD Vance.

    From Vigilant Fox:
    "Trump ally Peter Thiel previously accepted $40 million from Jeffrey Epstein—an investment now worth $170 million.
    Epstein quietly invested in Thiel’s Valar Ventures around 2015. The $170 million stake is the largest asset remaining in Epstein’s estate.
    But it gets worse.
    Thiel chairs Palantir, the surveillance giant Trump tapped to build an AI-powered grid. Their tech has already been used for predictive “pre-crime” policing in New Orleans. …
    Thiel once warned about “technocratic Antichrist systems.” So why is he building one?
    He also said Christianity means siding with victims. But he took millions from Epstein—the most famous predator of our time. Valar Ventures confirmed it. Thiel’s spokesman? No comment."
    https://www.vigilantfox.com/p/disturbing-link-between-palantir?publication_id=975571&post_id=165310099&isFreemail=true&r=28gmek&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

    Musk warned about the dangers of neurotechnology and then he started neurolink.

    Vigilant Fox is thought to be a limited hangout too.

  13. Good morning all.
    A bright start but damp when I got up but it's clouded over a lot more with a light shower earlier and it's a tad over 12½°C on the thermometer.

  15. Minty’s Saga.

    My health is giving me some concern. Not just in a medical sense but with its provision. Frustrated with the local surgeries obsession with my High Blood Pressure and indifference to my other symptoms I went to the local Hospital Primary Care centre first thing Monday morning. This is a sort of non-emergency Emergency Centre. A sort of Super Surgery. The nurse diagnosed me with Oedema (water retention) in the first two minutes. It was then off to the Major Trauma centre. Here I received something like first class medical treatment. Blood tests, Urine tests. X Rays, in real time. Result? An injected Diuretic and prescribed Furosemide to reduce the water levels over time. All this needless to say is counter to any previous diagnosis and so I am caught between them all. At the moment I have dropped everything except the Furosemide since I have never placed any faith in the Blood Pressure campaign and entertain the suspicion that it was the Statins that have caused my present difficulties.

    2. Sounds like you've been having a few problems that the local NHS has either exacerbated or ignored! Not a good state to be in.

      One of the reasons I did not hang about on my run to North Frodingham and back yesterday was a booked 16:30 phone chat with the practice nurse during which I was advised that I was in excellent health!!!

    3. So sorry to read of your problems, Minty. I too am having doubts about a Blood Pressure campaign my current otherwise excellent GP is suggesting I need. I hope that the Furosemide you are taking manages to do the trick. I'm sure all NoTTLers will be rooting for you.

    4. Surgeries are obsessed with blood pressure readings; the 'ideal' reading has been reduced. In my opinion, these 'ideal' readings are suitable for a 25 year old, not a 75 year old. These perfect results can often only be achieved by ingesting so much medication (and worry) that living becomes an unpleasant chore rather than a pleasurable experience.
      There are time when good enough is preferable to perfection.
      As the saying goes "don't let the perfect make an enemy of the good".

      1. The only contact I've had in the last six years has been bullying to take the latest jab or to send in blood pressure readings.
        They have looked after OH well though. They've called him in today to discuss his medication.

        1. MB and I keep getting texts and even letters pushing the Convid jab.
          Filed under "B for Bin".

      2. I have high BP, it's always higher when I have to have it checked by direction on a medic.
        Its known as White coat hypertension.
        sometimes at home it's below 100/56.

        1. I always react as if I've been sent to the headmaster's office.
          During the month before a repeat prescription is needed, I do my checks at home and send the surgery a range of readings taken on different days and at different times of day.

          1. Same as, strange isn’t it ?
            When I have sent the readings they rarely get back to me. It often varies from under 100 to a steady 140. ish. I feel no different at all.

      3. I have a vague recollection that, years ago, it used to be said an ideal BP reading was 100 + your age. Or am I dreaming it?

        I also have stopped taking 2 other meds for BP. Just take 10mg Ramipril. I was becoming the ‘worried well’ with the number of idiots for bp.

        1. The average resting pulse rate for a man of my age is 72 bpm. Mine is currently 55. A doctor once said to me "You have the pulse of an athlete". . . and I could have sworn I heard him say "..and the body of a slob". 😄

        2. That was what I was taught during my training (1970s).
          Presumably that didn't sell enough pills.

    5. The problem with Furosemide is it can be annoying if you want to go out for the day.

    6. Let us hope that they have isolated your most significant problem and that it's one that they can solve.
      May you enjoy astonishing good luck.

    7. I’ve experienced quite dramatic weight loss with Furosemide, without dropping a dress size. It’s removed the excess fluid from my feet and ankles. It was prescribed chiefly because fluid was detected on my lungs and whether it’s solved that problem, I don’t know. Hopefully, though I still have a bad cough caused by other medication.

  16. Good morning, all. Cloudy. I wish you all a reflective D-Day anniversary. I still marvel that, despite the shambles and disasters on Day One – it worked out in the end.

    1. But they eventually found another way to take control of our islands.
      The Brussels mafia.

        1. Lying political classes who have always avoided situations where their hands might have been dirtied or done anything that would deserve public respect.
          Lying Heath told us we were joining the common market.

    2. The 21-year-old Post Office worker who helped the D-Day landings
      6 June 2021
      May’s issue of Weather contains a fascinating ‘Weather in my Life’ interview with Mrs Maureen Sweeney. Maureen played a small but no less significant role in the success of D-Day (6 June 1944) and changed the course of World War II.

      Maureen was a much-loved mum, grandmother, great-grandmother, and great-great-grandmother, who died at the age of 100 in December 2023. But back in 1944, it was her weather observations that directly contributed to the D-Day landings. First, she informed the weather forecast that postponed D-Day, and then later the forecast that identified a window of opportunity for the Allied Forces.

      Maureen was a sub-postmistress at Blacksod, a remote area of coastal County Mayo in the far west of Ireland. Her role included the taking and sending of meteorological observations from the weather station at Blacksod Post Office. Whilst the Republic of Ireland was neutral in WW2, it did allow the sharing of weather observations with Britain. Unaware of the importance of her readings and bound by the Official Secrets Act, it was another decade before Maureen realised that it was her readings, in particular the one she took at 01:00h on 3 June 1944 (on the morning of her 21st birthday!) that first alerted the Allies to the approaching storm that delayed D-Day.

      For the Allied invasion to have had any chance of success, General Eisenhower – Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces – needed a full moon, a low tide, little cloud cover, light winds, and low seas. The low tide was necessary to allow soldiers to see, avoid, and disarm the mined obstacles. During June 1944, a full moon and low tide coincided on 5, 6 and 7 June. The invasion of France had been scheduled for June 5, 1944, but Maureen’s data threw Eisenhower’s meticulous strategy into chaos.

      The team of meteorologists working on the invasion plans had to rely mainly on surface observations from military and civilian weather observers in Britain and Western Europe and a few military observers at sea. It was these observations that led one of Eisenhower’s chief meteorologists, Group Captain James Stagg, to postpone the invasion and deduce that there could be a break in the weather on 6 June.

      That forecast was a pivotal moment in world history. If the forecast was wrong, the lives of thousands of men and massive amounts of equipment would be lost. If the unsettled weather forecast for 5 June had not happened, and the weather had been good, the Germans might have spied the massive build-up of forces along the coast of southern England.

      1. Another snippet of information that was fed into the 'machine' that aided a major decision.

        However:

        …and the weather had been good, the Germans might have spied the massive build-up of forces along the coast of southern England.

        this simple statement pays no attention to what had been going on for months. The Germans knew an invasion was coming, what they didn't know was, where and when. The build up had been going on for months as had the deception plan, Fortitude.
        The latter played an immense role in creating doubt in the German military's mind about the whereabouts of the impending invasion. Fortitude planted the idea that the Pas de Calais was to be the main focus of the coming invasion. In fact, a complete bogus Army, commanded by General Patton, was 'created' in the SE of England for that very purpose. Post Overlord the Germans remained guided by the likes of double agent Garbo et al. that the Pas de Calais remained the Allies' main point of invasion and that Normandy was a feint.

        Roger Hesketh's book, Fortitude, The D-Day Deception Campaign, is an excellent read.

  17. 406855+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    I do tend to get a little uptight when I can see once again, if steps are not taken to rectify, decent folks naked arses being hung out
    to scorn.

    Reform civil war as chairman resigns after burka ban row
    Zia Yusuf stepping down is a blow to party

    Could it be seen as 50% of the reform hierarchy was to fight the islamic corner ?

    I do seek and strongly advise ( for what that is worth) a fall back,
    anti treachery party to be mass supported, I would recommend
    the Farmers Food and Freedom Party as a patriotic auxiliary
    party with DEEP ROOTED interest in the future welfare of this nation.

    1. 406855+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      In parliament they are, ALL parties, fighting rhetorical wars within wars at 90 K plus exs seen as nice work if you can get it, via the inmates.

    2. An interesting idea to go against Labour's urban preoccupation, and look once more at the English village.

  18. Fun fact: of the 85 spoiled ballots at the recent Runcorn by-election.. many had references to treatment of Rupert Lowe. And that was down to Zia Yusuf.

    1. Here it is. And before the inevitable shrieks, neither Suella nor Priti were perfect (they are human beings) but they were constantly undermined by their "Conservative' colleagues and their snivel serpents.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/05/burqa-inconsistent-with-integration-islam-culture-uk-west/

      Women should not be veiling their faces in Western society

      Even the ECHR agrees that burqas are not compatible with Western culture and can be banned

      05 June 2025 2:49pm BST

      Churchill once said, “Nothing can save England, if she will not save herself. If we lose faith in ourselves, in our capacity to guide and govern, if we lose our will to live, then, indeed, our story is told.”

      Let those words settle – less as a relic of the past than as a stern admonition for the present. As we reopen a debate many in Westminster have long preferred to bury, we must ask: has Britain still the will to save herself? Or will we, through cowardice and confusion, allow our national story to end not with a bang, but a whimper?

      The question of banning the burqa and niqab is not a trivial sideshow in the culture wars. It is a litmus test of national self-belief. It goes to the heart of whether Britain has a solution to the complex problems caused by rapid population increase and demographic change.

      Starmer, predictably, has neither the inclination nor the courage to approach this subject. But a new government with spine, conviction, and a willingness to take the slings and arrows of metropolitan outrage might yet do so. And it must – for the issue before us is no longer about fabric and facial coverings. Are we, or are we not, a society confident in our values?

      And if the answer is yes – if we are to stem the disintegration of national cohesion and restore a shared civic space – then we must start by outlawing one of the most visible symbols of separation: the full-face veil.

      Libertarian objections, while intellectually consistent, fall short of lived reality. It is true that in a free society, individuals ought generally to wear what they wish. But there are limits to freedom, and always have been – limits defined by the need to preserve what the French, with admirable clarity, call le vivre ensemble: the capacity to live together.

      France and Belgium, far from authoritarian states, understood this when they enacted bans in 2010. In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights – an institution I criticise more often than not – nevertheless ruled correctly in S.A.S. v France. The court unanimously acknowledged that the ban infringed individual freedoms of religion and private life, but held that the interference was justified in order to protect a broader societal good: the integrity of social life in an open, liberal democracy.

      Interestingly, the court rejected the public safety rationale, instead identifying the core issue as one of cultural compatibility. In a Western, pluralist society, being able to see and be seen, to look one another in the face without impediment, is not merely a nicety. It is a necessity. It underpins trust, empathy, and the social contract itself.

      The burqa and niqab are not akin to turbans, yarmulkes, headscarves or motorcycle helmets. They are garments of erasure – of identity, of individualism, and of the mutual recognition that life in community demands. No law compelling British Sikhs to remove their turbans, or Orthodox Jewish women to discard sheitels, has ever been proposed – because those traditions do not negate the possibility of social interaction. Full facial coverings do and any ban could reasonably make exceptions for sporting, health or professional reasons or for riding a motorbike (as in France).

      There is also a deeper hypocrisy. When I have travelled in Middle Eastern or Catholic countries, I have covered my shoulders, legs, and hair when asked. I have done so not under duress, but in a spirit of respect. I have entered women-only spaces and abstained from alcohol when custom required it. Is it so outlandish to expect that those who come to Britain might return the courtesy? Other nations are unapologetic in defending their ways of life. Why are we so ready to abandon ours at the first hint of discomfort?

      Our culture – rooted in Judeo-Christian values, Enlightenment reason, and the hard-won principle of sexual equality – has made this country one of the most tolerant and liberal on earth. But tolerance cannot mean indifference. A society that tolerates everything, even its own erosion, will not survive.

      The answer must now be: no more. Not because we are intolerant – but because we wish to remain a society worth integrating into. A society with the courage to demand participation, not parallelism. A society with the clarity to say: there are lines, and they matter.

      Churchill warned us that if we lose faith in ourselves, then indeed, our story is told. That warning echoes now more than ever.

      Let us choose to save ourselves."

      1. I dislike the Muslim approach to dress when the leave their own countries an try to create it elsewhere.
        My question would be: How does one enforce it if the women, ie their menfolk refuse?
        Do we tear them off? Fine offenders? Imprison the women? Deport them?

        2. Their approach it that we have to do what they want in their country, and we have to do what they want in our country.

      2. It is entirely consistent that a particular people who insist on your respecting their customs in their country won't respect your customs in your country.

  22. Morning All 🙂😊
    More rain and at last we must be heading for a green summer.
    Headline today…..same old story, every single thing they come into contact with they eff it up and big time. Everything !
    Get them out.

  23. David Becham to be knighted

    BTL comment – for services to the tattoo industry presumably

    2. The leak can only have come from the Beckham family. Shows what a yob he is.

      1. Pre social media fixations I would agree, but I doubt that the people who control such things can resist the temptation to tell someone and on it goes.

      2. Yes , he is covered in tattoos and has a very squeaky voice ..

        So ,who was persuaded to award him a knighthood , the awards system has been cheapened .

  25. Good Morning!

    Moving on from religion to piracy, well car park piracy, Iain Hunter gives the the parking parasites both barrels in Little Yellow Envelopes . Share his indignation and let us know if you've been stung by the car park cowboys,

    Tortapani bares his soul in God, Religion, Spirituality and Atheism to reveal, well, please read, find out, and tell us what's in your soul, or even if you have one or not.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's electric power was sourced from Gas, 13.8%; Solar, 4.1%: Wind 24.9%; Imports, 25.7%; Biomass, 10.6%; Nuclear 16.2% and Miscellaneous, 5%. Today over a quarter of our electricity needs was imported. This is utter lunacy.

    PLEASE SIGN The petition to stop supporting asylum seekers (aka as illegal aliens). This one needs to be signed by millions. None of us wants to pay taxes to support these people. Please get signing and sharing. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/705383

    AND

    PLEASE WATCH Tommy Robinson's new (short) documentary, squeezed out between his release from jail and his court appearance yesterday, is very much worth watching (Youtube, Tommy Robinson v Daily Mail). If you had any doubt as to how vile the low-life vermin of the MSM is, this will dispel your doubts for good.

    freespeechbacklash.com

    1. Gentle reminder.. all you need to do is gradually phase out halal meat licences.. parish by parish, county by county.

      1. 406855+ up ticks,

        Morning KB,

        As in poetic justice. go to the “throat of the matter “village by village phase out muslims.

    2. Great.
      Force the schools to give the unvarnished truth about all of Islam.
      Beheadings amputations, throwing homosexuals off buildings, forced marriages, child marriages, first cousin marriage, inter-sectional warfare, destruction of all Jews, etc etc.

      1. How to you get schools to give an unbiased account of anything with the majority of schoolteachers being left wing?

        And slavery should be taught in history lessons BUT stressing the fact that the the only Nation to take serious action against it with its Navy was Britain inspired by the campaigning of William Wilberforce.

        And what about Islamic slavery and the complicity of African chiefs – would UK teachers shy away from mentioning this?

      2. 406855+ up ticks,

        Morning S,

        The only thing stopping that happening is the URGENT need of a pro English governing party, via IMHO ultra support for the Farmers Food and Freedom Party.

          1. 406855+ up ticks,

            S,
            In the nicest possible way,wrong think.

            The longest journey starts ….
            The odious issues forced upon us calls for the
            herd to seek radical change daily, on the hoof.

            Surely the savage attack on the farmers
            ( a new odious front opened up)
            calls for hard opposition from ALL indigenous who like to eat daily, genuine food that is.

            The Farmers Food and Freedom party will grow fast with mass support and for the life of me I cannot see a more futile footing a party could have.

          2. I’m concerned that what we are seeing merely divides and will let Labour or LibDem Labour Green form a government and the Gawd help us.

            You meant fertile I take it.

          5. 406855+ up ticks,

            S,

            Reform + Farmers Food and Freedom Party,
            Run both parties on the same more or less
            manifesto’s. up too just shy of the election date, then as tactical voting is popular within the lab/lib/con coalition cartel
            use it to benifit the peoples, for once, and amalgamate both parties.

            I am pretty sure the reform under its present leadership is not what is needed.

  28. At last arise Sir David? Beckham set for a knighthood
    His wife, Victoria, will be known as Lady Beckham if the knighthood is confirmed by the King’s birthday honours list
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/06/sir-david-beckham-knighthood-king-birthday-honours-list/

    Knighted for services to the tattoo industry.

    and a BTL:

    Knighted for his contribution to the England Football Team which, while he was in the team, did not win the World Cup, did not win the Euro Cup and in fact won no trophies at all.

    Indeed his petulant foul in the World Cup match against Argentina in 1998 led to his being sent off and Argentina beating a 10 man England team and England being knocked out.

      1. Not necessarily a spoof.
        If that was in London I think you'll find that there are now many Islamic people who have blue disabled badges.

          1. You mean the badges are fake ?
            I've witnessed 5 people In London in traditional dress, all walking with ease to a Large SUV, Blue badge on Dash. No sign of a disability at all, all get into the vehicle with ease and drive off.

        2. Everything points to a set-up. If it were the elderly woman filming the encounter instead of the other way round, it would be more believable.

      2. 406855+ up ticks,

        Morning A,

        In today’s political climate, who’s to say for sure ?

    2. The weird sounds were probably pretend Arabic to provide authenticity to a set up.

    3. The picture is taken from inside the car and that looks more like a scarf than a burqa.

  32. Mr Davies
    12h
    Zia's muzzite background was always going to be a problem for everyone sooner or later, as Winston Churchill warned.

    daz
    Mr Davies
    10h
    In the spheres I move in on Twitter, there were plenty of people who would be natural Reform voters, but the party chairman was a barrier for them. I fully undestand why, but I took the position that Reform are the only game in town and I've never agreed with any party I've voted for on everything.
    Now he's gone, let's see what the hold outs do? Do they get behind Reform and Farage or do they find something else to bellyache about?

  33. The case for uniting the Right has never been stronger
    Expect one word to crop up repeatedly as Reform and Tory voters digest this result: pact
    Gordon Rayner : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/06/06/analysis-hamilton-by-election-labour-win-reform-farage/

    BTL

    The Tory Party is dead.

    Why this strange necrophiliac desire to meddle with the corpse – it won't bring it back to life.

    (Is Gordon Rayner uncle to Angela, the Deputy Prime Minister?)

    1. It really is time for the Tories to be, well, Conservatives. They could talk about radical things like cutting taxes, cutting state dependence, welfare dependence, shredding the tax code for a far simpler one, the damage massive uncontrolled immigration has done to this country, the importance of saving.

      They could admit to the failures of their high taxes, the importance of cheap energy. They could, quite simply speak openly and plainly about the errors they have made in not undoing so much of what Labour are now making worse.

      But no. They far prefer infighting, bickering and blaming success over solving the problems.

  35. Aren't Lavrynovych, 21, and two others scheduled to appear in London's Central Criminal Court, known commonly as Old Bailey, on June 6???

    Did the prime minister have any kind of relationship with any of the defendants?
    Sir Kier immediately referred to his notes to check what it was he actually did truly believe in..
    “Let’s listen to the answer even if you don’t believe you’re getting one.”
    Starmer refused to answer but blathered-on about driving down child poverty.

      1. vw went t’werk when we got married but gave up t’werk when we had children and didn’t go back t’werk until they went to school. 😉

      1. I have made a Nottlers' Birthday list – please let me know of any E&OE (Errors and Omissions excepted)

        If Kaypea would like to start a Nottlers' Progeny List here are a couple of Tastey items to get him started!:

        Christo 3/12/93
        Henry 17/10/95

        2. Thanks for the offer, but I am not a very anniversary celebratory personage! Mine falls around the New Year and as I do not enjoy the retail extravaganza that Christmas has become, I dread the first call of’ what are we doing for your birthday’. It will be the 70th this year and I have put off the event by saying I will have a garden party in the summer when the weather in fine. They may have all forgotten about it by then. My 4 children were from the 80s, sadly 2 no longer with us but replaced by 2 step children. so 6 in all!

      1. No vw gave birth and I had but a minor part. Should have seen the birth but I nearly fainted and left the labour room.

  37. I hope Reform asks the Prime Minister if he is going to copy Denmark's policy on halal slaughter at PMQs next week.

    1. That's an idea, Bob, one which the Speaker likely to disallow. PMQs is a panto imo.

  38. I suspect that it will be a very long time before a Reform MP is allowed to ask any question in the Commons

    1. Or, given the fall out from the burqa one, they'll get lots of opportunities in the hope other question will harm reform equally.

  39. What a day in politics.. Bad news and good news. Boys falling out and calling each other names. Tut, tut boys! Rein in your egos or we might all end up suffering from fallout.

    As for Womble Wordle – another threesome.
    Wordle 1,448 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟨
    🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  40. Morning all. Bad news. Our Rachel from accounts has just signed a Pensions Bill, requiring those pension funds who have signed up, to ‘invest’’ your money into British stocks rather than foreign ones. To fund infrastructure projects and drive the British economy!

    Can you Adam and Eve it. Wonder what the pension funds companies get out of it.

    1. At the same time as the 'government' is doing all it can to collapse the economy! What fun!

        1. Thx vw. That seems quite the word salad to me, and a repetitive one into the bargain. I’d be very wary of government getting involved in private pension schemes, will be interested to read/hear what IFAs have to say about it. Or is Reeves solely talking about OAPs? I must need my lunch, will read it again.

    4. I’ve tried but failed to copy HMG website info but the link is http://www.gov.uk. There’s a list of people who at least endorse the scheme, whether or not they are participants, I’m not quite sure.

    1. Whatever happened to Opik? After his flirtation with some twins (unless I am mistaken).

    2. I feel sorry for the Clerk of the Court, who has to say those names out loud, when they come before Starmer's puppet

    3. Likely not wanting to prejudice the outcome 'mum. I wonder if they'll get off with a small fine?

    5. It's baffling, isn't it? It's almost as if the Main Stream Media is protecting Sir Keir and withholding damaging information about him. Bizarre! As if that would happen in a sane world

    1. Starmer said (to paraphrase Bill Clinton) 'I never had sex with those men'. They were just boys at the time.

      1. Like the celebrated (and probably untrue) reply by Monica Lewinsky when asked "Did you Lie for your President?"
        "No, Sir, I knelt"

  44. 406855+ up ticks.

    Emphasis being on "compulsory" not to far short of tattoo numbers on the arm.

    Dt,

    Labour explores compulsory ID cards to curb illegal migration
    Britain is the only country in Europe without an ID card system, which critics claim has allowed a black market in jobs to flourish

    1. So, how will having an ID stop the buggers crossing the channel? It won't stop them receiving services, either, as tese will be rendered by the kind-hearted.
      The only way to stop is to intercept in the channel and turn them back. Don't shelter any that succeed to cross, or donate food, but arrest, detain and expel.

    2. "In the European Economic Area (EEA), several countries do not issue national identity cards. These include Denmark, Ireland, and Norway. While Ireland issues a passport card, it's not a traditional national ID card. Denmark and Norway do not have any form of national ID card."

    2. It was flying outside the IOD last night (well, the old fashioned Gay one)

  46. Re Ginge and Cringe

    Who twerking cares what foreign members of the Royal Family do?

    2. Surrogacy and the royal line of succession is a serious matter. Especially when an insane lack of talent mixes with an outrageous level of narcissism. (to paraphrase KH).

      1. As I said here yesterday and as I have posted under several DT articles:

        There should be obligatory DNA testing for all those in the first 100 in line for the United Kingdom's throne.

    3. Surrogacy and the royal line of succession is a serious matter. Especially when an insane lack of talent mixes with an outrageous level of narcissism. (to paraphrase KH).

    1. Simon says.. Farage used Zia to counter any claim his party was Islamophobic thus neutering the Lefties. He then set up Sarah Poichin with a PMQ question knowing it would trigger Yusuf.
      Islamophobia is very dangerous territory for any political party.

      2. But Christianophobia will destroy Britain and turn it into a third world Muslim country.

        1. The BBC doen't appear to think we should be a Christian country

          Aleem Maqbool has been appointed as the BBC’s new Religion Editor, following a competitive recruitment process.

          Aleem will take the lead on the BBC’s expert analysis and insight on the major themes and issues affecting different faiths in the UK and around the world.

          Currently BBC News’ North America Correspondent, Aleem has been based in Washington DC since 2014.

          He has worked at the BBC for nearly 20 years, reporting on political and social news stories across the USA and beyond for TV, radio and online audiences. His previous postings include Pakistan Correspondent and Gaza/West Bank Correspondent.

          Commenting on his appointment, Aleem Maqbool says: "I am delighted to take up a role that focusses on telling stories associated with faith and ethics, and reflecting on the complex way in which they continue to shape our society. After many years in foreign news I also look forward to working with a wonderful team in London".

          Jonathan Munro, Deputy Director of BBC News and Head of News Content, says: “Aleem has always been an exceptionally thoughtful reporter and analyst with journalistic drive and a strong vision for reaching new audiences and delivering on digital. I think he’ll be fantastic”.

          Aleem will take up the position in Spring 2022.

          1. "I am delighted to take up a role that focusses on telling stories associated with faith and ethics, and reflecting on the complex way in which they continue to shape our society.

            Isn't telling stories also synonymous with lying?

  48. It seemed as though nothing could stop the Reform juggernaut, but Yusuf may have done it
    Nigel Farage must find a new chairman very quickly and show that the party is capable of unity
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/05/yusuf-sherelle-reform-crossroads-chairman/

    BTL

    Zia Yusuf was a Muslim first and the Chairman of the Reform Party second.

    He behaved very nastily and spitefully when Rupert Lowe said he wanted all illegal migrants, including those already in the UK, deported. He got Farage on his side to expel Lowe from the party. And now when a Reform MP questions whether the burqa should be banned – as it is in many civilised countries – he resigns.

    If the Reform Party allows itself to bend over backwards to appease Muslims – as the current Labour government does – then it is doomed to failure.

    2. I can't see any Muslims voting for Reform, anyway. They will vote Labour until an Islamic political party is formed, then vote for that instead.

      1. I agree – so Farage has fallen out of his tree if he seriously thinks he can woo Muslims to vote Reform.

  49. Perhaps this is appropriate for today's anniversary of D-Day? Although written for a different conflict, still works for WW2:

    They shall grow not old
    They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
    Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
    At the going down of the sun, and in the morning
    We will remember them.

    Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)

    1. Mentioned granddad earlier. He survived the war but then had a heat attack five years later.
      My mother and grand mother never spoke of him in my earshot. Don't know why.
      Though it was about the time my mother ran away from home and married what they effectively thought of as a tramp. She was a grammar school girl and he was an illiterate farm labourer. All a bit Lady Chatterley in those days.

  50. Fine out there at the moment – hoping my washing will dry before the next downpour.

  51. Fine out there at the moment – hoping my washing will dry before the next downpour.

    1. Hello, Polly…hope this is shown to Milliband E, not that anything will change. I have a deluded neighbour who thinks if we don't cover our valley with solar panels we should flood it instead for hydropower. It's a flood plain, more or less flat.

    2. Another example of Islam stealing Judaic traditions/stories and claiming them for Islam.

      Whatever else one might think about Mohammed, he was a brilliant strategist, using Judaism's tradition and taking over Judaism's holy sites for Islam.

      1. I've always thought that taking over the holy sites of Jews and Christians and claiming that they are holy to followers of his new religion was utter blatant dishonesty!

        1. It was deliberate policy so that the lands would be known as Islamic lands in future in the way they had been known as Jewish lands and those with a Christian heritage did not have “the claim” that Judaism had.

    3. Starmer will meet Mahomet his hero one day. In the ninth ditch of the eighth circle of Hell. Or thereabouts.

    5. Just eff off, Starmer, you duplicitous b@stard. And then eff off some more.

    6. p.s. Ta ever so for guaranteeing a Labour majority.
      Luv and kisses
      Kweir
      xxxxxxxxx

    7. "We also remember those Muslims around the world who are marking Eid facing conflict, persecution or suffering".

      Does he also remember the millions of Christians around the world who are facing persecution from Muslims?

      1. That's what he meant by;
        …"Muslims around the world who are marking Eid facing conflict, persecution or suffering".

    1. Very much so, Alec. Always 'discussing' the one/s not present. Now, all online.

      1. Still goes on Kate, at our weekly lunch at the village hub pop-up cafe x

          1. all day breakfast, 2 poached eggs on toast, 2 thick rashers of bacon and a slice of Lorne sausage, 4 slices of toast and a pot of tea £8.50 – didn't need any dinner that evening. They have home made cake but it's full of sugar so no good for me. Most of the gossip was about who had been taken away in the coast guard helicopter/air ambulance the other day, still don't know but we think it was a double motorbike accident on the wet road x

          2. Sounds lush, and good value. Best to only eat once daily, all we really need. Are you diabetic…which type? Accident sounds awful, not a m/bike fan….x

          3. Yep, type 2 which I have under control provided I eat sensibly. Was on Insulin for a while but with a good diet got off it. It turned out it was 2 motorbike who came off on a bend in the wet and they’re not too badly injured. Had I still been driving the recovery truck it would have been me who picked the bikes up. x

          4. Good man. Sounds similar to husband, who’s done well on Carnivore Diet (I think it’s a bit boring). He was on insulin for a while, then Metformin. Motorbike guys sound lucky, I’m not too keen on them, but thankful not too badly hurt. Are you an HGV guy…ooooo…..x.

          5. I was HGV until I went on Insulin and my licence was revoked. Came off Insulin but never bothered to get my HGV re-instated, so the last few years I was limited to 3.5Tons. I’d have also had to get a CPC and more medicals so I thought sod it. Shame really because I use to enjoy it and could write a book on my experiences but did it until I was 82 when my back gave up. x

          6. all day breakfast, 2 poached eggs on toast, 2 thick rashers of bacon and a slice of Lorne sausage, 4 slices of toast and a pot of tea £8.50 – didn't need any dinner that evening. They have home made cake but it's full of sugar so no good for me. Most of the gossip was about who had been taken away in the coast guard helicopter/air ambulance the other day, still don't know but we think it was a double motorbike accident on the wet road x

  57. Title: mRNA Shots Induce Cancer-Linked Bone Marrow Reprogramming

    An Experimental Pathologist by training, I get almost daily email updates from the McCullough Foundation, especially from Nicolas Hulscher. A just-published [June 3rd] small study shows very rapid induction of rare bone marrow cancers within 2 months of receiving mRNA-based COVID-19 shots. Needs more research to prove whether it is a causal or a casual connection.

    Here is the very worrying link, containing a 2½ minute video [Warning for the squeamish]. We shall undoubtedly hear more like this:
    https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/breaking-mrna-shots-induce-cancer?

    Incidentally, one of the references below the abovementioned study refers to Nattokinase, (an enzyme present in Natto (boiled, fermented soya beans that have for centuries been eaten in Japan). Natto is shown to dissolve blood clots and promotes cardiac health. This could well account in part for the greater longevity of Japanese people.

    Having a Japanese daughter-in-law, I have tried Natto myself. Since it is very sticky and has a funny taste to Western palates, it can be purchased as Nattokinase, the refined enzyme in powder or capsule form. If you’re a Health & Longevity fan and may be interested, here is a link:
    http://www.aboutnattokinase.com/traditional-uses-nattokinase-in-japanese-medicine

  58. Wasn't the Contingency Fee Agreement another of the wonders of Tony Blair?

    Also called a Damaged-Based Agreement or No Win No Fee agreement.. so loved in the USA. My coffee was too hot and I sue McDoughnut for three trillion but will settle out of court for one million dollars. Agreed.

    Rosina Malik blamed a 'runaway truffle' after slipping in high heels while exiting a Michelin Guide-listed restaurant has lost her fight for £100,000 compensation.

    1. The BTL comments in the DTelly and the DMail are not exactly sympathetic to her plight.

  59. Rogerborg ⬛🟧
    17h
    It ᴡaѕ an e𝚛𝚛оr о𝚏 jᴜԁցement 𝚝о eve𝚛 lеt Muhammаԁ Ζiaυdԁіn Yuѕᴜf in the maոցе𝚛 tо bеցіn witհ. Lоԝe реցgeԁ հіm aѕ a w𝚛оnց 'ᴜn, bᴜ𝚝 Ѕir Niցе сհоsе ԁa𝚛𝗄 mоոey оve𝚛 В𝚛i𝚝iѕհ ԁeсеnсү. Anԁ о𝚏 ᴄоυ𝚛ѕе tհe maѕk sliрреԁ оver hіѕ tribаl cυѕtоmѕ bеiոց сhallenցeԁ.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/127fafbd6dbcc7bda1abaeb48fd54af64ed853459cbe2cca8abe625564b00fac.png

  60. Signing off for the arvo. Have to take the MR to the dentist – back about drinky time.

    Play nicely.

      1. Exactly! Plus the guy has absolutely no original thought in his tiny Easter Island head.

      1. 406855+ up ticks,

        Afternoon Mo,

        Last time I see RH was hanging about by his boobs in a redskin camp.

    2. Doh, I just realised it is Richard Harris. The Field is a damned good film too.

  63. AI Overview

    The average electricity consumption for a 3-bedroom house in the UK is typically around 2,700 kWh per year. This is considered a "medium" usage, according to Ofgem.

    Milliband says there would be a £500 pa saving using solar panels:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0j728gvp94o

    With a feed-in-tariff of 7p per kWh this means that a 3 bedroom house should be able to generate 500/0.07 kWh of energy= 7143 kWh.

    AI Overview

    A 3kW solar system in the UK can generate approximately 2,500 to 2,550 kWh of electricity per year. This translates to roughly 6 kWh to 7 kWh per day. However, this is an average, and the actual output can vary depending on factors like location and weather conditions. For example, locations with more sunshine, like Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, or Essex, might generate more electricity than areas like Scotland or northern England.

    2. On the face of it, it looks as though the average three bedroomed house with a roof doesn't actually need a grid supply so we don't really need a grid.

      It is becoming increasingly clear that the main use for renewable energy farms is to power co-located AI computer centres that can work out a sustainable energy policy

        1. Spain has shown that an electricity grid is not 100% reliable when there is a lot of solar energy being carried on it. The Spanish are some way off in publishing the cause of the blackout but it interesting to note that the grid control system was without power during the blackout.

    3. But what does such an installation add to the cost of the house?

      I ask because I have run the numbers for adding sollar to my home (in an area that gets much more sunshine than most of Britian), It always comes out that the savings on my bill are less than the costs of thepanels when amortized over time.

      1. Energy prices are MUCH lower in the USA than in UK. Typically 30p+ per kwh, or $0.40, plus a high standing charge, perhaps £240 per annum. If you were younger, you might have considered a multi-fuel boiler (furnace) that takes logs, plumbed into your central heating & hot water system; for those cold winter days when the commies have cut the electricity supply.

      3. Both money saving experts and housebuilders have reservations about financing the depreciation costs of the capital investment required to make such savings from solar generation

  64. What the hell!!!

    Single skin block wall without strengthening. Is there a foundation? Clearly, the spirit level is away having a new bubble fitted and where's the line, as eyeing it up just isn't working for them? Having a tape measure nearby isn't a cause for mitigation of this abortion.

    One of our Ange's training courses in preparation for her 1.5 million homes initiative?

    https://x.com/TheNorfolkLion/status/1930622404335653065

          1. It is possible to build a single skin brick wall as long as its plumb and has a few twist and turns in it.
            Look Up Crinkle Crinkle walls.
            Predominantly found in East Anglia and Suffolk. They are quite attractive.

  65. Fully qualified Civil Serpent or politician.
    https://scontent-cdg4-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/502903221_1003823945249813_1242851009512225556_n.jpg?stp=cp6_dst-jpg_p526x296_tt6&_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=833d8c&_nc_ohc=VnXTbjdog6kQ7kNvwFuPIXk&_nc_oc=AdkL5IbftLKUa7hIhtFrLB9H-fT89sYdHO9AhYXjUPT2D_a7kjUJ2ANAsAhh1ZA0uH_TV3bVXvN_H6ophQ0oJsCS&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-cdg4-2.xx&_nc_gid=a22g6rEPiZd_VEFQkfY5ww&oh=00_AfNz8sDHZA6jcItAD6UwonKG1m-7nYopfaZRdd1EHiR2LQ&oe=6848A20B

  70. Hugh Culp
    1h
    They had fourteen years. Nothing.
    'The British people are comfortable with open door emmygrytion', Michael Gove, 2013.

    'The burkha is a integral part of British life', Caroline Spellman, 2011.

    'I think sharia law offers really good value for money', Theresa May, 2017.

    'I think anyone who boos knee bending should go crawl up under a stone', Boris Johnson, 2020.

    1. And all the lies just continue to flow on and on. And the wrecking of our country, culture, social structure and now green belt land and recently the economy, goes on.
      At the cost of 8 million a day, I now believe that they have allowed all these invaders in, to protect themselves from the coming rebellion.
      Our nation is now in very serious trouble.

    2. Mrs May? Sharia law? Like the Gobi desert.
      'Sharia' is 'law', although it has another tricky meaning, 'the path'.

  72. Not offending Muslims matters more than freedom
    By Daniel Jupp

    June 6, 2025

    ON February 13 Hamit Coskun, a 50-year-old atheist residing in Britain, decided to protest against the Erdogan government of Turkey. To make his point regarding the nature of the Islamic regime in Turkey, Coskun burned a copy of the Koran outside the Turkish consulate in Knightsbridge. In reactions reflective of both the ‘sensitivity’ of many Muslims and the nature of modern Britain, Coskun was immediately physically assaulted in response to his act of protest. Two passers-by attacked Coskun. The first, Moussa Kadri, shouting ‘f**cking idiot! Burn the Koran? That’s my religion!’ pulled out a large bread knife and twice attempted to stab Coskun. A second man is reported to have spat and kicked at Coskun at the same time.

    While these assaults were unsuccessful, it is quite clear where the criminality lay. Coskun engaged in a form of protest that offended these men, who then responded with immediate violence. He could easily have been seriously harmed or killed. For most people, hopefully, offending someone is not a crime. Nor is it something any sensible person would think warrants knife assaults and potential murder.

    In Britain, though, offending Islam is now a crime, just as it would be in a more honestly declared Islamic theocracy.

    That Britain homes people who think they have a right to threaten the lives of someone who insults their religion is bad enough. It’s a problem that has been highlighted on multiple occasions when polling British Muslim attitudes. A disturbingly high number of Muslims do indeed think they are entitled to attack people who offend their religion. The standard Establishment response, for many years, has been to ignore this, or to take actions against the ‘offensive’ person rather than against those who react to offence with attempts to murder the person who angered them.

    The Coskun case, though, takes that Establishment cowardice and pandering to the violent extremes of Islam one step further. Now, thanks to the precedent established in this case, we are in a situation where a person assaulted by Muslims after offending them is himself charged and blamed for the confrontation. This is the British justice system agreeing with Muslims that violence is an inevitable and at least partly justified response to perceived insults to their faith.

    Last week Coskun was at Westminster magistrates’ court answering charges, while his attackers were not. He was accused of ‘disorderly behaviour’ and a ‘religiously aggravated’ public order offence. Coskun’s burning of the Koran was judged to have been disorderly behaviour ‘within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress’, and motivated by ‘hostility towards members of a religious group, namely followers of Islam’, contrary to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Public Order Act 1986.

    The reality though is that in 1986, or even in 1998, Coskun would have been unlikely to have found himself arrested and charged for burning the Koran during a protest, especially having been the victim of a dangerous assault in the same moment. But since that time concepts such as ‘hate crimes’ and ‘non-criminal offences’ have added a whole new vagueness and subjectivity to our laws. This has coincided with an increasingly desperate and craven submission to Islam from all British officialdom, manifested in everything from security guards refusing to confront suicide bombers for fear of being called racist, to police and politicians ignoring child-rape gangs out of fear of damaging ‘community relations’.

    Under Keir Starmer’s government, of course, we have had obvious two-tier policing; imprisonment of people essentially for being critical of Islam after three child murders, and armed Muslim gangs being told that none of them will be arrested. Laws criminalising criticism of Islam have been promised, but existing laws have proven very easily perverted to do the same thing.

    The Coskun case, where the victim of an assault has to pay a fine for offending his attackers, is an obvious inversion of justice consistent with this general trend. The magistrate who decided to fine Coskun was not just, as many have opined, enforcing a new blasphemy law – he was in effect endorsing and agreeing with the assault. District judge John McGarva said this when fining Coskun £240:

    ‘Your actions in burning the Koran where you did were highly provocative, and your actions were accompanied by bad language in some cases directed toward the religion and were motivated at least in part by hatred of followers of the religion.’

    For anyone who expects British justice to be rational and objective, this was a far more chilling moment than a relatively small fine would otherwise represent. By describing the Koran-burning as provocative and punishing it, the magistrate is agreeing with the most fanatical Muslims and with Coskun’s attackers that insults to Islam are criminal and require punishment. It is not just a minor fine. It’s an Establishment judicial green light for further and more deadly attacks of this nature.

    The British justice system has told extreme Muslims that they are right – it has agreed with them that the fault for violence lies with anyone who offends them, rather than with their own lack of restraint and lack of respect for the law when they choose to assault those who offend them. The provocation argument here is a grotesque example of victim blaming, and logically of the same order of ‘justice’ we would find in a judge saying that a woman dressing ‘provocatively’ deserves to be sexually assaulted. In both cases, if for example a judge fined a woman for wearing a short dress and then being sexually attacked, we get a clear indication that the judge in question agrees with the assailant and has a contempt for the victim.

    Most commentary on the fine has been focused on the issue of free speech, with a free speech organisation funding Coskun’s defence. And free speech is of course a vital right. But the issues are actually even more important than the idea that the State does not have the right to fine or arrest us based on subjective feelings and other people deciding to be angry and upset by a gesture we make or an attitude we express. Of course in a free society we would not be subject to fines for offending people, and we would be free to protest in any peaceful manner we chose. If it’s our own copy of a book, we should be entirely free to burn it and entirely protected, too, from violent responses to that.

    But the problem is much deeper than just an infringement of our right to express ourselves as we please. Such a verdict coming after a physical assault is the State and the justice system saying they refuse to protect those who offend Islam and will in fact join the attackers in punishing them.

    The abject cowardice of an officialdom terrified of the Islamic capacity for extreme and violent responses, of judges willing to punish victims of Islamic violence even if that denies basic and once universal free speech rights, is symptomatic of a culture captured by a minority faith and fear of that faith. It is the system saying: ‘We don’t want to protect you from those who respond violently to offence, we instead prefer to punish you for causing offence.’ This undermines the entire basis on which any of us are supposed to take the justice system seriously.

    Justice requires objective judgments that aren’t favouring or fearful towards a single group. It requires at least knowing that anything can offend anyone and once you start legislating offence you are yourself offending against justice. It requires a system and a framework of law that looks at harmful actions rather than subjective emotions.

    It’s not just terrifying that the British justice system is now so scared of the potential for large-scale Islamic rioting and violence that it enacts blasphemy laws by default. It is equally terrifying that our judges themselves aren’t rational and objective people and are instead the kind of people who might consider words as violence or who might understand reacting to offence with violence better than they understand the necessity of freedom and justice.

    Really as soon as you start adding absurdities such as mind-reading whether an offence was motivated by something as broad and subjective as ‘hate’, rather than sticking to what was physically done and whether it entailed actual harm, you have made your entire justice system a purely subjective matter where judges deliberately favouring some groups above others get to decide, on subjective whims alone. In such circumstances the law becomes lawless, a purely arbitrary thing reflecting nothing but the prejudices and loyalties of the judge.

    The judge likes or fears Islam and therefore offers it extra protections. Those extra protections are an active injustice that rewards the group which acts in a belligerent and violent manner. The Coskun case suggests that our judges have little or no respect for any kind of freedom, or if they do have that, it matters less than their cowed submission to Muslim demands.

    You are very far along the path of submission if your main courts act like sharia courts, but that is what is happening. And I don’t think that it will stop at fines or at imprisonments during periods of riot. The precedent has been established for it to apply again, and with increasing severity.

    Daniel Jupp is the author of A Gift for Treason: The Cultural Marxist Assault on Western Civilisation.
    ******************

    Pounce
    12 hours ago edited
    Yesterday film was released on social media of a speeding Audi in Sheffield which crosses onto the other lane and drives into 3 people on electric bikes , and then mounts the pavement hits a 16 year old boy walking on the pavement and kills him. One of the electric bikers is in hospital seriously injured. The film then shows the Audi moments later driving back the way he came, but of course this time on the correct side of the road as the driver does a runner. That happened on Wed , on Thursday a 20 yet old man was arrested in Kent on suspicion of murder today is Friday. I wonder why he was in Kent?

    After the Liverpool parade incident where a man in a parked car which is attacked by football fans drove off into the crowd injuring many but none seriously or even killed there was much media coverage , the PM had a few words to say on the matter , we were informed the driver was a white former marine within hours. Here no description has been issued, yet if you watch the video post incident it is packed with Asians and from the way they are dressed Islamic.and yet nobody has played the race card.

    Currently in court also in Sheffield is the case where Hassan Jhangur angry his sister was marrying outside of the family drove his car into his in-laws, then doing so again killing a white man who was helping a woman who had been knocked over before jumping out and stabbing his new brother in law several times. Again very little coverage from the media

    The other day we had the court case of the Iranian AS who put several coppers in hospital up Newcastle way. Didn’t have a licence , insurance and when he tipped up for court after been bailed he drove in, and how did the media report it, bloke was on a first date.

    Now imagine if the above roles were reversed. We wouldn’t be hearing the end of it.

    Charles Dawne Pounce
    9 hours ago
    In this information age I struggle to remember all these cases. Well done for reminding us of the cases that slip past the media. I think the authorities rely on this information overload of the public as a way to Bury and forget them.

    Minor Thoughts
    8 hours ago
    It hasn't taken the mythical 25% or 30% population to reach the tipping point for them to take over. Only 6% and the country bends to their will. This country is no longer British.

    Roy Davey-Jenkins
    8 hours ago
    Of course, if I set upon a RoP follower for his actions and words (which I would never do, but rather attempt to engage in a discourse) I would be arrested immediately and the Is lamic gentleman thus at tacked would be soothed by promises that the full force of the law would come against me and by the likelihood of considerable financial compensation coming his way as a result of the confrontation.

    Two-tier is hiding in plain sight.

    Major Tom
    11 hours ago edited
    Is it relevant that non white people are over represented amongst those that are training to be lawyers and it is from that pool of qualified lawyers that judges are selected, so again non white judges are over represented

    If you seek out the YouTube video Lubna Shuna of a recent Law Society conference set in a court room you will be able to see for yourselves the extent of the over representation of visible non white minorities in the British justice system

    I also note that exam results show that non white lawyers achieve lower pass rates that white lawyers – see article below

    Lawyers SQE pass rates reveal continuing racial divide

    By Monidipa Fouzder6 October 2022

    White candidates still significantly outperform black candidates sitting the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), according to data published by the Solicitors Regulation Authority today.
    The regulator says it wants the SQE, designed to deliver a single, rigorous assessment for aspiring lawyers, to help support a more diverse profession.

    However, statistics published today on candidates who sat the first part of tokhe exam, known as SQE1, in July show that the pass rate for black candidates was 23%. The pass rate for white candidates was 63%. Of the candidates, 115 were black and 756 white. The pass rate for Asian/Asian British candidates was 54%.
    Statistics for the first SQE1 sitting last November show a similar pattern – 67 candidates were black and 460 candidates were white. Pass rates were 39% and 66% respectively.
    To qualify as a solicitor, candidates will also have to pass SQE2. Data for the April sitting shows that 60 candidates were black, with a pass rate of 53%, and 363 were white, with a pass rate of 85%.

    Following publication of the first SQE1 results, SRA chair Anna Bradley said the regulator anticipated it might see a ‘troubling difference’ in performance between different ethnic groups ‘that has been a longstanding and widespread feature in examinations in the legal and other sectors’.
    The University of Exeter has been commissioned to research the factors driving the attainment gap, which has yet to report back to the regulator.

    1. Chat GPT and its followers will soon be undertaking a lot of bread& butter legal work.

  73. Kunwar Khuldune Shahid
    Reform’s burqa ban isn’t ‘Islamophobic’
    6 June 2025, 5:56am

    MPs from Nigel Farage’s Reform party are calling for a burqa ban in Britain. Sarah Pochin, who won the Runcorn by-election last month, asked Sir Keir Starmer in the House of Commons this week if he would consider outlawing the garment. Her demand attracted the ire of Reform chairman Zia Yusuf, who has since stepped down from the job after saying the idea was ‘dumb’. Labour MPs, who shouted ‘shame’ at Pochin, also didn’t like the idea. But those who suggest that it is ‘Islamophobic’ to restrict the burqa are under a misapprehension.

    After all, at least ten Muslim-majority countries have enforced bans, not just on the burqa, but also on the niqab, a partial face covering. These include Algeria, Azerbaijan, and Bosnia, encompassing ethnic, political, sectarian, and geographical diversity in Muslim populations that have restricted the garment in public spaces. Some of these Muslim states also have bans in place for the hijab, the Islamic head covering, in legal and public institutions that limit the display of all religious symbols. The number of Muslim-majority states outlawing the face veil is increasing.

    Kyrgyzstan recently banned the burqa and niqab, with the country’s Muslim council calling it ‘alien to our society’ and a ‘threat to public safety’. Last year, a similar decree was issued in Tajikistan. Historically any policymaking curbing these veils in former Soviet Muslim-majority states have been discredited as a ‘post-communist’ hangover of the targeting of religion in general. But these recent mandates highlight a growing number of countries implementing laws designed to counter Islamist extremism.

    The burqa, which can pose an obvious security risk given that it completely hides one’s identity, has been deployed by jihadists to launch numerous raids around the world, notably suicide bombings with the garment used to hide explosive materials. Burqa-clad jihadists affiliated with the Taliban have carried out scores of raids in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Chad outlawed the burqa, with similar regulations also enforced in other African countries, as part of a security strategy to fight Boko Haram. In August, the Somali police seized hundreds of niqabs in a security operation, prompting a ban in the Jubaland state.

    ‘Given the PM’s desire to strengthen strategic alignment with our European neighbours, will he in the interests of public safety follow the lead of France, Denmark, Belgium and others and ban the burqa?’ asked Pochin.

    These laws in other European states, which have targeted all face coverings, not just the niqab or burqa, have predictably faced cries of ‘Islamophobia’. Yet it is ironic that counter-terror laws applied to all citizens are criticised in a way that Muslim-majority states are not when they pass policies aimed specifically at these garbs.

    What is also evident is that more Muslim states can deem these sexist coverings, designed to erase female identities, as not belonging to their society than European states. Tajikistan’s Council of Ulemas has called the niqab and hijab, ‘clothing foreign to Tajik culture’ with the government deeming bans on these garments necessary to ‘protect national cultural values, and prevent superstition and extremism’. Kyrgyzstan’s Spiritual Administration of Muslims too dubbed the niqab a ‘foreign concept’ for the country. Officials in Senegal and Chad have said it ‘does not represent our culture’.

    If Asian and African countries where Islam has been the majority religion for centuries can call the burqa and niqab ‘foreign’ to their lands, is it so preposterous to say the same in the UK and Western Europe?

    Even a literal reading of the Quran does not arguably mandate the face veiling, which is why Islamic clerics in various Muslim states have backed the burqa ban. The Quranic definition of satr, or parts of the body a Muslim has to conceal, does not typically include the face. The cultural practice of donning the face veil predates the advent of Islam in Arabia. It was revived after the advent of Salafi strain of the religion, a 19th century puritan movement that influenced jihadist groups like the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram. Many feminist voices from Arab and Middle Eastern states have long condemned the burqa and niqab, protesting against these garments, even prompting bans in countries like Tunisia.

    Instead of simply dismissing a burqa ban, the UK government should listen to progressive voices within the Muslim community who condemn such clothing as a tool to suppress women. While all citizens in liberal democracies should have absolute freedom to choose how they wish to dress at home, any public spaces and institutions that mandate universal dress codes should make no exception for any religion. This is especially true when public safety and security is at stake. There’s nothing ‘Islamophobic’ about calling for a burqa ban.

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

    Robert Lancs
    9 hours ago edited
    I don't give a rat's αr5e about the niceties of the koran. I despise the imposition of a vastly foreign and malignant culture on my streets and on the land my children are supposed to inherit. All by a bunch of ingrates who haven't got the sense to realise that the garbage culture and garbage religion they cling to created the cesspit countries they had to flee.

    1. I can't be bothered to read all of that.
      The last paragraph sums it all up.
      My opinion is the reason they dress up like that is, they are making a self serving salient point, trying to emphasis that they belive they are superior. Which we probably know is part of the ongoing psychological impact in a movement designed to demolish an existing culture. It's something that needs to be brought under control very rapidly.

      1. "We are not like you. We will never be like you. We will take over from you. We are winning."

    1. I think my Dad was there as well, but 20,000 ft above, in his Lancaster.

      I'd give a lot to be able to sit with him now and talk things over.

        1. He was much like me in temperament – fairly reserved (not a party animal). I miss him, and my mother. They would both be 101 years old if they were still with us.

      3. So young , but weren't they all .

        Of course it is a very telling photo because his hat tallyband is blacked out .. but also his hat is twisted in the wrong direction!!

      1. My friend and next door neighbour first tour of duty was the Falklands. He was just 18.
        On Illustrious.
        I’m not sure they see these things at the time it is happening as courageous.
        I think they see it as doing the job they were trained for.
        Again…i think it is viewed afterwards that they were courageous.

    6. My grandad was out fixing planes on the India/Burma border

  80. The rain went through at 0730hrs , and then the sun came out by the time I left after 8am .

    I drove via Bere Regis , Winterbourne Kingston, Blandford , Ashley wood golf course and onward to Witchampton , passing Tarrant Rushton on route ..

    Where the airborne gliders were towed from .. yes? https://archive-catalogue.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/records/D-CRI/F/3

    https://www.raftarrantrushton.org/

    The large hanger is still there as are the runways .. but the whole area is now planted up with wheat/ rye or whatever else .

    D Day!!

    I visited Moor Crichel house , near Witchampton this morning with a friend to have a guided tour through acres of glorious gardens . https://www.dorsetgardenstrust.co.uk/crichel

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crichel_House

    1. Don't touch the stuff. Will be up for some Friday 5 o'clock club Guinness soon, though.
      BTW did I say that I've come up with a pretty good anchovy paste that is excellent on toast or crackers?

      1. No. You DIDN'T. Share now please !!!

        May your Guinness taste like ambrosia from the Gods.

        That prayer of course is dependent on fishy paste.

        1. I took the contents of a jar of Shipphams Sardine and Tomato paste. Added about the same amount of sun dried tomato paste. Then I finely chopped and squashed about half a jar of Kingfisher (my favoured brand) anchovy fillets in olive oil. I just used a fork and a bowl to whisk them all together (no blender used so there is still some texture). Spooned back into a sealable jar. Use a curved cracker to clean the bowl.
          The proportions can be varied to taste. I've had to give 2 small jars away to neighbours and told them the method so they stop asking for more. I'm not boasting, but I love it. You have to like anchovies of course.

          1. Okay. You have passed the bread and fishes test…The Pearly Gates are now open.

          3. I used to love sardine and tomato paste. It was my favourite of all of them. It was Sunday tea at my Grandma’s, with home made scones and jam. And tea. My grandparents were poor as could be (looking back on it now) – all i remember is hoping the paste sandwiches would be sardine and tomato each week.

            Bless my grandparents. Funny what you don’t know (and what doesn’t matter).

            And now all we hear about is “poverty”. I don’t believe it (unless the people claiming to be poor are eating fish paste sandwiches and home made scones).

          4. It’s not that cheap anymore. A very small jar of sardine and tomato paste is 75p or so.

  83. Ben Habib
    Nigel Farage is clearly unfit to govern Britain

    Reform lacks discipline and a coherent political philosophy: it is nothing more than a protest party

    For a party which, rightly in my opinion, calls out the failures of multiculturalism, Reform UK should have had a view on the burqa. Whether that garb represents a rejection of British culture and the repression of women, or whether it is simply a matter of personal choice, Reform should have had a settled position on it. It did not. Sarah Pochin, one of its MPs, is seemingly against it and Zia Yusuf, its now erstwhile chairman, is not.

    The party’s failure to have a line on a subject, raised no less by Pochin at PMQs, is symptomatic of a greater problem within Reform. It has no settled political philosophy.

    This is evident from manifold self-contradictory statements made by Farage himself. He is on the record saying he is not concerned about the rate of demographic change in the country, though he is worried about the cultural damage being done to our country. They are two sides of the same coin.

    On that same point, he would be prepared to consider a return of Shamima Begum to the country. He is against illegal migration but has no intention of deporting all illegal migrants.

    He claims to stand up for the United Kingdom but readily accepts that Northern Ireland will inevitably be united with Ireland. He recognises the urgent need to cut government spending and reverse the culture of dependency, but would remove the cap on benefits for more than two children.

    His lack of a coherent philosophy is also evident in the people he has recruited into the party. Nick Candy, his treasurer, is a Blairite. He offered to put forward Charlie Mullins, an avowed Remainer, as a candidate. Even Pochin, a former Tory, had previously welcomed Syrian and Afghan asylum seekers. He has recruited councillors and members from all parts of the political spectrum – from Labour and Tory to the Liberal Democrats.

    There is no heart and soul in Reform. It is merely a campaigning vehicle for Farage to capitalise on the discontent with Labour and the Tories. It is a protest party.

    The events of the last few days also reveal, yet again, Reform lacks discipline. How is it that an MP would ask a question in Parliament which would so offend the chairman? And why did the chairman then feel able to publicly denounce her as “dumb”?

    Farage is Reform and Reform is Farage. He likes it that way. He has seemingly failed to establish a proper party structure and constitution. I campaigned hard last year for the party’s democratisation. I did so in part so that it would have in-built checks and balances. With due processes established, there would have been no way for an MP to go off-piste in Parliament or for the chairman to then make a fool of himself.

    If Reform intends to be the antidote to the nation’s woes, Farage needs to honestly reflect on recent events. He must realise the party needs a coherent political philosophy and policies which flow from this. He must establish foundations for the party which allow it to function and grow as a proper organisation.

    Reform is doing extremely well in the polls. If sustained, this could propel it into office. The party therefore has an obligation to take itself seriously and do the heavy lifting required to form a successful government. The sort for which we all so yearn.

    Farage is a brilliant and cunning campaigner. But he proves, time and again, that he is not fit to create a government or lead it.

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

    Ss SS
    7 hrs ago
    Ben: Why don’t you write to Nigel Farage privately rather than publishing this article in a national newspaper? If you care about British values and you care about getting rid of this appalling Labour government why not seek to be collaborative rather than attacking and critical? As you are in this article?

    You won’t put me off and you won’t put millions of other Reform voters and instead you just alienate yourself and this article also shows your deep unhappiness within you.

    SYLVIA MANN
    7 hrs ago
    Reply to Ss SS
    You summed up my feelings perfectly.

    I liked both Ben and Rupert Lowe but the way they're trying to damage Reform is very disturbing.

    3. He'll be on a Bung from NWO or similar. It stands out like dogs dangly bits.

  84. Why did Labour win the Hamilton by election.
    Perhaps it was because the Scots wanted to really annoy the English?

        1. Your name came up at the Lanesborough lunch. I told them all that if they really enjoyed ‘Abigail’s Party’ they should book your Gite. :@)

          1. Thank you for the plug but since my heart attack we’ve stopped letting it. A shame, because we met some really nice people over the years.

        1. Surely banging one's head on a hard floor is as damaging as the recently alleged health issues caused by such activities as boxing and heading footballs.

    2. Maybe because Yusuf timed his resignation to perfection making people think the Reform party is falling to pieces?

      1. If anything, it would have encouraged ‘white bigots’ to go and vote!

    3. I haven’t seen the scores. What was the turnout and how much did Liebour win by? What is the unemployment % in Hamilton? What is the average IQ?

      2. "Scottish Labour has taken Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse from the SNP in a closely fought by-election.

        The party's Davy Russell won with 8,559 votes, with a majority of 602 over the SNP.

        The vote followed the death of SNP MSP Christina McKelvie, who had represented the constituency since 2011.

        Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said his party had "proven the pollsters wrong".

        Reform UK finished third in the by-election on 7,088 votes, with the Tories in fourth on 1,621.

        1. Ta!

          Exit. Looks like liebour got about 33% of the vote. Reasonably close i would say – certainly not a runaway

        2. So: Leibour 8559
          SNP 7957
          Reform 7088
          Tories 1621

          The quote I gave was from the beeboids – their phrase "Reform finished third" suggest they were miles behind.
          In fact – as you see aove, had the ridiculous Tories all voted Reform – they would have WON.

  86. Wordle No. 1,448 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟨
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 6 Jun 2025

    Inspiration for Birdie Three?

    1. Well done, I thought this one was a bit tricky, although I suspect all the people who use ADIEU as their starter word will do well!

      Just the par today…..

      Wordle 1,448 4/6

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

      1. I didn't! Managed to get the first three correct letters very quickly, and then two wrong guesses!

        1. I can only think of two options if you had the first three letters – that's pretty unlucky BB2!

    2. Should have been an eagle really. Very limited choices and I still picked the wrong one.

      Wordle 1,448 3/6

      ⬜🟩🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. Bit late on parade here. Just a par.

      Wordle 1,448 4/6

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

  88. Back from Narridge. The MR waiting for the effect of the anaesthetic to wear off. I suggested brandy — she chose tea.

    Very aptly on this special day, we listened, during the 50 miles round trip – to Field Marshal Max Hastings's latest book, "Sword".

    I am not a fan of the greatest general never to have worn uniform – but his description of the build up to and landing at Pegasus Bridge was very, very good. A year ago (give a few days) we were there. To see where the gliders crash-landed – 40 yards from their target – was extraordinary.

    Anything intresting happen while we were away?

    1. Apparently there's a cheap second hand Tesla for sale (in red, white and blue)….

        1. That's not what the Beeb Website (and the Times) lead story is saying, Katya, Trump cancelled a planned phone call between the two…. the ego has landed.

          3. Trump's connection with Epstain has been well documented here. Unless Elon has incriminating photos, it's a non story.

          4. Even photos can be fake, jack…even witnesses lie…soap opera…gradually turning off the whole shooting match.

          5. But despite press digging here, nothing has ever surfaced to indicate Trump and Epstein were anything but social buddies. New York rich guys, both of them.

          7. The rich boys move in similar circles but i believe Trump early on cut loose from Epstein.

            Who knows what any more.

          8. Didn't Trump kick Epstein off his property for not respecting Trump's staff?

    2. To round off my comment about Pegasus Bridge, the gliders took off from Tarrant Rushton – see Maggie's photographs, below.

    3. I've read many of Hastings's books and at times I find him over-critical of the British Army's performance against the German Army. Certainly, the Germans had their tactical strengths but the British Army developed tactics that nullified many of those strengths.

      John Buckley's book, Monty's Men, describes how the British Army became more than a match for the German war machine on D-day and beyond. There have been criticisms of the British Army's reliance on artillery but who in their right mind would trade flesh rather than steel to win a war.

      Can't remember a book by Hastings on the war in Burma. FM 'Bill' Slim was probably the greatest British Army commander of WWII.

      An piece of trivia re June 6th 1944: British actor Richard Todd – he played Guy Gibson in the Dam Busters film – landed on D-day at Pegasus Bridge and later played the part of his commanding officer, Major John Howard, in the film of Cornelius Ryan's book, The Longest Day.

    1. Not me obviously. Though next time at lunch make sure you are beyond pinching distance.

      2. 406855+ up ticks,

        Evening BT,

        I believe them to be elasticated to accommodate his ego.

          2. Just letting you know. After 7pm my posts are infused and not to be trusted in any shape or form that resembles a Gordon's Gin bottle.

          3. Mine manage to screw up all on their own. Must be because sober since 27 April. Why do I feel worse, thought I was supposed to feel better….

          4. Can’t say. I have good days and bad days. None related to the prescribed meds i am taking. Possibly due to how well i slept

      4. Could be the angle. Could be the light.

        At the Lanesborough lunch which i might mention Annie's husband is a month older than you and completely deaf had a very nice time…. He also had a buzz cut and flat top which made him look sixty not eighty.

        For myself i was going for the Paisley waistcoat and tie but when i put it on i thought…fuckit. I'll go for the Tommy Robinson look and wore a pink Fred Perry.

        Everyone adored me. :@)

  93. There goes the clock – it is now drinking time. So I will leave you and pour the MR and me a suitable beverage with which to raise a glass to the success of D-Day.

    Have a memorable evening.

    A demain (in the rain). There is a village open air event planned….might have known that lobal boiling will ensure a low turnout.

  94. Hugely popular former special forces soldier & reality TV star Ant Middleton redoubles vow to become Mayor of London with Reform.

    Then.. Ant Middleton expresses his support for Tommy Robinson … LOL
    Test case for alleged Conformist & Islam appeaser Nigel Farage.

    1. I like him but surely his alcoholism will count against him?

      1. The photo could be Kate but the message isn't – off to t'pit now G'night x

  96. I'd hate to be working on BBC news at the moment.

    The stench of wetted panties from the Trump Musk fall out must be appalling.

    3. In the UK it is very difficult to even see a GP. Most GP surgeries are private business. They get paid for all the people (victims) on their books. Try to call them and you will have difficulty.

      Though they have no trouble sending endless messages and medics/nurses will be available for giving you an injection.

      In my case i am addicted to nicotine. I was recently refused any treatment or an adjustment of medication. Fags bad !
      However if i were addicted to Heroin or Fentanyl i would have been treated.

        1. Tell me about it. When i mentioned all this to my private dentist he could only offer the same.

        1. And allegedly an acquaintance of members of the English far-left terrorist group who carried out the Warrington bombs on behalf of the IRA.

    2. I wish i had his courage to confront like he did. Well done him in embarrassing the Troll in public.

      1. He's put on a bit of weight. He looks more like the kind of fat Tory twat pursued by the media in the 90s for financial embarrassment than an 'anti-fascist'. The leader of Hope Not Soap ought to be a sickly, scraggy, snaggle-toothed 30-something with warts, tattoos, earrings, spikey hair and a face that looks as though it's already met a brick a few times.

        1. I take it from that, that you are proposing Phizzee as a temporary leader until a younger equivalent can be found?

          }:-O

      2. I doubt Knowles felt any embarrassment – just mild irritation. People like that have no shame, conscience or any kind of moral compass.

  99. After a lovely warm and sunny (28C) morning, we now have thunder, lightning and pouring rain. Plus I am "losing" the river view due to mist/cloud – and the rain.Temperature still up around 25-26 though.

      1. Temperatures normal for this time of year here. We don't acknowledge "hot" in these parts until we are above 100°F – Americans never having converted to the French system. I try to remember to convert – and to change to English spelling when commenting.

        1. The only ones I remember: 16ºC = 61ºF – and minus 40º is the same in both!!

          1. Usually work them out in my head – add/subtract 32 then apply the 5/9 (or 9/5) ratio.

    3. We have thunder and lightning forecast for tomorrow – we've had to cancel the village fete we were going to.

    2. It's the globalist agenda and this government is sold on the idea of mass immigration, especially if the majority of incomers are of the moslem persuasion. It's hard to fathom what drives people to betray their own country and its people.

      1. 'They' have signed up to a club no sovereign state would ever have agreed to. Slow boiled frog.

  101. Handwritten letters furnished with a flourish

    Quodlibet, 1675, by the Flemish painter Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts

    SIR – Three years ago, on receipt of Christmas presents from our adult granddaughters, I sent handwritten thank-you letters (Features, June 4), even though they lived next door.

    The effect was extraordinary, as it was a rare experience to receive any letter, let alone one from their grandfather, and they were thrilled.

    Both granddaughters give extremely thoughtful presents, but one surprised me the following Christmas by giving me a wax letter-sealing kit – and an apology for finding that a personal, monogrammed stamp was a financial step too far.

    The sealed letters give surprise and delight to their recipients.

    Jonathan Tucker
    Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex

    Have any of you saved precious letters from relatives no longer here on this mortal coil?

        1. Yes. I have kept a couple of them when they were looking happy (Southsea Common when we were in a big family group playing Rounders) I can't cope with the rest.

          1. Know exactly what you mean. Recently had my dog of 15 years euthanised (liver failure), brings a whole lot of other memories back.

          3. Very true, Belle, in turn thanks for your kindness too. He had liver failure, so nothing to be done. Ashes should be available sometime this week. Actually have another terrier, more husband’s dog than mine, usually ignores me but was subservient to my dog and has now decided to latch on to me. Looking for another terrier she can be boss of…even tho I said ‘no more dogs’….:-)) Have had a dog since I was four years old, so 70+ years and counting. Thanks again, Kate x

          5. I know this was happening and i feel your pain. Dolly and Harry are both on my bed right now. Harry is happy to be cuddled. Dolly wants treats.

          6. Thank you Phiz, much appreciated. Collecting ashes next week. (I don’t know what you think about ashes, but tbh I think a number of animals likely cremated same/similar time – end of the day, it’s all we physically have of them, and they’ll be my keepsake.) What treats are you giving Dolly btw? Neutered animals often seem to need more treats, put on weight more easily?

          7. My cats were all cremated but the cost now is utterly ridiculous. Dolly and Harry when the time comes will be buried in my garden with flag stones on top.

            Dolly has always been overweight. Even when i feed her the diet biscuits the vet recommends.

            She thinks she’s a Labrador. Eats anything.

    1. I wonder if the 'agency' sent them one at a time or all at once.

      I'll get me bucket.

      1. Maybe Ricky “slit their [white people’s] throats” Jones might have undergone trial by jury by then. Although Lucy “for all I care” Connolly will STILL be in prison at that point. She had no jury trial, obvs.

        1. I really don’t understand Connolly’s case, just have my suspicions why seemingly not being taken up by MSM?

      2. Maybe Ricky “slit their [white people’s] throats” Jones might have undergone trial by jury by then. Although Lucy “for all I care” Connolly will STILL be in prison at that point. She had no jury trial, obvs.

  103. From Coffee House the Spectator

    Another pint of bitter, love, when you’re ready.’ To those of a certain age the request slips off the tongue like the opening line of a sonnet. A pint of bitter is as English as the first cuckoo of spring or the last rose of summer. It brings to mind a pub, the people in it, and that social phenomenon which binds us to those we trust – the round. And, of course, one pint may lead to another.

    Television adverts used to be full of jolly pint-swillers. Whitbread ‘Big Head’ Trophy Bitter was ‘the pint that thinks it’s a qua-art’. Tetley of Leeds, a big player in those days, introduced viewers to their ‘Bittermen’, with the declaration: ‘You can’t beat ’em.’

    Bitter, more than its maltier cousin mild, was the favoured hoppy drink of the pub before the tasteless brute lager swaggered into our taverns. Sometimes, particularly in the north and Midlands, the two went together in a single beaker – though if you try telling the tale of ‘mixed’ to the hipsters of Camden Town, you might get some funny looks. The trendy modern toper prefers to take his ale from a barrel marked ‘craft’, as though the indentured brewers of previous decades hadn’t the foggiest.

    Their successors, terrified by the prospect of being behind the times, are running scared. The Wye Valley Brewery, responsible for the superb Butty Bach, has decided to ‘rebrand’ its best bitter as Pyoneer. Although they insist the change is a way of honouring native traditions – Canon Pyon being the village where the brewery has its roots – a spokesman rather gave the game away by referring to the hunt for ‘a new demographic’.

    We know what that means. Out with the woolly jumpers; in with bucket hats. So fare thee well, bitter beer. It was lovely knowing you. These days, if you promise to behave, you may be passed off as ‘amber ale’, which, strictly speaking, is true. Sometimes your dance card says ‘pale ale’, which is more or less true. Bitter and pale ale have always worn each other’s clothes – like those hipsters in Camden.

    Landlord, the world classic brewed in Keighley by Timothy Taylor, is designated a pale ale. Their best bitter has for some years been called Boltmaker – and jolly good it is, too. There is no time for tears so long as brewers offer regulars such sapid stuff.

    London Pride, the jewel in the crown of Fuller’s of Chiswick, is also promoted as an amber ale. There was a deliberate change of tone when Asahi, the Japanese brewers, bought the company six years ago – and you can still get Pride worth a gargle. The Red Lion in Barnes, a white-walled fortress with a garden, is a good place to satisfy your curiosity.

    But the foreign invasion, represented in part by the rise of those overrated craft beers, has claimed some notable victims. Later this year, the Banks’s Brewery in Wolverhampton, which has pleased Black Country boozers for 150 years, will close its doors. Their mild is justly famous so this is a real deprivation.

    The carve-up of regional brewers by multinational corporations has changed the culture of drinking habits in a land known for its range of ales

    The carve-up of regional brewers by multinational corporations has changed the culture of drinking habits in a land known for its range of ales. Jennings of Cockermouth and Ringwood of the New Forest are merely the latest brewers to join the likes of Boddingtons in the taproom of history. Who ever thought ‘Boddys’ could go? It was as much a part of Manchester folklore as rain in July and the gay village. Well, the palace next to Strangeways Hotel, where they brewed what beer guides called ‘a distinctive straw-coloured bitter’, was pulled down 20 years ago.

    It can be difficult to keep up with developments. Draught Bass is now brewed under licence by Marston’s. It is one of the great beers, characterised by the red triangle – the UK’s first registered trademark – that appeared in Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère.

    Is it a bitter, or a pale ale? It doesn’t really matter – though you might be stretching the tolerance of Burton folk to call it an amber ale. Sitting outside the Swan Inn at Milton last week, six miles from the brewery, it was possible to close one’s eyes and pretend the cataclysm hadn’t happened.

    There are still corking beers to be supped. Bateman’s of Wainfleet, Holt’s of Manchester, Batham’s of Brierley Hill, and Woodforde’s of Norwich won’t let you down. And there are plenty of local breweries giving it a go without having to pretend they’ve ‘gone craft’. Is there an outstanding candidate? There most certainly is. If we put Landlord to one side, for the sake of argument, then Harvey’s Sussex Best of Lewes lands the strongest punch. ‘Sussex Best Bitter’, to put a proper handle on the jug, must be considered the champion.

    At the Express Tavern on Kew Bridge you may find this great ale, which has been sluicing through their pumps for 105 consecutive years. There is no excuse for not popping in to see how they are getting on.

    WRITTEN BY
    Michael Henderson

    1. The fall out worries me. Much like with Reform. I feel like i have been lead down this garden path all my life.

          2. We’ll never trust them again, will we? I used to think we were ruled by fair minded people – not any more. If they try that trick again I will be non-compliant.

        2. Hah ! I learned early on there was no such thing as the tooth fairy or father Christmas. My parents allowed me to watch that nonsense on telly but they didn't bother to reinforce it.

          You got tyres. I got slippers.

          I am in Weymouth on the 12th. Come have lunch with me at Les Enfants Terribles on the harbour. Five of us going and we can squeeze in little old you. Tell hubby you have an appointment with the chiropodist. 12.30. Chef Eric does wonderful Dorset crab.

          4. Only the best for me !
            The Chef is a Frenchman. Eric Tavernier. Buys from the boats.
            He is also strangely for a Frog, very personable.

        1. Such a public fallout is not good for either of them. I hope they planned this and have intentions other than the idiotic media circus calling the shots.

      1. Many of the rich and so called elites take drugs like Coke and or Ketamine. Many within our own parliament as has been proven by drug sweeps in the toilets on the parlimentary estate.

        Common knowledge now that Gove took drugs and dad danced at Raves.

        'Don't bother with desert darling have this instead is normal for Islington dinner parties.

        I don't believe Trump does any of that shit which is why they have come to blows.

        1. Trump apparently does not drink either, so he really has no excuse for some of his strange behaviour.

          1. Yes. It all does seem very weird. But then from where i am standing (slumped) what i am being told by media isn't convincing me of anything.

            Epstein. JFK. Aliens.

  105. I had a dental appointment today. Check up with the dentist which was all good. Then the hygienist, Chloe. She asked me if i had given up smoking because i had no stains on my teeth.
    I said no but i had changed my toothpaste to Pepsodent.
    This is an American brand.
    Bleaching and or the gritty ones damage the teeth.
    This does neither. Just does what it is supposed to do.

    What really annoys me to hell is all the toothpastes we are sold as advertised in the UK like Colgate don't actually do the job as advertised.

        1. I remember the one with a tooth brush stuck in a block of ice. Never see any ads these days as I don't watch telly.

      3. Anyone remember the old Esso advert? Where the tops of the pumps were depicted as oriental faces?

        People would go nuts if they showed that today.

      1. Not sure but i got her to Google it and she was satisfied it had flouride and calcium. Which hygienists recommend. You can find it on Amazon and look for yourself.

        I would need a microscope to look at the ingredients on the box. But what i do know is when you brush then spit all the yellow is in the sink and not on my teeth.

        I am totally distrustful of Pharma now. Zovirax doesn't work and is hugely expensive. Athletes foot cream the same. Then we have Rennie.

        Pay pay pay.

        The good news for me besides an upcoming extraction is my teeth are whiter and cleaner than they have ever been.

        1. I use Sensodyne and have done for years. I don't smoke but they do get tea stains and coffee stains and red wine doesn't help either……

          I don't use a lot of Big Pharma stuff…… no medications. I had to look up Zovirax – but I've never had herpes apart from when I had shingles in 2019 and had a course of Acyclovir.

          1. At least two types of herpes. The one most get on the face comes from being kissed as a baby. That is where mine comes from.
            The other type comes from lower down.

          3. Not often enough. Too late for me but there is still hope for you yet. Kwier has at least three still available.

          5. My mother had them quite regularly, supposedly when 'run-down'. Heavy smoker, perhaps that something to do with it. She was the first person to offer me a cigarette – I was 14 and so scared I said no…

          8. I think you only have shingles if you've had chicken pox as a child (or perhaps it's when you didn't). Anyhow, I've had both, shingles hardly any rash but very painful and debilitating. My dad had shingles when I was very young, the rash met up round his torso which is supposed to be very painful, and so it seemed in his case, in bed for a couple of weeks.

          10. I remember having impetigo. That was horrible. Scabs on my face made me depressed. Terrible for a teenager.

    3. Per Colgate.

      Use "our" toothpaste to get whiter teeth

      Use "our" whitening strips to get whiter teeth

      Use "our" gel to get whiter teeth.

      Meanwhile, the dentist will tell you the only way to get whiter teeth is via controlled usr of powerful bleaching compounds, i.e. you sit there with goop on your teeth, until they get white. At which point, the teeth have probably been weakened by the chemicals used "etching" their way into the enamel. And if you have crowns, they will not respond to the bleaching in the same way natural teeth will.

      Screw it, have another glass of red and (in my case) decide that at my age, frankly, I don't give a damn.

      p.s. remember the ditty?

      You'll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent.

      1. I could be wrong but i think Colgate toothpaste is made in China. I also notice that all tubes whatever the content are thicker and have less content.

      2. Friend of mine, many years ago, good teeth – black coffee, red wine, cigars…..all in the genes……

    4. We use a Sainsbury ( bottom shelf) for £1. Works well is not gloopy and washes out of your toothbrush.

      1. https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/oc-whitening-tpaste-100ml?utm_medium=cpc&cmpid=cpc&catalogId=10241&utm_content=shopping&productId=1127994&utm_campaign=20286877884&utm_custom2=759-449-0952&storeId=10151&gclid=CjwKCAjwo4rCBhAbEiwAxhJlCUFrQUFD-rtUPgJ8NLw8hbUzgb5884OQPJuM5kjzliV3VU3gre7EKxoCLqYQAvD_BwE&utm_custom1=&langId=44&utm_source=Google&krypto=bZPvWCbzyf33ThXPZr9kOK%2BH8Qr72cXOSpl7nfSTLGwh%2BtzchiRQRQQGM6aRuAlVHQO9sCIeRvOqCScs9CVuZzvgvHhZSzL7GYObxpoX3Y965JGEPhMxAY9wye9GQai4FPm3a4qWU8vpxq2r10C5V7DZynFK4esUbik1ZNTKQMAoedj7oG9a4G89CQcv55grefs51oiIW9mopWzJCMb15YQJeYKpI38XdPxbJWXf4AEWvVGsLgrkKWP0WiGN3bDyF%2FVGM6MQ0ozPkpcSo3dNl4yz5VjQFqYW8UizDLYDKeDLerzPHuMOg0VKsLdD9odmuIcVBjfaISLtfql4meEi0rz1nBJc%2BFn1tB3%2FG4Crryp9kgrRyQ5fPaC6EabVYz3X&ddkey=https%3Agb%2Fgroceries%2Foc-whitening-tpaste-100ml

    5. I tried 3 of the whitening treatments from Amazon – load of rubbish
      I must try Pepsodent (You'll wonder where the yellow went)

  106. from Coffee House the Spectator

    Trump’s public breakup with Elon Musk is symptomatic of his failure to hold together the broad coalition to which he owes his re-election.

    The ‘HUGEst’ political alliance of the century is breaking apart before the eyes of the world in suitably spectacular fashion.

    For the last few months, the most powerful man in the world, Donald Trump, and the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, were a political item. Musk donated large sums to Trump’s campaign, lavished the newly re-elected president with praise on his social network, and neglected his companies to pursue his side quest at the helm of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In return, Trump gave Musk unprecedented powers over the federal bureaucracy, staged joint press conferences in the Oval Office, and allowed him to lecture the assembled cabinet before rolling cameras. Nothing better symbolised the supposed ‘vibe shift’ in America than the fact that Trump, practically a social pariah when first elected to the White House, could upon his return count on the outspoken support of the world’s most famous entrepreneur – and many other leading figures in Silicon Valley.

    But it was also clear from the start that the match between Musk and Trump might prove stormy. The egos of both men are evidently outsized, their temperaments famously volatile. It did not take a genius to predict that their supposedly perfect match might prove short-lived – or even end in acrimony. And yet, the speed with which their epic bromance has turned into an explosive feud is astonishing.

    A week ago, Musk announced his departure from Washington, with the pair giving a final press conference from the Oval Office. A few days later, a story in the New York Times, apparently drawing on sources in Trump’s circle, chronicled the extent of Musk’s alleged drug use. Then, on Tuesday, Musk publicly came out against Trump’s ‘big and beautiful’ budget bill, which would lead both to a large tax cut and a massive increase in public debt.

    But it was yesterday that the fight truly escalated. At a press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Trump responded to Musk’s criticisms of his budget bill, suggesting that ‘Elon is upset because we took [away] the EV mandate, which is a lot of money for electric vehicles… I know that disturbed him.’

    Musk’s ire grew by the hour. First, he told his 220 million followers on X that America could choose between a ‘big and ugly bill’ and a ‘slim and beautiful bill’, urging Republican legislators to break ranks with Trump in pursuit of the latter. As the day wore on, Musk started to draw attention to Trump’s alleged connections to Jeffrey Epstein, claiming that these were the real reasons why files about Epstein’s misdeeds hadn’t yet been released. At present, his pinned post is a poll that asks users whether it is time for a ‘new political party in America that actually represents the 80 per cent in the middle’.

    The breakup is likely to prove costly to both sides. Trump will lose his biggest financial backer (though both are billionaires, Musk is estimated to be over 50 times richer than him). He may find that X – which remains the most politically influential social media platform despite being much less central to the political conversation than it once was – suddenly becomes more hostile terrain. And the passage of his crucial budget bill is now in serious doubt.

    Musk, whose approval ratings already lag behind those of his former boss, is now politically homeless. Having alienated much of the liberal customer base of Tesla, his most valuable company, he is now likely to alienate MAGA, his most fervent fanbase in politics. While a majority of Americans may indeed be unhappy with the choices currently on offer, the idea that somebody who is this unpopular can found a successful third party is highly unrealistic.

    But the big, beautiful break between Trump and Musk is more significant for what it reveals about failed aspirations now consigned to the past than for what it predicts about events yet to come. When romances fail, it is often because each partner projected their hopes onto the other, only to discover belatedly that these had all along been misplaced. That is the true meaning lurking behind the political breakup of the century.

    Musk thought that he could use Trump as a vehicle for refashioning the federal government in keeping with the values and ethos of the Silicon Valley elite. Trump thought that he could use his alliance with Musk to broaden his appeal beyond his traditional pitch. Both of these hopes were destined to be disappointed before the wedding vows had even been pronounced.

    The Silicon Vision of Politics

    Over recent years, some leading figures in Silicon Valley grew convinced that the federal government was so badly broken that they could no longer afford to ignore it – and coalesced around a particular set of views about how to fix it.

    The kings of Silicon Valley succeeded by ‘moving fast and breaking shit’. The VC firms they lead don’t mind if many of the start-ups they support fail, so long as some go on to have outsized returns. They have grown accustomed to the idea that taking huge risks (as Musk did in founding Tesla and SpaceX) can simultaneously be personally rewarding and socially beneficial. If all you have is a hammer, everything you see is a nail; it is perhaps inevitable that a set of phenomenally successful people who transformed the world by these methods would come to believe that they can – to the mutual benefit of themselves and their country – apply the same playbook to the federal government.

    There was also an ideological element to this. The leaders of Silicon Valley grew deeply frustrated with the left’s instinctive hostility to technological progress, taking particular umbrage at the way mainstream outlets such as the New York Times often covered significant innovations like breakthrough rocket launches by focusing on minor environmental impacts. They came to loathe the way in which woke ideology undermined meritocracy, worrying that it would make it harder to find the talent they needed to succeed. And they started to worry about the ballooning federal budget, which might sap the competitiveness of American companies in the near future.

    Musk’s alliance with Trump was based on a bet: that the president’s destructive force would prove unstoppable, and his substantive views sufficiently thin, that he could become a political vehicle for putting the Silicon vision into practice. For the first hundred or so days of Trump’s presidency, some of Silicon Valley’s leaders retained the hope that their bet was paying off. In his inaugural address, Trump promised a new age of American innovation. The White House went on a full-frontal attack against everything it considered woke. Republicans were still talking a big game about shrinking the budget deficit. Musk and his band of young, inexperienced, high-agency recruits were given enormous power to reshape the federal bureaucracy.

    DOGE failed because of the structural differences between tech and government

    But the truth was always going to prove disappointing. Republicans are less likely than Democrats to oppose technological innovation on environmental or social justice grounds. But they are just as likely to oppose it on the basis that it threatens the jobs of key constituencies, could lead to lower property prices, or requires attracting the best and brightest from countries such as India and China. The tragedy of the ‘abundance agenda’ is that it has no natural home in either of the big political parties.

    Similarly, Musk evidently hoped that the war against woke would unleash America’s productive powers, refocusing leading universities on impactful research and giving tech companies a freer hand in recruitment. Instead, the Trump administration made universities a prime enemy – weakening them by any means possible and significantly curtailing the inflow of talented students from around the world. In the debate over whether to expand or restrict H-1B visas, the restrictionists in the White House increasingly look to have the upper hand.

    But perhaps surprisingly, it is Republican hypocrisy on the national debt that seems most to have alienated Musk. Mercurial and self-serving though he may be, Musk does appear to be a man of conviction. (After all, he was willing to lose friends and spend enormous sums purchasing a social media platform to advance his political beliefs.) It seems he believed Republicans when they spent years warning about the dangers of trillion-dollar deficits and promising to balance public finances. And so it was his revulsion at a budget bill that would increase the deficit by $2.4 trillion which occasioned his public split from Trump.

    Musk has understandable reason to feel bitter. But if he retains the ability to be honest with himself, he should also recognise that the roots of his vision’s failure lie closer to home: in his unrealistic hope that DOGE could radically remake the country like a start-up pivoting from recognising hot dogs to powering artificial intelligence.

    When Mr Musk went to Washington, he clearly believed he would find waste and fraud on a monumental scale. But while bureaucracies have a reputation for inefficiency, the kind of obvious failures Musk envisaged turned out, for the most part, to be figments of his imagination. In his first days on the job, he posted a number of ‘big wins’ – which amounted to a tiny fraction of the federal budget. In the following weeks, even these announcements slowed to a trickle, and then ceased altogether. Musk’s frustration with Trump’s budget stemmed in part from his recognition that DOGE’s savings are rounding errors compared to the giveaways championed by the president he helped elect.

    Most fundamentally, DOGE failed because of the structural differences between tech and government. When a start-up fails, few people suffer and the public doesn’t care. But if you inadvertently cut key public services, the consequences for people’s lives are immediate. Moving fast and breaking shit works in tech; it does not work in government.

    The American government could probably be improved by people who combine the ethos of the tech world with real political experience. But the idea that a tech leader could fix Washington by breaking stuff without even bothering to learn what it actually does – an idea not limited to conservative tech billionaires – was always naïve.

    The End of the Vibe Shift

    Over the last year, Musk let his vocal support for MAGA redefine him in the public eye. That makes this split perilous for his image. Trump knows better than to make himself too dependent on any one ally – and it is telling that he has so far responded to Musk’s barrage of social posts in a relatively restrained fashion. Yet the breakup with Musk also signifies the failure of the most ambitious vision for Trump’s second term.

    Trump has again proven unwilling to do what it takes to consolidate a broad, forward-looking coalition

    When Trump was first elected, he was widely seen as a man of the past – partly due to his reliance on a supposedly declining electoral base. But also because his economic policies harkened back to a lost golden age of coal mines and steel mills.

    The much-hyped vibe shift behind his return was in part due to the expansion of that demographic coalition – including younger and more diverse voters – and in part due to Musk. For a brief moment, MAGA was as associated with colonising Mars as with reopening coal mines.

    The tensions in this coalition were easy to see. Many MAGA supporters always viewed Musk with suspicion. Most would cheer a crackdown on universities, the end of H-1B visas, and don’t care about space exploration. But the alliance didn’t fail because their interests were irreconcilable – after all, Trump’s voters seem fine with handouts in the pending budget bill.

    It failed because Trump has again proven unwilling to do what it takes to consolidate a broad, forward-looking coalition.

    Most Americans wanted border enforcement – not deporting gay hairdressers to El Salvador. They wanted domestic manufacturing – not chaotic tariffs that risk global recession. And they wanted to curb woke excesses – not an all-out culture war backed by the force of the federal government.

    Trump’s inability to sustain his alliance with Musk is merely the most visible sign of a broader failure: to turn his presidency into a more expansive, future-facing project. From here on, the White House is once again run by the MAGA faithful. The vibe shift – to the extent it ever existed – is over.

    This article was originally published on Yascha Mounk’s Substack

    WRITTEN BY
    Yascha Mounk
    Yascha Mounk is a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. and the author of The Identity Trap.

    1. Yet there is endless waste in government. In the three months of operation DOGE cut state spending by nearly 4%.

      That sounds absurd, but that's in 3 months, with few resources. Imagine if every department were run commercially, with 20% headcount reduction on a regular basis? Here, instead of half a million idle civil servants we would be saving 100,000 salaries every single year, let alone the unaffordable pensions.

  107. From the Telegraph
    Trump vs Musk is the final battle before economic catastrophe
    Elon Musk’s monumental failure at Doge brings a terrible reckoning even closer

    06 June 2025 5:56pm BST

    Who needs reality TV when there’s the psychodrama of Trump’s White House to keep us all entertained? As plot lines go, the falling out between Elon Musk and Donald Trump was perhaps about as predictable as they come, but the sheer venom, speed and combustibility of the divorce has nevertheless proved utterly captivating.

    Even the best of Hollywood scriptwriters would have struggled to do better. The stench of betrayal hangs heavy in the air, a veritable revenger’s tragedy of a drama.

    Beneath it all, however, lies a rather more serious matter than the sight of two of the world’s richest and most powerful men breaking up and exchanging insults.

    And it’s one which afflicts nearly all major, high income economies. Slowly but surely – and at varying speeds – they are all going bust. Yet few of them even seem capable of recognising it, let alone doing anything to correct it.

    None more so than the United States, where the Congressional Budget Office last week estimated that Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” would add a further $2.4 trillion to the national debt by 2034.

    Let’s not take sides, but Musk was absolutely right when he described the bill as “a disgusting abomination”. It taxes far too little, and it spends far too much. It is hard to imagine a more reckless piece of make-believe.

    Musk had backed Trump not just out of self-interest – more government contracts, protection of the electric vehicle mandate, personal aggrandisement and so on – but because he genuinely believed he could help stop the US from bankrupting itself.

    This has proved a monumental conceit. The $2 trillion of savings in federal spending he initially promised has turned out to be at most $200bn, and probably substantially less once double accounting and wishful thinking is factored in.

    In any case, against total federal spending last year of nearly £7 trillion, it is but a drop in the ocean, and only goes to show just how difficult it is to find serious savings in government administration even when given a free hand with the headcount.

    The rampant corruption and incompetence that Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency expected to find in the Washington and wider government machine has turned out to be largely an illusion, and many of the cuts that he has managed to make seem to have done more harm than good.

    This is not to argue that it’s not worth trying, or that you cannot make public services more efficient. But it takes time, substantial upfront investment, and the savings are generally not as big as anticipated.

    To nobody’s great surprise, it transpires that the skills needed to run a successful business do not transfer easily to the public sector, where the disciplines of the bottom line, the profit motive and competitive markets don’t exist.

    The shame of it is that the Elon Musk who built Tesla and SpaceX into two of the world’s most successful companies over a period of nearly two decades has been almost entirely absent while at Doge these past four or five months.

    Instead we have seen a reckless, chainsaw-wielding – and if the American press is to be believed, drug-fuelled – Musk, who like his one-time boss Donald Trump, seems to regard government more as performative art than public service.

    We can all point to myriad different examples of public sector waste, of unfathomable spending decisions, and stultifying, jobsworth bureaucracy, but the imagined savings from addressing these things nearly always turn out to be a mirage.

    In Britain, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK claims there is £7bn to be saved by scrapping public sector spending on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes. Sadly, no such saving exists.

    Recent government figures showed that just £27m was spent by the civil service on DEI measures during 2022-23. This might well be £27m too much, but it is not going to solve Britain’s debt crisis.

    The two big cash-burners in advanced economies’ state spending are public sector salaries and welfare, and both desperately need to be addressed if Western democracies are ever to extract themselves from currently mountainous debt.

    Musk has comprehensively failed on the first of these missions, and not surprisingly so. The sort of productivity-improving automation and digitalisation we see widely applied in the private sector to stay competitive is a marathon, not a sprint, and it requires precision in planning and execution.

    None of these characteristics were on display from the tech bros sent in to tackle the bloated size of the American state. Their approach was one of slash and burn rather than the slow, methodical re-engineering of government needed to achieve sustainable savings and productivity improvement.

    What’s more, Trump shows little or no appetite for meaningful entitlement reform.

    OK, some attempt is being made to trim spiralling Medicaid spending, but it’s half-hearted and is really only there as a gesture to appease fiscal hawks among House Republicans.

    The bottom line is that Trump is as much a creature of fantasy economics as any.

    He wants both low taxes and high spending, and expects economic growth to make up the difference. It’s the same delusion as Liz Truss, only very much more dangerous in its seeming rejection of fiscal orthodoxies.

    Unlike Britain, America is the beating heart of the global financial system, and if US debt markets go belly-up they’ll take everyone else down with them.

    Back here in Britain, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, shows similarly little sign of getting to grips with the leviathan of public spending as she puts the finishing touches to next Wednesday’s spending review.

    Public sector salary costs are rising, not falling, and although ministers talk the talk on welfare reform, their approach to the issue is no more convincing than that of Trump. It’s just a little tinkering around the edges.

    Simply getting working-age benefits back to their pre-pandemic level would save £49bn a year – more than enough to avoid tax rises and fund the desired increase in defence spending to 3pc of GDP, Jeremy Hunt, Reeves’s Conservative predecessor as chancellor, points out.

    Spending on disability benefits alone has surged from £37bn just before the pandemic to £56bn now, much more than in any comparable economy, with the bulk of the growth coming from mental health conditions.

    Yet Reeves used up almost all her political capital axing the winter fuel allowance to all but the poorest pensioners, a course of action which saves only £1.5bn a year. This has left her with virtually no space for more serious entitlement reform.

    In both the US and Britain, cutting state spending back to size is simply not happening on the scale needed to stem the rising tide of debt.

    Attempts by Musk to draw a line in the sand have ended in acrimony and recrimination. Nobody can tell you exactly when the storm will break, but Musk’s failure brings the final reckoning that much closer.

    1. I think both Musk and Trump are obtuse and awkward characters who are hard to work with.

    1. Blair forced the muslim down our throats so much, then enacted a plethora of laws deliberately to protect them from valid criticism.

  110. Derby: the Izabela Zablocka murder.

    A woman has appeared in court after being charged with murdering a woman who went missing 15 years ago.

    Police looking for Izabela Zablocka found human remains in a garden in Normanton, Derby, last week.

    During a hearing at Southern Derbyshire Magistrates' Court on Friday, Anna Podedworna, of Boyer Street, Derby, spoke via an interpreter to confirm her name, date of birth and address.

    The 39-year-old has been charged with murder, preventing a lawful burial and perverting the course of justice, and will appear at Derby Crown Court on Monday.

    Ms Zablocka moved to the UK from Poland in 2009 when she was 30, and had been living in Derby when her family lost contact with her the following year.

    Two other women, aged 39 and 43, and two men aged 41 and 48 arrested on suspicion of murder remain on police bail.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4geypd3dvzo

      1. I don't suppose the other two men and women answer to names like Arkwright, Smith or Jones.

        2. From the BBC article:-
          "Anna Podedworna, of Boyer Street, Derby, spoke via an interpreter to confirm her name, date of birth and address."

    1. We know that the books of the Old Testament had multiple authors. That’s ancient news. Followers of a prophet would write in his name. That was normal practice. The Quran was certainly also constructed piecemeal. There was no angel dictating to Mo.

    2. Given that the stories were originally tribal survival guides expanded upon and embellished then codefied into organised religion with supernatural elements it's no wonder there are patterns.

      1. My immediate reaction was: well, knock me down with a feather. Who’d a thunk it?

  113. Prevent are applying a hard Left view as if it's a right wing one. 'Prevent' of course, are the same group who continued to pander to the Rwandan who killed children and wanted to kill others. This same Left wing group seems nothing wrong with erasing the native, working population. It seems racism to the Left is only against the white.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/06/06/concern-over-mass-migration-terrorist-ideology-prevent/

    A Right minded attitude does not want their entire society, culture and security destroyed by an invasion of welfare dependent foreigners.

    1. 406855+ up ticks,

      Evening R,

      If that were to be the case then it is with dire
      urgency we mass support, IMHO, the Farmers Food and Freedom Party, for the simplistic reason the reform party will be hellish busy fighting its very own internal war.

    2. My choice for Reform Party Chairman:

      Winston Churchill

      Just as likely as Rupert Lowe.

        1. "Rupert James Graham Lowe is a British politician who has served as Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth since 2024. Elected for Reform UK, he now sits as an independent following the suspension of the party whip in March 2025. "

      2. She has Dido Harding vibes!
        But I will wait and hear what she says. Though I can't see myself voting Con ever again.

    1. I don't see what the problem is. He's wearing a jacket and tie. What is wrong with you people !!!

      1. Also, the Diversity! You cannot discount that! What cause women’s rights, when you can have…. All This?

  120. A cheery story from this evening's regional news. West Nile fever has been found in mosquitoes in the East Midlands (near Retford). Viewers were assured that the risk of infection is minimal and less than 1% of infections are serious cases, although symptoms can include meningitis. The insects probably ingested the virus from migrating birds, so it wasn't imported by hard-working immigrants.

    Mosquitoes like still water for breeding. When our farmland has been turned into fetid swamp by the release of beavers, can we look forward to more health risks of this kind?

  122. Well, chums, yet again it's past my bedtime. So Good Night all, sleep well, and I hope to see you all tomorrow.

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