608 thoughts on “Friday 6 September: The intolerable frustration of seeing Parliament defying the voters and refusing an election”

    1. On his record certainly but would that have made any difference, though? African countries appear to have the propensity to regress and if it hadn’t been Mugabe it would have been some other crazed despot.

      1. I think Abel Muzprewa in the short-lived ZimRhod might have worked if they’d been given a chance.

  3. Robert Mugabe: former Zimbabwean president dies aged 95. Fri 6 Sep 2019.

    Robert Mugabe, a hero of Africa’s independence struggle whose long rule in Zimbabwe descended into tyranny, corruption and incompetence, has died at the age of 95, president Emmerson Mnangagwa has said.

    The passing of the former president, who ruled Zimbabwe for close to four decades before being ousted in a military takeover in November 2017, marks the definitive end of an era in the history of the former British colony.

    Morning everyone. Good riddance! I have always thought that the Wilson governments attitude to Rhodesia marked the definitive end of the UK as I thought it should be. We actually aided this monster to come to power!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/06/robert-mugabe-former-zimbabwean-president-dies-aged-95

    1. Comment from LBC listener re Mugabe. “They should dig a hole and just drop him in.” Not a fan, obviously.

    3. I see the DT Obit on Mugabe is not, at the moment, permitting comments.
      I wonder why.
      However the obit contains this phrase:-

      Mugabe’s one-time admirers in the West were surprised by his dramatic transformation from revolutionary hero into Third World tyrant;

      His admirers must have been the only ones fooled.

      1. Shortly before he died, I went to a talk by Anthony Benn. He was asked whether or not he had changed his mind about Mugabe, having been such a prominent and vocal supporter of him, and, if so, would he apologise to those who now suffered from Mugabe’s rule? The answer was pure waffle and went something like this “well, yes we can now see that he turned out [as though no-one could foresee it] to be bad BUT, BUT, BUT Africans were not allowed to vote so that made it all right”. A total absence of any contrition whatsoever.

    5. Definitive end.

      Definitive end. Of course, the Guardian refuses to make the obvious parallels between asset seizure, a lack of property rights, rampant racism, utter disdain for democracy and the ego of individuals against the hard Left fascists in that sewer called Westminster.

    1. Morning Korky – It’s the whooping and hollering that goes with clapping nowadays that annoys me.

    2. I owe Jane Kelly many, many upticks! Clapping at funerals and people clapping themselves…whatever is wrong with these people? They look like performing sealions in a circus.

  5. Morning all

    SIR – Many of us see a battle between the Government and people on one side and a disparate group of opposition parties and so-called Remainers on the other, who, with the collusion of the Speaker are determined to thwart the will of the voters as expressed in the recent referendum.

    Clearly this Parliament is now defunct. The Government cannot govern and it would appear from the defeat of Wednesday’s vote calling for an election, is unwilling to submit itself to the will of the electorate. If the present situation continues, then the frustration of the people brought about by the indecision in Parliament will spill over into the violence.

    It is time for this Parliament to be dissolved and power returned to the people to elect a new government.

    Charles Gallannaugh
    Waldron, East Sussex

    SIR – An election would decide the nation’s future. If the public vote for the Conservatives we leave the EU, and if the public vote for Labour or the Lib Dems we would stay in the EU. It’s the only way it can be resolved, it will never be settled in Parliament.

    Roger Leach
    Honiton, Devon

    1. An informal Coalition of increasingly extreme left wing parties all with very different views

    2. Morning E,
      Surely Roger L, it is through continually voting for these
      parties over the decades that has got us into our current odious mess.

      1. Victim blaming the electorate for being lied to is akin to victim blaming girls for falling victim to the ‘grooming gangs’, and definitely does not do anything to pave the way forward.
        If the electorate ( victim ) really is to blame for being brainwashed & lied to,then as a self proclaimed elector of many decades, who knew ( 60’s / 70’s? ) before the UK became captive to the EEC / EU, then YOU are 100% guilty of failing ( miserably, for decades! ) to pave the way forward by not informing your fellow electors of the deceptions.

        2. Hang on… it’s my fault for not telling people how awful the EU is?

          I have done. Many times. The problem is that when I spoke to a nurse about this she said ‘yes it’s awful, but the human rights act does help the mentally ill.’

          I replied that this was but one tiny element of a huge issue, and that outside of the EU we could create our own suhc act. Inside the EU we can’t do anything. How many people voted hollistically against the EU and specifically for it? I’d imagine that no one really understands the degree of control it has over this country.

          THis is how tyrants operate. They keep their actions quiet so you can’t challenge them.

          1. Exactly, your anecdote demonstrates that ogga1’s victim blaming the electorate achieves a big fat zilch towards informing the electorate of the deception they’re being subjected to.

    3. “It is time for this Parliament to be dissolved and power returned to the people to elect a new government”

      Well said, Roger Leach, and but for Dodgy Dave’s ill-conceived Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011 (aided and abetted by a two-faced Limp Dumb leader) that is exactly what should have happened.

      ‘Morning, Epi.

    4. If Mr Johnson wins even then they’ll never stop screeching.

      This will be solved at gunpoint, with the cowards, liars and traitors forced to march through the Leave door and refusl met with a bullet.

  6. NHS Project Fear

    The NHS doctors are stepping up their Project Fear Campaign. Now most doctors are experts in medical matters. That though does not make them experts in importing and exporting or in supply chains, logistic, contract ma management or warehousing

    In my view it does these doctors no credit that they are trying to frighten patients into thinking they will not be able to get their drugs

    First there are no tariffs on drugs, Second while the system for buying drugs from the EU may change slightly drug companies are well versed with the system as drugs are supplied from countries around the world and in fact the majority of drugs the NHS uses are sourced from outside the EU. Like any change to any process or system there are some small risks and steps to mitigate them have been put in place. This will be things like holder a slightly higher level of buffer stock and have arrangement I place to airfreight drugs in if need be. IT is unlikely these contingency steps will be need but they are there just in case

    Other scaremongering is coming from drug sales reps particularly those going to Independent chemists. Sales Reps pay is significantly dependent on sales targets and Brexit is a nice mean of increasing sales. Now some of that is justified in telling them they should consider increasing stock level for Brexit but some are going well over the top

    1. A medication I rely on to sleep (and which has been banned by the NHS because of cost) can be bought for €16.80 for 100 tablets in a High Street pharmacist in Germany, but the NHS Drugs Tariff, negotiated with the pharmaceutical companies here, charges local surgeries £220 for 28 tablets for the same medication.

      While I am a Leaver on principle, it does seem to suggest to me that Germans are better negotiators than the British! No doubt the British negotiators get bigger commissions though.

        1. Trimipramine antidepressant. I was originally on 50mg/day 21 years ago, but because of the difficulty getting it, I am rationing myself to 12mg twice a week.

          I must warn you I have a very odd metabolism – I can use coffee at a nightcap, it seems to fuel the brain out of panic attacks at night. I take valerian with magnesium and Vitamin B6 to help with anxiety. Fantasising is important. Also an open window and resolutely putting out smouldering bonfires they like to leave upwind of my cottage to teach me a lesson.

          The other thing is trying to do something about natural light levels in my cottage, but the planners are determined to thwart me over this, even if I had the energy to build this extension on my own at my age. I am turning into a stroppy old git, but that’s normal.

  7. SIR –What on earth can we do? This is the most depressing time in politics of my whole life. A Parliament that is utterly unable to carry out the will of the people, hamstrung by politicians entirely hell-bent on their own point of view regardless of their constituents. They should all be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

    At least we still have our homes and our lives, unlike those poor folk in the Bahamas.

    Heather Wannell
    Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire

        1. Indeed. She was the one who invited all migrants to Germany, yet within a very short period of time insisted that all EU members should take in their “fair share”.

      2. Rumours are circulating about what the Corbyn/McDonnell axis is planning for home and land owners. Prescott wanted to build over suburbia and the current pair seem to be moving towards something just as nasty.

      3. Morning AS,
        Is it just the politico’s that have brought us to such a sorry state as a nation over the decades
        or are there other factions to blame ?

    3. It’s nice to see the “Royal” prefix to Wootton Basset being used. It is another reminder of how much we owe to those who were honoured by Wootton Basset which, thus, earned the prefix.

    4. Read article 2 me dear. That’ll show you that you *don’t* actually own your property. The state merely let’s you use it until it wants to take it from you.

  8. Britain must repatriate Isis fighters, warns US defence secretary. Fri 6 Sep 2019.

    A total of 850 Britons are estimated to have travelled to join Isis in Syria and Iraq, joining the self-styled caliphate known for the brutal killing of hostages. A third of the combatants are estimated to have been killed, while another third are thought to have independently made it back home in the earlier stages of the conflict, where they remain under some degree of monitoring.

    “under some degree of monitoring” That’s reassuring. Even if you believe these numbers (which I regard as a gross underestimate) it means we have at best around 300 former ISIS fighters strolling around having committed God knows what crimes and planning whatever. There being no doubt that the Government will eventually agree to their repatriation another 300 should really help. I have always thought that the UK was complicit in these people making their way to Syria, after all if you can stop a football fan leaving the country why not a Jihadist? Some of them, like the White Helmets, were undoubtedly MI6 assets filling intelligence requirements but most were simply to aid in the overthrow of the Assad Government, a policy that confers no benefit on the UK or its people and is actually inimical to our interests.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/06/britain-must-repatriate-isis-fighters-warns-us-defence-secretary

  10. A bit of EU legislation I was unaware of. Another good reason to leave

    I don’t see many people staggering around the streets having got drunk on wine

    Wine lovers are paying up to seven times the alcohol duty per glass as cider drinkers, a new analysis reveals amid calls for a change after Brexit.
    The study shows drinkers of a low-strength wine, at six per cent alcohol content, are paying 50p duty per unit compared to 7p per unit for the same strength alcohol.
    This reflects EU regulations that require wine and cider to be taxed according to the volume rather than the strength.
    The Social Market Foundation (SMF) think tank says the UK should take advantage of Brexit to overhaul duty on alcohol so that the stronger a drink is, the more tax it incurs.

  11. Morning again

    SIR – I notice from your picture of the Opposition front bench (September 5), that five out of the six ladies present are either using or clutching their mobile phones.

    Are they incapable of concentrating on the debate?

    J S Hirst
    Huddersfield, West Yorkshire

      1. On the issue under discussion or on when the next M&S* Sale will take place?

        * Other retailers may be substituted.

    2. Yes, JS Hirst, probably because they are too busy dishing out some more outrage and bile to the Twitterati…

    1. We joined the navy to see the world
      And what did we see? We saw the sea…………………………………

      1. ‘Join the Navy and feel a man’…

        Alternatively: ‘Join the Navy and see the world. Join the Army and polish it.’

    4. Have you tried charcoal tablets or simethicone? The NHS website says they may help with flatulence.😂😂😂😂

    5. Looks wonderful, Bill. I’m on holiday next week and i’ve just heard that Ryanair pilots have scheduled a strike on the day of my return. I might have to stay an extra week. Oh no !

          1. Train from London to Reggio Calabria and then to Catania.

            High speed catamaran Catania to Valetta. Only take about four days. Easy peasy….

          2. Yes dear Bill. That’s why it’s a No. I don’t care anyway. My dog sitter is perfectly happy to look after dolly for another week @ £20 a day. :o(

    6. ‘Morning, Bill. Are you sure that rainbow isn’t something to do with some ghastly Pride march?

  14. British Land challenge to Monsoon’s plans for rent cuts

    The real problem is we have to many shop and t cutting rents does not solve that in fact it could end up driving the Landlords out of business and then they have an even bigger problem

    In fact it is the shops that choose to go from owning their premise to leading them seeing it as a cost cutting process. Now it has backfired on them they are blaming the Landlords

    Shopping centre owner British Land has tried to block Monsoon Accessorize’s restructuring efforts, in another showdown between struggling high street retailers and their landlords.
    The property giant, which owns Meadowhall in Sheffield among other major developments, filed a bid to block the retailer’s Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) back in July.
    It is understood that British Land, which voted against the CVA proposals, has taken issue with Monsoon’s level of transparency during the process.

    1. Good morning, Bill. What are you doing here so early in the day? Shouldn’t you be swimming in the warm local sea?

      :-))

  16. Boris & the Brexit Party

    If Boris and the Conservatives have any sense they should work with the Brexit Party to agree who will contest what seats
    Whilst The Conservatives in the Polls have a small majority at present Polls are not a 100% accurate and it is quite normal for such leads to reduce during an election campaign , The opposition parties even though they have little common ground between them are likely to be working together in any election campaign. The Brexit Party & The Conservative Party have a lot of common ground between them particularly now the hard line Remainers have departed from the Conservative party. There would be no coalition tie up it would be an agreement as to who fight what seat with such an arrangement the Brexit Party would have a good chance to win traditional seats in the North which the Conservatives will never take

    1. You describe pure fantasy. To stand any realistic chance of winning a seat in the vast majority of constituencies, a prospective MP needs a party behind him or her to pay for and deliver leaflets, carry out canvassing, write letters to newspapers, conduct social network campaigns, make phone calls, post posters, do telling at the election and so on. There is not one iota of evidence that TBP has anything like enough resources to do this effectively and how many ordinary Conservative Party members would do that for someone of a different party? All TBP will do is appeal to hard-line Brexiteers who, for the most part, will be current or former Conservative voters. The result of your fantasy would be a Parliament with tiny proportions of Conservative and TBP MPs and a huge majority coalition of Labour, LibDems, Greens and other assorted remainers. The coalition might not hold but neither might the Conservative/TBP coalition. We would stay in the EU forever!

  17. Four men have been convicted over the killing of a man who was gunned down while he sat in a parked car in Wolverhampton.
    The man was hit several times by bullets fired from a shotgun, West midlands Police said. (BBC Local News 08:00)

    Bullets in a shotgun?

  18. Another despot dead .. I hope Mugabe rots in hell .

    The BBC are almost eulogising him .. what a monster he was .. A great country was brought to its knees.. and now being asset stripped by China.

    The current BBC wallahs haven’t a clue , apart from John Simpson who of course was being cagey.

    1. From being the bread basket of Africa to being the basket case of Africa.
      Independence bought them more misery than colonialism.
      How many black we’re rushing back?
      I’ll expect a knock on the door soon.

      1. Funny how our media has stayed quiet on the terrible riots and rage currently happening in South Africa.. the rage is aimed at disruptive criminal Nigerians , and in turn in Nigeria most South African businesses have been destroyed and ruined in retaliation .

  19. Political laugh for the day.

    If France or any other EU State vetoes an extension and we are forced to leave with “no deal” on the 31st October, it will underline just how powerless the UK Parliament actually is, in the face of EU intransigence. Parliament can vote any way it likes but until we have left the EU it does not actually have any power of self determination and that will underline quite clearly that that is the case..

    The remainers will be frustrated by the very organisation they wish to remain in.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7433687/Europe-REJECT-Brexit-extension-despite-efforts-Remainers.html

    1. But they won’t understand that, sos. And anyway, they WANT to stay in the EUSSR come what may.

        1. Morning sos – The EU will find a way not to expel us. As long as they are getting £1billion/ month from the UK they will let us stew inour own juice until we give in. Our politicians know this as do we. We need to get out of the EU cleanly on 31/10/2019.

          1. The Europeans don’t care how fudgy the dealings are Bill, as long as they keep getting their £1billion per month.

            And another thing…..as long as we’re still in, we are responsible for a share of the debts of the ECB [which are considerable!]

    2. Let us hope that Boris’s team is working hard within the EU to ensure that some of the EU states vote conclusively against an extension.

      Any more news of what is being done re the Tilbrook case or is at dead as honour and integrity are in politics?

  20. Why are they talking about trust .. Boris is playing a sophisticated game .. I get it , Moh gets it , why are people distorting and caterwauling at the behest of the media.

          1. I didn’t mean them – which change every time one refreshes, anyway.

            I was referring to the large picture at the top of the letters page in the Telegraph which, until today, always appeared at the top of the blog.

          4. I’m happy to leave the picture out; “Old” Disqus added them automatically, and I merely carried on with that when the site moved. That’ll save me four mouse clicks each morning…

    1. Clouds starting to go, and the sun is out, but it’s still on the cold site.
      I’m in Visby, Sweden, today. Where are you??

        1. I’m guessing that you’re saying that you’re in Huntingdon.
          And why am I in Visby??
          I don’t speak any Scandinavian or Baltic language, I’m afraid.
          I’m on a cruise (for further information, see the Channel Five documentary, Friday’s at 9pm, or maybe 8pm). I know other Nottlers are not keen, but I enjoy it. There’s only one, very small child on board (useful as bait, should the need arise), not thousands of passengers like so many other ships, and all food and drink is included, plus most shore excursions, flights to and from, transport, gratuities, etc.
          We’re spending our retirement money before Corbyn and pals get their mitts on it.

          1. I don’t blame you: I’m cruising up the Danube next week from Budapest to Regensburg & I’m planning an even bigger holiday for next summer.
            My Swedish is actually quite rusty, as I don’t get much chance to use it

            I had a German colleague who went to work on Gotland. I don’t know if he is still there. he was a bit of a negative pest.

            Enjoy the rest of your cruise.

    1. “If I made you a Peer, would you do to the Lords what you do so well in the EU Parliament?”

    2. I will whistle a happy tune , so no one will suspect I’m afraid .
      The result of this deception is very strange to tell
      for when I fool the people I fear I fool myself as well..

    3. If only he would pick up the phone straight away.

      No cooperation between Nigel and Boris = No Brexit = Lib.Dem/Lab government

      1. Well we don’t know. Boris is a far better negotiator then May. Well anyone would be. He is keeping his card close to hi chest at present until he knows which way things are going. Looked at sensibly Boris has nothing to lose most of the seats the Brexit Party are likely to win are Labour seats and the Conservatives have little chance of winning these seats. It would be an arms length arrangement as well no coalition or formal confidence and supply arrangement

  27. DT Story

    Michael Gove says he would vote for Theresa May’s Brexit deal again if it returned to Parliament.

    You don’t have to read the article to realise that Gove is, always has been, and always will be a treacherous, scheming, unreliable and nasty little man.

    He is one of the best examples of the fact that the Conservative Party has not yet been properly purged and the swamp is still full of stinking effluent.

    1. He defiantly needs to be kicked out of the party but so far he has not gone far enough for him to be booted out

  28. A BTL comment:

    TheKitchenCabinet Posts: 621
    7:49AM
    Apologies if this has been flagged before but an interesting piece

    https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/09/02/proponents-of-the-new-bill-to-stop-no-deal-face-a-significant-dilemma-over-queens-consent/

    The short of it is that the author states that the Benn-Burt bill is subject to “Queen’s Consent” as it impacts the royal prerogative. It is different from Royal Assent and does not impact every bill. Crucially (a) the Government has to give consent (b) it is up to the Government and does not drag the Crown into play and (c) court rulings lend support to the Benn-Burt bill falling under the Queen’s Consent remit.

    I’m not a lawyer but, if the author is right, it might explain why the Govt dropped the Lords filibuster and I wonder if the Government’s tactics are as follows,

    1. Let the Bill come back to the Commons for its third reading, in which it is approved;
    2. Govt introduces its early election proposal on Monday and states to Corbyn we have given you what you want, now give us an October election;
    3. Corbyn backs away from her previous commitment, knowing an October election is sub-optimal;
    4. Johnson then states that, because Corbyn has reneged on his commitment, the Government will not give Queen’s Consent to Burt-Benn as it impacts the prerogative. Bill fails and Parliament is prorogued.

    1. FiveBellies? Yes, I like it that much I’ve pinched it:-

      Bob of Bonsall • a few seconds from now
      Yes, I think Lady “5 bellies” Nugee will be a huge benefit at the General Election.

      For the Leave parties.

    1. She got a bit of a roasting on the 8.10am slot on BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning. The Labour Party is confused on Brexit and Remain seems to be their target.

      1. Given Labour’s policy on nationalisations and the EU’s refusal to allow them, if we remain in the EU their key commitments go out the window. I suspect she is stating her own views and not those of Corbyn’s inner cabal.

        They are liars pure and simple.

    4. The funiest bit is you can *see* her thinking it through. You can finally see hte abject moron realising how utterly stupid her position is.

      It’s funny if it were not laughable. The arrogance! The hubris! The sheer, unadulterated gormlessness of her position is plain for all to see. Finally, the reality of demented doublethink smacks these fools in the face. What do they do? They bluster and fluff.

      We, in return, laugh at them.

      Why are these mentally deficient hypocrites allowed – *able* to do so much damage to this country? Why am I forced to obey someone blatantly my utter inferior? Bloody hell, Mongo has more brains than this half witted buffoon.

  32. With reference to a would be EU President & with Apols to Gilbert & Sullivan:

    He is the very model of a Peace Envoy unemployable,
    We don’t know if he’s vegetable, animal, or mineral,
    He’s known the kings of Saudi, and other figures historical
    From Lebanon to Mogadishu, their orders categorical;

    He’s very well acquainted, too, with WMD arsenals,
    He understands Labour, both the simple and problematical,
    He is loathed by Momentum, and he’s teeming with a lot o’ news,
    With many dubious facts about the benefits of the EU.

    All:
    With many dubious facts about the benefits of t’EU.
    With many dubious facts about t’benefits of t’EU.
    With many dubious facts about the benefits of t’EU.

  33. Lib Dems Not Winning Here!:
    A legal challenge over Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament has been rejected, High Court judges have ruled.
    The case was brought by businesswoman Gina Miller, who argued the move was “an unlawful abuse of power”.
    Rejecting Ms Miller’s case, Lord Justice Burnett said she could immediately appeal because of the important points of law at stake.
    The appeal is expected to be heard at the Supreme Court on 17 September.

    1. Pretty much a forgone conclusion that it was not going anywhere. I bet Millar tries to appeal it though. I suspect as well it is not her money funding these court cases

    2. “The appeal is expected to be heard at the Supreme Court of the Establishment on 17 September.”

      Don’t hold your breath!

    3. A prostitute is a business person. Whence comes the tentative question, “Are you in business for yourself, dear?”

    1. “Bright Blue is an independent liberal conservative think tank and pressure group in the United Kingdom. The Daily Telegraph newspaper has described the organisation as “the modernising wing of the Tory party” and the ConservativeHome website has described it as “a deep intellectual gene pool for the Conservative Party’s future””. (Wiki). Yuk.

  36. I suppose it has already been mentioned further down the list, but I just got up …late to bed and late to rise – I have just read the eulogies on BBC and the Guardian for Robert Mugabwe. A good man, who replaced colonialism with tyranny. Well, it is Africa ….

    1. He kept his peoples in the lifestyle which is normal for Africa, starvation, poverty and tribal slaughter. Africa, don’t yer just love it.

  37. Just back from the beach. 3,696 steps…so far.

    The gale in the early hours quite changed the configuration of the beach by pushing the shingle back by a good two yards. Sea perfect. One can almost feel better!

    1. The coast looks very built up and towny in the pic you posted…….

      I suppose it was nice once, like Woking or somewhere.

  38. Funny thing, a few days ago someone here suggested that Boris or whoever make a Universal Declaration of Independence ( from the EU ).

    1. He and Barnier or whoever it is at the moment could meet on a train parked halfway down the Channel tunnel.

  39. Is it not reasonable to assume that should there be a General Election, there will be a very low turnout of voters ? Ordinary people ( not in Parliament, the Media or here ) are so thoroughly disgusted that even a protest vote does not appeal to them. If someone s**ts on me, I walk away, and I think a majority feel the same.

    2. I think there will be a good turnout. I still have to decide on the Brexit Party or the Conservatives. Depends on what Boris does.

      2. I voted for my local Conservative Party MP the last time as he had some good things to say in public about leaving the EU, then he turned out to be one of the 5th Column who is in favour of a 2nd Referendum and voted for the Withdrawal Agreement more than once. He also just abstained about revoking Article 50 altogether, which should have been a “hell no!” at the very least. So he is a Liberal and I’m not voting for one of those.

        Those people who say “Vote for him anyway, even though he is a Remainer, because you will split the vote otherwise” do not seem to grasp the scale of betrayal that is happening in this country now. Or have only a dim grasp of the consequences for all of us if we do not get out of the EU as soon as possible. The financial devastation to this country will be massive if we are tied to the EU when the Euro goes down, but that is nothing compared to the destruction of our way of life that we are seeing already while we cannot effectively control immigration.

        So given a choice between 2 Liberals and staying in the EU, or The Brexit Party with a chance of actually leaving it, I will take the chance of voting for a leaver. It is better than rolling over and giving in. Which is what the Remainers want us to do. Not while there is a breath left in my body.

        2. I want to find the remainers and WA signers and lamp them one.

          The war queen reminds me this doesn’t help my blood pressure, but truly, the arrogance and ego is repugnant. The lot need reminding who their master is.

      3. High turnout is likely because of 1. the depth of the Brexit/Remain split and 2. the uncertainty of the result (obvious walkovers lead to voter apathy).

    3. I think the rising anger amongst Brexiteers, and even some former Remainiacs, may prove you wrong, Tony. I sincerely hope so.

  41. Does anyone know the answer to this.
    If the law is passed that Boris Johnson has to ask for an extension to Article 50 what happens if
    1. He refuses to ask the EU for an extension and refuses to resign.
    2. Is this a Civil or Criminal act and what action can be taken against him. Could he be arrested.
    3. What happens if he is suspended from Parliament for contempt. If so for how long.
    4. Is there any penalty for not complying with that law. If so what?

    2. Spot on Rik.

      When they remove the right of peaceful expression there is nothing left but violence. The Left have invaded. The Left must be crushed.

    3. Afternoon Rik,
      The odious consequences brought about by the lab/lib/con coalition party since the mid 70s has been sorely felt by this UKIP member / party who have NEVER in one instance acted in an anti English / GB manner, in point of fact,far from it.

    4. Posted to Ar$ebook, Rik, with a message,

      “Is this how you feel? You should, it’s your life and your vote, that this Parliament is giving away.”

  44. How Sad

    Unfortunately it will be the shop workers that suffer and not Green

    Philip Green’s Topshop empire plunges to huge loss

    r Philip Green’s Topshop retailing empire plunged to loss last year, blaming a “dramatically” changed retail landscape and increased competition.
    The business, which also includes Miss Selfridge and Dorothy Perkins, has since agreed a rescue deal with its creditors that triggered 48 store closures.
    The results for the year to 1 September 2018 show a loss of £169.2m compared with a £49.4m profit a year earlier.
    Turnover fell 4.5% to £1.8bn.

  45. Afternoon all. Can anyone please explain to me how this tweet from Nicola Sturgeon makes any kind of sense:

    “And when the election does come – as it soon will – @theSNP will put Scotland’s opposition to Brexit and our right to choose our own future as an independent nation at the very heart of the contest.”

    Talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it!

      1. Apparently so. I can recall Boris saying in one of the referendum debates that she wants to be ruled from Brussels not Westminster.

        I do think the Scottish Independence case is basically “f@ck the English!” rather than any basis in logical argument.

        1. The EU will probably ask Scotland to contribute more to the EU purse than it gets out if Scotland goes it alone in the EU.

          2. No doubt the SNP know all that but choose to ignore it. Or somehow think that the rUK* will continue to stump up for them. *That means England.

          3. No doubt DfID will decide that Scotland qualifies for Aid to the tune of, well, ooh, what does Barnett currently cost us?

          4. What currency would Scotland use?

            If it keeps Sterling, it’s linked to us.

            If it adopts the Euro, we cancel the Barnet formula cash.

            Scotland has no money. It’s state dependent. Welfare dependent. It’s poor.

            It would fail every single EU test going – not that such matters to the EU but it is just a net debtor.

            Then Scotland, with the Euro, pegged to a dozen other failing, poor, small economy countries will see hyperinflation, debt and asset seizure. Do they really think they can keep their oil under the EU banner?

            It’s hilarious. The woman is stupid.

            But.. of course, she isn’t. She’s playing to her gallery to garner votes. Votes she’ll buy based on lies exacerbated by prejudice and ignorance.

          5. I am sure that Scotland would now be a net contributor to the EU. Things were different before the former communist nations joined. And how sad that most of the North Sea oil has gone!

            But let us note that, if Scotland and NI left the UK (remainers that they are), England would be the successor state, as the Russian Federation succeeded the USSR; that and bit richer, too.

          7. I’m sure the last thing they need is another small country with its hand out for cash, especially after the second-largest contributor to the budget has left. Goodbye Barnett Formula, hello EU membership fees. What’s not to like?

    1. [Miller] said she was ‘disappointed’ by the ruling but added: “To give up now would be a dereliction of our responsibility. We need to protect our institutions. It is not right that they should be shut down or bullied, especially at this most momentous time in history. My legal team and I will not give up our fight for democracy.”

      It’s about time someone explained something simple to this interfering Soros stooge.

      1. I know just one Remainer, a classicist, who straight after the referendum said that he believes democracy is a bad idea. He claimed that the ancient Greeks abandoned it because it was a bad system. I investigated that and as far as I could find out, Greek democracy was forcibly ended by Alexander the Great.

        1. Has she ever been given a proper and testing interview by any of the media? I can’t remember her having had an awkward time in front of the microphones.

        2. The Greeks way back did not allow everyone to vote. There was no ”universal suffrage”.

          They realised that would end in total wipe out disaster, as looks to be the case in Britain and much of the Western world.

          1. They excluded women and slaves. Every adult male citizen had a vote. Presumably one became adult at the onset of puberty?

            One of the popular reasons given for not extending the franchise to women in the modern era was that they would only vote as their fathers voted. There is some truth in that but one would ask, why not? Certainly when I cast my vote for Leave, I was doing what I feel sure my father would have done had he still been alive.

          3. Jambo, Ndovu!

            The difficulty is not in the concept of limiting suffrage, but in deciding and justifying its limits.

        3. Afternoon Sue. Democracy contrary to popular opinion does have serious flaws and when it’s tried usually ends in some form of tyranny..

          2. Nevil Shute in one of his books proposed a system where multiple votes went to individiuals who had a wide range of skills and knowledge.

          3. Whereas in this country multiple votes go to individuals with no skills, no knowledge and in some cases, no English…strewth!

            ‘afternoon, Minty

          5. On that basis, the referendum ballot paper should have asked, have you studied the Frankfurt School and Jean Monnet and have you read the Kalergi Plan, UN Agenda 21, the Barcelona Declaration and the Lisbon Treaty. Even the people who signed those treaties probably didn’t read them.

          6. I think an English exam would be a start. Maybe maths, algebra and geography designed to demonstrate a reasonable standard of intelligence.

      1. It’s judge speak for giving apellants a second opinion which in the NHS means my colleague is going to say the same thing.

  48. I’m depressed by all this but I gather Allison Pearson has written an upbeat article – did anyone post it earlier? Or could someone post it again?

    1. Here you are Ndovu……..

      The people know Boris is brave enough to spring Britain from this nightmare
      Allison Pearson

      An airline captain once told me that passengers shouldn’t fear turbulence. It was when things got really bumpy that pilots upped their game. That theory is being tested to destruction right now in Downing Street. Our new Prime Minister has gone from honeymoon to funeral in his first three parliamentary days.
      Boris has lost every single vote in the Commons and 22 of his own colleagues. Some of the Conservative Party’s biggest names were banished like a bad fairy at a Disney christening. Ruth Davidson, who drove back the SNP hordes in Scotland, left to spend more time with her baby. A huge loss. Most painfully of all, Boris’s own brother, Jo, kicked him in the Johnsons at this most vulnerable moment. He quit the Government in the worst act of fratricide since Ed did in David Miliband.
      Boris’s enemies in a Parliament and media which are heavily biased toward Remain can hardly contain their glee. “Unmitigated chaos,” gloats one. “Lame duck,” quacks another. “Is this the c——est PM ever?” At his press conference in Wakefield yesterday, a reporter asked the PM if he would become the next member of the Johnson family to resign. Ouch. Thanks a bunch, bro!
      Is Boris really finished before he’s even begun? Quite the opposite.
      Millions of normal people who aren’t banging those insufferable drums of dreadlocked doom on College Green are thankful that he’s brave enough to take a hard and unpopular line; the only way to spring Britain from this nightmare limbo. A Downing Street insider said that yesterday morning the PM was “bizarrely buoyed” by the bruising events of the previous day. The curtain had finally fallen away, confirming what we suspected all along – Labour doesn’t want Brexit to happen.
      Through their Surrender Bill, they’d rather postpone it indefinitely and let the EU decide when, or if, we’re allowed out. “Corbyn’s behaviour made Boris doubly determined to get Brexit done by any means,” the aide said. “It’s a bumpy road but he’s going to ride it out. It’s a case of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
      The PM has been attacked for the “purge” of colleagues from his own side, but that ruthlessness is intended to send a strong signal. “We have to show that this is very different from Theresa May’s government,” a member of Boris’s team said. “With May, there might have been no punishment at all for siding with the Opposition. But 60 per cent of Tory members voted for Boris because they wanted him to do things differently.”
      Too true. Miles from the increasingly grotesque Westminster pantomime, people are not shocked that Parliament will be prorogued. They’re delighted that Boris is actually keeping his promise to leave on Oct 31 “do or die” and that wild horses on their bended knees could not drag him to Brussels to ask for another extension. They’re not fools.
      They can see that the only “coup” is the one by MPs against Leave voters who have been waiting three years to see the referendum result delivered. Once they were merely cynical and fed up. Now they’re angry.
      But they’re also relieved that Boris is giving us 20,000 new police officers to keep our streets safe. Imagine Jeremy Corbyn making that speech the PM gave yesterday in front of those new recruits in Yorkshire. You can’t, can you? It’s time for the People’s Priorities, not Parliament’s.
      As for those taking out the smelling salts and wailing about the Tory Party becoming a “narrow sect”, they don’t seem to understand that without Brexit, their “broad church” will soon be a ruined cathedral with only the ghost of greatness. Boris gets it. Conservative voters get it. Labour Leave voters get it.
      The forthcoming election will not just be any old poll. It will be an existential struggle for the soul of our country against a bitter old Marxist and his unmerry men. The stakes could not be higher.
      None of this is easy for a PM whose default setting is mirth and buoyancy. You could tell yesterday that his brother’s betrayal had hurt him – something less certain about the eyes – but he soldiered on. What other choice is there? I’m told that Dilyn, the Welsh rescue puppy, is so adorable that it’s acting as a de facto Downing Street therapy dog. I hope its new master takes some comfort there.
      Boris Johnson is a patriot. He is ready and millions of us, whose voices are rarely reported, are grateful to him. We can’t wait to vote Boris when the time comes. And it’s coming. Yes, it’s been a bumpy week but our captain is upping his game to power on through the turbulence. Fasten your seat belts!

        1. One day. Just one day. I would love to see a ‘meme’ written by someone with a skill in spelling or with reasonable grammar!

          I shan’t hold my breath!

      3. Voting “Boris” is one thing. The trouble is the 400 other far-left, undemocratic individuals who will pose as Conservative candidates.

  49. Why are the Media trying to make Boris wriggle.

    I am appalled by the spoilt behaviour of his weak minded brother , and idle lazy bods like Soames , what has Soames done for the party , or the country , drawn a salary , expenses blah blah .

  50. .This is utterly amazing – some bankers are even bigger liars than other bankers…..(rites an ex-banker)

    Banks’ ‘Project Fear’ Brexit forecasts were commercially driven ‘propaganda’, economists say

    Tim Wallace – 6 SEPTEMBER 2019 • 6:01AM

    Doom-laden warnings of economic catastrophe before the Brexit referendum were driven in part by commercial worries by economists at the banks that stood to lose the most from a ‘leave’ vote, economists have found.

    Analysts at institutions that faced the biggest potential losses from the referendum typically issued worse economic forecasts than those with less financial incentive to campaign to remain, according to Davide Cipullo and André Reslow of Uppsala University in Sweden.

    Voters often have little economic expertise and so may look out for expert forecasts of the impact of different vote, even while those expert economists have big incentives to seek to influence the referendum through their projections, leading to a “propaganda bias” in their warnings over the impact on the economy.

    Economists with more to lose and with more influence predicted GDP would grow by just 0.5pc in 2017 following a vote to leave the EU.

    By contrast other forecasters estimated growth would come in at 1.3pc.

    In fact the economy grew by 1.7pc, meaning both groups under-estimated its strength, but those who sought to bias the referendum result were wrong by a much greater margin.

    “The results show that forecasters with stakes and influence released GDP growth forecasts in the case of Leave that were more pessimistic than the forecasts released by other institutions,” said the economists in their report, presented to the European Economic Association.

    As much as half of the error in the forecasts can be attributed to the “propaganda bias”, the analysts said.

    This is significant because economists’ forecasts are often treated as reliable and honest projections by experts, rather than being seen as campaigning tools by biased individuals or organisations.

    “In many public debates, economic forecasts are taken as a given, without considering that the institutions publishing the forecasts may be promoting their own interests,” the economists said.

    In future the analysts recommend voters adjust their views of economic forecasts to account for the possibility that they are being used to influence elections.

    “Macroeconomic forecasters may use their information advantage to influence the decision-making process and favour the realisation of their most preferred outcome,” they said.

    “We recommend that voters and policymakers take this into account when forming their beliefs to avoid systematic mistakes.”

    It might appear that the economists’ forecasts failed to have the desired impact as voters chose to leave the EU regardless of the warnings.

    However, these biased forecasts could even end up harming the economy because households and businesses may act on the expectation of slumping growth, when in fact there was less reason to worry.

    “The propaganda bias might generate additional welfare reductions because of general equilibrium effects if consumers and investors make consumption and investment decisions based on the forecasts. If forecasts are biased, then economic agents may make incorrect decisions that could, in turn, reduce GDP,” the economists said.

    1. I suspect that your opinion of Compliance departments and “Chinese Walls” within Investment Banks might be nearly as low as mine.

      I would not be at all surprised, quite the opposite in fact, if traders at some of the biggest of them are tipped the wink to pre-position themselves whenever the Economics analysts are about to issue a report that might move the markets and this of itself turns the report into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

      Illegal of course, but how do you prove it and prevent it, damned nearly impossible in my view, even if the authorities are getting better at picking out the anomolies than they were in my day.

    2. BOE has revised its forecast down to a 5% drop in GDP if we leave the EU. A simple sanity check says that is pure bs. We only do about 12% of our total trade with the EU so where does he get his 5% from ?

    3. “It might appear that the economists’ forecasts failed to have the desired impact as voters chose to leave the EU regardless of the warnings.” That’s because it was never about the economy. It was about freedom and sovereignty. Something the remainers fail to get their heads round.

  52. Viktor Orbán trumpets Hungary’s ‘procreation, not immigration’ policy. Fri 6 Sep 2019.

    “If Europe is not going to be populated by Europeans in the future and we take this as given, then we are speaking about an exchange of populations, to replace the population of Europeans with others,” said Orbán. “There are political forces in Europe who want a replacement of population for ideological or other reasons.”

    Orbán’s words were backed up by one of the guests of honour at the summit, the former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott, who saluted the Hungarian leader for having “the political courage to defy political correctness”.

    Abbott said dying populations, not climate change, were the biggest threat to western civilisation, and lashed out at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle for recent remarks that they would not have more than two children due to the effects on the environment. “Having fewer children in western countries will hardly make the climate better when so many children are being born elsewhere,” said Abbott.

    Dip your bread here my friends. You will not see this conversation or its subject raised in the UK!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/06/viktor-orban-trumpets-far-right-procreation-anti-immigration-policy

    2. Victor Orbán is backing up his words with loans, grants and cheap finance to the indigenous population if they have more children.

      Good afternoon your Mintyshipness. :o)

    2. My old pals father was killed by a bull like that.. a Devon Red . Ray tells us the story very frequently .. he was a young man when he witnessed the horror of that .. father crushed and trampled to death!

      1. These nose rings could break. Used to test bulls at a bull centre and nose rings were regularly needing to be replaced. Boris couldn’t out run that handsome red beast.

      2. I was taught that Guernseys were OK, but that Jersey bulls had a mean streak. I once had to fetch a bull that had escaped into a field full of dairy cattle nearby. He came quite happily. Probably exhausted.

    3. Other than being a Regal Progress, it’s not entirely clear to me what Boris’s advisers are shunting him round the UK for.

      1. I imagine that the PM wishes to talk to Tories who support Brexit. Much of the information about what is going on comes from the BBC, the MSM, biased journalists and the rabid Opposition. All lies, mostly. I guess a few face~to~face talks with Tory Party members and supporters to bolster their resolve and ask them to “bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat” cannot do any harm. A few hours amongst friends and not just an Aunt Sally for the BBC

      2. To show that he is Not Afraid of the Great British Public. Unlike the Wodents of Westminster and Grandpa Chicken.

    1. There was a boy called Khachaturian in the first school in which I taught in Bideford in 1974! He was robustly built and was not a bad prop forward.

      2. I met several yachties on Saturday at the party, who had completed the Fastnet race 18 times!

        Also some serious large yacht race competitors .. 100ft+ cross Atlantic types .. I was enthralled with their stories!

    2. Does it mention ” the dog ” ?

      During World War II there was a dog called Nigger, a black Labrador belonging to Royal Air Force Wing Commander Guy Gibson,[20] and the mascot of No. 617 Squadron. Gibson owned the dog when he was previously a member of 106 Squadron.
      Nigger often accompanied Gibson on training flights and was a great favourite of the members of both 106 and 617 Squadrons. He was noted for his liking of beer, which he drank from his own bowl in the Officers’ Mess.[21]
      Nigger died on 16 May 1943, the day of the “Dam Busters” raid,when he was hit by a car. He was buried at midnight as Gibson was leading the raid. The dog’s name was used as a single codeword whose transmission conveyed that the Möhne Dam had been breach

    3. I spotted that in my local Tescos this afternoon. I was tempted to buy it, but I have so many unread books I really couldn’t justify adding another to the pile (plus I thought I might be able to get hold of a remaindered copy much cheaper).

  58. DM Story

    Meghan Markle flies COMMERCIAL! Duchess leaves four-month-old Archie at home for two-day trip to New York on public flight to watch her friend Serena Williams play in US Open in wake of private jet storm.

    A matter of fairly superficial interest but can anyone tell me whether the Duchess of Sussex was already bosom buddies with Serena Williams and the Clooneys before she met Prince Harry?

    1. She has abandoned her four month old baby.. yet she denies the baby the right to be held by his grandfather

      So she isn’t maternal or breastfeeding yet she jets off here there and everywhere for a TENNIS match..

      Shallow feckless creature that she is..

      1. She could be breastfeeding; she could have expressed a couple of days’ supply of milk.

        Both our boys were breast-fed, so I know about these things.

          1. So were mine until they were four months. But, as I had twins I was completely shattered and couldn’t go on any longer! Apart from the fact that my then husband earned very little, so I had to go back to work much sooner than I would have wanted to… :o(

      2. The first time that Christo did not sleep under the same roof as his mother was when he was 22 months old and Caroline was in hospital giving birth to Henry but his father was with him and took him into to meet his young brother, Henry, the following morning. Both boys were breast fed as both their parents had been.

        My aunt, Dr Lilian Tracey, was formidable woman who had her own maternity nursing home in Salisbury. Many of her mothers were army wives. She was a firm advocate of breast feeding and, apparently was unparalleled in her ability to deliver babies who were the wrong way round in the womb. We were all rather afraid of her. She had the family characteristic of being very hard to shut up once she had got started..

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/366e4a0b370a2631faf918b92dbcc785faab3ffbce6ad21baa651bf42bc276ba.jpg

    2. I’ve read claims that before meeting Prince Harry, Meghan lived in a rented flat in a poorer part of Toronto, paid for by the film studio that employed her. If that’s true then it seems unlikely that the Clooneys and their circle would have taken any notice of her then.

  59. School locks out protesting pupils outside gates as they rail against new ‘pointless’ gender neutral uniforms that force girls and boys to look the same. I bet they will not be turning away Muslim girls dressed in Burqas

    Mode LGBT+XYZ madness

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/school-locks-out-protesting-pupils-outside-gates-as-they-rail-against-new-pointless-gender-neutral-uniforms-that-force-girls-and-boys-to-look-the-same/ar-AAGUdeQ?ocid=spartandhp

    1. The school is in Lewes, near here. The Head must be barking, but I expect there will be Brownie points for such stupidity.

    3. Nothing like the Lewes Priory School that I went to in the 70s.

      This from the local Sussex Express…

      All students at the school in Mountfield Road must now wear a school polo shirt, school jumper and trousers. The new uniform has been designed specifically in response to the many issues and suggestions raised by parents, students and school staff, the school said. However, furious students are demanding that they have a right to choose whether they wish to wear a skirt or trousers. A spokesman for the school said: “Priory School uniform is designed to be a practical uniform which encourages students to be ready to focus on their school work and activities. Our uniform also helps us to dilute the status placed on expensive clothes or labels and challenge the belief that we are defined by what we wear. Instead, we encourage individual beliefs, ideas, passions and well-being and an ethos of camaraderie that is reflected in this shared experience. We believe that a uniform worn without modification is the best way to ensure equality. We do not want children feeling vulnerable and stressed by the pressure they feel to wear or own the latest trend or status symbol. Priory school is not unusual in having a trousers as the uniform item for all students. There are at least 40 other schools which have a similar uniform requirement. Our core purpose remains the quality of teaching and learning and we aim to achieve this by maximising the time spent on planning, delivering and evaluating the quality of provision.”

      1. Leaving all the bollux aside, the two words that stick in my gullet are, “Furious students…”

        Schoolchildren should bloody well do as they are told.

        1. So they should, Bill, and I deplore the modern use of the word ‘student’ to describe schoolchildren.

          Schoolchildren (or school pupils) go to school. They don’t become students until they enter some form of further education.

        2. “Furious students…” That’s from the Sussex Express ‘journalists’.
          At least a ‘unisex’ (the word first used in hairdressers, if memory serves) uniform would curtail the kids being dressed up by crazy parents with boys in tutus and makeup etc.

      3. You can almost sense in your heart that the “school spokesman” did not need to engage a single brain cell as he trotted out that stream of politically correct carp.

        You also suspect that they are just waiting for someone to make a comment that lets the school shout “Transgender hate-crime!” What a shock it must be to find out that many people are not shivering in fear anymore at the labels they try to cow us with.

        Boys are boys and girls are girls. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs psychiatric treatment for delusion. Or to find a spine.

      4. No, there is apparently a trend for privately run ‘Academies’ to insist on clothing that bears the school logotype, which presumably has been trademarked and is only available from a company connected, coincidentally, to the Academy management firm.

        1. We used to have to buy anything badged, including various blazers, from the school shop back in the 50s.

    4. There isn’t any such thing as gender neutral clothing. They are demanding that girls be dressed as boys and not in clothing suited to their feminine form and cultural tradition.

      1. I guess as well the girls have to go braless or the boys have to wear bras in order to be gender neutral

    2. They’re also sending a number of dinghies with smaller parcels of waste that have the unfortunate habit of breeding into larger piles of waste.

    3. There was a programme on BBC about this a few weeks ago. If I remember the waste wasn’t intended for Indonesia but it was redirected to Indonesia. It had been lying for years festering away. The UK will have a problem dealing with such foul dangerous containers.

  61. Wake in Hell, Mugabe

    We must not say RIP (Rest in Peace).

    My late cousin C.G. Tracey had a large farm which gave employment, housing, healthcare and education to over 2,000 people.

    Seeing that the future of Zimbabwe, the country where he was born, raised and prospered, was not going to remain in the hands of white people in the future he wanted to preserve what was best for the black Africans on his farm so he organised a scheme for the brightest workers on the farm to go to university and agricultural college to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to take over the running of the farm.

    Mugabe decided give C.G.’s farm to his own personal friends who knew nothing about farming. The college-trained black workers were killed for cooperation with the whites and C.G. was kicked off his farm and out of his home. The remaining black workers were sacked and made homeless and within five years the land had returned to an unproductive wilderness – indeed it returned to the desert it was before the Tracey family arrived.

    ‘All for Nothing? : My Life Remembered’ by C.G. Tracey is well worth reading. You can get a copy from Amazon.

    1. “C.G. Tracey became a farmer at sixteen at the beginning of the Second World War. Entrepreneur, businessman, plant-breeder, racehorse owner and breeder, sanctions-buster, chairman and director of many companies, husband, father and gentleman, C.G. was active and involved through the many unsettled years of Zimbabwe’s history. This included the Central African Federation and its break-up, Ian Smith’s UDI followed by sanctions and the war, Zimbabwean independence in 1980 and the search to put the country on a sound-footing. Having had considerable influence in the development of our still fledgling nation, in the closing years of his long life, he suffered the loss of his won farm in a period in which his brother, sister, and children were all tragically affected and his sister-in-law was murdered.”

      Harold Wilson and his Labour government and subsequent Tory governments have one hell of a lot to answer for

      I know many farmers and businessmen who brought fairness and wealth and education to the tribal people of that part of Africa.. It actually hurts me to even say Zimbabwe..

      Africans turned on them all.

    2. I’m not generally in favour of murder, but I would have wholeheartedly supported it in the case of Mugabe.

      If that scumbag had been shot in the head, in 1980, just think of how many lives—both black and white, all murdered by him and his henchmen—would have been saved.

      On the other hand, maybe he knew something about the increasing overpopulation of the planet and did his bit to help?

      1. FFS don’t give the bBC et al ideas. There will no doubt already be a clamour (in some very small circles) for this ‘great man’ to be remembered in statuary and plinths . Is the 4th plinth at Trafalgar Sq still vacant?

  62. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.

    If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.

    The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet.

    Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.

    Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.

    On average people fear spiders more than they do death.

    The strongest muscle in the body is the TONGUE.

    It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

    You can’t kill yourself by holding your breath.

    Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

    Every time you lick a stamp, you’re consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

    Did you know that you are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider?

    Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.

    In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.

    A pig’s orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.

    A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

    The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.

    Polar bears are left handed.

    The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds, that makes the catfish rank #1 for animal having the most taste buds.

    The flea can jump 350 times its body length, that is like a human jumping the length of a football field.

    A cockroach will live nine days without its head, before it starves to death.

    The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the males head off.

    Some lions mate over 50 times a day.

    Butterflies taste with their feet.

    Elephants are the only animals that can’t jump. (thankfully)

    A cat’s urine glows under a blacklight.

    An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

    Starfish haven’t got brains.

    After reading these, all I can say is…

    …Lucky Pig

    1. But if humans & dolphins are the only animals which enjoy sex, a 1/2-hour orgasm is wasted on the pig, doncha think?

      2. I don’t think other species fail to enjoy sex, but they indulge in it for the purpose of procreation or dominance only.

    2. ‘Afternoon, Tom.

      I take it that you are not taken in by this American bollocks? I know it’s American (most of them are) because they don’t shout, they ‘yell’ (in the same manner as they don’t walk, they ‘hike’).

      Apart from all those that it is impossible to either prove or disprove (e.g. farts, head bangs, shouting, etc), there are some others that are patently bollocks, even if they are funny.

      Humans and dolphins are NOT the only animals that have sex for pleasure. many animals shag at any opportunity and the compiler has evidently never heard of the ‘sexual imperative’ whereby intense pleasure is the reward for having sex. This leads on to the ‘longevity’ of a pig’s orgasm; is it the boar or the sow that comes for half an hour? Porcine copulation (intromission) doesn’t last that long, therefore a 30-minute ejaculation is as risible as half an hour of vaginal contractions and moaning in the sow after withdrawal. :•)

      No one has ever died from eating a poisonous spider (nor a poisonous snake), most of either species are consider edible if not delicious. If they meant a venomous spider then why didn’t they say so? Remember: poison kills by ingestion; venom kills by injection.

      Polar bears do not have hands.

      Most of the others are just plain unaccounted bollocks placed in the “joke” for effect.

      After reading all these, all I can say is … bollocks.

    4. “Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.”

      Oh buggah….but thanks for the laugh, Nanners.

    5. “If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.”

      The exception to that general rule is Bercow, who has superhuman powers. Five minutes of him bumping his gums produces enough hot air to lift a balloon the size of the Hindenburg into the stratosphere.

  63. And did those MPs in 2-0-1-9,
    Sell out England’s mountains’ green?
    And was outspoken Brexit Nige
    On England’s pleasant pastures seen!

    And will Brexit, pure Divine
    Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
    And will Freedom be granted here,
    From those dark Satanic EU Shills?

    Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
    Bring me my Arrows of desire:
    Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
    Bring me my Chariot of ire!

    I will not cease from Mental Fight,
    Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
    Till we have won Brexit here,
    In England’s green and pleasant Land

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2e3fbb69ee0049d848ffbc9fcc7fa823bf5a859da83b51580a5c67950302a279.jpg

      1. I’ll have you know there are stern notices forbidding a close approach to the Palace of MFBs…..

  64. I’m guessing that Delboy36 should have had his prostate op by now and I hope that he’s recovering well.

    2. I am old fashioned and possibly a minority of one, but I am bloody sick of seeing the ” f ” word thrown at me here so many times.
      I use it myself in real life occasionally, with no sexual connotation, for example.. ” f.****** ” politicians ” which is pretty common at the moment.
      That is acceptable ..:-)

    1. Good grief. It was actually nice to listen to determined, decent people promoting the country. I think I need a lie down.

      1. I, too, had to search for the Smelling Salts.

        Talk about her explanation being like a knife cutting through molten butter.

  67. Thunder overhead; strong wind – drizzle – but across the bay (see photo posted this morning) – it is tipping down! Just as well we went down earlier than usual for our afternoon swim.

    All fine again tomorrow. Allegedly.

  68. Now it’s time for Britain to stand up to the bullies from Brussels, says FREDERICK FORSYTH

    As
    our ill-run country shuffles into the month of September, year of grace
    2019, utter chaos prevails among the ranks of those supposed to be
    governing us. For us mere observers it is like watching not one but a
    series of slow car crashes about which we can do nothing. But certain
    clarities do stand out.

    https://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/frederick-forsyth/1174341/brexit-eu-boris-johnson-david-cameron-theresa-may

    2. They will listen but not necessarily accept it. BBC suggesting that the EU are willing to extend the Article 50 for a year. That must be a No No.

      1. If they accept it (a fairly big if) and parliament votes for it, then we’re under direct rule of Brussels until they say otherwise. Even worse than a year’s extension, in my view.

    4. Brexit Home also reporting on this. Thoughts:

      1. Why now? Johnson has suffered terribly this week: a coincidence? Not where the EU are concerned.

      2. Will the EU will call Johnson to Brussels, as they did with May i.e. Masters calling and subservient British PM trots over as ordered? There, will they humiliate him as they did May? Reject his ideas and send him home with his tail between his legs.

      Or:

      3. Agree to amend May’s thrice rejected WA, resurrected with a dab of lipstick here and eye shadow there? This will be manna from heaven to Corbyn and Co. Why would Corbyn and the other Remainers support Johnson’s “new” deal. Corbyn wants a GE but on his terms: this proposal would give him the opportunity to take the high ground i.e. this deal has been rejected on three occasions and is not fit for purpose, so why would he accept it now from a weakened PM. Corbyn would be within his rights, and stupid not, to call a no confidence vote on this “deal” and get the election he wants.

      4. The ERG have stated quite clearly that they will not support any version of May’s WA. So, if as expected Corbyn and Co reject Johnson’s new “deal”, it will fall as did May’s surrender treaty.

      Are the EU are playing the, in their opinion, quite stupid British politicians and making them dance to their tune? They think that Johnson is desperate for a “deal” and will they toy with him as a cat does with a mouse?

      5. Or, has the Johnson/Cummings axis engineered this situation and have war-gamed it to force through a No Deal?

      Cummings is recognised, even by those who despise him, as a very smart and inventive guy who has studied Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War.

      Very interesting times.

      1. So many alternatives.
        I think the EU might yet implode over this.

        My money is still on the pig, with added lipstick, getting passed.
        I hope I’m wrong.

        1. I’m leaning towards your assessment but is he using the WA to smoke out the Remainers and force them into a no confidence vote as 3. in my comment above? I just can’t see Corbyn accepting anything that Johnson brings back from Brussels, especially as Johnson looks weak and on the back foot after this week’s shenanigans. Is Corbyn stupid enough to fall for Johnson’s play, if that is what it is?

          1. He might resign as PM but not as Leader of the Conservative party, the CP does not have an absolute majority so does not have to provide a PM.

            I could even see the sack of rats that is the Remain crew running down the clock trying to find a new PM and government or trying to find someone to ask Brussels for the extension and 31st just passing by default.

    5. The question must be asked, does Boris wish to bring about the utter destruction of his party, because he surely knows that tweaking and accepting May’s deal will result in that.

      Farage must be licking his lips at all those Conservative voters ready to support him.

        1. A politician and his ego, never to be lightly dismissed, perhaps he wants a legacy without the words traitor and quisling in it.

      2. Evening VVOF,
        The lab/lib/con coalition are very old hat and have been for years it has been proved time & time again the eu pay better and for mercenary
        politico’s money / power counts.

  71. Oh Great Joy!!!

    16:54
    Claire Perry (MP for Devizes and general useless piece of sh!t) is standing down at the next election

    Yippeee!!

    1. Perry has three children from her former marriage.

      The Daily Telegraph newspaper revealed in May 2019 that she was claiming £9,843 per year taxfree in Parliamentary expenses for her three children, two of whom are now adults, on top of her salary as MP and Minister of State for Energy totalling £111,148 and her standard taxfree “second home allowance” of £22,760. She did not deny the report, but said that she had not broken any Parliamentary rules.

      And she wants to give all that up?

      1. No, no, no, dear Bill. Surely you must understand how it works by now. She’s merely shifting to another lucrative sinecure that doesn’t carry the tiresome necessity of having to get voters to elect her
        *
        *
        I will also have the opportunity to continue to work with the Prime Minister and his team, reporting directly to him in my role as President of the UN Climate negotiations that we are confident will be held in the UK next year.
        *
        *
        So don’t you worry your pretty little head about the wellbeing of Mrs Claire Perry O’Neill (she’s recently acquired a new hubby) or her little kiddiwinks.

        2. “President of the UN Climate negotiations”

          That sounds like employment that will yield wide-ranging benefits to the human race and particularly improve the lives of shareholders in manufacturers of wind turbines.

  76. Last post – really – after watching yer Franch (sic) news.

    1 Aigle Azur – a cheapskate French airline that flew hundreds of thousands of slammers to and from Africa – (mainly TO France) – has gone bust.

    Enter thousands of mouthy slammers whinging, moaning, demanding their money back…. Best larf today.

    2. Everywhere in yer France dogs crap in the streets; and people put out vast quantities of large items of rubbish (instead of taking them to the tip).

    The answer – spends thousands putting up signs banning shitting dogs and fly-tipping. That’ll work a REAL treat.

    TTFN

    2. Today, I have registered BREXIT as a brand name for my new and innovative household product: Britain’s Least Effective Lavatory Cleaner …

      2. I’ve registered “B*gger it” – If Daz won’t fix it and Omo don’t shift it, B*gger it.

  79. Indian woman, 73, gives birth to twin girls

    There is a reason woman have child bearing years and that so they will living long enough to bring up the child

    A 73-year-old woman in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh has given birth to twin girls.
    Doctors delivered the twins, who were born following IVF treatment, on Thursday.
    “The mother and the babies are doing well,” Dr Uma Sankar, the woman’s doctor, told BBC Telugu.
    Mangayamma Yaramati said she and her husband, who is 82 years old, have always wanted children but had been unable to conceive until now.
    “We are incredibly happy,” her husband Sitarama Rajarao told BBC Telugu on Thursday, hours after the babies were born.
    But just a day later, Mr Rajarao suffered a sudden stroke and is currently being treated in hospital.

  80. Why an earth did Jacob apologise he compeered the scaremonger of this doctor who talked of people dying because of Brexit with the scaremongering by the MMR doctor

    So in my view and Jacobs both were scaremongering .

    2. He did not apologise, and in fact when the accusation was repeated later on during the session yesterday he insisted that he still held his view of the scaremongering doctor.

      1. Funny thing, I didn’t notice the one at the back. Probably dazzled by the one at the front.
        It happens. You didn’t notice your impertinent apostrophe………..

        2. You are…….
          Unless you are claiming to be David Lammy, looking and looking and only seeing one blonde, whilst possessing your Abbottagottalottabottomus.
          };-O

      1. Thinks: “If I team up with him perhaps we could earn a bit of dosh doing TV adverts for sofa companies.”

    3. As we know, our “replacement population” have contempt for us allowing them to take over our country. They also have great difficulty hiding how they like to rub our noses in what they are doing to us. So the cameraman is probably laughing as he angles the shot and thinking “This is your future and the future of your country. You just don’t know it yet.”

      But some of us do know about the plan now.

    1. WTF is the point of this post?

      What is it telling me, trailer trash?

      Why don’t you just decamp to the New York Times, The Guardian or The Beezer where you and your vacuous posts are much more suited?

        1. I keep up with interesting things, trailer trash, not the idiotic kind of shite that your tiny excuse for a mind finds ‘funny’.

      2. Afternoon, Grizz.

        Polly has a curious style of posting. Part mystic, like the oracle, Pythia, and part Socratic, based on the principle of asking questions to stimulate critical thinking.

        Your reply suggests she may have succeeded beyond her expectations.
        ;¬)

        3. Greetings, Duncan.

          I only interact with it once in a green moon. It will be a long time till the next one.

    2. Why are all those charities you named below (post deleted) sponsoring an “independent company”? They
      should be using their donors’ dosh to support the aims of their charity.

      1. Quite, I think it’s all about influence.

        One of the ”partners” is particularly interesting which is why I posted the list.

        I have to go out now so I’m afraid I can’t explain further.

  83. think Boris should just call an election and ignore the Fixed term Parliament it it was never intended to apply in these circumstances

    Currently the Conservatives have something like a -47 minority. There is absolutely no way they can govern like that. What we now have is a government that is in effect being controlled by the opposition and the opposition will decide when an election will be held

    Labour could for example let the Conservative government run until the Queens Speech and then vote it down

  84. Just been a nice drive to the Kilnsey Crag trout farm to buy some trout. The Yorkshire Dales are always beautiful.
    On the way we passed a field filled with a large number of sheep. They appeared to be having a meeting.
    What the leader was saying ( thanks, peddy, for the translation ), was –
    ” The time has come for a rebellion. Our masters have oppressed us for too long. They steal our wool to make cardigans and jerseys,
    and slaughter us in our millions to make chops and shoulder of lamb for their consumption. Enough is enough. We must call an election in protest, and hope that the Labour Party will not prevent us. All together now, we must say with one voice – Baaaaa Baaaaa “.

    2. I was in the Dales last October. It was gorgeous weather and I visited many places, such as: Settle, Malham, Skipton and Hawes, where the Wensleydale Creamery is and I bought some cracking cheese, Gromit.

      Wonderful part of the world.

        1. I love a good farmhouse Lancashire: it is my favourite white British cheese. I used to buy it on Lancaster market.

          3. While I wouldn’t argue over Lancashire being a very good cheese there are many local cheeses available: in my area Suffolk Gold and Suffolk Blue are made on a local farm from that farm’s herd’s milk. Both are excellent. Local cheese production appears to mirror the rise of local micro breweries producing excellent beers. We are all the richer for those diverse products appearing on the market.

  86. Let’s hope Mr Jackson is correct in his forecast.

    The Remainers’ scorched earth tactics and premature triumphalism will rebound spectacularly

    STEWART JACKSON

    The Remainers’ scorched earth tactics will merely strengthen the Brexiteers’ resolve

    The Labour frontbench and the Liberal Democrats have committed two great crimes in recent weeks. Not only have they collectively disregarded the ‘irksome’ Leave votes of millions of their own constituents, cast in good faith – and often for the first time – in the 2016 EU Referendum. Their adherence to the theological cult of Brussels and the European Union and its mythology has led them shamelessly to destroy the accepted mores and conventions of our unwritten constitution.

    Forget the disgraceful antics of the increasingly shrill and obnoxious Speaker, who will I predict be too cowardly to face his own Buckingham constituents again, permanent damage is being wreaked on the accepted norms that govern how things are done – the so-called “good chap” approach, enunciated by noted constitutionalist Lord Peter Hennessy.

    For the first time in its history, the cossetted, unelected panjandrums in the House of Lords, the epicentre of Remain fanaticism, this week ripped up its rules to ensure that Hilary Benn’s squalid Brussels capitulation Bill was fast-tracked through the Peers’ House in a dangerous and damaging precedent. By comparison, this Government has played fair. It could well have engineered a much longer filibuster to the Lords motion into this weekend but deferred to the established proprieties and called off the talkathon.

    Unfolding before us is an existential battle for the cherished notions of Parliamentary democracy, losers’ consent and popular sovereignty – a fight which the British electorate thought had been won after the Peoples’ Budget and the Parliament Act 1911.

    It’s not just the smug condescension – the idea that MPs and Peers are saving the poor benighted voters from themselves – but the sheer hypocrisy that rankles. The hysteria about the Prime Minister “shutting down democracy” in a “coup” as his government is defeated in the Commons by the Opposition MPs seems incongruous, to say the least.

    We are witnessing a strange kind of coup – a “sudden, violent and illegal seizure of power from the government.” Instead of tanks or colonels in dark glasses and moustaches, however, we have John Major – demented by Brexit Derangement Syndrome – going to court to fight prorogation, a tactic he himself pursued in 1997, for rather less noble reasons. This failed ex-PM castigates Boris Johnson for removing the whip from Parliamentary colleagues for defying a confidence motion and ignoring manifesto commitments and a unique plebiscite when he did the same to others back in 1996, with much less justification. Unlike the 21, they were seeking to defend manifesto pledges and Parliamentary sovereignty.

    And who encouraged him back then in this draconian and unjustified course of action? His then-Chancellor, the newly Whipless Kenneth Clarke. Karma can sometimes bite you on the posterior.

    Boris Johnson’s enemies within and beyond the Conservative Party have miscalculated the PM. He may be down but he’s certainly not out. The Prime Minister still has options, whereas they have taken Agent Orange and sprayed it across Party, Parliament and Government, in order to remain permanently in the EU, in a scorched earth policy with huge long-term ramifications.

    For all the turmoil, Boris Johnson retains a united Cabinet, growing public support and poll ratings. He is hugely popular with his membership and Conservative and Brexit Party supporters, who make up around half of likely voters. He is bypassing the traditional media to appeal to the whole country for a hearing and the message is crystallising far more effectively than mainstream commentators realise.

    He also faces a split Remain opposition, characterised by cynical opportunism, weakness and risible incoherence, as evidenced by Emily Thornberry’s car crash appearance on BBC Question Time last night, in which she promised to campaign for Remain against a Leave deal ‘expertly’ negotiated by her own party! The voters can see all this and they don’t like it.

    As the Brexiteer Bill Cash MP rightly said in the Commons this week, “we have a system of Parliamentary government, not government by Parliament and that is a fundamental constitutional principle”. David Davis made the same point more colourfully as Brexit Secretary: “You can’t thread a needle with 650 others jogging your elbow”.

    At his most hapless, John Major’s plaintive cry as PM, when masquerading as a Eurosceptic, was to his Parliamentary tribe: “Don’t bind my hands [in negotiations].” Now he wants to tie up the PM like Harry Houdini on 31 October.

    Tough choices need making: Bercow’s interpretation of the arcane device of Queen’s Consent in the Brexit blocking Bill is almost certainly counter to the advice of Commons clerks and constitutional law experts and surely nullifies the bona fides of this pernicious legislation. As such, refusal of Royal Assent by Her Majesty must surely have remained an option. However, that ship might have sailed.

    For all the premature triumphalism of Remainers, they will not seek – at least in the short term – to remove the PM via a vote of no confidence and so we assume that they seek to humiliate him first by sending him naked into the EU conference chamber with the instrument of surrender authored by the EU, Dominic Grieve and others. The disgrace and embarrassment will be theirs and not our Prime Minister’s. If it has to be so, it will merely pull the elastic tighter for when it snaps back on his tormentors at the General Election.

    In the meantime, Boris will no doubt take one more lesson from John Major. In one of his most thespian moments during the EU “beef war” in 1996, he promised to be as difficult and truculent as possible with his lords and masters in Brussels, with vetoes on budgets, regulations, directives and the like.

    Boris can and will do exactly the same with aplomb until Macron, Merkel and their coterie honour our democratic mandate and profoundest wish: “Let us go.”

    Stewart Jackson was a Conservative MP from 2005-17 and Chief of Staff to Rt Hon David Davis MP as Brexit Secretary 2017-18

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/06/remainers-scorched-earth-tactics-premature-triumphalism-will/

    1. Every MP who disobeyed their constituents should be found and hanged put into a stockade where we can throw rotten fruit at them.

      Their property taken from them, their assets sold off. Their pension going to Help for Heroes.

      Their widows reminded they are traitors by association and to leave in penury, or join them.

      I’m sick and tired of being nice to these scum. They’re nasty, vicious sewage.

        1. Then I am his triplet sibling. Beat them through the streets to the stocks, where they face 24 hours of belittlement before being taken to ‘another place’ there to be hanged by the neck until dead – and may the Good Lord have mercy upon their souls, if, indeed they possess such.

  87. Evening, all. I can’t agree more with the headline. The frustration is intolerable. Even my coalman asked what the heck was going on when he delivered the winter fuel this morning. I went out to lunch with a neighbour who wanted to know what they thought they were playing at. When I was having a drink with friends a couple of nights ago, they wanted to know how they could stop the shenanigans. Having a chat on the phone to a friend this evening, he wanted to know what we could do to bring the traitors to justice. There is anger building and something will go pop eventually.

  90. I guess for most people the events of the UK deliberations on Brexit have been so complicated and more recently so fast moving that unless you follow in some detail the unfolding events you will have completely lost the plot – that is if there ever was one.

    I should have guessed that Brexit had. been made into a movie even though we haven’t reached the final scene.

    Perhaps it will even be part of a series because this is not the end of the story:

    https://youtu.be/y7UuBhNhJ54

    https://www.vox.com/2018/12/15/18142226/hbo-brexit-leave-campaign-dominic-cummings

    1. Cumberbatch is an ardent remainer. A hard Left luvies who’d happily bring down the economy.

      Of course, he sees that as a good thing. He forgets that he has the job he does because of a successful capitalist economy that allows people lots of spare money to invest in entertainment.

      We’ve lots of problems. Almost all are the result of government incompetence, stupidity and greed. One thing that’s fine is our market capital based economy.

    3. My telly is programmed for the onoff s/w to go to off if Cucumber Bendydick appears on the screen

  92. Andrew Lilico should be on BJ’s staff…

    Boris Johnson has no choice but to strike a ‘do or die’ pact with Nigel Farage

    ANDREW LILICO

    In a surreal twist, the PM may also have to resign in the process

    With Parliament determined to block no deal (and thus any chance of getting a better deal), it will now be challenging for Boris Johnson to fulfil his promise, and get Britain out of the EU by October 31.

    The big question is: what is Boris’ plan? I now expect that Boris will allow Parliament’s anti-no deal bill to pass. (If he were considering withholding Royal Assent, I believe minsters would have mentioned it by now.) His attempts to persuade Parliament to vote for an early general election next week will fail. Parliament will then be prorogued next week until October 14.

    The European Council meeting on October 17 and 18 will not agree to any new Brexit deal. The anti-no deal bill then requires the PM to apply for an extension by October 19.

    Boris will not do that. He said yesterday he would rather die in a ditch.

    Maybe one could imagine that he simply refuses and invites Parliament to apply whatever sanction is relevant. It’s not apparent precisely what that sanction would be. Boris’s adviser Dominic Cummings has form on ignoring instructions from a Parliamentary Committee, including being declared in contempt of Parliament – though the Committee had no material sanction it could apply to enforce its will. So it’s just conceivable Mr Johnson might invite Parliament to do its worst.

    More likely though, I think, is that he will resign on October 19, giving a new Prime Minister just a few hours to apply for the extension, and refuse to recommend a successor. If Boris does not recommend anyone and there is no one available who appears likely to be able to command a majority, it is universally agreed that the official Leader of the Opposition is the person the Queen would invite.

    That will then lead to some amusing theatre involving the Queen sending for Jeremy Corbyn, him becoming PM (presumably with a polite handshake in the customary photo, rather than kneeling or bowing) and then applying for the extension all in a rush. Boris will then be Leader of the Opposition and entitled to submit a No Confidence motion, which he will immediately do.

    Corbyn will lose that No Confidence motion. I imagine the EU will agree to an extension to the end of January 2020, but only on the condition that the UK holds a decisive national vote on whether it is actually going to leave or not. Parliament will respond to that by voting for an early election before the 14 days expire to find an alternative PM (so Corbyn continues as PM), which will take place in late November or early December.

    The parties would then go into the election with the following stances. The Lib Dems would run in an Remain Alliance with the Greens and Plaid Cymru, on a platform of revoking Article 50. Labour would run on a platform of declaring that capitalism, austerity and the British constitution have failed, and we need to implement a true socialist alternative. It would attempt to talk about Brexit as little as possible.

    That is partly because some of its MPs (including frontbenchers) would declare that Labour would agree a new deal with the EU whereby the UK would stay in the Single Market and Customs Union, whilst others would declare they would vote to revoke Article 50.

    Boris would run with departing on an instant no deal, with no further negotiations and not waiting until January, in a pact with the Brexit Party. The pact would entail the sharing out of seats not currently held by Tory MPs (perhaps even allowing the Brexit Party to run for most of those), and the Brexit Party running in some of the seats currently held by Tory MPs who have lost or resigned the whip. All other current Tory MPs would be protected from Brexit Party candidate challenges, but with the Brexit Party not endorsing (ie encouraging its supporters to vote for) quite all of them.

    A couple of months ago, I had thought that a Boris-Brexit Party pact could not work, saying that I believed such a pact would require such an extensive purge of Remainer Tory MPs that Boris would never be willing or able to do it. But it appears I might have been wrong. Not only has Boris withdrawn the whip from 21 MPs, in addition to those that quit the party earlier in the year, but a stream of Remainer Tory MPs have announced that they will not be standing again at the next election – allowing Boris to replace them with pro-Brexit candidates.

    Perhaps others would resign or retire if there were a total commitment to No Deal and a pact with the Brexit Party, but it does now appear that the purge of the Remainers might indeed be sufficiently extensive that a Boris-Brexit Party No Deal Alliance pact is an option.

    If such a pact could be delivered, I suspect the vote shares at an election would be something of the order: 43 per cent for the no deal Alliance; 26 per cent for the Remain Alliance; 24 per cent for Labour. That would give a huge majority to the no dealers, and we would be out of the EU with no deal before Christmas.

    Not long to wait now.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/06/boris-johnson-has-no-choice-strike-do-die-pact-nigel-farage/

    1. This is all too complicated. Things aren’t done like that in real life. Following the rules doesn’t work here.
      A quick phone call to the EU people, followed by a statement to Parliament that the EU will agree neither an extension or a revision, therefore the
      only thing to do is to declare a no deal withdrawal. The opposition cannot demand that he drink from a bottle of water if the bottle is empty.
      He has to stick to his guns. What follows will be.

      1. ‘…… cannot demand that he drink from a bottle of water if the bottle is empty.’ That was in the logic of yesteryear, when black was black, white was white, up was up and down was down. We now live in Orwellan times when black is white and white is black, up is down and vice versa and simple logic and common sense have been pushed out of the window regardless to suit the narrative of the day come what may.

        I agree – he has to stick to his gun through thick and thin, especially come what may. He must never give in. And neither must we.

      3. Parliament could pass a law making it illegal to have an empty bottle while refusing to allow him to put anything in it. That way it guarantees his humiliation, and of course Parliament has every confidence in him. It makes them feel more important and popular with those that count.

        The is the age of Aquarius.

    2. Is this really the vision the Opposition has for Britain – the best they can come up with? I was rather ashamed that it was a Sikh who comes to the defence of Muslims making a statement. Surely he appreciates the threat his own fellows face in the Punjab from aggressive Islam, and in the West where Sikhs are often mistaken for Islamic terrorists? Sikhism was always about coming to the defence of those being oppressed, but maybe I should now read into it that he favours the oppressors?

      My main criticism about Boris’s quip about letterboxes is that British pillar boxes are red. I have yet to see a red burqa; I have never seen a black pillarbox. Is the man colourblind?

      As for bank robbers – I actually think that this is fair comment, and that some Muslim sects and their politically correct apologists need to take less offence and consider the offence they are causing. Bank robbers traditionally cover their faces whilst engaging in aggressive assaults on society. It is a form of uniform and a declaration of intent, and has been around in British culture at least since the days of highwaymen. Some folk here could well say the same about the burqa. It is not a garment of modesty, but of extreme and hostile arrogance. It’s main positive function is as a protection against an Arabian sandstorm, and for that is a practical garment, We do not have many Arabian sandstorms in England though. Would someone please explain though why it has to be black, in a place where there is extreme sunshine and heat? White burqas would reflect the heat of the sun and be much kinder on those wearing them.

  96. If it comes to a General Election Boris has to come to an arms length arrangement over which seat which party fights. I say arms length as any talk of a formal arrangement would damage the Brexit Parties chances of inning seats as they would have the best chances in Labour held seats

  97. Anyway, what has been discovered today.. ?

    That allegedly ”an independent liberal conservative think tank” which the Daily Telegraph has described as “the modernising wing of the Tory party”[2] and the ConservativeHome website has described as “a deep intellectual gene pool for the Conservative Party’s future”.[3] (Wikipedia)……………..

    …………..is a ”partner’ of Open Society.

    https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/who-we-are

  98. Two local by-elections, one in Coventry, one in Penrith, gave unusually good results for the Conservatives last night. Here’s hoping that the opinion polls due this weekend make uncomfortable reading for Corbyn, Thornberry, Starmer, and Major-Blair-Heseltine-Hammond-Clarke- and May. … Oh, yes, and the RemainStream Broadcasters.

    1. A Prime Minister being told what to do by Remainers of his own Party, and an unelectable Opposition, calls for an election, yet they refuse to permit it until he has done what they want. They want an agreement with the EU, who will not provide one. The only logical thing for Boris to do is to eat his words about a new agreement, and go ahead and do the right thing.
      And throw Philip Hammond under a moving bus.

    1. ‘Morning Bob – I’d be interested to know where this came from, can you provide a link/source please? Thanks.

    2. Morning Geoff This happens to us all from time to time. I’ll go and look at the Letters page on the DT. Hope you get it sorted soon.

Comments are closed.