Friday 7 August: Converting offices into places to live will transform planning prospects

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/08/06/letters-converting-offices-places-live-will-transform-planning/

676 thoughts on “Friday 7 August: Converting offices into places to live will transform planning prospects”

        1. Morning Obers
          I said Really? because my display showed I commented first at one stage.
          I think it meant that I started commenting first but that you finished commenting first.🤔

    2. Good morning everyone.
      It’s funny until you have been in that situation. In a local pub which specialises in food for families, big garden etc.
      I was puzzled, then ashamed, but my friends and their children took it well, and after half an hour we went elsewhere.

      1. I once caused a rumpus in the 1st class restaurant on a ferry from the Hook of Holland to Harwich .It was lunchtime & rather warm. We sat at a table with another couple from Norfolk in the exact centre of the room. It was fairly busy & waiters were rushing here, there & everywhere, but none of them came to us. We waited, & waited, & waited. Finally my patience snapped & I stood up, pushing back my chair with a loud screech & bellowed, “Head Waiter! We have been sitting here for over 1/2 an hour. If your staff are too busy to serve us, can one of them at least find the time to bring my 5-months pregnant wife a glass of water!” That got results & acclaim from some of the other diners. My wife ‘carried large’.as I believe the expression goes, so her condition could not be overlooked. Lunch then proceeded with no further hitches.

      2. Firstly, eating outside is horrible especially in the summer as there are wasps, flies and other insects about so I avoid it when I can.

        I’m not sure I believe that being black would mean you’d get served after others. Certainly not intentionally.

  5. SIR – The woman who has complained about the conduct towards her of a Conservative Member of Parliament and former minister, which is currently under police investigation, demands that the whip should be withdrawn from him. Her demand is supported by Jess Phillips, Labour MP and Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding. Mark Spencer, the Conservative Chief Whip, is resisting these demands. He is right to do so.

    I do not know whether the complainant is telling the truth about the MP’s conduct. That will be for a jury to decide, if and when the case comes to trial. However, false complaints of sexual misconduct are made, and it would be unconscionable if that were a way of besmirching the reputation of an innocent MP by engineering withdrawal of the whip.

    If the Crown Prosecution Service concludes that both the strength of the evidence against the MP and public interest merit a prosecution, while it does not mean the person is guilty, it does mean that both the investigating police officer and the reviewing Crown Prosecution Service lawyer have decided there is a case to answer.

    Then it would be right to identify the MP and to suspend – but not withdraw – the whip, pending the decision of the jury. Only if he is found guilty should the whip be withdrawn.

    Rev His Honour Peter Morrell
    Nassington, Northamptonshire

    Such a demand from the complainant smacks of vindictiveness and surely undermines her case?

    2. What baffles me is why Boris appointed Marks & Spencer to be his Chief Whip!?!? :-)) (Manners: Good morning all. I’ve just spent 2 hours in the garden, now back indoors and about to plug the fan into the electric socket.)

    3. “… Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding…”

      Cluck off. A stupid title. Sack this minister, destroy that pointless non job.

    4. Why does it matter that it’s a Conservative mp?Simply an ‘MP’ would suffice.

      This all sounds politically motivated. If there was an issue, you don’t go to the blasted whips office, you go to the police.

        1. Does that make it a banking matter if he works in a bank?

          Or an IT matter if he’s a programmer?

          Hang on. I’ve read your comment again and my moomin level brain has caught up. You’re right. Send the woman away without any dinner.

      1. 322191+ up ticks,
        Morning O,
        Then tell me why was it condoned via the polling booth time & time again repeatedly.

        1. It hasn’t been. We have never been given the choice to refuse it. When we have protested the state has locked us up.

          The irony – that the innocent man protesting against state criminality is imprisoned while the criminal is given a luxury suite paid for by the man locked up.

          1. 322191+ up ticks,
            Morning W,
            You or your ilk continued to take the choice offered
            as in lab,lib,con Proven to be sh!te/sh!te/shite some felt voting for the lesser sh!te was the answer.
            There have always been other options the party first brigade must shoulder the blame for our odious condition as a nation.

  7. SIR – Last week’s Honours List included a peerage for Claire Fox, a woman notorious for defending the right of the IRA to commit murder during the long bloody period before the Belfast Agreement of 1998.

    She has called IRA terrorism over the preceding 30 years “their struggle for freedom”. By elevating her, Boris Johnson has shown indifference to the memory of those who died, and to the grief of those who suffered, to uphold Northern Ireland’s right to remain part of our United Kingdom in accordance with the wishes of a majority of its people. Those who paid the ultimate price included prominent members of the Conservative and Unionist Party.

    The House of Lords Appointments Commission also seems to have erred. It is required to ensure that “the past conduct of the nominee would not reasonably be regarded as bringing the House of Lords into disrepute”. How can Ms Fox fail to do that?

    Mary Bowman (Letter, August 3) asks how many have left the Lords. Since 2017, 92 have departed. Others can be expected to follow.

    Lord Lexden
    London SW1

    There must be plenty of other appointments made that are entirely without merit. The whole system is morally bankrupt and stinks. It is time Johnson was put on the spot and invited to justify another load of parasites. He can’t, of course, and won’t. And thus the arms race of appointing peers rolls on…

    1. The House of Lords is probably the largest concentration of corruption in the UK.

    2. 322191+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      Yes, is does seem to me that someone is acting out a form of macabre animal farm with the ovid ( latin) being
      steered by the political serpent now the fox is among the old chickens.

      The lemming segment of the electorate are the ones I cannot understand WHY they continue to hoy themselves over the same odious cliff of proven failure via the ballot booth is beyond me.

    4. 322191+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      Yes, is does seem to me that someone is acting out a form of macabre animal farm with the ovid ( latin) being
      steered by the political serpent now the fox is among the old chickens.

      The lemming segment of the electorate are the ones I cannot understand WHY they continue to hoy themselves over the same odious cliff of proven failure via the ballot booth is beyond me.

  9. Refugees tell of brutality as people-smuggling across Channel booms. Thu 6 Aug 2020 19.47 BST

    Refugees have told of increasingly brutal tactics used by people-smugglers transporting thousands across the Channel in small boats, as calm seas and the Covid-19 pandemic create a boom in the trade.

    The Guardian has heard testimonies of migrants being forced into boats at gunpoint or knifepoint and threatened with having their fingernails ripped out if they do not follow the orders of smugglers, who often use inflatable dinghies to transport their human cargo.

    Morning everyone. They were snatched off the streets of Calais and so terrorised that on landing in the UK they went immediately to the nearest airport and flew home! Lol!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/06/refugees-tell-of-brutality-as-people-smuggling-across-channel-booms

    1. 1. They cannot be “refugess” having crossed one or more safe countries. 2. If press-gangs are indeed operating, are they picking on only those who are carrying many thousands of Euros?

      Typical Grauniad…what a load of bolleaux!

      ‘Morning, Minty.

    2. Who’d a thunk it?
      I am amazed that Border Farce aren’t striking or quitting – I would not be part of that process for any reason, and in fact we stopped giving to Medecins sans Frontieres because of their facilitation of people smuggling across the Med.
      Maybe a rich person should start a legal action based on the facilitation of smuggling, and it being illegal as well as deeply immoral.

      1. Morning Oberst. The only people-smuggling gang operating in the channel is the Border Farce owned and run by the Home Office Cartel!

      2. I suspect many in the Border Farce (sic) are themselves incomers and tinted. That certainly seems to be the case when I come back from France.

    3. I’ve decided to call that newspaper The Fraudian (no that’s not a slip!)

      Morning Folks.

    4. 1. They cannot be “refugess” having crossed one or more safe countries. 2. If press-gangs are indeed operating, are they picking on only those who are carrying several thousand Euros?

      Typical Grauniad…what a load of bolleaux!

      ‘Morning, Minty.

      1. Hoist the buggers with their own BS.
        That kind of article can be used as a good argument as to why it should be stopped. Guardian needs to be encouraged to investigate why the government agencies are assisting it!

        1. The guardian would find that the government isn’t doing enough, that we must rejoin the EU, merge into a transcontinental super state, hike taxes to 100% on anyone earning anything except reporters and party officials and that all gimmigrants should be brought here by luxury ferry. Private homes should be sold and given to gimmigrants and the evil whites turfed out.

    5. Minty, I do not always agree with you, but the Guardian btl comments are often from another planet.

    6. They are not refugees. If they were, they have broken the law.

      Thus they are illegal immigrants. People paying to get to the UK.

      The bit the guardian completely misses is that by aiding and abetting this criminality all we do is encourage the smugglers – the people these illegal gimmigrants are paying, mind – we just exacerbate the problem.

      As always, the guardian looks the wrong way and finds the answer it wants to ignore. The degree of doublethink amongst Lefties is astonishing.

      1. The UK Government is breaking the law by bringing them ashore.
        The only excuse for bringing them to shore is the rule of maritime law that requires vessels to attend any vessel in distress. The dinghies of the illegal immigrants are not in immediate danger, so this rule is being stretched beyond any reasonable interpretation.

        1. Yup.

          The Left like it that way though. It’s disgusting one two levels. The first is the blatant illegality, that we, as a nation simply can’t afford these people socially or economically the second is the Hard Left’s promotion of these characters who vanish into the black economy unprotected by law.

          But hey. The Left feel better about themselves.

  10. Prince Harry accuses social media of stoking a ‘crisis of hate’. 7 August 2020.

    The Duke in his opinion piece urged companies to use their advertising dollars “to demand change”.

    He said: “For companies that purchase online ads, it is one thing to unequivocally disavow hate and racism, white nationalism and anti-Semitism, dangerous misinformation, and a well-established online culture that promotes violence and bigotry.

    “It is another thing for them to use their leverage, including through their advertising dollars, to demand change from the very places that give a safe haven and vehicle of propagation to hate and division. ”

    Wow! He’s a regular little Wokey isn’t he? He of course is free of all these horrors held by the Great Unwashed. I particularly like the “White Nationalism”, straight from his wife’s mouth no doubt.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/07/prince-harry-says-social-media-stoking-crisis-hate/

    1. Here’s one to upset China: “You’ll wonder where the yellow went, when you use Pepsodent.”
      “Persil washes whiter.” Start kneeling … NOW!
      A trawl through advertisements – particularly since 1955, should keep the Wokelets weeping into their pillows.
      Morning, Minty.

    3. Well he couldn’t say “White Privilege” because he is both white and (because of his birth) privileged.

    4. The ‘Crisis of Hate’ is being stoked by the BLM Movement

      Just the title of the organisation causes conflict

      To have true equality, we must not have ‘White Lives Matter’ as that would be Red (sarc) Rag the BLM

      The only viable way forward is All Lives Matter

      1. what, even slugs, crows, rabid foxes, and those little tiny bugs that eat the wheat in the fields?

        1. They certainly matter much much more in a balanced biodiverse ecosystem than 7·8 billion humans (and increasing exponentially) ever will!

          It is a specious argument to state that so-called ‘pests’ do not matter. Nature provides a balance of all living things by having a rule that no living organism is free from predation by another organism. This provides that no one living thing can assume dominance over all other living things.

          Mankind has actively attempted to achieve that dominance, aided and abetted by spurious religious texts that attempt to over-enhance man’s vanity by portraying humanity as being more important than all other life forms: “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”.

          Nature uses a more sensible — dare I say natural — approach to biological diversity by providing diseases to keep populations down. Humanity may ‘pride’ itself on its ability to defeat diseases but it is losing the battle since nature will provide more diseases to replace the ones man has beaten. Whether modern diseases, such as Covid-19, are naturally evolving or have been manufactured in a laboratory matters not; diseases will always proliferate in an attempt to keep overly-great populations down.

          Mankind is its own worst enemy in breeding itself to outrageously unsustainable populations: it is making a rod for its own back by considering (and treating) all other life forms as lesser than itself. All that the human species is doing is accelerating towards the time of its own, self-inficted demise.

          1. That makes us both de facto members of the ultra right.
            Pigs are not unclean, but humans are.
            Bear in mind that the world’s poor tend to breed and multiply, if allowed to do so, which is an eternal joy for salaried socialist bosses.
            As a correspondent pointed out, it is not (only) poaching that will destroy the African elephant, but habitat loss.

          2. “Ultra-Right” eh? I still need to be convinced that such a grouping exists.

            Certainly any Lefty trying to tell me it does will soon be swept away on a tide of logic. I don’t think their poor little heart would take to kindly to me bombarding their tiny little Common Purpose, Critical Theory-corrupted mind with such unassimilable stuff.

      3. I’d rather the only way forward being ‘shut up you noisy yobs. You don’t matter. No one cares what you think. You’re just nasty, spoiled, loudmouthed brats. Go pick up litter – yes, the stuff you’ve thrown on to the street’.

    5. Harry has lost touch with his roots .

      When a dog is lost , within 48 hours it loses its sense of domesticity, it keeps running , can’t be caught , and quickly becomes feral, and usually HAS to be trapped to be brought back into captivity.

      I see the same has happened with Harry , who is surrounded by Megains pals and her mother , and the strange culture that that minx embraces .

      I don’t think we should pity him , he is a prize twerp , he scuttled off and ran away . He has made his bed , so tough titty and all that jazz.

    6. I made a comment on this article and went to see if it had generated any reaction but the comments have been taken down.

      My comment was to the effect that Harry and Migraine have decided that their new business will be as influencers.

      Their consultancy will charge $1,000,000 introductory fee and then $500,000 per hour for consultations.

      Migraine has made it clear that the last time her husband actually used his testicles to any effect was when Archie was conceived but the couple have vigorously refused a DNA test because it could reveal too much information about Harry’s own parentage which would not be good for public relations and trade if Harry were found to have no Windsor family blood in him.

    7. The man is fick.

      Companies are not interested in race or diversity or other Left wing nonsense. They’re interested in cash. Getting paid. By saying the right things they keep that cash rolling in. It is the ultimate in cynicism.

      What Harry doesn’t realise is that NO ONE GIVES A FLYING TOSS ABOUT RACISM except racists. The black looters are mindless yobs – racists. To their core. Blacks do NOT matter any more than anyone else. To single out, to label, to deride, to promote, to employ based on skin colour makes the Lefties feel better, but it is, fundamentally racism.

      The Left lovel labelling people. Forcing them into comfortable, manageable boxes according to their specification. The left are the racists. They delight in promoting their own ideology at the expense of rational discussion. They ignore the facts – the black kids are killing each other – because it makes them feel self righteous to stop promoting the ‘racism’ of profiling. The body count matters not. The facts are irrelevant. The Left just want to feel better.

      After all. They’re poisonous, verminous, hatefilled sewage dementedly grasping for power at any cost, to rule, to control, to force. Their minds are filled with petulant doublethink and spite. With such seething, toxicity flowing through your head wouldn’t you want to deflect it to feel better?

      1. I worked in a company that did very well. They had a welfare officer in the factory operation. Then “welfare” became “personnel”. More and more people were employed in “Personnel”. A central “Personnel” department was created to co-ordinate all the personnel people throughout the company across the UK. The pyramid grew. They became Human Resources (HR). HR built an internal pyramid. After a few years every area of the business had an HR department. The HR Director had a seat on the Main Board.
        Eventually, it was realised that HR contributed not a single penny to cash flow or profits, quite the opposite. HR was trimmed, although not eliminated. HR managers became”business partners”, a term that is now used in the public sector, e.g. further education colleges, NHS Trusts.

        Every manager, regardless of the purpose of their organisation should read, and study*, “Up the Organization” by Robert Townsend. Townsend ran Avis and introduced th slogan,”We’re Number Two, So We Try Harder”. He writes, if I remember, that the business should employ a young lady to complete the employment paperwork – no personnel department, no pyramids.

        * “Read, Mark, Learn, and Inwardly Digest” as our English teacher would say, quoting Thomas Cranmer, strangely perhaps, as it was a Catholic school.

  12. Morning all

    SIR – Walking in our park, checking the expanded duck population, I watched with pleasure the youngsters swarming the playground. Their parents (mostly unmasked) embraced, gossiped and sat on the grass with (mostly masked) grandparents.

    Why can’t schools open, especially where Covid cases are relatively few?

    Jane Downes

    Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex

    SIR – Many schools have been open for the children of key workers at high risk from Covid-19, yet apparently few have contracted it.

    In countries where schools have stayed open, I have yet to hear that any teachers have died or even been infected with coronavirus.

    Unions and those teachers who blindly follow them are denying children their future and should be ashamed.

    Bill Todd

    Twickenham, Middlesex

    SIR – One might be forgiven for imagining that the National Education Union does not want to see children return to school at all.

    Christopher Pratt

    Dorking, Surrey

    1. I wonder why there has been an unprecedented level of enquiries about available places in independent private schools?

    2. All schools should move to a voucher model. You get a voucher directly from the treasury for a value. You take that to whatever school you want and exchange it for an education.

      Bluntly, you close the department for education. You cut off the teaching unions. You, the customer decide where your money goes. Good schools flourish, bad ones are taken over. If teachers start to get uppity and promote Left wing, diversity nonsense, you simply withdraw your money. With no income, they don’t get paid. They toe the line.

      1. There used to be a voucher system so people could access private education. Guess what – Blair wrecked it.

    2. 322191+ up ticks,
      Morning VVOF,
      The establishment certainly gave old muvver brown a good hiding by completely reversing it as in
      knee down muvver brown,leading to the sequel via the polling booth of both knees down muvver brown five times a day, or else………

    3. It’s the government’s handbook in the current covid panic. In, out, shake it all about …

  14. How DOES one top this? If only the sergeant’s nail varnish had matched his lippie, he could have been transferred to Brighton and Hove.
    Richard Littlejohn in the DM. (I hope Disqus doesn’t balk at the frisky PC’s surname.)

    “Three, two, one — and you’re back in the nick

    Here’s another one of those stories I don’t know whether to file under Mind How You Go or You Couldn’t Make It Up.

    Two coppers in South Wales have been charged with serious misconduct, accused of having a ten-month fling while on duty.

    PC Jemma Dicks, 28, is accused of performing sex acts on Sergeant Adam Reed, 40, who is also described as a foot fetishist.

    He has been charged with using his mobile phone to take sneak photographs of another female officer’s feet while she was taking a statement from PC Dicks.

    So infatuated was Sgt Reed that during the rumoured affair he shed a lot of timber and grew a beard — which made him the dead spit of Matt Lucas’s rubbish hypnotist Kenny Craig, from Little Britain.

    Look into my eyes . . .”

      1. “PC Jemma Dicks, 28, is accused of performing sex acts on Sergeant Adam Reed, 40, who is also described as a foot fetishist.”

        Thanks Annie, that picture is now seared into my brain and so far is refusing to go away.

        Edit: Sorry, LD. See what she has done to me?

  15. How DOES one top this? If only the sergeant’s nail varnish had matched his lippie, he could have been transferred to Brighton and Hove.
    Richard Littlejohn in the DM. (I hope Disqus doesn’t balk at the frisky PC’s surname.)

    “Three, two, one — and you’re back in the nick

    Here’s another one of those stories I don’t know whether to file under Mind How You Go or You Couldn’t Make It Up.

    Two coppers in South Wales have been charged with serious misconduct, accused of having a ten-month fling while on duty.

    PC Jemma Dicks, 28, is accused of performing sex acts on Sergeant Adam Reed, 40, who is also described as a foot fetishist.

    He has been charged with using his mobile phone to take sneak photographs of another female officer’s feet while she was taking a statement from PC Dicks.

    So infatuated was Sgt Reed that during the rumoured affair he shed a lot of timber and grew a beard — which made him the dead spit of Matt Lucas’s rubbish hypnotist Kenny Craig, from Little Britain.

    Look into my eyes . . .”

  16. Straw Poll.

    Q. Is it appropriate to use text to inform someone that their friend has died?

    2. No.

      If you have a phone that is capable of sending a text, and your friend has a phone that is capable of receiving one then you have no excuse, whatsoever, for not telephoning him/her and speaking instead of relying on an anodyne typed message.

        1. Whoever sent that text should be taken to task about their insensitivity.

          Sorry to hear about your friend, Phil.

        3. Poor form, the least you should have had would be a phone call telling you the sad news with the callers condolences.

        6. I am sorry, Phil.
          There is no easy way to break bad news, but there are other ways to do it.

          1. She is her daughter and has not been having a good time of lockdown. I can forgive her.

          2. Sorry to hear your news, Phil. Had Nikki been ill?
            Well done for being gracious with her daughter – does you proud.

    3. I don’t know the circumstances Phizz but some people take a delight in transmitting bad news as quickly as possible!

      1. I get that job in my family.
        Telling people of a death should be done expeditiously, but not as quickly as humanly possible, as it doesn’t affect the outcome but may make things worse for the bereaved due to the timing.

        1. I did that job, professionally, over a good number of years, always face-to-face with the bereaved. It never gets any easier.

          1. The unknown and less pleasant parts of the job, Grizz. (long) dead bodies, splatted people, burned people, bereaved people. I’d not want to do that if I can avoid it.
            Talked with a fireman, back in ’88, who was looking for new employment. He said, one day, he just couldn’t go on shift any more, to pull burned bodies from wrecked cars on the M25 – and I’m not at all surprised.

        2. When my brother died in the early hours of Christmas Day 2016, I didn’t phone my two sisters in New Zealand until the evening of that day, since New Zealand time is 12 hours ahead of the UK and I wanted them to have a good night’s sleep before I broke the news. Imagine learning that news at the end of a day of festivities and then trying to get to sleep.

          1. My cousin died on Christmas Day 2016. She was only 57. Her other cousin was staying at the time and it was she who phoned me the next day.

    1. These same creatures throw fast food waste, beer cans and cigarette butts on the floor. They’re animals. The only thing that will stop them being brute beasts is training. Frankly, it seems that a good half of the dumb human race needs to be collared, chained and taught to walk at heel.

      It is too hot. Mongo floof tried going outside in the shade. Too hot. He came in. Even hotter. I am going to put the AC on and hoof him into the office.

      1. “These same creatures” are largely imported. Were things like that before they came? Our politicians for years stink to high heaven.

  18. Donald Trump says Beirut explosion ‘may have been accident or attack’. 7 August 2020

    The US president modified his initial position, given on Tuesday following a briefing from military officials, that it was a “terrible attack” and “a bomb of some kind”.

    Speaking at the White House late on Wednesday he said: “They don’t really know what it was. I can tell you whatever happens it’s terrible, but they don’t really know what it is, nobody knows yet.

    “At this moment they’re looking…how can you say accident, somebody left some terrible explosive type devices and things around perhaps. Perhaps it was that, perhaps it was an attack, I don’t think anybody can say right now.”

    Clearly some doubt exists in the minds of the President and the Chiefs of Staff after reading my post yesterday! Lol!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/07/donald-trump-says-beirut-explosion-may-have-accident-attack/

  19. Meanwhile it looks like hydroxychloroquine and zinc is a life saver and that the PTB deliberately messed up the testing.

      1. Gates influenced politicians and officials.

        Gates wants massive profits on the back of mass vaccination.

        Why would he want a $1 hydroxychloroquine therapy ?

        1. The failure to use HCQ is ethically unheard of. Here is a safe drug known to work against corona viruses which has had its virtues suppressed by the media and its hopes negated by foul political opponents of the President of the US. I dearly hope that many doctors will be punished for this departure from basic standards of care for the sick.

          1. Exactly, and to compromise the trials they gave 4x the recommended dose for lupus patients.

            If you 4x paracetamol, you’re on the way to organ failure.

            So it’s all a horrible set up.

        2. Polly, why would Gates want ‘massive profits’ when he is trying to give money away and owns a pharmaceuticals company which operates at a loss?

          Honestly – why?

          1. Follow the money.
            If Gates’s pharma company produces the vaccine they
            will no longer be operating at a loss, the potential number of
            injections runs into billions and you can bet your last dollar he won’t be giving them away unless there is some sort of quid pro quo.
            Gates is another of the NWO technocrats who believes that the world should be governed, for its own good of course, by people like him, Blair, Macron et al…
            Look at his track record as a businessman, utterly ruthless; such people don’t change their spots

          2. Gates has been a dreadful businessman. He’s said this. He is trying to give his money away. If he came up with a vaccine the most dangerous thing is he’d give it to the third world first.

            This hysteria around his character is daft.

          3. I’m sorry, I completely disagree here.

            “A dreadful businessman” creates one of the most successful businesses of all time, yeah; I believe you.

            Why didn’t he give his money to one of the many already well established trusts, such as the Wellcome foundation? Control, pure and simple.

            The only reason that Gates, Clinton, Obama et al., set up their foundations is for the tax relief on the donations. Look at how much tax he’s saving for his halo.

            Don’t kid yourself, they are in it for their own benefit, nothing more.

            As to the worst thing… giving it to the third world untested???

            I look at the adverse reactions to well tested medications/vaccines in populations of thousands, imagine thalidomide of a scale of millions rather than thousands.

          4. Easy peasy. Giving money away is presented as philantrophy but the reality is that power goes with philantrophy, and global control goes with power.

        3. It won’t be long now before statins are scientifically proven to be a cure for COVID-19.😉

      2. The POWERS THAT BE, Angie. And, yes, I have no idea who she means either. But whoever it was they had breakfast and a chat with Messrs Soros, Blair, Cameron, Uncle Tom Cobley and all in a Little Chef in downtown Missouri some years ago. The idea is that you have to guess who she means, or so she says when you ask for answers.

  20. 322191+ up ticks,

    🎵
    Chant of the indigenous replacement troops,

    Mohammed row the boat ashore hallelujah,
    The English Channel is deep & wide hallelujah,
    With the welfare office on the other side hallelujah.

    1. Except that Mo doesn’t even need to do any rowing – it’s all done by the Border Farce/Royal Navy.

  22. Good morning!

    Regarding the growing scandal about the illegal immigrants crossing the channel and being treated as honoured guests, this problem is not going to go away any time soon because many people on the left actually want these people to come to the UK.

    Apparently, the Home Affairs Select Committee has launched an inquiry into the Channel crossings! Frankly this is little more than a sick joke.

    The reason why I say that is because the ‘chair’ of this committee is none other than Yvette Cooper and one of the members is none other than Diane Abbott. Both of these Britain-hating socialists want more immigrants. In fact Cooper apparently once said that she would house some of them in her own home.

    The committee’s previous ‘chair’ was none other than Keith Vaz and there hasn’t been a Tory ‘chair’ since 1997.

    The left wins again!

    1. In fact Cooper apparently once said that she would house some of them in her own home.

      She did indeed. We are still waiting for it to happen!

        1. …only she couldn’t remember which ‘home’ was which, having swapped them over at least theee times. And with her old man on the same dodge any confusion is entirely understandable…

          1. I always thought the easiest way to sort out the ‘confusion’ of which Cooper-Balls ‘home’ was actually ‘home’ was to establish which school their offspring attended, as that’s normally ascertained by postcode. Too simple?

          2. Too complicated for HMRC. They have enough problems turning up for work (the coronavirus being just too easy to resist).

      2. Yeah, she said it. She didn’t mean it. Like all Lefties, she’s a liar, cheat and hypocrite.

        Chances are she really meant the ittle bittle cheeldren. If she has two hmes, both can be chock full, 5 or 6 to a room of the gimmigrants.

      3. She’s run out of magnolia emulsion for the spare room walls.
        And Ed refuses to wear a face nappy when he pops into IKEA for the curtains and lampshades.

    2. 322191+ up ticks,
      Morning S,
      The lab/lib/con coalition win again gives a
      clearer picture imo.

    3. It’s a bit like putting the cannibal in charge of choosing dinner at a vegan bash.

      Another pointless exercise in pontificating.

      One simple solution is to make all those promoting massive, uncontrolled immigration is to force those demanding it to pay for it.

    5. You have to admire their thoroughness in undermining the country. The long view, the salami techniques…

    6. What Cooper says and what she does…

      Archetypal hypocrite. As for Abbott, there is no word ridiculous or nasty enough to describe her.

    1. Good morning, Bob.

      I hope you have a great time.
      East Anglia is beautiful, do sit on the seawall,
      at Wells-next- the-Sea, while you eat your fish
      and chips!

      2. I would avoid the tourist spots like North Norfolk and The Broads and look at Mid and South Norfolk.

        1. Not many tourists about here at the moment, but then I haven’t been out much lately.

      3. “…do sit on the seawall at Wells-Next-The-Sea while you eat your fish and chips!”

        I’ve never done that. 🤭

          1. Will the pubs be open long enough (to get into the ‘receptive mood’) o

            “hear the mermaids singing”, to each.other?

      4. Family holidays at Brancaster, in a fixed caravan.
        Brother opening a large egg found in the woods (outside, thank Christ, as it was rotten and blew up when tapped. Not quite Beirut, but still…)
        Days at Hunstanton.
        Cold wind and blowing sand.
        Happy days.

        1. Best sandy beach in Norfolk at Brancaster, Paul.

          I’ve had fun in those dunes on more than one occasion! 😉

          2. Well, let’s just say that I wasn’t flying a kite or playing beach volleyball, Mr T. 😇

          3. I remember kite flying, wandering around the wreck that was out on the sandbar, poking around the blockhouses and tanktraps behind the sand dunes, playing in the pools behind the sandbar… carefree times. Brother found a used cartridge case… exciting!

      5. This is true, it’s lovely – until you have to live there.

        Then you find there’s no mobile telephone signal, the broadband connectivity is non-existent, there’s one road in and out which is only partly a dual carriageway.

        On the rare event we visit my mother getting there takes 3 hours. The last hour of which is barely 10% of the entire route but clogged and slow.

    4. There’s Horsey Gap and the seal colony there to see, with a near-deserted beach. There are no amenities, i.e. cafe, toilets, etc, and ignore the car park signs directing you to the seal colony.

      1. There is a small population of breeding Common Cranes at Horsey Gap, LMS (and Bob).

    1. Apparently our wonderful all knowing (useless) government are about to ‘re-establish’ the return of illegal migrants to the last country they came from. Which of course isn’t far and isn’t gonna happen because of the problems with Brexit.
      What usually happens is they are found crowed into substandard accommodation and released on ‘bail’ they of course vanish until next time. It’s become a pointless and stupid game. Get rid of them !

  26. Thanks NHS…!

    My neighbour who has bad eyesight is also recovering from a knee operation.He was worried about his eyesight and the drugs prescribed.
    Yesterday he was expecting a home visit from the doctor. After waiting until 4.30 he phoned the surgery to ask if anyone was to visit.
    The receptionist asked him to phone tomorrow for another app.

    I’m surprised my neighbour wasn’t asked for a video consultation……!!!

    1. Wouldn’t it be nice if the Dr, knowing he’s late and can’t make it, called the unvisited patients to apologise and reschedule?

      1. Wouldn’t it just….how long does a phone call take!

        I hope he sees a doctor today about his eyesight….the weekend looms when doctors are as rare as hens teeth.

        1. He could always call the receptionist and ask her to call all remaining unseen patients and reschedule there & then.

    2. Wish me luck at 16:20. I’m having my left knee jabbed. It’s got two chances i suppose.
      After walking around the zoo yesterday it and the hip above are giving me a lot of gip.
      Whilst resting (again) by the Tiger enclosure and lifting our grandson up several times so he could catch a glimpse of the sleepy creature. Just as in the story books, it suddenly arose and ran past within 6 feet, right in front of me. But unfortunately GS wasn’t then paying attention and missed it. And it was far too quick for a camera shot.

  28. ‘Morning Peeps,

    Not first…

    A very relevant letter, bearing in mind the record invasion yesterday by 235 illegal immigrants in 17 boats:

    SIR – While the planning system in this country may be Byzantine, the reason for the housing crisis is immigration. Since 1997 millions have flooded into the country, with the inevitable result of a housing shortage.

    Simon Sherbrooke
    Blandford, Dorset

    Priti Useless is said to be “livid”. Or is that just a pathetic press release?

    1. The letter is just pointing out the bleeding obvious – what anyone with any common sense has been saying for years.

        1. Yes, his youngest brother Alexander is a priest in London. Simon appears to be a respectable semi-retired solicitor. To have written about immigration is not to condone uncontrolled immigration.

      2. With respet, that we all know it didn’t stop Brown calling a woman pointing out the obvious damage his party’s malicious arrogance to build a voting block a bigot, did it?

        The left squeal waycist at anyone pointing out such facts.

      3. Yes, but it has been totally ignored. I used to go to planning meetings where the need for all this excessive housing was put down to “divorce and we’re all living longer”. The moment I mentioned importing the equivalent of a city the size of Derby (other city comparisons are available), there were collective sharp intakes of breath, instant denial and no doubt mutters of racism.

    2. Yo HJ

      Would it not be easy for Border Farce to rescue the Nuclear Scientists, Heart Surgeons, etc from drowning when they
      find them floundering in the Channel, then just to sink the boats that carried them from France

      The peeple smugglers woud never dare to take the UK/Border Farce to the ECHR for such actions…….. would they?

  30. SIR – In the “Zoom Church” predicted by Canon Fraser, how will the sacraments, especially Holy Communion, be administered at a distance by non-existent parish priests?

    Martin Coomber
    London SW19

    Our first post-lockdown service took place last Sunday. Through no fault of those organising it, it was a somewhat sterile, even surreal, affair. Communion bread was given, involving brief removal of masks of course, but no wine. My slightly jocular comment afterwards – that perhaps we should bring our own mugs for the wine – did not meet with universal approval…

    1. Jocular – spoken with a pseudo-Scots accent?
      Morning, Hugh.
      Frivolity & levity R us…
      :-((

    2. I believe that there is some obscure piece of church law that states it must be from a shared cup..
      Odd, really, because I’ve been to services where the elements have been served bread and the wine in separate lines of communicants from more than one cup/chalice

      1. I’ve attended communion, somewhere in Europe I think, where the wafer was dipped in the wine before being given to the communicant. In Spain it seems to be standard for only the priest to partake of the wine.

        2. The priest has to finish the wine – none can be put back, since it ha been diluted – maybe an incentive to prepare an excessively large amount in relation to the congregation…?

        3. I believe that wine for the priest is a Catholic rather than a Protestant way.
          I’ve seen the dipping approach too.

        4. It’s standard for only the RC priest to take communion in both kinds. It’s intinction to dip the wafer into the wine before taking it. That was forbidden (some people in my church did it) at the start of the outbreak.

      2. …and others where the wine is being decanted into thimble-sized ‘cups’…

        ‘Morning, Sos.

      3. We often, in days of normality, had two people offering the wafer and two more offering the chalice. In those days, we had a lot of communicants.

        1. Which makes me wonder why they are suddenly becoming very prissy about it all.

          Separate out small vessels and a wafer, bless, and get on with it.

          We went to an evangelical church where the wine and bread were blessed, left on a side table/altar and communicants partook as they felt like it, during the service.

          1. Silver (and most, if not all, chalices are silver) is an antiseptic. During the plague people continued to take communion without problems, I understand. I did once attend a Greek Orthodox Easter service (in Greece) and there was bread left in a basket by the door for people to take. They had no pews and it was pointed out to me that this was the origin of the phrase, the weak go to the wall.

          2. I’m not a regular attendee, but I cannot recall ever seeing other than a silver chalice.

            I one went to the cathedral in Athens at Monastiraki for Midnight mass Easter Saturday/Sunday.

            The crowds were milling around paying no attention to the service, watching their mobile phones. I was puzzled.

            They were waiting for the chance to phone family and friends to wish them “Christ is risen”

            Bizarre.

    3. The vicar
      on a bike
      with water pistol
      through the letter box

      Ali’s Snack bar entertainments will ofcourse continue unhindered

    5. I enjoyed a comment somewhere the other day that referred to a rural vicar who mislaid the key and therefore was unable to lock his church.

      1. Our churchwarden left the church unlocked throughout lockdown, as it always is, with anyone free to wander in and out. Only when the churches ‘officially reopened’ did he feel obliged to put some hand sanitizer and notices up.

    6. The Eucharist (before the masks edict, I haven’t been since) was not as I knew it; no singing, no choir, a very shortened service and no wine (the Host was taken at full arm’s length from the vicar who was wearing a visor and standing between the chancel and the nave).

        1. Probably an edict from the woke Bishopette of London who is in charge of H&S in the covid panic.

  31. 322191+ up ticks,
    Reading between the lines of the 11 o’clock brainwash reading I believe that Thanet Council has had an order from above under the covid umbrella
    to control the beaches, probably so as NOT to impede any incoming
    indigenous replacement troop movements.
    After reading up on Nelson priti has brought a telescope and is viewing the situation as we type.
    I don’t need a telescope to realise that studying the future and viewing lab/lib/con current actions what rings true is ” I see no ships , only f-ing hardships”

  32. Good Morning, Everyone.

    Firstly, the good news; the Secretary of State for Health and Social Security is now sitting up in bed and can face a light breakfast of weak tea and toast with a scraping of butter. The bad news is that he is not yet firing on all cylinders and is still unable to resume his role as front man for the SAGE committee’s latest nit picking scheme for curtailing your liberty.

    I have been informed by the Secretary of State for Education … Gareth … Graham …? that, because you, the Great British Public are so focused on fighting this horrible pandemic that cruelly slays 000.03% of fat 87 year olds, you have a limited attention span for detailed information. Following Gordon’s excellent advice, we will keep today’s communique short and punchy.

    1. We are right.

    2. You are wrong.

    3. If you argue, we’ll send round a very big policeperson.

    4. Um …. that’s it.

    Please make sure that you do not enjoy your weekend.

    Keep Safe. Keep Scared. Keep Snitching.

    1. 322191+ up ticks,
      Morning Anne,
      The sad thing is many will abide and there will be a segment who will stay self incarcerated until polling day
      when allowed out due to agreement between covid 19 and the current politico’s.
      The vote pattern WILL remain unchanged ( more of the same) and when the whistle blows everybody
      back in chop,chop.

        1. 😆
          Have you ever noticed……..The knot in the elm frame has a face in it as well.

          4. It was impossible to orientate the frame without showing some knot. Still, I don’t mind because I think wood grain should be seen.

          5. It gives it character Grizz.
            A few years ago i carried out a lot of work for Verulam Golf club, it included several large notice board frames made from ash, it seldom has knots in as it grows very straight and fairly quickly. I love looking at ancient wood as the history is interesting when you look at the trees it actually originated from.
            We once went to Tate Modern ….i found the wooden floors more interesting than most of the exhibits. 😉
            There’s a hard wood supplier not far from where i live i have used them as in the case above quite often. Especially English green oak. It usually leaves your hands stained from the tannin.
            At the start of lockdown set out and made a parlour guitar from old timber that had been in my shed for years. part of my parents old Honduras Mahogany coffee table, a piece of cherry wood ( for the neck and bridge) left over from another job. And our neighbours old (thin pale coloured hard wood) window blinds for parts of the decoration.
            I had some pieces of rosewood for the fret board and veneers as well.

          6. My biggest problem here in Sweden, Eddy, is sourcing decent hard wood. I can get as much building pine as I want, we’re surrounded by it, but every supplier in the district seems to just supply the building trade and jobbing joiners.

            If I wanted to get my hands on a decent supply of top-notch oak, ash, elm, cherry, walnut, maple, Douglas fir or western red cedar I would need to travel a very long way to obtain it.

      1. A lady superintendent.

        She was my boss (and friend) when she was an inspector and chief inspector. I had no contact with her for years after she was promoted( and I retired) but got back in touch about four years ago when she tracked me down via an art site I had displayed on. The photograph, from which I painted the portrait, was taken 29 years ago. She is much greyer these days.

    4. Davs, Grizzly,

      You seem to be able to capture the best and most positive in the people you paint. What a gift!

      1. Vær hilset, Lass.

        Thanks, but I’d say it is more hard graft than a ‘gift’. I see a good quality photograph and I try to copy it, especially all the light and shade, and hope it comes out right.

  35. Just in time morning all.
    we spent yesterday at Whipsnade Zoo with our 5 years old grand son, as it seemed many other visitors did.
    Got home exhausted. Dinner a large glass of and early night.

    And so it goes on, the lead headlines just emphasise what many people have been saying for decades me especially.
    Everything the political classes come into contact with they EFF UP big time.

  36. Twitter adds labels. Mial. 7 August 2020.

    Twitter has unveiled new labels marking the tweets and accounts of ‘state-backed media’ as well as official government entities, in a move it says will ‘increase transparency and accountability.’

    Twitter on Thursday announced the new steps to prevent the spread of content from state-affiliated media used to advance a government’s political agenda — a move affecting key outlets from Russia and China.

    Twitter said the decision would not affect ‘state-financed media organizations with editorial independence,’ specifically citing the British-based BBC and US-based National Public Radio.

    This is of course more disguised Liberal political censorship. With Twitters continuing meddling with Trump’s Tweets it cannot be too long before he migrates to Parler. This would I imagine have dire effects on Twitter, since whatever you may think of the President he cannot be ignored!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8601989/Twitter-adds-labels-state-backed-media-editors-government-accounts.html

    1. One snag with Parler is that you have to sign up to read Parles, and another is a specific individual is not searchable from Google.

        1. Not everyone wants to sign up to read it. It’s a hassle.

          To get new peeps interested they should make it easy to get in, not difficult.

          1. I tried to sign up but for some reason they didn’t like my phone number – wasn’t sure what was wrong with it but I couldn’t be bothered to waste time on it. I spend too much time on the internet as it is.

      2. I signed up with Parler but don’t go there much – it’s very clunky. I’m still suspended from Twitter and they ignore all my appeals.

          1. Yes and no – I don’t use Twitter to give the world my thoughts on political matters – but I do use it to spread awareness of things that matter to me. I sign a lot of petitions, mostly on wildlife related or anti hunting or cruelty issues. That’s what most of my followers were interested in.
            Twitter is a very unbalanced forum – they tend to suspend the people they don’t agree with. It’s their right of course, as a private business. They’ve not done me the courtesy of telling me what I have done and they don’t reply to my questions.

    2. The BBCs editorial independence stretches only as far as promoting it’s own agenda. It’s certainly independent of the truth. If twitter wants to reduce bias and improve how it is seen it should roundly ignore the BBC!

      1. But it’s so subjective.
        What, to me is truth, may be false news or bias to you. What is the reference source? Anotehr tweet?
        Quis custodiet ipsus custodies?

        1. Fair enough – truth is the wrong word. Let’s call them facts, evidence from the occassion.

          The BBC presents only the evidence it approves of. The information that frames the narrative it wants to present. It excludes that which disagrees with it, or presents the full picture.

          For example (and these are myriad): Israel fired rockets that destroyed a Palestinian school today.

          Immediately we get the evidence that the BBC favours. It will ignore that one rocket was fired, that the school was likely given a warning (as they do), that Hamas fired fifty rockets at Israel first and that Hamas used school children as a human shield.

          The BBC doesn’t lie – it just doesn’t tell the truth.

          Another one – and I complained about this – the BBC writes a thorough hit piece of the Rohinga Buddhists. There was about 1000 words saying how terribly the Muslims were having things, the assaults the beatings.

          They, of course, ignore the decade of abuse, rapes, child kidnappings, murders, stabbings, theft, open assault and burning down their homes, desecration of holy places the Buddhists had tolerated.

          The BBC is biased. Deeply, thoroughly, completely biased.

          2. I agree entirely. They tell the truth, but not the whole truth, selectively editing the evidence to support their political view. If anybody pulls them up on it, they can challenge “Where did we lie??” – and they didn’t, just left stuff out “as we only have a short time to present the story”.

          3. A duck??
            Edit: Google advises: “Schwimmvogel mit kurzem Hals, breitem Schnabel und Schwimmfüßen”

          7. A duck??
            Edit: Google advises: “Schwimmvogel mit kurzem Hals, breitem Schnabel und Schwimmfüßen”

  37. Was Lady Thatcher toppled because of a cleverly planned sting to put Soros’ guy in place to enable the ERM crash ?

    There looks likely to have been contact with Soros by the topplers in Jan 90 at Davos before the toppling !

    Far fetched ?

    Please pick holes in this theory.

    2. Kinks, Beatles, Rolling Stones, hot summers, no riots …. well, there were a few problems with mods v. rockers …

  39. Christopher Steele: Ex-spy says more must be done to stop Russian interference. BBC. 7 August 2020.

    There must be an organised effort to prevent Russia from disrupting and distorting political life, former MI6 officer Christopher Steele has warned.

    Mr Steele was behind the so-called Trump-Russia dossier, which alleged collusion between Moscow and the US president’s 2016 election campaign.

    Man manufactures Fake Dossier against Presidential Candidate with the aid of Russian contact Sergei Skripal. Finds out that Sergei is about to blab so attempts to murder him and his daughter. Of course we should believe him!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53685051

    1. Gosh we are so blessed to have people like Christopher Steele guarding our democracy in their spare time.

    2. It is an interesting article by the BBC. No news as such. The article alludes to the Parliamentary Report/Russia Inquiry to which Mr Steele contributed.
      No mention that Mr Steele’s activity in respect of Trump have been largely discredited which would suggest that he is not to be trusted. So BBC, your motto is “Why you can trust us”, yet you splash large the prognostications of a man who could not be relied on to tell you what day it is.
      If I wanted to suborn UK politics, I would set up a consultancy business and a Think tank. I would recruit MPs, Tory and Labour, as consultants and “thinkers”. Thinkers would include civil servants and Government advisors (SAGE members and the like). All paid handsomely.
      There are no regulations to stop MPs working for a Russian owned company although one would be sufficiently discreet as to hide the ownership somewhere offshore. “The UK is open for business”
      There are no regulations to stop or control Russians, or any other foreigners, owning businesses and property in the UK, from Premier League football clubs to Highland Estates.
      (Lord save us, we don’t even control Albanian gangsters, pimps and thieves.)

  41. 322191+ up ticks,
    Why are these governance wallahs accepting these “troops” in waiting,with no IDs, illegally entering and being absorbed into the welfare system ?

    At least no ID should equate to No welfare.

    If not then should the tax paying indigenous work an extra day ( Mugsday)
    could follow Sunday to cover any outlay as in hotel bills etc incurred via Dover & likes.

  43. ‘Morning, again. Just back from early dog walk. 24° currently. Unfortunately Betty Swollox has already arrived and seems intent on staying all day.

  44. In today’s Telegraph –
    “The Navy could be called in to help reduce the number of illegal
    migrants crossing the Channel after 235 reached the UK in a new record
    for a single day.”
    Read –
    “The Navy will be called in to ferry more illegal migrants to our shores”

    A government spokesman said –
    “”We would need to decide their exact role, but we don’t want them to become a taxi service.”
    I suppose he means “another”taxi service

    1. Yo Stupendous

      The Navy will be called in to ferry more illegal migrants to our shores”

      That positively, for certain, doubly guaranteed, assuredlyestere will never happen

      The RN is Shipless in La Mancha and everywhere else too

        1. The French are considering rerouteing the Canal Du Midi so that it goes direct from Toulon to Calais, so that immigrants can pass through France without actually putting a foot on land in the place

    2. Their traffic is illegal. The French know where they’re leaving from. It is Frances’ duty to deal with them. Why is it not obeying international law? Too eh ho eh ho for them?

  45. Nicked from another Rick

    Priti Patel has done her celebrated trademark anger and fury for the media
    this morning. Even demanded that The Royal Navy do something although
    it’s not clear WHAT some RN skipper should do.

    “Can I sink them?”
    “No.”
    “If I see one in difficulty can I just ignore it?”
    “No.”
    “Can I tow them back to France?”
    “No.”
    “You just want me to show up so you can stand on deck and look like you’re doing something for the cameras, don’t you.”
    “Send one of those big ones with a helicopter on.”

    So that’s that. A tough speech from a tough-talking Home Invasion
    Secretary that the media will report as a tough speech from a
    tough-talking Home Secretary. Again. And nothing changes.

  46. Good afternoon NoTTLers

    .
    Yes! From TAKI (and too me ages – bl**dy laptop .

    A Cruel Nature
    Theodore Dalrymple

    August 07, 2020

    Most people, I suppose, would be pleased by the death of a rat that lived near their house, but this is probably because they are much more likely to see a rat already dead than a rat actually dying. In fact, until today, I had never seen a rat dying of the rat poison put down every six months by our pest controller.

    The rat poison is an anticoagulant and the rat (or mouse) that consumes it dies of bleeding. In theory, the rat or mouse leaves the house to die outside, in the open air, though very occasionally, after an absence of a few months, we find a mummified mouse under a kilim. It is amazing how penetrating a smell the corpse of so small a creature can generate.

    We returned from the market today to find a rat on the grass about ten yards from the front door. It was clearly an unwell rat. It staggered a little, as if drunk, and then collapsed on its side, panting. It was actually rather a handsome rat, with brown fur on its back and fine cream-colored fur on its underside. Its eyes were still bright, as if they generated a light from within. There was dried blood that had emanated from its right ear. It gasped a few times, uttered a few plaintive squeaks, and began to convulse a little, kicking its hind legs. The light seemed to go out in its eyes, and it stopped breathing.

    My wife had been horrified by the little animal at first, but her horror quickly changed to sympathy. All we saw in the little animal, which by no means seemed hostile to us, and had rather a nice, intelligent face, was suffering. When it had breathed its last, we decided on a decent burial for it, scooping it up on a shovel and providing it with a kind of cortege (a friend was also present). We buried it under some oak leaves in a flower bed. We did not go quite so far as to pronounce a eulogy.

    “It is strange how one invests animals with moral qualities.”
    Since the rat died of poisoning, it must have been in our house because there was no such poison anywhere else. But however much we didn’t like the idea of rats in general being in our house, we felt compassion for this rat as an individual. The case illustrates, perhaps, an important general principle, namely that you cannot allow a single instance of suffering, however much you may sympathize with it, to determine an entire policy: For notwithstanding our sympathy with this rat, we had no real intentions of allowing rats to pullulate in our house and therefore of not employing our pest controller again.

    Pest controllers are (in my experience) interesting people. They have a respect for the animals they control or try to eliminate. They have studied the habits of their sworn enemies. Our pest controller has defeated the weasels in our attic, who were attracted there by the fiberglass insulation in which they like to nest. We used to hear them scurrying about; not an unpleasant sound, but mildly disturbing. We hear them no more.

    It is strange how one invests animals with moral qualities. When a horsefly bites me, I experience not only pain but something like moral outrage against the fly. I think it has bitten me out of spite, or deliberately; it is a morally bad creature.

    I cannot altogether condemn the 40,000 bees who nested this year (as last year) between our bathroom window and the wooden shutters, however. Everyone knows that there is a world shortage of bees, and that we, the human race, are sunk without them. They do the world’s work, which is why we are able to forgive them when one of them accidentally stings us: indeed, the fault is probably ours.

    We called a local apiarist to take away the miraculously constructed nest. The art of doing so without harm to the swarm is to capture the queen, but this is not always possible and on this occasion the apiarist failed, as he said in advance that he might. He put an artificial hive in the garden in the hope that the queen would enter and all the others follow, but this did not seem to work. Most of the bees flew off to a certain death, but a few thousand (on my estimate) stayed behind and continued to live where the nest had been.

    We watched their numbers dwindle inexorably, like veterans after a war, or as if they were the survivors of a medieval city after a visitation of Genghis Khan. Strangely enough, we felt a kind of sorrow for them, as if they were suffering, as if they knew that they were doomed to an early death and were suffering from acute nostalgia.

    The fact is that one (or perhaps I should say I) cannot help but infuse the animate world with human qualities, sometimes even the plant world. The thorns of the acacia or the bramble have a different moral quality from those of a rose. As for wasps, by comparison with bees, they are pure evil. Every year on a terrace I watch a certain species of wasp, Palmodes strigulosus, with a red and black abdomen and a wasp-waist to end all wasp-waists, drag up a large and handsome bright-green grasshopper, Tettigonia viridissima, much larger than itself, which it has paralyzed with its sting, to its nest in the wall for consumption by its larvae. This is appalling. I feel like intervening on the grasshopper’s behalf and rescuing it from being eaten alive. Grasshoppers (other than locusts, of course) are harmless and delightful. What harm have they ever done wasps to be preyed upon in this heartless fashion?

    Absurd, of course. Wasps are not moral agents, and cannot do other than they do. I am perfectly aware of this, yet each time I watch the spectacle of the wasp and the grasshopper, I experience the same emotions. At the same time, I am aware that the emotions I have are not reasonable or a proper guide to action. It is a useful reminder that strong emotion is not, of itself, a reason for doing something, let alone a useful guide to policy. The heart has its reasons that the head knows not of, Pascal said; but it is just as true that the head has its reasons that the heart knows not of. Reason and feeling must be in some kind of balance. At the moment, feeling in the ascendant, at least in the West, with disastrous results.

  47. Afternoon all.

    It now appears that #blackskinmatters. The latest al-beeb whinge is about sun cream being primarily for white folks Tis neverending, innit..

  48. 322191+ up ticks,
    “Converting offices ( inclusive of closed down business premises ie butchers, bakers, candle stick etc,etc ) casualties of treachery, to house
    invasion troops & gives said troops overall, in every town a central position.

    Councillors,
    A word about their future as councillors would not go amiss unless like many regarding MPs “he / she is so nice it is not their fault”, that is the mindset of an idiot as our current condition as a Country shows us,
    ( nobody has found the bottom of the sh!te pit yet)

    1. They are a heartless and blinking useless government .

      They are ruining villages, there is no infrastructure in place , no jobs , traffic terrible , and the ideas that city planners have does not sit comfortably in the countryside .

      1. I suggest, that all new builds should be centred on land owned by

        Sir Reginald Adrian Berkeley Sheffield,

        Normanby Park (in Lincolnshire) and Sutton Park (in the village of Sutton on the Forest, near York)

        D Cameron’s Father-in-Law

        1. Here’s another over privileged mob of greedy shysters.
          http://www.gascoynececil.com/symondshyde/
          http://www.save-symondshyde.co.uk/whos-behind-it/

          In their Corporate Greed Bull Shite they are saying that it’s much needed housing development for the retired.
          It’s absolute nonsense there has never been a need to develop green belt, natural habitat and agricultural land.
          Beside the ignored fact there is a serious shortage of water in this area already.
          The river Mimram is a trickle, the Ver has dried up and the Lea is very low due to repeated probably illegal abstraction.

      2. It’s the same here. As a parish councillor, I’m facing an uphill battle to curb useless housebuilding.

          1. The Parish Council rejects plans as unsuitable, not in the community interest, over-development, outside the development area, not in accordance with the Place Plan, etc, etc, only for County to grant permission. The other side of the coin is our seeing that a rebuild of a house (in a more elegant style) on the same footprint is an improvement and then County rejects it!

    2. Odd that they seem desperate to force down energy usage to meet an idiotic climate change target but perversely are desperate to build more houses to house gimmigrants who shouldn’t be here.

      Have they just become confused over their policies? Surely we want more power stations and fewer houses and gimmigrants? That, after all is common sense.

  51. I don’t know if the pandemic is over but lying in the paddling pool drinking beers I spotted at least thirty planes going over.

    1. I drove up and down the A66, the M6 and M74 on my visit to South Lanarkshire this week and the roads were very busy with all sorts of traffic. White vans were very prominent. On a trip up tp Gullane the A roads were very busy as well. There must have been some protest on the ring road at Edinburgh as there was severe congestion on the way up to Gullane. When we came back we were warned on the overhead display signs that the congestion was due to “People on the road”. We took a quieter way home. The Scottish news the following day had a report about a go slow in Edinburgh caused by bus coaches driving slowly in Edinburgh city towards the Scottish Parliament . Perhaps our delay was caused by this protest, I think about the Lockdown policies. I think the lockdown measures will never be repeated but the pandemic has some life in it yet.

  52. ITV, I imagine, will think they are onto a woke winner tonight with their late-night film ‘The Danish Girl’. ‘A successful landscape painter comes to question his gender identity after donning women’s clothing to appear in painting by his artist wife’.

    I, for one, will resist the temptation to watch.

    2. Thanks for posting. Never in a million years would the Socialist Wokers at the BBC dream of showing this interview even though they would swear even unto death that they believed in Diversity!

    3. I very much like Laurence Fox and agree with him but I do hope he gets those horrible tattoos removed.

    4. If I were PM, I’d have him running DCMS, after a stint as Equalities Secretary.

  57. 322191+ up ticks,
    As with any schemes such as this, initially a pilot scheme then the improvements such as this appear.
    One frigate alone could accommodate the same number as multiple trips by smugglers also cut out the middle man.
    Fee can be trousered by the politico’s with a small % going to party funds.

    breitbart,
    Patel Could Send Navy to Channel After Record 235 Migrants Cross: Report.

    Could,might, maybe, maybe not.

  58. Just picked up a Statement from a senior Israeli politician, Moshe Feiglin, the leader of the Zehut Party there, and did once stand for the office of PM when he was in Likud. He is a bit of a thorn in the side of the authorities – he was going to send all the “Arabs” in Gaza into camps, so that the land could be cleared to make Living Space for settlers.

    He had this to say about the Beirut disaster “I feel joyful witnessing the explosions in Beirut, This joy is a gift to the Israelis on the occasion of the Jewish holiday of love”.

    Nice chap! Is it antisemitic to criticise him?

    2. He sounds full of hate perhaps because of Arab assaults against him or his family. Most of the hatred, the hatred that leads to genocide is one sided.

  59. If this is a repeat, no matter – it bears repetition:

    Why are we so heavy-handed on quarantine but hand-wringing over Channel crossings?

    Ministers must not betray the millions of Tory voters who backed them because they love their country and want to see strong borders

    George Orwell once wrote that “political language is designed to make lies sound truth and murder respectable, and to give an impression of solidity to pure wind.” There could not be a better description of the yawning chasm between the Tory Government’s stern rhetoric on immigration and their shameful record of laxity, feebleness and cowardice.

    Ministers love to talk about strict border controls, but in reality they preside over a shambolic system devoid of any integrity or rigour. They blather about “our precious union” but cynically collude in the erosion of our national identity, solidarity, and history through their open-door policy.

    In recent days, top Conservatives have been at it again, proclaiming their lion-hearted determination to tackle the surge in Channel crossings by boatloads of illegal migrants while in practice doing nothing practical to stop the flow.

    This morning on Sky News, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak declared that the immigration minister Chris Philp will hold vital talks next week with his French counterpart to decide what measures can be taken against this criminal traffic. Meanwhile, the Home Secretary Priti Patel, queen of the tough-talking rhetoricians, is said to be “furious” about the rise in people smuggling across the Channel, which yesterday reached a daily record of 235 arrivals.

    Altogether it is estimated that so far this year, 3800 illegal migrants have landed on the shores of Kent and Sussex, compared to 2000 for the whole of 2019 and just 1300 in 2018.

    Ms Patel reportedly wants to deploy the Royal Navy to reduce these spiralling numbers, which have been fuelled partly by the calm sunny weather and partly by a change in tactics by the people smugglers who seek to overwhelm the border authorities by launching multiple crossings.

    Smuggling can be a highly lucrative business, as shown by the case of Leonard Powell, a gang leader from Kent who was jailed in 2018 – and told last year to pay back £138,000 – after making an estimated £268,000 through the illicit Channel trade in people.

    In fact, an Interpol report in 2015 stated that the global profits from such smuggling amounted to over £4 billion.

    The Tories also like to rage against the French, both for their failure to uphold the law and their toleration of squalid migrant camps around Calais. But the fact is that these camps would not exist if Britain was not such a pathetic soft touch.

    If our Government upheld our southern maritime border, cracked down on the people traffickers and deported the illegal migrants, then our country would cease to be such a magnet. But the Home Office and its useless agencies do the opposite, with the Border Force often acting as a kind of welcoming escort for the cross-channel dinghies.

    Even worse, evidence diligently compiled by Nigel Farage appears to reveal that the migrants, far from facing detention once they land, are taken by coach to luxury hotels in the north and the midlands at taxpayers’ expense. If that is true, the threats to deploy the Navy are hardly credible.

    What makes this farce all the more offensive is the juxtaposition of handwringing paralysis over the Channel, with the heavy-handed enforcement of quarantine on law-abiding tourists because of fears about the spread of coronavirus.

    It is a bitter irony that, because of the travel restrictions imposed in July, illegal migrants crossing the Channel can find it easier to arrive in this country than taxpaying British citizens.

    On Saturday at Heathrow, there were huge queues at arrivals because of the demands for compliance with the new rules, prompting one Labour MP caught up in the mayhem to describe the scenes as “totally unacceptable” – words his party have never used about the Channel fiasco.

    The quarantine problems are likely to worsen. Not only is the list of affected countries becoming longer – today Belgium, Andorra and the Bahamas were added – but even France, Britain’s favourite tourist destination, is now in the Government’s sights because of a spike in cases there. “We will not hesitate to take action,” declared the Chancellor Rishi Sunak this morning, even though such a step would be another hammer blow to the fragile travel industry.

    The Government’s priorities are inverted. The real place for action is in the Channel, but the busy stretch of water is likely to become another arena for disillusion.

    This time last year, Priti Patel vowed to eliminate illegal crossings by now. For all her noisy indignation, she has failed miserably in that task. But this is part of a wider historic failure by the Tories on immigration.

    For more than a decade, the party has promised to reduce dramatically the influx, only to see it rise inexorably, According to the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics, the number of people who settled here in 2019 was an incredible 677,000, two-thirds of them from outside the European Union. At the same time, the total of people offered asylum reach 20,300, a rise of 17 per cent on the previous year.

    Supporters of mass immigration like to extol the economic prosperity and cultural enrichment brought by this demographic revolution. But that is just empty propaganda. Contrary to the claims of the liberal chattering classes, the vast majority of migrants do not come here to fill jobs.

    In truth, according to the latest ONS study, just 219,000 out of the 677,000 new arrivals were actually looking for work. The soaring population has also massively increased the burden on welfare, the NHS, public services, and the housing stock, while unchecked immigration has also been accompanied by the import of gang violence, brutish misogyny against women, religious extremism, and exploitation of labour, as the recent outbreak of Covid-19 in Leicester’s hidden fashion industry demonstrated. Theresa May liked to present herself as the champion of the war on modern slavery in Britain, but our land would not be scarred by such a vile phenomenon if we had stricter border controls.

    Above all, the relentless flood has badly undermined Britain’s cohesion, shattering the bonds of mutual trust and shared values that used to hold together our society.

    Against the backdrop of more than 650,000 new arrivals every year, our civic institutions are engaged in a permanent Maoist revolution to dump our heritage and promote the need creed of diversity. It is a mission that features toxic identity politics, McCarthyite witch-hunts, re-writing history, ideological bureaucracies, educational indoctrination and hierarchies of victimhood. By seeing everything through the prism of race and emphasizing difference, it foments division rather than unity.

    This is no way for a Tory Government to behave. Millions of people voted Conservative at the last election because they love their country and believe in strong borders. They should not be betrayed. Instead of pontificating, ministers should act. The southern coast would be a good place to start.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/07/heavy-handed-quarantine-hand-wringing-channel-crossings/

    3. It’s all over for the Conservative Party which is being led by an absurdly incompetent buffoon.

      Now is the time for a new party to emerge.

      Yes, I know that Nigel Farage let us down by capitulating to Johnson and not keeping his Brexit Party candidates in place in constituencies where the existing member was a remainer. However he has has learnt from this never to trust the Conservative Party – and especially Boris Johnson – ever again.

      Without Farage we would not have escaped from the EU. I don’t know who is going to help us escape from the total mess Johnson and Co have created but Farage is better than anyone else that I can think of.

      Any suggestions as to who else could be a contender?

          1. Too old & tired.
            He went off when the IRA dropped the Brighton hotel on his wife. Not surprisingly, really, and I admire his dedication to her in her invalidity. Honourable man. The best PM Britain never had, IMHO.

      4. Well said, the Conservatives have neglected protection of British culture and identity for at least 65 years.

  61. Temporary mortuary to be transformed into wildflower meadow as tribute to Covid-19 victims
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/07/temporary-mortuary-transformed-wildflower-meadow-tribute-covid/

    A temporary mortuary will be turned into a wildflower meadow as a tribute to those who have died in the pandemic.

    The site at Wanstead Flats in east London, one of six emergency mortuaries to be erected at the peak of the health crisis, was opened in April to help store bodies of Covid-19 victims.

    However, as the death rate has fallen, the decision has been taken to dismantle the building so the four-acre spot near Epping Forest can be “reseeded with native species”.

    What about the “Second Wave”?

      1. Nope, they are invaders, like mink, coypu, American crayfish, rabbits and grey squirrels.

    3. “reseeded with native species“.

      So, what you are saying is, there will be more machette attacks in London, with the white victims being buried at Wanstead Flats.

      Bit the same as happens at Notting Hill flats

    6. There’s a standing stone been erected somewhere in Shropshire (saw the headline but didn’t read the article) in honour of the Covid 19 “victims”. Really, it’s getting beyond a joke. Were there memorials to the victims of the Asian Flu, Bird Flu or any of the other nasties?

      1. Just Ancient Britons and the odd Pict, Scot and Celt? No one of Roman, Viking, Jute, Angle, Saxon or Norman derivation?

    8. As long as we don’t have to start a “Second Clap” every Thursday evening.

  63. Afternoon dear people ..

    Would you believe we had only 3 hours of heatwave up untill 12.30 pm ..

    Went shopping , travelled to Weymouth this afternoon , huge clouds above, and the ocean liners had a haze of smog pollution above their funnels… yellowish streak across the sky .. there are still many liners anchored in the bay , and the weather was deteriorating .. people were leaving the beaches in droves ,,, as light splish splashes hit my windscreen.

    How could the BBC get things so wrong, Moh looked at his weather app on his phone before we set off , and said it is so simple , the BBC weather bods are absolute twerps!

    The combine harvester is droning on in the field near us , they have been very busy all around us , whilst the weather holds!!!

    Raindrops are on and off, but the clouds look as if it might rumble on tonight .

    Unpacked the shopping , fed the dogs . Moh is catching up with the cricket , and now a nice cup of tea time!

      1. Good heavens , rain alarm was correct but the BBC weather wasn’t .

        Thanks for the chart , interesting ..

        We were expecting storms tomorrow,

        Is that bye bye summer , and repeat of last year?

        1. Yesterday’s BBC South forecast was for the possibility of a few scattered showers later in the day but there was a bit more activity on that front than was expected – but still in the correct area.

          The forecast for most of the rest of the country was broadly correct.

          There’s still plenty of warm weather to come this weekend but with the risk of showers early next week.

    3. Yes well it clouded over here an hour to the NE of you but that didn’t stop it being a heatwave, just a rather unpleasant non-sunny horribly humid heatwave.

    1. I’m guilty of using cardinal points when giving direction – sorry 🙁

  66. ‘Migrant smuggling’ sting brings M25 to a standstill: Police swoop on lorry and arrest driver causing seven-mile tailbacks after motorists spot people streaming out of the trailer
    ‘Police incident’ brings traffic to a standstill on the M25 near Brentwood, Essex
    Multiple police cars were seen surrounding a lorry on a lay-by this afternoon
    Witnesses saw people leaving a lorry on the side of the carriageway at 12.45pm
    A lorry driver, 45, was arrested at the scene suspected of immigration offences
    Drivers have been seen getting out of their cars during scorching 92F heat

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8604459/M25-gridlocked-seven-mile-queues-police-surround-lorry.html

    1. A “sting” suggests the police had a plan to entrap these lawbreakers and pounced once they were in the trap. Reading the article simply shows that it was members of the public reporting to the police that they had seen many people getting out of the lorry which resulted in the police racing to the scene. Some “sting”!

      1. The only sting that will occur with be aimed at the UK tax payers.
        Old Bill or immigration/border farce usually let them out on bail………..

        1. Eddy – They should be treated as the criminals they are and get no assistance either legally or financially. Hold them in custody until they agree to return to France where they can seek EU citizenship. In the UK, before deportation, their DNA, fingerprints and facial recognition data should be taken and stored and they should be informed that they will never get UK citizenship should they ever seek it..

    3. All the immigrants have escaped. Still, the driver will be fined…oh, wait, the evidence has vanished.

  67. Wish me luck at 16:20. I’m having my left knee jabbed. It’s got two chances i suppose.
    Job done no pain no bleeding just hope and touching wood.

  68. Father-of-30 miner who became an overnight millionaire digging up huge ultra-rare gemstones says he has made his THIRD multi-million-pound find in weeks
    Small-scale miner vowed to use earnings to build a school and shopping mall
    Father-of-30 handed gem stone to government officials in exchange for cheque
    Saniniu Laizer found two other chunks of the stone last month in north Tanzania
    Tanzanite is ultra rare and found only in a small region of the East African nation

    (FOUR wives and 30 children) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8602533/Father-30-miner-says-multi-million-pound-weeks.html?ito=social-twitter_mailonline

    Does this sort of thing happen in Britain?

    1. Apart from finding gem stones (other than in the benefits office) and using the money for good projects, yes, of course.

    2. 322191+ up ticks,
      Afternoon TB,
      The four wives do, and why would one bend ones back driving a one RB ( shovel) when they have welfare at hand.

    3. Oh dear, it must be the heat.

      …and found only in a small region of the East African nation country.

      Or do the natives carry it around in their pockets?

      1. Hi J,

        Well of course not, but we do have many superfast breeders here in the UK, and tower blocks of mothers who have multiple children by different men .

        1. We certainly do – but I don’t begrudge the Maasai their extra wives and children as they live sustainably and in harmony with their wildlife.

  69. The legal sharks representing the illegal immigrants/ invaders are saying that the UK is intending to fly some of their lucrative clients back to France and Germany on Wednesday next week . BBC Radio 4 news. The message seems to be getting through to our masters. Much too late though.

      1. Our masters are lumping the issue of the immigrant staying in a hotel policy for local authorities to deal with.
        The No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) policy really backfires to the electorate who voted in our local authorities – unless of course the Government flies them back somewhere at the cost to the taxpayer – oh, that’s us again innit!

        When asked whether it was conceivable that individuals with NRPF will be kicked out onto the streets again, Mr Carswell said: “That would be the worse-case scenario from a public health viewpoint, but local authorities may feel that they are backed into a corner. Finding long-term solutions will certainly not be possible and they may find a solution week on week.”

        https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/homeless-migrants-may-be-offered-voluntary-repatriation-once-hotels-close-says-minister-66389

      2. Afternoon A-S – The BBC were reporting what the solicitors were telling them. I just reported the BBC 1 pm version of the matter. It may be true or the solicitors are trying to stop their clients being deported. As far as I am concerned my paraphrased report was factual. I can see problems if that is what the government intends to do. On arrival at the foreign airports the plane could be detained and the passengers confined to the plane until the UK agreed to take them back.

      3. The BBC now reporting that 20 peop[e will be deported to France and Germany on Wednesday. Just a drop in the ocean.

  70. 322191+ up ticks.
    It goes to show how treacherously dangerous these governance parties are
    when using deceitful rhetoric to protect an ISLAND & it’s peoples.

    The best that can be said of them is on sanity grounds they are not fit to plead.

    Surely every lab/lib/con current supporter / member / voter could lay a valid claim against these parties for mental damage for starters, then murder,
    rape & abuse, terrorism etc,etc,etc stemming back four decades at least all done under the mass uncontrolled immigration policy, ONGOING.

    We voted OUT on the 24/6/2016 yet we are still under the boot of these semi rubber stampers.

    1. Ada: “But you don’t watch the BBC news let alone with your face mask on – and your glasses only steam up when you’re watching the weather girl!”

    2. Unfortunately poppiesdad could not see his feet after visiting the doctor yesterday thanks to the face mask. He was on his way back to the car park after a blood test, turned his head to ensure he was not about to walk in the path of a car, stumbled on the uneven ground and fell over. It is possible his glasses were steamed up as well.

      2. Oh dear, I hope he is alright , poor poppiesdad.

        We both wear glasses, and ours steam up quite quickly, when the specs mist up , you cannot see a thing.

        1. Yes, he is fine, thank you, poor old boy, he just found it a bit unnerving, Shaken and stirred but no damage.

      3. I sympathise. I had to don a mask twice today (once for the chemist and once for the supermarket). I couldn’t wait to get out and take it off on both occasions (and I don’t wear glasses). I cannot understand why people were wandering around in the street wearing masks!

        1. They are suffering from a common condition which in medical parlance is known as stupidity

          1. I think they are in the grip of Project Fear, myself. That, combined with inability to think for themselves leads to stupefaction.

        2. I really fail to understand the logic of the people I see driving cars, on their own in said car, and wearing a mask!

          2. Saves messing with it with your hands and increasing the spreading of viruses… just leave it alone!

      4. poppiesmum pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of failing to wipe his glasses…

        She was initially held on suspicion of nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

  73. A lighter moment away from the continued planned destruction of the UK by people far away and closer to home ( Westminster).

    The bare cheek of it! Naked man is forced to chase a wild boar after it snatched his laptop at a naturist hotspot in Germany

    https://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-8603767/Naked-man-forced-chase-wild-boar-snatched-laptop-naturist-hotspot-Germany.html

    Could have been worse, the wild boar could have snatched his “dongle”

  74. ‘Truly evil’ Wesley Streete jailed for life for rape and murder of Keeley Bunker. 7 August 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/67574e2986274b8dfa859b2ffecd1e590247e611bc7bec279891c8cce3e092c2.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/174cf8877b2d8192840c5f8b55c2be5e65345f5943e9f1a093930e81da12a70a.jpg

    A “truly evil” former warehouse packer has been jailed for life for raping and murdering a “caring” would-be classroom assistant and friend.

    Wesley Streete dumped Keeley Bunker’s body face-down in a brook in a park before trying to conceal her body with branches on 19 September last year.
    Streete, previously of Tamworth, was also found guilty of two other counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault against three other victims, said to have happened in previous years.

    They tell these children at school and on television that these people are really just like us and so they all go to their fate unknowing.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/07/wesley-streete-jailed-for-life-for-rape-and-murder-of-keeley-bunker

      1. May I Fiddle B3

        It’s always the people the media least most suspects, but they will not say

        The BBC, who WILL be funding his appeal, as BLM ya’know, whilst White Ones Do Not to them

    3. Filthy POS………. Life ? But really everything he needs or demands at the tax payers expense.

      1. Except for he’s in lockdown, not of his choosing. Imagine lockdown for years – the 3 or so months this year was bad enough.
        Oh, yes, and some rough bugger shagging you in the ar** at frequent intervals.
        It would have been easier and better all round not to have harmed that poor lass.

  75. Prevening, all. Ditching double rates for living over the shop would help, too. I have long thought that having people living in town centres would go a long way to stopping anti-social behaviour. If there’s nobody around (and you certainly don’t see plod on the beat), there’s nothing to stop the ferals doing whatever they like.

    1. We used to live over Douglas the Butcher in Newport Pagnell High Street. It was excellent, very handy – especially when we called the fire brigade to a fire in their shop on a Sunday morning. (the ham boiler had gone dry). Hell, our flat was just above!

    3. Why is that AH still breathing ?
      It invites the question which one………….or both.

  77. Huge wild fire hits SURREY: Blaze that can be seen from central London breaks out on Chobham Common and cancels women’s golf competition
    Fire crews are tackling a grass fire larger than 40 hectares in Cobham Common
    Play at the Rose Ladies Series Grand Final had to be halted this afternoon
    The fire spread to Wentworth golf course and 10 fire engines are at the scene

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8605141/Huge-wild-fire-hits-SURREY.html?ito=push-notification&ci=26995&si=7271111

          6. In the last few days, Surrey has had fires at Hankley Common, Thursley Common and now Chobham Common. One wonders whether they have anything in, er… connection.

    2. I heard one lady golfer got singed between the first and second hole

      Reports are coming in that there wasn’t much room for a plaster

  79. Air India plane crashed on landing at Kerala in India and there are 14 fatalities including the two pilots.. Plane split in two. It was bringing migrant workers back from Dubai. There were 191 people on board.

    2. Overshot and went down a slope, by the looks of things. Why they didn’t level off the slope (or culvert it) is a question.

      2. Side of a hill? It’s quite common – a 146 went off the west end of the runway at Stord some years ago, down the hill in a forested boulder field.

        1. Back in 2005 an Air France jet missed Toronto airport and landed in a gully just beyond the airport.

          Raging snowstorm at the time, most other flights were diverted. No lives were lost.

  80. Thought for the day:

    Why doesn’t the border farce interview ALL the illegal immigrants that arrive and find out exactly what qualifications these people claim to have and publish the results?

    Doctors: Nil
    Nurses: Nil
    Engineers: Nil
    Architects/lawyers/bankers/accountants: Nil
    Plumbers/electricians: Nil
    Labourers/fruitpickers: 10%

    Lazy layabouts expecting a life on benefits 90%

    Come on border farce, tell us what we’re really importing.

  81. More good news…tra la la la la. My Malta holiday that i posponed from Spring to September is now cancelled. My dear friend who died was also my dog sitter. It’s far too late to get another. They are all full.

    I’m just waiting for the third disaster.

    1. Can’t you get Dolly chipped with a pet passport and insist she’s a comfort dog for flying?

      1. There’s also the business of vaccinations & parasite control. When I brought Missy from Sweden via Germany to Blighty it was quite a palaver. Even more so because the vet in Germany forgot to put her chip number on the forms, so there was a hold-up in Calais. The French official was very understanding, handed me a free phone & I was able to sort it out, but it was complicated.

      2. She is chipped and has her normal vaccs. Don’t know a travel abroad. I’m just so fed up with ‘am i going’…No. Then maybe. Then no. Then yes. Sod it. I’m done.

        1. The can we, can’t we, is driving our potential UK gite guests mad.

          We were almost fully booked, then lost every booking, then gained four bookings, one has been, French, one has now cancelled, German and two are still in limbo, UK getting regular updates. It’s a fat lot of good, of course, because it can all be changed overnight on a politician’s whim.

        2. See my response to Sos just below. In 2005 cats had to have all their vaccs & a certificate of parasite control which had to be carried out within 24 hrs of their entry to the UK (there was a time window), as well as a pet passport & being chipped. Regs may have changed since then. In Germany I knew a couple years ago who used to fly Lufthansa 1st class to Mallorca several times a year, as did I with the boys. She used to carry their small pooch (no idea what it was) in a carry-on bag. Regs for Germany may be different.

    2. Kepeing my fungers crorsed for yoy. Phizeze.
      Bugergrs up the tipying, though.
      Seriously, Wishing you some good luck.

    4. Phil. Dolly can stay here if it helps. I’m not exactly on the doorstep, I know, but I’ve had one or two canine guests over the years, and they all survived the experience…

    5. If I weren’t so far away, I’d offer to host Dolly (my aged pooch is fine with ladies).

        1. I have done it for my neighbour’s dogs. Despite his reputation (he’s a feisty terrierist), he’s a softy with the ladies 🙂

          2. Evening (actually early morning), John. I don’t doubt it 🙂 After lockdown I was even beginning to look like him (he’s quite shaggy).

          3. I was thinking more of the (positive) latter point, but if the collar fits….
            🙂

    7. Oh Phiz, that’s awful. Could the holiday go ahead if there was someone else to look after Dolly? Mind, I’m guessing Dolly was especially fond of your friend too?

      1. Yes she was. My friends dog died earlier in the year but Dolly is oblivious as she hasn’t been back yet and now never will.

        The dog in question was a very old, blind and deaf Westie. So no surprise there.

    8. Oh Phiz! I’m so sorry. I send you love and best wishes and hope that good things will follow.

  82. Some notes from the BBC. The report on illegal immigrants was concluded by the reporter saying, “this crisis may turn into a tragedy”.
    A reporter in some overcrowded English resort delivered his report while wearing a mask in the street…

    Sheer lunacy. Sympathy for criminals and no understanding of the recommendations or of alleged risks.

  83. Q: What’s your reaction to the headline ‘Prince Harry accuses social media of stoking a ‘crisis of hate’. 7 August 2020.’

    A: My guess is that it’s what Harry (privately) classifies as a quiet day with SWMBOOTBT if there’s been only one crisis.

    Note: OTBT = Or there’ll be trouble

    2. Does he support Trump’s idea of treating social media companies as publishers? If so, then they can be held responsible for any hate/hurty content.

    3. Harry’s a jerk Meagain is a Yank, yank jerk, yank jerk, until mutually satisfied?

    4. My immediate reaction is that the poor sap has lost it, if indeed he ever had it!

    1. Entweder sie haben Angst vor uns oder wir gehen unter. So sieht es aus.

      Either they’re afraid of us or we’ll have to capitulate. That’s how it appears.

    1. There’s a quirky campsite near Newmarket that’s called The Missing Sock. I often stay there when I’m going racing or visiting my horses.

  88. Good evening from the Red Lion in Stiffkey.
    Got here after a 4h drive, with a couple of stops, and managed to find somewhere for a cooling dip after a short walk. The pubs about half a mile from where I’m parked up.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/89ef00840d49e343131bdf35ea728d15e4fe202e63871658dba301bfc463fb43.jpg

    Also saw an Egret, (I think)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bae682a423f45a4896837a2c0d045db8c8992677df49acc9972a4dbed99ce0eb.jpg

          1. Possibly. Harry mentioned The Bridge in the last day or so, at present one has to be outside, but the view across the River Clyst is most agreeable. I was there a fortnight ago, but Dianne keeps me up to date via WhatsApp.

    2. Hi Bob. Is the Rector home? :-))

      BTW, in common with many East Anglian places, the pronunciation of place names is designed to confuse us normies.

      Stiffkey is pronounced as “Stewkey” by the locals.

      Here’s a few more:
      Happisburgh = “Hazebro”
      Wymondham – “Windum”
      Tacolneston =”Tacklelstone”
      Garboldisham = “Garblesum”
      Gressenhall – “Gresnel”

      I could go on…

      1. Norwich is even more bizarre:

        WhyinGod’snamewouldanyonewanttogotherenowadays.

        It’s worse than that Welsh place

        1. It used to be a lovely city. Cobbled arcades, the castle on the hill. A decent people.

          However, that was 25 years ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s an overgrown ghetto by now.

        2. Haven’t been for twenty years or so. But I liked the city. For what it’s worth, you can blame me for the Sainsburys at the Eastern side of the Ring Road.

          I take it you mean St Mary’s Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel near a Rapid Whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the Red Cave?

          For what it’s worth, I was allegedly conceived within a few miles of Llanfair PG, boyo…:-))

    3. The Red Lion at Stiffkey is one of my all-time favourite pubs. I used to go there a lot when I lived in Norfolk between 1999 and 2011. Excellent real ale and wonderful food.

  89. A night out is already an alien experience – further curbs will leave businesses fighting to survive

    The First Minister has made our third city some form of untouchable zone, exams are a complete shambles, and she isn’t finished yet

    ALAN COCHRANE

    Nicola Sturgeon gave notice yesterday that she’s far from finished completing the two tasks currently in front of her. In the first and probably the more important she insisted that the major shambles for which she’s ultimately responsible can still be fixed.

    This is, of course, the shock many young people throughout Scotland, especially those in the poorest backgrounds, had received when the exam grades their teachers had predicted for them were ‘moderated’ – reduced – by the Scottish Qualifications Authority by the time they’d received their official result.

    The storm of angry protests from opposition politicians, teachers, educational experts as well as the pupils themselves has clearly taken the First Minister completely by surprise.

    With hoped-for university places for many now being withheld because of those lesser results and the fact that some of those were due to children from less affluent homes – the very people La Sturgeon had promised to support – it was clear she had to do something.

    And so, while she insisted that she would not scrap the entire process and tell the SQA to start again with this year’s exam marking, only this time giving the kids the grades their teachers had suggested, she went just about that far.

    Issuing a clarion call for what will inevitably amount to a blizzard of appeals she told the country’s disappointed youth that this week’s receipt of results was not the end of the process that everyone thought it was – and usually is.

    Consequently, we are now likely to see a late summer and autumn of frantic re-marking on behalf of the SQA, chaos at our universities and colleges where courses may have to be reallocated and would-be employers urged to think again about their potential recruits. And all the while Ms Sturgeon and John Swinney, her deputy and education minister, will have to pretend that they’re putting no pressure on the SQA to come up with a politically acceptable outcome.

    Whether that will produce, to use Ms Sturgeon’s favourite word, more ‘credible’ results remains to be seen. After all, her main concern with the teachers’ predictions this time was that they would have shown a 20% increase in Highers results – something they didn’t think many would swallow.

    All in all, it’s been pretty farcical so far and is unlikely to now show much improvement.

    The other, and much easier, situation still to reach a conclusion is the week-long lockdown the First Minister has imposed upon Aberdeen following a spike in Covid cases. Treating the country’s third city as some form of untouchable zone, with all pubs and restaurants closed and draconian restrictions on individual freedoms, was done quickly and extremely painfully by Ms Sturgeon and her advisors.

    However, in spite of the cries of anguish from the North-East, she made it plain yesterday that she might not be finished and that new regulations to further battle the pandemic might well be on the cards and, who knows, maybe not just in Aberdeen.

    Included in these could be some sort of restriction on pub crawling, given that her team had unearthed evidence that some of those responsible for the new lockdown had been guilty of moving from pub to pub.

    She insisted that no decisions had yet been taken and it is difficult to see how such a pub-crawl crackdown could be enforced but in today’s Scotland when Nicola Sturgeon wants something done, somebody generally finds a way to do it.

    One thing she might like to bear in mind is that eating and drinking in Scotland’s hospitality sector is already such a culturally alien experience that it may be hard for some establishments to survive. Any further restrictions will make it impossible.

    In considering changes I hope Ms Sturgeon won’t follow too closely Professor Devi Sridhar, of Edinburgh University, who’s said to be her key advisor in this pandemic. I may be wrong but on the evidence of her interview on the Today programme yesterday the learned lady sounded like she’d ban most things.

    But as she’s the one who claimed Unionists are anti-Scottish, maybe my hope is a forlorn one.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/08/06/night-already-alien-experience-curbs-will-leave-businesses/

  92. Wish me luck at 16:20. I’m having my left knee jabbed. It’s got two chances i suppose.
    Job done no pain no bleeding just hope and touching wood.

      1. I’m hoping to give two of our sons ‘a damn good thrashing’ on the golf course if it does.
        A couple of years ago in Spain, despite the long hitting from the opposition the old boy came off the course with the winning score.
        It was very gratifying that two guys sitting on the bar terrace along side the last hole said, to them “Your old man knows what he’s doing on the golf course”.
        Very gratifying as i didn’t have to pay for the round or any drinks.
        Doc did tell me but it seems to be a guesstimate that i could be more vulnerable to the virus.
        But there is no evidence to support the theory.
        I usually keep out of the way anyway.
        I’ll keep in touché.

      1. So far it’s good but my face went an orange colour and it felt I’d been over doing it in the sun. But it’s apparently a side effect some people suffer. It’s calmed down after two days.

  95. Lockdown ‘killed two people for every three who died of coronavirus’ at peak of outbreak
    Estimates show 16,000 people died through missed medical care by May 1, while virus killed 25,000 in same period
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/07/lockdown-killed-two-three-died-coronavirus/
    By
    Sarah Knapton, SCIENCE EDITOR 7 August 2020 • 7:04pm

    The UK lockdown killed two people for every three whose deaths had been caused by coronavirus by the beginning of May, new Government figures suggest.

    The estimates show that 16,000 people had died through missed medical care by May 1, while coronavirus killed 25,000 in the same period.

    The figures include 6,000 people who did not attend A&E at the height of lockdown because of fears they might catch the virus and the feeling they should remain at home because of the “Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives” message.

    Likewise, 10,000 people are thought to have died in care homes due to early discharge from hospital and not being able to access critical care.

    The report also found that 2,500 lives may have been saved during lockdown because of healthier lifestyles, fewer infectious diseases in children, falls in air pollution and a decrease in road deaths.

    The new figures – presented to the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) in the middle of July – were calculated by the Department of Health, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the Government Actuary’s Department and the Home Office.

    The paper also estimates that a further 26,000 people could die by next month because of the healthcare restrictions.

    In total, researchers predict that 81,500 people could lose their lives in the next 50 years through waiting longer for non-urgent elective care and the impact of the recession caused by the virus crisis.

    In the next five years, 1,400 people are also expected to die because they were diagnosed with cancer too late.

    Although the medium to long-term deaths from delayed healthcare have not been quantified, an earlier report by the same team suggested they could be as high as 185,000.

    The report is the latest to show that the impact of lockdown has been severe, and puts more pressure on the Government to avoid further nationwide restrictions this winter (see video below).

    1. “In total, researchers predict that 81,500 people could lose their lives
      in the next 50 years through waiting longer for non-urgent elective care
      and the impact of the recession caused by the virus crisis.”

      Those of us who are over 70 will all be gone by then so will have no means of disproving this sweeping statement!” In fact most people over 50 will be gone by then!

  96. Off Topic.
    Does anyone else get BT e-mail?
    I’ve had the pleasure of seeing an attractive BAME girl as the login background for a few months.
    Today it changed. To another BAME. This time a man. I’m starting to believe that whites are already in a minority in the UK.

    1. We aren’t in reality, but as far as the Bbc and the Msm go, we have been cancelled.

  99. What future do we have if the woke warriors destroy our past?

    The modern presumption that we can stand in perfect judgment over history is both malevolent and unfair

    DOUGLAS MURRAY

    Are you pro- or anti-Hiroshima? Who would ask such a question? And who would dare to answer it? The answer to the last of those questions seems to be: “An awful lot of people.”

    This past week saw the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb. Across the media it was widely referred to as an “atrocity”. A granddaughter of one of the remarkable men who worked at the Manhattan Project even did one of those modern media tours of shame, expressing her remorse over the involvement of a grandfather who had died before she was born.

    Of course, all such reflection is only possible because the Allies won the Second World War. Today, it is remarkably easy to condemn or otherwise feel discomfort about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Because we know how the war ended. The more interesting and important question is how we might have felt at the time, and some element of doubt about that ought to inform a more appropriate attitude and approach towards history.

    Many historians today insist that Japan was essentially defeated by August 1945 and that the dropping of the bombs was therefore an unnecessary act – even a war crime. They may have felt differently if they had been an American serviceman 75 years ago, contemplating fighting the Japanese island-by-island. Or an American general or president considering the number of Allied troops likely to be lost in an invasion of the Japanese mainland.

    Yet what is interesting about this anniversary is not the specifics of the Hiroshima debate – a debate that will (and perhaps should) never end. What is interesting about it is the ease with which we now presume to judge our forebears.

    We saw this most recently with the bizarre and disturbing outbreak of iconoclasm in June, which is still going on in America. All it took was an appalling act in Minnesota, the killing of an unarmed man by a cop, and suddenly crowds in Bristol, London and other cities were off assailing statues and pulling them down – or demanding that others pull them down.

    Revealed in such moments – as in the anniversary this week – is a particularly modern set of presumptions. They include the fantastically ignorant presumption that people in history knew what we know and yet acted as they did regardless. It is such a mistake of comprehension that it is amazing that it goes so unchallenged.

    It includes the presumption that President Truman knew the war in the East would end on September 2 1945 and that the dropping of the bomb was therefore superfluous and vindictive. Or that the societies which were involved in the slave trade – as all societies at some point were (and some still are) – were so engaged despite having the views we currently hold about human rights.

    The causes of this misunderstanding are not hard to find. They are the fruits of an education system across the West that long ago prioritised “empathy” over facts; that pretended that the insights of a child are more important than helping to form that child with knowledge; and that the ultimate point of history is to “learn” specific lessons from it.

    All of these now tend towards pre-ordained Left-wing conclusions (largely about “social justice”, “equality” and more). And apart from breeding ignorance, all these encourage a deep presumptuousness. For it invites the child to be judge, jury and executioner over issues that most adults will know very little about.

    Worst, it breeds an arrogance: “Because I know things these people did not know, I am better than they were.” Having a more reasonable approach to the past would, among much else, gift us a more reasonable approach to our present.

    I was recently reading a new collection of essays by the late Umberto Eco and there came across a quote from Bernard of Chartres. He was one of many historical figures who referred to themselves as standing on the shoulders of giants. Bernard of Chartres said “that we are like dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, and so we can see farther than they not because of our stature or because of the sharpness of our sight, but because – by standing on their shoulders – we are higher than they”.

    In a letter to Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton put the same thought even more succinctly: “If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants.”

    Our current age tells itself that it is not just wiser, but better than our forebears. And then the radical movement of our day invites us to take this conclusion to its logical next stage. If nobody from the past lives up to our current ethical standards then what need have we of these people from the past and their statues, buildings or benefactions?

    In America this instinct has culminated in the 1619 Project, an initiative started by The New York Times, which attempts to make the arrival of the first African slaves into the country the foundational date of the American Republic.

    The project is only popularising what academia in America has been spreading for a generation. The idea that America would have been better off if Christopher Columbus had never been born. That America’s history is best understood solely as one of slavery. So that the Founding Fathers (who include some of the most remarkable men to have lived at any time) are simply to be understood by their attitude towards this one issue. The project seeks to portray America as exceptional only in one respect: in so far as being exceptionally bad.

    But this is a malevolent – as well as unfair – view of history. It is one intended to pull down rather than build up. And it is one of the foundational causes of the presumptuousness of the age.

    A healthy, humane and – in the truest sense – liberal mind does not view history as a mere playpen for our moral judgment. It recognises that people in the past acted on the information they had, as much as we do today. That while there are things they will have done that we presently deplore, nevertheless there are things that a person can bestow on their successors without having to have been in lock-step with the fast-changing ethical standards of 2020.

    Most importantly, it would recognise the central fallacy of the current attitude towards the past. Which is that if the people that had gone before us had not done what they had done – including things that we now regard as mistakes – then we would not be here, in the state we are in, to judge them as we presently do.

    Had some of our forebears not engaged in slavery, others of our forebears would not have successfully campaigned to abolish it and from there lead the world in its abolition. If some of our forebears had not made hasty movements in battle then perhaps we would not have the leisure we currently enjoy to stand in judgment over their actions.

    The current age does not believe in giants. But still it imagines that if we could only liberate ourselves from our past then we might see further, and fly still higher. We would not. Divorced from our past we would be utterly lost, and only plummet, forced to start again with far less insight, and with far poorer examples as our guides.

    Douglas Murray is the author of ‘The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/07/future-do-wehave-leftdestroys-past/

    1. “…the killing of an unarmed man by a cop… – nothing to do with him having heart failure due to being drugged up to the eyeballs, and being put on the ground because he was violent, then?

      1. The transcript from the police bodycam has Floyd asking to be put on the ground. Also he ‘couldn’t breath’ before he went down. Its going to be an interesting trial.

      2. Just listening to Lawrence Fox and even he’s talking about the “murder” of this black man, when it should be the death of a druggie.

    2. If the Americans had had the bomb and dropped one on Tokyo the day after Pearl Harbour and told the Japanese and the Germans that there were more where that came from, the war would probably have ended there and then.

      1. But to the Woke it would still be an atrocity, because there would have been none of the horrors which ensued in reality.

        1. I wonder if the woke would even exist if it had happened.
          The best of that generation would have survived and I very much doubt wokery would have come about, but hey ho, if ifs and ands were pots…

    3. The very idea that most modern Lefties are better than their forebears is comical.

      They are conceited, superficial, egocentric, arrogant fools. They live in abject luxury and complain about it while doing nothing positive for others. They are as far from the true liberals as it can be imagined. They’re just abusive fascists, demanding everything change for others but not for their own lifestyle.

  100. Cobblers.

    Face masks become new normal as figures show almost everyone wearing one outside the home

    ONS survey reveals that 96 per cent of adults using face covering outside their home to help reduce spread of coronavirus

    By Gabriella Swerling, Social and Religious Affairs Editor

    Face masks are now the new normal, with 96 per cent of people wearing one to leave the house, Government figures have shown.

    In its weekly review of the social impacts of coronavirus on Britain, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), published on Friday, showed nearly all Britons are wearing face coverings outside their homes.

    The survey, which takes in the period from July 29 to August 2, found that 96 per cent of adults who had left their homes said they had worn a face covering to slow the spread of coronavirus – up from 84 per cent last week and 71 per cent the week before that.

    [I haven’t bothered with the rest of it.]

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/07/face-coverings-becoming-new-normal-almost-everyone-wearing-one

    The ONS is the organisation that tells us that the Covid death toll is 55,000…

    1. The death numbers are about right, but they’re also below the average for the country for the same period of time.

      I wear a mask because we were told to when we went shopping. I hate wearing it. The other day two chaps didn’t bother and I was incredibly jealous.

      Given half a chance I’d not wear one – I certainly won’t wear one for any other purpose.

        1. Will “I take exception to being compelled to wearing an infected piece of fabric across my face” work?

      3. Don’t wear one. If challenged, tell them you’re exempt. They aren’t entitled to question you re. your medical details. We have to resist this.

        I have a friend who hates wearing tem to the point that they bring on anxiety attacks. So she’s exempt. I wore one on the train from Devon, By the end of the journey I had a headache. Besides I can genuinely just say I’m disabled. How the absence of legs affects my breathing is anyone’s guess, but I don’t have to explain.

    2. They wore a mask just because they lived in fear of being shouted at if they didn’t, more like.

    4. Definitely not 96% in Shepherds Bush. From observation, I’d say fewer than 50% outside and maybe as many as 80% in Westfield shopping centre, though even there, there are a lot of chin warmers so it’s a grudging gesture.

      1. They obviously never visited Bournemouth, Camber Sands, Brighton or any of the other resorts inundated with visitors. 96% my arse!

      2. I agree. People are only wearing them where it is compulsory – shops, public transport etc. generally outside very few are wearing them – occasional elderly & SE Asian seem to be the most usual if doing so.

    7. That includes everyone who died with a positive C19 test, irrespective of what they actually died of.

    8. Well it has been 2 weeks since Johnson has rewritten the effectiveness of face masks from little proved value to now essential the sheep wear one. I have not worn one, any shopping required in the last 2 weeks has been done online, even to the extent of a Moonpig ordered birthday card. Anything not suitable for online shopping I have gone without. If he thinks the high street can survive like this then he is a bigger fool than I thought he was, or he knows how compliant the sheep really are. Time will tell.

      1. I have been to a supermarket twice since the diktat (and I’ve given up going to church). It was a “dash in, get the items I need and dash out” operation with my shopping list arranged in the order I would find the goods to maximise efficiency. No browsing, no impulse purchases and I’ve only been into town once – again, no browsing and no impulse purchases. If lots of people are like me, then economic activity must show a serious shortfall.

    9. ONS survey reveals that 96 per cent of adults using face covering outside their home to help reduce spread of coronavirus

      …Face masks are now the new normal, with 96 per cent of people wearing one to leave the house, Government figures have shown.

      This is a misrepresentation of the survey figures. Most people seem to wear masks in shops, but not in the open air. The reporter is either stupid or malicious. Probably both.

      1. Or they have an agenda to promote to keep people scared. Most people don’t know anything about the virus. They believe the media and the media wants to keep people scared and ignorant.

        3. Yes I am constantly amazed at the level of ignorance concerning Covid amongst the population at large and that seems to include the government.

        2. It’s a good indicator. Treat anyone who wears a mask in their car as an idiot, and be careful of their driving.

    10. I cancelled my DT subscription two months ago because of this sort of utter bollocks. I also logged off, to make sure I couldn’t see it any more. Unfortunately, I tipped a glass of Shiraz into that laptop, which has sadly died. So I resurrected the old one, also with a buggered keyboard, but I spent a tenner or so on a Bluetooth keyboard, and all is well.

      I find that I still have access to the DT after all, until I clear my cookies, whatever that means.

      The ONS survey asked this question:

      Among those that have left their home in the past 7 days:
      In the past seven days, have you used a face covering when outside your home to help slow the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19)?
      The answers were Yes: 96%; No: 3% and Not applicable: 1%.

      Then asked:

      Among those that had worn a face covering in the past seven days:
      In which situation have you used a face covering in the past seven days?
      While travelling or on public transport: 18%; While at work: 22%; While shopping: 91%; While walking or exercising outdoors: 8%; While visiting a health or medical centre: 21%; While meeting someone from outside your household: 15%; While doing errands (for example, going to the Post Office or the bank): 33%; Other (please specify): 3%

      Conclusion: The Daily Telegraph now publishes a stream of utter bollocks, and is a complete stranger to the truth.

      2. Or should the question be:

        In the past seven days, have you used a face covering when outside your home to help slow the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) to avoid a load of hassle and a £100 fine?

      3. During the past week I have had to visit the surgery and had a hospital appointment. I phoned ahead to both and said I was suffering breathing difficulties, at times true, and both the nurse and consultant agreed to see me without a mask.

    11. I put mine on yesterday as I walked into Morrisons and took it off with a sigh of relief when I walked out. I know perfectly well it makes no difference whatsoever to anybody’s safety. Where do they find these brainwashed idiots? I only wore mine as I didn’t want the aggro of being challenged.

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