Friday 7 February: On top of £28 billion in new taxes, we must more than double electricity generation in 15 years

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/2020/02/07/letterson-top-28-billion-new-taxes-must-double-electricity-generation/

907 thoughts on “Friday 7 February: On top of £28 billion in new taxes, we must more than double electricity generation in 15 years”

  1. The public are giving up on police solving crimes, warn official inspectors. 6 February 2020.

    The public has given up on the police solving crimes, an official report warns today, as it says officers have been “rumbled” for failing to investigate offences including burglary and theft.

    Matt Parr, HM Inspector of Constabulary, said the failure of the police to investigate high-volume crimes like car thefts, minor assaults and burglaries was having a “corrosive” effect on the public’s trust in the police.

    Morning everyone. I gave up on the Police years ago after first-hand experience with the so called criminal Justice System. It is even worse now! You are actually better off not calling them and should avoid any involvement with them at all even as a witness!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/02/06/public-giving-police-solving-crimes-warn-official-inspectors/

    1. I was brought up to respect the police, but I have no faith in them now, whatsoever. I know a few police officers, they are decent people, but the system has been corrupted, individuals cannot make a difference. If this is going to change then it needs a full and honest review of what has happened and a willingness to change (back) towards tackling criminal activity. Name calling and unpleasant exchanges between individuals are not crimes. I rate the chances of it happening at <1%

      2. We’re well aware of the parasitic worm that has been introduced into our public services to disrupt and destroy them. Doing a great job, such a pity that the people involved decided to do harm rather than good, we could do with some good governance.

      3. The comments under that DT column suggest that the police can no longer rely on the middle class for support.

  2. ‘Morning All

    “let’s take a cruise you said”

    “an internal cabin is fine.we’ll be on deck or in the public rooms you said”

    “think of the money saved for drinkies you said”

    “what could possibly go wrong you said”

    https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1225580168321945601?s=20

    The cruise ship is actually a very useful petri dish for us doomwatchers,if the next jump is to 300+ infected we’re flucked

    The one thing you can guarantee is the official numbers out of China are controlled by political thinking,not facts

    https://twitter.com/howroute/status/1225480460979056642

      1. Morning, Maggie.

        What do you think passenger aircraft (and airports) are similar to then? When I worked at Norwich International we would have Rentokil attend the airport every six months to rid all carpets of fleas brought in by infected passengers from God-knows-where.

        If they can bring in fleas so easily, what other little delights are being imported along with them?

        1. Morning dear G.

          My goodness, that thought had never occured to me .. Fleas.. that is terrible . I expect they would probably have bedbugs as well hidden in their luggage …

          I think food handlers in catering should be tested for worms .

  3. SIR – A £28 billion fuel-duty black hole (Philip Johnston, Comment, February 4) isn’t the half of it.

    Petrol and diesel road vehicles in the United Kingdom currently consume about 453 TWh of energy each year. To put that in context, the total UK electrical energy production in 2018 was about 335TWh.

    So Boris Johnson must be planning to more than double our electrical energy production. Mustn’t he? That means 20 Hinkley C power stations at a cost of £500 billon – or alternatives.

    And double the grid capacity. And re-wire the streets. All in 15 years.

    If it wasn’t for politicians, what would we do for entertainment?

    Nick Martinek
    Huddersfield, West Yorkshire

    1. And where will he put them? Offshore?
      Perhaps he intends to cover every square inch of land with wind farms and solar panels?

  4. ‘It was all bullshit’: Trump delivers mocking, vitriolic speech after acquittal. Thu 6 Feb 2020.

    He railed once again against what he called the “fake” dossier of intelligence gathered by former British MI6 officer Christopher Steele and presented to the FBI in 2017, which alleged secret contacts between the Trump 2016 election campaign and Moscow – and that Russian intelligence had personally compromising material on Trump.

    “Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee paid millions to get this fake dossier,” he said on Thursday.

    Morning everyone. It behoves us to remember that when we come to negotiating the Trade Deal with the United States that Trump hasn’t forgotten this piece of Dirty Work carried out by Mi6 on the instructions of the Cameron government.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/06/trump-speech-acquittal-impeachment-mocking-vitriolic

  5. Awkward…………………..

    February 6, 2020

    Will we wonder, what were we thinking? and marvel anew at the madness of crowds?

    When we look back on this moment from the vantage of history, what will we think?

    Will we think how obvious it was that the coronavirus deaths in China were in the tens of thousands

    rather than the hundreds claimed by authorities?

    Will we think how obvious it was that the virus would spread around the globe, wreaking havoc on

    the global economy and social order, even as the authorities claimed only a handful of cases

    had arisen outside China?

    Will we be amazed at the delusional confidence that the U.S. economy would be untouched by

    the virus as stock markets quickly soared to new all-time highs while the world’s largest

    economy ground to a halt in a desperate attempt to close the barn door after the horses had

    already escaped?

    Will we look back at the patently false data being promoted by authorities and wonder why

    the majority accepted it all as credible?

    Will we re-examine all the smartphone videos posted on the web by average people and wonder

    why all the lies were given more credibility than actual videos?

    Will we recall how content that didn’t parrot the approved narrative that everything was under

    control and the global impact would be near-zero was suppressed, banned, de-platformed or

    marginalized? Will we wonder at the complacency of all those who accepted this orchestrated

    suppression with such obedient passivity?

    Will we look back at the claim that only twelve people in the entire U.S. had the virus,

    despite all the direct flights from Wuhan and the tens of thousands of people who’d traveled

    from China to the U.S. in January, and marvel at our credulity?

    Will we look back at the wreckage left in the wake of the coordinated campaign to suppress the

    facts and lay the responsibility for all the carnage on the authorities who devoted more

    energy to hiding the realities of the pandemic than to preparing us for the impact?

    Will we ponder the incredible grip of mass delusion on the human mind when we recall the

    confidence that the U.S. economy was invulnerable to the virus and the implosion of China,

    and the blithe quasi-religious faith that central banks would never let global stock markets

    decline even 2%?

    Will we wonder how the mainstream could watch the Chinese economy shutting down and still

    remain absolutely confident that the global economy would be untouched as the spot of

    bother was sure to evaporate in a week or two and all would be restored to pre-virus euphoria?

    Will we wonder what were we thinking? and marvel anew at the madness of crowds?

    Will we wonder why we embraced the delusion so readily, and relive the moment when the gate

    to reality creaked open? Will we relive our realization that we’d embraced an absurd fantasy

    floating on a tissue of lies, or will we bury that painful moment of truth?

    https://www.oftwominds.com/blogfeb20/lies-videos2-20.htm

      1. I remember the penalty for the huge fraud that trashed public spending for a generation and robbed our life savings of interest was to double the bonuses of the fraudsters, and drive small businesses into bankruptcy and forced takeover by foreign venture capitalists.

        Is this what you mean by liberalism?

        1. Gah! Not here, surely?

          The Labour party, particularly one Gordon Brown hiked taxes. He continually loosened banking regulation. He continually encouraged banks to overlend. He then robbed those banks blind for tax.

          Now, because he was a psychotic spendaholic maniac he continued to waste and waste and waste trillions. We are 15 trillion quid in debt, all racked up during Brown’s tenure.

          The government borrowed to fund this reckless profligacy and thus debt interest – not even the repayments is now more than our defence and education spending combined.

          When this monumental assault on our economy was finished, the Conservatives got in and didn’t undo that damage in the next decade because the massive entrenched infestation of Lefties wailed ‘austerity’! that their non-job would be destroyed.

          Our savings were destroyed by Gordon’s debt. Our interest returns were destroyed by Brown’s malice. That there’s been no recovery is solely down to the Labour party’s disgusting waste of public money and the Tories for not ignoring the wailing Left and cutting, cutting and cutting until the knotweed had been cleared.

          1. Don’t forget he also announced to the world a spring sale of gold, forced the price down and then sold the lot.
            Prudence ?how di he win that title?

          2. I see it a little differently, because I do not identify with any particular political sect.

            The real villain was Nigel Lawson, when he deregulated financial services in 1986, removing a lot of the ethical safeguards that gave the world confidence in the value of sterling and the integrity of our banks and finance professionals. Brown’s biggest crime was not to restore these safeguards when he had an election mandate to do so in 1997.

            After Lamont’s Exchange Rate Mechanism debacle, it fell to Ken Clarke to restore order. He did this brilliantly (whatever one thinks of his position on the EU), and handed Gordon Brown a much better fiscal legacy than he inherited from Lamont. He did not reverse the deregulation, of course, but he didn’t have a mandate to then.

            Gordon Brown’s “prudence” playing on a Scottish stereotype worked for a while. None the less, he did introduce a number of stealth taxes, rather than risk putting it on Income Tax (which at least would have been honest) and he did sell off the gold reserves at the bottom of the market – that gold would have gone a long way to paying off the National Debt today.

            The Big Spend came as a consequence of entering into the Iraq war, beguiled by George W Bush’s “War on Terror”. The brazen dishonesty of that campaign lost Blair’s Government a lot of popularity, and they were lucky to get away with it in 2005, when the Tories were in disarray. The main beneficiaries of this botched war were Charles Kennedy’s Liberal Democrats, but they didn’t have the numbers to make a bid for Government. I don’t blame Michael Howard, who was an excellent Tory Leader and actually it was his work that prepared the ground for them to get into Government under Cameron. Brown was well aware just how unpopular his Governmnent was though, and the usual answer to that is to hand out the sweeties. By the time Blair handed Brown his poisoned chalice in No.10, there was no stopping them once the banks had to be bailed out to the tune of about a trillion pounds of public money, and still they kept awarding their executives bonuses into the billions.

            Mandelson using public money to hand over Cadbury, which was doing ok, to Kraft, which wasn’t, just because he liked filthy rich Americans and their yachts was the end of New Labour as a credible force, and I am not surprised they remain utterly discredited to this day with their core vote. Learning nothing from this, Cable then trashed public confidence in Liberal Democrats by doing likewise with the Royal Mail to Goldman Sachs.

            The less said about George Osborne and Philip Hammond, the better it is for Boris. These two pushed the Tories down to 9% in the polls at one point, and drastic action to remedy this was required and done. I haven’t a clue, at least until his first Budget gets through the House, how Savid Javid will perform. Every indication is that any Brexit premium will be blown on goldplated prestige white elephants, rather than on building up national institutions to do the work previously done by the EU and building up small businesses so we have something to trade, other than as a tax-free haven for dodgy oligarchs and a generous destination for vagrant migrants, many with strong religious beliefs. He may surprise me, although his recent Osborne-style pronouncement on HS2 going over the head of the PM is not reassuring.

      2. In fairness, Belle, there is a huge backlog of cr@p to work through.
        And that includes the muppets infesting our judicial legal system.

        1. One thousand upvotes, Annie. (Good morning, btw.) We all have different interests and priorities, and we tend to get annoyed because our own particular “like” is not top of the priority list. But it is not possible to fulfil all the promises made in a party’s manifesto in a week, a month or even a year. Another view is to blame a particular party because “they haven’t addressed the issue for years”. How could a new administration address anything when they have only been in power for just under two months. As far as I am concerned – despite some concerns – Boris is currently moving in the right direction. As I have often said: this country’s priorities at present are (a) finally leave the EU, (c) drain the swamp and (c) fight the danger of Islam.

          1. But this is why we have a host of ministers.. each with their own area of responsibility.

            These things do not need to be done consecutively by Boris but concurrently by his ministers. He is supposed to set direction.
            It could all be done with one simple directive: “Find anything and everything that Bliar and Brown did and restore it to its previous condition.”
            That would be a start.
            If you watched the Trump SOTU speech you will see just how much he has achieved in three years in the face of the most blatantly hostile and obstructive Democrats …. he sets targets and guides but many hands make light work.
            On a second term he will have the presidency, the senate and congress and things will really start to buzz.
            This “it all takes time” doesn’t really wash.
            If it takes one man 7 days to build a wall, how long will it take 7 men?

          2. If we had a time machine, who would like to go back and bump off baby Bliar in his cot? So much easier that trying to undo all the damage he has done piece by piece… much like the purging of EU lunacy from out system.

          3. I’d prefer to have disturbed his parents just at his conception. A minor bomb or something – not to harm them – just to prevent the two ingredients for a baby ever getting together.

          4. And then the Queen should have insisted on Tony Bliar and Cherrie sleeping in separate rooms at Balmoral….. we should learn from the past, not repeat it.

      3. Trump is doing the right thing…. his newly appointed judiciary approaching 50% (and rising, another 6 proposed this week) and with a second term, loads more. Plus many are young and will represent a generation of conservative judges…… another example for Bojo and time top revoke the Bliar vandalism that gave us the supreme court and the lefty liberal idiots we have, complete with spider broaches….

  7. SIR – Cambridge University Students’ Union has voted to ban military personnel from the freshers’ fair (report, February 5).

    I thought that one of the advantages of a university education was that it broadened one’s mind and outlook, in preparation for the cut and thrust of career, family and relationships in general. CUSU’s actions will have the opposite effect.

    If students are likely to be traumatised by the sight or presence of military personnel, should they even be allowed out on their own?

    Lt-Col Mike Tugby (retd)
    Warminster, Wiltshire

    1. If students are likely to be traumatised by the sight or presence of military personnel, should they even be allowed out on their own?

      What would these students have done yesterday afternoon if they heard and saw what I did as I tidied up some plants in the garden. I heard them some time before I saw them and then, one was there, about a hundred yards beyond my garden boundary and a couple of hundred feet in the air, a Chinook twin rotor craft with a long barrelled gun, a gun for goodness sake, slung underneath. This scary, for students, sight was followed by another but this one only had a vehicle slung underneath. The noise in level flight is incredible but when they bank the ‘swish, swish, swish sound from their rotors, even from a mile away, would drive these students to their safe place where they could hug their cuddly toy for comfort.

      1. Morning KK

        As you are aware, we live here in the Purbecks, and we are used to military activity , tanks on the roads, firing practise on the ranges, aircraft activity etc.

        I am just wondering whether the students who are traumatised by the presence of military personnel are foreign students from troubled war zones who have come to Britain to be educated .. I daresay some of them will be Africans ..South Americans etc?

        2. I’ve spent 56 of my 70 years living within a mile of the military complex in Colchester and I am used to seeing all manner of military activity, except tanks. The base is much smaller now and many of the old barracks are covered in housing; no surprise there! The Paras form the main component of the 16th Air Assault Brigade, hence the helicopter activity. The other main unit is the Military Provost Staff based at the Corrective Centre (prison) about a mile away.

          1. AH yes, that the militaryowns so much real estate is a problem. People like Cameron etc see it as a wonderful target for asset stripping. Look at all that has gone west…. Chelsea Barracks, Admiralty Arch, loads of airfields….

          2. The current shower want to sell off the Monkwick firing ranges and of course the first thing the PTB and the developers see is housing, lots of housing. Lacking the road system to accommodate the increased traffic doesn’t seem to be a problem to those in a position to make vast piles of cash from destroying this very large area of grass and trees on the town’s SE boundary.
            Locals want it to become a public open space and allow the natural flora and fauna to survive and flourish. I think that ££££££ will stop that idea in its tracks.

        3. No it’ll be a noisy minority of children of lefty liberals who have spent all their childhoods in Oxford or Cambridge and have a very one sided view of life. They are very vociferous and get their way (as do the parents), at least at the moment. I’ve spent most of my life living one side or the other of Salisbury Plain, and as far as I can judge most normal boys & men are totally fascinated by the military hardware on view, women of course less so (I’m not allowed to say that am I?), but no-one is traumatised by it.

          1. Good morning ,

            Everyone around here loves watching the tanks, and the Tank museum is very popular as well as are the summer events and military displays .

      2. When I lived in Herefordshire, I got pretty sick of the RAF jets swooping over with a loud roar fifty feet above my head. It was sudden, like being assaulted by a V2. They were testing the new fly-by-radar fighters.

        So I made up a killer kite made from tin foil, with a nice long glittery tail that fluttered and flashed in their radar. It was windy up there, so flew nicely at around fifty feet in the air.

        The typhoons gave it a wide berth – they didn’t like to go near it, which suited me fine.

        If a bloke in a bowler turned up with a squad of Special Branch plod at dawn to get me under some anti-terrorism legislation, I would remind them that if the latest RAF fighter costing many millions can be downed by my tin foil kite costing £1 using technology familiar to the Chinese 5000 years ago, then any prospective enemy could do the same. Maybe they should rethink their policy of relying on sensitive radar in military aircraft?

        1. There’s nothing sudden in the approach of a Chinook or an Apache helicopter, they will be heard from miles away. They’re not a continuous presence but a necessary component of the forces required to protect our homeland. Mind you, they’re much noisier than the barrage balloon that was deployed during many summers in my childhood on what is now the Chinooks’ landing field.

          1. I find the sound comforting.
            It suggests that something is being done; I’m not sure what, but at least someone military is awake,

          3. In 1991 I was driving to up to Inverness – 2 x A10 Warthogs (Gulf War) flew low and immediately above the A9 – the “whole world” shook.
            50 years ago I lived near an air force training base where BAe Lightnings took off regularly – whisper quiet compared to the Grunmann Warthogs.

          4. During the ’80s I was hiking from Ribblehead over to Dent Station when a pair of Warthogs hopped over a drystone wall heading towards me.
            Why is it you never have the camera ready as a time like that?

        2. I used to work in Farnborough and our office was right on the boundary.

          You’d be surprised how many people seemed to find a reason to visit our top floor office space and then watch the air show…. I managed to elbow some space at the windows when the Blackbird(?) flew over….

      3. There is no mistaking a Chinook flying overhead. The air pressure they create is immense; totally different from any other helicopter.

  8. What a bad joke

    “And finally: you can’t defeat Islamism without Islam. We need an

    urgent step change in the recruitment, deployment and involvement of

    moderate and modern Islamic scholars to take on this fight. Indeed, we

    need to seek the support of communities when terrorists are released

    from prisons, working in partnership with the various protective

    services. It needs to be a joint effort.”

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/2020/02/terror-cells-how-britains-prisons-became-finishing-schools-for-extremists-2/
    “Moderate” Islam,no siuch animal exists

    1. Thoroughly depressing to read that article. You’d think that these jihadis were radicalised by something completely unrelated to Islam, when in fact it’s the literal interpretation of its dogma. There is no reasoning with these people, they are extremely dangerous and yet we cannot challenge their belief head on because we have to tiptoe around the cause of their mania.

      1. Morning 70s,
        Why do we have to ?
        Why are peoples being castigated for facing up to it ?
        Why is submission / PCism /
        Appeasement used as tools by the governance parties ?
        Why do the peoples support
        such parties that use such tools ?

        1. Why? Because the establishment are afraid of what will happen if we are allowed to challenge it head on.

          1. 70s,
            They have already been active in that department as in regards to Tommy Robinson.
            One Gerard Batten has been warning of the dangers of slamic ideology rhetorically and in book form since 2005, but then again he has also, as with many been tagged far right racist.

    2. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, during a panel discussion at the National Conservatism conference in Rome on Tuesday, declared liberalism to be over and said that not a single Muslim immigrant lives in Hungary.

      During conference, which was organized by the Edmund Burke Foundation, Orbán declared liberalism to be over while adding that a fresh kind government in the form of Christian democracy is needed to replace it, About Hungary reports.

      The Hungarian premier highlighted two catastrophic failures of liberal western governments in the recent past: their mishandling of the 2008 global financial crisis and their current mismanagement of the ongoing migrant crisis.

      Orbán also noted stark differences between Hungary’s migration policy compared to policies that Western European countries have embraced.

      While mentioning Europe’s growing Muslim population which has coincided with its rapidly declining Christian population, Orbán said: “According to the liberals, this is fine, because they don’t like Christian society,” before noting that the suicidal choice was theirs to make, but that forcing Central Europeans to follow in their footsteps is completely unacceptable.

      “The result will be a new kind of society, one that’s preferred by Europe’s liberals because they believe that a society that is religiously and ethnically mixed will bring about a better life,” Orbán noted.

      “I don’t want to tell Europe what sort of social composition she should have, but then she must not tell Hungary how to approach the question,” the Hungarian Prime Minister added.

      During his time in Rome, Orbán met with Matteo Salvini, Italy’s former Interior Minister, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the national populist Brothers of Italy party, as well as Italy’s former prime minister and the leader of Forza Italia, Silvio Berlusconi.

      https://voiceofeurope.com/2020/02/orban-not-a-single-muslim-immigrant-in-hungary-declares-liberalism-over/

    1. Alfred took refuge in the Somerset Levels.
      Let’s hope the DoE was more efficient then, otherwise he’d have suffered from a soggy bottom. (And feet.)

  10. Like him or loathe him, Nigel Farage will go down in history as among the most noteworthy figures of our age. Mary Dejevsky. 7 February 2020.

    It would appear that Nigel Farage, former leader of the UK Independence Party (Ukip), former MEP and leader of the Brexit Party, is not on Boris Johnson’s “reconciliation” list of those to be elevated to the peerage. Kenneth Clarke and Philip Hammond – yes; Ruth Davidson, too. But not Nigel Farage. Which will probably be fine with his supporters, and maybe Farage himself, as a robe trimmed with ermine and a seat in the House of Lords might have suggested that this die-hard rebel had finally sold out.

    I think that Nigel is as clued in as any Nottler about Westminster and knows that he is thoroughly hated by everyone there. Why then should he have any interest in becoming a peer which would simply leave him open to further denigration and snubs? He is off to the States where things are more straightforward and good luck to him; he has served his country better than it deserved!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/voices/nigel-farage-brexit-ukip-conservative-tory-a9322571.html

    2. He really needs to get in via the next by election so he can have a place in the house. Otherwise the establishment (and Bozo is the establishment) will simply try to discount him as a lay commentator.

  11. Good morning all.

    Misty & frosty. What’s the betting that already there are idiots on the roads driving without dipped headlights.

  12. What happens to all the old wind turbines?

    Welcome to the wind turbine graveyard. It stretches a hundred metres from a bend in the North Platte River in Casper, Wyoming.
    Between last September and this March, it will become the final resting place for 1,000 fibreglass turbine blades.
    These blades, which have reached the end of their 25-year working lives, come from three wind farms in the north-western US state. Each is about 90m (300ft) long, and will be cut into three, then the pieces will be stacked and buried.
    Turbines from the first great 1990s wave of wind power are reaching the end of their life expectancy today. About two gigawatts worth of turbines will be refitted in 2019 and 2020. And disposing of them in an environmentally-friendly way is a growing problem.

    Burying them doesn’t sound very green. Can they not be recycled?

    today’s turbine blades are built from composite materials – older blades from glass fibre, newer ones from carbon fibre.
    Such composite materials might be light and strong, but they are also extremely hard to recycle.

    The composite fibreglass in blades is “the most difficult, and the most expensive part” of turbines to recycle, Mr Kragelund says. And there’s more of it.
    There’s some reselling of second-hand turbine components from Europe to the Middle East and Asia pacific, he says. Big data, leading to better maintenance regimes and more reliable components could also mean today’s blades might last longer, says Siemens’s Mr Thompson.
    Recycling has made more progress so far in the onshore than offshore industry, which is newer, he adds.

    1. They don’t produce as much electricity as claimed, take a huge amount of energy to produce, kill birds and bats, blight the landscape, and the blades can’t be recycled.
      Solar panels don’t work in the dark, or produce much electricity when it’s cloudy.
      Back on the 23rd January, renewables produced a whopping 17% of our electricity, with wind power at around 8% of the overall total. On the 24th, it was 6% dropping to a massive 3%…..

    1. Thank you, Rik and Good morning. Posted to Ar$ebook so that a few snowflakes can know what we think of them.

      I sincerely hope that they are offended!

    2. It was inevitable, the anger and rage that Trump, the man they so hate would get away with beating them… how could they accept that?

      Half – no – the whole problem the Democrats have with Trump is that he doesn’t play the game their way. Instead of looking at their own failings and arrogance they keep trying to get rid of him. Typically, they’re playing the man, not the ball because their arrogance won’t let them acknowledge they’re the problem.

  14. Je suis Mila. Spiked 7 February 2020.

    During her livestream, a Muslim boy asked her out in the comments, but she turned him down because she is gay. He responded by accusing her of racism and calling her a ‘dirty lesbian’. In an angry follow-up video, streamed immediately after she was insulted, Mila responded by saying that she ‘hates religion’. ‘The Koran is hateful… Islam is shit… Your religion is shit… I’d stick a finger up your god’s arsehole’, said the teenager.

    That’s my girl! More straight speaking like this and we could all stop looking over our shoulders for the Thought Police! Strangely enough I find the whole incident reassuring in finding that PC bootlicking is not confined just to the UK!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/02/07/je-suis-mila/

    2. The investigation into Mila has since been dropped. But that it was launched in the first place is nonetheless extraordinary. France, which usually takes pride in its tradition of secularism, effectively launched a police investigation into blasphemy.

      No, it isn’t extraordinary. France has been heading down this path for years, starting with all the holocaust denial trials since at least 2000
      https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/obituaries/robert-faurisson-dead.html

      And they prosecuted Brigitte Bardot for inciting “racial hatred” for saying Islam was “destroying our country and imposing its acts” in 2008.

      The Spiked writers need to do more research.

  15. Morning

    SIR – Is the Government’s aim, in banning fossil-fuel vehicles, to stop us from travelling?

    I am on holiday in the French Alps. In the local village, diesel is considerably cheaper than petrol, and I have found no evidence of any facility to charge electric vehicles.

    Given that 15 years is a very short time in which to create the necessary infrastructure, what is required right now is a decision on whether vehicles should rely on battery power or hydrogen, if we are to avoid something like the VHS versus Betamax dispute over video recorders.

    J P G Bolton

    Bishops Lydeard, Somerset

    1. SIR – If he does not already know this, Warren East, the chief executive of Rolls-Royce (Business comment, February 4), may be delighted to learn that one of the RR constituent companies, Armstrong Siddeley, demonstrated more than 50 years ago with its Sapphire engine that hydrogen fuel presented no significant difficulties to its “vaporiser” fuel-injection system, requiring only an appropriately sized tube to introduce the fuel into the same vaporiser as is used for liquid fuel.

      As a former chief combustion engineer with Rolls-Royce, I recall that after the merger with Bristol Aero Engines, the vaporiser was quickly introduced into the Pegasus (Harrier) engine and, not long after that, into the Concorde engine.

      Arthur Sotheran

      Bristol

      1. The Olympus engines, used on Concorde, were naturally Rolls-Royce.
        Warren East should talk to his Chief Engineer. He knows this stuff (I know the RR CE).

        1. Wasn’t the Olympus engine development began by Bristol’s before their takeover by RR?

    2. Yes, JPG Bolton; it will certainly cure traffic congestion and will, in turn, render unnecessary any further spending on new roads and improvements to existing.

      ‘Morning, Epi.

    3. I know it’s an analogy but comparing the video recorder ‘war’ to the problem of future, and necessary, transport, is a bit crass.

      1. Yep. I only had my beta player a couple of days, and I could not get it to move an inch. It wouldn’t start and appeared to have no wheels. I took it back to the shop, got my money back and bought a Ford Fiesta. It moved quite nicely, but the pictures were rubbish.

  16. Bercow peerage ‘scuppered’ by fresh claims

    John Bercow’s hopes of receiving a peerage appear to have been extinguished after he was rebuked by the Commons and accused of using “sexually and racially inappropriate” language by his former most senior official. After the former Speaker was admonished for naming those he is accused of bullying in his autobiography, The Telegraph can reveal he faces fresh claims of offensive behaviour. As Harry Yorke reports, ex-Commons clerk Lord Lisvane is understood to have set out details of Mr Bercow making alleged inappropriate remarks in a complaint to the Commissioner for Standards, Parliament’s watchdog.

    1. ‘Morning, Peddy. I’m enjoying the spectacle of old scores being settled. With any luck it will send the poisonous little runt into a terminal rage.

      1. My first boss was an irascible small individual and died in a heated altercation at an airport in the UK.

    2. I would rather they were honest about it.
      None of this ‘inappropriate’ language malarkey.
      Just state that he was poisonous, bullying and treacherous toad who is too ghastly even for the House of Lords.
      Morning, Peddy.

  17. SIR – I am a recent graduate of Edinburgh University, where I spent two years in the Officer Training Corps and one-and-a-half years in the Royal Naval Unit.

    There could have been nothing better for my mental health. Pushing myself mentally and physically through military exercises in the 
fresh air of Iceland, Scotland, the Baltic and France did far more to expand my mind and challenge my thinking than any other Edinburgh University student group, society or lecture.

    Alice Roberts

    Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

      2. Mmm not looking her brilliant best there but she does help to keep me focused on old (and not so old) bones

    1. Appalling.. but I suppose Drag Queens now get a culture grant for making appearances.. I wonder whether they talk in funny voices .

      These people are no different to Circus Clowns .. not many children are all that keen on them. I can imagine a few children will have nightmares and wet their beds .

    2. One could stretch a point and state that there has been an element of males dressing up as females and females as males; it is known as Pantomime. The difference of course is that the male-female is either an ogre or a silly figure of fun and the female-male a good looking hero. Pantomime is fun with the audience, especially the children, encouraged to participate and enjoy the show. It is not a formula to corrupt young minds.

      1. Morning KtK,
        Sad to say we are living in an age where many an innocent
        issue be it plays / songs / etc is twisted to have other connotations.

        1. I think you’re looking a a long and grand British institution there ogs, the double entendre has been a staple of many a BBC radio comedy going back to the ’50s. I can remember as a child being completely oblivious of any thing untoward about Round the Horne. Donald McGill was also churning out his stuff before the Great War.

          1. Morning D,
            Much binding in the marsh, but this has kids as the target as
            with school curriculum’s in one respect, leaving a lot to be desired.

      2. And the ‘hero’ of the Pantomime was usually the prettiest
        girl in the performance.
        As you imply, it is an innocent fantasy.
        Good morning, Korky.

        2. Good evening, Garlands. Apologies for the late response but my wife and I have been to deepest Suffolk for a long lunch with friends. All that thigh slapping and the leading Boy (a pretty girl) winning the heroine in the end was, as you write, innocent fantasy and thoroughly enjoyed by equally innocent children. Corrupting young minds appears to be high on the list of some very evil people.

          2. Yes we did, thank you. Some of the best pub lunches we’ve ever had in an old pub of character located in a small village situated between Long Melford and Bury St Edmunds.

    2. This is the type of vacuum-headed bitch who will probably vote for Comrade Sanders and help him to inaugurate the United Socialist States of America.

      Joe McCarthy must be squirming in his grave.

  22. The BBC has come under fire for airing a rap song which appears to glamourise south Asian men using “white girls” as prostitutes and drug dealers.

    BBC Asian Network played the song “Chaabian Boyz” by Frenzo Harami, which contains the lyrics “I had a white girl I used to call a cash machine, I got 20 white girls and they will trap [sell drugs] for me, they’re on in the flats laying on their backs for P [money].”

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/05/04/bbc-asian-network-plays-rap-song-about-pimping-white-girls-money/

    1. Good morning Maggiebelle

      Clearly the BBC thinks it is just a bit of ironic but harmless fun.

  23. Charging an Electric Car at Home

    A complete guide to charging an electric car at home, including how to charge at home, how much it costs and how long it takes.

    Summary

    You can charge an electric car at home using a dedicated home charging point (a standard 3 pin plug with an EVSE cable should only be used as a last resort).
    Electric car drivers choose a home charging point to benefit from faster charging speeds and built-in safety features.
    Charging an electric car is like charging a mobile phone – plug in overnight and top up during the day
    .
    It’s useful to have a 3 pin charging cable as a backup charging option, but they are not designed to withstand these loads and should not be used long term.

    How to charge an electric car at home

    To charge an electric car at home, you will need a home charging point installed where you park your electric car, or an EVSE supply cable for a 3 pin plug socket as an occasional back up.

    Drivers usually choose a dedicated home charging point because it’s faster and has built-in safety features.
    A home charging point is a compact weatherproof unit that mounts to a wall with a connected charging cable or a socket for plugging in a portable charging cable.

    Dedicated home charging points are installed by qualified specialist installers like Pod Point.

    An electric car will have either a Type 1 or a Type 2 connector and you’ll need to choose a home charger that’s compatible with it. To make it easy, we automatically make sure you get the right chargepoint for your vehicle

    Cost of installing a dedicated home charger

    A home charging point, fully installed, costs from £299 with the government OLEV grant.

    Electric car drivers get a £500 grant for purchasing and installing a home charger with the OLEV grant.

    Once installed, you only pay for the electricity you use to charge.

    The typical electricity rate in the UK is about 14p per kWh, while on Economy 7 tariffs the typical overnight electricity rate in the UK is 8p per kWh.

    How fast you can charge an electric car at home

    Charging speed for electric cars is measured in kilowatts (kW).

    Home charging points charge your car at 3.7kW or 7kW giving about 15-30 miles of range per hour of charge (compared to 2.3kW from a 3 pin plug which provides up to 8 miles of range per hour).

    1. As more and more cars are being charged overnight the cheap rate will vanish. Most of my neighbours have 2 cars and some have more. I think the Government should come to their senses and stop this nonsense.

      1. Well the article states that with a 7.5Kw charge(The maximum a home supply will cope with) It takes 1 min per mile to charge it so to get a 120 miles it is 2 hours and that probably being optimistic. A household supply would struggle to cope with charging 2 cars and could well trip out the supply

        The grid and local supply could not possible cope with a whole street plugging in cars to charge them. It would need an upgraded supply to the local sub station and an upgraded sub station and upgraded supplies to all the homes. It would cost a fortune

        TfL is struggling with the handful of electic buses it is running

      3. How long to charge tractors and combine harvesters , long distance lorries with heavy loads , cars towing caravans, motor homes .

        Look now I will be very unladylike here , but Boris is lying awake in bed with his young Greenie minded latest squeeze , indulging in pillow talk as well as other wheezes .. and I’ll bet your bottom dollar , she is influencing him !

        1. I take your point, but I do wonder if this is a bone (oops, sorry vegans) thrown to silence the greeniacs while other pressing matters are sorted.
          Rather like us all wearing paper knickers by 1980.

          3. You mean, you didn’t?? Was it just me, all on my own?? I admit, they did tend to clog up the washing machine…

        2. These farm machines and lorries will still require diesel and I suspect they will be exempt but motorhomes etc will probably have to be be electric. I can see our tourism industry getting hit badly by Boris’s stupidity. He should dump the Greenie.

        3. This “economy destroying Eco agenda” is being pushed in many Western countries now. So unless Boris’s female companion is leaping into a lot of beds, I don’t think that we can lay too much blame at her feet.

          Unlike President Trump, Boris would just appear to be following the same orders that are being given to many leaders now. The green spiral of doom and poverty is casting its shadow far and wide these days.

      4. The government have a big problem and I dont think they have even thought of it. Taxes make up the vast majority of fuel prices at least 50% of it. The tax on electricity is about 5% so the government face a huge black hole and I dont know how they will fix it. May be cars will have to be fitted with devices that measure the mileage and you will be taxed on that

        1. We know perfectly well how the government will fix it. Kerchinnggg; those gold plated pension don’t pay for themselves.
          Prepare to die of cold while waiting for the electric powered ambulance to collect you.
          To pass the time, you can watch your freezer defrost.

        2. One big problem I foresee is that they won’t be able to distinguish between the electricity used to charge EVs and that used for ordinary domestic use, so they will not be able to apply different tax rates to replace the £billions they get from fuel duty. If they do whack a higher tax on electricity then people who don’t own cars will essentially end up subsidising those that do.

          2. Easily circumvented, as any dodgy second-hand car dealer will show you. Just put the car on rollers and run it backwards while you are charging it. It just uses twice the amount of electricity.

      5. A bonny morning to you, clydesider

        “I think the Government should come to their senses and stop this nonsense.”

        But have they any senses to come to?

    3. I think that the sales of diesel generators will rise.
      I don’t have a car that needs to recharge……yet !
      But I’d get a generator.
      That’ll be by far the cheapest way to charge a car.
      Where will all the electricity needed come from.
      On the jokingly green nil carbon emissions front, Barnet council have allowed so many new dwellings in the area over the last 15 years they have applied for permission to build a 50 megawatt gas fired power station on green belt land.
      You really couldn’t make it all up.

      1. LNER electric trains run from London to Edinburgh – despite having overhead cabling the trains run on diesel from Newcastle to Edinburgh. The reason?
        A shortage of electricity despite having a Nuclear Power station at Torness, Dunbar – not far from the railway line.

    4. My local power company (the owner of the wires) now prohibits the installation of car charging points, as the network is not adequate for more of these. Problems the UK will be facing shortly unless some serious money is spent on network and generation upgrades.

  24. Sky News reporting that a British man on one of the Cruise ships, possibly on his honeymoon, has been diagnosed with Corona virus.

    1. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2k-2FNy_VDQ

      The Truth About the Coronavirus – UPDATE! by Stefan Molyneux.

      The 12th case of coronavirus in the U.S. has been confirmed in a man in Wisconsin.
      The last 48 hours have seen significant increases in new cases of 2019-nCoV – a jump of about 4,000 each day. The outbreak continues to be centered in China, which still has 99% of all cases worldwide. Eighty percent of all cases are centered in Wuhan in Hubei province.
      Worldwide the number of cases has passed 28,000, the majority of them in China, and the number of deaths is now 565, up from 494 a day ago. All but one of the deaths have been in China, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.
      Last week, the U.S. government said that foreigners who had traveled to China in the past two weeks will be barred from entering the country, as the White House declared a national public health emergency over the new coronavirus.

      According to European CDC, the majority of the confirmed cases — more than 28,000 – are in China. Nearly 200 are confirmed outside of China in 25 countries. These include: Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, Germany, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Russia, Finland, Spain, Sweden, United States, Canada, Australia, Belgium and Macau. Japan, Thailand and Singapore have the most cases outside of China.
      The 12 U.S. cases are in Wisconsin, Illinois, Washington, California, Arizona and Massachusetts. The CDC in total has 293 persons under investigation for coronavirus from 36 states. In addition to the 7 confirmed positive, 206 have tested negative.
      On Thursday, a man in Illinois became the first case of person-to-person transmission of the virus in the U.S, the CDC said. He is the husband of a Chicago woman diagnosed with the virus after returning from Wuhan. He is hospitalized in isolation and is stable. His wife, who is in her 60s, is also in isolation and in good condition. The Chicago Department of Public Health reported that she had visited China in December and returned to Chicago earlier this month.

      Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the strict precautions are warranted because of “the issue now with this is that there are a lot of unknowns.”
      He pointed out that the number of cases “has steeply inclined each and every day.”
      We now know for certain that a person without symptoms can transmit the disease, Fauci said.
      On Jan. 31, the CDC issued federal quarantine orders for all 195 U.S. citizens who recently returned to the U.S. after living in China. The quarantine will last 14 days from the date the plane left Wuhan.
      The CDC’s move follows a quarantine issued by Riverside County, CA, after one of the passengers tried to leave March Air Reserve Base Wednesday morning without being cleared by health officials.

      1. Morning T-B I enjoyed the crossings on Brittany Ferries but I would never have a Cruise. I think these “captives” would be better off the ships. Cerainly the ones in the inside cabins. I doubt they will get compensation.

        1. That is exactly the conversation I have just had with my good lady.
          I traveled to Cape Town in the late 60s by sea. Loved the experience.
          My wife and I sailed to Australia (6 weeks) in the mid 70s. Quite often on the Indian ocean it was noticeable at breakfast the rolling ocean had taken its toll.
          About 8 years ago ‘we did’ the Norwegian Fjords.
          Loved that. But after i noticed plume of yellowish polluting smoke trail as we sailed back to Southampton, I vowed not to travel like that again.

        2. River cruises are better. Smaller ships and the clientele are not expecting a floating Blackpool.

          1. We had a short (four days) river cruise on the Nile in 2007 – that was good and a small ship, but I really have never fancied an ocean cruise.

        1. If he’s caucasian then all this ethnic weaponised virus is out of the window then, presumably.

        2. British is not an ethnicity, it’s a nationality. Alan just suggests he’s of Christian heritage.

  25. In Dubai, they forgot one “LITTLE” thing!

    The modern Arab world!! You have seen those architectural wonders of Dubai.

    However, none are hooked up to a sewer system!

    The two-minute video below passes a line of poop trucks and never gets to the end of the line. What were these people thinking?

    An unbelievable amount of sewage is generated by the new high-rises and there is no place to dispose of it. Camel sense seems about right!

    Dubai doesn’t have a sewage system for all those big new buildings so they haul it all away in tank trucks.
    Look at the number of tank trucks that are waiting to dump their load.

    This is amazing. They wait for days to dump their load.

    You would have thought that by building all those huge skyscrapers they would have enough sense to put in a sufficient sewage system to haul away all that crap.

    You would imagine that those building that look amazingly beautiful were built on a well-planned system of utilities. But, that’s NOT TRUE!!

    Watch the following link:

    http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/-pQdjwliLMA?rel=0“

    2. That’s a bit of a scoop by the commentators.
      Dubai also uses desalination to supply drinking water. Some thing else that’s not in the least green.

        1. I think it’s because it returns all the extracted salt back into the sea where it came from. It then apparently, destroys the existing wild life.

          1. Yes, the desalination process is usually reverse osmosis and there are some chemicals needed for the mebrane cleaning process but the issue about the salt comes from a patently biased reportd eagerly promoted by the BBD which taked about “toxic levels of chemicals being poured into the sea and then somehow linking this to all the usual problems.
            Of course, this might be a problem if the clean water produced were, onece used, somehow shot off into space or something. Sequestered in defunct oil wells etc but the reality is that once we have used it, it dissappears down the drain and ultimately into the usual flow of waste water and rain water back to the ocean where it will, overall restore the nett balance of chemical composition.
            Of course, all we are really doing is “borrowing” the water and returning it after a brief loan.
            And I wonder just what difference there might be between desalination to produce barely enough for drinking and washing and the evaporation caused by solar heating…. just how much water is removed from the sea, leaving the salts etc behind, by the sun more than by desalination?
            Like most greenie propaganda, they don’t exactly lie, if they can’t avoid telling the truth, they just don’t xactly teell the whole truth.
            There was another one of thses dams talking about water intensive crops like chocolate. It was as if the water is absorbed by these crops, retained ro somehow transported into another dimension…. they never ever tell you the whole truth.

          2. Why can’t I edit in replies on the comments page and why, when I come here can I not edit the reply as i can this post?

    3. I wonder if they have bothered with processing the stuff or just let it dry out in the desert. To become dust which one breathes. Trump was right to call them shitholes.

    4. “They wait for days to dump their load.” – they should use laxatives!
      Morning, Tom.

      I guess they tip it into the sea.

    6. Supposedly resolved by 2013 but I still can’t fathom why anyone would want to holiday there.

    8. “They wait for days to dump their load.” – they should use laxatives!
      Morning, Tom.

      I guess they tip it into the sea.

  26. A comment by Mesmer,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Scary

    Only now is the dawning realisation of the reality of the coronavirus

    beginning to raise alarms on a personal level. I use a number of

    component suppliers in China. My last contact with anyone over there was

    on 29th Jan when I sent off an email for new parts. I left it a few

    days, thinking it was a bit strange that no one had responded because

    they’re usually on top of things, but carried on with other stuff

    thinking this virus outbreak is bound to be a bit disruptive here and

    there. But since then, there’s been no response from anyone in China –

    anyone at all. Even from contacts’ private email addresses. I’m now more

    than a little spooked by this.

    Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has an article in today’s Telegraph. China’s coronavirus is not remotely under control and the world economy is in mounting peril (£) Here’s a couple of snippets from it:

    The workshop of the world is closed. China is on a total-war footing.

    The Communist Party has evoked the “spirit of 1937” and mobilised all

    the instruments of its totalitarian surveillance system to fight both

    coronavirus, and the truth. Make GDP forecasts if you dare.

    As of

    this week two-thirds of the Chinese economy remains shut. More than

    80pc of its manufacturing industry is closed, rising to 90pc for

    exporters.

    The Chinese economy is 17pc of the world economy and

    deeply integrated into international supply chains. It was just 4.5pc of

    world GDP during the SARS epidemic 2003, which some like to use as a

    reassuring template. You cannot shut down China for long these days

    without shutting down the world…

    …Commodity markets have

    taken the crisis on the chin because they are instant barometers of

    actual demand. Equity markets are instead shrugging off the Wuhan virus

    as media noise, betting that China’s factories will reopen on February

    14 or thereabouts as Beijing brings the epidemic under control.

    This is a brave assumption and I can only marvel at analysts suggesting
    that the infection rate may be tailing off based on each day’s official
    data. Are they aware of the astonishing accounts of Kafkaesque reality
    in Wuhan, Huanggang, and soon no doubt the 35m-strong megalopolis of
    Chongqing, where Britain has just closed its consulate?

    Are they
    reading dispatches from Caixin or in the South China Morning Post
    revealing a desperate shortage of testing kits and tales of the walking
    afflicted (transport has been shut down) queuing for hours at hospitals,
    only to be turned away and sent home to die undiagnosed.

    These
    glimpses of truth are about to vanish. The propaganda police have
    ordered those within their direct reach to conduct an “editorial
    review”. Stories are being censored aggressively. Outsiders will be
    silenced in subtler ways.

    The coronavirus numbers are patently fiction. Far more have died than the official tally of 636.

          1. We were once one of the leading nuclear power technology centres and now we depend on China? Just as Wind turbine manufacture has shifted to China and solar power and of course, that is where they hope to concentrate electric car production…. all these threats to the UK auto-industry are soley based on EU Membership but on the current concentration of technology in China. One wonders when Governments will catch on that technology transfer and cheap manufacture all placed in the hands of China is not such a good idea. Trump gets it, few else yet.

    2. Will this be a nail in the coffin for globalism as countries realise that outsourcing all their industry to cheap labour is not such a good idea?

      1. Good Point. The UK has been entirely negligent allowing strategic industries and assets to be bought and sold, be moved abroad, or entirely lost.
        The chickens do come home to roost.

    3. Rik – could you do some editing of these copy ‘n paste items? The double line feed and short lines make them difficult to read.
      Ta much-like!

    4. Good morning, Rik.

      I have had little to do all week except wonder why so few
      reported cases and deaths are creating such concern in
      the media. I do not believe the given figures to be anywhere
      near truthful.
      How many new hospitals have and are being built?

      For once I do not believe the MSM are exaggerating but
      rather trying to downplay the situation.

        1. Maybe it did, Plum, but if this is being
          engineered/developed I wonder what
          else is in the ‘pipeline.’

          Good morning.

          1. Hi Garlands,
            I’ve stocked the freezer and checked on dog biscuits….!

            “China is a sleeping lion. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world.”
            Old Boney…

    5. Our response here’s been entirely casual and minimalist. Hospitals have earmarked a private room for any case that might come in. That’s it.
      My forecast is 1,000,000,000+ cases by mid-May.

      1. Food markets?
        Although the Black Death was preceded by earthquakes in the Far East that dislodged rats/marmots/gophers from their usual abodes.

          2. Ha. I am about to go to Tesco’s now. 🙂

            Purely because I have tried so many different places and, in my experience, Tesco’s has the best tasting food of all of them. Far better than some of the “pretend better” ones which are more expensive and lacking in flavour.

            I am reminded of student days when I developed a taste for Red Wine. One friend brought a bottle to a small gathering and said “try this!” It was some quite expensive red that I cannot remember the name of as it was weak and I have not had it again. I said “Hmmm. Try this one for a little flavour.”

            He sniffed and smiled, then took a mouthful and his eyes almost watered as he said “What the hell is that!? That is so nice, but it’s a bit strong.” I had given him a glass of £5 a bottle Jacob’s Creek Cabernet Sauvignon Red Wine. To say that it is full of flavour is an understatement and it is very strong. One reviewer called it “Overpowering” and gave it one star. Wuss. Hardened drinkers, whose taste buds may be shot away to Hell, really like it because they can still taste it.

            I just like strong flavours, so I still buy that one in preference to many others. Now, off to debase myself with the tasty food at Tesco’s. 🙂

    8. All ones eggs in one basket….?
      The lesson is to have alternative sources of supply reading and eager to take over.
      When the Chinese made a grab for the marine fuels market, pushing the price up it was enough that US Auto makers found that the increased freight charges meant they could get cheaper from Mexico. While this may be a short term issue I can bet it will be rapidly addressed and that some of these alternative suppliers may find they get a more prominent share in future. It is important not to ever become dependent on a single irreplaceable supply source. In the case of the EU threatening our supply chains It would be a great surprise to discover that certain drugs, for example, can only be obtained from EU manufacturers and that contingency plans were not already in place.

      1. And it’s the same with Animal Rights fanatics who daren’t say a word against halal slaughter of animals.

      1. When you have seen one islamic execution / murder you don’t need to see any more. I watched a 15 year old boy suffer “islam” 2 years ago. That was enough.

    4. Where are all the women’s lib people now?

      If my thread is correct, this woman reported being raped and was stoned to death for having sex outside of marriage. Truly, they’re monsters and they’ve brought it here.

      Thanks, Labour.

      1. Tories haven’t done anything about stopping, or even controlling, it.
        Arseholes, the lot of them.

      2. W,
        Thanks lab, but let us NOT forget the tories need a vote of thanks for the continuation as with the wretch cameron upping the intake after pledging to reduce the .
        numbers.
        Plus they are still at it.

    5. The full video was online without blurring two days ago.
      And people are STILL happy to import these people?

    7. And to think that people in the British establishment – even our absurd last two Archbishops of Canterbury – are corrupt, treacherous and stupid enough to allow any form of Sharia law in Britain

    8. I’m not going to watch that. I had nightmares some years ago after just seeing an amputation video. Once seen, you can’t unsee them.

      1. When the image pops into your mind picture a green apple in front of it. Concentrate on the apple. Make it larger make it greener. Do this every time it happens and eventually all you will see is the apple.

      2. I accidentally caught site of a photograph of a beheaded woman online, somewhere in the Balkans, no warning (oh, sounds so snowflakey) of this. Once seen, never unseen. These people are indescribable barbarians.

      3. I suspected it was something on those lines.
        My imagination will do just nicely, thank you.

  28. May I introduce Birmingham University’s Institute for Research into SUPERdiversity. It’s really super:

    The social landscape of Britain and other countries of immigration have been transformed in the past decade.

    The arrival of new migrants from many different countries, combined with longer established communities from the Commonwealth, has resulted in an unprecedented variety of cultures, identities, faiths, and languages.

    The speed, scale and spread at which these current new patterns of diversity have emerged is unprecedented and presents new challenges and opportunities to policymakers and practitioners, as well as to businesses, communities and migrants.

    The Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS) is the first institute in the UK and one of the first globally, to focus on superdiversity.

    Our research
    IRiS is researching and developing a knowledge base of the changes, challenges and opportunities that result from superdiversity, to help governments and societies across the world to prepare for and adapt to those changes. Research includes:

    Brexit and its impact on British and EU families, businesses and societies, access to welfare in superdiverse areas using the concept of bricolage to show how access to health services plays out at neighbourhood level;

    The SEREDA project, which explores the nature of sexual and gender based violence for refugees across the refugee journey and includes the first in-depth analysis of how such experiences shape individual’s ability to resettle.

    We are also undertaking a formative evaluation of the UK’s new Community Sponsorship Programme, which is shaping the development of the programme and of support services for the UK’s community sponsorship groups. Our participation in the USE-IT project has resulted in training for refugee researchers who have been working with local groups in Birmingham to establish businesses and social enterprises

    and here’s a message from the head

    Migration is a global phenomenon that transforms societies, connects distant places, and generates new opportunities and challenges. IRiS aims to contribute to a better understanding of migration and superdiversity leading to the creation of more inclusive and equal societies.”

    Professor Jenny Phillimore

    Professor of Migration and Superdiversity

    https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/spotlights/superdiversity.aspx

    3. Was this written by a monkey on typewriter? If you work at a University surely there is an English department that can check what you write before it is published?

    4. I wonder what she would make of the statement: “You can have open borders or you can tackle climate change, not both”?

    5. The above letter from Birmingham University is the perfect example of why I walked away from working in business administration and back into the cool logical arms of information technology. Computers are infinitely preferable to the pseudo-intellectuals who come out with language such as that. It could only have ended in a gunshot if I had stayed in the company of those people. “And that’s when I shot him your Honour” would have been the final line in my defence at the trial.

      “The speed, scale and spread at which these current new patterns of diversity have emerged is unprecedented and presents new challenges…”

      Such as the unexpected challenge of trying to stay alive in a previously “safe” society, which now has a plethora of people who think life is cheap and the strong can take whatever they like from the defenceless.

      1. Not to mention the practicalities of an over-stretched infrastructure in a country which was already crowded, and now is the most over-populated country anywhere in Europe, and probably the world.

    1. In the light of recent events granting any concessions to terrorists is not likely to go down very well with the British public just now.

      1. Morning R,
        Or with the sane element
        never.
        They, in reality should be granted along with family etc,
        immediate deportation.

      1. I wonder what his wife thinks of being mislead for 26 years ?. Does it also possibly mean during those years he has been having affairs with men?

      1. Most people don’t care i assume. He is a well known presenter so it probably does qualify as news, at least on his own show. By doing it he has probably saved his mental health and can inspire other people to do the same. So their lives aren’t coloured by deceit. I’m glad at least that his wife and daughters are okay with it. Better than bitterness and hatred.

        *chucks rainbow flag in bin.

        1. Oh dear , yes …

          It does seem to be rather late in the day for him deciding he doesn’t enjoy sex with his wife anymore but prefers to be touched by a man .

          He must be suffering from an almighty midlife crisis.

      1. And if that does’t work he can try, “From now on I want to be called Loretta and have babies”.

  32. Households struggling with energy bills may get help from a government review of clean technology funding.

    At the moment, an annual levy is imposed on gas and electricity bills to fund renewables such as offshore wind.
    The burden falls disproportionately on the poorest in society, and it will get worse as the UK expands clean energy to tackle climate change.
    The BBC has been told the government may shift the cost onto tax payers to avoid anger at climate policies.
    A government spokesperson said: “We are definitely considering the way that costs are distributed.”
    Currently about £10bn a year is being invested to support clean technology. Consumers pay about £5.5bn of that total through a levy on bills, which is about £186 of a typical energy bill.

    1. Interesting use of the word “invested”. A bit like the transformation of the word “gay”.

    1. A couple of my oldest friends are currently on a cruise somewhere around South East Asia. Their itinerary was already curtailed due to an engine room fire before Christmas, but the travel company wouldn’t let them cancel and merely offered a small refund. They were disappointed not to be visiting Malaysia on the revised itinerary, but I wonder if they will be able to go ashore anywhere now.

  34. I find it an interesting feature of the NoTTL board that one can introduce a topic and receive 6/7 replies, none of which give you an upvote. One lives and learns.

    1. Funnily enough, you can get so absorbed in composing and posting a reply that you forget to uptick.
      I’ve done that several times and only realised in the evening.

    2. Have one from me!
      I tend to upvote anything I agree with, but sometimes just to show I’ve read the post, whether I agree or not.

      1. Yes. If someone has posted a good argument or counterargument, I will uptick for their continuing the debate, even if is contrary to my previous approval.

    3. Generally speaking who you are is more important for upvotes than the content of your post.

      The most votes being awarded to those in the clique.

      Not that it matters, it’s just normal human group behavior.

      1. ‘Generally speaking who you are is more important for up votes than the content of your post.’

        Does that view work equally for the giving of down votes?
        Or perhaps you have another reason/excuse, Polly, for your
        appalling behaviour?

        1. Deary me….

          Which is worse ?

          Down voting or the many sharp barbs of nasty words thrown at me over a very long period ? Particularly bearing in mind that the latter were the cause of the former.

          Over to you….

    4. The upvote thing is worrying , I don’t rely on them but it is nice to know a comment has been read .. I try to upvote everyone , but I think Disqus is playing silly games.

          3. My tally was so small, not yet reached five figures! – I think ‘they’ thought I wasn’t worth interfering with. What surprises me, though, is why not have done with it and re-set them all at zero?

    5. I don’t always upvote when in conversation on here. No rudeness intended. The conversation makes it plain. Here, have an upvote.

    6. I don’t come for the upticks. Merely to talk at people. (Note AT people, that’s what everyone does now…)

    7. I have found, and have done on many “talker systems,” that I can be reading a comment and agreeing with everything in it, then in the final line someone says one thing that is very dubious, then I don’t want to upvote it in case it appears that I agree with the “wrong” part.

      I also tend not to upvote any comment that has a gratuitous swear word in it (this is down purely to personal bias on my part.) If you are reporting another’s words that include one then that depends upon context.

      As with others, I often upvote someone if they have replied to me just to let them know that I have read it. Unless it is something that I disagree with.

      1. Yes, I have found that too on some media sites but seldom on nttl. It is almost like a double entendre, which way to take the comment. In that case I withhold the uptick in case I am assisting some propaganda poll.

    8. I always uptick first, and then reply. If I should discover later that I have replied without upticking, I will still give the comment an uptick. The uptick, as far as I am concerned means that I have read, understood and your comment is of interest to me, or particularly pertinent and/or you have made me laugh.

  35. Shamima Begum loses first stage of appeal against citizenship removal

    Shamima Begum, the woman who left Britain as a schoolgirl to join Islamic State in Syria, has lost the initial stage of her appeal against the Home Office’s move to revoke her citizenship and prevent her from returning to London.
    A judgment by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) found against Begum, now 20, on three grounds, including that she had not been improperly deprived of her citizenship.
    The ruling by Mrs Justice Elisabeth Laing, Mr Doron Blum and Mr Roger Golland accepted that Begum “cannot have an effective appeal on her current circumstances but it does not follow that her appeal succeeds”.
    Siac said the decision to strip Begum of her citizenship did not make her stateless. However, it said, she could nonetheless continue with her substantive appeal.

    1. I expect our taxpayers are subsidiaries to all this nonsense.
      The Lawyer’s will be supping at the trough.
      She should never be allowed to return.

    2. This ‘substantive appeal’ (words that SB wouldn’t think of herself) – whence cometh the funds?
      Ooops – my blood pressure’s just gone through the ceiling.

      1. Lawyers never work for Free. IT will be being funded either directly or indirectly by UK taxpayers

        1. It will set a precedent for subsequent cancellation of citizenship status, so might be worth the investment.

        2. Many lawyers take on cases pro bono.

          In this instance there is too much money to be made by the unscrupulous.

  36. This might be fake news, but….

    China seek for court’s approval to kill the over 20,000 coronavirus patients to avoid further spread of the virus
    By Local Correspondent

    The highest level of court in Chhina, Supreme People’s Court, is expected to give an approval on Friday for the mass killing of coronavirus patients in China as sure means of controlling the spread of the deadly virus.

    The State tells the court that China is on the verge of losing its health workers to Coronavirus as at least 20 health workers contract the virus daily.

    The State argues that coronavirus patients admitted at hospitals only have their deaths delayed and infect many others while receiving care at the hospital.

    China has been under criticism for human rights violations and organizations have questioned China’s approach in dealing with the Coronavirus outbreak and it is believed the country has already killed many of its coronavirus patients.

    The State mentioned in a document to the court that the country may lose its entire citizens if the few affected patients do not sacrifice their lives to save health workers and a billion others as there is no hope in sight in the fight against the virus.

    The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it needs $1 billion to fight coronavirus outside China.

    Countries around the world are starting to cut ties with China and pull their citizens out of the crisis-hit Hubei region, where the virus emerged in the city of Wuhan.

    Hong Kong’s leader today held a press conference during which she wore a face mask and said the city would stop all high-speed trains and ferries to the mainland, halve the number of flights and stop giving visas to visitors from China.

    Thirteen cases around the world have confirmed the coronavirus is spreading from person to person outside of China among people who have not visited the country.

    https://ab-tc.com/china-seek-for-courts-approval-to-kill-the-over-20000-coronavirus-patients-to-avoid-further-spread-of-the-virus/

    1. Looking at those 5 day “hospitals” that they have built, they won’t need to officially kill anyone. Packing sick people in like sardines in that way is what caused the majority of the flu deaths in the 1918-20 global outbreak.

      People going into a room such as that will have far less chance of walking back out again than if they stayed isolated in their own houses. All sorts of nasties can be spread around when you concentrate sick people next to each other in that way.

    3. Looks like a malignant spoof to me Bob! For a start the Chinese Government does not accept that it requires approval from anyone let alone a court and if they really did want to kill anyone they would just do so!

    5. Looking at those 5 day “hospitals” that they have built, they won’t need to officially kill anyone. Packing sick people in like sardines in that way is what caused the majority of the flu deaths in the 1918-20 global outbreak.

      People going into a room such as that will have far less chance of walking back out again than if they stayed isolated in their own houses. All sorts of nasties can be spread around when you concentrate sick people next to each other in that way.

      1. Attendance is probably compulsory, another form of concentration camp. I doubt very little ‘treatment’ will be offered.

      2. Just like going into an NHS hospital. (Here, anyone over 70 going into the hospital for illness A is very likely to die of illness B, that they did not know that they had.)

        1. And didn’t until they went into hospital. I rent a house to 2 infection control staff at the hospital with the quarantine block. I suspect they are quite busy at present. They’ve been good tenants and I hope the massive bonuses they are probably getting aren’t going to persuade them to buy somewhere rather than continue renting…

    6. Link doesn’t work, Bob.

      Error code: SEC_ERROR_REVOKED_CERTIFICATE

      The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.

        2. ‘Morning, Sue. Still can’t open it – maybe it’s my computer.

          I fear this ZX Spectrum is getting past its best ……..
          ;¬)

    1. I see she’s more concerned with ‘increasing diversity’ within her company, than actually saving it from going down the plughole. The words ‘deckchairs’, ‘Titanic’ and ‘rearrange’ spring to mind.

      1. As far as I know she has zero expertise in retailing. From what she has said so far she seems keen to take it down the diversity plug hole. Still she will not care either way she will get a big fat payoff unlike the people that work for John Lewis

        Retailing is tough at the moment and even tougher if you are a department store . It needs real skill to survive

  40. Bob Jacksons statement in full.

    “You never know what’s going on in someone’s seemingly perfect life, what issues they are struggling with, or the state of their wellbeing — and so you won’t know what has been consuming me for the last few years.

    “With the strength and support of my wife and my daughters, I have been coming to terms with the fact that I am hetrosexual.

    “This is something that has caused many heart-breaking conversations at home. I have been married for nearly 27 years, and we have two beautiful grown-up daughters,. My family have held me so close: they have tried to cheer me up, to smother me with kindness and love, despite their own confusion, Yet still I can’t sleep and there have been some very dark moments.

    1. Is this to do with Phillip Schofield, ‘coming out’ ?
      I doubt if it’s much of a problem for the millions of viewing public.

    3. Googled to find the original source, Bill. Well done on the humour, but I’ve always thought he was gay.

      1. Wait, are you telling me Philip Schofield is gay ? Stop the presses – Who knew? (apart from just about everyone)

        3. Schofield has dual British and New Zealand citizenship.[1][29] He married his long-term partner Stephanie Lowe in 1993.[30] They reside in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.[31]

  42. Bakerloo line strike: Tube workers to stage walkout over 48 hours due to ‘intolerable’ levels of stress

    Goh Tfl want to change the timetable so they walk out. Angling for another bonus or pay rise no doubt

      1. They’re already possible. Aren’t DLR trains driverless. It’s only RMT who vehemently oppose them, I think.

        1. Some of the Tube trains already are driverless. The drivers are only there for appearances, they don’t actually drive/control the trains. I can’t remember which Tube lines they are, but my cousin’s husband works on the Tube and has mentioned it in the past.

          1. One of our neighbours in the late 60s/early 70s worked in the Victoria Line and said they didn’t need a driver.

      2. Shouldn’t a conscientious Moslem be taking him up a tall building and throwing him off for encouraging sodomy and the other abominations despised by Allah?

          1. I don’t know what sex, if any, it is – but isn’t the Mayor betraying his faith by supporting sodomy?

          3. He’s spent his entire placement as Mayor betraying everything else. Here’s an iconic building that was once due for redevelopment changes to the façade and changes to access to become residential. He gave the order for it’s complete demolition. Now Barnet council are attempting to build a 50 megawatt gas fired power station within a mile of that once proud building.

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

          4. Same architect as the original Wembley Stadium.

            Having designed an Immunology and Signalling laboratory on a BBSRC site I should say that modern laboratories are now more complex and highly serviced. There are wet labs and the usual array of fume cupboards as you would find in the older buildings but some equipment is highly sensitive and prone to vibration and has to be encapsulated. Air conditioning systems are now more sophisticated for specialist buildings where viruses are studied.

            In addition private cellular offices are out of fashion and scientists and technicians are encouraged to exchange ideas in communal areas such as coffee bars and refectories.

          5. private cellular offices are out of fashion and scientists and technicians are encouraged to exchange ideas in communal areas such as coffee bars and refectories.

            Otherwise known as not getting much work done.

          6. The building its self with its green copper sheeting roof could be seen for miles away. The structure was started before WW2 but was put on hold then funished and opened in the very early 50s by the King. My mother took me there as a little onlooker.
            I was surprised it was never listed. In Barnet and Mill Hill over development has caused an ongoing power problem.
            I heard a lot of the North London Jewish communities in the Barnet area didn’t get their voting ballot papers delivered for the Mayoral election. The excuse was an administration error. IMHO. More consistent with forward planning.

          7. I remember the building and it’s copper roof. It was well constructed and could have been retained and converted into offices or workshops.

            I have written specifications for the conversion of similar buildings, usually immediately post war with concrete frames and floors. This often involves replacing windows and external claddings and inserting new ceilings and floor finishes plus re-servicing.

            The demolition of such structures is wasteful of the ‘embedded energy’ they possess.

          8. Khan also looks remarkably pained at having to shake hands, as if he’s saying to himself “what they gonna say down the mosque?”

      3. Dear Mr. Khant,
        Don’t go up tall buildi ……. too late.

        Told you not to upset your local imam.

  44. A GP has been given three life sentences for 90 sex assaults on female patients.
    Manish Shah assaulted 23 women and a 15-year-old girl while working in London – carrying out invasive examinations for his own gratification.
    The Old Bailey heard he used Angelina Jolie and Jade Goody as examples to frighten patients about their health.
    Judge Anne Molyneux described him as a “master of deception who abused his position of power”.
    “You made up stories which got into heads and caused panic,” she said.
    Shah convinced his victims to have unnecessary checks between May 2009 and June 2013.
    “Your behaviour was not only sexual but was driven by your desire to control and on occasions humiliate women,” the judge said.

    1. Could have been worse. He could have been wearing sandals with socks instead of those trainers.

    2. Could make all the difference in a 100 metres photo finish.
      Might even help to make an Olympic record.

    1. Why such a formal style of address, Rastus?

      Va te faire foutre would be more fitting.
      ;¬)

      2. Beautifully put Rastus. Thank you.

        Sorry – should have been attached to your post Rastus.

  47. This apparently is the way the Fortune Cookie crumbles:

    “Guangzhou, the capital of China’s southwestern Guangdong Province and the country’s fifth largest city with nearly 15 million residents, has just joined the ranks of cities imposing a mandatory lockdown on all citizens, effectively trapping residents inside their homes, with only limited permission to venture into the outside world to buy essential supplies.

    The decision means 3 provinces, 60 cities and 400 million people are now facing China’s most-strict level of lockdown as Beijing struggles to contain the coronavirus outbreak as the virus has already spread to more than 2 dozen countries.”

    2. It looks more and more like this virus is a genetically engineered strain, probably developed as a precursor to a biological weapon. The behaviour of the Chinese Government suggests they know only too well what this virus is potentially capable of, hence the draconian measures implemented immediately following the first cases……

    4. No other country in the world could impose such restrictions (apart from N Korea) I hope it does contain the crisis.

  48. Good Morning from the Saxon daughter of Alfred of Wessex .
    Just before the news on classic FM, lots of stuff about diseases
    then the news and lots of stuff about viruses.
    I’m cheery enough to go outside now which has a hard frost and
    Icicles sparking like diamonds as the sun appears through the mist
    with her saffron glow and beans of light .
    Stuff those doom monģerers ,

  49. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys performing at the Montreux Jazz Festival

    SIR – What a shame to read of Brian Wilson and Al Jardine berating their Beach Boys bandmates for seeming to support big-game trophy hunting in Africa (report, February 5).

    I urge them to visit any professional hunting reserve in southern Africa and see how healthy, active and contented the animals are. Compare this with underfunded and ill-managed government-run game conservancies in Africa, overstocked with hungry animals fighting over food and water supplies, usually dying miserably in old age as their habitat is destroyed by overpopulation.

    Better for a wild animal to lead a happy young life, then die instantly and unknowingly from a bullet aimed professionally, rather than die slowly from starvation and disablement, or painfully from predation.

    Professor Twink Allen FRCVS

    Sharjah Equine Hospital

    United Arab Emirates

    1. I know that the idiotically named “Twink” Allan has a number of acolytes and supporters on this forum but I care not. This cretin should be let loose, unclad and unarmed, on a game reserve amongst a group of, say, Thomson’s Gazelles or Wildebeest. He could be then filmed (from a drone) trying to evade a pride of lions as they enjoy their ‘sport’ of killing a defenceless mammal.

      At least the lions have a natural justification for their killing. It is called ‘food’ (and survival).

        1. Looks as untidy as me. My excuse is that leaving things all over ‘surfaces’ is the way I always know where everything is, even if I have to dig down a few layers to get to it.

  50. Morning again

    SIR – With the announcement that no new petrol or diesel cars will be sold after 2035 and the previous edict that gas central heating is to be phased out, is now the time for parents to encourage their children to consider a career as an electrician rather than to embark on a university course with all the debt this often brings?

    What a golden future beckons: rewiring of millions of houses and buildings across the country, not only for heating, but also to provide the power points for the new age of electric-only cars.

    With restricted immigration from the EU, who knows what rates these individuals will be able to command?

    More ominously, we householders had better start saving now, as it will not be cheap.

    Bruce Holland

    Bushey, Hertfordshire

  51. SIR – Nigel Duncan (Letters, February 5) is out of luck if he thinks he can outwit the printer manufacturers by buying a new printer each time he runs out of ink. New printers are supplied with “starter” cartridges, which soon run out.

    I have saved more than £100 per year by using the Hewlett-Packard instant ink service. You pay a fixed monthly price based on your usage and they automatically send you a new cartridge before you run out.

    Roger Holden

    Richmond, Surrey

  52. Brexit Leader Nigel Farage Meets With President Trump at White House: ‘Great Things Ahead For Our Two Countries’. Breitbart. 7 February 2020.

    Nigel Farage met President Donald Trump Thursday evening at the White House, prompting him to observe “there should be great things ahead for our two countries.”

    There is no mention of this or of the three other Farage Breitbart stories in the UK MSM so I guess the D Notices are out!

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/02/06/brexit-leader-nigel-farage-meets-with-president-trump-at-white-house-great-things-ahead-for-our-two-countries/

  53. Is Montgomery Buttcrack, Mayor of the South Bend and a gay icon, a figment of my imagination or running for US President?

  54. Liverpool Philharmonic Is this the only Grade I listed Pub ?

    An opulent pub once praised by Bill Bryson for its ornate toilets has been given the same listed status as Buckingham Palace and Chatsworth House.
    The Philharmonic Dining Rooms in Liverpool is the first purpose-built Victorian pub in England to be given Grade I status, Historic England said.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/764ad3654a0b7d9955d1893f66af35da18396e8e179f5a8b0ff42645af845c49.jpg

  55. Beautiful sunny day outdoors and not a breath of wind. My hubby tells me it is cold but I gently reminded him that it was February…..yet I remember a freak heatwave last February when we could go out in short sleeves. Anyone else remember that?

    Good afternoon Nottlers.

    1. I can remember a few Februaries with pleasant warm and settled weather over the past 4 decades.

      1. There is a quote by Pepys – 1660s, during the Little Ice Age – about a warm February when the “flyes dance up and down”.
        I have unsuccessfully tried to find the quote.

    2. Good afternoon Jenny!

      Still sunny here, and it was quite breezy when I was hanging out my washing. Needed a coat on.

      1. I heard there was a storm coming in at the weekend…maybe you are feeling the forehead of the beast.

      1. Afternoon dear Sue…..my chest is now whistling instead of grunting. Not sure if this is a step up or down…but nice to have a change. Thank you for asking…..xxx

        1. Sorry you are unwell Jenny, I hope you feel
          better soon. Chests are difficult things to get right,
          but I do hope you live in a rural area or by the coast
          as both are better . Take care

          1. Thank you very much for your kindness…..I live rurally and the coast is not too far away. This is defnitely a virusy thing. The wheezing woke me up last night it was so loud – and I sleep sitting up on a sofa. It will pass. I am more bothered about my eye and hope a Nottler can reassure me. I have just one eye working as the other is lazy from birth. The good eye suffered an aneurysm last year wth several retinal bleeds. Thankfully, the bleeding went away on it’s own but yesterday at my check up, they found a floater due to the vitreous gel pulling away from the retina. This is a bit frightening to say the least. The specialist said it was age related, I have cataracts too. Jeez!

          2. There are lots of those coughs and virus things around,
            mine’s been around since after Christmas because of the chill
            but has started to get better a little now.

            Sleeping sitting up or with many pillows is better as it’s more
            horrible at night. Drink plenty of fluids. I found chamomile
            tea ( or warm milk ) with honey helped.
            So very sorry to hear about the eye difficulties
            and thankfully you are being taken care of with those,
            always keep in touch with your doctor.
            Please try to stay positive, I know that’s
            difficult but it’s really important.

          3. I am always positive as best I can. I do worry abut my sight naturally with just having one working right. The eye aneurysm was very scary but forunately i was in hospital at the time. I just woke up with this big brown flashy thing in my sight. Yuk! They put three lots of eye drops in yesterday and it is still a bit stingy today. Thank you for all the tips, I will try the tea….I do like milk anyway.

  56. “There’s always somebody worse off than yourself” as Dudley Moore often used to say, and today my thoughts are with all those who bought the economy inside cabins (no windows) on those two stranded, industrial size, cruise ships in Yokohama and Hong Kong. 24 hour confinement to cabins can’t be much fun.

      1. I think your survival chances depended upon how close you were to the “big firework” when it went off. We have improved them a great deal since then. In the words of Humphrey Appleby “We could obliterate the entirety of Eastern Europe!” With our Trident system. If the Americans allowed us to use their satellites to fire them. There was another quote from the same episode from an Army General who was asked what the RAF thought about nuclear weapons:

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dfb311d220d1892acdea820e0aa41afbb4522590ca9bd69397abce315f2b2e55.jpg

          1. I did upvote that, but suddenly thought “that might not be right” – I thought MRD Was Mandatory Retirement Date (as in past-it) – what did your MRD mean if it was different? 🙂

          3. I was way off then. I didn’t think the retirement date insult looked right, unless you were ex-RAF, and they tend to have some sense of humour and are not that bitter about comments such as the General’s. 🙂

          5. Who was? You were Ex-RAF? I will add that to the profile so that I remember. Being ex-forces is quite often a good sign although not always obviously. Paddy Ashdown came from a military family and served for 13 years. He was in the SBS in the early days and ended up a Captain in the Royal Marines and served in Northern Ireland.

            That is a very good innings, but he ended his years trying to make the United Kingdom a servant of the European Union, so he went bad somewhere.

          6. You can add to your notes that I am ex-Royal Observer Corps – I did my bit underground 🙂

      3. Interestingly Sue if you make comparisons between those flattened Japanese cities and look at places in the US like Detriot and other long established places of US production and manufacturing, they are almost ghost towns now and that is usually self inflicted.

      4. I’m not sure if anyone has made a credible estimate. Some of the earlier raids on Tokyo and other cities when the Americans sent in up to 2,000 B-29 Superfortresses dropping conventional bombs are reckoned to have killed more people (mostly civilians) than either of the A-bombs.

        The cost of the development of the B-29 was about twice the cost of the Manhattan project which led to the A-bomb.

    1. Yes that’s how it used to be! It does no good to watch this sort of thing! It is too depressing.

      1. No it’s great fun spotting fashions, quaint services like the 7:45 p.m. post collection and all the different delivery lorries and motor cars….etc

      2. Don’t worry, the BBC will, as with the classics and Christmas Carol, recolour the films and introduce “diversity” Amazing what can be done with CGI these days. Film will be censored the way Enid Blyton and other books are.

        1. No they won’t. They’ll make it disappear, because it completely undermines their “we’ve always been a nation of immigrants” lie.

    2. Ah, those were the days! Relatively little traffic and cars that were instantly recognisable; Consuls, Zephyrs, Zodiacs, Travellers, Oxfords, Cambridges, A35s, Rover 90s, Ford Anglias, Minis … I don’t think I spotted one land whale among the pedestrians, either. No ripped jeans or tracksuits, smart school uniforms. What a blast from the past!

    3. People not bothering to chain their bikes to something indestructible, a Tardis…. yes, those were the days….
      But I don’t remember hem lines that high and did that man really put the dog in the boot of his car?
      A lone chugger, school uniforms…..not a pair of jeans in sight, nor a tattoo, or piercings, clean decent people….and Morris Dancers.
      It took me a long while with interruptions to watch. Periodically I needed to stop and overcome the impulse to stick my head in an oven, This is the Britain of my youth, forever gone and the changes? very, very few for the better. Except, perhaps, the arrival of the Ugandan asians who took over ailing post offices and rural stores and gave them new life and became “British” and integrated. Those that I know, anyway.

      2. I agree with you .. , my youth gone forever.. We had matching shoes and handbags , saved our money , danced , studied and embraced a wonderful world … untill…

        How do people blow their noses when they have nose rings and studs .

        What do people think of their tattooed skin when it becomes wrinkly and flakey , and why do they name their children with such terrible names .

      3. We had a Ugandan-Asian nurse in the practice in Southampton. She was very conscientious & hard-working.

    1. Strong winds will first be felt in Scotland and Northern Ireland on Saturday, before spreading across the whole of the UK on Sunday.
      That should make it fun at Murrayfield on Saturday afternoon.

      1. It will surely be pretty tousy anyway. The winds will really hit in the second half, which will start after 5 in the evening. All good fun.

    2. I always look for a storm Jenny…that’s the one to be afraid of…lol. The last storm Jenny was 1961 and it blew out over Bermuda.

    3. Ciara? Why can’t they give it a good British name? Looking at the popular names Mohamed would seem , well, appropriate.

      1. It’s an Irish female name, there is, I think, a St. Ciara.

        Perhaps they gave the storm an Irish name to put the wind up Lee O’Verruca.

        …. I’ll get me anemometer.

  62. I do hope it won’t be too windy over the weekend with
    this storm brewing. I shall wander into the farm shop early
    tomorrow and make sure there is enough in for a few days,
    I’ll not want to go out.

    1. ‘Afternoon, Ethel, isn’t Windy that New Zealand bint who also introduces herself as such?

    2. Breeziest storm since 2013. As it happened, in 2013 my car was at the dealers for its annual service and they’d lent me the same model as a courtesy car. I think it had a couple of thousand on the clock. The storm was overnight, and when I came down in the morning, I found a large chunk of debris from either my house or next door, on the ground next to the car. When I looked a little harder, there was a large dent in the bonnet, spreading across to the nearside wing. Quite an expensive one to repair. Fortunately it was the dealer’s insurers who paid, but I am forever grateful to the fates that meant my own car wasn’t there that night.

      I’ve just moved my car to be further away from the house…

  63. Breaking News – Philip Schofield comes out as gay.

    On other pages,
    Popes don’t sh*t in the woods
    Bears aren’t necessarily Roman Catholic

    1. I didn’t realise that this was a real story when I first read it this morning. 57 is a bit late to decide to say that you now prefer men at this point. Just out of sheer politeness to his wife and his 2 mid-twenties daughters, he could have kept that piece of drama to himself.

      In the gay world 25 is pretty much past it and 30 is “Walking Dead” territory. Unless he has some hidden male companion of 30 years and they have been waiting until the girls grew up. Still… Some things are better left unsaid.

      Or there is that possibility he is about to be “outed” by a male escort or some another reason, as one of the comments below suggested.

      1. Like Philip Schofield, my husband of 30 years came out as gay – and I won’t ever recover. 7 February 2020.

        Karen*, 70, a retired businesswoman from London, had been married for 30 years when her husband – and the father of her two children – told her he was gay

        “When I heard the news that Philip Schofield had come out as gay, after 27 years of marriage, my reaction was not to feel happy for him, or to admire his bravery and honesty, as so many others seem to have done. Instead, I felt physically, violently sick.

        His confession took me back to the moment, a decade ago, that my entire world came crashing down when the husband who had supposedly loved, honoured and cherished me for 30 years, told me that he was homosexual and had been living a lie throughout our relationship.

        The other side of the Woke Congratulations and Gay Applause!

        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/like-philip-schofield-husband-30-years-came-gay-wont-ever/

        1. I think in this case his wife has known for a long time. Devastating, i know , if you find your relationship was based on a lie.

          1. I watched the clip of it online Phizz. It was dripping with faux suffering, cheap sentimentality and a sharp eye on his future earnings!

        2. Yes I am not really sure why all the Luvies are hugging him and saying well done. He has deceived hi wife and children for decades. I am bot sure that is something to be proud off

        3. I very doubt if Karen*’s story will feature in the TV news. But it was filled with Mr Schofield’s story this morning.
          Oh well life goes on eh…….next 😕

        4. Oh dear. Wives who stick with their marriages through thick and thin are just sooooooo boring and C20.
          Such dull wimps compared with their ‘brave’ husbands with one eye on a failing media career.

  64. Atkins lands rail role for Fehmarnbelt Tunnel

    Atkins has won a contract lasting at least eight years for rail consultancy work on the record-breaking new tunnel being built between Denmark and Germany.

    It has been appointed by Danish planning company Femern to provide consultancy services for the railway that will run through the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel. The agreement will last eight years with potential for extension.

    The 18km-long immersed tunnel will cross the Fehmarn Belt in the Baltic Sea to connect the Danish island of Lolland and the German island of Fehmarn. It will become the world’s longest road and rail immersed tunnel when completed in 2028.

    The tunnel will carry two electrified rail tracks and a four-lane motorway.

    Atkins will deliver multidisciplinary railway consultancy services throughout the project, including for the track, overhead catenary system, power supply, signalling, train control system and telecommunications.

    The line is designed for speeds of up to 200 km/h and will see seven-minute journey times between Denmark and Germany; the journey currently takes an hour by ferry.

  65. Don’t ask me why this came into my head but can anyone remember the pure joy of finding a Kit Kat finger which was all chocolate? Today ;sensers’ find these and they are thrown in a bin. Jeez, it was the best part of the Kit Kat experience for me finding that all chocolate finger……

    1. No. I don’t think I ever came across one of those. I’m bitterly disappointed. My childhood has been permanently destroyed. Give me compensation.

      😁

      1. I used to be bitterly disappointed not to find one….I suppose i could have just bought some chocolate but then the element of surprise was gone.

    2. I dont think they are even binned. They collect all those rejects and just remelt the chocolate

          3. ANd not a Lineaker in sight, you know, the one who has squandered his squeaky clean image promoting the EU.

          4. I remember Smith’s crisps. The salt was packaged in a small blue paper sack sealed with a twist of the paper. The 339 bus between Bath and Bristol passed their factory near Bristol. Next door was the Crittall Hope galvanised steel window factory.

            The bus also passed Fry’s chocolate factory as did the GWR where there were sidings for Fry’s.

            Dickenson’s paper works was close by where as a student I had a summer job chipping layers of white papier-mâché from the machinery in readiness for repainting.

          5. Ah names from the past
            John Dickinson – Bond! Basildon Bond.
            When we married in 1968 we moved from central London to Maidstone and passed through Crittal Corner, Sidcup on our way to and from Maidstone on the A20.
            And Fry’s Turkish Delight. Was that with the belly dancer advert.
            Happy memories.

          6. Presumably passing through Keynsham.
            That’s Keynsham, spelt K E Y N S H A M, Keynsham, Bristol.

  66. Jonty Bravery: Tate attacker told carers of plan to kill a year earlier

    The left are trying to blame cuts but this had nothing to do with cut but was just another failure of the system. THe automatic response of the left is to blame cuts

    The teenager who threw a six-year-old boy from the 10th floor of the Tate Modern in London had spoken about plans to push someone off a high building about a year earlier.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51389881

      4. No change there.
        One of the reasons we see so many homeless on the streets and the prisons are full to bursting is down to closing the old mental hospitals.
        They were not perfect, but they gave many inadequate people genuine asylum from a world that was just beyond their comprehension.

        1. Surely they could buy up a few budget hotels and convert them to supervised accommodation for the homeless. It would not take a lot to convert them.

    2. You do get the impression that if there were a white person convicted of “terrorism offences,” for standing there handing out leaflets, then these islamic campaigners would not care at all. They only want the really dangerous “brothers” to be back out on the streets as soon as possible.

    3. Afternoon TB,
      They should really keep their odious heads down many of the decent peoples have not forgotten the contents of the Jay report yet.
      That was in one area alone.
      Also goes for ALL mass uncontrolled immigration parties.

    4. Of course it won’t happen but all Moslems should take an oath of allegiance to Her Majesty , the Queen, (The Head of the Church of England) and as soon as they commit an act of treason, anti-Christian nastiness of any kind or terrorism they should be expelled from the country.

      1. Afternoon R,
        Along with ALL family members & close associates.
        As in they could very well be
        potential vengeance seekers
        why should innocents die to appease PCism / Appeasers ?
        practised by politico’s of the governance parties.

  69. ‘Morning, all. In today’s DT ‘Letters to the Editor’, a professor writes in defence of big-game trophy hunting.

    SIR – What a shame to read of Brian Wilson and Al Jardine berating their
    Beach Boys bandmates for seeming to support big-game trophy hunting in
    Africa (report, February 5) ……..

    …….. Better for a wild animal to lead a happy young life, then die instantly and unknowingly
    from a bullet aimed professionally, rather than die slowly from starvation and disablement, or
    painfully from predation.

    Professor Twink Allen FRCVS
    Sharjah Equine Hospital
    United Arab Emirates

    The writer’s surname suggests he/she comes from an Anglophone family, so I’m wondering what kind of silly eejits would name their child “Twink”. Of course, it’s possible that I’m wronging the professor’s parents, in which case the question must be asked – What kind of twat would style him/herself “Twink” and use that name in his/her professional correspondence?

    2. By advocating such a course of action he potentially denies the predators their lunch.

      Who will save the Krill?

    3. He was in the process of cloning horses. The Home Office refused him permission. When asked about all the mutants he said they would be put down. His views on big game hunting are no surprise.

      1. If an animal has value beyond being steak, then it may well be looked after properly. Once a rich hunter has offed it, it can still be eaten. To be looked after, it needs food, water & shelter in reasonable quantity, and not to be shot by a poacher, Thus, with the income from hunting, the breeding stock can be cared for until it’s their time for the chop.

        1. Rearing game for food is farming.

          Trophy hunters want the biggest and the best of lions, leopards and elephants.

          South African lion farms are disgusting hell holes where the lions are abused and starved so their bones can be sold to the Chinese.

        2. I can accept the cloning of endangered beasts and rare breed for meat but this character looks like he is cloning thoroughbred horses for Arab Princes. Just in it for the money.

        3. “Once a rich hunter has offed it, it can still be eaten.”

          Indeed, I believe leg-of-lion is considered a rare delicacy in some parts of Africa ….

          …. I’ll get me cookbook.

    4. There is never any justification for trophy hunting. It is for money and the bloody thrills of the psychopaths who do it.

  70. The making of trans children. Spiked. & February 2020.

    Inventing Transgender Children includes contributions from academics, psychiatrists and parents, as well as young adults who transitioned as children but are now questioning the process they underwent. Together, they show that far from being an ever-present biological reality, transgenderism is an entirely invented concept with no basis in neuroscience, psychology or psychiatry. They argue that there is little evidence to support claims that brains are sexed, and no evidence whatsoever to suggest that some fetuses develop with mismatched brains and bodies. In fact, they note, ‘The idea that transgenderism is an internal, pre-social phenomenon that has existed throughout history is not an evidenced fact, but a proposition’. And far from being a long-standing proposition, it was only around five years ago that the existence of the transgender child became widely accepted.

    The Decline of Christianity in the West has acted as a release on the moral corruption and perversions which it prohibited. Thus we see, as we look around us, a world in which nothing is beyond conception. Nothing is sacred. No promise worth the breath expended on it. All is grist for the prurient mind. Children are the greatest victims of this descent into universal depravity. They can be murdered before they are born, instructed in sexual activity before they attain puberty and sacrificed for sexual entertainment before they are of an age to appreciate their own autonomy. All to the approving applause of Cultural Marxism. Transgender children are simply the latest manifestation of this trend. There is no such thing in actuality. They are the creation of adult minds projecting their own unadmitted desires onto the innocent.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/02/07/the-making-of-trans-children/

    1. The drive towards transgendering young immature children will end when a number of those so transgendered instruct lawyers to initiate a class action against institutions such as The Tavistock Clinic on the grounds, for example, of lack of informed consent to the radical procedures involved.

  71. As the panicked EU goes into Brexit meltdown, Britain finally has the upper hand
    SHERELLE JACOBS – DAILY TELEGRAPH COLUMNIST – 7 FEBRUARY 2020 • 1:09PM

    It is becoming desperately clear that the EU has no actual negotiation strategy

    The EU is scoffing with panic. This week, its leaders neurotically laughed off the threat of a Parliament shutdown, as bureaucrats slammed their fists over post-Brexit budget cuts. Press officers tuttingly buried an economic report warning that Brexit will rock bloc economies. But they struggled to firefight raging speculation as to who might follow Britain out the door. As rumours rumbled of an Italexit debt crisis, Marine Le Pen thundered that a global Eurosceptic movement has infiltrated Brussels.

    Perhaps the most intriguing development this week, however, is Michel Barnier’s shift in persona. Mere months ago, Mr Barnier was gloomily instructing Britain to sign up to vassalage. Lecture highlights included “why Britain must take responsibility” (by becoming an EU satellite state) and why “choices” (for example liberty) must have “consequences”. But suddenly, the school master has [become] a snake oil salesman. His arid presentations on Britain’s self-inflicted fate have morphed into buttery pitches for “a best in class free trade agreement”.

    Such a “best in class” deal could be otherwise described as Theresa Mayite vassalage. It entails sucking Britain into megalomaniac defence projects, allowing Brussels to plunder Britain’s fishing waters, and blessing Britain with freedom for the small price of sacrificing its competitiveness. This “exceptional offer” is being gift-wrapped free of charge in the tangled red ribbons of state aid paperwork and taxation regulations. Available for a limited time only (expires Dec 2020).

    In reality, though Brussels knows that its chance to flog Britain the worst trade deal in history is slipping away. It can no longer fall back on the backstop to keep us locked in Hotel California. Boris Johnson’s thumping majority also means Britain’s “no deal” bargaining chip is back in play: a WTO Brexit would pass through Parliament reasonably comfortably. Revelations this week that, in the event of no deal, Japanese car giant Nissan would consider doubling down on the UK to boost its domestic market share, and protect its Sunderland plant, underline the inconvenient truth: Project Fear premonitions are overblown, and Britain could cope perfectly well without a trade deal.

    It is also becoming embarrassingly clear that the EU has no actual strategy. Only the clapped out choreography of a collapsing robo-bureaucracy. The most tedious of its “secret moves” is sequencing. Granted, this was how Brussels tripped up that lurching political equivalent to two left feet Theresa May. She sealed her fate when she foolishly agreed to settle Northern Ireland before penning a divorce settlement.

    But the idea that Boris Johnson’s government would fall for this again is laughable. Still the EU tries its luck: this week Mr Barnier said that before signing up to a trade deal, Britain would have to agree to the EU’s conditions – effectively trying to turn fishing and Gibraltar into the new Irish Border.

    Another of the EU’s recycled moves is heel dragging. It intends to bog Britain down with absurd and nonsensically disparate demands until the deadline is near. The idea being that Boris Johnson will feel political pressure to avoid breaking his promise to settle Brexit by the end of the year – and thus sign up to a dud deal.

    Britain’s counter-move is already evident – to negotiate trade deals with the United States and other countries, as talks with Brussels flounder; Cummings and co are determined to send out the message that if the EU does not want to engage in talks then that it can go jogging.

    Indeed, Trade Secretary Liz Truss announced on Thursday that Britain is seeking huge reductions in tariffs from a trade deal with the United States. The Government also intends to begin negotiations with Japan, Australia and New Zealand in the coming months.

    And so the EU gets more and more desperate. In a stumbling tribute to Orwellian doublespeak, its most ridiculous new wheeze is semantic. It is genuinely trying to get Britain to accidentally enslave itself by changing the meaning of basic words.

    This includes the preposition “In”. Britain has rejected staying “in” the single market, with all the accompanying constrictions and conditions. Brussels’ solution? Offer “access” to the single market, with all the accompanying constrictions and conditions.

    Then there is the oldest trick of the bureaucratic sociopath: the unflinching lie. My favourite peddled by the EU this week is that free movement must continue as the condition for any trade deal. Even though the EU has, in the Political Declaration, conceded the precise contrary.

    It is increasingly clear that Brussels is the new Theresa May of these negotiations. And it is finally heading for a rude awakening.

    1. Not much traction on a hard border with Gibralter, despite a Europe without Borders, the last time i transited across that Border there was a very strong Spanish border presence.

    2. Britain could kill the EU, haul the USA into order, and help the world.

      A completely free trade deal with all members of the Commonwealth. No need for free movement of people or capital; companies and Adam Smith’s invisible hand would do it.

      1. I have absolutely no problem with free movement of labour of indigenous Europeans. . People that actually want to work and fill the spaces in the work enviroment in the U.K. We had that before we joined.

        What i object to most strongly is all the freeloaders who outnumber the workers and suck at the welfare teat and then try to kill us.

        The gangsters, the drug dealers, the gypoes, the traffickers we can do without.

        1. Hear hear, as long as the movement actually does exclude those.

          I would go so far as to suggest that as long as the incomer produces more than they take (and I include healthcare, housing education etc. for them and their families) they should be welcome.

          1. As long as they speak English (and that includes family members) and agree to abide by our laws as well.

    3. We have always had the upper hand in negotiations. What we’ve lacked is politicians with the will to either acknowledge or act on that fact.

  72. Between Brexit and another scandal, Sturgeon’s run out of road

    FRASER NELSON

    After almost 13 years in power, the SNP are starting to look as tired and embattled as Major’s Tories in 1997

    It ought to have been the perfect launchpad for the next Scottish independence campaign. Nicola Sturgeon was preparing for her first Budget after her party’s general election success. An Old Etonian Tory had just pushed through a Brexit that most Scots voted against, nudging support for independence past the 50 per cent mark. Yesterday’s Budget was the perfect chance for a new SNP message: Scotland wants economic freedom, it wants to stay in Europe and is ready to fight.

    Instead: bedlam. The finance secretary, Derek Mackay, quit just hours before he was due to deliver the Budget after admitting to “foolishness” in bombarding a 16-year-old boy with text messages. Worse, it fits a trend. It starts with Angus MacNeil’s “foolishness” (his word) with a Church of Scotland minister’s teenage daughter. Then the affair that saw Stewart Hosie stand down as SNP deputy leader, then Mark McDonald quit as a minister after a sexting scandal. It’s all a bit much.

    You can, of course, argue that each of these is an individual and personal tragedy. At a push, you might laugh it off, say that (to use the joke in Holyrood) the nationalists can be seen as “romantic mujahideen” whose antics don’t affect their politics. But, as Sir John Major found, there comes a point where a pattern is spotted. Unkind words such as “sleaze” are used – and labels stick. Voters do not see isolated cases but a theme: the arrogance, carelessness and decadence of a party too long in power.

    When I was a reporter in the Scottish Parliament almost 20 years ago, the SNP were the decent ones. Labour were clannish and complacent, having long governed municipal Scotland and expecting to run Holyrood for the foreseeable. The phrase “Scottish Tory” had become a contradiction in terms. I came to admire Alex Salmond and his dedicated team of outsiders, who brought fresh ideas and seemed to relish winning people over in friendly argument. And they did, taking Holyrood and almost winning a referendum.

    But after almost 13 years in power, the SNP are starting to look as tired and embattled as Major’s Tories in 1997. Mr Mackay, 42, had been tipped as Ms Sturgeon’s most likely successor: he is now suspended from the party, awaiting investigation. It doesn’t help that her predecessor, Mr Salmond, is awaiting trial for 14 alleged offences against 10 different women, all strenuously denied, in what will be one of the most high-profile criminal cases since the trial of Jeremy Thorpe. This will be followed by another Holyrood investigation. All told, this promises to be a year for the SNP to forget.

    Ms Sturgeon is now on her way out. Party members who once idolised her are starting to despair about the lack of any serious shift in support for independence. The Tories fought the last election on a pledge to refuse any request for another referendum, which Boris Johnson has duly done. So Ms Sturgeon now finds herself out of road. Last week, she all but admitted as much, saying that there can be no “shortcuts or clever wheezes” (such as a Catalan-style protest referendum). Any move to independence, she said, must be legal. That is to say: Westminster-approved.

    To many nationalists, this is defeatism. The old split in the party between pragmatists and radicals is opening up again. Some MPs, such as Joanna Cherry, drop hints about legal action that might allow Holyrood to go ahead anyway. But it’s a bit of a stretch, given that the devolution settlement was designed to make such a move legally impossible. Then there’s public opinion: polls showing majority support for independence are rare. The surge of backing the SNP hoped for, especially after Brexit, has just not materialised.

    In fact, Brexit has – in many ways – made the Union far more secure. The nationalists made much fuss about the pain they expected from leaving the EU’s single market and customs union. So what about leaving the customs union and single market of the United Kingdom? Then the border issue: the agony seen in the Northern Ireland debate would be back, writ large. Making Hadrian’s Wall into an EU border, with questions over pet quarantine and even passports, is something no one will relish.

    The “independence in Europe” mantra that the SNP used for years also looks a hopelessly long shot. The Spanish would certainly veto Scottish membership rather than let Scots blaze a secessionist trail for Catalans and Basques to follow. Also, EU members need to keep a government deficit under 3 per cent of economic output. The chasm between Scotland’s state spending and tax haul means a deficit of 7pc, by far the worst in the developed world – and that’s including what little remains of the North Sea oil money. A vote for independence would mean a vote for sado-austerity.

    As part of the family of the United Kingdom, Scotland has been insulated from the oil price collapse. There’s talk in No 10 of doing even more: perhaps offering NHS England operations to those who have been waiting for too long in Scotland. Studies show the differences in how Scots and English see the world are not widening but narrowing to the point of non-existence. Even Brexit was backed by almost two in five Scots.

    So what now remains of the case for independence? The theory that home rule means better public services has been tested to destruction by two decades of devolution. The economic case has vanished. The idea of Scots being so culturally different from the English as to necessitate divorce from England is demonstrable nonsense. The SNP used to present themselves as being better, more decent, more dependable than the appallingly behaved Tories. This is a bit harder to argue today.

    If Ms Sturgeon stays now, it will be to see her party through the tumult of the next few months and transition to a new leadership. It has options: take Kate Forbes, who stepped in at the last minute to deliver Mr Mackay’s Budget, and handle questions after. She’s young, but the SNP are beginning to recognise that they have plenty of time. When Ruth Davidson quit as leader of the Scottish Tories she told friends that her work was done, that the threat of independence had vanished for the foreseeable future. All told, it looks like a pretty safe bet.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/02/06/brexit-another-sex-scandal-sturgeons-run-road/

    1. Love that positive Scots attitude, as Fraser Nelson refers to the SNP “almost winning a referendum.”
      That euphemism may be acceptable for primary school sports days, but not in politics.

    2. It is repeatedly said that the oil is running out. So it is, but not for another forty years. It is a similar mantra to the one that says we need more immigrants. Simply not true.

    3. ‘Scotland wants economic freedom, it wants to stay in Europe …’ “Despite Brexit”, we are all staying in Europe. It’s the EU we want to leave.

  74. I’m catching up with last night’s QT,
    from leafy Harpenden.
    On electric cars it seems our political classes are laying the heads and bodies of European nations on the proverbial railway tracks. They really need to seriously address the most obvious pollution problems. We don’t yet have the infrastructure in the UK to provide the electricity to charge millions of cars. I’m not sure if producing the equipment will be carbon neutral. And whilst other countries are pumping out billions of tons of carbon it’s never mentioned in our media.
    Why should we offer our selves up for extremely expensive carbon martyrdom, while so many other countries still do nothing to attempt to save the planet.

    2. It is just possible that one of the major sources of our planet’s pollution may come to a grinding halt pretty soon. God works in mysterious ways…

      1. I take it you mean China. I once read that some of the major cities have as many as 11 coal fired power stations belching out carbon 24/7 365.
        I feel it’s such a shame that so many people who along with their families have been self sufficient for many decades living in countryside on small plots of land have now been forced to move as the land is developed into factories, shopping arcades and blocks of high rise. The Chinese efforts involving catch up to the 21st century are totally the opposite of what the rest of civilisation is in search of.
        We have to stop buying their cheap shoddy, sometimes dangerous copies of original, goods.

        1. Ah! China with many new cities and hospitals etc and all unpopulated…… what a use of resources.

  78. France demands UK aligns with EU rules forever in return for Brexit trade deal
    Paris wants Britain to commit to changing its laws to mirror the EU’s rules as they evolve over time as part of new trade agreement

    Emmanuel Macron has told the European Commission it must tie Britain into EU rules forever during post-Brexit trade negotiations between the UK and Brussels.

    France wants to toughen the bloc’s negotiating mandate for the trade talks and force Britain to agree to “dynamic alignment” with EU rules for tax, state aid, the environment and social standards.

    Dynamic alignment means Britain would have to change its laws to mirror Brussels’ rules as they evolve over time, despite the UK having no say in the drafting of those standards after Brexit.

    “France wants dynamic alignment across the board,” one EU diplomat said.

    The EU is anxious that Britain will use Brexit to embark on a slash and burn of EU regulations and gain what it claims is in an unfair competitive advantage over the bloc by undercutting it.

    The commission only asked for dynamic alignment in state aid in its call for “level playing field guarantees” in the draft mandate published on Monday. State aid concerns competition law over issues such as government bailouts, cartels and mergers.

    The current version of the mandate wants Britain to sign up to non-regression clauses in the tax, the environment and social standards. These are promises to not backslide on Britain’s current rules but are not futureproof.

    Another EU diplomat said, “For an opening bid in the trade negotiations, full dynamic alignment makes sense. The current protections in the negotiating mandate are not enough for the member states”.

    On Monday, Boris Johnson ruled out making any level playing field guarantees but Michel Barnier, the EU’s negotiator, warned they were “inextricably linked” to the successful striking of a trade deal by the end of this year.

    “There is no need for a free trade agreement to involve accepting EU rules on competition policy, subsidies, social protection, the environment, or anything similar any more than the EU should be obliged to accept UK rules,” Mr Johnson said.

    The commission has told the EU member states that its approach should be seen as a landing zone rather than an opening gambit. Pushing for dynamic alignment could waste valuable time in the trade talks, which are under a very tight deadline, the commission said.

    France’s demand makes it easily the toughest member state but a majority of other EU countries, about 16 to 17, believe the current safeguards are not enough.

    They want guarantees that the new free trade agreement will be built to last for decades to come and will not have to be renegotiated to reflect new rules.

    Discussions are ongoing as to whether a mechanism could be found to allow the UK to update its rules without calling it “alignment”, which Mr Barnier has described as “a red rag” to British politicians.

    EU governments are feeding ideas into the Council of Ministers ahead of a meeting of Brexit officials on Monday.

    A new version of the negotiating mandate will be circulated to EU capitals on Tuesday before EU ambassadors meet in Brussels for further talks on Wednesday.

    The revisions are planned to be finalised before a February 25 meeting of EU Europe ministers, where the negotiating mandate will be finalised, in the Belgian capital.

    The European Parliament will vote in Strasbourg next week on a resolution calling for dynamic alignment across the board. MEPs are not directly involved in negotiations but will have a crucial vote on the final trade agreement.

    Dear France,
    Fuck off.
    Kind regards,
    The United Kingdom

    2. ”Emmanuel Macron has told the European Commission”.

      Who has told Emmanuel Macron ?

    4. They always send out Macron to create the smokescreen of nonsense. This is the 3rd time that I can remember him doing it. He is a complete puppet and was only put into the job because he does what he is told. Twice he has been used to strut on the stage and declare that he would block the United Kingdoms plans. The last time he said that he would stop ANY extension to the Article 50 process, thereby throwing us out into a No-Deal Brexit unless we passed Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement. Shortly thereafter the EU extended the Article 50 process when her deal was rejected.

      He is being used again now to do what the EU always does. They know that the invasion / takeover of the United Kingdom will be well along the way if we do not get control of our waters back for another 12 years. So he DEMANDS access to our fishing grounds for 25 years. Then when our government crumbles and gives the EU the 12 years that they wanted all along, our government can say “Compromises had to be made. At least we beat them down from 25 years!” This has been done over and over again.

      Now here we have them saying that they want total ongoing alignment forever. Once again, 15 years or so is all they really need to wreck the UK economy, and finish us off once and for all, by keeping us tied to them. But by saying this it at least gives our government the excuse to say “Well we have agreed to alignment (not being free) for only another 15 years, which will give us time to fully flesh out a trade deal and work with the EU in an orderly fashion. This is what the EU always does.

        1. Go away Polly – I am off out shopping now. (You are fooling nobody with all of your new names.)

          That is your one direct response from me this year. Savour it as you will not get another.

      2. This is where the value of declaring those condition we must have and those we will not have at the outset. They can either reject and we leave now on WTO terms, or they accept and we then move to negotiate and “compromise” on a balnce of “nice to have conditions, if they don’t cost to much” and avoid if possible, but if you insist we can find some agreement.
        So if we start with No, the fish are ours, then Micron can demand 3, 110 25 or 100 years and it should still be no: They’re all ours now.

        The worry is that Bozo will think what a great statesman he is to begotiate Micron and the EU down to maybe 10 years. and the same with all our expectations. I have serious concerns about Boris.

      3. Presumably, he’s trying to deflect attention away from his own country going down the cr@pper.

        2. No. He has managed to insult and upset just about every world leader there is from Trump to Putin to the CEO of Disney probably, and yes even business leaders have been his target.

          If Cameron gets one armed idiot bodyguard, Micron will not be safe without a permanent praetorian guard for all his life and he might be advised not to include any French cities…. do the Swiss do this still or just for the Vatican?

        3. No. He has managed to insult and upset just about every world leader there is from Trump to Putin to the CEO of Disney probably, and yes even business leaders have been his target.

          If Cameron gets one armed idiot bodyguard, Micron will not be safe without a permanent praetorian guard for all his life and he might be advised not to include any French cities…. do the Swiss do this still or just for the Vatican?

          2. Did Charlotte Church call him that? I think she was probably right about “Mr Clean”, Gary Lineker who has squandered all his street cred by being an ass over Brexit. Is his Walker’s Crisps job still going?

    6. “Britain will use Brexit to embark on a slash and burn of EU regulations and gain what it claims is in an unfair competitive advantage over the bloc by undercutting it.”
      I certainly hope so. We have a minimum of £39bn to catch up on, for starters.

    9. France is, and always was, a bitter enemy of the United Kingdom and the so-called “Entente Cordiale” has always been a myth. The French have never missed an opportunity to do Britain down, except, of course, when they needed us to rescue them from their new best friend, Germany.

      More than two-thousand years ago, Julius Cæsar divided Gaul into three parts and the world would have been a far better place had it stayed that way.

      2. Fortunately Asterix held a tiny part of Brittany so Jules didn’t have it all his own way.

    10. “Britain will use Brexit to embark on a slash and burn of EU regulations and gain what it claims is in an unfair competitive advantage over the bloc by undercutting it.”
      I certainly hope so. We have a minimum of £39bn to catch up on, for starters.

    11. To save £39 Billion pa simply text the word “Agincourt” To E Macron @ Dipsticks ‘R Us

    5. P-T, that is not in the least sexy. Being sexy is more than a big pair of boobs or trout lips, as I’m sure you know.😎

        1. Oi ! This ain’t Tindr.

          What is sexy about a woman is poise, grace and laughing at all my jokes.

          5. You know…I used to be friendly with a very dear gent on Disqus. He was so lovely and always brightened my day. He always ended his posts to me with a little xxx – and that is how it started. I don’t feel my responses are complete without them now…it is a mark of endearment….xxx

      2. She might suffocate when she is asleep , her boobs may smother her … perhaps she sleeps in a chair , she cannot possibly turn over in bed , what a very stupid girl .. that is pure and applied body abuse.. I suspect she could be used as a ship’s fender !

        1. Dear Belle.
          Don’t worry or even think about her,
          she doesn’t deserve your sympathy…
          or your time!

    1. Marginally more acceptable than forced euthanasia for the older/ weaker part of the population?

  81. I received the most amazing gift today from a Nottlr. By Royal Appointment no less. Come on the rest of you, buck up ! :o)

    1. I am sure it was nothing more than you deserve.

      Was it a birthday gift? If so, when is/was your
      birthday?

      Or …….is it a Valentine’s gift?

      Sobs!!…….I had thought I was your only love.

      Big sulks………….

      1. It was a secret vote by a cabal of Nottlrs who decided i deserved an award for being the most handsome Nottlr in my age group. Lucky Kirk Douglas passed away otherwise i never would have won it !

        You will always be my special girl, flower.

  82. Something positive on the Climate Change field at last.
    Muslim jihadists have agreed to be car bomb neutral by 2030.

    2. Slight misunderstanding there

      THey have agreed that their Car Bombs will be carbon neutral by then

    3. We would all like to have heard what he had to say. A couple of ignorant, bad-mannered guttersnipes prevented that. The sofa sitters looked on instead of facilitating a civilised discussion.

      2. Absolutely. And the two occasions to miss when dining out are Valentine’s Day and Mothering Sunday.

        1. Does that mean that you use tena-pants on Valentine’s day so she avoids your potty about her?
          };-O

          You are a gent!

      3. Surprise him, Belle. Cook your most favourite meal that you enjoy together with delicious pudding….. then – aperitif, a few nibbles, a bottle of NZ sauvignon-blanc ( unless one is a wine snob it goes with anything), a couple of candles/tealights and some snowdrops (or whatever) from the garden…. go for it. Create your romance.

          1. I understand…. similar here… dinosaurs. It is the age in which they lived, and their upbringing, both being hand-in-hand. Whilst in labour with our younger son the phrase ’emotional constipation’ came unbidden into my mind.

      4. Of course!! I am coming up to 50 years married and we still do something special on Val day. I suppose we are still kids at heart. Hubby at 80 is as daft as ever and I am not far behind him….lol.

        1. A hefty does of childishness does help.
          MB and I sat in the bus today, listening to a couple of old biddies droning on about their ailments; I’m afraid we got the giggles.

          1. Ha ha ha….good for you!! I loathe misery. There are not two parts of me hanging the right way but I love life….apart from this lurgy of course. I love my power chair too…every trip out is a theme ride – what’s not to love.

    7. Laughing my head off at all the hypocrites buying flowers & perfume at exorbitant prices.

      2. Same here, but it’s a double whammy for me ‘cos Mrs HJ also has her birthday on Valentine’s Day. So we celebrate either the day before or the day after, never on the day itself.

  85. Cathays murder: Three men jailed for life after killing teen

    The benefits of diversity never fail to let up

    Three men who “hunted down” and stabbed a teenager to death have been jailed.
    Fahad Mohamed Nur, 18, was found with 21 knife wounds near Cathays railway station in Cardiff last June.
    Shafique Shaddad, 25, from Butetown, and brothers Mustafa Aldobhani, 22, and Abdulgalil Aldobhani, 23, from Cathays, were found guilty of murder by a jury.
    All three were jailed for life. Shaddad was given a minimum term of 23 years, Mustafa Aldobhaini 22-and-a-half years and Abdulgalil Aldobhani 24 years.
    Sentencing, Mr Justice Hilliard said it was “plain that Fahad Nur was involved in supplying drugs on the street”.
    He said there were “tensions between rival drug-dealers” and this dispute was “most likely behind what’s happened”.

  86. Four blind cats are currently looking for their forever home in Cornwall.
    The moggies were rescued from Thailand and brought back to the Duchy.

    All four were born with a condition that means they have very small and underdeveloped eyes. They all have little to no sight at all.

    Now Sally’s Cat Rescue, based in St Austell, is looking to re-home the cats in pairs.
    They will need very special homes because of their specific needs – and they will need to be indoor cats.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e55ef38981cef2453e0f984240161b0bdf53b9d522f93b928fee24a2eb8817d2.jpg

    2. Why do they need to be indoor cats?
      I suspect that their sense of hearing and smell compensate.

        1. Probably true, but I was going on the blind people I know, whose hearing and sense of smell allows them to “observe” things that I had missed.

          1. There are things out there that attack cats, seagulls particularly down here. I have pelted out of the building before to chase one of them away as it was after a cat that was quivering under the car. I have seen cats running across the road, looking around at the sky as they do so. A blind one would be defenceless. There are also other cats who like to keep their territory to themselves. As for the concept of a dog seeing them and chasing them… Shudder.

          2. OK.

            Wearing my cold hearted, miserable son of a bitch, Sunday best:

            Why are we transporting a few cats, who can’t cope, several thousand miles to not be able to cope in a new country?

            The cost of moving them would have paid for all of them to have had all nine lives living in luxury in Thailand.

          3. Don’t ask me – I didn’t import them. 🙂

            I suspect that it was someone who could not bear the idea of leaving them behind and trusting that they would be okay over there. I’d much rather the cats were brought here than those who are coming here illegally.

          4. There are lots of cats all over the place in Thailand. They get by. At least they don’t get skinned and eaten like they do in some Eastern countries.

          5. If we can have Vietnamese tarts in nail bars, we can have some Siamese pussy cats to keep us company.

    4. They do look pathetic. Hope they find 2 nice homes, but also that they are already neutered.

    5. I’m sorry but … cats not being at all my thing although I wouldn’t harm them – what the heck are people doing bringing animals back here from Thailand?

  87. As usual Owen Paterson is right. What a great shame that he is not our prime minister – he is far more stable, reasonable, reliable and trustworthy than Boris Johnson. Indeed it is his very qualities which alarm his colleagues who cannot match him. Integrity has almost become a dirty word in the Conservative Party as well as in Labour and the Lib Dems.

    From DT Live today:

    UK must follow Norway’s lead and protect fish stocks
    ​Britain must become an “independent maritime nation” like Norway and must not be locked into binding commitments on fishing with the European Union, a former environment secretary has said.

    “Boris Johnson is preparing for his first major show down with Brussels over a future trade agreement, with Brussels demanding access to the UK’s fishing waters in exchange for financial services.

    However, Owen Paterson, a senior Tory Brexiteer, has this morning warned that access cannot be “built into” a binding treaty and must instead be negotiated on an annual basis.

    Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Paterson said that Brexit offered the UK the opportunity to “stop the horrors” of the Commons Fisheries Policy, which he said forced fishermen to throw back “a million tonnes of fish dead as pollution every year.”.

    Calling on the UK to behave like “the Norwegians or Icelanders”, he added: “It would have to be strictly that this is on our terms and it’s a reciprocal deal.

    “The allocation of stocks must be done by us as an sovereign independent nation. We cannot allow the allocation of stocks to be built into some treaty which may last for many years.

    “It’s absolutely vital that allocation of fish stocks does not become a bargaining chip with the EU in the coming months.”

      1. Last night I had an M&S ‘Gastropub’ fish and chips for dinner. I thought the little jar was sauce tartare,but I turned out to be some revolting ‘minted pea’ slop. Eating the fish and chips also made me realise how important it is to rebuild our fish stocks. I remember back in the 50s and 60s those great thick chunks of cod we used to get in our fish and chips. The sad and skinny little cod fillet included really wasn’t worth the £5 of the dish.

    2. It made no sense when Cameron sacked him from Sec. State for environment etc. He is a good bloke.

      1. From what we have seen of David Cameron, it is entirely possible that the last thing that he wanted was “good people” around him. Those who are corrupted or bent would be far easier to twist to his will.

        1. He worries that ministers doing a good job were actually establishing a power base from which to challenge him for the leadership.

    3. But Boris is just as likely to claim that a compromise (sell out) is, in those infamous platitudinous terms, in the best interests of all and our future harmonious relations with our neighbours.
      Wrong.
      Everything has to be in our best interests. That is why we voted to leave.
      But Bozo is bombproof and has absolute power, currently accountable to no one, and it will corrupt absolutely… he will see himself as an autonomous ruler and do what he pleases.That is the real danger. And let’s face it, he was never a conviction politician.

      Oh, and I have yet to hear him say anything like “No Deal is better than a bad deal”, let alone mean it.

  89. 102 illegals attempt to cross the channel

    102 picked up from 5 dinghy’s a new record for a single day

  92. Evening, all. The drains are in place, now we just have to restore the terrace and the flower borders. The mills of G*d grind slowly … I have to say the workmen have been very good about clearing up, keeping the dog in (although he did make a bid for fame by putting his paw prints in the wet concrete – I kept one and wrote his name and the date by it) and generally being very cheerful, positive and making sure I can take MOH into town when necessary by moving their lorry and granting access to the garage. Once the borders are back, I can think about how I am going to replant.

      1. He certainly is! My cleaner came today and washed the hall and kitchen floor tiles. MOH let You-know-hound out and the next thing I knew, the floors were filthy with paw marks 🙁

  93. I can’t remember whether it was a post here, or over on GF, but I have been reminded to cancel my bargain sub to the Telegraph. It really has become a rag and I am now officially bored with commenting there… So, it’s gone, this site and the GF site are more fun…

    1. I cancelled my DT sub when they first chucked Disqus off but have been considering opening a new account. Or maybe the Speccie?

        1. If y clean out your cookies, you can read a couple of articles at a time. Some are for subscribers only, but there’s a fair number of others to read.

      2. The DT seems to consist of fluff, not news. I wouldn’t even pay for the free version.

    2. Agree both here and GF are far more fun and interesting.
      The pre moderation is quite amusing at GF which is a cross
      between WII code breaking and the Kripton factor.
      The Saxon Queen can say the dark ages here, at GF the
      word ” dark ” is wàycist. I even enquired to Mr Fawkes himself
      about the gunpowder plot… but of course ” gun ” was in the banned
      word list , hmm. It’s still amusing mind you.

  94. 12 Beales Department Stores to close

    The administrators have failed to find a buyer for all 23 stores. The 12 will continue trade for a few wee ks to clear the stock. At present they are still trying to find a buyer for the remaining 11 stores

    1. .
      The following stores will close:

      Bournemouth
      Hexham
      Worthing
      Tonbridge
      Peterborough
      Mansfield
      Keighley
      Perth
      Spalding
      Wisbech
      Bedford
      Yeovil

      1. Did she vote for or against Brexit?

        In the Troy ship-launching index she certainly scores zero.

        1. That could be a useful advantage. If we ever need to resort to Lend Lease II, I suspect the yanks will say just take ’em don’t bother with any paperwork….

  97. Time to batten down the hatches (and Conways drains may not be safe).
    Our flight over from Canada was only five and a half hours last night, the tail wind knocked over an our off the flight time.

    So the meteorologists may be right for once, there are some mighty strong winds arriving in the next day or two.

      2. Fortunately I don’t seem to suffer from jet lag, after many years of traveling on business I have developed the ability to just carry on as normal. On the other hand her majesty needs several days to come to.

        We are up in Spalding, the centre of not much but that is where MIL is. I did eave when the plane flew over the Portsmouth area.

          1. That is because the plane had to fly round in circles waiting for the appointed landing spot.

    1. Realism. If I were an American with intelligence that was not emergency specific, I would not share it with the United Kingdom if the Chinese will get a copy before our officers have found the decoding software. This is the real world and China, lovely as they are, should not have been given the contract for building this hardware infrastructure.

      There was no immediate need for it. We will not all die in 6 months without it. Our key allies don’t think we can control it. We should wait until another option comes along, or use one of the alternatives that are available now. It might cost 1.3 times as much, but so what? You cannot put a price on the value of relationships with those that we are going to need very badly in a few short years.

      1. It would be interesting to hear a properly reasoned explanation as to why we should think that there is no reason why we should not give the contract to China. All common sense and all propaganda true of false to date indicates that China is the last on earth to be given the job. So why are Boris and his advisors so happy about it ? If I were Chinese, I would feel insulted that they trusted me so much!

  99. Just watched a programme called ” inside the mind of Agatha Christie ”
    the live filming of Aģatha Christie and her spoken word were very
    good and understanding how her mind worked but the presenter
    wasn’t awfully good, it was about her trying to get attention for herself
    instead of speaking facts .

  100. I feel the uncleanliness of mentioning a certain cult on a Friday night, so I will wash my mind with some purer humour as I fade into the darkness. Have a good night. 🙂

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0275c47df85b865e798f4b856ad68154b3b7f3c4254e908c050046568f1df0d8.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e85ab3a20efe9d13020fa8c1d04767737aa75e0ad8cf8e6c3d4d0459dd44e97d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/702c7c1cc0dda62be350bd54abb13279919e33d309ab7c91bcca416cc23050a4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/77f2af4286234c373d7763488af2c7d0c9fc27ad0d85b7e539645fc29cb0384c.jpg

    1. Very good. I’m sure our God has a sense of humour.

      Snap over driving too fast. I gave a Spanish friend a little icon of the Virgin Mary to hang in her car to protect her from the speed cops and said if it was swinging too much she was driving too fast.

  103. On the monarchy course next week we move to Charles I
    James I was barely covered, the tutor solely unimpressed with
    James I. He thinks Elizabeth I was the greatest monarch in history
    but he loathed Henry VIII who he saw as a vainglorious fool.
    The tutor sees himself as a Parliamentarian and says he would’ve
    been on the side of Cromwell. His anti royal bias is obvious
    and one he doesn’t apologise for.
    I am a royalist and shall make my views quite clear on what I think of that.

    Edited.. I am also an ardent Richard III supporter too .

      1. The tutor believes Elizabeth was one of the most wily, astute
        and intelligent monarchs in history, he said none of our
        monarchs are intelligent as they once were.
        He is also a huge supporter of William III, it ‘ll take awhile
        before we get there.

          1. Before I chose Æthelfled as an avatar with the account
            I really wanted it to be Alfred of Wessex but I thought
            I couldn’t as I’m a female, which is rather silly really
            as I have come across a male Elizabeth I.

      2. I disagree.
        I’d rather have Alfred the Great. Now I’d consider him to be England’s greatest ruler, although it’s debatable if you could describe him as that inasmuch as England didn’t exist as a single nation until Alfred came along.
        Ask Aethelfled.

  104. The United Kingdom, said the last Governor of Hong Kong must not be bought by the chinese communist,
    I thought he said, turns out it was bullied.
    Still, a minor slip betwixt ear & lip then again……..

    1. The country could save a great deal of heating in shops & businesses by lowering the central heating temperature. Why does everyone in offices have to work in their shirt sleeves. What is wrong with putting a jumper on in winter. I hate going into shops in winter where you need to strip off (coats etc not entirely) after a couple of minutes on the premises.

      1. I agree wholeheartedly.
        Also, I was driving past a fire station the other day, in Swindon actually, and every office window was open. I am certain their heating wouldn’t have been switched off as it wasn’t a very warm day.
        What does it take to get people to see sense?

        2. I wish I could find where the thermostat for the heating at work is and I’d secretly turn it down. It’s one of the reasons I work at home as much as possible as I just find the office so overheated.

  108. Usual apols. from me re. potential duplication etc. Have a click through and see what you think – it will take you through to part One as well, if you are interested. Thought I’d share.

    Life Without Intellectual Principle: Part Two
    Posted on Feb 07, 2020 09:45 am

    by Christopher DeGroot
    Amid the decline of religion and of traditional sources of value generally, the question arises as to what people shall live for. Judging by their reactions to events, the paltry answer, for many on the left, is sheer narcissism. From this perspective, the sacrosanct self, with its precious feelings, is now the arbiter of truth and of what is right or wrong for other people to do.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/life-without-intellectual-principle-part-two/

  109. 102 migrants caught crossing the Channel today…. 90 yesterday!

    Edited

    A record 102 migrants have attempted to cross the English Channel today, just one day after 90 asylum seekers including 15 children reached British shores.

    Five inflatable boats carrying individuals claiming to be from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria were picked up by Border Force, the Home Office said.

    Nine of the migrants managed to get to a beach in Kent where they were detained by police.

    The 102 migrants – who included seven children – are believed to be a new record for a single day.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7977983/Dozens-migrants-caught-crossing-English-Channel-one-day-record-90-reached-Britain.html?ico=pushly-notifcation-small

          2. We outnumber the “new arrivals” more than 10 to 1, we would be fighting for our homeland on our own soil while they are outside invaders. We have many, many ex Army, Navy and Airmen / Women in this country, and the British armed forces firearms training is vastly superior to a wayward camel rustler who fancies his chances against the infidel in a foreign land. It will not be a walkover, but FAR easier than winning something such as World War 2, and we did alright there with some help from our friends. 🙂

            If only we could get some politicians who were actually on our side, and who would stop the flow of reinforcements flooding in. Boris has studied islamic history, so it is not as if he and those around him do not KNOW what is going to happen when their numbers get big enough. But still our leaders keep picking them up and bringing them here.

            They will need to answer for this after the struggle is over, for what they have done. It won’t be in Prime Ministers Questions either, it will be in a court with some nice new judges who are not owned by the EU. 🙂

          3. I think of these things too, our spirit and instinct for survival, and our common sense, as evidenced by the last election. Politically our backs were against the wall and we fought back, and won. Although it feels like it to us here on this site, our backs are not yet against the wall, we are not yet cornered by islam. However, we do have the cosh of ‘Racism!’ to overcome (I can see that this is coming, it is becoming tired and losing its effect), the poison of the bbc, left-wing influence in education to remove the backbone of our children, the whole gamut of snowflakery and cultural marxism. In the end I think basic common-sense, survival instinct and the fact that we are on our own territory – this runs through our genes like a stick of rock, will win through. It is our home.

          4. Thanks so much for your reply, which I have copied for future reference just to reassure myself when I am feeling low and despondent. I did my first, ah – research into islam when I was 18. I had been reading a French novel and part of it involved islam. I took myself off to the reference library – oh, this cannot be true! – and I was horrified to learn that it was. Do not worry, I said to myself (I was brought up on the heroism of our peopke during WWll), as a country we are far too alert and knowing and intelligent to allow this to come here… I was shocked in 1976 when I first saw hijabs and burqua clad females wandering around Staines whilst visiting a friend; the process being accelerated 20 years or so later by, step forward, Tony Blair. Our satnav has on a few occasions taken us through the back streets of Luton&Dunstable and Bradford. These places are like third world countries, downtown Karachi, reminiscent of the slums of inner cities during the 1950s, perhaps worse.

        1. It is a road with many small roads going off at right angles with northern type terrace houses, back-to-back style, inexpensive cheek-by-jowel housing, a maze of streets. Harehills Road leads on to Roundhay Road and to what used to be the smartest addresses in Leeds, where I was born and bred (yikes) 73 years ago.

          3. You have Harehills (Roundhay Road) on your left going towards town, and Chapeltown parallel on your right. Both were very busy neighbourhoods and shopping areas when I was a kid. Then everyone moved up towards posher areas, and Chapeltown was filled up with Afro-Caribbeans who did bugger all except sell drugs in the pubs and bars, and to this day nearly all the shops are boarded up.
            The Roundhay Road area was taken over by the Muslims and the rest from all over the place.It’s now a thriving multi-lingual shopping area because Pakistanis and the rest have a natural business sense. The Afro/C lot are just dole scroungers and a waste of space.

          5. The young girl that he murdered live ten minutes walk from where we did at the time. But in those days even the rough area were pretty safe.

          7. My rellies lived on Street Lane and Park Lane, Roundhay. I came from the socially unacceptable southern side of the river!

          8. Wow! We lived off Street Lane until I was ten, then down to Chapeltown. (No tenency protection for rented houses. Parents broke so just got slung out and took what was available.
            Park Lane was not just posh. It was really really posh. But in those days there were lots of very rich people who had made it on the “black market” during and after WW2.

          9. Uncle made it by being a director of Burton’s The Tailors (having survived life in the trenches and malaria during WWl) and a director of Leeds United. He used to collect my dad (in his Rolls) and park it outside our little Beeston suburban home and take my dad off to the director’s stand at LU once a month. In those days, to me, it was just a car, any old car. I went to Cockburn High School whilst it was still a high school, before it went comprehensive and rapidly downhill (in the late 1960s). I also had rellies who lived in Roman Gardens (I think it was Gardens) and further out Moortown in the Sandhills by a pub that went then by the name of the Court Jester. My mum said to me when I was quite grown up, in my forties – “I suppose really that we were poor, but It never occurred to me.” I realise now that we had far less to manage on (relatively speaking) than those on benefits today. A 1950s childhood was hard, but it had its compensations. My apologies for this – my memory was taking me for a long forgotten trip down, well, the old Memory Lane. Your childhood sounds as though it was hard. Mine was too, in a different way.

          10. That is fantastic. We could get together and write a book. Yes, life will have been hard for my parents, but as a child you just accept things as they are, because you don’t know any different.
            We lived in Roman Grove; the Sandhills (nobody had cars !!) where were the rich people lived ( everyone seemed richer than us!);that pub is still there and now called just The Jester. We had no relatives in Leeds.

            When I tell people that I remember things from World War Two, they just look at me daft and think I am kidding. Or very very very very old !!
            (How come you’ve still got so much hair ?)

          11. It was a very different world in the 1950s. And we were very much the poor relations, and understood that we were, I see with hindsight. I was born in ’47, I remember someone coming round with a ladder to light the gaslamps at night (3.30pm in December) and turn them off in the morning. I remember ration books, the local co-op and its butcher’s with the carcasses hanging just behind you as you waited in the queue with your mum – you certainly knew where your meat came from. Veganism is for snowflakes and a first world concern. A tough, but oddly gently courteous, life. How I miss those politenesses of yesteryear now.

          12. I don’t know what I have been doing all the time, but I was born in 1937 …:-) My mother named me after Anthony Eden because she thought he was so handsome. I think he was Foreign Secretary at the time.

          13. Time seems to function in the manner of a concertina – when you are young the folds are stretched, barely folds indeed marking the years, then the gradients get steeper as you progress through life, when you get to sixty they start to get tighter and tighter. Such is life. 😉

    5. 500 hundred a day this summer. 2000 a day next summer. The same as happened with the Med. They call it assisted passage under the agreement our government signed….

    6. Perhaps they should be interred on prison ships, Maggie. If we recommissioned Giant Cruise Ships – one every month – we should keep pace with the influx.

      The new rules: you will be interned offshore; there will be no ‘shoreside’ rights such as NHS and education. Free offer of ‘Return To Sender’ whenever requested …

      1. Don’t forget the fee welcome pack of a corona beer for non Muslims, corona virus for the followers of Satan.

        1. That would be against their human rights.
          Remember dental checks on 38 year old teenage refugees?

  110. Good Morning,

    Thousands of
    Border Force officials will be redeployed to the south coast under plans
    to stop smuggling and illegal immigration across the English Channel
    after December 31.

    More than 100 migrants were picked up yesterday in the Channel, a record for a single day.”

    That’s 30,000 welcomed in before the end of the year.

    1. So while everyone is in the channel, it’s party time in the North Sea with its longer coastline.

      Diversionary tactics sorted, job done.

  111. Lovely chatting to you all but i’m orf now. I have 3 episodes of the new Star Trek Picard to watch. Keep the noise down !

    Have a pleasant evening all.

    1. I bet you nod off before the end ..

      Have you eaten yet… anything tasty .. We have just enjoyed my very delicious home made cottage pie , carrots and a spoonful of piccalilli.. and a shop bought trifle ..

      1. What a thoroughly enjoyable meal…my hubby loves that! – cottage pie and trifle are his fave.

        1. Comfort food Jenny.. nice familiar things to eat on cold days .

          Moh played golf this morning .. 6 hours away.. came home and he made a fried egg and bacon sarnie .. I was out buying bird food for the starving swarm in the garden , and gave my dogs a good walk, oh yes , and the coal delivery arrived before I left … Opened the top of bunker for the coal man and the largest spider I have seen for months crawled out … Nope , I let it be … but it was ginormous!

          1. Comfort food indeed…..as a veggie I have fewer choices but I love a nice warming soup. M and S of course…lol. We have had some huge spiders of late – hmm….they don’t bother me – hubby tres to get them outside if they are not too fast for them. Having cats, I don’t want them to be eaten the little legs of the spidery things.

          2. Poor old Dorchester is losing its M+S .. Terrible, there have been petitions and angry demonstrations.. but no, they are closing it.. Sadly only a small store , but with a nice food section and minimal clothes .. but it has coped for years.. I was 26 when I first shopped there when we arrived in Dorset … it is like saying good bye to an old friend and my youth,the times spent chattering to friends , buying bits and pieces , Dorchester is our County town , small market town then , before Poundbury ruined everything .

      2. Try Hairy Dieters (Bikers) version with tumbled spuds sometime. Basically a cottage pie ragù, as they say, but don’t mash the potatoes, cook them for a scant 15 – 20 mins and bash with a fork until rough lumps. Cover the er, ragù (so pretentious) and pop back in the oven at 200 C until crisp and browny, about 30 mins or so.* You can sprinkle with cheese, dot with butter, anything else that takes your fancy (drizzle with truffle oil if you like, I suppose, but I haven’t tried this yet). I know it sounds like cottage pie but somehow it is different. Hairy Dieters name it ‘Meat and Vegetable Pie with Tumbled Spuds’. I make it with 750 g minced beef and more veg, I add a red pepper and a courgette to the onions, leeks and carrots. And anything else I can find.

        *I have always found 30 mins very optimistic. Anything up to an hour…. Only Delia gets the timings right.

    2. Phizzee – do let us know if it is any good. The reviews that I have seen are 45% positive, 10% neutral, 45% negative, so at least that is an even split. 🙂

  112. I don’t think I have seen this mentioned below, and I don’t want to mention the I word on a Friday night, but I will forget it otherwise. I was miles away last night with the TV on in another room, when I thought “What is that? It sounds hard core islamic.” I went to look and it was an episode of EastEnders where a white teenager (obviously) called Bobby Beale was surrounded by family and was completing the ceremony to convert to islam and become a muslim. On prime time television in a soap watched by the “easily led.”

    The infiltration of culture continues apace with the BBC not holding themselves back in any way. I do not watch that junk, but you can safely bet that they did not mention any of the growing problems with that cult, or the many schoolgirls who would have been far better off if they had never been allowed to spread here. I am not repeating the words of him selling his soul to satan as he professed he was now a muslim. I have just looked for a review and found this:

    “Bobby Beale (Clay Milner Russell) is set to find acceptance and comfort in the Islam faith in an upcoming EastEnders storyline that will explore the positive sides of religion. As Bobby realises he wants to explore life as a Muslim to help him find peace with his dark past and the demons he is battling.

    EastEnders is working with the Muslim Youth Helpline on the storyline involving Bobby. In tonight’s episode viewers saw Bobby meet his friend, Imran, who he met whilst at a Young Offender’s Institute. In the coming weeks viewers will see Bobby explore his new faith and how it positively affects him; offering Bobby support and helping him find peace with past events.”

    Just another reason for the BBC to lose the licence fee. Actively promoting white boys conversion to islam now.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/97db382d9cf1a28f63281c4c11c8ce1935ebbe56ee441c863cf2fe9199fc0b97.jpg

    2. Converts are always the worst.

      Next up, he’ll be shot by the evil, white, Christian policemen.

    3. Outrageous , disgusting … and no doubt their head honcho must be a Muslim … THE country is being groomed for a takeover!

      What on earth have the BBC been spending £87 million pounds on , a new set or a new Mosque?

      NEW pictures from the EastEnders set, which is undergoing an £87million overhaul, show how much progress is being made.

      As these snaps from the BBC soap’s Elstree studios show, builders are busy beavering away on some huge new houses in the Square.

      https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/10245285/new-eastenders-set-pictures-houses/

      1. Evidence that the BBC has for some time outlived its original purpose and is now a vehicle for some absurd political propaganda merchants.

        Time to abolish its free ticket to promote anti-English propaganda and both decriminalise non-payment and cancel the licence fee altogether.

        The output of the BBC is pathetic, their reporters are biased and grossly overpaid, their news reporters cannot read an autocue without making faces (that is you Fiona flat-faced Bruce).

    5. Clearly the script writers of that disgusting programme are inciting mental health issues.

      1. It is clear which side they are promoting with this story:

        “In the coming weeks viewers will see Bobby explore his new faith and how it positively affects him; offering Bobby support and helping him find peace with past events.”

        Telling those young people who are feeling bad, sad, lonely and confused that islam will provide the answers and give them peace, and how it is a positive thing… You can imagine the response in an islamic country if a mainstream program had someone converting to Christianity. Even if the BBC was forced to fund itself, there will be some very wealthy people who will pump money into it to keep this borderline islamic proselytising channel open.

        1. Are there any gay couples on Eastenders.. How will issues like that be dealt with… adultery … stonings.. grooming, taxi drivers.. stabby stabby cultures.

          1. Gays will be thrown from the upper storeys of the Rover’s Return down onto the Crossroads Motel car park. Al’s snackbar!

          2. Probably on the Archers, another once great program now thoroughly imbued with all the Beebs pet topics from AGW, multi-culti etc , and propaganda vehicle…..

        2. Surely somebody should be creating fire and brimstone about this. I mean, not just here ? It just isn’t acceptable.
          Where are our Church people when we need them ? Hiding behind a rock ?

          1. “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church…”
            Not that one would expect the current ABC to know such stuff.

          3. Church people? With who we have they are, like the pope, preaching the joys of interfaith…

        3. They would far better serve their brief by showing Muslims actively absorbing what it is to be British, moderating their religious tendencies and “Integrating”. They might also have storylines addressing the evils of FGM, arranged child bride marriages and learning English etc etc etc.

          But no. That would never suit the woke BBC.

      1. They could make a meal of that episode, the titles end, the camera pans from the inside of a room with a crying women lying on the floor, her clothes torn off, to moving outside and a trail of bodies lying across Albert Square with the sounds of a “jolly old knees up” starting to be heard from the pub. The camera catches a figure darting inside before the windows shatter outwards in a display of flame and glass flying everywhere. The sounds of sirens are heard in the distance as the camera fades to black.

        But that might be a bit too realistic for the BBC. They will more likely have the new convert swapping knitting patterns with the gays on the street, because as the BBC will tell us, islam is a religion of acceptance.

    8. And, let me guess…radicalisation will soon convert him into a victim? And his life will end at the hands of the cops after he knifes someone??

      1. If he decides to get married, they can save money by hiring an unknown actor behind a burquah to play his wife.

      1. And the episode when he tries to rape a 14 year old girl who turns out to be a martial arts specialist who castrates him.

        ( What is martial art that fights with knives? Likely the most well-known are the Filipino arts, Escrima, Kali, Arnis. Various styles of Kung-fu use knives, like the “butterfly knives” used by several. Tantojutsu is practiced as part of Japanese kenjutsu.)

    12. You are pulling my leg. Are you telling me that people still watch that shite?

      I stopd watching it in 1990. (I stopped watching Coronation Street in 1962).

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