Friday 9 July: Freedom will elude us until self-isolation becomes an individual choice

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/07/08/letters-freedom-will-elude-us-self-isolation-becomes-individual/

724 thoughts on “Friday 9 July: Freedom will elude us until self-isolation becomes an individual choice”

  1. England’s flag-waving is the perfect antidote to the virus of wokedom. 9 July 2021.

    Patriotism has been widely derided in recent decades, but nothing else unites us quite like national pride.

    Indeed, so far the political Left in Britain has spent the Euros 2020 championship actually making an effort to fly the English national colours. Sir Keir Starmer had himself photographed wearing an England shirt at what appeared to be the only dry pub in the country. Left-wing commentators have even started to photograph themselves in front of the St George cross for social media “likes”.

    Only a few months ago, these same people would have accused anyone doing the same of being ugly nationalists or “flag-shaggers” (to use one of their favoured terms). Yet here they are, joining the general excitement, and so far neither Lady Nugee nor anyone else has come along and told them to stop it.

    Morning everyone. I hate to puncture Douglas’s enthusiasm but this “Patriotic” support only extends to the England Football Team and the reason for it is its Woke Nature. It’s a multi-cultural-ethnic-racial team composed of BLM supporters!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/08/englands-flag-waving-perfect-antidote-virus-wokedom/

  5. Bosses are being asked to be lenient on staff on Monday if they have a hangover after an England victory on Sunday night.

    That’s a dangerous precedent. Jobs depend on staff being alert and functioning properly. How much lost productivity will there be from people who see BoJo’s suggstion as carte blanche to pull a sickie. I’ve already seen a story about one lady has been sacked after doing just that in order to attend the semi-final match.

    What about non-football fans. Will they be allowed the same leniency after a celebration after success in one of their hobbies?

    1. I wonder if the same was asked of bosses in 1966? We had a 6 month old baby, so we had to just get on with it.

    2. “I was late to work because we were up til 3 am drinking to celebrate finishing my quilt.”

  6. Good Moaning.
    Douglas Murray cooking on gas.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/oli-london-and-the-trickiness-of-being-trans-racial

    “Oli London and the trickiness of being ‘trans-racial’

    Not everyone will have heard of Oli London, a British social media influencer who made news for two reasons last week. The first was that London came out as plural. Which is to say that he came out as a non-binary person. Which is very 2020 and something so un-noteworthy that I’m sure you’ll agree it is hardly worth remarking upon. The other thing London did was more unusual. Which was that he came out as Korean.

    You might guess from his name that Oli London is not Korean, but he has spent some time there (in the South rather than the North apparently) and enjoys the language and culture. So in his coming-out message London revealed some rather extreme plastic surgery to his face and announced that he wished to be known as Korean. ‘People might not get it, it’s a new concept, whatever,’ he said, demonstrating that whatever his proficiency at Korean, he retains that Millennial urge to mutilate the English tongue.

    On the matter of coming out as Korean, the reception was not universally warm. But you might have sympathy for the crossroads at which this confused young man sits. The current era has arrived at an uncomfortable, indeed contradictory, settlement on such matters. It has decided that a man may become a woman or a woman may become a man with great ease. Indeed, saying it makes it so. To such an extent that last month when a man in LA allegedly identified as trans in order to get into the women’s changing room of a spa and wave his penis around at the women in the changing room, the only thing anyone was meant to say to the women who complained was: ‘What’s your problem, transphobe?’

    This is no exaggeration. Last weekend in California, crowds of ‘Antifa’ activists assaulted a number of women and a Korean man (as it happens) who were protesting against such activities at the spa. In 2021, fighting fascism means beating up women who do not want penises flashed at them in a spa changing room. One of several reasons why this is a wonderful time to be alive.

    But while the idea of changing sex has been embedded that deeply, the idea that you can change race is having a trickier time. In recent years America has seen a small spate of people who have been ‘outed’ as not being of the race they are pretending to be. Readers may recall the case of Rachel Dolezal, who was not only living as a black woman but was the head of her local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Her world crashed around her in 2015 when she was outed as not just white but the child of German–Czech parents. That is, she was outed as exceedingly white. At the time, Dolezal was dismissed as a freak case. But in the years since then, other people have been outed trying honestly or otherwise to be ‘transracial’.

    Last year produced the beautiful case of Jessica Krug, an associate professor at George Washington University who reluctantly came out as not just white but Jewish. Ms Krug had hitherto been making ripples in academia as a black woman. Why would a white woman pretend to be a black woman in order to advance in American academia? That is a puzzle we will have to address another day. But the reaction to Krug was essentially the same as to Dolezal. America is even more sensitive about race than it is about sex. So when black people put their foot down and say ‘You’re not joining our race’, it has a firmer impact than it does when women try to put their foot down and say men can’t join their sex.

    And there the consensus has uncomfortably sat, only for Oli London (who uses the pronouns They/Them/Kor/Ean) to come along and baffle everyone. Response to his announcement fell into two broad categories. First was the ‘How dare you’ one (largely voiced by Koreans). And then there were those saying: ‘Congrats Oli, live your best life, Chukahae, etc.’

    It’s a tricky one. On the side of the Koreans, I can see that having surgery to look like another race is liable to be interpreted as stereotyping, among much else. On the side of the ‘Yay’ people is the fact that it would be rude to tell a young man who’s just had elaborate and costly surgery that he is patently nuts. If somebody cuts off his arm and demands to be known as Nelson, it is kindly to refer to him as Nelson.

    Personally I would suggest that the Koreans should take it as a compliment. South Korea has in recent years been the country with the highest number of plastic surgery procedures per capita of anywhere in the world. Although people debate the details, the fact is that many of these procedures do appear to be designed to make the patients look more western, which has always seemed a sad fact to me. It would suggest that a certain western standard of beauty had got fixed in the country, and it is a rather terrible thing to find neither yourself nor any of your fellow countryfolk attractive.

    Perhaps things have changed a little in recent years. The arrival of K-pop may have helped. But whether or not Koreans are now more attracted to themselves, if non–Koreans are becoming so attracted to them that they are having surgery in order to resemble them, as a Korean I would chalk that up as a win on my side of the ledger.

    It may take a bit of getting used to, but there have always been people who wished they were of another race. For example, there have been many men in the British Foreign Office who wished that they were Arabs. And if people can buy their way into looking like another sex, we will probably have to get used to the idea that some people will buy their way into looking like another race. You may not agree with this. But I didn’t make the rules. And it’s not remotely clear which madman did.”

    1. We have a new staff member and I was asked to sort out an ID Badge. Let’s call that new staff member Helen. When I emailed Helen’s boss to ask if she needed access to a particular department, he replied and told me that Helen chooses to use the pronouns ‘they/them’.

      Does wokery automatically nullify any sense of grammatical correctness? As an individual, Helen should at least choose to call herself ‘it’, being in the first person singular.

      1. Morning, Stormy.
        If I had your job, my BP would be up through the top of my head like a geyser.

        1. My tongue is half an inch shorter than it used to be, I’ve bitten it that many times.

          Edit: Sorry, where are my manners – Morning Anne 🙂

      2. They/them produces some appallingly ambiguous sentences.
        I’m sure you are extremely careful, but beware the flying lawsuits for workplace discrimination.

        1. The simple answer might be to just address them by their full name e.g. Helen Smith. If ‘Helen Smith’ complains (yet again), it can be pointed out that they/them may be confusing in a work-wide memo and ‘Helen Smith’ is used to provide clarity for all.

          As an aside, I propose that all ‘confused’ people use the disabled toilets and let the normal people get on with their normal lives.

          1. That is unfortunately also a pitfall.
            There was a huge row on the technical website StackOverflow in 2019, because they tried to bring in new guidelines that would make it an offence to formulate a sentence without using pronouns.

            They were not just banning free speech, but trying to coerce people’s speech. They sacked an unpaid moderator and dissed her to the media because she merely questioned the concept of this policy before it was official policy.

            Similar fights over coerced speech have been going on in other parts of the internet.
            This does represent an extreme view.

            Someone I know who is t has a history of running to court claiming discrimination. For this reason, I am very wary of anyone who looks as though they might take offence easily.

      3. ‘I’ is the first person singular. ‘It’ is the third person singular.

    2. I suggest, Anne, that Oily London should be deported to S Korea as an illegal alien.

      1. I suspect the South Korean government has more spine than the British government.
        Maybe adjoining a hostile and repressive country sharpens the thinking. But that’s enough about Scotland.

      2. Trouble is, he will come back for free NHS treatment and counselling when all his surgeries go wrong

          3. Wot about yer Frogs and Krauts etc? All their things are either masculine or feminine (or neuter (Ger)). When will the wokists decide it’s offensive to call e.g. the sea or a house ‘elle’ and a car or a garden ‘il’?

            I must apologise for my full stops too. I understand some people find them aggressive.

          9. E.g, etcetera. (Posted at just after 8 a.m.)

            PS – Not even in Latin America?

            PPS – Good morning, Annie.

            PPPS – I’ll don my tin hat and catch the omnibus.

          12. I wonder if that is why the gender nonsense has not got so far in those countries? The baggage would simply be far more.

    3. From today, I identify as the Queen and so I am surely entitled to live in Buck Palace. I’ll start packing and will move in this weekend.

    5. I think I’m going to come out as a canine; eat, sleep, hump, repeat. Can’t be bad 🙂

  7. morning [again to those liaised with earlier]:

    SIR – Boris Johnson promised us freedom and an end to Covid restrictions this summer.

    Yet with the decision to let the virus run its course (though with reduced levels of illness), the number of those forced to self-isolate under the contact-tracing rules will be enormous.

    Freedom will only come when we stay at home because we feel ill, not because we have been told to.

    Jonathan Mann
    Gunnislake, Cornwall

    SIR – My husband and I have been double-jabbed since May. Our 16-year-old tested positive last Wednesday. 
We tested positive on Sunday. We have all been pretty ill and I’d rather not repeat it.

    There needs to be more understanding among those clamouring for restrictions to end that with freedom comes responsibility.

    Rather than grumbling about contact-tracing taking away our personal freedoms, we need to take everyone into account. If we just revert to the old ways, we will put each other at risk of harm.

    Heather Ashby-Rose
    Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – With regard to masks (Letters, July 8), my default position would be not to automatically wear one, but to always carry one with me and make a judgment based on the situation and the feelings of the people I’m with.

    With common -sense and consideration for others, there is no need for this matter to be part of a wider culture war.

    William Cook
    Blandford Forum, Dorset

    SIR – A growing number of people can be observed standing outside buildings, mask in one hand, cigarette in the other.

    Oh, the irony if any are still seen after “Freedom Day” dawns.

    Peter H York
    Daventry, Northamptonshire

    SIR – I’m just looking forward to someone answering the phone without mentioning Covid or directing me to a website.

    Anne Crocker
    Bournemouth, Dorset

    SIR – My wife has an ongoing illness, myasthenia gravis, and she is also in pain from a recent bout of shingles.

    She is 89 and I am 90. We do not have any help, but normally we manage.

    My wife would desperately like to see her GP, look him in the eye,
    sense his physical presence in front of her, and discuss her illness and
    any medication she may need.

    Yet I spent the whole of Wednesday morning trying to contact the GP. I am sick to the back teeth of sitting in queues, being told my call is important. I was number 61, got down to number one – and then the phone went dead.

    To use the virus as an excuse is no longer viable.

    George Teasdale
    Leeds, West Yorkshire

    Elephants to Kenya

    SIR – Donations will be flooding in to the Aspinall Foundation and the Sheldrick Trust in response to their plan to transport a herd of elephants back to Africa (report, July 8).

    I am dismayed on many levels by the folly of this absurd Disneyesque project, and the cruelty being visited on these sensitive and intelligent animals in subjecting them to such a journey.

    Contrary to Damian Aspinall’s claims, the rewilding of zoo and circus elephants has been done before, and it usually ends in tragedy for elephant and handlers alike – as I can attest, having been employed by one such project in Botswana in the 1990s.

    Equally worrying is the way that such a stunt obscures the real conservation issues of that continent (such as habitat loss and human-wildlife conflict). Sending zoo elephants to Kenya is not helping to conserve anything except, possibly, two ailing wildlife foundations.

    Caroline Lindstrom
    Wonersh, Surrey

    SIR – I see little point in flying 13 elephants from Kent to Kenya, a country that already has rising elephant numbers and where more than 100 “problem” animals are shot by the authorities each year – a result of conflicts between them and humans, which can lead to deaths.

    Captive-bred animals will have to adjust to African weather conditions, and learn to find drinkable water and forage for themselves. It will all be dramatically different to their current eight-acre enclosure, where they are tended by friendly humans. One wonders at the true animal welfare implications.

    In 2018, 11 black rhinos were moved 200 miles in Kenya, from the Lake Nakuru National Park to Tsavo, but soon died from multiple stress syndrome, exacerbated by dehydration, starvation and salt poisoning. Elephants are no less susceptible to stress. The experiment is unlikely to end well for them or for their new human neighbours.

    If, as the Aspinall Foundation suggests, elephants should not be kept in zoos, the real solution is to stop breeding them.

    Charles Smith-Jones
    Landrake, Cornwall

    Two for one

    SIR – Has anyone noticed that nobody just checks these days?

    Everybody double-checks.

    Mike Forlan
    Hayling Island, Hampshire

    How England won

    SIR – My father loved a good football match, but he always said that when it came to his own teams (Brentford and England) he was more than happy for them to win by an own goal or a disputed penalty, regardless of how well they played.

    How proud he would have been of England’s performance.

    Alison Handy
    Newbury, Berkshire

    SIR – Arise, Sir Gareth?

    Graham White
    Cambridge

    SIR – Congratulations to our footballers, who deserve better supporters than those who throughout the tournament have booed every time the opposition had the ball. No other country behaved in this way. What a poor example to our sporting youth.

    Joan Leith
    London NW7

    SIR – As a long-term resident of France, I found Anthony Peregrine’s call (telegraph.co.uk, July 7) for English football supporters to behave with more restraint quite appealing, if also rather quaint.

    It would appear that he lives in the French equivalent of Devon and has not experienced the ecstatic fervour that greets a significant victory of Les Bleus: an extraordinary number of supporters descend on the Champs-Élysées to celebrate wildly, just as they do in Trafalgar Square. Moreover, not so far away, hundreds of cars are set alight to add to the celebrations.

    Francis Titley
    Croissy-sur-Seine, Yvelines, France

    Sandhurst sage

    SIR – The current situation in Afghanistan (“Boris Johnson ‘unhappy’ about Afghanistan and says ‘blood and treasure’ must not be wasted”, report, July 8) was foreseen by the late Telegraph defence editor and military historian Sir John Keegan, who taught many of us at Sandhurst.

    When Nato forces deployed in 2003, he wrote: “Oh dear, our politicians have not read their history books.”

    Lt Col Ray Aldis (retd)
    Hanging Langford, Wiltshire

    Team UK

    SIR – Alan Chapman (Letters, July 6) asks whether Team GB should become Team UK in future Olympic Games.

    The answer is of course yes, as Team GB excludes Northern Irish competitors. I am amazed Unionists ever allowed Team GB to be used.

    Gerald Burnett
    Richmond, North Yorkshire

    SIR – Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man are crown dependencies. Tristram C Llewellyn Jones (Letters, July 6) is correct that they aren’t part of the United Kingdom but wrong when he says they are part of Great Britain.

    They are part of the British Isles but not the political entity of Great Britain, which is England, Scotland and Wales and their offshore islands.

    My passport front cover says: “British Islands, Bailiwick of Jersey”.

    James B Sinclair
    St Helier, Jersey

    Straight news?

    SIR – Has anyone else noticed that several BBC reporters have taken to leaning against a wall or other convenient prop when delivering their report to camera?

    Is this some sort of woke signal? If they can’t be bothered to stand up, I’m not sure I can be bothered to listen to them.

    Janet McNeill
    Upper Basildon, Berkshire

    Barking up the wrong tree on spaces for dogs

    SIR – The campaign to promote the benefits of welcoming canines to businesses and workplaces (report, July 5) ignores the fact that many people, including myself, are highly uncomfortable around dogs – at worst, affected by cynophobia.

    Employers and retail outlets must provide safe workplaces. Doesn’t the Kennel Club see that not everyone is able or wishes to love dogs?

    Simon Millar
    Poole, Dorset

    SIR – The Kennel Club is calling on establishments from all sectors to become more dog-friendly. I suggest a national sticker scheme whereby all establishments display either a red sign that dogs are prohibited or a green sign that dogs are welcome. This would negate the need to call out from the door to ask, which can be awkward. Signs could also be displayed on establishments’ websites.

    Of course, businesses that don’t welcome dogs are denying themselves a great deal of potential income.

    Larry Oster
    Southsea, Hampshire

    A ridiculous reading of To Kill a Mockingbird

    SIR – To regard Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird as a “white saviour” (report, July 6) is ridiculous. The lawyer is reviled by the townspeople for representing a black man, and the innocent black man is not saved.

    Still, when have objective facts been an obstacle to those who promote “inverted racism”, which asserts that, dependent on the colour of your skin (imposed on you at birth), you are either irredeemably an oppressor or irredeemably a victim?

    Alan Stedall
    Sutton Coldfield

    SIR – Atticus Finch is not a “white saviour”. Tom Robinson is found guilty and dies. The book shows superbly the evil of colour prejudice, which causes a man to be found guilty who is clearly innocent. Thank goodness I retired from teaching English 20 years ago.

    Andrew Glover
    Oadby, Leicestershire

    SIR – I for one will not be sorry if To Kill a Mockingbird loses its pre-eminence on the syllabus.

    Irritating as the stereotype of the white male liberal saviour may be, at least Atticus Finch is presented as doing the noble thing in defending the unjustly accused black man. The more dangerous stereotype is that of the woman who makes a false allegation of rape, leaving the accused man to suffer until she is unmasked by the brave and insightful liberal male.

    This beautifully written book, shored up by countless similar, less worthy novels and television dramas, has taught generations of children that it is an act of intellectual courage to be deeply sceptical of female allegations. This has done a terrible disservice to women of all ethnicities. How far it has influenced lawyers and juries would be an interesting subject for research.

    Jean Calder
    Brighton, East Sussex

    1. “My husband and I have been double-jabbed since May. Our 16-year-old tested positive last Wednesday. 
We tested positive on Sunday. We have all been pretty ill and I’d rather not repeat it.”

      Thank you Heather Ashby-Rose for identifying the value of vaccination as a defence against Covid. You have demonstrated that it is a complete fabrication.

          1. Yes, thank you. Managed to spend a couple of hours in the garden trimming the branches of a very tall tree before the rainfall started.

      2. My thought exactly. A pity she didn’t realise what she was admitting instead of wanting to lock everybody up.

    2. My wife would desperately like to see her GP, look him in the eye, sense his physical presence in front of her, and discuss her illness and
      any medication she may need.

      Yet I spent the whole of Wednesday morning trying to contact the GP. I am sick to the back teeth of sitting in queues, being told my call is important. I was number 61, got down to number one – and then the phone went dead.

      Poor old George. He does not yet realise The NHS is dead!

      1. It is an ex-Health Service.
        It has ceased to be.
        It has shuffled off its mortal coil…..

  8. Leicestershire PCC bans staff from contact with Black Lives Matter. 9 July 2021.

    The police and crime commissioner for Leicestershire has said he has banned his staff from communicating with Black Lives Matter groups.

    “Why are we meeting an organisation that wants to defund the police, has put police officers in hospital, and desecrated the cenotaph in London?” he wrote.

    He went on: “Come the meeting, I have a dozen or so faces looking at me from the Teams screen. ‘Any Other Business’. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘As of now this organisation will have absolutely no contact at all with Black Lives Matter.’

    “There is a deathly silence. Meeting over, the screen goes blank.”

    Well done that man!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/08/leicestershire-pcc-bans-staff-from-contact-with-black-lives-matter

      1. But a socially influential nutter. dahling.
        This whole saga reminds me of the more over-heated 1950s films about the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire or any other ancient culture east of Frinton.

        1. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire..

          I like Stephen Boyd’s reply when he is offered the “purple”.

          You would not find me very suitable, because my first official act would be to have you all crucified.

          3. Sophia Loren looking rather fetching, even in a scorched hessian sack.

        1. Looks more like an overindulged member of thew me, me, me generation.

  10. You Wear It Well

    Long ago there lived a seaman named Captain Bravo. He was a manly man’s man who showed no fear in facing his enemies. One day, while sailing the seven seas, a lookout spotted a pirate ship and the crew became frantic. Captain Bravo bellowed, “Bring me my red shirt.” The First Mate quickly retrieved the captain’s red shirt and whilst wearing the bright item he led his men into battle and defeated the pirates.

    Later on, the lookout spotted not one, but two pirate ships. The captain again howled for his red shirt and once again they vanquished the pirates. That evening, all the men sat around on the deck recounting the day’s triumphs and one of them asked the captain: “Sir, why do you call for your red shirt before battle?”

    The captain replied: “If I am wounded in the attack, the shirt will not show my blood, and thus, you men will continue to resist, unafraid.”

    All of the men sat in silence and marvelled at the courage of such a manly man’s man.

    As dawn came the next morning, the lookout spotted not one, not two, but TEN pirate ships approaching. The rank and file all stared in worshipful silence at the captain and waited for his usual response. Captain Bravo gazed with steely eyes upon the vast armada arrayed against his mighty sailing ship and, without fear, turned, and calmly said, “Get me my brown trousers.“

    1. The estate agent told me he had a property in my price range but he sold it in 1976.

        1. Was that the Chinese-made one with a bent blade we saw here the other day? The one designed to get viruses out of strawberries?

          1. Nope MacGyver started off using the 84mm Tinker in the first 3 episodes & then he mostly used the 74mm Executive.
            https://www.sakwiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=Executive+74mm
            The Executive is one of the few Swiss Army Knives that can be positively identified in the television show MacGyver, which aired from 1985 to 1992, thanks to the distinctive appearance of the orange peeler. For instance, episode fourteen of the first season had a scene in which the star of the show uses the orange peeler of an Executive to pry the lids off of four tubes of acid that were part of a bomb. The opening credits for each show, following the first season, included a portion of this footage. Whilst MacGyver used many Swiss Army Knife models, this was most likely, the most commonly used model.
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ0x_uGrBZM

    1. This cartoon doesn’t translate well into my mother tongue.

      An ass is a type of donkey, and it is also the law, but the word they are looking for is ‘bum’ (which in my language means ‘tramp’, and that means something else in America).

      I presume the cartoonist was chest-fed as a baby.

  16. Good morning all. Watery sunshine.

    Six hour delays at airports, eh? Plus the £500 a head for “tests”. Can’t wait….{:¬((

  18. EU parliament condemns Hungary’s anti-LGBT law. 9 July 2021.

    The European parliament has denounced a Hungarian law that bans gay people from appearing in educational materials or on primetime TV as “a clear breach” of its principles of equality.

    In a resolution voted in Strasbourg on Thursday by a resounding majority, MEPs condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the Hungarian law as “a clear breach of the EU’s values, principles and law”, while urging the European Commission to launch a fast-track legal case against Viktor Orbán’s government.

    Good for Hungary! If the EU doesn’t like you, you cannot be far wrong!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/eu-parliament-condemns-hungary-anti-lgbt-law

    1. How do we know they are “gay” unless they are shagging one another the back way, or flying Pride banners judging and condemning the sexual preferences of others?

      Raymond Baxter, for example, was a fine presenter of ‘Tomorrow’s World’ back in the 1960s, but nobody knew or cared about what he got up to when he got home from work.

  19. EU parliament condemns Hungary’s anti-LGBT law. 9 July 2021.

    The European parliament has denounced a Hungarian law that bans gay people from appearing in educational materials or on primetime TV as “a clear breach” of its principles of equality.

    In a resolution voted in Strasbourg on Thursday by a resounding majority, MEPs condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the Hungarian law as “a clear breach of the EU’s values, principles and law”, while urging the European Commission to launch a fast-track legal case against Viktor Orbán’s government.

    Good for Hungary! If the EU doesn’t like you, you cannot be far wrong!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/eu-parliament-condemns-hungary-anti-lgbt-law

  20. I am pleased England are doing well in the football but to see the over reaction of so many people makes me sad when to can see just how shallow these peoples are. There has to be more to your life than football.

    3. Opium of the people. Simpler to divert all cultural activity to a handful of corporate primadonnas than to trust the plebs with it, lest they go off-message. Also the hospitality suites in the rebuilt Wembley stadium are more “appropriate” than the thousands of listed ancient buildings that grace every village.

      1. Same strategy as used in the terminal decline of the Roman Empire. Feed the masses with spectacles in the Colleseum.

      2. Good morning ,

        Football is there to pacify the masses as well as bury bad news .. a 90minute game has produced so many millionaires.. just for the effort of kicking a ball around and sporting weird haircuts and tattoos.. and running a bit quicker sometimes.

        I cannot believe the idiots who fork out £s for team t shirts and all that paraphanalia, and who spend small fortunes for travelling to matches .

        1. Hopefully they’ll all go down with Wembley Variant after they’ve been lifted of their wallets.

    1. Just listened to the video above. Stew Peters’ style is not neutral, to put it mildly, but the actual content is believable.
      His report states that graphene oxide has been found in Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines, and he also mentions that pharmacologists say that there are differences (unspecified) between different batches of what should be identical vaccines (these rumours seem to have been persistent since teh start of the vaxx programme).

      Some of the stuff I’ve read about graphene oxide claims that it will be weaponised when 5G is switched on (natural frequency of GO supposed to be a multiple of the 5G carrier wavelength) which I do not find credible at all.

      Thanks for posting.

      1. I’ve read about the allegations that some batches contain the potion and others a placebo. The reason given is if the potion does cause problems when it meets a virus then the impact will not be too great.

        The drive for 100% inoculation with the potion is disturbing: it would appear that the government does not not want an uncontrolled ‘control’ group in the Country. We’re already seeing ‘double-vaxxed’ people being infected with something (Delta Variant?) and this fact is not very reassuring for those pushing the necessity of taking the potion and its efficacy.

    1. Peter Brookes has become increasingly bitter – and no longer amusing.

  25. Good morning from what I hope will be the last trip to Bursledon.
    A beautifully sunny and warm start to the day, a pity it wasn’t quite this nice during the rest of the week!

  26. Priti Patel signs deal with Albania to speed up deportation of crooks who were born there but moved to Britain. 9 July 2021.

    Criminals as well as those who fail to be granted asylum from Albania will face a more rapid return to their home country under a post-Brexit deal secured by Priti Patel last night.

    The agreement, signed by the Home Secretary with the eastern European country, will make it easier to remove convicted offenders.

    It will also make it simpler to move failed Albanian asylum seekers and those who have overstayed their visas.

    No it won’t! This is all smoke. Even if attempted (which it won’t be). It would all be sunk by human rights legislation!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9771139/Priti-Patel-signs-deal-Albania-speed-deportation-crooks.html

    1. Good morning, Ms Priti Awful Patel, please note that, in order to make deportations easier, it is hardly original thinking for the UK to leave The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as step one.

      Step 2 is to repeal Blair’s Human rights Act. Now you have denied the shyster lawyers their clients access to Legal Aid and any ‘Right of Appeal’ and then…

      …let the deportations begin – by the multiple plane-load, preferably Jumbo Jets or Hercules without parachutes.

    3. The “post-Brexit” expression is misleading baloney in itself. Albania is not in the EU. There has never been any legal impediment to removing Albanians fro the UK. Albanian gangs are involved in people trafficking, prostitution, drug importation and dealing, and presumably gun-running as they are all heavily armed. The police are frightened to take action because of the likelihood of violence, apart from any bribes that they may be receiving.
      The legal system is skewed in favour of foreign criminals and their amoral money-grubbing lawyers. (Why do foreigners receive Legal Aid?)
      The mechanics of deportation allow plenty of time for appeal after appeal, in fact enough time to get married, start a family, and adopt a cat.
      A former British ambassador to Libya was given the job of working on deportation. He eventually gave up, recognising that it was near impossible to remove anyone.

        1. So if I pick out a nice house in a pleasant residential area, find the door unlocked and move in, I will not be prosecuted, I will not be removed and will also be able to sleep in the owner’s bed, eat their food, wear their clothes, read their books and watch their TV for the rest of my life?

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

    Cancel culture will never be finished – it has to be fought

    New research by the pollster Frank Luntz and the Centre for Policy Studies found that more than half of British 18 to 29 year-olds have cut off contact with somebody because they disapprove of their political views. Unsurprisingly, this attitude was rarer among older people. Lucy Holden in the Times has written about her generation’s experience of cancel culture and the friendships that have been ended over political differences.

    The Daily Mail ran a story about Luntz’s finding that a third of Labour voters approve of silencing people whose views they disagree with. He thinks this is a sign that America’s culture war is about the cross the Atlantic. Luntz said: “The problem with woke and with cancel culture is that it is never done. The conflict and divisions never end. This is not what the people of the UK want – but it’s coming anyway.”

    A case in point: England cricketer Ollie Robinson has been suspended for eight matches for tweets he posted when he was a teenager.

    In his Times column, Danny Finkelstein argues that headline-generating cultural battles are fuelled by economic self-interest, and author Conn Iggulden talks about cancel culture, his struggle to get published, and whether there really is a “snowflake” generation in an interview in the Express.

    Help support the Batley teacher

    A new crowd-funder has been set up to support the Batley Grammar School teacher who’s still in hiding. We’ve checked it out and it appears to be legit.

    Stonewall’s pronoun police

    Carrie Clark, co-author of our new report “Stonewall’s Censorships Champions”, writes in Spiked that the LGBT campaign group should “call off the pronoun police”. Stonewall’s edicts “have led some organisations to penalise their own employees for breaching Stonewall’s speech codes – including, we learned last week, the Scottish government, which bragged about silencing dissenting employees in internal forums”.

    Maya Forstater, the gender critical feminist who recently won her appeal in the Employment Appeals Tribunal, writes in UnHerd that “government departments, public bodies, professional regulators and the judiciary are disregarding the law in favour of rapidly changing terminology controlled by [Stonewall]… It undermines democracy, justice, freedom of speech and the integrity of organisations.”

    Harry Phibbs asks in ConservativeHome why the Conservative-led Surrey County Council is paying Stonewall £3,000 this year. He says Stonewall has mutated into an “extreme and pernicious outfit that threatens freedom of speech”.

    Meanwhile, the Government has undertaken to exclude evidence-based therapy for children struggling with gender dysphoria from its proposed ban on “conversion therapy”.

    University life today: trans, trigger warnings and sensitivity readers

    In an unwelcome development, Essex University seems to be backtracking on its commitment to free speech after initially accepting the findings of an independent review that lambasted the University over its no-platforming of two gender critical feminists. The Vice-Chancellor has now pledged to go “beyond the minimum standards required by law” to “recognise, respect and protect the identities of trans and non-binary people” and apologised about the fact that “in meeting our obligations to respect academic freedom and freedom of speech within the law, we have given the impression that we might not care about the lived reality of trans and non-binary people”.

    The Department of Engineering at Cambridge has asked students: “Could white privilege play a part in your life?” while the University of Reading has told lecturers to give “trigger warnings” if course material mentions class, pregnancy, “heterosexism” or blood. Meanwhile, the term “trigger warning” has itself been deemed to be triggering by Glasgow and Newcastle universities, with staff told to use the words “content advice” or “content warnings” instead. (The word “trigger” might conjure up upsetting images of guns being fired, apparently.)

    Schools abandon political impartiality in favour of trans dogma and Critical Race Theory

    The National Education Union has decided to ignore the legal duty on schools to approach contentious political issues in a balanced way and launched a new report calling on schools to “decolonise” and “train teachers and schools on whiteness, anti-racism… and understanding the system”. One teacher said in the Daily Mail that her “job has never felt more fraught than it does today. Because, regardless of my intentions, a simple remark such as ‘Girls, could you stop talking please?’ could see me accused of misgendering a pupil, while carelessly picking a picture for a presentation could well be construed as racism.”

    This climate of fear has left teachers powerless to resist trans activism, writes Stephanie Davies-Arai in the Telegraph. Ofsted has warned schools about the use of “overtly political materials” to teach children about gender issues, Camilla Turner reports in the Telegraph. Schools have been advised by Stonewall to drop the term boys and girls, mix the sexes in PE classes and ditch all “gendered” uniforms. Meanwhile, a primary school was forced to remove a video of its pupils expressing their support for the England football team.

    The Common Sense Group of Conservative MPs is calling for the Government to extend the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill to schools, so the legal duty to teach in a politically balanced way and avoid indoctrination is enforceable.

    When was the last time an advert made you laugh?

    The iconic adverts of the 80s and 90s have been replaced by dreary “mood films” about identity politics, writes the PR man Mark Borkowski. All companies speak in the same voice, and woke sameness dominates.

    Frank Luntz’s survey, mentioned above, also found widespread opposition to companies lecturing consumers on social issues. Woke corporations are stifling unorthodox views, irritating their customers and, increasingly, punishing their staff for dissent.

    From advertising to art, creative freedom is in mortal danger, writes Nina Power. Twitter mobs and social media outrage are producing an artless “frightened culture”. A raft of classic children’s films, including Star Wars, have been given stricter classifications by censors in response to “changing social standards” and a “heightened sense of anxiety” among younger audiences. (But don’t you dare call them “snowflakes”.) Celia Walden writes in the Telegraph that every morning the newspapers seem to bring news that a “splendid piece of language, history, art or architecture” has been labelled “problematic” or “offensive”.

    To Kill A Mockingbird has been dropped by James Gillespie High School in Edinburgh because it is “problematical in terms of decolonising the curriculum”. (Something to do with a “white saviour” motif.) Once again, the legal duty to be politically impartial has been forgotten. Former headteacher Christopher McGovern made exactly that point in an interview with GB News and Brendan O’Neill in the Spectator says cancelling To Kill A Mockingbird, is a step too far.

    No wonder there are hardly any conservative novelists anymore.

    America: arms dealers and schools alike embrace woke

    The war over Critical Race Theory continues to rage in America. This divisive ideology has been foisted on American public schools, and parents are fighting back. Meanwhile, America’s second largest defence firm, Raytheon, has told staff to “identify their privilege” and “give those with marginalised identities the floor during meetings”. This would be a good point to raise next time somebody says “woke” speech codes are only a problem in universities and that most people don’t need to worry about them.

    Donald Trump has announced plans to sue social media companies for banning him at the end of his presidency.

    Chinese censors’ global reach

    China is turning the internet into a vast tool of global censorship, somehow persuading Twitter to silence a New Zealand academic after she mocked the Chinese Communist Party. In June, YouTube took down videos about the incarceration of Uighur Muslims on the grounds that the uploads violated a policy against personally identifiable information from appearing in content – in the videos people held up the ID cards of missing persons imprisoned in the Chinese internment camps.

    Sharing the Newsletter

    We’ve received several requests to make it possible to share these newsletters on social media, so we’ve added the option to post them on a few different platforms, including Twitter and Facebook. Just click on the buttons below.

    If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.

    Remember, all of our work depends on our members and donors. Unlike Stonewall, we don’t receive any taxpayers’ money. Sign-up today or encourage a friend to join and help us turn the tide against the censors.

    Best wishes,

    2. Thank you for posting.

      There are hardly any conservative novelists because the publishing industry won’t allow their work to see the light of day.
      Even established writers are dropping completely superfluous politically correct characters into their books.

      Some examples are: Danielle Steele, Marian Keyes and Lee Child. All got popular writing gripping stories in their genre. All now turn out stomach-churning tales of political correctness where girls beat up boys, and everyone is just off to their sibling’s gay wedding.
      In the case of Steele and Child, the writing style is so different that I think they have probably run out of inspiration, and the books are now being written by young English Literature graduates employed by the publishers, to which the famous author lends his or her name!

  31. 335212+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    Friday 9 July: Freedom will elude us until self-isolation becomes an individual choice
    The political overseers are seemingly building successfully on two issue, one being the neglection of / creation of, more mental health patients via their lockdown / fear campaign.

    The second being the openly treacherous reset, replace, reseeding of these Isles via their Dover, openly anti United Kingdom campaign.

    One should be seriously asking is the first issue deflection material in regards to the second ?

      2. How about Border Force gun-boats (do we have such things?) being instructed to warn any dinghy found in our waters to turn around and head back. If the warning is ignored, fire on the dinghy to sink it.

      3. How about Border Force gun-boats (do we have such things?) being instructed to warn any dinghy found in our waters to turn around and head back. If the warning is ignored, fire on the dinghy to sink it.

      1. like anyone exposing fraud or threat to the current controls, he’ll get either bought off, nobbled, dropped or all of the preceding. Add to that proposed electoral boundary changes which is code to move “bin bag” voters where they’re needed, sorry where they can fill a hole

    2. Oh come on, that’s just bog standard Labour tactics. You never complained when you were in the Labour party!

      1. my guess, and it’s only a guess, is he’s raising the issue as it sets a further precedent to rig next general election

        1. If postal voting were banned, and voters had to turn up in person with credible ID, I doubt Labour would ever win another election.

          1. totally agree, but, it’s a convenient tool for all main parties and they all have a vested interest. Remove postal voting except for elderly infirm and soldiers abroad, 90% of those in HoC will be out, so neither side’s going to rock the boat, especially those boats bobbing across the Channel

          2. Good. The Labour terror must end. The horror of the Left confronted and defeated – and that includes the blasted ‘Conservative party.

      1. 335212+ up ticks,
        Morning TB,
        When halal is on the parliamentary canteen menu what does that tell one ?

          1. 335212+ up ticks,
            TB,
            They that adhere to the koran when you have them, via the lab/lib/con governance coalition, being given the INCREASING shout in parliament then it must surely follow they must be granted fodder.
            Building up via the polling booth until the WHOLE menu is, as
            with the country, halal.

      2. Good morning & happy Friday Belle. The answer is yes, the Muslim Brotherhood has successfully infiltrated all major UK political parties .

    2. Well, someone must have touched the Koran to place it in the House of Commons – I don’t believe that only Muslims are allowed to touch it.

        1. So have I. I bought it a few years ago to attempt to see what made Muslims tick. I haven’t yet summoned up the enthusiasm to start reading it.

          1. When I see a quote from the book online, say, I’ll compare it with my book.
            Translation can vary quite a lot.

  35. Surely it wasn’t Olga – the lodger I couldn’t stand – who led the council to threaten me with unlimited fines? 9 July 2021.

    A terrifying letter was waiting for us at home this week, on our return from our first summer break in two years.

    Addressed to Thomas and Lucinda Utley, it came from our local council and threatened us with a penalty of tens of thousands of pounds if we failed to comply with an enclosed ‘Requisition for Information’ within 14 days.

    As befits a Police State all communications from the Authorities contain threats of one kind or another!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9771043/TOM-UTLEY-Surely-wasnt-lodger-led-council-threaten-unlimited-fines.html

    1. My friend Mr Rashid told me that he was shocked that such a letter could have been sent….

      2. Morning Bill. Even my Council Tax Demand contains the words:

        These changes must be reported promptly, in writing, by telephone or email. Failure to report changes in circumstances could result in you being subject to penalties or prosecution!

        The letters, indeed harrassment, from the Inland Revenue is much worse!

        1. Considering the lengths the scum go to hide their own profiteering and incompetence it really is time councils were grabbed by the gonads and squeezed, their salaries reduced by, oh, to the minimum wage and any and all tax hikes charged to them directly, to be repaid immediately from their own greed, expenses fiddling, house flipping and sheer fraud.

        2. Considering the lengths the scum go to hide their own profiteering and incompetence it really is time councils were grabbed by the gonads and squeezed, their salaries reduced by, oh, to the minimum wage and any and all tax hikes charged to them directly, to be repaid immediately from their own greed, expenses fiddling, house flipping and sheer fraud.

      3. Morning Bill. Even my Council Tax Demand contains the words:

        These changes must be reported promptly, in writing, by telephone or email. Failure to report changes in circumstances could result in you being subject to penalties or prosecution!

        The letters, indeed harrassment, from the Inland Revenue is much worse!

    2. “Dear Cretinous Lambeth Council,

      Failure to promptly pay me up to £30,000 for compensation due to the direct stress and anxiety caused by your facile and erroneous threat letter MAY cause me to burn down your council offices whilst the council is in full session.”

    3. Yep. I had a threatening letter from County the other day telling me to pay invoice no XYZ or they would be sending in Civil Enforcement. Pity they hadn’t checked that invoice no XYZ had already been paid and nothing was owed as stated by two of their departments. I forwarded the relevant emails and have heard nothing, not even so much as an apology or acknowledgement of their incompetence.

  36. The Daily Human Stupidity.

    “These thrill seeker people doing extreme sports … they have a hideous accident, go through agonising recovery, and then go back to that activity that nearly killed them … that’s not facing your fear, that’s embracing your stupidity.”

    Kelli Jae Baeli.

    1. For extreme stupidity, George, one can always check out The Darwin Awards.

    2. I’d say it’s freedom of choice, same as havinga car accident and getting back to driving.

    1. “Dust up” with a street sweeper.
      Well done, rt, your grasp of colloquial English is superb.

    2. I really do think she needs to be asked why she is so racist to think in the UK that black people should somehow be predominant. If you want that, go live in Kenya.

  40. WHAT IS GOING ON? 460 people die a day in the UK of heart disease, 450 from cancer, less than 10 BECAUSE of cv. Why the over reaction? When you look at the numbers, it just doesn’t make sense. The narrative is flawed and another agenda may be revealed.

    1. Because it makes headlines.

      As always, it isn’t that people are dying from covid, it’s they’re dying *with* covid. That adds up the stats and makes the statists feel good about project fear they’ve so heavily invested in.

  42. BBC News reporting this morning that RIBA architects say we should refurbish old buildings rather than scrap them because of the pollution that would be involved in constructing a replacement building otherwise known as embodied carbon. I admit that I don’t quite understand “embodied carbon”
    However I suggest that our deluded, misguided PM doesn’t understand the pollution, the disturbance and the consequences of his zero carbon policies which will reduce global CO2 emissions by an insignificant amount. He is wrong to think that other countries will follow his example.

    1. Old building are demolished to make way for new buildings in order to provide funds to bribe councillors to agree planning permission for new buildings.

  43. Good to see Carrion’s fatuously green, woke plan to set elephants born in captivity “free” in Kenya – where they will be dead in a few weeks – is receiving a good kicking in the press.

    1. Indeed, the whole episode is little more than a self congratulatory bunch of “look at me” wokism by someone who has hardly ever set foot outside the M25.

    2. I have written to various charities suggesting that elephant herds should be guarded, day and night, by peripatetic farmers/guards. Poachers should be shot dead on sight. For some reason the charities prefer to beg for money in TV ads rather than take practical action.

      1. I disagree. A poacher is a man selling to China, which is investing heavily in Africa.

        Don’t shoot them, crucify them.

  44. 335212+ up ticks,
    Dt,
    Final Brexit divorce bill is £40bn, as EU demands £2bn more than expected
    Cost would have been higher but Brussels owes the UK nearly £2bn for its previous share of fines imposed by the bloc

    “Final” is outright herd pacification, the
    United Kingdom,a near dead horse will still pay via the lab/lib/con coalition, via
    the “deal”.

    1. I have saved a fortune with no make up and lipstick .
      Sadly have ended up with very sore ears, behind my ears , I wear a mask less frequently, have got shopping etc down to fine art .

      1. i complied until a few weeks ago – but haven’t worn one now for a month – not in cafes or shops. Nobody says anything. I didn’t wear it often enough to make my ears sore – specs wearing does that. I never wear make-up – not even lippy thee days.

          1. I do use a moisturiser but that’s skin care, rather than make-up. I’ve never worn foundation or anything to make the skin tone look unnaturally even – what you see is me with all my flaws.

        2. I have sensitive skin , and have to be careful what I wear . I think the string on the mask irritated me , I only wear the mask as and when I need to.

          Moh sheletered during first lockdown , he is one of the vulnerable ones re blood group and diabetes etc, despite the fact he is a racing snake .

          It will probably be me who succumbs first eventually!

      2. Yo T_B

        I have saved a fortune with no make up and lipstick .

        I have not saved a penny on the above!

      1. I’ve not been swearing at people, but I do scowl when some daft bint pulls her trolley sideways, or else pushes it from back and corner, or leaves said trolley in the middle of said aisle.

        The hightlight of the day is when I moved a trolley from the end of an aisle where it blocked the opening to one side and the woman whose trolley it was wound up to a screaming rant and an elderly gentleman helping his very frail even more elderly wife (I assume by the matching rings) just past it and thanked me for doing so.

        I despise people. I think my inherent misanthropy is getting worse.

        1. I certainly need to get used to being around people bimbling aimlessly and brainlessly in supermarkets. Found myself cursing them for minutes without drawing breath a few days ago!
          :-((

        2. I certainly need to get used to being around people bimbling aimlessly and brainlessly in supermarkets. Found myself cursing them for minutes without drawing breath a few days ago!
          :-((

    3. On the only occasion that I wore a mask, I was utterly pissed off by everybody calling me Kemo Sabe or Zorro!

    4. On the only occasion that I wore a mask, I was utterly pissed off by everybody calling me Kemo Sabe or Zorro!

      2. I know two lovely young ladies who look just like that. Quite beautiful. They work at two of my favourite restaurants.

        Not quite so pointy though.

  47. If the restrictions mentioned are looked at from the view of “science” then they literally do not make sense, nor were they meant to. They were designed to cause fear, frustration, despair, anger and extreme rage. When will more people come to understand that for the last 18 months psychological warfare has been waged on the population.by the government. The government responsible for employing behavioural scientists at the forefront of SAGE’s advice rather than virologists etc. The government could never have gotten away with what they have without the fear factor being front and centre.

    https://twitter.com/thatsmanderley/status/1413215778472660995

    1. Government has a science entirely of it’s own.

      If ‘science’ costs the state money, prevents them doing something or worse, means they have to do something it’s ignored. This is real science.

      If ‘science’ costs the tax payer a fortune, adds nothing of value (and is usually detrimental to the public good) and furthers an ideology that allows a civil servant or MP to pocket a big wodge of other people’s money then it is ‘government science’ and the state will say this is ‘settled’ and prevent any further investigation, change or questioning of that government science.

      See also hokum, (government science, lies, gibberish, nonsense, puff and waffle)

  48. Consider the Pied Piper of Hamelin as the science and Covid as the rats.

    The people didn’t pay him for his services so he took away their children, they followed the science.

  49. Consider the Pied Piper of Hamelin as the science and Covid as the rats.

    The people didn’t pay him for his services so he took away their children, they followed the science.

  50. With all this WOKE nonsense , are we being Islamified by stealth ..

    I don’t think we are strong enough as a country to withstand any further assaults on our culture .

    There is no one batting for us .. the public are accepting everything now, and why hasn’t anyone taken the BBC to task ?

    1. “I don’t think we are strong enough as a country to withstand any further assaults on our culture.”

      This is quite simply as a direct result of the courage, tenacity, resoluteness and naturally pugilistic nature of the Briton being replaced by generations of ever more feeble simpletons.

      The backbone and toughness that saw us win two world wars and suffer the hardships that brought upon our ancestors has been supplanted by weakness, insipidness and brainlessness. Courage and determination has been bred out of the nation and I have no sympathy, whatsoever, for the runts of humans that will inherit what is left of a once-great empire.

      You make your bed: you lie on it.

      1. Okay Grizzly , the I bit didn’t mean me .

        I have enough strength and words in me to be as vituperative as you , and to stand firm when necessary .

        The thing is , there are some very nasty people around , you know that as well as I do .

        Us true Brits are trapped in our Eyries , because the law of the land says that no one will put their best foot forward to protect our right to free speech and actions .

        Latest example the teacher in Batley , or any one murdered by blacks and Asians , as they plead bi polar/ insanity / drug misuse etc etc.

        The law is an idiot , and the police don’t challenge it any more , they bloody well don’t mind that we don’t matter .

        1. Good morning, Maggie.

          “I have enough strength and words in me to be as vituperative as you, and to stand firm when necessary.”

          And, no doubt, to get incandescent if I patted you on the head! 😘

          Seriously, though, I agree with all you say. Nothing short of a revolution will alter today’s dire state of affairs.

          2. But can we get Hoi Polloi to revolt, bear arms (Scythes, pitchforks, garden forks, billhooks and the like) while transporting all those step-ladders and bales of piano-wire to Westminster.

          3. But can we get Hoi Polloi to revolt, bear arms (Scythes, pitchforks, garden forks, billhooks and the like) while transporting all those step-ladders and bales of piano-wire to Westminster.

      2. It’s the result of many years of propaganda from the media – especially the BBC. Outside the cities, seeing a “person of colour” is unusual.

        Many people seem to have lost the ability to think for themselves. This so-called ‘pandemic’ has frightened otherwise sensible people out of their wits – all down to propaganda.

    2. The most important total failures of Johnson’s government (all of which the Bumptious, Bullshitting Bonker promised to sort out) :

      * Total cock up on Brexit leaving the EU calling the shots in N Ireland
      * Nothing done about the BBC
      * Great increase in illegal immigration which the government seems to be encouraging
      * Failure to provide the promised immunity from prosecution for army veterans

      Of course Covid arrived after the election but Johnson’s government has produce incoherent, ever changing rules on Covid.

    3. I’m afraid you are correct TB. I have come to this conclusion that this country as it was known for it’s tenacity and courage in the event of adversity, is virtually finished. It’s very sad to see how people are so supportive of the stupidity that is being shoved down all of our collective throats, as it were.

  51. The loss of true boredom is one of the tragedies of modern life
    If I want my children to be properly bored – not just fed up and listless – I must hide all the screens

    Jemima Lewis : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/08/loss-true-boredom-one-tragedies-modern-life/

    BTL Comment:

    Boredom is one of the best teaching tools we have.

    When I was a boy at a boarding school in the 1960’s we had an hour between tea and prep, from 6.15 – 7.15 pm called “quiet hour”.

    During “quiet hour” you had to remain quiet in your house and no music, radio, or television were allowed to be played in the house – you had to read or get on with your school work. This was very boring for the less academic pupils.

    However you were allowed to engage in a number of activities outside the house and the schoolmasters were there to supervise the activities which needed to be supervised. For example during “quiet hour” the music school’s practice rooms were open, as were the woodwork and pottery work shops and art school and the school library. The squash courts and fives courts could be booked and the gym was open three evenings a week. In the summer term the tennis courts, and cricket nets were available and so was the outdoor unheated swimming pool and Company Sergeant Major Stanley Munday, who was the head of PE, organised life-saving courses and house swims.

    At one time or another I used all these facilities during “quiet hour” and I am sure that I learnt more from these activities than I learnt in the classroom and the initial driving force was boredom because we were not compelled to use our time constructively – but we did.

    1. I didn’t go to boarding school – just the local CofE village school and then the nearest girls’ grammar. We didn’t have a telly – my mother never had one all her life.

      As an only child I made my own amusements. My mother instilled in me a love of books, reading, music and theatre. I had the freedom during the warmer months to go where I wanted, with whom I wanted – or to be alone. In the colder, darker months, our lovely next -door neightbour looked out for me and made me a cup of tea.

      I don’t think I had a deprived childhood but I wonder how many children these days have that kind of freedom?

      1. All the days out on your bike. Leaving after breakfast returning at teatime.

      2. As a boy I roamed around Devon on my bicycle when I got the chance and this kept me pretty fit.

        They say that everyone gets two educations – one given by teachers and the more important one that you discover for yourself.

        And when I became a schoolmaster and a housemaster myself I was involved with many activities outside the classroom: I ran the Junior Colts Rugby XV, the Swimming Team and The Cross Country Running Team. I was involved in school drama and music and I organised theatre trips and I used to organise concert trips for the members of my English Sixth Form Sets to see the music I liked. In the days when everyone is a specialist it is good to be a generalist too! And when I took a sabbatical year to sail my boat across the Atlantic and back one of my former heads of house also managed to take a year to join me.

        I made a deal when I took my Sixth Formers on out of school trips. I said: “If you promise not to behave like schoolchildren, I promise not to behave like a schoolmaster.” They never let me down.

        I think it would be impossible today for a teacher to do as I did. Spontaneous events are never possible – there are far too many forms to fill in and risk assessments to investigate.

  52. Stasi by SMS. Just received SMS from the Stasi, telling me I “MUST take a day 8 test, otherwise I am liable for a fine”. Why can’t they say something less draconian like “You need to take a day 8 test”? Police state rules OK.

  53. Here is a little gem that I have found. Our school is having a non uniform day in support of “First Give”. Having had a look it seems that the charity is trying to provide a stream of youth for XR. https://firstgive.co.uk/

  54. Here is a little gem that I have found. Our school is having a non uniform day in support of “First Give”. Having had a look it seems that the charity is trying to provide a stream of youth for XR. https://firstgive.co.uk/

  55. Afternoon All

    “Freedom Day”

    Aye right,anyone who thinks this scamdemic is ending anytime soon is seriously deluded,the Stazi contracts running well into next year,the new Aussie lockdowns,door to door Vaccine squads in the USA and my recent favourite from NZ this deeply sinister charmer…..

    https://twitter.com/GillianMcKeith/status/1413167438817120265

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/31ef0565fb641092342f97850cf7054d860d8b55ea5b7cdf16410a2181e723a7.jpg

    1. The bloke in the lower snap is Richard’s pal – who spreads Covid all over the county….and sends him threatening text messages…

    2. He played the villain in Spectre as well, keeping his hand in eh 😉

      Christoph Waltz

    3. Does anyone know who that politician is?
      Are we sure the NZ clip is real?
      Pretty chilling if so.

        1. My daughter thought it might be deep faked – I thought it sounded similar to that clip of Ardern talking with relish about locking people up.

        2. My daughter thought it might be deep faked – I thought it sounded similar to that clip of Ardern talking with relish about locking people up.

    4. “Nixt year will be in the phase of chising up people who heven’t come forward to git their veccination or hev missed their bookings, and so on; so iveryone will be able to git a veccine bitween now end the ind of the year; ah, but of course, you know, and I want ivery New Zealander to come forward, but human behaviour suggists that there will be some people that we ectually hev to go out and look for, and, and , some of thet may spill into nixt year but, our commitmint is, iveryone will hev the opportunity to git the veccine by the ind of the year; ah, iveryone will, ah but, I can’t say that, you know, that we’re not going to hev some hisitant people or some people who just heven’t come forward that we don’t hev to go out and find nixt year.”

    1. Also China having fallen out with Australia, now have a contract with south america to buy beef products. Which is one of the reason a lot more of the rainforest have been felled more recently. Not one of those protesters would ever set foot any where they could try and make a difference because deep down they are all just cowards.

    1. That bloke, Bob Ross, has been dead for 26 years yet his company still makes millions; much more than he ever did whilst he was alive.

  58. ‘It will be a catastrophe’: fate of Syria’s last aid channel rests in Russia’s hands. 9 July 2021.

    Just over half a mile away from the Bab al-Hawa border crossing connecting Syria and Turkey a 6th-century triumphal arch still stands, the remains of a Roman road stretching straight as an arrow on either side. For millennia this part of the world has been a crossroads of trade, culture and history. Today, it’s more important than ever.

    Bab al-Hawa is Syria’s last lifeline, through which vital UN aid supplies for 3.4 million people living in the war-torn north-west of the country arrive. But before 10 July, the security council must vote in New York on whether to keep the aid flowing. What might seem like an obvious decision to outsiders is actually far from certain: Russia may use its veto power as a permanent member of the council to close the UN’s last access point, as it has managed to do with the other three aid crossings.

    Actually it is the last lifeline through which arms and supplies are delivered to the Jihadists who are the real rulers of this enclave. The Russian and Syrian governments should have blocked it long since.

    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/jul/09/it-will-be-a-catastrophe-fate-of-syrias-last-aid-channel-rests-in-russias-hands

  59. ‘It will be a catastrophe’: fate of Syria’s last aid channel rests in Russia’s hands. 9 July 2021.

    Just over half a mile away from the Bab al-Hawa border crossing connecting Syria and Turkey a 6th-century triumphal arch still stands, the remains of a Roman road stretching straight as an arrow on either side. For millennia this part of the world has been a crossroads of trade, culture and history. Today, it’s more important than ever.

    Bab al-Hawa is Syria’s last lifeline, through which vital UN aid supplies for 3.4 million people living in the war-torn north-west of the country arrive. But before 10 July, the security council must vote in New York on whether to keep the aid flowing. What might seem like an obvious decision to outsiders is actually far from certain: Russia may use its veto power as a permanent member of the council to close the UN’s last access point, as it has managed to do with the other three aid crossings.

    Actually it is the last lifeline through which arm and supplies are delivered to the Jihadists who are the real rulers of this enclave. The Russian and Syrian governments should have blocked it long since.

    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/jul/09/it-will-be-a-catastrophe-fate-of-syrias-last-aid-channel-rests-in-russias-hands

      1. …and as I’ve commented, “Shrieking is shreiking, no matter the language.”

      2. …and as I’ve commented, “Shrieking is shreiking, no matter the language.”

      1. 335212+up ticks,
        Evening NtN,
        Any governance politico will confirm it,that when one scam
        has run its course another will be along shortly.

  62. We all remember the Hand of God in incident 1986, well should the Sterling penalty be put down to the Toe of the Holy Ghost?

    3. As some wag had it; Well done Sterling, for ‘earning’ a penalty whilst maintaining social distancing.

        1. The free-kick on the edge of the area was awarded for a free-for-all arm-tugging contest (could have gone either way) but it was the one that preceded it that was the real error, where Declan Rice touched the shoulder of a Dane who fell down clutching his face.

          There’s always been a bit of play-acting in football but today’s game is blighted by it.

          And the irony of the Italian media accusing the England team…

  64. Taliban could seize control in Afghanistan after Western withdrawal, says General Sir Nick Carter. 9 July 2021.

    “I think that three scenarios could play out. I think first and foremost, the current Afghan government, with its very well trained army, could hold the ring as it’s demonstrating through holding all of the provincial capitals also at the moment.

    “But the second scenario, I think is a very sad scenario is where the country fractures and you see that government collapse and you see the Taliban perhaps controlling part of the country and the other nationalities and ethnicities controlling other parts of the country like we saw in the 1990s.

    “Then I think there is a third more hopeful scenario, which is where you actually see a political compromise and talks occurring. If the current Afghan government holds on for long enough and proves to the Taliban that it can’t be defeated then I think the third scenario becomes ever more likely. So I think it is too early to judge how this could happen.”

    And this is the head of the UK’s armed forces? Well it goes some way to explain the catastrophe that is Western Strategy. The Afghan Army costs more to run than the countries entire GDP. Half of its personnel work for the Taliban during the campaigning season and rest up with the army during the winter. It couldn’t defeat Fred Karno’s Circus!

    The present Afghan government is shortly going to be racing to the airport in the limousines that their collaboration and treason has bought for them. Good riddance; neither they nor their Western Paymasters did anything for the Afghan People over the last twenty years so I doubt that they will be missed!

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/taliban-seize-control-afghanistan-general-sir-nick-carter-b944935.html

    1. On Thursday, President Joe Biden announced that US troops would complete its withdrawal from Afghanistan by 31 August, nearly two weeks before the previously set 9/11 deadline. On Friday, the Taliban announced that it had taken control of some 85 percent of the war-torn nation’s territory.

    2. If only Afghanistan could be exiled to outer space …. along with Pakistan … it’d be a start

    3. If only Afghanistan could be exiled to outer space …. along with Pakistan … it’d be a start

  65. I see below (what a weird way of speaking) that New Zealand has its own Grant Shatts.

  66. Learning from history:

    No smart phone to get pinged on?

    How did they try to cure the plague in 1665?

    People carried bottles of perfume and wore lucky charms. ‘Cures’ for the plague included the letters ‘abracadabra’ written in a triangle, a lucky hare’s foot, dried toad, leeches, and pressing a plucked chicken against the plague-sores until it died.

    Well it seems to have worked!
    🤔

    1. They also shut people up in their houses, just as they have this time. ” Bring out yer dead…”

      1. The difference then was that you had a big cross painted on your front door and if you were homeless you had to ring a bell and shout unclean!.

      2. and stopped people moving from place to place and we did not even close the airports. They had more idea what to do than this lot.

    2. Ring a ring o’ roses,
      A pocketful of posies.
      A-tishoo, A-tishoo,
      We all fall down!

      Get some weeds in your pockets, that will cure it!

    3. The tech behind it interested me – if you think about it, you’ve got to be carrying your phone, bluetooth has got to be on, you’ve then got to pass someone else in close enough proximity – about 3 metres and ditto their bluetooth has to be on, both need an accurate record of the status of themselves and others they’ve been near, so whatever database they’re talking to has to be up to date and accurate to know each others’ status, both sides need to have location tracking enabled ALL the time, not just when the app is open…

      The chances of a successful ping match are remote. OK, scale it up, assume a vigilant population actively wanting to check this thing and you might get closer to value but it just seems too many things have to line up for a successful result.

      1. Or just forget about the expensive tech and databases and ping anyone with the app enabled if they leave their home.

        That’s how i would do it and trouser the £40 billion.

    4. I’ll go for the ‘abracadabra’.

      Not getting up close and personal with a chicken !

    8. We have visits from a hare to out garden, sometimes rabbits. We know that the stoats eat the baby rabbits yet the grownups survive. The garden is the stoats playground. I keep looking to see if they will all appear there together. It would be interesting. A lucky hare’s foot might work against Covid. But ‘lucky”?

  69. I had guests for afternoon tea yesterday. I can’t stand for long so decided to use Waitrose Entertaining.

    The sandwiches were superb but the Peach Melba Torte was a disaster. It came in a sturdy enough box but at some point it had been upended.

    Squidged it back together and made a joke of it to my guests.

    Related all this to Waitrose customer service. They just got back to me.

    They said they appreciated my attitude and my jokes and my suggestion to print ‘This side up’ on the boxes and would put the idea forward.

    Though printing will increase their costs it is better than having to apologise and give refunds.

    They refunded the £12 for the Torte. Plus a voucher for £10 off my next shop.

    Excellent customer service. Shame other organisations can’t be arsed.

    A jolly afternoon none the less.

    Edited for apostrophe catastrophe.

    1. Oh dear! Sorry to hear about the dessert but kudos as yes, you do remember the good stuff.

      Went to the Tesco and while the kid ‘said’ all the right things, he barely gave me a glance and was terse as anything. I put it down to his being young and brattish.

      1. Thank you.

        Some people just haven’t the knack when dealing customer facing. Needs better training.

    2. That torte them a lesson.

      I thought you were out on the rantan with lady Nottlers yesterday. Waiting the snaps with bated breath.

      1. That too. I wanted to give them recovery time after all the travelling they had to do. So some sarnies, pud and a couple of bottles of Cremant seemed in order.

        The snaps are still being collated and permissions sought. Probably Monday.

        We had a rip roaring time. Lots of laughs. We didn’t mention you at all. (he lied).

  71. A genuinely puzzled pensioner writes.

    We are told that, because of the plague, 5 million people are waiting for treatment for cancer, heart disease etc, etc.

    What on earth were the cancer and cardiac specialists DOING during the last 15 months? They cannot all have been saving lives and clapping. Perhaps they were staying safe at home.

    Anyone got any clues?

    EDIT: This is a genuine question. I simply don’t understand why they were not getting on with the daily list of patients suffering from cancer etc

    2. Well, Barts Hospital is now a cancer and cardiac specialist unit and for much of the last year as I’ve passed it on route to church I’ve seen very little evidence of activity from the outside aside from maybe one or two people in reception.
      One would at least expect the lights to be on in the midst of winter but sometimes I could only see dim emergency lighting in the stairwells.
      It used to be possible to walk through the hospital to get to Barts the Less (the church inside the grounds) but that is now forbidden.
      However, according to the Hospitaller (assistant priest – it’s an historical thing), he continued to have sick hands to hold and last rites to say.

      1. Have you always lived near Barts.
        It was our local hospital when I was young and lived just off Goswell Road.

        1. I actually live in Hammersmith but the Kensington Deanery has become too Janet & John do Woke Church for me and it’s such an easy journey to the city that I’m happy to do it for the chance of real church with the BCP, KJV, decent sermons etc…

      2. Have you always lived near Barts.
        It was our local hospital when I was young and lived just off Goswell Road.

    3. There was a story recently of a Consultant who said he hadn’t done a hip replacement in the preceding 12 months and felt uncomfortable taking his £100,000 salary.

      The NHS management are to blame and they should be made to pay with their jobs at the very least.

    5. Re your edit.
      I suspect that the NHS has completely blown its budget and its emergency budget and its contingency budget and there’s just no money left.

    6. Re your edit.
      I suspect that the NHS has completely blown its budget and its emergency budget and its contingency budget and there’s just no money left.

    1. Yay! The Golden Age of massacre and brutal conquest. Head chopping and slavery par excellence – all done in the most enlightened way of course. I recall Doris Johnson peddling the Cordoba Myth in a similar tv exercise.

      2. Not to mention their seizure by force of the Christian lands of the Eastern Mediterranean.

    2. Yeah… except it wasn’t Islamic. It was a secular society. Islam wiped out all those advances.

      As for this drivel generally – the BBC needs to be abolished.

  74. 335212+ up ticks,
    When sanity returns after the plague of treachery is ended, and I do believe it will be, they will label this era the
    ” cull time”

  75. 335212+ up ticks,
    When sanity returns after the plague of treachery is ended, and I do believe it will be, they will label this era the
    ” cull time”

    1. Never knew that Norman Lamont had identified as female….{:¬))

      Spell-binding singer. And every word clear as a bell. I have found studying French singing fascinating…the way each syllable counts.

    2. Never knew that Norman Lamont had identified as female….{:¬))

      Spell-binding singer. And every word clear as a bell. I have found studying French singing fascinating…the way each syllable counts.

    3. The man who composed it in 1956, Charles Dumont, is still alive aged 92. The lyrics were by Michael Vaucaire who died in 1980.

      Piaf recorded it in 1960 and died three years later. Abandoned at birth, brought up by her grandmother who ran a brothel, had a child at 17, which died aged two, was accused of aiding the murder of the night club owner who discovered her and nicknamed her ‘Little sparrow’, lost the love of her life, said to be to be France’s greatest boxer, in an air crash – she had much to regret.

      1. She did the best Marseilles I’ve ever heard.

        Makes one want to storm the barricades.

        3. It was a tour de force sos. I thoroughly enjoyed it when it appeared on here recently.

        4. It was a tour de force sos. I thoroughly enjoyed it when it appeared on here recently.

        5. Agreed. I have a CD with her and the Band and choir of the Garde Republicaine.

      2. She did the best Marseilles I’ve ever heard.

        Makes one want to storm the barricades.

    5. The final lyrics say it all:

      Non, rien de rien……………………………… No, nothing at all
      Non, je ne regrette rien…………………….. No, I do not regret anything
      Car ma vie, car mes joies…………………. Because my life, because my joys
      Aujourd’hui, ça commence avec toi ! …. Today, it begins with you !

    6. The final lyrics say it all:

      Non, rien de rien……………………………… No, nothing at all
      Non, je ne regrette rien…………………….. No, I do not regret anything
      Car ma vie, car mes joies…………………. Because my life, because my joys
      Aujourd’hui, ça commence avec toi ! …. Today, it begins with you !

      1. I’ve never heard of her but she looks just like a girl I used to go out with when I was at UEA.

    1. I am self-declaring as a 17 year old. That’s my international travel sorted. I just need to find an excuse for not being at school.

          3. Wot? You blind or sumfin’?
            Simon is now sitting up straight in a chair, using a mirror to check his balance! He can feel his arms and legs and toes etc.and the movement now needs to be connected back to the brain. Each day a new challenge but Vic spoke to the consultant today and he’s very pleased with him! Thank you for asking!

          5. I would say that the one on the left (our left – not bottle-wielder’s left) – is agreeably proportioned.

          10. Glad to hear the news is positive. Time for him to have a careful think about the future. What is and what isn’t important.

            They are lucky to have you.

          12. Sue’s son in law had a stroke. Luckily it was picked up very quickly and he’s now on the mend.

          13. Oh bugger.
            Guessed from the chat it was something like that.
            Glad to hear the lad’s recovering.

    3. Obligatory bottle of water.
      How my generation survived past the age of 15 is a mystery.

    1. The British Columbia utilities commission have just realised that they cannot fill that bucket with electricity for you.

      Their latest surveys show that a lot of people from lala land have been planing to buy an EV but delayed their plans because of covid(!) but now they are buying. No solution, just acknowledging the problem.

      Who’da thought it, a power company now saying what everyone not into green worship has said for years.

  83. Just 25 under 18s died within 28 days of a positive Covid test in England March 2020 – Feb 2021 compared to 124 suicides and 268 trauma. https://lockdownsceptics.org/2021/07/09/just-25-under-18s-died-from-covid-in-england-up-until-february-new-data-shows-figures-much-higher-for-suicide-and-trauma/#comments

    Sending children home from school for Covid puts them at far greater risk and clearly harms their future lives, particularly for the poorest. Will someone please knock some sense into teachers, teaching unions and this hapless government?

    And how many of the people making the decisions have lost a penny over the last 18 months or don’t send their kids to private schools where parents won’t stand any nonsense or loss of their kids’ education?

      1. IWe boycot Sainsburys except for MacGuigan wine (especially when it 25% off the normal price

        1. £5.99 (shiraz) MacGuigan in Waitrose atm, it is £8.99 off offer. How does that compare with Sainsbury? Waitrose is our nearest supermarket you see. I said I would never set foot in Sainsbury’s again after their support for blm. And it is a further patience-testing-25-minutes-across-Cambridge drive from Waitrose.

        2. £5.99 (shiraz) MacGuigan in Waitrose atm, it is £8.99 off offer. How does that compare with Sainsbury? Waitrose is our nearest supermarket you see. I said I would never set foot in Sainsbury’s again after their support for blm. And it is a further patience-testing-25-minutes-across-Cambridge drive from Waitrose.

    1. Does ours include London in a day?

      I think it’s important to note why there are murders – and it’s drugs, almost always. Get rid of those peddling the drugs: the black gangs, the Bulgarians, the Romanian organised crimainsl and it all goes away.

        1. In that they didn’t arrest the criminal beforehand, yes. That these career criminals can have a string of convitcions – 30, 40 even hundreds in some cases and are not simply excised from society is the real failing.

          After the third offence, you get shoved off to a prison ship and forgotten about – forever. No coming back no parole.

  90. A MESSAGE TO THE UK GOVT
    I bought a bird feeder. And I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. What a beauty of a bird feeder it was, as I filled it lovingly with seed. Within a week I had hundreds of bird taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food. But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue.

    Then came the poo. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table, everywhere!
    Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket. And others birds boisterous and loud. sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food. After a while, I couldn’t even sit on my own back porch anymore. So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio. Soon, the back yard was like it used to be, quiet and serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

    Now let’s see. The UK gives out free food,free housing, free medical care and free education, Then the illegals came by the tens of thousands. Suddenly your taxes went up to pay for free services; Small flats were now housing 5 families;

    You have to wait approx 6 hours to be seen by a A&E doctor; Your child’s class is behind other schools because over half the class does not speak your language. Squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties. Just my opinion, but maybe it’s time for our government to take down the bird feeder.

    1. I’ve always thought that about food banks – every supermarket has donation baskets for you to put some item in for the food banks.

      We didn’t have food banks before the Tory government was elected in 2010 – were people dying of hunger after that? Or could it be that it was a political response to make us all feel guilty?

      Would people be dropping dead in the streets if all the food banks closed? Or would people have to take responsibilty for their own families?

      1. Personal responsibility is no longer a tenet of Conservatism and, in fact, hasn’t been for some while. The government is busy making the U.K. a socialist country. They never talk about aspiration any more, just seem to encourage state dependency. And now they are very near to their Agenda 21/Great Reset green agenda goals. The public has made it easy for them.

          1. Yep, I’ll second that. The government is utterly pointless. It is self serving, spiteful and abusive.

      2. Personal responsibility is no longer a tenet of Conservatism and, in fact, hasn’t been for some while. The government is busy making the U.K. a socialist country. They never talk about aspiration any more, just seem to encourage state dependency. And now they are very near to their Agenda 21/Great Reset green agenda goals. The public has made it easy for them.

      3. From what I’ve seen in the food bank boxes, the recipients would be several sizes smaller and have clearer complexions.
        The boxes contain nothing but processed stodge.

      4. From what I’ve seen in the food bank boxes, the recipients would be several sizes smaller and have clearer complexions.
        The boxes contain nothing but processed stodge.

      5. What happened to the £200 limit on what people could shoplift without police intervention?

      6. I refuse to put anything in a food bank. There are more than enough social security handouts to which I contribute through my taxes anyway.

    2. I’ve always thought that about food banks – every supermarket has donation baskets for you to put some item in for the food banks.

      We didn’t have food banks before the Tory government was elected in 2010 – were people dying of hunger after that? Or could it be that it was a political response to make us all feel guilty?

      Would people be dropping dead in the streets if all the food banks closed? Or would people have to take responsibilty for their own families?

    3. Absolutely, however the state wants this. If I were truly cynical I would say it is to insult those who wanted an end to uncontrolled illegal gimmigration through Brexit. However remember that every illegal gimmigrant creates ‘meaningful work’ for the state machine. Things for it to ‘do’. More staff, bigger offices, bigger budgets. All pointless, of course, but the state doesn’t measure it’s use in efficiency but in headcount and cost.

  91. A MESSAGE TO THE UK GOVT
    I bought a bird feeder. And I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. What a beauty of a bird feeder it was, as I filled it lovingly with seed. Within a week I had hundreds of bird taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food. But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue.

    Then came the poo. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table, everywhere!
    Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket. And others birds boisterous and loud. sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food. After a while, I couldn’t even sit on my own back porch anymore. So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio. Soon, the back yard was like it used to be, quiet and serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

    Now let’s see. The UK gives out free food,free housing, free medical care and free education, Then the illegals came by the tens of thousands. Suddenly your taxes went up to pay for free services; Small flats were now housing 5 families;

    You have to wait approx 6 hours to be seen by a A&E doctor; Your child’s class is behind other schools because over half the class does not speak your language. Squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties. Just my opinion, but maybe it’s time for our government to take down the bird feeder.

  92. Home! At Last!
    Left Bursledon 11:15, home exactly 16:00 after a journey of frustrating stop-start-stop-start traffic queues up the A34 literally from Eastleigh to when I turned off onto the A5 at Towcester.
    Took the old A34 through Middleton Stoney to avoid the queues, missing out the M40 section, and used the A5 to come on to the M1 at Lutterworth and had the same stop-start up the M1.
    Lost at least an hour in traffic queues.

    2. Hi Bob , getting out of Southampton is a real pain . Glad you are back safely .

      We have to visit son in Worthing , but the traffic / road works etc and the volume of coast traffic is horrendous .

      Is the Bursledon property going on the market ?

      Homes in this area are being snapped up , and owners are asking for sealed bids .. the properties that are coming onto the market are gone in hours .

      Bungalows are in short supply , because lots of bods want to downsize .

      1. Hello Maggie!
        The M27 is currently being converted into a smart death trap but traffic does flow fairly well.
        There were two hold ups on the M3 before coming off onto the A34 Winchester by-pass and then queues every 10 to 15 miles after that.

        The house is a 1970s Semi and will hopefully be sold by the end of next month. The DT is looking forwards to getting her share!

        1. Why on earth are they continuing to mess around with the motorway , notorious for so many accidents , and such a busy road .

          We really quiver with anxiety , the roads are full of mad drivers and all those HGVs are a real menace as well.

    3. Sorry to hear you lost at least an hour, BoB. Have you looked in the fridge?

      :-))

    4. Sorry to hear you lost at least an hour, BoB. Have you looked in the fridge?

      :-))

    5. Why didn’t you take the train? Surely you have a footplate pass for life?

      1. Nope! My redundancy in ’96 and subsequent 10 off the Railway cost me that.
        Besides, getting MinL’s prams & dolls onto the train would have been a bit bloody awkward!

    6. Why didn’t you take the train? Surely you have a footplate pass for life?

    7. I’ve long assumed that the M27 isn’t a road, but a car park. You drive on to it, put your brakes on and then some time later, move 5 yards then do the same.

  93. Home! At Last!
    Left Bursledon 11:15, home exactly 16:00 after a journey of frustrating stop-start-stop-start traffic queues up the A34 literally from Eastleigh to when I turned off onto the A5 at Towcester.
    Took the old A34 through Middleton Stoney to avoid the queues, missing out the M40 section, and used the A5 to come on to the M1 at Lutterworth and had the same stop-start up the M1.
    Lost at least an hour in traffic queues.

    1. Yes, but free Palestine… from Hamas. Not from Israel.

      Lefties don’t understand that the enemy in these places is, well… them.

        1. Gosh – I remember when that started. What a delight not to have to pay 3/9p for a three minute, operator-connected trunk call.

          2. There was a knack of fiddling the crossbar thingy which – if you got it right – would get you a line for nothing…

            (A bit like pressing the ESC to get free stuff from the Torygraph.)

    7. Its obvious that she is looking for a rich ” Meal Ticket ” and is not fussy if its a wealthy football fanatic, hence her little “calling card”

    8. There is an elderly lady in her eighties who lives in our area , she wears shorts , oh yes , and vest tops in the summer , and she has many tattoos .. very noticeable ones . Skinny as a rake , well turned out in the winter , her hair is always well groomed , always active and chatty , and she drives an old Merc coupe with personalised plates .

      I am sure she must have had a “past”

      Moh thinks that the lady in question may have been a genuine Rocker of the old type .

  97. Leaving aside the endless sense of entitlement of this fatuous, overpaid waste of space – here is a report of her appearance in Parliament yesterday:

    “The much-criticised NHS Test and Trace programme has proved a “success” in fighting the Covid pandemic, the organisation’s former head has said.

    Baroness Harding rejected accusations that it had failed in its objectives after the country was forced into a second national lockdown last winter.

    Giving evidence to the Commons Public Accounts Committee, she said it was responsible for helping to break the chains of virus transmission, reducing infections by up to a third.

    “I do appreciate that a lot of people listening to this will find this rather incredulous given some of the way it’s been reported, but I would actually argue that NHS Test and Trace has been a success, that it has delivered on the objective to help break the chains of transmission,” she said.

    Her comments come amid widespread criticism of its performance, with the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) having said it had only a marginal impact on transmission, despite a budget of £37 billion over two years”.

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1413094633542979588

    Leaving EVERYTHING else aside – the daft bint actually used the word “incredulous”…..

    3. I do appreciate that a lot of people listening to this will find this rather incredulous.
      She means incredible rather than incredulous.

      1. That is precisely my point. I say so immediately above the video.

        (Holds head in hands….)

        1. To be fair to Aeneas at first I thought that was part of the tweet, not a comment added by you.

          5. And just LOOK what happened to Carthage….!!

            (You can still see the black on the stones after yer Romans destroyed the city. Very moving.)

      2. That is precisely my point. I say so immediately above the video.

        (Holds head in hands….)

        1. The garbage falling from her lips makes it plain that she means “people” – not herself. Herself is just busy going to the bank each day to count her personal millions.

          2. I know – I am getting worried. No wonder there has been a cloud over Fulmodeston most of the day…!

          4. Ah – I didn’t realise you were trying to be funny. Make a little sign, next time!!

        2. The garbage falling from her lips makes it plain that she means “people” – not herself. Herself is just busy going to the bank each day to count her personal millions.

    3. It just shews that, as well as being ignorant about the real BLM, they think that the NHS is doing a good job. Doctors and Nurses, yes but the maladministration is where most money is wasted – nah!

  100. That’s me for this curious day – rain and strong sun – intermittently

    Have a jolly evening being nice to people – and sticking pins in images of your MPs.

    A demain.

      1. Given that women tend to live longer than men it might even suggest that they will live a LOT longer.

        {;-((

  103. LAST POST – after signing off, I sat down with a glass of wine and this week’s Spectator. I must share this with you all.

    There is a wonderfully bitchy article by Petronella Wyatt (upon whom BPAPM forced a baby which was aborted). One small paragraph reads:

    “I am intrigued by Carrie Johnson’s choice of clothes; a mixture of Stepford wife and human sacrifice. She did recently don a blue trouser suit, but she rather resembled one of the victims of Carousel in Logan’s Run.”

    I gives me total joy to think how well that is going down in the No 10 flat this weekend…!!!!

    1. Wyatt is spot on with her critique. Couldn’t have done better myself.

      I wonder if it be wine or blood spilled in the No 10 Flat this time round.

    3. I rather think Petronella Wyatt and Boris Johnson shared responsibility for the conception. She is a bit too whiny to take seriously.

    6. Many 70s sci-fi films were totally hopeless regarding future fashion and transport.

        1. I, and several other Nottlers here, grew up in Africa.
          A great place to grow up in.

          1. If you were not a poor black kid. Sorry, OL, but did you have a bike with no wheels?

          2. Sounds like the government whose wheels fell of long ago.

            I was born in the Sudan where my father was a colonial administrator.

  107. ‘Evening, all! Another eye-opening piece from Independence Daily

    Another day, another government scam
    Posted by Janice North

    The intercom buzzer went for next door, but no one was answering, so I did the honours. “It’s for 112”, he said. So I let him in. We always help each other out with parcels etc. – it’s a quiet block of flats, so deliveries are usually safe left on the hall.

    Later on, I heard voices outside. I opened the door. My young neighbour was out there looking very pleased with himself while another waited by the stairs – I assumed they were friends and shut the door. But oh no – not so. Another neighbour enlightened me – he was having a Covid test and was very happy about it. Why? I thought – he works from home! Perhaps he’s going back to the office – many employers are asking for two tests just for three days in the office, rather exasperatingly!

    But again, I was soon enlightened at a birthday celebration a few days later inside a restaurant (no masks or track & trace- some places are fully on board with the public’s frustration ). A nice woman I had never met before told us she’d been made redundant after working from home during lockdown. I nodded sympathetically, having been through the same thing. She’d found a job collecting Covid tests. My ears pricked up. ONS are sending out random texts asking people to take part in the following scheme:

    You agree to a Covid test every week in return for a £25 shopping voucher. This takes place every week for a few months. Everyone in your household can do it and also collect £25 each. Some households can collect a couple of hundred pounds a week it seems! After a set time, you then move to monthly tests for the rest of the year… More expense is included because, of course, someone has to collect the tests… which is where this lady comes in.

    She has to work 3 days per week which can be evenings. She gets £100 per day. When I say “day” it turns out that if nobody is free to do the tests she gets paid anyway. The night before she is sent a few phone numbers. She calls to see if any are free the next day for a test. If none are, she still gets paid. Even if they are available, she still only works two or three hours each day (usually evening).

    The job is so cushy that even though she now has a full time job elsewhere, she is continuing with the Covid testing job (scam). So the Penny dropped – my neighbour is being paid £25 a week to take a Covid test in the government’s quest to bump up the infection rate and the fear factor. Whether my neighbour is stupid or selfish or only sees pound signs. I do not know. But the whole thing makes me angry and disgusted.

    The lengths the government will go to to waste our money is endless.

    And so many of the public play along. The woman – this tester – said herself it’s a disgraceful waste of money – yet still she holds her hand out and takes it. There was silence at the dinner table as we all digested the information. What other scams do we not yet know about? I hate to imagine. It’s all too unbearable.

    For years to come we will find out about tax fiddles, furlough fiddles, Covid test scams, not to mention all the horrendous scams we already know about regarding PPE contracts etc. – (Hancock strikes again).

    Waste waste waste. I’m sick of it. The humble ordinary tax payer’s shoulders carry the burden of everyone who fiddles their tax by claiming expenses or hardship during the so-called pandemic and now the chancellor wants to raid our private hard-earned pensions too. I was rather looking forward to my company pension having paid into it every month even when struggling to pay bills. Seems I may not get that either!

    Let’s hope the revolution comes soon – I’ll be ready and waiting – will you?

    Otherwise, I fear we are finished…

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/another-day-another-government-scam/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=INDEPENDENCE+Daily+Newsletter1

    3. I know of someone in Cambridge who received £50 for giving a covid test. Once a week for six weeks. She got £300 in total. Then they suddenly stopped coming without telling her. She was miffed. I suppose she was no good to them as each test result was negative. This was last year.

  108. Evening, all. Surely it’s a case of freedom will elude us until self-isolation becomes an individual choice we all say, ‘enough is enough’ and rebel?

    1. Good evening, Conway. It is the only answer. The sooner, the better and the ‘easier’ (ha!) it will be.

  109. I think this is very funny, why on earth did he have to apologise ?

    Top Irish sporting official apologises after making ‘Black Dives Matter’ comment under BBC story about Raheem Sterling being fouled for England’s decisive penalty against Denmark
    Bernard O’Byrne commented ‘Black Dives Matter’ under a BBC article on Facebook about the penalty awarded to Sterling in Euros semi-final
    O’Byrne, who is now the head of Basketball Ireland, has deleted the comment
    He apologised for the comment and said it was ‘an error of judgement’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9774003/Top-Irish-sporting-official-apologises-making-Black-Dives-Matter-comment-Sterling.html

    1. Because the woke have no sense of humour, spending too much time standing on their dignity.

      Or in Sterling’s case sliding on it.

      1. Funnily enough sterling is on the rise against the euro and the pound is worth 1.17 € when a few weeks ago it was under 1.10.

  110. 335212+ up ticks,
    Many of the current electorate would eat dog / cat if it was “party (ino) policy”

    WHAT ABOUT HALAL? UK TO BAN BOILING LOBSTERS ALIVE BUT HAS NO PLANS TO RESTRICT RELIGIOUS SLAUGHTER

  111. Denmark currently collectively praying that everyone in England steps on a piece of Lego…

    1. We have a Danish sailing friend called Jens.

      Jens hates the EU and hopes fervently that Denmark will leave it.

      He also hopes that England will beat the Italians to show the world how much more successful his compatriots would be if they too decided to leave the odious EU.

      I agree with Jens’s sentiments about the EU but I shall find it hard to support England if they still kneel before the match in reverent awe to the black American, violent, dead criminal.

  112. It’s time to ditch the toxic language of Covid

    Yes, strict laws have helped coerce us into good behaviour, but words have done the really dirty work

    MARK BAILEY

    The UK’s draconian Covid laws are being repealed, football fans are dancing in the streets, and even the 73-year-old Duchess of Cornwall can’t wait to ditch her mask. But the toxic language of Covid-19 continues to poison any hope of a return to normality. Some doom-mongering scientists are now calling the restoration of our basic human liberties a “dangerous and unethical experiment.” Prof Stephen Reicher of the SAGE sub-committee on behaviour (SPI-B) is warning that our football fun could create “spreader events in virtually every household in the country.” And Prof Susan Michie, a SPI-B advisor who wants social distancing to last “forever,” insists that opening up society is like building terrifying new “variant factories.”

    Dangerous experiment. Spreader events. Variant factories. Such phrases gnaw at our deepest anxieties. But the truth is that our lives will always seem risky and repellent when sketched exclusively through the dehumanising language of virology and epidemiology. Teenagers may yearn to dance until dawn at a music festival, but to virologists they are engaged in an orgy of “infectious viral shedding.” To a child a game of pass-the-parcel is a delight, but to an epidemiologist that parcel is a germ-spreading “fomite.” A Christian may feel their soul soar during Carols from King’s, but to our friends at NERVTAG the act of singing, however beautiful, is “akin to a cough.” Prof Peter Openshaw, a member of NERVTAG, now labels hugging a “high-risk procedure,” as if describing a uniquely perilous form of neurosurgery.

    In fact, consider the whole kaleidoscope of weddings, concerts, holidays, festivals, sports matches and family events which constitute your greatest post-Freedom-Day aspirations. Through the prism – or prison – of Covid-19 vocabulary, every hug, laugh, song, dance or cheer will be nothing but a grimy biohazard.

    That is why the rehabilitation of our fear-drenched public discourse remains one of the most fatally neglected aspects of our bumpy road to freedom. A government which has spent the last 16 months shelling its citizens with a relentless barrage of Covid-19 language bombs, from the explosive horror of “aerosols” to the invisible mine-like threats of “fomites,” now wants us to dash out into no man’s land and dodge the lexical ordnance lying unexploded all around us: “Enjoy your wedding – just watch out for killer aerosols.” The laws are changing but the language is not.

    Words matter. They can mollify or horrify, inspire or oppress. They affect the way we think and act, and they filter and frame our perceptions. Yes, strict laws may have coerced us into good behaviour, but words have done the really dirty work, infecting our minds with images and ideas which have sown mutual fear and revulsion.

    This was not an accident. An infamous document prepared by SPI-B last March ominously declared that “the perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased.” In a BMJ article Prof Michie and her colleagues hinted at the possible road ahead: ‘Two emotions that are important in getting people to take appropriate protective action are anxiety and disgust.’ Fear and loathing: what a way to exist.

    From the outset of the pandemic the government weaponised the English language, disseminating morbidly catchy phrases like ‘Don’t kill granny’, and reviving wartime analogies about defeating “the enemy.” But the mass mobilisation of scientific terminology was the nuclear bomb, with words like “clusters” and “spreaders” terrorising the nation’s hypochondriacs and paralysing rational people with fear. We’ve been petrified not just by the virus, but by the viral language it has spawned.

    Even the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary were shocked at the rapid uptake of Covid-19 lingo: “Even the scientific words, which were probably not used beyond the scientists working in the related fields, are now second nature to many of us.”

    When death rates were soaring and vaccines were a distant dream, perhaps this total submission to a scientific discourse was for our own good. You cannot defeat a virus by adopting the language of the Teletubbies. But now that the landscape has fundamentally changed, why is our public discourse still trapped in March 2020? With 34 million UK citizens double-jabbed, only 400 out of 67 million people currently requiring ventilation in hospital, and the entire nation well-drilled in what is required of us, the continuing use – and abuse – of scientific language to dissect and degrade our daily lives is crippling any hope of a return to normality.

    The language which still saturates our public discourse, from No.10 briefings to church door noticeboards, is now part of the problem. It is atomising our society and stoking an unending cycle of fear. It is being abused by teaching unions to demand the muzzling and enforced isolation of children. It is providing ammunition for those who don’t wish to return to offices. It is the reason you cannot get a face-to-face appointment with your doctor or university professor. And it is perpetuating the terror-stricken modes of thought and behaviour which are delaying the treatment of cancer patients, destroying the mental health of children, wrecking the economy, and undermining our ability to live meaningful lives.

    When examined purely through the vocabulary of virology, this will never be over. There will always be “risks”. There will always be a “variant”. We will always inhale people’s “aerosols” and encounter “fomites” because human beings will always need to breathe and touch and meet and talk. That is why we must rebalance the myopic language of virology alongside the language of liberty, education, finance, ethics, mental health and basic common sense. Thanks to vaccines, we now have the tools to escape this. What we are still lacking is the balanced linguistic framework which liberates us to do so.

    Our return to normality depends not just on the ending of Covid laws but on the rehabilitation of a more natural, equitable and people-focused mode of discourse. The government must begin the slow but necessary process of changing the national conversation. A ball is a toy, not a “vector of disease.” Laughing with a friend is a pleasure, not an “unnecessary interaction.” A gift is a kind gesture, not a “fomite.” Children are joyous bundles of life, not a “reservoir” of disease. If language was weaponised to force us into lockdown, then language must be defused as we escape.

    This is not a question of “ignoring the science”: there is little danger of our not being kept informed about the latest developments, and we will all emerge from this with more respect for science. [Really?] But we do have a right to object to the cynical and unjustifiable use of scientific language as a tool for shaping and dictating the minutiae of our lives. Science may be rational but there is nothing rational about a double-vaccinated person walking through a park with a mask on. To live forever within the linguistic framework of virology would be madness.

    Neither is this an insult to our scientists. Other noble professions such as law and finance also have their own unique languages and modes of analysis but you wouldn’t want a health and safety lawyer to plan your child’s birthday party games, and you wouldn’t want your bank manager to sign off your every Amazon order based solely on the future resale value of the toys and tat in which you “invest.” This is simply a matter of context. As the threat of the virus fades, scientists have no professional or ethical justification for trying to tell us how to celebrate a goal or whether or not we can go to the theatre.

    With a vicious culture war looming in our shop doorways, restaurants and train carriages, the government must urgently articulate the moral and rational case for individual responsibility with the same force and linguistic zeal with which they justified previous lockdowns, not the clunky and confusing rhetoric spouted thus far.

    Some citizens will already be onboard. Others will need a reassuring nudge. Many will be lost in the Covid labyrinth forever. But having subjected the entire nation to a collective form of PTSD, with 57% of adults suffering anxiety and 67% of young people believing the pandemic will have a long-term effect on their mental health, the government must urgently commence our collective rehabilitation.

    This will require clear, honest and bold public communications and a marked shift in tone. Some scientists are already demonstrating how this change in discourse may be achieved. Prof Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine at the University of East Anglia, has calmly explained that Covid will never go away. “It is inevitable that we are all going to catch SARS-CoV-2 repeatedly for the rest of our lives,” he insists. But thanks to vaccines we will treat it like the common cold. As he explains, a form of coronavirus – Coronavirus OC43 – was circulating among humans back in 1890 and “our grandchildren’s grandchildren will be getting infected with SARS-CoV-2” too. This is exactly the balance and perspective we all need to hear.

    A new linguistic framework for Covid-19 is urgently required. Vaccines have broken the link between cases and deaths. Those who end up in hospital are less sick. Deaths are below the five-year average. Around 99% of Covid deaths have been among the over-50s, and 93% of that group has now had two jabs. Data suggests 90% of us have antibodies. Yet 66% of people still want mask-wearing to be enforced in shops. Our fears are now out of sync with reality.

    Even our understanding of the virus has changed. In the USA, the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention now admits that surface contamination is “not thought to be a common way that COVID-19 spreads.” So why are people still disinfecting groceries and pressing elevator buttons with their elbows, when normal hand-washing hygiene will suffice? Even the pro-mask Dr Peter English, former Chair of the BMA Public Health Medicine Committee, says most of our hand-washing and wiping down is “unnecessary,” insisting “we don’t have to be quite as obsessive about it.” So where are the posters? Where are the radio ads?

    As Prof Robert Dingwall, Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University, has stressed: “The government’s behavioural scientists must now work to defuse the fears they have amplified.” Yet they are making no effort to do so. If the government does not find its own voice, and begin to change the conversation, the vacuum will continue to echo with the doom-laden pronouncements of those who seem eager to manipulate our anxiety and disgust in an effort to change our society forever.

    The Prime Minister must show the moral responsibility and political courage to liberate us from the linguistic prison which he helped to build. Our games, songs, hugs and celebrations will always seem horrifying through the language of virology. But they are what make our lives worth living. Until we begin to vaccinate ourselves against the toxic language of Covid-19, true freedom will elude us all.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/09/time-ditch-toxic-language-covid/

    1. One wonders, William, when the excreta hits the air-con over the contents of the vaccine, about this graphene oxide that is allegedly a poison?

    2. The use of such language (I am a sociolinguist, after all) is one of the main reasons I stopped watching, listening to and reading the mainstream media. It was anything but value neutral. My immediate reaction was “eff orf”; if you can’t report it dispassionately, you’ve got an axe to grind.

      1. Since moving to Norway, I have had to learn to really listen to what people say, to compensate for my relatively late coming to the Norwegian language. So, I listen to the actual words said, and apart from the ridiculous crap many people say, the actual words used support exactly what you wrote, Conway. It carries over to English, too.

        1. I used (in the days when conversations were possible) to have discussions with MOH about what had been said in programmes. We always differed because I listened to the words (and took in what wasn’t said or was only implied) while MOH just got the impression that they wanted to put over – which often bore no relationship to the words that were actually used.

    3. Take all these government faux scientific advisers and lock them in a room and let them FOAD.

      1. Chuck in a bag of scorpions to make sure they get enough exercise.

        Have you noticed, Alf. That people who are normally mildly spoken are now grinding their teeth and cursing?

        1. You know me too well! 😂😂
          Everyone boasting they’ve had 2 jabs but don’t see the irony that all these restrictions don’t change for them.
          Sleepwalking into oblivion.

    4. Fat chance that Johnson will either release us from futile lockdowns or else liberate us.

      Johnson is a puppet in charge of implementing the disinformation declaimed by the SAGE morons and the pseudo medical establishment. They are all boughten crooks and should be tried and hanged for treason. I hope they will all be executed in due course.

    5. “The Prime Minister must show the moral responsibility and political courage to liberate us”

      The author of this, the DT journalist, Mark Bailey, must live in a different world if he thinks Johnson has either of these.

    2. Georgia 10 million, Ohio 11 million, North Carolina 10.5 million.

      LA county 9.9 million.

        1. Texas was not included in the original incorrect claim, the other states were.

    1. I am no fan of Max Hastings particularly but believe his description and characterisation of Johnson is too polite.

      Johnson is a lazy, fat, lying, evil bastard who should be locked up and preferably imprisoned for life. Johnson is a vile excuse for a man, a great tub of lardy excrement.

  116. People are starting to confront the painful choices that Net Zero involves

    Why are we expected to abandon gas boilers, when the expensive alternative will not reduce emissions?

    CHARLES MOORE

    Rationality in human affairs is hard to come by, but we love it when we find it. When it comes to spending money, a well-functioning market is the best provider of rationality. Competitive prices send out comprehensible signals about value. On that basis, we can try to make rational decisions.

    Rationality in spending matters most over things which we feel we need and know must last for a long time, such as a house or a car. In a fairly cold country like Britain, our houses must have reliable space and water heating. You must get its cost and its efficiency right.

    In the brief space between the defeat of militant trade unions and ensuing privatisations of the late 20th century and the green zealotry of the 21st, we had a rational energy market. We could choose between quite a wide range of energy sources and providers. Our energy was getting greener with the rise of natural gas, backed by nuclear, and the decline of coal. Prices were not severely distorted by subsidy or tax.

    That began to change under Tony Blair and has changed yet more under both parties since. Now we are committed to Net Zero carbon dioxide by 2050.

    Today, the Government subsidises renewables by sticking an estimated £12 billion per year on the national electricity bill. Prices for domestic customers today are about 40 per cent higher than they would be without climate policies. You can tell the Government now senses trouble coming: yesterday it floated the idea that poorer families should be paid offsets against higher energy bills caused by the drive to cut carbon emissions.

    Can we consumers make rational choices in this situation? Roughly 23 million homes (85 per cent of the total) are heated by natural gas, which is by no means dirty and is efficient and quite cheap. But the Net Zero doctrine’s quest for carbon neutrality frowns on gas. It sees salvation in heat pumps and hydrogen boilers and wishes to skew rules and prices accordingly.

    In common with millions whose gas boilers will soon need changing, I find myself in a quandary. If the Government were not interfering, new gas boilers would be the simplest replacement for the old and would probably provide the cheapest energy for the next 20 years or more.

    But the Government is interfering. So householders trying to make long-term decisions about their heating face radical uncertainty. If we get gas boilers, how long will we be allowed to keep them? (Until 2035 is the latest rumour.) Will the gas we buy have a carbon tax slapped on it? Will we be paid by the Government to switch to heat pumps or hydrogen? Since the real costs are opaque, how can our future liabilities be clear?

    Unlike gas boilers, heat pumps do not work terribly well. Both air-source and ground-source pumps suffer from the grave difficulty that they are least reliable and effective when the weather is at its coldest. If you get a heat pump, therefore, your water will probably not be warm enough for a bath – and sometimes you will be freezing – without an auxiliary supply of heating. That could be energy-gobbling bar fires, or it could be hydrogen boilers, but the latter are not ready yet.

    Besides, there is no room for ground-source heat pumps in the average urban house (it’s much easier if you have a large garden and, best of all, your own pond in which to place the coils). It is never rational to buy something that does not work, especially when you could easily be paying more than £20,000. No doubt heat pumps will improve with technological development, but it is a strange state of affairs when public policy tries to persuade people to hurry up and buy a poor product and to dissuade them from buying a tried and tested one (gas boilers) which successfully warm the great majority of our fellow citizens.

    And this encouragement, of course, is all on the assumption that heat pumps installed in this decade will help save the planet. Leave aside the well-known, yet officially ignored, point that British carbon emissions amount to less than 1 per cent of the global total, whereas China, Russia and India – three great powers with no intention of following our example – make up 40 per cent. Consider instead whether the case for heat pumps rather than gas boilers might, even in its own green terms, be suspect.

    I confess I am not a regular reader of The Chemical Engineer, but my attention has been drawn to an interesting piece in that monthly by Tommy Isaac. He analyses the relative carbon production of heat pumps and gas boilers, taking into account the need for “marginal supply” to avoid intermittency – a problem with pumps, but not with gas.

    The overall calculation, he says, is not just a matter of the carbon emitted at the point of use: it’s also a matter of fuel sources. “If a household converts from gas boiler to heat pump, additional electricity demand from the house will be created to provide the necessary heat.” That electricity supply “will come from natural gas combustion”.

    Given that boilers and pumps have roughly the same lifetime, Mr Isaac says, you can calculate if there will be any “tangible difference in their lifetime emissions”. Given that gas will be the marginal supplier until at least 2040-45, he concludes that the carbon emissions of each system over that time will be so little different that the choice is simply “a matter of personal preferences and relative economics”.

    If Mr Isaac is right, two thoughts arise. The first is that my “personal preferences and relative economics” (and those of millions) will be for gas boilers. The second is that the entire government attempt to shift us away from gas over this period is a waste of time and money. Of course, I do not know whether he is right, but I feel much more inclined to trust an engineer who can count than a politician who is pretending to save the planet and knows that he will no longer be around at the point when it becomes obvious that he has failed.

    The extraordinary thing about the growth of green politics over the past 20 years is that all political parties have agreed with them, or at least spoken as if they agreed with them. This might seem understandable, given that every decent person wants a cleaner world whose environmental future is secure; but in fact it is a failure of duty to the public. Politicians should usually disagree about major policies, because debate sheds light on a question.

    Every decent person needs to be confronted with the difficulties and contradictions which arise if Net Zero is truly the aim. Until recently, governments have been able to avoid this by obscuring costs. Now that is changing.

    People – especially average voters with little spare money – are thinking, for example, about whether they should buy electric cars. When they do that, they focus not only on their advantages (nice to drive, great acceleration) but on high prices, charging-point problems, and some of the difficulties, such as the cars’ great weight, and the fact that their batteries consume vast quantities of cobalt, lithium and nickel, to the detriment of the Earth.

    In their homes, as illustrated above, similar people are beginning to wonder what life will be like if they are forced to pay more for a technology which will make them colder, all in the name of a cause which has no point if this country achieves it but the planet doesn’t.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/09/people-starting-confront-painful-choices-net-zero-involves/

    The answer to your question, CM, is because the nation’s gas supplies will be blown 30-40 years early thanks to Half-wit Heseltine.

    1. How long will it be before the great global warming lie is exposed?

      When Christopher Booker wrote about this subject he was vilified and insulted which is what the Greens always do to those who dare to voice an opinion which challenges their “acceptable” point of view.

      His book entitled: The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is the Obsession with Climate Change Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History? is still available and is well worth reading.

      Maybe more people will wake up to the common sense with which Charles Moore presents us. And let us hope there will soon be more journalists and politicians who are prepared to put their heads above the parapet.

      (I wonder if Moore is beginning to despise Boris Bonker and Carrie Bonkee as much as many of us here do?)

      1. Given that the covid hysteria is meant to amplify the climate hysteria and advance the “solutions”, and that so many are scared witless by the propaganda, I DO hope you’re right about people starting to wake up!

  117. People are starting to confront the painful choices that Net Zero involves

    Why are we expected to abandon gas boilers, when the expensive alternative will not reduce emissions?

    CHARLES MOORE

    Rationality in human affairs is hard to come by, but we love it when we find it. When it comes to spending money, a well-functioning market is the best provider of rationality. Competitive prices send out comprehensible signals about value. On that basis, we can try to make rational decisions.

    Rationality in spending matters most over things which we feel we need and know must last for a long time, such as a house or a car. In a fairly cold country like Britain, our houses must have reliable space and water heating. You must get its cost and its efficiency right.

    In the brief space between the defeat of militant trade unions and ensuing privatisations of the late 20th century and the green zealotry of the 21st, we had a rational energy market. We could choose between quite a wide range of energy sources and providers. Our energy was getting greener with the rise of natural gas, backed by nuclear, and the decline of coal. Prices were not severely distorted by subsidy or tax.

    That began to change under Tony Blair and has changed yet more under both parties since. Now we are committed to Net Zero carbon dioxide by 2050.

    Today, the Government subsidises renewables by sticking an estimated £12 billion per year on the national electricity bill. Prices for domestic customers today are about 40 per cent higher than they would be without climate policies. You can tell the Government now senses trouble coming: yesterday it floated the idea that poorer families should be paid offsets against higher energy bills caused by the drive to cut carbon emissions.

    Can we consumers make rational choices in this situation? Roughly 23 million homes (85 per cent of the total) are heated by natural gas, which is by no means dirty and is efficient and quite cheap. But the Net Zero doctrine’s quest for carbon neutrality frowns on gas. It sees salvation in heat pumps and hydrogen boilers and wishes to skew rules and prices accordingly.

    In common with millions whose gas boilers will soon need changing, I find myself in a quandary. If the Government were not interfering, new gas boilers would be the simplest replacement for the old and would probably provide the cheapest energy for the next 20 years or more.

    But the Government is interfering. So householders trying to make long-term decisions about their heating face radical uncertainty. If we get gas boilers, how long will we be allowed to keep them? (Until 2035 is the latest rumour.) Will the gas we buy have a carbon tax slapped on it? Will we be paid by the Government to switch to heat pumps or hydrogen? Since the real costs are opaque, how can our future liabilities be clear?

    Unlike gas boilers, heat pumps do not work terribly well. Both air-source and ground-source pumps suffer from the grave difficulty that they are least reliable and effective when the weather is at its coldest. If you get a heat pump, therefore, your water will probably not be warm enough for a bath – and sometimes you will be freezing – without an auxiliary supply of heating. That could be energy-gobbling bar fires, or it could be hydrogen boilers, but the latter are not ready yet.

    Besides, there is no room for ground-source heat pumps in the average urban house (it’s much easier if you have a large garden and, best of all, your own pond in which to place the coils). It is never rational to buy something that does not work, especially when you could easily be paying more than £20,000. No doubt heat pumps will improve with technological development, but it is a strange state of affairs when public policy tries to persuade people to hurry up and buy a poor product and to dissuade them from buying a tried and tested one (gas boilers) which successfully warm the great majority of our fellow citizens.

    And this encouragement, of course, is all on the assumption that heat pumps installed in this decade will help save the planet. Leave aside the well-known, yet officially ignored, point that British carbon emissions amount to less than 1 per cent of the global total, whereas China, Russia and India – three great powers with no intention of following our example – make up 40 per cent. Consider instead whether the case for heat pumps rather than gas boilers might, even in its own green terms, be suspect.

    I confess I am not a regular reader of The Chemical Engineer, but my attention has been drawn to an interesting piece in that monthly by Tommy Isaac. He analyses the relative carbon production of heat pumps and gas boilers, taking into account the need for “marginal supply” to avoid intermittency – a problem with pumps, but not with gas.

    The overall calculation, he says, is not just a matter of the carbon emitted at the point of use: it’s also a matter of fuel sources. “If a household converts from gas boiler to heat pump, additional electricity demand from the house will be created to provide the necessary heat.” That electricity supply “will come from natural gas combustion”.

    Given that boilers and pumps have roughly the same lifetime, Mr Isaac says, you can calculate if there will be any “tangible difference in their lifetime emissions”. Given that gas will be the marginal supplier until at least 2040-45, he concludes that the carbon emissions of each system over that time will be so little different that the choice is simply “a matter of personal preferences and relative economics”.

    If Mr Isaac is right, two thoughts arise. The first is that my “personal preferences and relative economics” (and those of millions) will be for gas boilers. The second is that the entire government attempt to shift us away from gas over this period is a waste of time and money. Of course, I do not know whether he is right, but I feel much more inclined to trust an engineer who can count than a politician who is pretending to save the planet and knows that he will no longer be around at the point when it becomes obvious that he has failed.

    The extraordinary thing about the growth of green politics over the past 20 years is that all political parties have agreed with them, or at least spoken as if they agreed with them. This might seem understandable, given that every decent person wants a cleaner world whose environmental future is secure; but in fact it is a failure of duty to the public. Politicians should usually disagree about major policies, because debate sheds light on a question.

    Every decent person needs to be confronted with the difficulties and contradictions which arise if Net Zero is truly the aim. Until recently, governments have been able to avoid this by obscuring costs. Now that is changing.

    People – especially average voters with little spare money – are thinking, for example, about whether they should buy electric cars. When they do that, they focus not only on their advantages (nice to drive, great acceleration) but on high prices, charging-point problems, and some of the difficulties, such as the cars’ great weight, and the fact that their batteries consume vast quantities of cobalt, lithium and nickel, to the detriment of the Earth.

    In their homes, as illustrated above, similar people are beginning to wonder what life will be like if they are forced to pay more for a technology which will make them colder, all in the name of a cause which has no point if this country achieves it but the planet doesn’t.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/09/people-starting-confront-painful-choices-net-zero-involves/

    The answer to your question, CM, is because the nation’s gas supplies will be blown 30-40 years early thanks to Half-wit Heseltine.

  118. People are starting to confront the painful choices that Net Zero involves

    Why are we expected to abandon gas boilers, when the expensive alternative will not reduce emissions?

    CHARLES MOORE

    Rationality in human affairs is hard to come by, but we love it when we find it. When it comes to spending money, a well-functioning market is the best provider of rationality. Competitive prices send out comprehensible signals about value. On that basis, we can try to make rational decisions.

    Rationality in spending matters most over things which we feel we need and know must last for a long time, such as a house or a car. In a fairly cold country like Britain, our houses must have reliable space and water heating. You must get its cost and its efficiency right.

    In the brief space between the defeat of militant trade unions and ensuing privatisations of the late 20th century and the green zealotry of the 21st, we had a rational energy market. We could choose between quite a wide range of energy sources and providers. Our energy was getting greener with the rise of natural gas, backed by nuclear, and the decline of coal. Prices were not severely distorted by subsidy or tax.

    That began to change under Tony Blair and has changed yet more under both parties since. Now we are committed to Net Zero carbon dioxide by 2050.

    Today, the Government subsidises renewables by sticking an estimated £12 billion per year on the national electricity bill. Prices for domestic customers today are about 40 per cent higher than they would be without climate policies. You can tell the Government now senses trouble coming: yesterday it floated the idea that poorer families should be paid offsets against higher energy bills caused by the drive to cut carbon emissions.

    Can we consumers make rational choices in this situation? Roughly 23 million homes (85 per cent of the total) are heated by natural gas, which is by no means dirty and is efficient and quite cheap. But the Net Zero doctrine’s quest for carbon neutrality frowns on gas. It sees salvation in heat pumps and hydrogen boilers and wishes to skew rules and prices accordingly.

    In common with millions whose gas boilers will soon need changing, I find myself in a quandary. If the Government were not interfering, new gas boilers would be the simplest replacement for the old and would probably provide the cheapest energy for the next 20 years or more.

    But the Government is interfering. So householders trying to make long-term decisions about their heating face radical uncertainty. If we get gas boilers, how long will we be allowed to keep them? (Until 2035 is the latest rumour.) Will the gas we buy have a carbon tax slapped on it? Will we be paid by the Government to switch to heat pumps or hydrogen? Since the real costs are opaque, how can our future liabilities be clear?

    Unlike gas boilers, heat pumps do not work terribly well. Both air-source and ground-source pumps suffer from the grave difficulty that they are least reliable and effective when the weather is at its coldest. If you get a heat pump, therefore, your water will probably not be warm enough for a bath – and sometimes you will be freezing – without an auxiliary supply of heating. That could be energy-gobbling bar fires, or it could be hydrogen boilers, but the latter are not ready yet.

    Besides, there is no room for ground-source heat pumps in the average urban house (it’s much easier if you have a large garden and, best of all, your own pond in which to place the coils). It is never rational to buy something that does not work, especially when you could easily be paying more than £20,000. No doubt heat pumps will improve with technological development, but it is a strange state of affairs when public policy tries to persuade people to hurry up and buy a poor product and to dissuade them from buying a tried and tested one (gas boilers) which successfully warm the great majority of our fellow citizens.

    And this encouragement, of course, is all on the assumption that heat pumps installed in this decade will help save the planet. Leave aside the well-known, yet officially ignored, point that British carbon emissions amount to less than 1 per cent of the global total, whereas China, Russia and India – three great powers with no intention of following our example – make up 40 per cent. Consider instead whether the case for heat pumps rather than gas boilers might, even in its own green terms, be suspect.

    I confess I am not a regular reader of The Chemical Engineer, but my attention has been drawn to an interesting piece in that monthly by Tommy Isaac. He analyses the relative carbon production of heat pumps and gas boilers, taking into account the need for “marginal supply” to avoid intermittency – a problem with pumps, but not with gas.

    The overall calculation, he says, is not just a matter of the carbon emitted at the point of use: it’s also a matter of fuel sources. “If a household converts from gas boiler to heat pump, additional electricity demand from the house will be created to provide the necessary heat.” That electricity supply “will come from natural gas combustion”.

    Given that boilers and pumps have roughly the same lifetime, Mr Isaac says, you can calculate if there will be any “tangible difference in their lifetime emissions”. Given that gas will be the marginal supplier until at least 2040-45, he concludes that the carbon emissions of each system over that time will be so little different that the choice is simply “a matter of personal preferences and relative economics”.

    If Mr Isaac is right, two thoughts arise. The first is that my “personal preferences and relative economics” (and those of millions) will be for gas boilers. The second is that the entire government attempt to shift us away from gas over this period is a waste of time and money. Of course, I do not know whether he is right, but I feel much more inclined to trust an engineer who can count than a politician who is pretending to save the planet and knows that he will no longer be around at the point when it becomes obvious that he has failed.

    The extraordinary thing about the growth of green politics over the past 20 years is that all political parties have agreed with them, or at least spoken as if they agreed with them. This might seem understandable, given that every decent person wants a cleaner world whose environmental future is secure; but in fact it is a failure of duty to the public. Politicians should usually disagree about major policies, because debate sheds light on a question.

    Every decent person needs to be confronted with the difficulties and contradictions which arise if Net Zero is truly the aim. Until recently, governments have been able to avoid this by obscuring costs. Now that is changing.

    People – especially average voters with little spare money – are thinking, for example, about whether they should buy electric cars. When they do that, they focus not only on their advantages (nice to drive, great acceleration) but on high prices, charging-point problems, and some of the difficulties, such as the cars’ great weight, and the fact that their batteries consume vast quantities of cobalt, lithium and nickel, to the detriment of the Earth.

    In their homes, as illustrated above, similar people are beginning to wonder what life will be like if they are forced to pay more for a technology which will make them colder, all in the name of a cause which has no point if this country achieves it but the planet doesn’t.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/09/people-starting-confront-painful-choices-net-zero-involves/

    The answer to your question, CM, is because the nation’s gas supplies will be blown 30-40 years early thanks to Half-wit Heseltine.

    1. The vaccines do note work, in that they do not provide immunity from future infections. The vaccines are thus moreorless useless.

      There is an enormous weight of evidence out there disputing the crazy opinions and practices of our politicians. The whole load of them are quite clearly compromised and corrupt.

      1. 335212+ up ticks,
        Evening C,
        That can be said for both the product & the political appliers

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