Monday 1 September: Kemi Badenoch is right about the need to exploit North Sea oil and gas

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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542 thoughts on “Monday 1 September: Kemi Badenoch is right about the need to exploit North Sea oil and gas”

  1. Good morning, everyone. Not the most wonderful Wordle result today – a Double Bogey.

    Wordle 1,535 6/6

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    1. Of course, Bob3. And White Rabbits, too. How remiss of me to forget. (Good morning, btw.)

  5. Kemi Badenoch is right about the need to exploit North Sea oil and gas

    The uniparty doing what it does best.

      1. Although as I understand it, oil was formed from algae and plankton, whereas coal consists of fossilised plants.

          2. She deserved better.

            When did Tracey become a first name?

            I remember when I was at prep school in the 1950s we all called each other by our surnames and we felt rather sorry for a boy named Jane who had to suffer being called by a girl's name. At that time Tracey was not generally known as a girl's name.

            Of course Johnny Cash highlighted this issue with his song:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOHPuY88Ry4

          3. John confessed to his affair: – ‘Who?’ I asked. I felt sick to my stomach.

            ‘Tracey,’ he replied, his voice breaking. ‘Tracey, in my office.’

            Not Tracey Temple. John’s diary secretary in the Admiralty House office was my friend. She’d joined the team about three years before and was a nice little cockney girl, smartly dressed and friendly. I’d certainly never had any problems with her. ‘How many times?’ I heard myself asking. ‘Not many.’ ‘But how long?’ ‘About two years.’

            ‘What?’ I was on my feet. ‘Two years?’ How could he have kept this from me for two years? I felt such a fool.

            ‘You need to pack some things,’ he told me. ‘We’ll go to Dorneywood. The media will be on their way. All hell’s going to break loose.’
            ‘I’m not going anywhere!’ I cried. ‘If you think I’m fleeing my home in the middle of the night, you don’t know me very well, John Prescott. You go. I’m staying. I’ve done nothing wrong.’

            But she took him back.

  10. Leon
    17h
    Barrister Steven Barrett, who referred the judge to the JCIO, said in a social media post: 'He should not have heard the Bell Hotel appeal.'
    Judgement Day https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cb5c068cdb965640754d1d5364c06b77c6fc3721a075e4555d93699279600870.png
    Boni
    Leon
    14h
    I’ve got a lot of time for Steven Barrett. One of the good ones. He’s got a team together called Lawyers for Borders. I think Nigel could make good use of their services.

    stephen dean
    Leon
    16h
    In response to questions from reporters that he was out of touch with modern Britain Lord Justice Bean would make no comment as he climbed into his Sedan Chair.

  12. Alan Harper
    19h
    Get rid of the masks and face coverings, they all seem to be worn by a certain faction!

    Freakybacon
    19h
    They are until the masked state agitators are bussed in.

    keith waites
    Freakybacon
    17h
    And with a police escort

    1. The answer would have been a Section 60aa notice which forbids face coverings for a set period of time etc.

    1. In reality "White British account for 82% of the English population" but NOT in/on the MSN

      1. BBC staff: 40% Scottish, 20% Welsh, 15% Irish, 20% Asian and African, 5% indigenous English, 120% Communist/Left. 100% LGBT/Green. Average IQ ≈45.

    1. Oh dear! Whoever created this bit of propaganda might be wise to bone up on the news.

      Firstly, the migrants do not cross the Black Sea into Bulgaria; they cross the Aegean into Greece. Secondly, they don't bypass Albania via the Adriatric; they are actually sent there from Italy. Next they hardly go through Hungary into Poland – these two counries are resisting the movement of migrants. Nor do they board their dinghies in the Netherlands; they go through Calais.

      Whilst there is NO WAR in Slovenia, Bosnia, Belarus and Turkey, I am not convinced this is the case in Lviv and the Donbas.

      I find it interesting that the best place in the British Isles to move to, to avoid the burden of benefits is Cork.

    1. Excellent to see you here again. You'll be pleased to hear that things have got worse in your absence.

      1. Thank you. I noted that my prediction of the government's appeal against Epping was correct. Appoint the right judges – get the right result. Once, one would have known that the House of Lords would put it right. No longer. The "Supreme" Court is as biased as I have ever known.

        The country seems to have gone further to the dogs in a mere ten days.

        1. TBF – anybody with two brain cells to rub together expected that result.
          (And you have a darn sight more than that ….. says she very hastily.)

  20. Morning Geoff and you insomniac NoTTLers. Unlike me to be late on parade. Just forgot it was Monday.
    Though I have a lovely Japanese daughter-in-law, I hope she won’t mind me poking a little fun at her compatriots. At least I understand that they don’t let ANY muzzies into Japan.

    An American businessman went to Tokyo on a business trip but because he didn’t like Japanese food, he asked the hotel concierge if there was anywhere he could get American food. The concierge told him that a new pizza parlour had opened half a mile away and that it did deliveries. Armed with the phone number, the businessman returned to his room and ordered a pizza. Half an hour later, the delivery guy knocked on the door with the pizza.

    The businessman took it, but immediately started sneezing uncontrollably. He said to the delivery man: “What the hell did you put on this pizza?” The delivery man replied: “We put on exactly what you order on phone: pepper only.”

    On the last day of his visit to New York, a Japanese tourist hailed a taxi to take him to the airport. During the journey, a Honda car overtook the taxi, and the Japanese guy shouted out excitedly: “Honda, very fast! Made in Japan!” A few minutes later, a Toyota overtook the taxi, and the Japanese guy shouted out excitedly: “Toyota, very fast! Made in Japan!” Shortly afterwards, the taxi was overtaken by a Mitsubishi, prompting the Japanese guy to shout out excitedly: “Mitsubishi, very fast! Made in Japan!”

    The taxi driver had become thoroughly irritated by these outbursts but remained silent until they arrived at the airport. That was when the Japanese guy learned that the taxi fare was $300. “That very expensive,” he complained. The taxi driver replied: “Meter, very fast! Made in Japan!”

    1. Belief in any statement from British politicians must be at an all-time low, especially from the three largest parties: no particular order as they're all cut from the same lying bolt of cloth.

  23. We see a lot of moaning from Lefties on FB groups about Farage not living in his constituency or not being there that much.

    Just wondering how Lefties must feel feel about Rayner swanning about in a dinghy while living in her swanky new home in Brighton and not in her constituency representing her voters ?

    I'm expecting the hypocrisy meter to explode this morning when I post this on their groups.

  24. You can almost hear the natives whispering, I wonder why only young men of fighting age are coming when they are just coming here for a better life.

  25. Well, it is good to be back. We had a gorgeous week in Brittany – walking in the sea every day. MetĂŠo France (just like the UK Wet Office) dishes out daily gloom – predicted rain every day. Heavy shower on Thursday evening was all. Saw some beautiful churches – including one where mediaeval frescoes were discovered completely by chance 20 years ago. The very helpful lady from the Marie who opened the building and turned on the lights said we were the first British people to visit the village THIS YEAR. After 12 October, I suspect there will be even fewer.

    Journey out by Tunnel was grim. It took 30 minutes get from the M20 to the check in. Then the(rich person's) lounge was stuffed full of Essex chavs – women dressed for the beach; rodent like children, men with threatening haircuts all travelling together in large people carriers. Horrible – never seen anything like it. I cannot for the life of me understand what they like about France.

    Journey back – Tunnel slow – French PAF excellent; UK Border Farce appalling. Slatternly, tattooed slag was taking 3 minutes to process each car – so it took 45 minutes till we were on the train.

    Easy journey home to be greeted by two cats in the porch. A great relief. The morning we left, there were NO cats to be seen and there were still none when we drove off (with sinking hearts). Soldier neighbour reported later that they were fast asleep in their baskets….

    Seems not to have been much change in the endless drought here – though they do say it may rain this arvo (well, the Wet Office does – so it almost certainly won't).

    It was very pleasant to have no news at all for a week.

    1. Howdy Bill.
      Good to see you're back. You were missed!
      "I cannot for the life of me understand what they like about France." – maybe cheap alcohol and cheap ciggies? Just a thought.

    3. Good to see you back.
      Are Gus and Pickles actually speaking to you yet? Apart from pointing out the tin opener.

      1. Anyone wanting to travel to the EUSSR will be required to provide fingerprints and eye photographs on arrival (though at the Tunnel – before you leave the UK).

        I predict that the whole system will collapse on Day One. Apparently, 50 MILLION people arrive in the EUSSR every day. I can't see any automated system coping well with that level of input.

    6. Hello Bill ,

      Welcome back to breezy Britain

      I loved your brief description of the Brits at play , and that is exactly how modern loose monied modern generations plague our special places ..

      Your church exploration must have been fascinating and memorable .

    8. Rule changes for France and England travel this October

      The new Entry/Exit System (EES) will start in October 2025, requiring British holidaymakers to register their fingerprints and take a facial photo at EU borders. This system will replace the current manual stamping of passports with biometric data. The EES aims to improve border security, reduce illegal migration, and prevent visitors from overstaying their stay. The system will be rolled out gradually, with different parts of the system being implemented by European countries using EES step by step.

      This rule does not apply to thieves rapists and potential murderers travelling the other way, of course.

  26. 412143+ up ticks.

    Morning Each,

    Funny that, the very same view our village idiot has had for quite some time.

    Monday 1 September: Kemi Badenoch is right about the need to exploit North Sea oil and gas

    1. Er, apart from being completely foreign apart from her passport, Olukemi's political party was in office for about 14 years during which time they achieved SFA that could be ranked positively.

      1. That's the saddest thing. OK, they had Brexit and then Covid, but they did nothing domestically. Well, no, not true. May forced through the destructive net zero act. You have to ask, of all the things she could have done, net zero was the worst.

  27. Good Morning!

    Thinking of buying a new car? Before you do, you need to read Not buying a car from Mo by Graham Bedford. You need to read it even if you are not thinking of buying a car, as Graham knows a lot about buying cars, but even more about not buying them.

    Here is Broken Britain, Scotland in fact, which Nanumaga suggests is probably the most broken bit of it. In The United Kingdom and a tale of Scotland he gives us a detailed account of what is going on up there – and it's a tale worthy of MacBeth!

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's electric power was sourced from Gas, 12.1%; Solar, 9.4%: Wind 55.6%; Imports, 5%; Biomass, 2.5%; Nuclear 12.8% and Miscellaneous, 2.6%.

    freespeechbacklash.com

  29. Good morning everyone.
    Tragic tale from Cambodia reported in the Telegraph, apparently a love triangle stabbing, one's thoughts are with the victim's family.
    "Kidikila Nganda Glodie, a 33-year-old originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was arrested on Saturday on suspicion of murder."
    Nevertheless, (edited) what an example of nominative determinism.

  30. Angela for PM – she’s the disaster we need

    SOMEWHAT to my embarrassment, I keep finding myself looking at the recent photo of Angela Rayner vaping contentedly on her rubber dinghy.

    Tight-fitting top revealing every bulge, naff tattoo on her back, huffing on a nicotine dispenser, she is the perfect emblem of modern Britain.
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/angela-for-pm-shes-the-disaster-we-need/

    BTL

    However hard we try not to be snobbish Angela Rayner succeeds in making us so.

  31. ‘Three-votes Rayner’: Postal ballot puts tax claims in doubt

    Deputy PM’s eligibility to vote in three constituencies raises further questions about her main residence

    Amy Gibbons
    Political Correspondent
    31 August 2025 8:15pm BST

    Angela Rayner is facing fresh questions over tax after it emerged she has registered to vote in person at her newly bought second home.

    According to electoral records, the Deputy Prime Minister has a postal vote at her constituency home in Ashton-under-Lyne and in Westminster.

    However, she is also down to vote in person in Hove, where she bought an ÂŁ800,000 seafront apartment in May.

    It appears to undermine Ms Rayner’s claim that her Ashton-under-Lyne property is her main residence, a claim that saves her from paying council tax on her grace-and-favour home in London.

    It is likely to deepen suspicions over her housing arrangements, which have been under scrutiny since it emerged she saved ÂŁ40,000 in stamp duty on her new flat in Hove.

    Kevin Hollinrake, the Conservative Party chairman, said: “Day by day, Angela Rayner’s web of apparent tax avoidance is unravelling, exposed by her convoluted and contradictory claims about where she lives.

    “No reasonable person can think it acceptable for the minister in charge of electoral integrity to attempt to hold three votes in May’s elections, or for the Housing Secretary to weave her way around council-tax obligations and stamp duty on her second home while lecturing hard-working families about paying more tax on theirs.”

    Sir Laurie Magnus, the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on ministers’ interests, could open an investigation into the matter within days, threatening to overshadow the return to Parliament after the summer recess.

    On Sunday, Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, said Ms Rayner deserved “privacy” over her tax arrangements, insisting she was free to spend money how she liked.

    But the Deputy Prime Minister is facing mounting questions about her increasingly complex affairs.

    By convention, Ms Rayner does not have to personally pay the ÂŁ2,000 council tax on her ministerial flat in Westminster because she is treating it as her second home.

    This arrangement hinges on her insistence that her constituency home in Ashton-under-Lyne is her primary residence.

    However, neighbours have reported that she is rarely there, and she has previously spoken about her children visiting her in London.

    The Tories are now pointing to her voting arrangements as fresh evidence that she does not have her main home in her constituency.

    Mr Hollinrake said: ‘‘She’s cooked up the bogus claim that her primary residence is in Tameside so taxpayers can pick up the bill for her London council tax.”

    The Telegraph revealed last week that Ms Rayner is registered to vote in three separate places: Tameside, the location of her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency, Hove and Westminster.

    This means, as the minister with responsibility for local government, she could have multiple votes in next year’s local elections. This would be entirely within the rules.

    The London entry is for Ms Rayner’s previous rental flat in Westminster, which she treated as her second home before she was granted use of Admiralty House. It is understood she notified Westminster council that she had vacated the property when she moved to the grace-and-favour home.

    It has probably remained on the register because Ms Rayner was living at that flat when the council completed last year’s voter canvass. However, she appears to have proactively added herself to the electoral roll in Hove.

    It is not unusual for MPs to have postal votes in their constituencies, but Ms Rayner’s arrangements are of particular interest given the row over her primary residence.

    The revelations will fuel speculation about which of Ms Rayner’s properties is really her main home after a week of intense scrutiny of her living arrangements.

    On Friday, The Telegraph revealed that she saved ÂŁ40,000 on stamp duty on her seafront flat after telling tax authorities that it was her main home.

    This was despite sources close to Ms Rayner insisting that Ashton-under-Lyne was her primary residence for council-tax purposes, allowing her to avoid the ÂŁ2,000 bill on her Westminster flat.

    On Sunday, the controversy deepened as it emerged she reportedly employed the services of a company that specialised in “wealth protection”.

    Separately, she has been embroiled in a fresh “hypocrisy row” concerning her partner’s links to a firm whose former client received funds from the Government.

    She has also been accused of plotting a “chicken run” on the south coast after polls showed she would probably lose to Reform in her current seat.

    Richard Tice, Reform UK’s deputy leader, said Ms Rayner was giving herself the “option” to flee the north by buying a home in ultra-safe Hove.

    The fact that she is registered to vote in person in Hove while receiving a postal vote in Ashton-under-Lyne may add to speculation that she is distancing herself from her constituency.

    The Tories also believe it adds to the wider argument that the “business of her life” is not conducted in her constituency and she should not be eligible to be on the electoral roll there.

    Asked on Sunday if the Government would consider opening an investigation into the Deputy Prime Minister, Ms Phillipson told BBC Breakfast: “Angela Rayner has been clear that she has followed all the rules and requirements asked of her, that she has fully followed the rules.

    “Everything that she has done has been consistent with that.”

    Pressed on whether it would be best to get the details “out in the open”, Ms Phillipson said Ms Rayner deserved “privacy” over her tax affairs.

    She said: “As I say, she has been clear that she’s followed all the rules. But these do relate, as you’ll appreciate, to family matters, to her own living arrangements. And you know, that is really a matter for her in terms of her own family circumstances.

    “She’s been clear that she’s followed the rules, in which case she is also, as a parent, entitled to some privacy too.”

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

    John Bloomfield
    11 hrs ago
    Never mind the votes, the more interesting question by far is where did this brainless woman get ÂŁ800k from on a parliamentary salary?

    David Boyd
    just now
    Apart from the tax avoidance shenanigans, this episode brings up the issue of postal votes which well known to be abused by certain ethnic minorities to harvest votes. No one should get a postal vote unless they are bed-bound (certified by a GP) or overseas as a member of the armed forces.

    Julian Sampson
    just now
    How is it possible or legal for one person to have 3 votes?

    1. Funny how the mid-wits all joined in the chorus of pooh-poohing the claim of Trump's 'stolen election'.

    2. Also, who buys a house and immediately applies for a vote? Usually that’s the last thing you think about, and you only do it when you get sent the letter “To the Occupier” which come round about once every three years.

    3. Charles Moore wrote about this three GEs ago. He has properties in London and Sussex. He is entitled to vote in local elections in both places, but not to vote twice in generals. However, there was nothing to enforce this so, to make a point, he voted as normal in Sussex, then went to London to vote again, this time spoiling his paper

      1. She lives with a wealthy oik – whose company received benefits from the Growler's "ministry". He may well have been the brains (given that she has none) behind the tax dodge.

  35. The ‘ludicrous’ migrant family rule pushing councils to breaking point
    Relatives coming to Britain can claim benefits immediately and do not need to speak English
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/01/migrant-family-rule-pushing-councils-breaking-point/

    BTL

    It should be simple – no benefits until you have British nationality and this will not be granted until you can speak and write English fluently and have paid into the tax system for at least ten years.

    My wife and I have lived in France for 36 years where we have run our own business and paid our taxes. Our children were both born in France. We do not have French nationality and have never received 'benefits' (such as health care) other than those for which we have paid.

    2. My English friends in Paris became French citizens, in anticipation of Brexit. My nephew near La Charite can't get it for some reason, even though he's lived and worked in France for decades.

      1. It is very complicated. Caroline tried a couple of years ago but gave up owing to the onerous paperwork. She is going to try again later this year.

        She has lived over two thirds of her life in France and though she is Dutch she has only lived in Holland briefly when she was a child. Her father worked for Phillips, the multinational electrical goods company, and she went to schools where he was posted: Holland, for a couple of years and then in India and Iran (in the days of the Shah). She did her secondary schooling in Spain and was at university in England and France.

    3. If you bring a foreign spouse to UK, they are not entitled to claim benefits until they are granted Leave to Remain. That right could be claimed at 5 years but recently raised to 10 years and requires scrutiny of the family finances. They also have to pay the NHS surcharge of ÂŁ1k a year. But refugees get access to the benefits system as soon as they rock up, and also avoid the expensive cost of applying for UK settlement. In a word or 4, the system is rotten.

      1. No they could have applied for it at the age of 18 as it is granted on the condition that they had never been in trouble with the police.

        They had not been in trouble with the police but by then both of them had gone to university in England and had decided to make their lives in the UK.

        As long as their mother retains her Dutch nationality they could probably apply for dual Dutch/British nationality if they so wished.

    5. I have dual British/Swedish nationality. My certificate of Swedish nationality and Swedish passport were granted without a hitch despite the fact that my spoken and written Swedish is appalling.

      Min svenska är fortfarande mycket dülig!

  36. Morning All 🙂😊
    Sunny, 16 rain later, pinch and a punch. That seems to have been adopted by our government now.
    How much longer can our country afford to let these idiots in Wastemonster run riot with everything they come into contact with.
    Of course the opposition leader is right about oil and gas. We all know this. But there seems to be one determined plonker who revels in tying to be awkward, but let's face it, his useless collection of colleagues are also part of the wrecking crew.
    How much longer do we have to wait for something positive to get started ?

    1. Yet she won't do it when in office. I'm sorry, I don't trust them. The Tories are behind to the point of obliteration. They should be talking about real (no pun intended) reform. Tax code reform, real change to our energy policy such as by all means allowing windmills, but no subsidy. About real discussion over gimmigration making their position clear and honest in what needs to be done. About state spending – welfare AND pensions.

      But no. There's edge fiddling and promises but no meat on the bones.

      1. After the last tory government I am inclined to agree the mess they left behind is the cause of most of the troubles we are suffering today.
        I don't trust any of them either.
        They are all only in it for what they can make out of it. Habitual and pathological lying is part of the make up of the political classes.

        1. The mess they left behind is largely due to not getting rid of Blair’s policies but carrying on with more of the same.

          1. I commented on Blair earlier and that fact that he set all this up by changing the treason laws.

  37. All the letters in The Terriblegraph seemed reasonably sensible today. Is the Editor playing a “September Fool” on us?

  38. Good morning all ,

    Well , what a difference in the weather , cuddled down under the duvet last night , chilly , breezy and now pouring with rain .

    Disaster struck on Saturday , son no1 ran in his Poole Park run on Saturday , damp conditions , slippery , saw the bone people on Thursday , so took his hand splints off, and is due for physio starting on the 8th Sept .. Shock horror , he slipped on a corner as he ran , and fell over .. yep after five months of healing , his right wrist is knackered again .. he has bruises and scrapes where he slipped on wet gravel , at speed .

    I think he needs another xray .

    PS he has never ever claimed sickness benefit , because he doesn't qualify for it .

    4. Your poor son, it sounds like you should lock him up to keep him from running for the foreseeable future.

  39. Another good start:
    Wordle 1,535 3/6
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  40. Good morning Nottlers, 15°C, grey and damp on the Costa Clyde. 'Kemi is right…', yet neither she nor any of her party in government did anything different to the current bunch of whelks. Indeed, Rishi-Washi's greatest achievement was to make the Cons even more unelectable than Saggy May's efforts, and she skewered Brexit!

  41. I’ve just come across a photo of when we were doing book weighings. My German dictionary, coming in just under 5lb 12 oz. A bit like yesterday’s chicken, the leftovers of which were supposed to last all week….but won’t.

    The photo is from March 2023. What fun we had back then!

    Edit. And my Duden, at just over 6lb. Wow!

    1. As I went out of the front door this morning I was greeted by the Robins twittering away as if they know it's 1st September.

    2. You know I live in the countryside of West Sussex. Right behind my house is the wild woods, literally, it is unkept and thus is genuinely wild, it's wonderful. But I hear so little in terms of bird song or much else. There is no doubt that even here wildlife is being badly depleted, it is so sad. I remember the time of sparrows everywhere and the big murmuration's of starlings in the evening. Watching their spectacular manoeuvres before they settled in the trees. Now a days, it simply gets dark and that is it, no special events, just daylight becoming night. I have not heard a cuckoo in years I would be overjoyed to hear one in the woods.

    1. Some good articles in the Terriblegraph. Tim Stanley on Lefty Bishops being wrong: reducing immigration can be an act of love is worth reading. I’ll post it in a minute.

      Here:

      “Is that what an Archbishop looks like today? Stephen Cottrell, CEO of York, sitting in a black suit in a warehouse, being grilled by Sky News. He accused Nigel Farage of “isolationism”, said deportation wouldn’t solve a thing. He could’ve been leader of the Lib Dems, though Ed Davey talks more about God.
      Earlier Cottrell had argued that the best response to refugees is “compassion and understanding”. In most cases, he’s right, but exceptions do exist. I wondered how thoughts ’n’ prayers would apply to Mohammed Wahid Mohammed, a Syrian who raped a 12-year girl in Birmingham. A cup of tea? A kindly chat? We cannot subject him to a sermon by the average bishop: torture remains illegal.

      What use are these Anglican interventions? Zero. The “open doors, open hearts” approach to immigration expresses the kernel of Christian teaching but in so simplistic, so impractical a way as to be useless to policymakers. Yes, the Bible says I must help the stranger, and if someone knocks at my door seeking help, I – as an individual – have an obligation to hear them out.

      But what if I don’t live alone? What if I have a wife and daughter: what if the stranger is Mr Mohammed? If I let a man into the house who slaughters us with an axe, the action is not just stupid but facilitates evil. As the implications and dangers of a decision grow, so the moral calculation grows more complex – and that is the maze that politicians, leading a family of 69 million, must navigate. They need thoughtful guidance. They instead get Sunday-school clichés.

      Why? Partly because churches have lost self-confidence. Convinced that the punters can’t understand or don’t want to hear theology, they’ve reduced apologetics to the level of a primary school: “Jesus says share your wine-gums.” Christianity is sold to kiddies as uncomplicatedly nice, and adult politicians borrow this goo-goo-ga-ga language to make themselves sound jolly nice, too. Davey says he prayed before deciding to pull out of a dinner with Donald Trump. God, it seems, took pity on the Republican.

      Christianity is far subtler and more useful than the Left intuits. The Trump administration likes to quote St Augustine, the 5th-century theologian, to justify closing its own borders. In 410AD, Rome was conquered by the Visigoths, and pagans pinned the blame on Christianity. Its “brotherhood of man” shtick had weakened loyalty to the state, while its humility left society vulnerable to invasion.

      Not so, said Augustine, who argued that good Christian citizens must observe an “ordo amoris”, or the correct ordering of love. The argument is this: we must treat all human beings, regardless of our relationship, as brothers. But we cannot help all people equally at once, so we must apply a sense of priority and favour those most in need or who are “more closely united to us”.

      Trump’s people infer this to mean, help your family, your community, your country first – and foreigners a distant fourth. Augustinian theology is not, however, about loving one human being more than another, but ordering our love so that it is efficacious: I can do more for my own kids than I can the kids in Somalia, and if I reversed that order, I’d do little good for the Somalians and a lot of harm to the family I neglect.

      Whenever someone de-prioritises the responsibilities nature has given them, it strikes us as deeply, troublingly unnatural. That’s one reason why the reaction to open borders, excessive foreign aid or endless wars is so visceral: we sense that our elite prioritises foreigners over their own kin, inverting our expectation of leaders who function as national parents.

      When Keir Starmer said he preferred Davos to Westminster, it was as offensive as a father saying he prefers water-skiing in CancĂşn to playing football with his son. Globalist love is intrinsically disordered.

      “The matter requires a prudent man,” wrote St Thomas Aquinas on the “ordo amoris”, and that’s the basic problem. Twenty-first century politicians don’t do prudence; they’ve not been educated in it. And Christian hierarchies no longer promote it because it sounds Victorian and preachy – in a different class to wine-gum Jesus.

      Yet far from rejecting charity, prudence teaches us to love with discernment, thus maximising the good and limiting the wrong. A prudential elite would manage the borders so strictly that the population, being wealthy and at peace, would feel it can afford to help those in genuine need.

      Instead, by flinging open the borders to economic migrants, the elite has poisoned us against immigration in general. Excessive liberality triggers an authoritarian backlash. Put another way, a disordered sense of Christian love has resulted in Britain becoming less Christian both in demographics and disposition: paranoid, unwelcoming, intolerant.

      Some in the conservative parish have enjoyed the Epping protests; I did not. If refugees are booted out of hotels, where are they supposed to go? If into private accommodation, they’ll be competing with locals for housing: see how you like that. And why are so many Britons convinced that women and children might be legitimate refugees but every adult male is up to no good? They hang around shopping malls, it’s true. But that’s because the state doesn’t let them work.

      Cottrell should defend the asylum seeker, that’s his responsibility, and he’s no dunce: the Archbishop did express sympathy for those worried about immigration. But if Christians are going to guide this debate away from bigotry and towards reason, they need to recognise that the experiment in open borders has done tremendous damage, and that the effort to protect one’s population can be motivated by love. It’s arguably a statesman’s top priority.
      Clerics hate walls, especially near Mexico, yet the Old Testament is full of them. Their strength is a symbol of security and righteousness; their collapse marks the loss of God’s favour. The Book of Proverbs warns that a man who cannot govern himself “is like a city that is broken down and without walls.” Invasions, migratory or military, are only a symptom of a greater internal rot: the absence of prudence.”

      1. Honestly. Who cares what anyone from the C of E has to say? They're in bed with the Marxists and have no regard for Christianity. In fact, apparently, the church itself is so indifferent it hasn't bothered to elect an Archbishop of Canterbury in almost a year. No one cares about that either. They are empty vessels with nothing to say. For gods sake they do not even honour the flag that flies from their church steeples let alone bother with real morality. They are a degenerate church and someone, in the manner of Christ, should go in there and metaphorically speaking, go at them with a whip, overturn their tables piled high with corruption and heresy.

    2. BTL – "Even easier to just not let them in! Sorted in one fell swoop by not giving them anything – no accommodation no food no money no health care no phones. They'll stop coming. Ship the rest out."

  46. September

    Some day, I think, there will be people enough
    In Froxfield to pick all the blackberries
    Out of the hedges of Green Lane, the straight
    Broad lane where now September hides herself
    In bracken and blackberry, harebell and dwarf gorse.
    To-day, where yesterday a hundred sheep
    Were nibbling, halcyon bells shake to the sway
    Of waters that no vessel ever sailed …
    It is a kind of spring: the chaffinch tries
    His song. For heat it is like summer too.
    This might be winter's quiet. While the glint
    Of hollies dark in the swollen hedges lasts –
    One mile – and those bells ring, little I know
    Or heed if time be still the same, until
    The lane ends and once more all is the same.

    Edward Thomas

      1. We were introduced to Edward Thomas's poetry at prep school.

        I can still recite Adlestrop having learnt it by heart about 70 years ago!

        1. Adlestrop by Edward Thomas

          Yes. I remember Adlestrop The name, because one afternoon Of heat, the express-train drew up there Unwontedly. It was late June.

          The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat. No one left and no one came On the bare platform. What I saw Was Adlestrop—only the name

          And willows, willow-herb, and grass, And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry, No whit less still and lonely fair Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

          And for that minute a blackbird sang Close by, and round him, mistier, Farther and farther, all the birds Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

          Although not strictly a war poem, this particular piece has gained popularity in anthologies due to its reference to a peaceful era and location, which existed only a short time before the outbreak of the First World War. Thomas enlisted the following year, and was killed in 1917, just before the poem was due to be printed in his collection Poems, published in the New Statesman, three weeks after he died

          Something very poignant about that little poem.

  47. We're due one of those iconic photos that capture the moment.. like this 1920s King George V image or a Don McCullin in 'Nam.
    .
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fbed9b394b180dec54e01f307324fadeb9d48c3561ee13dcc0dbaa71a65f34d7.jpg .
    I reckon it'll be a better version of this.. a hairy arsed fighting aged male lounging outside his Manor House.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/655e7dee0ffd9f39305a4bb0788814e0741a39aad26fe546582eec754b1692cf.jpg

    3. I think it more likely the peasant is doffing his cap before a round of grovelling. Morning all, it looks like it is about to rain. 😊

  48. We're due one of those iconic photos that capture the moment.. like this 1920s King George V image or a Don McCullin in 'Nam.
    .
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fbed9b394b180dec54e01f307324fadeb9d48c3561ee13dcc0dbaa71a65f34d7.jpg .
    I reckon it'll be a better version of this.. a hairy arsed fighting aged male lounging outside his Manor House.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/655e7dee0ffd9f39305a4bb0788814e0741a39aad26fe546582eec754b1692cf.jpg

  49. Good morning, all. Sunny and breezy.

    The Lotus Eaters podcast has thrown up an ECHR debating point re the Epping hotel saga. It's likely that the HO plea could be focussed on Article 3 of the ECHR.

    What Article 3 says
    "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" .

    However:

    AI Overview
    The Court of Appeal overturned a High Court injunction requiring asylum seekers to leave the Bell Hotel in Epping, meaning they can remain there for now.     While not directly based on Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in this instance, the Home Office argued its legal duty to prevent destitute asylum seekers under domestic law, which is linked to ECHR principles, would be violated if the injunction stood and they had no accommodation.

    Stelios, leading the podcast, argues that Article 8 could be an option.

    Key aspects of Article 8:
    Right to private life:
    This encompasses many activities and aspects of a person's life and is not limited to a specific list, according to The Council of Europe.
    Right to family life:
    This right protects established family relationships and can be extended to include various forms of family bonds, not just biological ones, notes Citizens Advice.
    Right to home:
    This refers to the right to a physical home, as well as the right to reside in a place.
    Right to correspondence:
    This protects communication through letters, emails, phone calls, and other forms of correspondence.

    The limitations to Article 8 include.

    Positive Obligations:

    The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has interpreted Article 8 as obligating states to take positive steps to protect citizens from severe economic harms, particularly in the context of climate change, which can involve substantial economic investments and regulatory changes.

    Indirect Economic Impacts
    Immigration Control:

    Article 8 influences immigration decisions by requiring a balancing act between an individual's right to private and family life and the legitimate public interest, which includes the "economic well-being" of the country. This can affect the entry and presence of workers and their families.


    Is the cost of housing asylum claimants in hotels etc. at a reported ÂŁ8 Million pounds per day, contributing to the economic well-being to the UK, or not?

    With a reported "Black Hole" of ÂŁ50 Million the government has to start cutting spending somewhere, sadly, somewhere isn't cutting spending but rather appears to be raiding the pockets of the people of the UK.

  51. Funny start to the day: opened the folding patio doors and all three dogs darted or the gap, all three got stuck and then ran in a circle around one another to get out.

  53. 'Morning All
    From the DT comments:

    "Keir Starmer is the most hated Prime Minister in living memory — and deservedly so. A hollow man, a lawyer’s trick in a cheap suit, a hypocrite who mistakes sneering for leadership. He lies with the ease of breathing, gaslights with the arrogance of someone who thinks the people are too stupid to notice, and panders to everyone except the British public. He poses as “serious,” yet the more he talks, the more the nation sees a spineless bureaucrat, a man with all the charisma of damp cardboard. He governs like a squatter in Downing Street — unwanted, unloved, and utterly out of his depth. Britain deserves better, and the only cure for this humiliation is a general election."

    Hard to disagree

    1. Starmer is incompetent, malignant and useless but I'd still reserve worst for Blair. We're still having to unpick that wretched slime from every aspect of the state.

    2. If he was assassinated, would the action be termed 'Fannycide'?

      Apologies to Sue who showed us herself and a Scottish loch yesterday.

  54. Nick Clegg has hit a pathetic new low – simpering at Zuckerberg’s feet
    The ex-Lib Dem leader, in his new book, offers a baffling and unsatisfying defence of his former Silicon Valley masters
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/how-to-save-the-internet-by-nick-clegg-review/

    BTL

    I remember Clegg was given the nickname Cleggover when he boasted that he had slept with about 30 women.

    His wife, Miriam, did not make a similar boast about the number of men she had slept with but and I very much doubt if he would have liked it if she had done so in spite of his 'Liberal' views about sexual equality.

    1. Clegg is married to Miriam GonzĂĄlez DurĂĄntez, from Valladolid, Spain. They have three sons. While Clegg has stated that he does not believe in God, his wife is a Roman Catholic and they are bringing up their children as Catholics. On 16 September 2010, during Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom, Clegg attended the State reception and was introduced to the Pope by Her Majesty the Queen.

      Clegg identifies as a feminist. Wikipedia

      Clegg stated he dealt with the pressures of political office by reading novels late at night and he "cries regularly to music". He supports Arsenal F.C.

      Confirmed tosser?

    2. MK is a desperate & naughty boy.
      Firstly..
      Mark Zuckerberg wanted to buy the team of a ChatGPT creator for $1 billion.
      Mark Zuckerberg has been offering $100m (ÂŁ74m) signing-on bonuses to lure staff from the maker of ChatGPT .
      Mira Murati's team, formerly of OpenAI, turned down a fortune from Meta.

      Then..
      Meta employees had downloaded tens of gigabytes of pirated books from LibGen, a well-known “shadow library” that hosts roughly eight million titles. They used these files to help train LLaMA 3, the company’s most advanced language model.

      LOL. Every single Leftie at the BBC, Every single Leftie in academia has been whinging about it.. including the wokiest of them all.. Richard Osman and his boring best sellers.

    3. If my first wife had told me she had slept with 30 women, I would have asked if she had any camcorder footage.

  55. Ok. I am going to have to think about the funds in which my pension is invested. Time to do some cashing out (e.g. of the UK smaller companies fund, and the UK Stewardship fund). And find something global and safer. The problem is, i don’t know anything about this stuff really. Oh to be a politician or civil servant and not have to care, as your gold-plated risk-free pension gets paid regardless*.

    *unless the entire country’s economic system ceases to exist, which is a possibility

    1. have a look at Trustnet https://www.trustnet.com/ . It’s a good resource for checking the performance of funds. Scroll down to where it says Find a Fund, leave the boxes empty and click on the Search button. You’ll get to the main research area and a huge list of funds. You’ll see you can filter it by things like “sector” eg global, UK, technology or whatever. Click on the sort arrow to get the best performers over the last one or three years and click on the name of the fund for details including where it is invested, biggest holdings etc. look for those consistently in the top quartile of performance. Or get professional advice!
      I hope this helps.

  56. Frack and Drill baby. As far as I'm concerned the Labour regime is seditious. Deliberately pursuing net zero to destroy the country. They should be hauled into court and ordered to cease and desist from net zero. Surely that is possible? How, I don't know. But I refuse to believe we are helpless in resisting such a blatant attempt to destroy the UK.

    Of course Badenoch can say what she likes because she is a dead duck anyway. But I certainly don't trust Farage to do anything. "It can't be done." is his mantra until someone else make a thing popular so he can slide in on their coattails and thus makes it possible to talk safely. At that point he pretends that it is his idea, the hypocrite. Support Ben Habib and Advance not weasel Fromage.

        2. Much better – I can also live with rats and similar but no mustelids [except maybe mink who shouldn’t be here?] please!

    2. I don't understand the green blob attitude. I get it, they all exist inside a state bubble, claiming expenses galore with no costs. None have ever had a real job but do they simply not care at all?

      I met a bloke the other day who picks up pennies to try to buy his son a new electric wheel chair. He sells anything he can at a car boot to raise a bit more. If his bills are whacked up even more by a bunch of ideological nutters then that's less money for his son.

      I hate the government because such policies are purely ideological spite to force socialism. It's a metro Leftist misanthropic, choice denying bubble. They simply do not care about people. It's all about them and their grand dreams for their vision of utopia while they make everyone else miserable.

      1. I agree. Just look are our deputy PM. How she has changed. Or maybe she was always going to be like this.

    3. With you all counts, johnathan. (btw Phizzee been looking out for you, I think?) best, Kate x PS also Ndovu…

      1. Thank you Kate! Although I'm not sure what you mean by "With you all counts". Not that I think you are being rude, I just don't get it.

        1. Ha, I puzzled for a second, johnathan (always in a tiz)….left out the word ‘on’…ie. with you on all counts. Sorry x 🙂

    4. 412143+ up ticks,

      Morning JR,

      Fully agree on ALL points with one additive, overall The Farmers FOOD and Freedom Party must act as umbrella, for Rupert Lowe & Ben Habib.

      In short,
      support / use the loaf and NOT the sloth.

    5. "They should be hauled into court and ordered to cease and desist from net zero. Surely that is possible?"

      The courts have already been subverted.

      1. So I see from the Marxists that pretended to be neutral over the Bell Hotel. But a lawyer has registered a complaint with some organization that is to do with judicial ethics.

  57. Bit late in the day so to speak but, if serious unrest AKA civil war is to be considered best be sooner than later, every day strengthens the political governing oppositions coup campaign.

    This is NOT a call to arms copper, far from it, it is merely advice on a freedom of choice issue,

    The ‘ludicrous’ migrant family rule pushing councils to breaking point
    Relatives coming to Britain can claim benefits immediately and do not need to speak English

    The home office is fully bilingual, and then some.

    2. I waited with anticipation the new BBC series “King and Conqueror” but one and a half episodes was all I could stand. I can forgive the use of modern language – after all, few would understand the languages used in the years leading up to 1066 – but the portrayal of historical figures as black men and women was ludicrous. The BBC (and ITV) just can’t seem to help themselves – every drama series has to include black judges, black senior policemen, black detectives and, of course, the obligatory lesbian relationships. Do TV producers/directors/writers not know that the vast majority of the viewing public are fully aware of the ethnic make-up of the modern population and can see from photos, paintings and even the BayeuxTapestry that this is a recent development. Such is the media devotion to DEI that I look forward to a drama about the Battle of Britain featuring blind fighter pilots, female commandos, and a black Winston Churchill.

      1. Saw the first episode when I was in England. It was a complete load of historical b*ll*cks! And the unnecessary foul language wasn't even used in English for several centuries after the setting.

        1. Mind you there is some pretty fruity language in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales just a couple of centuries later!

      2. What angers me about it is that it is a blatant distortion of history trying to overlay fiction over truth. It is also a deliberate effort to eradicate our history and that is evil.

      3. ITV brought Sikhs into the Battle of Britain in May 1940. Made me really wild; they didn’t arrive until October and most of them went to Bomber Command. Unnecessary tinkering.

          1. That could have been possible. The raid took place after 1940 and most of the sikhs went into Bomber Command. None had arrived in the country in May 1940.

  60. A family found they could make ends meet after the father was made redundant so the family, including live-in Grandma, has a conference and decided all the ladies, mum Gran and daughter, would have to go 'on the streets'. Off they all went that evening and the following morning met to see how much they'd raised. Daughter said "I got ÂŁ100! Mum said "I got ÂŁ150" Gran said "I got ÂŁ208 and 10p" Mum said "Who gave you 10p?" Gran replied "They all did"

    1. Zack Polansk – potential leader of the Green Party. Polanski is gay, vegan and lives in Hackney. Vital qualifications for party leader.

    1. Bitey/spitty! What is it with ex-Liverpool players?
      Yes, Carragher! I’m looking at you!

      1. Oh, Sue, you know your football (my wife has absolutely zero interest …. and has friends who will telephone during a World Cup penalty shootout 😲😲)

        2. Best time to go to IKEA during a World Cup (especially the final) the place is always empty!

          3. Well, that doesn’t happen – you just follow the footprints……don’t you?

  63. Ursula von der Leyen’s plane has been targeted by suspected Russian interference, forcing her pilot to land using paper maps.

    A jet carrying the European Commission president to Plovdiv in Bulgaria on Sunday had its GPS navigation services disabled, a spokeswoman for the bloc told The Telegraph.

    The plane was forced to circle the airport for an hour before the pilot landed using analogue maps in what officials said was “undeniable interference”.

    The European Commission spokeswoman said: “We can confirm there was GPS jamming but the plane landed safe.

    “We have received information from Bulgarian authorities that they suspect this blatant interference was carried out by Russia. We are well aware that threats and intimidation are a regular component of Russia’s hostile actions.”

    The official said the suspected sabotage underlines their commitment to ramping up defence.

    GPS jamming prevents pilots from being able to access the plane’s satellite-based navigation system.

    It has been increasingly used by Moscow to disrupt civilian life, which EU countries have warned could cause a major air disaster.

    Since the war in Ukraine started in 2022, jamming incidents have become more common in the Baltic Sea and eastern European states, which are located near Russia.

    Lithuania said in July it had located more than 10 locations in the Russian enclave of Kalininigrad “from where Russia is causing this interference”.

    Pilots in the country reported disruptions to their GPS communications on more than 1,000 occasions in June, a major jump from just 46 times during the previous month.

    Estonia and Finland also criticised Moscow for alleged jamming incidents last year.

    Putin is a ‘predator’
    Ms Von der Leyen was making her way from Poland to Bulgaria as part of a seven-country tour of the European Union’s front-line states to pledge the bloc’s support in the face of Russian aggression.

    The European Commission president described Vladamir Putin as a “predator” during a trip to the Poland-Belarus border on Sunday.

    “We have to keep the sense of urgency because we know that Putin has [not changed] and will not change,” Ms von der Leyen added.

    Bulgaria has been a strong supporter of Ukraine since Putin launched his invasion in 2022, having supplied weaponry and artillery.

    In addition to Poland and Bulgaria, she will also visit Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia – which share a border with Russia – as well as Romania.

    It is Ms Von der Leyen’s most significant diplomatic push on EU security and defence since the immediate period after Putin’s invasion.

    The jamming incident comes just days after a Russian missile struck the offices of the British Council and the EU’s delegation to Ukraine in Kyiv.

    Britain and the EU accused the Kremlin of deliberately targeting their buildings in the aerial barrage, both summoning their local Russian ambassadors for a dressing down.

    Cindy James
    8 min ago
    Didn’t planes take off and land perfectly safely before GPS was even invented?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/09/01/ursula-von-der-leyen-plane-forced-land-blind-russia/

  64. Ursula von der Leyen’s plane has been targeted by suspected Russian interference, forcing her pilot to land using paper maps.

    A jet carrying the European Commission president to Plovdiv in Bulgaria on Sunday had its GPS navigation services disabled, a spokeswoman for the bloc told The Telegraph.

    The plane was forced to circle the airport for an hour before the pilot landed using analogue maps in what officials said was “undeniable interference”.

    The European Commission spokeswoman said: “We can confirm there was GPS jamming but the plane landed safe.

    “We have received information from Bulgarian authorities that they suspect this blatant interference was carried out by Russia. We are well aware that threats and intimidation are a regular component of Russia’s hostile actions.”

    The official said the suspected sabotage underlines their commitment to ramping up defence.

    GPS jamming prevents pilots from being able to access the plane’s satellite-based navigation system.

    It has been increasingly used by Moscow to disrupt civilian life, which EU countries have warned could cause a major air disaster.

    Since the war in Ukraine started in 2022, jamming incidents have become more common in the Baltic Sea and eastern European states, which are located near Russia.

    Lithuania said in July it had located more than 10 locations in the Russian enclave of Kalininigrad “from where Russia is causing this interference”.

    Pilots in the country reported disruptions to their GPS communications on more than 1,000 occasions in June, a major jump from just 46 times during the previous month.

    Estonia and Finland also criticised Moscow for alleged jamming incidents last year.

    Putin is a ‘predator’
    Ms Von der Leyen was making her way from Poland to Bulgaria as part of a seven-country tour of the European Union’s front-line states to pledge the bloc’s support in the face of Russian aggression.

    The European Commission president described Vladamir Putin as a “predator” during a trip to the Poland-Belarus border on Sunday.

    “We have to keep the sense of urgency because we know that Putin has [not changed] and will not change,” Ms von der Leyen added.

    Bulgaria has been a strong supporter of Ukraine since Putin launched his invasion in 2022, having supplied weaponry and artillery.

    In addition to Poland and Bulgaria, she will also visit Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia – which share a border with Russia – as well as Romania.

    It is Ms Von der Leyen’s most significant diplomatic push on EU security and defence since the immediate period after Putin’s invasion.

    The jamming incident comes just days after a Russian missile struck the offices of the British Council and the EU’s delegation to Ukraine in Kyiv.

    Britain and the EU accused the Kremlin of deliberately targeting their buildings in the aerial barrage, both summoning their local Russian ambassadors for a dressing down.

    Cindy James
    8 min ago
    Didn’t planes take off and land perfectly safely before GPS was even invented?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/09/01/ursula-von-der-leyen-plane-forced-land-blind-russia/

    2. They did indeed. Many airports have approaches based on GPS but there is always a back up based on a radio beacon. Maybe the weather was poor and so the back up not accurate enough to allow a landing.

    3. In the days before GPS and radar on small private vessels it was quite mind-concentrating to be in a small sailing boat without an engine and out at sea in a fog so dense that you could not see the bows of your boat but could feel the rumble and hear the sound of the engines of a large tanker passing by quite close.

    4. The Russians did not strike the British Council and EU Offices in Kiev. They did however strike targets in the vicinity and some see this as a warning sign that President Putin is becoming fed up with the interference of the EU in seeking to prolong the war in Ukraine.

      President Trump wants to see an end to the killing in Ukraine. The EU by contrast wishes to keep the war going. The EU are shit scared that Trump will withdraw entirely from Europe and spend US taxpayer money elsewhere. The EU and UK are essentially bankrupt and need to keep the money coming from the US without which they would loose their inflated salaries, perks and lofty positions within the EU bureaucracy.

  65. Apparently, football clubs have been buying and selling players. I didn't realise the price of slaves had gone up so much, are they included in the CPI basket of goods.. Thankfully, mine should be good few a good few years yet.

    1. My slave has managed to hoover the house without blowing up the appliance. (One of my specialities.)
      Silly man. He's now got the job for life.

  66. Is this guy for real? Stick with experience, aka the Tories! 🤣🤣

    Fourteen years of the slow death of a thousand cuts of globalist governance; Brexit betrayal; lockdowns and psyops; mass immigration despite the promises of ending this dangerous trend, and the final nail in the coffin, so useless that <10,000,000 voters put the current Labour shower in power with an unassailable majority.

    You're done because the electorate are done with you and fourteen years of lies and mis-management. You're part and parcel of a deceitful Uni-party and people see it and know it.

    https://x.com/ComendadorMBF/status/1962179067307786739

    2. The Conservative Party replaces ‘torch’ icon with oak tree logo
      The Conservative Party is ditching its famous “freedom torch” logo after almost 30 years and replacing it with an oak tree.

      That logo is as pathetic as the party which uses it.

  69. Who within Labour Party wants Ange out of the way?

    3 pads tip off to Press.
    stamp duty avoidance tip off to Press.
    wealth protection firm hired tip off to Press.
    3 electoral votes tip off to Press.

    Gotta be 2TK.

    1. I suspect that Cabinet meetings are more like ferrets in a sack.
      Nobody does hatred like the brothers and sisters.

  70. I find software to do with networks quite dull, but it's where the industry has gone for a while.

    However, some days I just get to play with dream level kit: Proper spine switches at 100gb uplinks, 25gb to the desktop.

    Properly expensive kit, all solid state storage to little mini PCs on the desktop, all with two gloriously fancy 4k 32" OLED monitors. One chap was clocking 2GB/s file copies. That's a desktop cost of about ÂŁ3000 each, storage of another 8K and network running close to ÂŁ4000.

    I get it, they're one of these fancy video editing studio folk but that sort of kit is just lovely to play with.

    1. Wibbles, I can only dream of using network speeds like the ones you mentioned.

      From 1994 until 1999 I was managing an NHS Wide Area Network of 18 General Practice surgeries connected by ‘kilostream’ links to our central office. Those were the days of General Practice Fundholding, when surgeries had their own budgets to spend as they wished. Six of us in the central office were spending around £31 million per year remotely on the GPs’ behalf.

      We used 18 remote Cisco routers which were running at a fantastic (!) 64 kilobits per second (the fastest we could afford from British Telecom then). I had to visit all 18 surgeries to install Microsoft Office from 21 floppy disks – over an hour each time. Everybody expects high speed Internet nowadays. How things change.

  71. Starmer’s New Minister SpAd Set to Take Responsibilities From McFadden

    The out-of-left field decision to appoint Darren Jones as a personal Shadow Chancellor for Starmer is a sign of the malaise in Downing Street. A common answer for which is to claim that No10 lacks “economic clout” et cetera – appointing more Treasury-minded people rarely fixes anything…
    *
    *

    Leon
    1h
    The Darren Jones who claimed on BBC-QT that most small boat occupants were Women and Children? https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b2036bbbe3d777ea3283747e190fefbd9e9005af39974c13eb92f9f4955136b5.png
    Tom Moncrieff
    Leon
    51m
    He’s an out and out liar who treats us with contempt.

    2. He was lying. He knew he was lying. He didn't care that he was lying.

      'We know they are lying, they know we know they're lying…'

  72. 412143+ up ticks,

    Any thoughts on the health and safety of the indigenous peoples ?
    Only asking because there are still to many indigenous
    believing the foreign invaders have a right to hold on too that, that they have purloined and been granted by cretinous, treacherous, fools.

    Dt,
    Asylum seeker ‘too depressed’ to be deported
    Sri Lankan mother of five wins appeal to stay in UK, citing mental health issues and fear of persecution

  73. Torsten Bell’s Brother Leaves Downing Street Policy Unit

    Tom Moncrieff
    2h
    Labour have more relatives as MPs and staff working together than any other party and more old school/old chambers friends, including in the judiciary.

    Captain Sensible
    3h
    He’s a dead ringer for his bro.

    1. Imagine the uproar they would create if Reform did this. Or of the Tories had.

  75. UK 30-Year Gilt Yields Reach Highest Level Since 1998 Under Labour

    As ministers return to Westminster, 30-year gilt yields are up to 5.64% this morning, the highest level since 1998. That’s up on last Tuesday’s high of 5.62%. Piling pressure on Reeves as borrowing costs soar ahead of the budget…

    At the same time, the Confederation of British Industry said bosses are expected to invest and hire less across all industries in the next three months with consumer services seeing the fastest decline. They’re blaming expected further tax rises along with Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill…

    Meanwhile a Downing Street reshuffle is underway, filling up the Treasury with tax-happy personnel in a pitch to the Left. Things can only get worse…

    1 September 2025 @ 10:24

    Foulan
    3h
    In the US it is reported that the economy grew by 3.3% in the second quarter this year.

    But the US has a President who is not a vapid leftist and who understands business.

    In the UK, the entire government is made up of vapid leftists and they haven't got a clue about business, only socialist dogma. We are doomed!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cc5b3ff49c7957de6983b54e8cb285d949d777433f04600b81c99855c78b4148.png
    Beebsplaining
    3h
    Open the window, that silence is the legacy media, oposition and blobocracy making no noise and covering it up🤔 unlike truss🤔

    Mel stride calls more often for his own leaders to be sacked than this total weapons grade melon😡 https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f84c6b98257a56e0ba6e28b5ac8c541d38f553bff4627ff1055f5d52dd319b73.png

    Sea_Warrior
    3h
    Meanwhile, Singapore's latest 'T-bill' auction was heavily oversubscribed, despite the bonds only yielding about 1.44%. I think this can be explained by Singapore's grown-ups being far more grown-up than Labour's grown-ups.

    Mr Blue Sky
    Sea_Warrior
    22m
    And yet we are giving Climate Aid to Singapore……….

    1. We all expected Labour to ruin the economy. That's a given. They do it every time. What really gets my goat is the silence from the media to hide their utter useless failure.

      When the BoE sent gilt yields soaring Al Beeb was screaming. The FT was full of it. The OBR, Economist – the whole incestuous Left were full of it.

      But now, when things are far worse, caused solely by the Labour policies? Silence. That's simply a complete , deliberate refusal to do their jobs solely because they're all part of the same group, handing one another jobs. It's insulting.

    4. One of the knock-on effects of raising taxes is making the ÂŁ scarcer.. and you're seeing it gain against the $ all year.
      Not for long though.

  76. Arora Borealis
    Thought some would be interested. I doubt that it would be visible from West Sussex

    "An incoming pair of solar storms will bring northern lights to latitudes as far south as Birmingham and Norwich on Monday night, according to the latest forecasts.

    The two Earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs) erupted from the Sun just hours apart over the weekend, with the second and larger CME expected to engulf and overtake the first just before they reach our atmosphere.

    The rare even is referred to as a “cannibal CME” by scientists, and is expected to produce spectacular auroras in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere.

    The latest space weather forecast from the UK Met Office suggests the northern lights could be visible from Monday night until Wednesday night across most parts of the country."

    1. About 1984, in winter, saw the Northern Lights over Northampton, from Newport Pagnell. Wondered what all that glow in the clouds was, weirdly greenish, then it split up and wandered off!

    3. KBO, Our Susan. Try not to pick up some bug – hospitals are full of germs.

      When I was in the NNUH, watching the "cleaners" was a larf a minute…

      1. When in Addenbrookes for a week a few months back I watched the cleaner chap. He was always clattering about the ward doing what I can only describe as moving dust and dirt around.

        The cleaner was forever changing his rubber gloves and had a fascination with my personal locker unit. I found subsequently that I was missing several brand new Hermko German long vests. I reckon the bastard snaffled them because every other bed was occupied with men in a far worse condition than me, some it seemed at death’s door and unable to get out of bed unassisted.

        1. I remember when my father was aged about 80 he visited a hospital and, looking around the waiting room, he remarked to me that the place seemed very full of old people. He added, after reflectiong for a moment that he was probably the oldest person there.

        2. Here in Sweden it is impossible to tell who is a doctor, who is a nurse and who is a cleaner. They all wear exactly the same white garb.

    8. Pleased to see you’re on the road to recovery.
      Haven’t posted very often as we’re now on the seventh week of our bungalow refit. Hopefully back in next week. Out daughter and sil returning to Dubai today on their 35th wedding anniversary.

    2. Of course we do – but you can go and fornicate elsewhere if you think you can use the truth to catch me out.

    1. That's precisely why Blair fiddled with the Treasonable offence laws. Those bastards knew exactly what was being planned and would be carried out. And he's hidden it all with 'D' Notices. Someone seriously needs to start digging and sort all of this out.

  80. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/06fcdc7bccdf2f83d7167eb4e134e85250bf78cd3d80eb784290d823ea95ba6c.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f9f1ac94e6f35ad5843422d6c273bcf1cbec5e5c24fb834a59f307a682f2e088.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/626fcd60e23d966089d27b6bccc6c5fbfa4985ff89e270c052fa843f6089556b.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/30feec7f63ffcc2ca43c2cb1c55bb945820800630018d72b90d3f788d865c64f.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d2c4b6f1cb83b7a0057f393996a49e80ae89ea32b36dca7e3d7431fe058c228a.png
    Courtesy of Dead Joe and Michael Hazel et al.

    1. For many years now I have worn the left's infantile names as badges of pride. Most if not all were invented merely to stifle debate, debate that they can't afford to allow for the simple reason that they have no debate.

  83. Well, the weather is gusty , drying wind , sunshine .. so decided to wash the kitchen floor .. largish kitchen , usual clutter , table , a couple of chairs , dog basket , and other stuff and mats .. Moh is like a jumping bean , he is very hyperactive .. he stepped out of the back door with the mats , and fell over flat out .. grazed his knee and bruised .. thank goodness didn't crack his head .. and got stuck between dustbin and back door plants ..

    Talking about me , , I was in shock .. son with bad hands and I managed to roll him over then assess him then sit him up .. and eventually lift him, bleeding knee , he is very lucky ..

    Well, his sugar levels were down to 4.5 .. now raised a little thanks to glucose tablets.

    I eventually cleaned the kitchen floor , and washed kitchen cupboard doors etc .. got rid of spiders .. and other gunk .

    Moh had a shock , I told him not to be such a Billy Whizz.. he is the hare and I am the tortoise , and I hope he has no more trippy incidents .

    So to all of you Type 2 diabetics , keep an eye on your glucose pin prick tests !

        1. Hope he will be more careful…….. make sure you yourself stay fit or they will have to look after themselves…….

    2. First act of the day is to prick my finger (I think I got that the right way round) and take my B/S level, usually hovering around 7.5 to 8.3

      1. Yes , lots of bruised photos , she is coping , 2nd sister has flown back North of Johannesburg to join her husband , she spent 10 days with no1 sis, and really kept her eye on her and was a great help.

        Friends are now rallying around , and I spoke to her yesterday, crutches are an ordeal but she has to use them , on orders .. she will be having physio soon and stitches out .

        South Africans are blessed with spacious bungalows .. she is so close to the beach in Muizenberg but is unable to obviously access the sea front .. she said the only comfort was hearing the sea and listening to the gulls . Her anxiety is her garden , plagued with mole rat mounds , they are as large as small cats , and are as bald and ugly as sin .. they burrow and chew the roots of exotic plants .

        I am still glad I am here in the UK though !!

        1. I am glad your sis is getting support.
          Our family were on our hols in SA and saw the new millennium in on Muizenberg strand. It was fffffreezing!

          1. Yes it can be very cold , but bracing , weather straight from the Antarctic , but it can also be very warm and dry , and the mountains are prone to outbreaks of fire .

        2. Sorry to hear of your woes and glad you’re here in ENGLAND.
          Let’s be more proud of our country.

        3. Sorry to hear of your woes and glad you’re here in ENGLAND.
          Let’s be more proud of our country.

        4. That’s good – what an unfortunate thing to happen, but it sounds as though she has made good progress and your other sister has been able to return home. She’ll just have to let the garden go, or have someone to see to it.

    1. Typical Leftie Tw@t
      80% of white people wayist.. and more importantly.. displaying St George's Cross is against International Leftie Law.

      1. I suppose you could argue that Democracy means that the majority wins the day.

        If 80% of white people are racist then it is the 20% of white people who are out of step and politicians have a duty to uphold the views of the majority.

    2. Typical Leftie Tw@t
      80% of white people wayist.. and more importantly.. displaying St George's Cross is against International Leftie Law.

    3. That face is eminently slappable! And the kit….what sad middle aged tw*t wears a replica football top to go out in?

      1. Thousands upon thousands do this. It's mainstream, the norm, an everyday sight. Many men, including the middle-aged, wear replica football tops in pubs, clubs and on the streets. That Arsenal strip is particularly hideous, but it doesn't matter to those who wear them.

  87. Sorry but not sorry moment.

    CEO dubbed 'most hated man in America' for stealing boy's cap at US Open finally makes apology

    Then again Trans mass shooter Robin Westman of Minneapolis gets a free pass, but steal a hat and OMG.

  88. Sorry but not sorry moment.

    CEO dubbed 'most hated man in America' for stealing boy's cap at US Open finally makes apology

  95. Starmer Reaches His 23rd Reset

    Starmer is pitching this latest Downing Street reset as a “bolstering” of his operation: “The return of parliament marks a new term and a ramping up of the next phase of this government’s domestic agenda– relentless delivery on our Plan for Change.” Guido’s Starmer reset counter just pinged…

    September 2020: Starmer used a ‘new leadership’ slogan to try and relaunch his leadership.
    January 2021: Starmer used another speech to launch the slogan ‘Secure, Protect, Rebuild’
    February 2021: Starmer launched his ‘New Chapter for Britain’ with a ‘policy blitz’.
    June 2021: Labour changed slogan to ‘Stronger Together’.
    September 2021: Starmer wrote a 14,000 word ‘mission statement’ with no new policies in an attempt to ‘reset’ his leadership.
    December 2021: Starmer claimed that after a year and a half of leadership, he would be setting out his ‘ideas’ to ‘build a new Britain’ throughout 2022.
    January 2022: A year after ‘secure, protect, rebuild’, Starmer reset his leadership with a ‘security, prosperity, respect’ slogan.
    April 2022: Starmer relaunched his leadership with a new slogan, ‘On your side’.
    June 2022: Labour confirmed another ‘policy blitz’ after their failed ‘blitz’ in 2021.
    January 2023: Starmer used a speech to reset his leadership and pitch himself as the ‘candidate of optimism.’
    February 2023: Starmer set out his own Five Missions for Britain.
    March 2023: Starmer launched his local elections campaign with his twelfth slogan: ‘Build a better Britain’.
    May 2023: Starmer set out his plan to reform the Labour Party, going ‘further and deeper than New Labour’s rewriting of clause iv’.
    October 2023: Starmer changed his Five Missions for Britain – ditching his commitment to the highest growth in the G7 to ‘get Britain building again’.
    January 2024: Starmer used his new year speech to pitch the general election as a chance to ‘turn the page, lift the weight off our shoulders, unite as a country, and get out future back’.
    May 2024: Starmer relaunched Tony Blair’s 1997-style pledge card.
    July 2024: Starmer changed Labour’s primary mission again to ‘securing economic growth’.
    October 2024: Starmer was forced into relaunching his Number 10 operation following the resignation of Sue Gray.
    December 2024: Starmer delivers his “Plan for Change”.
    March 2025: Big pitch on reforming Whitehall with programme to scrap quangos and reform way civil servants work.
    May 2025: “Securing Our Borders” reset and new slogan on immigration policy.
    July 2025: Cabinet away day seeks to reset the tone of government, fails.
    September 2025: Downing Street reset.
    Tim Allan is Starmer’s fourth communications director in five years. Hint: it’s not the communications…

    September 1 2025 @ 15:00

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/213556017250343bc956263f94d6f21d50432a76ff7cdf197401d72634fbf42a.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/331947c530abf02028e23a40d94158cb8234e74ce5477863b3340d3ca00ee13d.gif

  96. Racist abuse is too often 'tolerated or even normalised' in the English countryside, controversial new report claims
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15054913/Racist-abuse-tolerated-normalised-English-countryside-controversial-new-report-claims.html

    "Racism in the English countryside is ‘getting worse’, with abuse too often tolerated or even normalised, according to a controversial new report. A two-year project by University of Leicester academics concluded the countryside is ‘often perceived as a predominantly White space’ which leaves ethnic minorities feeling like ‘outsiders’. But rural campaigners have rejected the findings as ‘nonsense’ which are not ‘supported by the evidence’, pointing out that urban areas record far more race hate crimes than rural areas."

    DOES CONSTANTLY TELLING PEOPLE THEY ARE RACIST BIGOTS MAKE THEM MORE OR LESS RACIST AND BIGOTED?

    2. The 'racist countryside' nonsense turns up every few months. Naturally, Countryfile has featured it more than once. White urbanites sometimes get abused in the countryside, usually because they don't know how to behave in it. However, I suspect there are still some parts where even a strange white face is greeted with "You're not from round 'ere, are yer?"

    3. Given that Leicester’s population is over 50% ethnic, I wonder if there was some degree of bias in that report.

    4. It may come as a shock to "University of Leicester academics" but people in the countryside live in the same Britain as people in the town. Many country dwellers even visit towns regularly!
      Why don't they just come out and admit they hate white people?

    5. When I go for a walk in the countryside, I am constantly coming across gates with a sign saying 'White people only'.

    6. We (deep Welsh agriland bigotsville, if the PYB are to be believed) used to have a horse to whom we referred as " the Black Rapist" Which he was. No doubt we were overheard. What is the matter with people?

      1. This is why people shouldn't listen in on others people's conversations. They don't get the context.

        People who eavesdrop rarely hear something that pleases them.

      1. The specimen guage is 6 feet above the ground – I think I should be in the Guinness Book of Records

    3. 22mm rainfall today represents 1/4 of the total summer rainfall in one part of East Anglia.

  99. French hospitals have been ordered to make preparations for an imminent war in Europe as Germany says it is on alert for Russia's military drills.

    France's ministry of health has told health bodies across the country to prepare for a possible 'major engagement' by March 2026, according to documents obtained by Le Canard EnchaĂŽnĂŠ.

    The French government is predicting a scenario where the nation would become a supporting state that has the capacity to take a massive number of wounded soldiers from France and other European nations. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15054555/Europe-prepares-WW3-MONTHS-France-orders-hospitals-ready-war-year-Germany-warns-alert-Putin-use-forthcoming-military-drills-ATTACK-Europe.html

    1. When governments of failed countries realise the public despise them and utterly reject their policies the leaders always choose to focus on foreign policy. It is as though they would rather be seen poncing about and posturing on the mythical World Stage instead of dealing with the crises at home.

      So it is with Ursula, Macron, Merz and Starmer. They have no solutions or even any particular plans for their own economies except the continuation and acceleration of those that have already failed. They think that we might be distracted by some foreign war and that identifying Russia as the enemy will unify us.

      These leaders have several problems. Firstly we see through their games, secondly we do not view Russia as an adversary but as a successful and powerful economic force and thirdly, we know full well that Russia would rather not have to deal with the Banderites and corrupt politicians running the present Ukraine and based in Kiev and Lvov.

      Finallly, President Putin has stated time and again the purposes and aims of his military action and that he has no designs whatever on mainland European countries. Putin’s demands are eminently reasonable but western politicians choose not to listen and instead wish to drive on with confrontation and deathly conflict.

    2. Of course this has nothing at all to do with looming political and financial crisis in France…
      It's useful that they have put a time limit on it though. Handy to know that the people with the inside information think it's going to kick off before March next year.

    5. At the present rate of advance in Ukraine, I doubt if any of us here need worry about Vlad arriving on the beaches of Calais.

        1. By the time Vlad reaches the Channel we will need rescuing from the caliphate or some other minority group that has taken over the country. Sadly, I’m too old to consider legging it but if I decline with dementia, I am to be taken to the back of beyond in Asia and looked after for ÂŁ50 a month! No problem with me, I shall be king of the village and did a quick trial this summer where I was glad-handed and photographed being the only bulĂŠ ever to visit.

  100. Afternoon all. Just back from a very interesting talk about Shropshire photographed from a hot air balloon. I have tried 3 times to get a flight but the weather defeated me each time then I had to fly home (from Australia and Canada respectively).
    Of course we need to exploit our own resources. Only idiots would think otherwise. Unfortunately the country is run by idiots.

    1. Used to have quite a number here pre-Covid/lockdown days , no longer – possibly stopped trading.

  101. Wordle No. 1,535 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 1 Sep 2025

    Minimum for Birdie Three?

    2. Bugger! Might have had an eagle but there were four options to complete -EAST and I used three of them!

      Wordle 1,535 4/6

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

          2. Still dont get the Christine reference?

            As to Audrey H – I've said before that's not a bad comparison! Classy!

          3. Audrey H was when I was young, Christine when I was older…Lord knows now 😂😂😂

    3. Well done. My regular 1st word stood me in good stead.

      Wordle 1,535 2/6

      🟨⬜⬜🟩🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. Wow, well done. I got four letters right in my first guess and still didn't get it right until 3.

      1. Yes. Sue is doing well. Still recovering. A bit of fluid on the lungs but nothing to be concerned about. The lady has posted further down the thread and Nottlers are in contact with her.

        1. She might not be going to convalescent home quite as soon as was previously thought. Still seems chirpy though. Apparently fluid retention runs in her family so she knows quite a lot about it, which must help.

    5. Well done Lacoste. Me too, today

      Wordle 1,535 3/6

      🟨⬜🟨🟨🟨
      🟩🟨⬜🟨🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  103. I don't really follow politics in the UK. Not much point. But I have noticed that the Oik Sweetling (or whatever he's called) has been remarkably (and uncharacteristically) silent these last weeks.

  104. Right – that's me gone for today. There WAS some rain for about 20 minutes – enough to dampen the vegetables but not do any real good. About an inch in all the water butts. Maybe there'll be some more tonight. I doubt it.

    Tomorrow I am going to be fitted with a hearing aid:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11e142ca84ae303cbff8ff4f5f14bb223ccde883e4cfac3f0bfa2c768e35b826.png One for each ear, I believe. Bet they won't make any difference. I said, I BET THEY….

    So have a spiffing evening dreaming of the Growler as Prime Minister.

    A demain.

    3. Get the Bluetooth ones, Bilty.
      They've made huge difference for my mother – ten times better than her old ones.

    4. She'd be no worse than the incumbent. The role of British Prime Minister has shrivelled to such an extent that the people capable of doing it well no longer have the ambition to do so. There are far more worthwhile things they can be doing with their time and talents.

  106. LOL of the day. The Orange Oracle strikes again.. how do Leftie Mayors react?

    Trump Declares D.C. "Crime-Free Zone in 12 days!

    then Urges Leftist Mayors To Join Him On Restoring Law & Order

    BREAKING: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signs executive order to limit Chicago authorities from working with federal law enforcement and to try to stop Trump from sending the national guard

    He doesn’t want his city to become safer

    Unreal

      1. British caricaturists do not often resort to putting name labels on the characters they are depicting.

  107. LOL of the day. The Orange Oracle strikes again.. how do Leftie Mayors react?

    Trump Declares D.C. "Crime-Free Zone in 12 days!

    then Urges Leftist Mayors To Join Him On Restoring Law & Order

    BREAKING: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signs executive order to limit Chicago authorities from working with federal law enforcement and to try to stop Trump from sending the national guard

    He doesn’t want his city to become safer

    Unreal

  109. Madeline Grant in the Spekkie. No wonder they lured her from the Tellygraff.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-is-downing-streets-david-brent/#comments-container

    Keir Starmer is Downing Street’s David Brent

    1 September 2025, 4:26pm

    How many resets does it take to make a doom loop? In another attempt to work out what the problem with his government is – and with all the mirror salesmen in the capital presumably on holiday – Keir Starmer has done another mini-reshuffle. ‘Phase two of my government starts today’ he says in a fatuous video clip, deploying that nasal whine which you had probably mercifully forgotten over the recess.

    Obviously all this isn’t actually phase two but probably closer to phase 14. This time it’s involved the mass import of people from a thing called ‘The Resolution Foundation’. It sounds like one of those organisations set up by upper-class socialists in the 1930s which advocated for the forced sterilisation of people who wore glasses and then went mysteriously quiet after 1945. Actually, it’s almost as malign: a group of weedy freaks who have never worked anywhere other than leftist think tank world yet still have very strong opinions on how much of your money the state should be pocketing. Clue: a lot. These are the people now running the economy: it’s going to be like Children of the Corn but directed by Richard Curtis.

    Alongside the exultation of these weird nerds has come the apotheosis of Darren Jones. Jones says his hero is Tony Blair and has enjoyed the absolute archetypal Labour rise; student union politics to the NHS to legal activism to a perpetual paper candidate before being gifted a safe seat. For him to become the PM’s Chief Secretary, or senior enforcer, felt grimly inevitable. The one silver lining is that this new role seems to be modelled on the Principal Secretary who worked for the Tudor monarchs. Welcome to Wolf Hall: the LinkedIn Years.

    Alongside his embarrassing motivational clip, Starmer decided to launch this with an even stranger interview with Matt Chorley in Downing Street itself. He began by going through a weird ‘Changing Rooms’ style description of the cabinet room. ‘There’s a long table with lots of chairs round it for all the members of the cabinet’. Presumably David Lammy’s has his name on it, whilst Big Ange’s is suspended over a shark pit.

    He then introduced phase two, which is apparently about ‘delivery, delivery, delivery’. ‘Delivery is absolutely the key word’, ‘focus on this delivery’ etc. It all made him sound like a sort of fanatical postman. The image of the PM squeezed into those gimpy little shorts they now make postmen wear is not one that anybody wants.

    Whenever Starmer tries to appear normal, he ends up sounding like a mixture of David Brent and the acid bath murderer. As he was asked about the proliferation of flags across the country, there came some absolutely classic examples of the genre. ‘I’m a supporter of flags’, he began. ‘I always sit in front of the Union Jack’, he insisted. Always? I can just imagine a flunky following the PM around – to his local, on trains, as he goes to the lavatory, just to ensure he is always in the presence of a Union Jack. Determined to make things even weirder, Starmer informed Chorley that he had a St George’s Flag up in his flat, as if he was trying to entice him upstairs in order to kill and eat him.

    In other tricky questions, the PM was asked about Ange and her big house giveaway. The PM insisted that briefing against her was ‘a big mistake’, which, given his allies have spent previous summers doing so, suggests he is capable of at least some form of learning curve. There then came the priceless moment when he accidentally referred to her as ‘a great prime minister’. After gobbling like a turkey into the airwaves to correct himself, he then said that ordinary people would look at Rayner in the deputy’s office and think, ‘I could do that’. Yes, I’m sure a lot of people do.

    1. Cooper suspends refugee family reunion applications in overhaul of asylum system
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cvg02j6yvdrt

      I suspect this is part of The Reset. Does he think we're fooled by it?

      I'd applaud Starmer and Cooper if they said they were going to reunite immigrants with their families – but in their homelands, of course.

  110. My word I've just had to turn off the TV news
    starmer was sitting in the cabinet meeting room of Downing Street scooping out more lies.

    1. Did you miss Justin Rowlatt telling us this has been the "hottest summer on record"? He's too young to remember 1976 of course.

      2. By what measure? Average daytime? Day and night maxima/average? Number of daytime maxima? Any other calculation he cares to mention?

      4. I saw something like that the other day and commented on 1976.
        We had mains stand pipes in our street.

        1. That is indicative of the much improved water management over the past 49 years. A great deal of water loss through mains pipes has been reduced such that our reservoirs are drained rather less quickly than would once have been the case. I strongly suspect that water consumption has been reduced, too, through the transition from baths to showers and the deindustrialisation of the British economy.

      5. Yes, he is too young to remember, which is why he's relying on official Met Office pronouncements. I do remember 1976 and I have no reason to disbelieve what the Met Office is telling us. Seasonal temperature records are not determined by rainfall or daily peak maxima. They rely on an average of temperatures throughout the day and night across the entire country. One person's experience in one location in the middle of the afternoon over a succession of well remembered days tells us little about what is happening from Shetland to the Scilly Isles nor from Dover to Londonderry in the afternoon, evening, overnight and morning every day of every month from 1st June to 31st August.

        1. If you looked more closely into the Met Office data, you’d know that most of their measuring devices are of ‘junk’ status – ie very close to airport runways, surrounded by hot tarmac, in very sheltered micro-climates like walled gardens and similar “urban heat island” type spots.

          This summer has been a very good one but with no excessively hot temperatures, eg the one they always quote as “hottest ever” taken at RAF Coningsby on July 19th 2022. It’s been very dry, certainly, but in 1976 there were stand-pipes in the streets and a much smaller population with fewer people using showers and washing machines.

  111. #5 2TK tip off to the Press.

    The 'remarkable coincidence' that 'three pads Rayner' avoids inheritance tax: Deputy PM's constituency home is valued at EXACT threshold when tax becomes payable

    1. It's what it's valued at when she dies that counts. And the Capital Taxes Office of HMRC can dispute what they think might be an undervalue anyway. So the remarkable coincidence is really not noteworthy.

      1. So even with house price inflation it will still be ÂŁ650,000 when she dies………………………

  114. Madeline Grant
    Keir Starmer is Downing Street’s David Brent
    1 September 2025, 4:26pm

    How many resets does it take to make a doom loop? In another attempt to work out what the problem with his government is – and with all the mirror salesmen in the capital presumably on holiday – Keir Starmer has done another mini-reshuffle. ‘Phase two of my government starts today’ he says in a fatuous video clip, deploying that nasal whine which you had probably mercifully forgotten over the recess.

    Obviously all this isn’t actually phase two but probably closer to phase 14. This time it’s involved the mass import of people from a thing called ‘The Resolution Foundation’. It sounds like one of those organisations set up by upper-class socialists in the 1930s which advocated for the forced sterilisation of people who wore glasses and then went mysteriously quiet after 1945. Actually, it’s almost as malign: a group of weedy freaks who have never worked anywhere other than leftist think tank world yet still have very strong opinions on how much of your money the state should be pocketing. Clue: a lot. These are the people now running the economy: it’s going to be like Children of the Corn but directed by Richard Curtis.

    Alongside the exultation of these weird nerds has come the apotheosis of Darren Jones. Jones says his hero is Tony Blair and has enjoyed the absolute archetypal Labour rise; student union politics to the NHS to legal activism to a perpetual paper candidate before being gifted a safe seat. For him to become the PM’s Chief Secretary, or senior enforcer, felt grimly inevitable. The one silver lining is that this new role seems to be modelled on the Principal Secretary who worked for the Tudor monarchs. Welcome to Wolf Hall: the LinkedIn Years.

    Alongside his embarrassing motivational clip, Starmer decided to launch this with an even stranger interview with Matt Chorley in Downing Street itself. He began by going through a weird ‘Changing Rooms’ style description of the cabinet room. ‘There’s a long table with lots of chairs round it for all the members of the cabinet’. Presumably David Lammy’s has his name on it, whilst Big Ange’s is suspended over a shark pit.

    He then introduced phase two, which is apparently about ‘delivery, delivery, delivery’. ‘Delivery is absolutely the key word’, ‘focus on this delivery’ etc. It all made him sound like a sort of fanatical postman. The image of the PM squeezed into those gimpy little shorts they now make postmen wear is not one that anybody wants.

    Whenever Starmer tries to appear normal, he ends up sounding like a mixture of David Brent and the acid bath murderer. As he was asked about the proliferation of flags across the country, there came some absolutely classic examples of the genre. ‘I’m a supporter of flags’, he began. ‘I always sit in front of the Union Jack’, he insisted. Always? I can just imagine a flunky following the PM around – to his local, on trains, as he goes to the lavatory, just to ensure he is always in the presence of a Union Jack. Determined to make things even weirder, Starmer informed Chorley that he had a St George’s Flag up in his flat, as if he was trying to entice him upstairs in order to kill and eat him.

    In other tricky questions, the PM was asked about Ange and her big house giveaway. The PM insisted that briefing against her was ‘a big mistake’, which, given his allies have spent previous summers doing so, suggests he is capable of at least some form of learning curve. There then came the priceless moment when he accidentally referred to her as ‘a great prime minister’. After gobbling like a turkey into the airwaves to correct himself, he then said that ordinary people would look at Rayner in the deputy’s office and think, ‘I could do that’. Yes, I’m sure a lot of people do.

    I******************************

    Que1
    2 hours ago edited
    It is, as we have come to expect from Ms Grant, a first class article.
    But recall, despite our opportunity to comment, this person is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
    I am truly ashamed that he is so.

    1. I could do that indeed – and a darn sight better, too. In fact, Winston and Kadi would make a better job of being deputy PM! Cromwell was at least efficient and ran the country well until he made the mistake of brokering the union with Cleves.

      1. I couldn't see one either, and that's after watching the video twenty nine times.
        I think it's some kind of hoax.

    2. Nah, that was the previous craze. Second Son ha one that's not been used for a few years now. Now, it's electric (2 wheel) scooters which, over here, you can pick up off the street for not a lot of money rental, and scoot off somewhere, rental by the minute.

      2. OK, good try.
        You're pretending you don't wobble, where even "wibble" would trip over his dogs….

        1. I don't use them at all. Would be flat and broken before the electronic payment has gone through.

    1. Takes me back. London clubs dancing til 4.am.

      Then off to the all night cafe to wait for the buses and trains to start.

      3. I remember on Fridays drinking a few pints of Ruddles in the Ship & Shovel under the arches at Charing Cross and on closing moving on to the Players’ Theatre nearby where we enjoyed extended hours.

        There was a wonderful underground bar nearby which was not obvious and you had to be shown its existence. It was at the bottom of Villiers Street and the entrance was a non-descript panelled door. There was a steep staircase down to the bar which was literally under the arches.

        You could purchase a large glass of Rioja for a ÂŁ1.00 served from a barrel behind the bar. The bar had a thick copper clad top I remember. The furniture consisted of old centre tables and rickety chairs presumably from house clearances.

        The atmosphere of that smoke-filled cavern was wonderful. Such memories.

        1. We probably walked past each other. The club i went to was in Villiers St Under the Arches at Charing Cross.

          8. Speaking of which i had trouble sleeping last night so played online bingo and slots. I lost ÂŁ800.
            Net win was ÂŁ7,200.

  120. I have an idea. Much as I love them, my dear office colleagues who physically go into work two days a week, should try doing 4 x 12 hour shifts each week in the hospital. I know each chooses their profession but for graft, the nurses and surgeons win.

    I saw a touching scene in the intensive care unit last week. Quit late, a bed was wheeled in containing an elderly man who was out for the count and accompanied by his wife. She was followed by my surgeon and he introduced himself. She threw her arms around him. No need for further narrative.

    2. I am sure Stormy can tell you similar. The lady often works double shifts. You think you might be up for lunch in October? You gals can exchange notes. I doubt anyone would mind leaving it until you are ready. Though we might do an inbetween !

    3. My wife Carol and I often ponder how different our lives would have been had we been allowed to work from home instead of commuting.

      We worked in an era where, whilst not exactly clocking on and off, we were expected to work all hours to meet targets. We worked hard whilst our “bosses” indulged themselves and took the credit for our hard work and the money in fees we earned for them.

      When working on Richmond House in Whitehall I lived in Cambridge, got out of bed at 5.00am, took the 6.15 am train from Cambridge to Liverpool Street, then the Tube to Westminster to sit down with the Clerk of Works at 8.00am to answer the Management Contractor’s queries, then Tube to the office in South Kensington and have the coffee on before anyone else had arrived. On one occasion I put the coffee on and took a call from an assistant who claimed to be snowbound in Kew.

      I was often the last to leave the office in the evening, rinse and repeat all week, knackered at the weekend.

      No problem, my boss the Senior Partner was given a knighthood for my efforts. He received a CBE for my previous efforts in a development in Pimlico for The Crown Estates Commissioners.

      Much the same recipe applied to all of my projects when working for practices in London (Norwich and Cambridge too).

      Violins please!

    2. Earlier Today I saw a report on a pale labrador with her 11 new born puppies. Born over an eight hour period. We want one, they are so lovely.

      1. My neighbour told me when i got Dolly as a puppy he noticed a big change in me. I recommend. A cost yes but …

        1. We had one for 11 years.
          I've mentioned this before.
          Twice on separate occasions a couple of years apart. I was sitting in the evening she was on her rug on the lounge floor. I had a serious coughing fit. She got up came over and placed her head on my knee.
          I still get wet eyed talking about it.

        2. For the better, I hope! Dogs are amazing. Now Winston has turned three, I hope to see some improvement in his behaviour – although he hasn't covered himself in glory. A package (admittedly of dog treats) was delivered after it had gone dark and I didn't realise it was there. I let the dogs out for their evening wee and the next morning I found the package eviscerated and the contents devoured. Couriers will insist on dumping parcels on the veranda of my studio (which is about a 100ft from the house) rather than delivering to the house or putting the goods in the stable and closing the door if they're too big to post through the letterbox. I don't think most of them can read English instructions.

          1. A couple of things I've had delivered lately – A box of plug plants which clearly said "This way up" was delivered upside down to my neighbour's side door…….. Fortunately they have recovered. A case of wine – instead of bringing it up the steps to the door, the driver opened the woodshed and put it in there. That meant I had to carry it up the 11 steps and heave it into the hall……..

          2. My studio is about a hundred feet from the house, so heavy items left there are a pain to bring up. I now keep a sack truck in the garage.

  124. Back much better today. Good progress with the zyder chopping shredding pressing. I even had some help from our youngest grandson remember the little lad who had Leukemia and was given the all clear early last year. Such a lovely little lad. And his 2 year old sister sat watching us. Only around 60 more apples to chop and process.
    I might have to buy some soft brown sugar it needs sweetening. That'll up the alcohol content ! Hic….😊🙃🤭🥴

    Champers yeast this time.
    Orff to bed now, night all Nottlers 😴

  125. Andrew Doyle
    31 August 2025 9:00am BST
    Andrew Doyle https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/31/woke-way-out-what-follows-might-be-worse-andrew-doyle/?recomm_id=56bd5ce2-7f54-4e08-ae54-41538669055a

    Woke is on the way out. The scandal of “gender-affirming medicine” continues to be exposed; multiple sporting bodies have barred trans-identifying males from competing in female categories; the Black Lives Matter movement has been largely discredited due to revelations of fraud; and corporate DEI initiatives are being dismantled quicker than you can say “intersectional paradigms of structural oppression”.

    But what comes next? Wokeness was a war on reality. It prioritised individual “ways of knowing” over objective truth. It demanded conformity through authoritarian means. Such traits, however, are common to most ideologies: we should not suppose that a post-woke world will necessarily be any more appealing. Indeed, early indications would suggest that we are following the usual human habit of leaping out of frying pans and into fires.

    What would happen, for instance, if the next dominant phase of authoritarianism enjoyed popular public support? If a government’s immigration policies were so reckless as to admit numbers at an unmanageable pace from countries where free speech and liberty are considered dispensable follies: might this not create the conditions by which democracy could be its own undoing? Is it not feasible, in other words, that a radical shift in demographics could result in citizens voting for less freedom?

    The fear is not as histrionic as it sounds. A recent poll by the Henry Jackson Society found that 52 per cent of British Muslims would make it illegal to display an image of the Prophet Mohammed. A further 32 per cent would like to see the implementation of Sharia law, and the same proportion would support establishing Islam as the national religion.

    An extensive survey conducted for Channel 4 in 2016 found that 39 per cent of British Muslims believed that wives should always be obedient to husbands, 31 per cent agreed that bigamy was acceptable, 47 per cent said that gay people should never be allowed to teach in schools, and 52 per cent thought that homosexuality ought to be criminalised.

    Such figures remind us that multiculturalism has often proved a barrier to assimilation. Rather than make integration a condition of citizenship, many countries have simply relaxed their own standards and implemented parallel systems.

    In the UK, this reached its grim nadir with the grooming gangs scandal, in which authorities failed to grapple with the systematic sexual abuse of children out of fears of being accused of racism. And yet it is difficult to imagine anything more racist than holding migrant communities to lower moral and legal standards.

    Freedom of religion, though hard-won and often contested, has become a defining aspect of our constitutional history. But the liberal values that underpin our society might well be upended if two-tier policies persist and multiculturalism wins out over equal citizenship; we could very well find ourselves sleepwalking into a future in which religious conflicts become significant drivers in the political sphere.

    It is already happening. The Labour Government, eager to win back Muslim voters who were alienated by its supposedly soft stance on Israel, is persisting with its plans to adopt an official definition of “Islamophobia”. This slippery term is regularly applied to those who exhibit genuine anti-Muslim hatred. But it is also often used against those who simply exercise their right to criticise or ridicule a belief-system that they do not share.

    Fiyaz Mughal, founder of Muslim support service Tell Mama, has warned that this will be tantamount to a “blasphemy law by the back door”. The group has launched a campaign to oppose the Government’s plan called “Keep the Law Equal”.

    For many believers, religious authoritarianism has an obvious appeal. This woke movement did not represent an equivalent threat because it was only ever endorsed by a small minority of the public. The statistics are unequivocal. Polling data reported by the Economist found that support for woke causes began to grow in 2015, peaked in 2021, and has been steadily dropping ever since.

    A recent study by the think tank More in Common revealed that those who fulfil the definition of “woke” comprise between eight and ten per cent of the UK population. These were the faddish “luxury beliefs” – to use a term coined by the American sociologist Rob Henderson – of the ruling class, imposed from the top down.

    We will soon discover whether the vacuum left by woke will be occupied by a new form of intolerance, one driven by religious rather than “intersectional” convictions. This could be avoided with a steadfast commitment to equality before the law and an end to two-tier protocols that patronise immigrants and native-born citizens alike. Successive governments have failed to uphold our fundamental values. If this trend continues, it may be that the culture war could evolve into something even more destructive.

    Reginald Front de Boeuf
    4 hrs ago
    It's worrying when the Muslim population in the UK is doubling every twenty years. Of course our current politicians are blind to the issue, because they don't want to acknowledge there is a problem with the Muslim community.

    Tom Donley
    3 hrs ago
    Metrics per Perplexity AI:

    Country/Region Muslim Population (%) Data Year/Source

    England 6.5% 2021 Census

    United Kingdom 6% 2025 Census

    France 10% INSEE Report (2023)

    Germany 6.6% German Islam Conference (2023)

    How is that so many towns in England have muslim mayors? How is that so many communities have 'no-go' areas due to sharia rule? even police fear the area? Why is it that these people who will not assimilate into the country they have moved to only want to recreate where they came from?

    1. Because islam means submission. That's their aim; everything and everyone will submit to their way of doing things.

    2. The writer misses the point. Our government simply does not care. They are globalist stooges paid by that elite to destroy our culture and societal cohesion. They wish to rule over us in ways even George Orwell or Aldous Huxley could never have imagined.

      My own personal view is simply that the globalist project to destroy its principal opponent, the Russian Federation, has failed miserably in Ukraine. Their idea that Ukraine could be utilised as an American neo-con proxy to assist in the destruction of Russia is proven to be a hopeless cause.

      I expect the governments of the UK, France, Germany and the despised EU Commission to fall in the near future. We must ready ourselves for the economic chaos that is resulting from the collective failure of the globalist enterprise and elect new people to reform our political elites.

  126. Andrew Doyle
    31 August 2025 9:00am BST
    Andrew Doyle https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/31/woke-way-out-what-follows-might-be-worse-andrew-doyle/?recomm_id=56bd5ce2-7f54-4e08-ae54-41538669055a

    Woke is on the way out. The scandal of “gender-affirming medicine” continues to be exposed; multiple sporting bodies have barred trans-identifying males from competing in female categories; the Black Lives Matter movement has been largely discredited due to revelations of fraud; and corporate DEI initiatives are being dismantled quicker than you can say “intersectional paradigms of structural oppression”.

    But what comes next? Wokeness was a war on reality. It prioritised individual “ways of knowing” over objective truth. It demanded conformity through authoritarian means. Such traits, however, are common to most ideologies: we should not suppose that a post-woke world will necessarily be any more appealing. Indeed, early indications would suggest that we are following the usual human habit of leaping out of frying pans and into fires.

    What would happen, for instance, if the next dominant phase of authoritarianism enjoyed popular public support? If a government’s immigration policies were so reckless as to admit numbers at an unmanageable pace from countries where free speech and liberty are considered dispensable follies: might this not create the conditions by which democracy could be its own undoing? Is it not feasible, in other words, that a radical shift in demographics could result in citizens voting for less freedom?

    The fear is not as histrionic as it sounds. A recent poll by the Henry Jackson Society found that 52 per cent of British Muslims would make it illegal to display an image of the Prophet Mohammed. A further 32 per cent would like to see the implementation of Sharia law, and the same proportion would support establishing Islam as the national religion.

    An extensive survey conducted for Channel 4 in 2016 found that 39 per cent of British Muslims believed that wives should always be obedient to husbands, 31 per cent agreed that bigamy was acceptable, 47 per cent said that gay people should never be allowed to teach in schools, and 52 per cent thought that homosexuality ought to be criminalised.

    Such figures remind us that multiculturalism has often proved a barrier to assimilation. Rather than make integration a condition of citizenship, many countries have simply relaxed their own standards and implemented parallel systems.

    In the UK, this reached its grim nadir with the grooming gangs scandal, in which authorities failed to grapple with the systematic sexual abuse of children out of fears of being accused of racism. And yet it is difficult to imagine anything more racist than holding migrant communities to lower moral and legal standards.

    Freedom of religion, though hard-won and often contested, has become a defining aspect of our constitutional history. But the liberal values that underpin our society might well be upended if two-tier policies persist and multiculturalism wins out over equal citizenship; we could very well find ourselves sleepwalking into a future in which religious conflicts become significant drivers in the political sphere.

    It is already happening. The Labour Government, eager to win back Muslim voters who were alienated by its supposedly soft stance on Israel, is persisting with its plans to adopt an official definition of “Islamophobia”. This slippery term is regularly applied to those who exhibit genuine anti-Muslim hatred. But it is also often used against those who simply exercise their right to criticise or ridicule a belief-system that they do not share.

    Fiyaz Mughal, founder of Muslim support service Tell Mama, has warned that this will be tantamount to a “blasphemy law by the back door”. The group has launched a campaign to oppose the Government’s plan called “Keep the Law Equal”.

    For many believers, religious authoritarianism has an obvious appeal. This woke movement did not represent an equivalent threat because it was only ever endorsed by a small minority of the public. The statistics are unequivocal. Polling data reported by the Economist found that support for woke causes began to grow in 2015, peaked in 2021, and has been steadily dropping ever since.

    A recent study by the think tank More in Common revealed that those who fulfil the definition of “woke” comprise between eight and ten per cent of the UK population. These were the faddish “luxury beliefs” – to use a term coined by the American sociologist Rob Henderson – of the ruling class, imposed from the top down.

    We will soon discover whether the vacuum left by woke will be occupied by a new form of intolerance, one driven by religious rather than “intersectional” convictions. This could be avoided with a steadfast commitment to equality before the law and an end to two-tier protocols that patronise immigrants and native-born citizens alike. Successive governments have failed to uphold our fundamental values. If this trend continues, it may be that the culture war could evolve into something even more destructive.

    Reginald Front de Boeuf
    4 hrs ago
    It's worrying when the Muslim population in the UK is doubling every twenty years. Of course our current politicians are blind to the issue, because they don't want to acknowledge there is a problem with the Muslim community.

    Tom Donley
    3 hrs ago
    Metrics per Perplexity AI:

    Country/Region Muslim Population (%) Data Year/Source

    England 6.5% 2021 Census

    United Kingdom 6% 2025 Census

    France 10% INSEE Report (2023)

    Germany 6.6% German Islam Conference (2023)

    How is that so many towns in England have muslim mayors? How is that so many communities have 'no-go' areas due to sharia rule? even police fear the area? Why is it that these people who will not assimilate into the country they have moved to only want to recreate where they came from?

  128. Goodnight, all. I seem to lack stamina these days. I'm yawning my head off, so I'm going to go to bed.

    1. In that case, Conners, I wish you – and Kadi and Winston – a good night's sleep. Hopefully Winston won't want to wake you for a Jimmy Riddle at 6.30 am like he did last night.

      1. He usually gets me up at 07.30 , but better that than a flood! If I don’t have anything planned I often go back to bed.

    1. The man is a despicable fool. He merely recites what he is told. I never imagined that in the UK we could be saddled with a confounding dolt as our Prime Minister.

      I realise that there are millions of morons in the UK, those lodged permanently on state benefits and scroungers of every variety who might vote for this cretin but I remain alarmed that those fools could still fall for this monumental con artist.

      If it looks like an idiot, sounds like an idiot and acts like an idiot the fucking idiot is an idiot.

  131. Well, chums, another successful day for me. I wish you all a Good Night, and hope to see you all bright and early tomorrow.

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