Monday 11 November: Britain can’t afford to let public-sector staff work just four days a week

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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601 thoughts on “Monday 11 November: Britain can’t afford to let public-sector staff work just four days a week”

  2. Today's Tale
    Good Morning Nottlers, and especially the indefatigable Geoff
    Today is Armistice day, marking the end of WW1 Hostilities in 1918
    The jokes (and some say smut) will resume tomorrow morning.

    1. In the mid1970s Oz PM Malcom Fraser stated that "Life wasn't meant to be easy". As he and his wife jetted around the world buying nicknacks for their own version of the Whitehouse.

    2. Kristin held several senior positions in the Australian Government, including as head of the Office of Supply Chain Resilience in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and leading the Government’s work on waste and recycling, including designing and implementing Australia’s ban the export of waste. Prior to this, Kristin spent more than a decade working on international and domestic climate change policies and programs, including as a senior adviser to Australia’s Climate Change Minister.

      She has banned the export of waste from Australia – How the hell has she been allowed to leave the country?

      1. Don't worry. The Chinese (quite rightly) refuse to take the West's refuse.
        She'll be sent back for reprocessing.

      2. 396701+ up ticks,

        Morning Ped,

        Good question,the smugglers are not running a boat service Aussie to Dover are they.?

  6. Britain can’t afford to let public-sector staff work just four days a week

    We can if we just make a week last four days

  7. 396701+ up ticks,

    Dt,

    Starmer plots to thwart Trump on Ukraine
    Prime Minister and Emmanuel Macron to hold talks on boosting weaponry ahead of new administration

    If so then it would surely prove the killers political rule supreme,
    as for giving the biden / harris the NOD for war continuation is the act of murderous lunatics.

    It would place in the hands of a very unstable governing cartel
    a treacherous way of revenge whilst adding to the worldwide culling count.

      1. 396701 + up ticks,

        Morning B3,

        It certainly looks like the tool is out for extending the war, there's money to be made in creating dead peoples.

    3. Dispite the fact that our country as we knew it is well and truly eff up by these political creatures. This one is particularly dangerous.

  8. Good morning, chums. I hope you all slept well, as did I. And many thanks to you, Geoff, for providing us with a new NoTTLe page every day.

    Wordle 1,241 4/6

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  10. The Church of England has lost its way – there is only one route back. 11 November 2024.

    We should be fair to Welby and acknowledge that under his leadership, the Church has introduced safeguarding policies to protect children and vulnerable adults with whom it comes into contact. But we should also remember the context of July 2013. Rolf Harris had been arrested in March. The crimes of Jimmy Savile and others had been known and discussed from 2011. The failure of institutions to respond to child abuse was a matter of national debate that led to a public inquiry announced in 2014.

    The point here is surely that Welby has not acted at any time from Christian faith; of which he has none, but the tenets of Cultural Marxism. The only way back for the Church is Reformation and the crushing of the present leadership.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/10/should-justin-welby-resign-church-of-england/

    1. A couple of BTL Comments

      Donald Pump
      4 min ago
      I think the only way forward for the Church of England is to abandon all the God nonsense. Get rid of their legacy buildings, which are expensive to maintain and hard to heat, and ill-suited to use as foodbanks and outreach centres. Similarly, the workforce is elderly and spread too thin geographically, and could possibly be replaced by a call centre based somewhere wages are more reasonable, such as Bangalore. The Church would then be free to concentrate on fund-raising for its core mission, campaigning against racial inequality and poverty.

      reply
      4 replies upvotes 3 downvotes 3

      Reply by R. Spowart.

      RS

      R. Spowart
      1 min ago
      Reply to Donald Pump
      Message Actions
      I see your sarcasm flew straight over the heads of your 3 (at the moment) downvoters.

      1. I would have thought that all those under used huge stone buildings would have become more suitable for use due to all this current 'climate change' and Glowball warming that's mentioned every hour or so on our bbc progs.

        1. Our vicar remarked that while we couldn't offer a "warm space" we could offer a cool refuge during heat waves in summer.

    2. A couple of BTL Comments

      Donald Pump
      4 min ago
      I think the only way forward for the Church of England is to abandon all the God nonsense. Get rid of their legacy buildings, which are expensive to maintain and hard to heat, and ill-suited to use as foodbanks and outreach centres. Similarly, the workforce is elderly and spread too thin geographically, and could possibly be replaced by a call centre based somewhere wages are more reasonable, such as Bangalore. The Church would then be free to concentrate on fund-raising for its core mission, campaigning against racial inequality and poverty.

      reply
      4 replies upvotes 3 downvotes 3

      Reply by R. Spowart.

      RS

      R. Spowart
      1 min ago
      Reply to Donald Pump
      Message Actions
      I see your sarcasm flew straight over the heads of your 3 (at the moment) downvoters.

    3. I don't remember anything being said about all the Rotherham etc rapes and disgusting orher child abuse.

    4. I don't remember anything being said about all the Rotherham etc rapes and disgusting orher child abuse.

    5. Wouldn't it be nice if the Church was all about Christian Love, and not dwell always on Secular Abuse.

    6. Meanwhile, mature flower arranging ladies are treated as sex maniacs with uncontrollable appetites for choir boys.
      Must be the secateurs and all that wire; soooooo pervy.

  11. Tough one this morning:
    Wordle 1,241 5/6

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  12. 'Morning All
    Monday Medley
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/41b83cc03f5df093d0e1009b3729fa3735390ad32c902967b678b51c0cca5222.jpg
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    1. The 'escaping socialism' meme would be more effective if it showed a picture of the Berlin Wall and not a dead Jew in a death camp.

  14. Good morning all.
    A small amount of light rain yesterday evening has led to an even colder start to the morning, 3°C on the Yard Thermometer, but a clear sky streaked with red clouds to the West as the Sun rises from the East!
    We've actually got a sunny day forecast!

    1. 'Morning, BoB. Yes, we too on yer sarf coast are expecting sunshine today – wierdly referred to (yet again) by 'weather presenters' as "sunshine on offer". If there is any choice then yes, I would like some of that please. What a shower!!

    2. 'Morning, BoB. Yes, we too on yer sarf coast are expecting sunshine today – wierdly referred to (yet again) by 'weather presenters' as "sunshine on offer". If there is any choice then yes, I would like some of that please. What a shower!!

    4. As I was chatting to my neighbour, he remarked it was a clear sky so it would be cold tonight. I couldn't disagree 🙂

  17. After Trump re-election, UK will lead efforts to save Cop29, says Miliband. 11 November 2024.

    The UK must ramp up its efforts on renewable energy to foster national security in an increasingly uncertain world, the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has warned, on the eve of a fraught global summit on the climate crisis.

    He pledged that the UK would lead efforts at Cop29 to secure the global agreement needed to stave off the worst impacts of climate breakdown, in talks that have been thrown into turmoil by the re-election of Donald Trump as US president.

    The great thing about this scam is that even if it were true it would be five hundred years before you could know that it had worked. In actual fact it has no chance since China, India and the United States (and probably most of the Global South) totally ignore it.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/09/after-trump-re-election-uk-will-lead-efforts-to-save-cop29-says-miliband

    1. The issue I have with COP is not that the peril the world is in with far too many humans is not extremely serious, and I actually disagree with Trump and feel, if anything, the issue has been grossly understated in order not to sap morale even more. I truly believe that the damage being done by 8 billion people right now will, in my lifetime, degrade the Earth's capacity to support life and human civilisation. Nature will recover eventually, as it has a number of times before, but it would take tens or even hundreds of thousands of years to recover what I took for granted in my childhood.

      However, COP seems to have the intelligence of a 1930s Prince of Wales, when he said "something must be done" and then turned to Hitler for salvation. I am not convinced the politicians attending this conference have thought it through, and are probably diverted by global commercial interests.

      We need a much better think tank than COP, more of them, and much more spread out. Above all, little can be achieved when all the main culprits and going gung-ho for megaprofits with greenwash, ,or a way for BLM warlords to make a grab for UK assetstowards the Mercedes Fund for their numerous wives and children and their designer lifestyles.

      Or as Wallace's dog in 'Footrot Flats' once pleaded during a climate event "plant more trees!".

      1. All these global talking shops are just to enable the rich to devise more rules to keep up the repression on the rest of us.

    2. The issue I have with COP is not that the peril the world is in with far too many humans is not extremely serious, and I actually disagree with Trump and feel, if anything, the issue has been grossly understated in order not to sap morale even more. I truly believe that the damage being done by 8 billion people right now will, in my lifetime, degrade the Earth's capacity to support life and human civilisation. Nature will recover eventually, as it has a number of times before, but it would take tens or even hundreds of thousands of years to recover what I took for granted in my childhood.

      However, COP seems to have the intelligence of a 1930s Prince of Wales, when he said "something must be done" and then turned to Hitler for salvation. I am not convinced the politicians attending this conference have thought it through, and are probably diverted by global commercial interests.

      We need a much better think tank than COP, more of them, and much more spread out. Above all, little can be achieved when all the main culprits and going gung-ho for megaprofits with greenwash, ,or a way for BLM warlords to make a grab for UK assetstowards the Mercedes Fund for their numerous wives and children and their designer lifestyles.

      Or as Wallace's dog in 'Footrot Flats' once pleaded during a climate event "plant more trees!".

    3. FFS. Someone take out the multi legged Diplopodum. Whether with a nuke or a swat with a rolled up newspaper, I don't care. Just DO IT.

    4. The leaders of USA, China, France, Germany etc aren't going to this expensive talkfest….hmm

  18. Morning all 🙂😊
    No promised sun yet, but high patchy cloud.
    Public sector staff don't really do much that's actually useful for the public anyway. Four days work means four days pay.

  19. Most of the TDS mainstream media are worrying about what Trump might do when he gets in.

    Most people that are not suffering from TDS are worrying what Biden / Harris, Starmer and Macron will do to sabotage what is left of the West's economies before he get in the White House.

    I see that Starmer and Macron are already meeting today, he couldn't even wait to commemorate Armistice Day at home.

    Just worried they might start a world war or something, some sort of scorched earth policy

      1. As he's in France grovelling to Macron at the moment, he obviously doesn't

        understand the meaning of freedom and independence.

        1. Arguing for more war today of all days.
          They have a death wish.

          If Zelensky used British long range weapons to attack Kursk and other cities and Putin decided to completely obliterate a similarly sized Ukrainian town, with an immediate telephone call to Trump that the bomb was a warning and no other bombs would be forthcoming unless Russia continued to be attacked, I wonder whether Trump would press the button or say to get around the table and end the Ukraine war.
          I would not be surprised if he chose the latter.

          2. That’s why the crop of European arseholes are trying to extend it, so that he might have to be.
            Gawd I hate them all.

      2. Lord Alibungo togged TTK out in his best suit and pointed him in the general direction of Whitehall. A lackey shoved a wreath into his hands at the last moment.

  21. Today is Armistice Day when, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the guns fell silent and the Great War, the war to end all wars, came to an end, leaving around 20 million people dead, nine million of whom were civilians. Free Speech commemorates it with an article of personal remembrance by former RAF fighter pilot Iain Hunter and in the story of a forgotten battle, the One Hundred Day Offensive , led by the British Army, that finally brought the war to an end.

    Today is the final day of our appeal to contribute to the chosen ex-servicemen and women’s charity as part of our Remembrance Day appeal, with the charity Help For Homeless Veterans well in the lead in our poll. All donations to FSB up to midnight today will be given to the winning charity.

    If you have not yet done so and are able to, please give generously.

    https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/

  22. Anyone here tried to back up a sim card?

    I keep getting these messages from O2 saying they are discontinuing 2G and I have to get a new sim card. All my old messages and contacts will be deleted on transfer, so they advise backing up my old card first.

    The information available online is useless. I get helpful advice 1. buy a card reader, 2. back up information, without any help how to actually achieve this. When I do a search on "sim reader", all I get are shopping channels, either Americans, Ebay or Amazon, listing all sorts of card readers, except sim, other than a cheap little blue Chinese thing that all the reviews say is useless and will probably fry the card. I try O2 help, but that is a horrible labyrinth of sales talk and answering everything except what I want to know, with the opportunity to chat with a bot or join the community that last posted in 2018 and got no response. Any contact with real people has long been taken away.

    Is there anyone here gone through the same path and found a way out?

    1. EE sent me a new sim card last year as mine was a 3G one. The new one is 4G. It wasn't too difficult to put it in and it worked.
      Try getting your provider to send you one.

    2. I bought a new phone from my service provider, which is to say, in a shop. For an extra twenty quid, the nice man transferred all my stuff rom the old phone to the new.

      1. I bought a new phone from one of our local phone shops. The nice woman transferred everything from the old phone to the new one for nothing!

    3. Trot into an actual 02 store and.plead ignorance. With any luck, they'll be able to do everything for.you.

    4. Im no expert, but I have seen options in phones to copy the sim contents to the phone memory. If its important, ask yr local phone nerd who will do it in a jiffy.

    5. Any problems and, if grandson is not available, I nip into town and go to the EE shop.
      I'm not being sarcastic when I say they are genuinely helpful.

      1. They probably quake in their boots when they see you come through the door.

        'Quick, it's her….hide…!'
        'It's too late !'
        'Then just give her anything she asks for !'

    6. I had to get a new EE card from the EE shop because my phone died. I could get some of the data off the card, but most of it was stored in the phone and disappeared with the dead phone.

  23. 396701+ up ticks,

    Cop this peoples,

    The only chance this sadly mentally damage chap has got in regards to wind power, is to try and trap the wind he is putting up peoples with his actions, that would give better results

    Dt,.

    Britain’s wind power falls to virtually zero as Miliband prepares to cut reliance on gas
    Energy Secretary is expected to commit to further reducing UK carbon footprint at Cop29

    1. He's an absolute 'king nightmare trying to make a name for himself, trying to justify his own self important existence.

    2. This is a Letter to the Press, from about a year ago. Anything changed?

      "On a recent serious scientific programme on the BBC, the expert pointed out that the last Ice Age was twenty thousand years ago, and the next one will be in sixty thousand years' time.

      To me, that means that the world will continue warming for at least the next twenty thousand years, bringing glacial melt and rising sea levels before starting the cooling process.

      The mumbo jumbo spouted by the warmists ( mostly watermelons!) claiming that if we stop all production of energy we will slide back into an happy age of global non warming is absolute nonsense, we'll just all starve.

      Time for politicians to start planning for a warm, wet future! "

  24. Yo and goodday to you all, from a SUNNYCosta del Skeg.

    The winter rules for Skeg now apply: no-one visitors under the age of 60 are allowed into the town until April…..

  25. Just had a peek at yesterday's Nottl blog (10th November) and realised that I got a Double First!
    First posting and Best posting (31 upticks). Yay!
    But no upticks for Modesty.

    1. I strongly suspect that over 90% of the nation's population would agree with this statement.

      He's going to be very unpopular with the MSM.

      1. And all the grifters on the gravy train of Nut Zero – which, let’s face it, is very nice work for thems that can get it,

  27. Letters to the Editor
    Britain can’t afford to let public-sector staff work just four days a week

    Angela Rayner, the Local Government Secretary, has scrapped Whitehall opposition to the introduction of shorter working hours for the same pay by South Cambridgeshire council
    Letters to the Editor 11 November 2024 12:01am GMT

    SIR – The Labour Government’s attitude towards a four-day working week (report, November 9) is astonishing.

    This country urgently needs to create genuine wealth in order to pay for all the necessary services we require in the 21st century. Yet ministers appear to believe that encouraging less work, rather than more productivity, while also raising taxes, represents a policy for growth.

    This ideologically driven approach will be financially catastrophic for Britain.

    Kim Potter
    Lambourn, Berkshire

    SIR – You report that there are plans for local council staff to work four days a week instead of five. Does this mean I can look forward to a corresponding reduction in council tax, or will it simply result in an eye-watering wage increase for council employees?

    Tony Manning
    Barton on Sea, Hampshire

    1. 'Morning Lacoste and Peeps,

      Kim Potter is spot on. Add to this fiasco the stupidity and the prosperity-destroying consequences of Nut Zero and and it doesn't take a genius to realise that we are truly done for. It is surely no exaggeration to say that Labour has embarked upon a scorched-earth policy for their term in office. If there's a wrong way of doing something – anything – we can be sure that Labour will track it down and use it.

    2. The public sector must work less for more money; the private sector must work longer for less.

      There can be no doubt that this government wants to extinguish the private sector and become an authoritarian Communist state.

  28. Good morning, all. Am on the road to normality (or what passes for tha around here.)

    Watched the Cenotaph parade – in 83 years I have never come across the "Royal Air Force Pipers". What a bizarre outfit (in all senses). When some flunkey marched up to lay a wreath "on behalf of the Queen", my first thought was that's a novelty for a lady who has been dead for two years….

    Comical Alli must have spent a fortune dressing up his puppets.

    1. 'Morning Bill. The RAF has had bagpipers since 1918. They are more commonly known as 'Pipes and Drums'. And yes, when I hear "the Queen" and "Duke of Edinburgh" I have to stop and think. The good old days…

    2. I hate then referring to Camilla as “the Queen”.. I would be happy with “Queen Consort”. But she’s not “the Queen” in my eyes.

      2. All part of the normalisation programme. Her Majesty (who was actually the Queen) agreed to Camilla being Queen Consort and that's how she should be known. It's also how she was referred to in the notice affixed to the Palace gates when CIII became king.

    3. As an RAF apprentice at Halton we marched from our barracks to the workshops/school behind our own pipeband (and back) twice a day, that instilled in me my love of pipebands and bagpipes.

  29. Доброе утро, товарищи,

    A break in the weather over Castle McPhee at last. Wind Northerly, 8-12℃. Should be a nice afternoon.

    Speaking of weather, or to be more precise, 30-year averages of weather:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fdaf36badaca8aef23326a4f32d87fd71b4649c9959cce135047fd4433574c15.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/net-zero/trump-will-expose-the-conceit-at-the-heart-net-zero/

    This is a bit of a limited "hang-out" but it's a start. I reckon TPTB know their game is soon to be up.

    The headline that will really grab attention is "We need to talk about the Rockefeller Foundations, The Club of Rome, The Trilateral Commission, The UN and the WEF".

    1. What with trans issues, higher employment, less leaning on government, education changes, and now net zero…will this pleasure never end (sincerely hope not).

    2. Just hang on a minute there, the indoctrinated young are still having nightmares about Trump winning the election, you cannot force all of this truth on them in a single lifetime.

      Kumbaya, more milk and cookies, more, kumbaya – oh where is my comfort blankie!

    3. A price worth paying for living in a vibrant world class city.
      (Provided you are still alive.)

  31. Morning all.
    I recorded the Cenotaph service yesterday and watched some of it last night.
    The Dimblebot was commentating. Is that because Huw E has disgraced himself? If so, we're there no other current employees who could have taken over?

    3. I would imagine that DD, happily bumbling around enjoying his retirement, received a phone.
      After he'd come in from the garden and wiped his muddy hands on a sofa cushion, an embarrassed voice asked he had anything planned for 10th. November.

    1. Good morning. An implant in her own brain, metal and inserted at high velocity, would accomplish a service to mankind.

          1. Further, 'mum…just watched Boris Johnson interview GBN…how he was ever elected, to anything, is a mystery to me. I'm with the Queen 'don't let that idiot have anything to do with my funeral arrangements'.

          2. Johnson is a complete charlatan and a pathological liar. He needs to attend Nuremberg 2 instead of being scuttled off stage left over ‘cake’ by his WEF mates when the temperature started to rise in the kitchen. Ditto Hancock, a set-up if ever there was one to distance and remove him from the glare of the public eye when ‘Midazolam Matt’ started to be bandied around on social media.

          3. Completely agree. A good interview from PC, gave him plenty rope, showed him for what he is. And unfortunately for us, not the only one.

    2. "What's really interesting is.."
      Really interesting? plant false memories.. instill pain for coercive measures.

  34. 396701+ up ticks,

    Surely you must first ascertain what the real meaning of the word "developed" means, if it means beneficial to ALL indigenous
    then the United Kingdom has an opt out of financing this scam any further.

    Dt,

    UK faces calls to pay into $1trn pot to help poor countries tackle climate change
    Developed countries are under pressure to help less developed nations invest in renewable energy at this year’s COP29 summit
    UK faces calls to pay into $1trn pot to help poor countries tackleUK faces calls to pay into $1trn pot to help poor countries tackle climate change
    Developed countries are under pressure to help less developed nations invest in renewable energy at this year’s COP29 summitclimate change
    Developed countries are under pressure to help less developed nations invest in renewable energy at this year’s COP29 summit
    UK faces calls to pay into $1trn pot to help poor countries tackle climate change
    Developed countries are under pressure to help less developed nations invest in renewable energy at this year’s COP29 summit

    2. Oh god. Trudeau has recently been spouting on about a duty to support needy africans and our cheque book is in Baku with the ecoterrorist environment minister.

      is there any chance that Trump could make a pre emptive strike and invade?

      2. Summary: Good but take with K2 + Magn. zinc otherwise you may harden yr arteries. Or open tin of sardines once a week.

        1. Thank you. So a Boots (spit!) 50+ multivitamin and minerals tablet supplement is probaby safe.

      3. 396701+ up ticks,

        Morning Anne,

        I do believe GOOD combined with K2.
        we have been on them quite some time now.

        Good advice also from KB.

  36. 396701+ up ticks,

    An apt time without losing any reverence to say, that during the
    39 / 45 years a lone spitfire would have made short shift of any
    calais to Dover en masse channel crossers.

    These governing politico's in the main have the skins of rhinos to show face at the cenotaph.

      1. And all said with that irritating nasal whining voice.

        The thing is.. after the Kamala Harris spectacle everybody knows what ever comes out of their Troty brain.. they intend to implement 180 degree opposite of what they are touting.

        protect our borders.. yeah right.
        save democracy.. course you will.
        bring people together.. sow division.
        our values, our way of life.. hate them, much prefer African muslim 'culture'.

    2. While watching the procedures yesterday in my own mind, I cleared up a lot of the political debris that turn up every year.

  37. We are at war with Russia and Israel. In the 2023/24 financial year, the UK spent £54.2 billion on defence. This is expected to rise to £57.1 billion in 2024/25, which is a 4.5% increase in real terms. The idiot in charge of Defence has promised to increase support for Zelensky and has already reduced arms and aid to Israel. There is more than one black hole – and they are running the country.

    1. The Russian media encourage hatred of Israel. Is this a continuation of the Tsarist hatred of the Jews or is Russia sucking up to the Arabs for financial survival. Or both.

      2. 'The Russian media encourage hatred of Israel'

        They aren't a match for the BBC – World leaders – better than the Taliban and Hamas put together.

      3. Simply untrue. I assume you are referring to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks. Putin picked up the phone and personally apologized to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett about that disgraceful behaviour. The Jewish population of Russia is 165,000 many of them hold prominant positions in every field of endevor. Putin hardly need to make an enemy out of them, he is no fool.

        1. He needs to speak with the editors at RT then. They're as rabidly anti-Israel as the left wing media here. I used to enjoy watching CrossTalk but the "Gaza genocide" narrative now dominates the programme and follows through on the presenter's X/Twitter thread.

          1. Maybe, I don't watch them, so please send me a link to an example. But for rabid anti-Semitism, you need look no further than the streets of any English city on a weekend. So kettle, black and all that. I don't see Starmer doing anything about it. But at least, Putin has condemned it. And, in typing "Russia Today/Antisemitism into my search engine, I get zero returns. Which considering the anti Russian propaganda machine in the West, is rather odd.

          3. I just spent 10 minutes looking on RT web site, "cross talk bullhorns tripping up trump", returns nothing on their web site. Nor could I find anything under Peter Lavalle or under Crosstalk. And if I type in https// etc. I get Oops! That page can’t be found. Do you have a proper link or, can you tell me how to find this programme?

          5. Sue. I’m not trying to be difficult, it’s just that I don’t want to go through all these programmes because it would be tedious. Please give me one specifically that is antisemitic. Thanks.

          6. The links I’ve given are to specific programmes but it doesn’t matter which one you choose anyway. The very use of the phrase “Gaza genocide” is sufficient proof. Like all Jew haters they insist that there is a difference between being “anti-Zionist” and antisemitic but there isn’t. They’re pro-Iran and anti-Israel. That’s the RT line and it’s all over their programmes, whatever time of day you tune in.

    2. The biggest black hole is the one between Starmer's ears.
      (Other cranial vacuums are available. See Labour Party.)

    1. Almost an eagle

      Wordle 1,241 3/6

      🟩🟨🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  40. Archbishop of Canterbury refuses to resign over ‘child abuse cover-up’
    John Smyth QC’s abuse of as many as 130 boys could have been exposed in 2013 if Justin Welby had followed up with police
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/11/archbishop-canterbury-justin-welby-church-abuse-wont-resign/

    Not surprising that no comments are allowed!

    I have yet to come across a communicant member of the Church of England – or even a nominal member of it – who approves of Archpillock Welby.

    Is there a single Nottler here who is prepared to stand up for him?

    1. Possibly not. Discussing it in church yesterday the main point raised was that Welby has attacked others – notably George Carey and John Sentamu – for exactly the same offence of knowing but not acting. The consensus was that his position is not tenable but that's a moral judgement and what price morality these days?

    2. Is there a single Nottler here who is prepared to stand up for him?

      In essence. No. It is odd but almost everyone knew that he was a Cultural Marxist mole on the day that Cameron appointed him. Even I who had never heard of him, took one look and thought, If he's Archbishop of Canterbury material then I'm the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.

    3. Is there a single Nottler here who is prepared to stand up for him?

      In essence. No. It is odd but almost everyone knew he was a Cultural Marxist mole on the day that Cameron appointed him. Even I who had never heard of him, took one look and thought, If he's an Archbishop of Canterbury then I'm the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.

      1. Good morning and thank you, Jonathan.

        David Morgan's BTL comment is particularly apt:

        The CoE turned away from its core teachings and tradition in the same way fake Tories turned away from real conservatism.
        Both organisations make a mockery of what they are supposed to represent.

    5. I will stand up for him as probably being a reasonably good parish priest (at least, better than many others) but it is his elevation above that level that has been disastrous for the CofE, and likely for himself as well. The Peter Principle doesn't seem to apply exactly as originally formulated any more, as people continue to 'fail upwards' way beyond their level of incompetence until they reach the very top of an organisation. (Other examples are available, such as in the Met Police.)

      1. Does he believe in Jesus Christ's teaching?

        Chaucer's Canterbury Tales contains several characters who are marked by their hypocrisy, corruption and dishonesty. One of the few exceptions is the simple village parson who leads by example –

        That if gold ruste, what shal iren do?
        For if a preest be foul, on whom we truste,
        No wonder is a lewed man to ruste;
        And shame it is, if a prest take keep,
        A shiten shepherde and a clene sheep.

        1. The word ‘probably’ was used to indicate that my knowledge of his ministry is limited to what I have read, rather than immediate personal knowledge, and what I have read about his one-to-one ministry is good.

          However, as I said in my previous comment, his performance in the role of Archbishop has been sadly lacking. Mind you, the role is very probably impossible because of the severely dysfunctional structure of the CofE where the ABoC is seen as having responsibility, but has limited management jurisdiction or powers which would in the secular world be expected to go with the responsibility.

  41. Good Moaning.
    10.00 am and I can see my hand in front of my face. Must be glowball warming/climate change/Spartie's diet causing 'emissions'.
    Just off to knit myself a tin foil hat.

  42. As we always do if here, we attended the village act of Remembrance.

    At the end of the proceedings the mayor thanked the English contingent, four this year, for paying our respects.

    One feature that always rams home how terrible WW1 was for the French is the reading of the names of the dead.
    One family alone lost more sons, three, than the whole commune lost in the second world war, two.
    Several families lost two and those multiple deaths easily exceed the total lost in all the other wars combined where people from the commune feature on the memorial.

    1. We took our boys to visit the grave of their great grandfather at the village church in Willand , near Cullompton. Christopher was four years old and had learnt to read fluently. There was an engraved stone in the churchyard listing all those who had died in WW1 and on a separate list all those who had served but survived. His Great Uncle Geoffrey had died at the age of 19 in France and was on the first list; his grandfather, my father, Christopher, was on the second list but he had died nine years before the birth of my son, Christopher.

      Christopher read their names and burst spontaneously into inconsolable tears.

      1. It would be interesting to know the proportions killed to survived of those called up/volunteered from the commune.

        I don't know what the population was then, but assuming it was at least 1,000 and two thirds were women, children and the too old, over 1 in 8 were killed of those in the correct age range.

        This is an agricultural area, so presumably a good number would also have been in reserved occupations, which would make the death total even more horrific.

  43. Tell us your three-year-old’s preferred gender when picking school, parents told
    Critics brand admissions question ‘totally inappropriate’ after it is asked by more than 100 local authorities across UK
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/11/tell-us-your-three-year-old-preferred-gender-school/

    BTL

    I am male. I am very happy about my gender and my heterosexual orientation. I am happy that I had no choice in the matter. Offering people such an absurd choice must be especially mystifying and disorientating for children. When will this nonsense stop?

    2. And in America, Trump has said he will make this nonsense illegal on his first day in office by signing an executive order.

  44. Bloody hell, things are going wrong, there''s sun outside! But, at least it's still cold. No wind either. Where's Millipede and his wind power? Latest order from the net zero zealot , eat more beans!

    I heard last night that Micheal Gove, a CON – servative, supported Harris in the Presidential elections. I find that breathtakingly insane but typical, somehow, of the frauds now lead by Kemi Badenoch, real name, (a la Steven Yaxley Lennon), Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke. Proper British name that. So my instinct to ditch the Observer seems to have been right. Quit under Frazier until there was a new conservative editor. Fat lot of good that was!

    Anyway, hope all are well today and
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhAJnx5uwUU

      1. I see them. From now on I think I will refer to these sort of people as 'misanthropists', because that is what they are. But, in the English language, there isn't a word for hatred of all living things, that I'm aware of, and some of these people certainly suffer from that perverse attitude. I suppose 'nihilist' but that isn't quite it.

        1. I have been thinking of 'nihilists' for quite some time now. However, I think they are so focused on their ideology that isn't quite it also. It's as though they haven't thought it all through.

  45. Here Comes The Sun!
    Hi all, I'm getting 4.5 kiloWatts from my 7.5kW of Solar panels! Pouring 2.7kW into my batteries to top them up and exporting 1.3 kW to the Grid. The house is drawing only 230 Watts (0.23kW for the electrically challenged).
    Hooray! – that's how it ought to be.

    2. Reminds me of the Music Man:

      We got trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool!

  47. JN: Mostly zero, but my batteries are programmed to suck in cheapest electricity at night between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM, so any brief spot of sunshine gets sent up to the Grid.
    EDIT: the Solar panels were trickling about zero to 150 Watts most of the time

  48. JN: Mostly zero, but my batteries are programmed to suck in cheapest electricity at night between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM, so any brief spot of sunshine gets sent up to the Grid.
    EDIT: the Solar panels were trickling about zero to 150 Watts most of the time

  49. Britain’s wind power falls to virtually zero as Miliband prepares to cut reliance on gas
    Energy Secretary is expected to commit to further reducing UK carbon footprint at Cop29

    Jonathan Leake 10 November 2024 5:03pm GMT
    Britain’s wind generation is set to plummet to virtually zero this week as Ed Miliband presses ahead with plans to increase the nation’s reliance on renewable energy.

    Much of the UK has seen zero hours of sunshine this month, and the first part of this week will see already-light winds hit fresh lows in many areas, according to Met Office forecasters.

    The dark and windless weather comes as Sir Keir Starmer and Mr Miliband, the Energy Secretary, fly to the UN climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, to pledge massive cuts in UK greenhouse gas emissions.

    They are expected to pledge to cut CO2 emissions by 240m tonnes, or 60pc of their 2022 levels, by 2035.

    They will also confirm plans to “decarbonise” the UK electricity system by 2030, by ending the use of the UK’s 32 main gas-fired power stations.

    Sir Keir’s speech, expected on Tuesday, coincides with a record “dunkelflaute” spell of low winds and sunshine that have already slashed output from renewables.

    Wind speeds are expected to fall again this week, making gas more essential than ever to keep the lights on.

    “Many of our weather stations have recorded zero sunshine so far this month,” said a Met Office forecaster. It’s very unusual.”

    Those weather stations are spread across the southern UK, with zero sunshine readings from Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, Ross on Wye, near the Welsh borders, St Athan, west of Cardiff, Liscombe in Devon and Wittering, near Peterborough.

    The Met Office said: “Monday and Tuesday will see unusually light winds. There’s an area of high pressure across the UK and Europe which makes for very settled and calm weather.”

    Weather readings and forecasts have become increasingly important for UK power generation because of growing reliance on wind and solar.

    Over the last week solar generated just 0.7pc of the nation’s electricity and wind just 10.6pc, according to grid data.

    By contrast, on sunny and windy days renewables have generated more than 87pc of UK power needs.

    Neso, the UK’s National Energy System Operator, which runs the grid, expects the UK to have its first periods of complete decarbonisation, when no gas is needed, in 2025.

    However, such data also underscore the problem of intermittency, with the grid needing some means of supplying low carbon power all the time, not just when the wind is blowing.

    Mr Miliband said the UK’s willingness to pledge such massive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions was a sign of “climate leadership.”

    He said: “The only way to protect our children and future generations is by leading global climate action. At the Cop29 climate talks, we will work with other countries to step up ambition on tackling the climate crisis.”

    1. Perhaps turning Britain into a cold, barren Hell hole is a cunning way to stop the boats.
      /sarc

    4. Friend of mine works hydrogen business, their first site opening in Bradford quite soon. I'll be interested to see how that goes, apparently plans afoot for the whole of the UK.

      1. Phizzee, you're right.

        I live 245 feet above sea level here and can even get TV from the BBC Essex transmitter "on a piece of wet string". It's been just a bird perch ever since I turned over to satellite TV yonks ago, so there's a Sky Sat dish instead.

        Then the Sky feed came via high speed Internet, so I probably didn't need the dish. Then Sky became too expensive for the several hundred channels of junk that it offered, so I left Sky. Those who have tried that will know it's difficult, as Sky have a very large, persuasive Retention department.

        Finally, since 16th June 2021 (I remember it well*) I have not watched ANY television as there is absolutely NOTHING that I want to watch, choosing to read lots of books and get a little bit of news from the radio and Internet instead.

        The aerial has been there 46 years and is old technology – you are right, it ought to come down. I should get an aerial specialist (or just a local Roofing man) to remove it and pay him to wash the affected Solar panel while he's up there. I'll put it on my To Do list.

        * It's the day that my bed-bound, demented wife's bed and hoist were moved into the lounge, turning it into a Hospital Bedroom. She couldn't face TV and I decided that I didn't need it either.

        1. Agree.

          I live in a semi detached bungalow. We share a gutter between the gables. His bird perch aerial allowed birds to crap on the roof. Then big lumps of moss grew on that. Then rolled down and blocked the gutter.
          I eventually noticed black mould blooms in my wardrobe.
          I showed it to him and he said he would pay for all repairs including the gutter.

          I have good neighbours.

  52. The feckin idiots don't seem to realise that IF [and it's a big IF] CO2 is a problem for the climate, then it's a GLOBAL problem. Virtue signalling in Britain, while exporting all the messy jobs to other countries and importing all the processed rare earth metals, steel and everything needed to make UK "net zero" means that you have still contributed to the global problem, just not in your back yard! Sheer lunacy!

    1. I remember as a kid reading a comic called "Radio Fun", in which there was a little character who would pop up anywhere in the cartoons saying , "Daft, I call it!". My sentiments per climate change and Microbrain,

    2. They don't seem to have done basic biology; CO2 is plant food. Combine it with water in the presence of sunlight (a bit of a premium at the moment) and plants turn it into carbohydrate and give off oxygen.

  53. The feckin idiots don't seem to realise that IF [and it's a big IF] CO2 is a problem for the climate, then it's a GLOBAL problem. Virtue signalling in Britain, while exporting all the messy jobs to other countries and importing all the processed rare earth metals, steel and everything needed to make UK "net zero" means that you have still contributed to the global problem, just not in your back yard! Sheer lunacy!

      1. He had 15 direct descendants (my two sisters, myself and our combined total of 12 children) in his lifetime none of whom would have existed had it not been for that drunken doctor.

        He has subsequently had posthumous great grandchildren and great greet grandchildren to add to the list.

  56. Dropped my car off for its annual service & MOT earlier. Travelling home by bus I was astonished by the size and shape of one young woman who got on. I couldn’t estimate her weight but I reckon the circumference of each of her track suit clad thighs was at least 48 inches. She was undoubtedly morbidly obese …..

    2. I’m interested in your posts but sometimes they are a bit too cryptic for my little brain. Can you spell it out a bit more please???

      1. I'll try.. a lot of old school investors are fed up with the pretentious jargon & are now demanding plain English. eg. "off ramp" = how can I spend my tokens in a normal shop. der.

        Anyhow what was so alarming to the bankers about bitcoin?
        It's an internet protocol that allowed, for 1st time.. someone to pay someone you didn't trust over the internet without permission from a 3rd party. (eg. A Visa transactions requires something like 23 permissions before it can go through including Uncle Sam).

        When any business model gets a visit from the "Software Reaper" it inverts the model. eg. When Music industry digitised.. Royalities were everything, and gigs were a pain in the a rse. After Sean Parker invented Napster.. EMI couldn't cope and broke up within ten years in 2012. Now events are everything, and royalty payments have collapsed.

        And so to DAO.. (Decentralized autonomous organisation).. will turn corporations upside down. The traditional corp struct = a pyramid where key decision makers are at top in the board room with the owners with decisions made behind closed doors.
        DAO is more like a town hall.. a town square. DAO= rules & governance of a business or project which is coded in a smart contract. To participate you need to buy voting chips or token assets in a particular project. Rules & objectives can't be changed unless by DAO members.
        Wyoming state became 1st to legally recognise DAO + grant same rights as Ltd liability.

        1. And MetaDAO the token I highlighted is just a go to place for people to set up a DAO.. a project.. like a resources centre for templates.. somewhere to raise capital for your project.. somewhere to find content & creators.

    3. My crypto has increased 40% in the last month. Gold is beginning to slide back though.

      I put that down to Donald Trump being elected and people are moving out of gold and back to shares and other investments.

        2. For me gold is a long term investment but crypto never was.

          I had two bitcoin in the beginning which cost me £200 each.
          I decided every time it doubled i would cream off the excess. I made £16,000 that way.
          I know that was playing safe but when it crashed some people lost a shed load of money.

          I still have a spread over 5 different crypto currencies. I'm hoping one of them will take off in a big way.

          Like i said i played safe. Mostly because losing all my money would seriously damage the plasterwork.

          Pensions and other investments are in dollars too… So Trump is making me richer while Starmer is trying to make me poorer.

    5. BTC is behaving like the stock market, yet again though.
      I love BTC, but not as a speculation – as a decentralised means of exchange.

    1. 'He's been tanning Negroes out in Timbuktu
      Now he's coming back to do the same to you"

      Oooops …. thah goes the front door.

    2. I think, Richard, these sort of people would be delighted by the straightjacket of ideological conformity that Justin has imposed on the Canadians.

    3. It'll improve when Poilievre elected in less than a year, perhaps they'll return US…oh wait..TRUMP! Wherever will they go…UK?

    4. Where are the rest of the Liberal Wokies – all the ones who said they would leave? Why aren't they queuing up at the Canadian border??? Come on Clooney, Roberts, de Caprio et al – what's keeping you all!? Incidentally, any news of Bonio/car/cliff?
      To be fair, I have seen a report that De Niro is leaving – no timescale though.

    1. Believe me – I know, and have said so since first jab. My husband said he wanted to phone GP, I said it would be a waste of his time but he did anyway. GP said oh yes we have a number of patients with reaction, vast majority are women. Made me feel a whole lot better.

  62. A run in the van to Belper for a bit of shopping and the weather has cleared. It's beautifully sunny now.

  64. Those contrarians amongst you — especially those who suffer from chronic, debilitating and sometimes life-threatening diseases and conditions — please feel free to carry on with your lifestyles and completely ignore this video. It is not for you.

    Those who do care about their health, this true story is an illuminating watch (although, no doubt, many will say it is too long as they carry on munching on their sugar). The findings of this year-long experiment, in the late 1920s, were purposely hidden from the public for nearly a century since Big Business did not wish to stop selling people the crap they now eat as a matter of routine. A copy of the report was discovered in an archive at Sydney Public Library (I have a copy of it) and this video tells the full story.

    [The vast majority of the BTL comments echo my own personal findings, especially those who recount how many debilitating conditions they have suffered for years have now vanished.]

    Watch, or don't watch, whatever the case may be.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P13bksna0Y0

    2. I watched it as far as the video explained that the trial study involved a total of two subjects both of whose total food intake for an extended period was only meat. I didn't wait for a statistical significance of the findings in the conclusion.

      1. Look further in.
        A much more significant study was carried out by Harvard University far more recently. The 100 benefits at the end look significant, if the results are correct.

    3. We came to this conclusion some years ago. It all started when I was told at my yeraly medical that the allowence for colesterol had gone down, and this years test if it was the same would put me into this new zone. I told the Doctor that it would be worse than that, as last year after reading the ingrediants on the pack of flora i decided i was not going to eat this stuff and switched to only eating best butter. The results of my new test were so much lower that I stayed in the clear zone. So that started me off looking in to what we ate. and we slowly changed to eating far more meat and animal products . i am sure the findings of this vid. are totaly correct and things like the five a day are a total con. Thanks Griz for posting

      1. If price is no object you can buy some seriously good butters from the West Country.

        Anchor and other stuff is mass produced and not very good.

        1. Waitrose sell an unpastuerised butter from France at £3.75 for 250 gs. Lurpak and Anchor I don't look at, but I do like Président.

        2. Waitrose sell an unpastuerised butter from France at £3.75 for 250 gs. Lurpak and Anchor I don't look at, but I do like Président.

        3. Baron Bigod butter is scrummy. Short life compared with the more commercial products but well worth the extra.

        4. Baron Bigod butter is scrummy. Short life compared with the more commercial products but well worth the extra.

  65. Lunch calls. Have made a loaf, shovelled 1½ tons of horse manure and done an hour of ladder work cutting back a rampant hydrangea petiolaris.

    I'll take the rest of today gently – after I have cleaned the small, hand electric saw.

    Phew!

  66. Blair deliberately made the HRA superior to British law (anything to keep the missus quiet). Just zapping the act may have some unexpected and nasty surprises for us. That is why careful unpicking, rather wild abolition promises are the way to go.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/11/tony-blair-human-rights-reform-parliament/

    Lord Howard: Blair’s Human Rights Act must be reformed to stop it overriding parliament

    The act’s ‘vivid transfer of power’ from Parliament to the courts undermines Britain’s laws, says former Tory leader

    11 November 2024 7:26am GMT

    The Human Rights Act must be reformed to stop it subverting the will of Parliament, Lord Howard said.

    The former home secretary and leader of the Tory party said the act, introduced by Sir Tony Blair, had led to a “vivid transfer of power” from Parliament to the courts and a “change in judicial culture”, which undermined Britain’s laws.

    His comments come in a foreword to a report published on Monday by the centre-Right think tank Policy Exchange, which lists 25 legal cases that have undermined victims’ rights and prevented the Government from protecting members of the public.

    They included criminal justice cases such as a Court of Appeal ruling that it was an unlawful breach of the privacy of a dangerous convicted paedophile for the police to enter his property to review his internet use. This was despite a court order ruling that police should be able to do so.

    The Policy Exchange report also cited cases that had weakened the UK’s asylum system including one where the Supreme Court blocked the deportation of a violent criminal to his home country of Zimbabwe on the grounds that it had an inadequate health service to treat his HIV infection.

    Lord Howard says the act has brought about a 'transfer of power' from Parliament to the courts
    Lord Howard says the act has brought about a ‘transfer of power’ from Parliament to the courts Credit: GETTY
    The Human Rights Act had restricted press freedom when the Supreme Court held it was unlawful for Bloomberg to publish information that a person was being investigated for a serious crime because it breached his privacy.

    “Prior to the Human Rights Act, this would never have been actionable,” it said.

    It said the Act had also made it harder to arrest or convict protesters for obstructing highways, undermined statutory limitations on cross-examination of rape victims in criminal trials and compromised laws allowing the indefinite detention of foreign terror suspects pending their deportation.

    Lord Howard, KC, a barrister, said: “In striking fashion, the paper illustrates the many shortcomings of human rights law, making vivid the transfer of power from Parliament to the courts that the Act has helped bring about – and the resulting, negative, change in judicial culture that has taken place in consequence.

    “The uncertainty and imprecision that the cases reveal, not to mention the unstable meaning of the Act itself, also brings home the extent to which human rights law undermines the rule of law.

    “[Policy Exchange’s paper] makes clear the compelling need for reform, in view of the nature of the political questions that the Human Rights Act has put before our courts and the reasoning that they have undertaken in consequence.

    “For the reasons given in this powerful paper, it is past time for Parliament to take seriously its responsibilities and to restore the constitution.”

    ‘Detrimental to English law’

    The paper was written by prof Richard Ekins, KC, Oxford University’s professor of law and constitutional government, Sir Stephen Laws, KC, former first parliamentary counsel, and Dr Conor Casey, a senior law lecturer at Surrey University.

    It has also been backed by Sir Patrick Elias, a former Lord Justice of Appeal, who said: “The focus on human rights in English law following the Human Rights Act has undoubtedly increased the power and influence both of the European Court of Human Rights and the English judiciary.

    “This paper provides a powerful argument, based on numerous authorities, that this has been detrimental to the proper development of English law. Agree with them or not, the authors raise serious issues which cannot simply be ignored.”

    Lord Wolfson, Kemi Badenoch’s newly-appointed shadow attorney general and former justice minister, said: “The debate on the Human Rights Act is often long on invective but short on analysis. This paper provides a wealth of focused research and cogent argument, and is a valuable contribution to the on-going debate.”

    1. Has he been saying this since the enaction of the HRA into law, does anyone know? If not, why not if it's as bad as he now portrays.

    2. I remember reading some time ago that b liar and his old (I think Falconer) flat mate got together and altered the treason laws of the UK.
      I wonder why this was never investigated.

  67. The Ice Man Cometh…..
    Well our fridge freezer has not been working properly for a few months. From one of our street residents I managed to obtain a name and number of a chap who might be able to take a look and advise . Rang the guy this morning at just after 9 am. He had a job in Luton and said he'd call in later….. 11:15 he came, stripped out the freezer to exposes a large amount of ice behind the rear section, after removal, it more than filed a large builders bucket. Steamed the rest of the clingy bits away and all done and dusted before midday.
    70 quid, a bargain. And not as Eugene O'Neill suggested a boozy pipe dream. Not the symbol of death, but a new life to our 10 year old fridge freezer.
    A perfect start to the week.

  68. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    It is very kind of Nigel Farage to offer his services as a kind of intermediary between our government and the new American president. Keir Starmer certainly needs one, because protest though he might, nobody believes the line that Donald Trump is hugely impressed with the Labour government or that JD Vance has a new best friend in the magnificently dim David Lammy.

    I fear that Farage’s yearning to be in Washington DC rather than the agreeable Thames-side resort of Clacton-on-Sea spells trouble for Reform

    For eight years, Labour has behaved abominably towards Trump, flinging at him every conceivable insult, a number of its MPs demanding he not be allowed into the country and finally dispatching 100 morons to try to wrest the election in favour of Kamala Harris (that went well, didn’t it?).

    In short, they have behaved with the kind of insulting petulance you might expect from a 13-year-old child. Nor do I think that the old, familiar, stinking oil slick which is Peter Mandelson will necessarily commend himself to anyone in the incoming Republican regime.

    I don’t doubt Farage would do a reasonable job, either. He is more astute than the Labour front bench put together. But should he be doing it? And there’s the rub. Because I fear that Farage’s yearning to be in Washington DC rather than the agreeable Thames-side resort of Clacton-on-Sea spells trouble for Reform. He has bigger fish to fry than either copiously attending to the needs of his electors, or attending to the needs of a party from which he has stood down as leader every time something more exciting has hove into view. Without Farage, there is effectively no Reform. But does he have the diligence and patience to stick with it?

    Rod Liddle
    WRITTEN BY
    Rod Liddle
    Rod Liddle is associate editor of The Spectator.

    1. 396701 + up ticks,

      Afternoon R232,

      Personally I would like President Trump to organise either politically or through other channels the release of Tommy Robinson
      and make him British ambassador / to the USA.

      The reaction in the palace of westminster would be liken to a small nuclear device in a nest of poisonous reptiles.

    2. They're all devastated that Trump has won, and there's only one MP that the President of USofA, the most important guy on the planet.. will pick up the phone on. He's hardly gonna have a chat with Dawn Butler or The Tottenham Turnip is he?

      Tired old argument favoured by the likes of Emily Maitlis.. You should be in Clacton 24/7.
      Is Sir Keir in Holborn 24/7?

      As for Rod.. how's SDP doing?

  69. 396701+up ticks,

    These lesbian loving, poof adoring, wanna be PIE members in or appertaining to education can ask such type of questions without getting a thoroughly good hiding off parents is beyond me.

    Does your son want to be a dyke or your daughter a poof and there are other variations.

    Dt,

    Tell us your three-year-old’s preferred gender when picking school, parents told
    Critics brand admissions question ‘totally inappropriate’ after it is asked by more than 100 local authorities across UK

  70. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    The celebrity cook Jamie Oliver has a sideline as an author. Not all his books are about cooking and food: Oliver has written two children’s books as well, Billy and the Great Giant Adventure and its sequel, Billy and the Epic Escape.

    Oliver’s books sell very well, thank you, and have presumably made a fortune for him and his publisher, Penguin Random House. But Billy and the Epic Escape will no longer be an earner for them. Thanks to a handful of Australian Aboriginal offence-takers, the book has suddenly been withdrawn from sale, not uncoincidentally while Oliver is in Australia on a promotional tour.

    It’s a work of fantasy fiction, for heaven’s sake

    One chapter of Oliver’s latest novel caused complaints. While the story is mostly set in Britain, it is an adventure that, according to one reader online review, ‘dishes up a tasty round of derring-do with several meaty topics on the side’. You could say it’s Oliver’s recipe for a ripping children’s yarn served with a dollop of Victorian moralism.

    The offending chapter features a sub-plot where the book’s villain magically finds her way to Alice Springs – given the Aboriginal name of Mparntwe – and abducts an Aboriginal girl, Ruby who is in foster care. Ruby has the ability to read people’s minds and, Doctor Dolittle-like, can talk to animals because ‘that’s the indigenous way’. Ruby also uses Aboriginal words in her speech as written by Oliver, giving the character a flavour of authenticity. The girl is rescued and comes to no harm after being returned to her people by the book’s protagonists.

    Somehow, the book caught the eye of the Oxford-educated Aboriginal Australian, Sharon Davis, the newly-appointed head of the taxpayer-supported National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Corporation. The organisation is stridently activist, denouncing the colonialism and racism it sees at every turn. Its main mission is to ensure Australian school curricula tell the story of Australia, and Aboriginal Australians, as they wish it to be told.

    Perhaps Davis needed a profile-raising issue as a new CEO, and in Oliver’s book she found one. In a statement to the Guardian – which was only too happy to splash it and turn it into global news – Davis denounced Oliver and Penguin for their cultural insensitivity. She deemed the sub-plot ‘damaging and disrespectful’, contributing ‘to the erasure, trivialising and stereotyping of First Nations people and their experiences’.

    Davis also took particular issue with the character using words from Aboriginal tribes in New South Wales, well away from the dialects of communities around Alice Springs, accusing Oliver and his publisher of ignorance and failing to consult with Aboriginal people about the content of the book. And of course, she and other Aboriginal figures demanded that the book be withdrawn from publication. The Guardian quoted another Aboriginal educationist, Dr Anita Heiss, as saying ‘There is no space in Australian publishing (or elsewhere) for our story to be told through a colonial lens, by people who have little or no connection to the people and place they were writing about.’

    Unsurprisingly, Oliver and Penguin – the publisher which has bowdlerised books by Roald Dahl and P.G. Wodehouse because of their ‘unacceptable prose’ – surrendered immediately to the handful of angry voices and withdrew the book from sale.

    ‘I am devastated to hear that I have caused offence and wholly apologise for doing so’, Oliver told the Guardian.

    ‘It is clear that our publishing standards fell short on this occasion, and we must learn from that and take decisive action’, grovelled Penguin Random House. Perhaps their sensitivity readers had the day off when the book was being proofed?

    But what harm was actually done? In short, none.

    It’s a work of fantasy fiction, for heaven’s sake. The Aboriginal girl, Ruby, is portrayed sympathetically and positively, and is given a romantically special connection with nature and the land – something Aboriginal activists continually tell other Australians they have. Instead of praising Oliver for at least recognising this, Davis, Heiss and other humourless grievance-peddlers are denouncing him for doing it his way, and not theirs.

    As for picking on the derivation of certain Aboriginal words as cultural colonialism, why couldn’t they at least praise Oliver for trying to get it right?

    The only truly problematic issue raised by Davis and others is the Ruby character being in foster care as ‘painful’ for Aboriginal Australians. It is. But it is also a tragic documented fact that Aboriginal children are shockingly over-represented in child protection due to physical and sexual abuse, family violence, substance abuse or other familial causes. In 2023, the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that of the 61,000 children on care and protection orders in Australia, 25,000 were Aboriginal, despite Aboriginal people making up just 4 per cent of the Australian population. That’s a national shame.

    Instead of accusing a naïve British author of getting it wrong, perhaps Aboriginal Mary Whitehouses like Sharon Davis should stop playing victim and look to their own communities and ask themselves why and what they, themselves, can do to help.

    As for Oliver and his publisher, they cravenly failed to stand their ground and defend their work. Such capitulations only give the professional grievance industry even more incentive to grab easy headlines, and that helps nobody.

    WRITTEN BY
    Terry Barnes
    Terry Barnes is a Melbourne-based contributor for The Spectator and The Spectator Australia

    1. ‘I am devastated to hear that I have caused offence and wholly apologise for doing so’, Oliver told the Guardian.

      Worm. He should have told them to get lost.

      1. I don’t think that would have been a good idea unless he really wanted to fight this kind of battle. He makes a lot of money with his enterprises, has a wife and children much more sensible to retire quietly and let the whole thing be forgotten.

        1. If they're still sounding off about slavery a hundred years later, do you think this will be easily forgotten?

          1. Jamie Oliver tends to go off half cocked quite frequently. He made some mistakes in his book and his publisher didn’t pick up on them. Bad luck. That’s all. Most cultures get miffed when foreigners get their facts wrong. Look how the British reacted to the New York Times with its remarks about mutton eating Britons.

          2. Is that "British" as in having a British passport? I'm English and the NYT's remarks passed me by entirely.

          3. Yes, that’s right. Conway wasn’t mentioned in any of the articles published in the British press after a series of gaffes about the UK appeared in the New York Times. But most certainly many writers seemed most offended although as always this was downplayed with humorous quips.
            The nationality is British, I always tend to choose that word over English as so often the retort has been I’m Welsh /Scottish or even from Jersey and British does cover a multitude.

          4. Ah, well, if they didn’t mention me, no wonder it passed me by. For chippiness (and I have Welsh ancestry) the Welsh are proudly Welsh. I don’t recall any of the ones I know (I live in the Marches) claiming to be “British”.

          5. ‘Chippiness’. That’s a great descriptive noun and I suppose ‘chippy’ would be the adjective. Will remember these in future.
            Scottish aquaintances tend to say British, Britain and the UK when talking about home perhaps to demonstrate they are not chippy. It’s been a long time since since I’ve known any Welsh people although I had Welsh friends at university now so long ago.

          7. Nowt wrong with a shoulder of mutton. In fact I prefer the stronger taste of mutton to lamb.

    2. ‘I am devastated to hear that I have caused offence and wholly apologise for doing so’, Oliver told the Guardian.

      Worm. He should have told them to get lost.

    3. I have an idea for a childrens book. "Who Ate Captain Cook?" (Google AI says the Hawaiians were not cannibals – they only ate his heart and that's OK 'cause it was a religious ritual. See, even robots can be programmed to spout contradictory rubbish.)

        1. Jack Off is best mates with Gennaro Contaldo who pretends to also be a chef.

          And those two are best mates with Antonio Carluccio who is a chef/patron but doesn't feel the need to pay his staff wages or tips.

          Any fool can cook pasta !

    5. “Racial slur”

      Another stupid expression, used by stupid people seeking to show how “progressive” they are.

      1. Another one I loathe is "racial equality" – our Diocese has set up a committee for it (presumably to promote it and kill off so-called "white privilege").

    1. We have had that for four years. Fastest appointment to see an actual "doctor" = four weeks.

      1. Unless you turn up in A&E. You may wait all day and half the night but you will see a doctor.

        1. That is like the old system used to be back in the 1950s-1960s. One simply turned up at the drs surgery between, say 8.00 am – 10.00 am and 5.00 pm – 7.30pm. There could be 30+ in the waiting room but everyone would be seen. A surgery of 4 doctors but always 2 – 3 on duty, sometimes the full complement.

      2. This has just been introduced in the neighbouring town. [fortunately not our GP practice]

        It requires an App which will only work on a very modern IPhone.

        They've now gone down to one 'phone line. When an elderly lady we know needed an apointment

        she 'phoned and the recorded announcement stated that she was number thirty.

        After half an hour wait the 'phone automatically disconnected her.

        Is this a great improvement?

      2. When did they last have freak shows with bearded women and poor people with monstrous deformities?

        It is strange how people seem instinctively drawn to distressing sights. The Hottentot Venus and the Elephant man were paraded about and people actually paid good money to gawp at them.

      1. I have never seen that face on Dolly. Her ears are always up and tail is wagging. She does give me the death stare though if her food is late by 5 seconds.

        1. Kadi bats my leg if he thinks his food is due. I have to keep reminding him that he's "twirly" because he starts at around 1pm and he isn't fed until after 3.00!

          1. You won't believe me but Dolly is the same and i also say 'she's too early'. She did try to nip my ankle once when she was younger but couldn't get through my woolly socks.

            I can't help giving her or Harry the odd little treat betwixt times now though because it's that or full metal jacket.

          2. One of his tricks is to ask to go out. When I let him out he sniffs the air and wants to come straight back in. Why? Because to encourage him (and Oscar) to go out for a wee, I rewarded them with half a biscuit each when they came back. Kadi has sussed out that if he goes out, even if only for a few seconds, when he comes back in he gets a biscuit! If he doesn't get a biscuit he reminds me.

          5. I rewarded Rico with a treat (Scrumble) when he went out for a tiddle, so it is always me he asks to take him out in the evening into the garden – poppiesdad is cunning and doesn't give him treats for that purpose – but it is the way I housetrained him fairly quickly and he is remarkably reliable. He also jumps off the chair or bed and runs to the door when he wants to throw up, that is usually as far he gets. Poppie, bless her, would just heave it all up where she was.

    1. Reagan had quite a few jokes i believe.

      I remember the media rubbishing him and also on Spitting Image. Seems nothing much changes.

  78. From an American economist:

    . ……….and a report that India is
    importing record amounts of crude oil from Russia, refining it, and then
    exporting the refined products to the European Union. Apparently
    there was a loophole in the sanctions on Russia, that allows for this
    “end around”. We can’t be surprised about this action, as India and
    Russia are signatory members of the BRICS Alliance and that’s where
    their allegiance lies. As a result of this action this entire year, India is
    the largest importer for refined products into the E.U. for 2024

      1. The UK provided around £2.3 billion in aid to India between 2016 and 2021.

        A drop in the Indian Ocean…

  80. 396701+ up ticks,

    Lets get one thing straight, they, the global warming scammers are looking to make a big score as in, one trillion, the genuine fact is as I see it, in all its casual beauty nature is a bigger killer thnt ALL the bent politico's worldwide.

    Many forest fires are caused via bryant & may, in the wrong hands, land grabbers etc,etc.

    Flooding is caused via demolition of dams, too much concrete on soak aways, blocked town drains etc,etc.
    Against rising sea levels , if any, you can only do so much because if nature wants to take a hand you are out of the game.
    Currently we are more at risk from the overseeing parties, . politico's, pharmaceuticals, and unnatural causes than nature and natural causes.

    1. Added to the removal of dams in Valencia where they were already well aware of how the rain clouds and weather patterns behave you can add cloud seeding from North Africa.

      Their King was lucky it was only mud thrown at him.

      1. 396701+ up ticks,

        Evening Pip,
        That cloud seeding is open to deadly abuse, a tailor made plague to order, and how many dead would sir like ?

        1. Quite.
          The man is a moron if he thinks the remaining membership will replace that money, let alone the men and the weapons America contributes.
          As to the combined European Navy or Air force? Ha bluddy ha.

          5. Possibly, full Admirals. Vice Admirals are a different kettle of fish. And we won't even discuss the rears.

    3. Rutte is a very odious man who is, quite rightly, now despised by most people in the Netherlands. He is a WEF control freak who loves bossing people about.

  83. The voting for the US House seems to be taking an inordinate amount of time to complete.
    Are the Democrats still shipping in new ballot papers?

    1. No. The Democrats are inspecting all the headstones in the graveyards looking for more voters,

    2. Probably. The slowpoke is Arizona which is one of the most politically corrupt states, if not the most, in the USA.

  85. One of the things about America is that it is so vast it's full of amazing places that you can be totally unaware of. In the decades that I lived there I had no idea that this place existed it came onto my computer as a 'desktop' photo. ~But I thought I would share it because it is fantastic and not the usual Yellowstone Park or Yosemite that you are all familiar with. There was, by the way, near Yosemite, a valley called "Hetch Hetchy" it was by all accounts far more beautiful than Yosemite. But it was dammed to make a reservoir for fresh water that supplies San Francisco, so there is no trace of it now, just a big lake.
    This is "The Valley of Dreams, New Mexico. Wish I had known about it when I lived in California, would have certainly visited.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAbeeAqhSNw&list=TLPQMTExMTIwMjSx1h-z7DNG4Q&index=5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBLR_aJJgT4&list=TLPQMTExMTIwMjSx1h-z7DNG4Q&index=4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS3lwe5LE7Q&list=TLPQMTExMTIwMjSx1h-z7DNG4Q&index=3

  86. The West’s feminists are wilfully blind to the realities of Islamism. 11 november 2024.

    This comes just two months after the Taliban enforced even stricter rules on how women must dress and behave in public. Dress-wise, they must be utterly covered, including every millimetre of their faces. Behaviour-wise, they must refrain from reading, singing and even speaking when outdoors. Rarely in history has there been such a barbarous gagging of an entire section of society.

    And the second silence that has unsettled me? The silence of the woke of the West in response to this vile crime against womankind.

    You will search in vain for expressions of solidarity with the women of Afghanistan. The hashtag activists of the very online Left are schtum. Unlike the women who live under the sexist boot of Taliban rule, these people have the right to speak, but choose not to.

    Feminism in the West is largely parasitic. It has grown fat on the sacrifices of the male population. The world that they created at the cost of countless lives has been destroyed to feed this appalling doctrine. Contrary to its claims Feminism is not about equality. The very opposite in fact. Its foundations are Greed and Envy. That it ignores the realities of Islam is only to be expected. It would sacrifice every worthwhile thing to maintain the unearned privileges that it has gained for itself. There will be a reckoning of course but it will drag everything else down into the pit with it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/11/the-wests-feminists-are-willfully-blind-to-islamism/

    1. Do BMW drivers have a reputation for not using indicators? If not, then I don't get the joke.

  88. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/11/11/gas-boilers-to-be-banned-in-new-homes-by-2027/

    The problem with heat pumps isn't if they work or not – they do. We turned ours on and it got the house nice and warm.

    However it was drawing nigh 1.5KW (and needing a dehumidifier to vent the bathroom ) and, the real problem that can't be got around is the utter inflexibility. They're designed for climates that have 6 months of winter, not mild, dampish, wet days of 14'c and then freezing plunges to 7.

    That might be my incompetence in programming the thermostat, but we wanted to turn it down in the afternoon, or only have it on until about 8 then turn it off but you can't. It's supposed to run all the time. We found ours to cycle far more than expected. A boiler gets to temperature then shuts off. The heat pump dropped then spiked, dropped and spiked for over an hour. We've resolved to turn it on only when the temp is unbearable as the cost is simply too high.

    We did suggest to bring the thermostat upstairs so only upstairs was at 19 (it was 21 most of the time as hot air pours the stairs.

    Yes, they work. Are they rational for the UK? No. I'd like it on now as I can feel my nose getting cold but it's too expensive.

        1. Just get colder after having moved around, but yes, the plan is to turn the heating on in extremis, no more getting to 12'c and to move house in 3 years, 8 months.

          Here's a Q. Has anyone any experience/input on being a cash buyer? As we could sell up, rent somewhere and then buy more carefully.

          1. I have only bought two properties but that was by the usual method.

            I think it's a case of you get what you pay for if you are a cash buyer.

            Didn't you do any research on the property? Speak to locals in the pub?

          2. Yes, I tried to. Thing is I didn't know what to ask. I've moved precisely once. I bought my flat, sold my flat, moved in to the farmhouse because the Warqueen said 'here'. That it had thick stone walls, gas central heating, a paddocky thing, the uprated electricals and so on was sort of happenstance.

            Then we had one dog and no small person (who is no longer small) . The mortgage was, relatively; tiny. We were paying £350 and had close to 4k coming in. Thus we did all the things we wanted. That the bathroom was drilled out from stone and down stairs with the pipework outside didn't occur to us.

            Now we've a soil pipe in the centre of the house that ticks and bangs in winter as if it's dripping, an expensive to run heating thing and a thoroughly fed up me who said 'look, there's 5 and a bit bedrooms – loadsroom for us all and we can get gas put in and all that…

            And it's been a litany of disasters ever since. This is down to me not thinking it through and trusting SGN to do a proper survey, not looking at the ceilings, not thinking of winter, not looking at the electrics…

          3. A doer upper then. At least you have plenty of money to waste spend.

            I have come across successful intelligent people who behave like complete twonks before.

            I don't understand why someone wouldn't have a complete survey done on what is such a large investment.

            Sorry.

          4. I didn't have a survey done on this house, but even if I had, it wouldn't have picked up the underpinning because there was no paperwork whatsoever. It was only discovered when a test pit was dug after settlement (they underpinned it to sell it). I did, however, reject one house because I saw it in summer and the mansard rooms in the roof were boiling hot. The alarm bells rang and I reasoned that it would be freezing in winter. Plus there was a very steep slope down to the garage, which I reckoned would become the Cresta Run when it froze.

          5. Why don't you rent it out and then with the rent payments you get, pay rental yourself on something else? That way, it gives you time to think what to do and not winter it out in that property. You may change your mind and want to move back or take your time to consider your options – whilst getting paid for it. A big house rented out will cover a smaller rental for yourselves. You can vet renters by showing them round yourself or being there when they are shown round. Get an agent to collect rent but make sure the agent doesn't tie you in to a two-year contract. You won't need it if the tenant is a good one. if they regularly pay you won't need the agent collection services. Anyway you can get landlord insurance.

          6. Landlords are on a hiding to nothing these days. Wibbs would be better off flogging the place or renovating to his required standard. Putting a heat pump in an old place is crazy, they seem to work in trippled glazed new builds but an old cottage, not a chance.

          7. It puts you at the advantage of having no chain and gives a chance of getting an offer below asking price accepted.

          8. I've never found it made much difference. Unless what you are buying is not mortgageable. Maybe that's just my findings.

  89. Can you imagine the NHS, or for that matter the civil service, doing this?

    In an attempt to meet challenging cost: income targets, Deutsche Bank has culled 111 senior managers. The retail and private bank is seeking to lower the ratio from 77 per cent to 60 per cent. It has decided to merge three layers of management into one and dispense with the services of eight per cent of its managing directors and directors. The bank will also close three hundred branches and cut external consultants.

      1. I could imagine them doing it to front line staff and then employing more highly paid managers to oversee it.

          3. 🤗Believe me Sos they don’t like opinions. It’s almost impossible to make contact with them.

    3. Deutsche Bank? Been a zombie bank for years.

      Here's some fun facts..
      Deutsche Bank has 84,659 employees. Ethereum has 639 employees.
      Deutsche Bank market capitalisation is one tenth of Ethereum.

      Could I imagine the NHS going bankrupt? It's virtually impossible for a 1st world country to go bankrupt.
      Britain is 'an NHS with a country attached'.

      2. It's currency rather than a bank and I strongly suspect that these cryptocurrencies will eventually implode and cause enormous damage to the world' financial systems.

      4. I have an acquaintance that has recently returned to South Wales after spending his time in HK running a telecoms business. You dont happen to be him…?

      1. That is true. The Left tend to protect the worst offenders so they don't look as bad in comparison.

        1. Welby and Smyth were clearly close friends who had worked together in boys' camps for many years.

          Harry Lime (Orson Welles) was Holly Martins's (Joseph Cotten) best friend – but the time came when Martins could no longer stand by his friend.

          This is the sort of dilemma you find in films, plays and novels. But what do you do if your own beloved son or daughter is being pursued by the law for a heinous crime? Do you help him or her escape or do you turn him or her in?

          1. Allegedly Welby was one of Smyth's "trustees" at his camps, so his ignorance of the abuse being perpetrated is hard to believe.

      2. He knew. I haven’t seen it of course but I’m told by church folk that there was written evidence.

    4. More than losing the confidence of his clergy, Welby lost the confidence of a lot of his congregation a long time ago.

    5. Looks like? He bloomin’ well is! Disgusting little hypocrite…and I doubt he believes inGod!

      1. Firstborn's Godfather is a C of E Minister, and says regularly, he's the last Vicar in the Church of England who still believes in God.
        He seems to have a point.

      2. Of course he doesn't. To be a Christian was not in the job description. Just look at the Midwife, too – and Vennells…..

          2. The frightful, woke woman who is – unbelievably – Bishop of Lunnon. Our Susan will give you the low (and very low it is) down on her.

  91. A unflappable Birdie Three?

    Wordle 1,241 3/6
    ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
    🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Me too after a run of fives.
      Wordle 1,241 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. For once I can claim a tie
      Wordle 1,241 3/6

      🟩🟨🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. Par for me. Silly mistake on guess three but helpful nonetheless.

      Wordle 1,241 4/6

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

        1. Back at five, me!

          Wordle 1,241 5/6

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

    5. Enjoyed today – with the 4 letters I had there could only be one answer (for a change) – Birdie birdie…..

      Wordle 1,241 3/6

      🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
      🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  92. Prevening, all. Greetings on Armistice Day. The RAF ensign is flying over my garden. Went to lay a wreath from the Parish Council this morning. The whole junior school was out in force to attend and lay home-made wreaths. Sadly, at least two of the accompanying adults were wearing alternative poppies (both crocheted). The bloke only wore a white one and the woman had a purple and a red one. One of the offerings was purple, white and red. It's good to see the children are exposed to the commemoration (and they were very well behaved, especially as some were barely 3!), but I wonder what they are told in the classroom. Rainbow badges, pens and lanyards were much in evidence as well.

    Britain can't afford a lot of things it doesn't need (and shouldn't be funding). That doesn't seem to bother the lot on the green benches.

    1. How the imperialist, colonialist warmongering British attacked defenceless Germany – twice.

      Good evening, Conwy. We had a normal Remembrance Day service yesterday. Two of the three former soldiers took part. No silly poppies – just red ones. We do it outside the church – it was refreshing that so many cars slowed down as they passed.

  93. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/11/bishop-calls-on-archbishop-of-canterbury-to-quit/

    One of the bishops baying for blood (amongst the other donkeys and jennies who are braying for it!) is Helen-Ann Hartley, the Bishop of Newcastle, who says says urgent action is needed to prevent Church ‘losing complete credibility’

    "Hartley is "fully committed to the full inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people" in the Church of England." according to her Wiki entry

    I suspect that to be other than 'all for the full inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people' in the Church of England would be the kiss of death to those wanting to climb up the greasy pole of Anglican politics which is probably no less sordid than lay politics

    I am not certain that the CofE has much credibility still to lose but watch this space to see how many bishopesses will be putting their names forward to become Archpillockess of Canterbury once Welby has gone!

          1. Be an agnostic, if there is a God, nothing lost, if there isn't it won't matter.

            As an atheist, if there is one, and particularly if it's a vindictive one, you're in for a nasty surprise.

          2. Indeed. I’d ask it if it wasn’t a tad bored by all the angels constant singing “ Holy holy holy ad infinitum..,.,

  94. What goes clip clop, clip clop, clip clop, clip clop, bang bang. Clip clop, clip clop, clip clop?

  100. We had an ad hpc commemoration at the War Memorial in 2021. Just before 11 o'clock, a bus pulled up at a nearby bus stop. It stayed there until 11:02.

    1. Why are they all women, though? Here in Wales all the clergy are either female, or gay, or both. The Bishops seem to be screaming queans. It has become yet another career path for those bent towards the entertainment industry.

      1. I don't know, but we do seem to have a Monstrous Regiment of Women (and some of them, like the wrecktorette and the woke Bish from Berk – en head are dire indeed). The new rural Dean for Shropshire is a woman, the Bishop of Shrewsbury is a woman – the list goes on and on.

  104. A “neo-Nazi sympathizing sociopath”, a “dangerous clown”.. a “serial liar and a cheat,” ..screamed David Lammy.

    "C'mon, that's old news.. from 2018", pleads Lammy.

    So is slavery.. but that hasn't stopped you whinging on & on & on about it. ©Katie Hopkins.

  105. Today's was at the war memorial opposite the church. They had Remembrance Day service yesterday (which I didn't attend as I was at another church). A couple walking their dog stopped to watch the service. They'd come along specially to see if it was on.

  108. Slowly.. but shirley the tide is turning.

    Karam Kanjo a Syrian asylum seeker is set to be deported from Sweden after a shocking video showed him pushing a 91-year-old woman down a flight of stairs as she made her way to her husband's grave, in an attack that is set to reignite the country's debate over migration.

    2. Canute did not believe he could stop the tide from rising but his sycophants and advisers did.

      The usual range of the Tide at Dover is between -2.97m and 3.51m.

      Let's strap Starmer and Cooper into chairs just above the low water mark on Dover Beach just as the tide is beginning to flood and instruct them to stop the tide of illegal immigrants in rubber boats.

    3. Isn't is it something like nineteen previous convictions including rape? That is worse than slowly.

      At least he hasn't been invited to the UK and offered acouncil house. – yet!

  109. Gas boilers to be banned in new homes
    Developers to ensure new-builds only fitted with electric heat pumps or non-gas alternatives
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/11/11/gas-boilers-to-be-banned-in-new-homes-by-2027/

    I put this childish BTL comment under this article. I received 8 upticks in the first minute but I doubt if it is still up!

    NET ZERO IS A SCAM – CLIMATE IS FOREVER CHANGING BUT MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING IS A MYTH – NET ZERO IS A SCAM – CLIMATE IS FOREVER CHANGING BUT MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING IS A MYTH – NET ZERO IS A SCAM – CLIMATE IS FOREVER CHANGING BUT MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING IS A MYTH – NET ZERO IS A SCAM – CLIMATE IS FOREVER CHANGING BUT MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING IS A MYTH – NET ZERO IS A SCAM – CLIMATE IS FOREVER CHANGING BUT MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING IS A MYTH – NET ZERO IS A SCAM – CLIMATE IS FOREVER CHANGING BUT MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING IS A MYTH – NET ZERO IS A SCAM – CLIMATE IS FOREVER CHANGING BUT MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING IS A MYTH –

    How many times do I need to say it?

  110. Trump calls for death penalty for migrants who kill Americans..

    Irony Alert. You see, he's lidderally a fascist for killing people.

        1. And they both love every minute. And – I suspect – are measuring each other up (as it were!!)

    3. That was in France, I assume?
      How embarrassing. We have a head of state to do that sort of thing. Politicians are supposed to compôte themselves with a little more humility.

  112. Tonight I shall raise a glass, as is my want today to the lads we didn't bring home in 1982, although I would have been called a ponce for making it a Merlot.
    As in:
    "What the fuck is that yer ponce?"

    1. My first war, as an adult.
      Overwhelming memories of tension. And a strong desire to own a L1A1…

      1. I seem to recall spending 90% of the time absolutely clueless and the remaining 10% running around like a blue arsed fly.
        I decided I didn't like humping around 4.5" bullets, boxes of 40/60 ammo, or Seacat missiles.

    2. We have one such (survivor) in the village. A gentler man would be hard to find. Turned himself into a very capable painter in oils.

      1. I did have an internal discussion over this and for some reason plumped for that.

  113. I liked this letter.

    SIR – It costs £1.65 to buy a first-class stamp for a Christmas card. Twice I’ve been in India ahead of Christmas, and regretted not taking my cards with me and posting from there. A quick search suggests the cost would be no more than 45p per card, with delivery taking between four and 10 days.

    It looks like a perfect opportunity for some enterprising Indians to take a bulk delivery of cards and then post them all back. Perhaps there are other countries that will work even more efficiently and help make a total mockery of Britain’s postal service.

    Paul Bowden
    Bristol.

    A word of warning , when I visited South Africa a few years ago .. I posted a pile of nice colourful postcards from there .. not one reached the UK.

    My family , siblings etc send cards over with a friend visiting the UK, usually with SA stamps, I don't know how that works out. My Christmas post is despatched in November .. arrives in January or never .

    Last year I posted cards in October .. I give up .

  114. Understand that!
    I recall the shock when HMS Conqueror torpedoed the Belgrano. Up to that point, it was almost fun, after that, deadly serious.
    Good shooting, lads.

    2. Indeed, yes. I think for us it was the Sheffield, all of a sudden the realisation that it could be us next.

  115. My experience was as a child being evacuated from Egypt during Suez crisis .. and by Short Sunderland flying boat from the Bitter lakes , mother and sister .

    1. Posted before: As a child on the way to the UK from Nigeria, sitting in the Nigeria Airways plane (VC10?) at Kano airport to Heathrow, as the army came onto the airfield with armoured cars, shooting at the rebels. As a small boy, I was excited, not realising that we were shut in, sitting surrounded by tons of easily-ignited jetfuel…

  116. That's me gone for today. Loaf; manure shifting; pruning up ladders….AND all the crosswords completed!

    Tomorrow = bonfire.

    Have a jolly evening – if you want to watch total trash telly – try "Lucan" on BBC2. Absolute bollocks! In every way….

    A demain.

    1. Hope your loaf hasn't taken on the essence of pooh. You really shouldn't do both tasks in the same day you know.

    2. After my shopping trip to Belper and sorting what I'd bought out, I had a mug of tea, then got on doing dinner so never got outside today to do anything.
      A dry day forecast for tomorrow so will get something done.

  117. And don't ever send a card to yer London with a fiver inside. The coons at the sorting offices "intercept" them….

    1. I recall that occurrence at Mount Pleasant, the sorting office built on the site of a dumping ground for all manner of detritus hence its name.

      The sorting staff would open those envelopes addressed to children with ’Master’ in the address knowing they might find a postal order.

    2. I recall that occurrence at Mount Pleasant, the sorting office built on the site of a dumping ground for all manner of detritus hence its name.

      The sorting staff would open those envelopes addressed to children with ’Master’ in the address knowing they might find a postal order.

    3. Do thieves working for the postal service know how to detect cash in a card? I know a birthday card looks obvious to them but how many were received with the envelopes already opened?

      Asking for my Postie.

        1. Well, as I met my darling husband in Thornaby, there’s not a lot I can say!! 🤦🏻‍♀️
          Actually, pet I could, but I’ll not!

        2. Well, as I met my darling husband in Thornaby, there’s not a lot I can say!! 🤦🏻‍♀️
          Actually, pet I could, but I’ll not!

    3. That you get two dogs in a bed half the size of on here – which is bigger than a pallet – is rather sweet.

  121. I was just thinking that Trump should have a bit of fun with Keir when he takes over as President.
    25% tariffs on all UK exports unless he gives TR a full pardon and puts him in the House of Lords.
    Perhaps we should be all petitioning Trump some of our ideas

    1. A petition is not the way to do it. Have you seen how well that system just like FOI requests work in our own country?
      What the President needs to do and will do is apply rock hard diplomatic pressure where the little shits will cave in because 'THEY' have no mandate.

    2. That would kill a lot of UK business, and hurt a lot of people who have no say in the argument.
      I don't think Trump would do that.

      1. No, but he could talk to Starmer and remind him how absurd and stupid his ideology is. How his policies have never, ever worked, anywhere.

  122. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Donald Trump has won his third presidential election and across Europe heads are exploding. This should not be the case. Many European leaders were briefed earlier this year that a Trump victory was more likely than not. But wishful thinking appears to have defeated grim experience in many minds and many civil service buildings.

    To hear the Europeans tell it, they are now confronted with a unique threat. The last time Trump was in office, Ukraine had been fighting Russia since 2014, but its survival was not hanging by a thread. It was not seriously likely that Russia would invade Moldova, Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania, as now seems possible. Finland and Sweden were not Nato members, and could not therefore serve as the place Russia might deniably invade with mercenaries, or strike with missiles, in order to test the limits of Nato’s security guarantees. Now these things are planned for and, by the most depressive security officials, miserably awaited.

    Europe shouldn’t have needed Trump to force them to wake up

    With all this at stake, European leaders are talking a big game. In Brussels and Strasbourg, the magic phrase ‘strategic autonomy’ has new currency. In Paris and Berlin, men like France’s junior foreign affairs minister, Benjamin Haddad, talk on television of an almost American self-reliance. ‘We must take ownership of our own fate: invest in our defence, our competitiveness’, Haddad said.

    Leaders from Emmanuel Macron to Olaf Scholz (who may soon be out of office) say they must work with Trump, but need also now to act more decisively in Europe’s own interest. But European leaders cannot define Europe’s own interests, let alone act energetically to protect and advance them.

    Europe has had almost three years of war in Ukraine to teach them the necessity of standing on their own feet. Europeans have given more than Americans to Ukraine by most measures. More weapons, more practical support with refugees, significantly more money. Europe has had to deal with flows of migrants directed by Belarus like a dagger into the side of Poland. All of this ought to have focused minds. But has it?

    Real strategy needs what theorists call ‘built strategy’. If a change in policy is not accompanied by major procurement advances, by putting up new factories, by sinking billions into research and development, it is not serious.

    Some European countries have significantly increased their defence spending, such as Poland. But other countries are not so serious. The once-in-a-century German investment in defence (€100 billion), which was announced in February 2022 has not yet shown up. Many Europeans profess themselves impressed by Germany’s wartime defence minister, Boris Pistorius. But if German forces remain too wedded to manufacturing small numbers of exquisite, expensive systems rather than placing mass and fires in the field, what good can one defence minister really do?

    Europe shouldn’t have needed Trump to force them to wake up to the reality of American foreign policy. The US has not really defended, in the long term, any of its allies in need since 2000. Georgia was invaded by Russia in 2008. America did nothing. Ukraine was invaded in 2014 and then 2022. America helped, but with no long-term plan. Joe Biden as well as Donald Trump would really rather Ukraine quietly disappeared.

    Iraq’s post-Saddam government was surrendered to Iran with only mild diplomatic protests and the occasional missile thrown in tantrum. America did not lift a finger or trouble a hair to defend its Afghan ally as the Taliban advanced in August 2021 – in full view of American drones and satellites. Syrian rebels who were equipped by the American CIA were abandoned utterly to their fate a decade ago. Kurdish rebels in Syria’s north threw rocks at American vehicles as they ran away before a Turkish advance. The lesson is clear: do not trust the Americans. Never rely on them for a second, no matter who is in the White House.

    The need for European self-protection is vital. But Europe is still governed as it has been for so long, by people who do not understand defence nor the need of it. Call it what you like. ‘Strategic autonomy’, a real ‘built strategy’, each remain unlikely.

    WRITTEN BY
    James Snell
    James Snell is a senior advisor for special initiatives at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy. His upcoming book, Defeat, about the failure of the war in Afghanistan and the future of terrorism, will be published by Gibson Square next year.

    1. Question does Putin really have ambitions to conquer Western Europe when he has the whole of Russia to govern?

      2. Even if he has, he has not got further than the Donbas in 3 years. Against NATO fighting forces, I'm not sure Vlad will be knocking on our doors anytime soon. Now, if he were to climb in a rubber boat…

    2. In the short term Trump may well just enjoy a bit of Trudeau kicking and demand that Canada puts up the two percent nato contribution right now.

    3. Europe's political class are desperately Left wing. They've a population they can extract cash from and who cannot remove them. The People of Europe are turning Right, and pushing away the hard Left. The Left are fighting back, seeing the end of their hegemony.

      Government as a concept is finished. The high tax, big state Left wing attitude simply cannot be afforded and folk know this.

    1. You may think that's funny but over here we are worried about the growing score Trudeaus killing fields.

      US refugees would probably be democrats, they would get a pass by Trudeau.

    1. Trump is his own worst enemy (apart from Iran, the Clintons and various Islamic extremists).

      People don't do research for unexciting things like electing presidents, they watch media reporting and take it from there. His bombastic rhetoric is taken at face value and turned into propoganda against the beast, his programs don't get a look in unless they are encased in wild exaggeration.

      1. Let's face it, Trump could speak as soberly as anyone could wish; he'd still have his words twisted to make him look deranged.

    2. Americans – well, us as well – like to be told what to think. We don't like difficult questions that make us think.

      Thus people vote Left.

  130. Thought for the day:
    If you were a Democrat in the USA and suddenly realised you might well be irrelevant for the next 12 years how might you feel?

    Stupid,
    Same as you always were.

    1. Confident that after 12 years idiots will vote you back into power. Vide UK for details ….

    2. Thing is, they don't realies how wrong they are. They just haven't understood how wrong they are.

  131. Thought for the day:
    If you were a Democrat in the USA and suddenly realised you might well be irrelevant for the next 12 years how might you feel?

    Stupid,
    Same as you always were.

    1. The dogs here will share, but they're just too big. Mongo, who's in with Junior splayed out on his bed fills it.

    1. Just rebuilding bridges with Europe. Not a bad thing in itself, and I would approve. But, of course, they wont stop at a mutually beneficial arrangement with loose ties, oh no… we'll be roped into being the cash cow and unemployed depository of the EU along with its criminals.

  146. Yesterday's stab fest, better not speculate, here are the words from the DM. "Ali Musse, 66, has been charged with one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder.". Nuff said.

  147. Labour's global strategy is imploding – that's where Starmer needs a reset

    The Left's hopes for a cosy White House, a benevolent EU and worldwide net zero zealotry are all shattered

    Robert Tombs • 11 November 2024 • 5:00pm GMT

    The international challenges we are now facing would require the combined talents of Talleyrand, Bismarck and Churchill: subtle diplomacy, decisiveness, a sense of history, and the ability to inspire. Instead, we have Sir Keir Starmer, David Lammy and Ed Miliband.

    The challenges are global, but the British Government must confront a particularly bleak outlook, as the pillars of Labour's very own international strategy are simultaneously crumbling. They announced a "reset" in relations with the EU and "our friends in Europe". They expected to be dealing with a congenial and unassertive Democratic administration in Washington. And they promised a rapid transition to a green paradise of economic dynamism and well-paid jobs, and expected to bask in the satisfaction of leading the world towards a carbon-free future. What remains of their hopes?

    Let's take the three in turn.

    There is no feebler concept than "reset" when thinking of Europe's problems and our mutual relationship. "Reset" implies going backwards, returning to a normal that has long ceased to exist. Michel Barnier, when he first met Starmer during the Brexit negotiations, noted in his diary that this was the man to bring Britain back into the EU.

    No rational person would go so far today, but it testifies to the predominant Labour reflex. As far as I understand the Remainer/Rejoiner mindset, it seems to be based on what one serious academic study has identified as being anti-Brexit without being pro-EU. Those who advocate "resetting" or even rejoining seem to have little knowledge of or interest in the EU as it really is, but they definitely want Brexit to be a failure. Hence their stubborn reliance on exaggeration and endless dodgy dossiers of statistics.

    This mindset prevents our policy makers from facing up to the real issues about our relations with the EU and its major states: their political and social instability, their economic failures, and their security weaknesses. The European strategy we need now is how to deal with a failing EU, not rejoining it.

    Turning to our relations with Washington. Trump's biggest issue with the European nations during his last administration was that we were not willing to pay for our own defence. Britain performs better than our continental neighbours, but we are still a laggard compared to the United States.

    If our politicians today had the foresight and courage of Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain (who doubled defence spending in 1938), they would plan a major defence programme and increase spending as soon as possible to 2.5 per cent of GDP, as a start. They should announce this now, not delay with another interminable review. Our efforts should concentrate on sea power, air power and cyber, where we and Europe are most vulnerable. This would increase our influence with a Trump administration.

    Britain's core international strategy, at least since 1916, has been to involve the United States in European defence and the global order. Anything that makes it more likely that America will once again withdraw from Europe, and as a first step abandon Ukraine, must be avoided at all costs. Britain and other European states, who for generations have adopted the unconcealed policy of neglecting their own defences and leaving the burden to America, are in danger of reaping what they have sown.

    We must avoid the fatal mistake of thinking that the EU is capable of replacing the USA, and make every effort to persuade Washington that Nato can be made viable.

    The other crumbling pillar of Labour's strategy was to count on a successful and world-wide rush to net zero. The Cop29 meeting in Baku has the makings of a fiasco. To fly 80,000 participants to meet in a major oil producing state is absurd enough, not least as the hosts are reported to be profiting from the occasion to sell more oil and gas. The heads of the biggest CO2 emitters – including the US, China, India, and Germany – are staying away. Trump, of course, dismisses it all as a huge scam.

    Starmer, however, will be present. Labour's aspiration to green virtue and global leadership clearly remains strong. It is a position that seems more and more lonely. Perhaps the example we are really giving the world is what not to do: devastating our own economy in pursuit of an impossible target. We already have probably the most expensive energy in the world, despite promises that wind and solar power would be cheap. The Government's latest idea seems to be that we voluntarily ration ourselves. To anticipate the future effects on the economy – including the newest sectors such as energy-hungry artificial intelligence – requires little imagination.

    More and more people realise that a sacrificial energy policy such as ours is a looming disaster, and does nothing to remedy global warming. Green utopianism has been damaging, including for their own cause. But all political parties are to blame. We could have had a rational and less polluting [no, no, no – CO2 is not a pollutant] energy policy decades ago: a transitional period of increasing gas use (including our own North Sea and fracked supplies) while moving towards a mainly nuclear future. Rolls-Royce is a pioneer in modular reactors, which the former and the present government have neglected.

    Few other countries seem keen to join us in walking the economic plank. Around the world, the public are rebelling, and politicians who close their ears condemn themselves to defeat.

    Our present government persuaded a sceptical electorate that they would get things back to normal, which seemed to mean a return to the Blair era of easy prosperity, lavish public spending (except on defence), and blaming everything on the Tories.

    The appointment of Jonathan Powell, Blair's chief of staff, as National Security Adviser demonstrates this political nostalgia.

    But we are in a new world, and a new normal. Starmer, Lammy, Miliband and their colleagues cannot rely on "resets" or on blaming their predecessors. They have to show urgently whether they are capable of understanding today's threats, taking difficult decisions, and convincing the public. If not, they are in for a very rough ride. So are we all.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/11/labours-global-strategy-imploding-starmer-co2-cop29

    1. They were unutterable fools if they ever believed any of that stuff. Which makes it very likely that they do!

      For some reason, Britain is the sacrificial lamb this time round, even though the heart of financial power has been the City of London over the last 80 years as much as it's been the US.
      The Deagel report puts a numeric estimate on how badly things might go for Britain over the financial reset (spoiler: the worst outcome in the world). I believe the authors of the report when they said it was compiled from publicly available information – the information is all out there, it's just that people don't want to see where it's going.

      This is a very interesting article – it's been muttered for years, but is still officially denied
      https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2024/11/08/europe-is-finalizing-preparations-for-gold-standard-003609

      European central banks appear to be cooperating to set their gold reserves at ~4% of GDP. In 2022 (?) someone from the Dutch central bank said that they weren't concerned about their debt because "we have our gold" which implies a re-valuation of gold in the future, because it certainly won't make much of a dent in the debt today.
      Where does that leave Britain?

      Gold in the Bank of England – 310 tonnes (less than Poland! and some is said to be not pure gold but 90%)
      GDP – $3,071,670,000,000

      Using this converter: https://www.traditionaloven.com/metal/precious-metals/gold/convert-qty_310000-kilogram-kg-of-gold-to-troy-ounce-tr-oz-gold.html
      310 000 kg of gold == 9,966,731.44 troy ounces

      At 2700 dollars per ounce (it's slightly under that at the moment), that's 26 910 175 dollars.

      26 910 175 divided by 3 071 670 000 000 = 0.0087607636523455
      not 0.04

      Is my maths wrong (v. likely!), or do we have a problem?

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