869 thoughts on “Monday 11 November: Nigel Farage’s intransigence over Brexit could cost him and the country”

      1. Miniscule is a variant of minuscule, meaning “very tiny.” Ants, grains of sand, and portion sizes at fancy restaurants might all be described as miniscule.

    2. Part of the three lockstep guaranteed increase to the state pension is calculated on the rise in earnings…

    3. Part of the three lockstep guaranteed increase to the state pension is calculated on the rise in earnings…

    4. F68k off….pensioners largess is protected by HMG forcing younger poorer people to pay the bill….

  3. Labour’s Keith Vaz to stand down at general election. Sun 10 Nov 2019 .

    The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said: “Keith Vaz was among the pioneering group of black and Asian Labour MPs elected in 1987. I was proud to support his selection and incredibly proud when he won, taking the seat from the Tories.

    I suppose the Rent Boys and Drug Runners of Westminster will be sad to see him go as well!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/10/labour-keith-vaz-stands-down

    1. Westminster’s loss? Leicester and his ‘community’ are welcome to him and his squalid lifestyle.

      1. The depressing thought is that Leicester East are bound to choose another scumbag because he or she will be chosen on the basis of ethnic buggins’ turn.

    3. Hoorah! My washing machine is making odd noises; now Vazoline will have time to repair it.
      Er ….. why are you all looking at me like that?

      2. Touchy subject! Our washing machine gave up the ghost on Saturday and announced its departure by flooding the utility room! Gloom!! The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the only practical access for a replacement is temporarily blocked by the skip that the builders are using as they replace our bathroom.

          1. ‘Morning, Peddy, I didn’t think that you were so large, as to need such a vast portal into Narnia.

          1. Ah yes, Keith Vaz aka “Jim” the Washing Machine salesman
            Also known as “Lord of the Rings”……

    1. Morning, Peddy.
      Snow is falling, heavily. Ploughs struggling to keep up in the snarled-up traffic.
      Ah, winter!!

      :-))

      ps: The meteorologists issued a yellow warning for snow. Whether that means we should be on guard against yellow snow, I don’t know, but it sounds good unless you try to work out what they are on about.

  7. Morning all

    SIR – Nigel Farage could have gone down in history as the man who stiffened the sinews of the Conservative Party and ensured that we left the European Union – but I fear he is more likely to go down as the man who caused us to stay put.

    I know pride is at stake, but he must accept that after three years of political wrangling most people want to see a negotiated settlement. His desire for the Government to ditch the Brexit deal will simply not be realised. The only result if he persists with his present course is likely to be no exit from the EU, and a hard-Left Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn.

    Graham Lilley
    Edge, Gloucestershire

    1. SIR – Nigel Farage could have gone down in history as the man who stiffened the sinews of the Conservative Party and ensured that we left the European Union – but I fear he is more likely to go down as the man who caused us to stay put.

      I know pride is at stake, but he must accept that after three years of political wrangling most people want to see a negotiated settlement. His desire for the Government to ditch the Brexit deal will simply not be realised. The only result if he persists with his present course is likely to be no exit from the EU, and a hard-Left Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn.

      Graham Lilley
      Edge, Gloucestershire

      1. SIR – If the campaigner Gina Miller’s tactical voting site for Remain supporters succeeds and 30 per cent of Remain supporters do indeed vote tactically, what then? Her pro-referendum coalition of opposition parties will most likely be led by Jeremy Corbyn. Has she heard of shooting yourself in the foot?

        Fay Thompson
        Lytham St Annes, Lancashire

        SIR – Allison Pearson (Features, November 6) is absolutely right: the fight is now between sanity and a Labour government.

        I have massive doubts about the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal, but – using familiar terminology – even that is preferable to the catastrophe of falling off the cliff edge into Marxism.

        Eve Wilson
        Hill Head, Hampshire

        1. Eve Wilson

          “I have massive doubts about the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal”

          Had the Prime Minister been up-front and told us about the negatives of his deal, he might have gained some support. Instead, by presenting it as the best thing since sliced cheese, he’s lost his credibility in my opinion.

      3. Graham Lilley, “…but he must accept that after three years of political wrangling most people want to see a negotiated settlement.”

        No, Mr Lilley, if Boris’ negotiated Deal is the best we can get then, after 3 years of political wrangling, just accept that ‘most people’ want that we shall leave under WTO rules.

      4. You are right – pride is at stake – but why should we pander to Bumptious Boris’s pompous pride when he has been offered a pact which would enable him to go for a proper Brexit rather than the hideous May BRINO??

    2. …after three years of political wrangling most people want to see a negotiated settlement – don’t know who he talks to. All those (except for my boss, the arch-remainer) want out, yesterday, on WTO terms (which is, after all, a “deal”, but not BRINO deal).

      1. Oops, Paul, reading by oldest and hadn’t caught up to this one. Good to that we are ‘most people’ though.

        …and Good Morning, despite your blizzard conditions.

        1. Morning, Tom.
          I was really thinking about those I talk to on the telephone and meet when on visit…
          Blizzard is a bit exaggerated.It’s snowing, is all. ;-))

    3. The constant attacks in the DT on Nigel Frage show how very worried they are. Nick Timothy is the latest to join in the attacks (See my post above)

      The trouble is that Boris Johnson has been rumbled. For all his bluster he can no longer disguise the fact that his ‘fantastic deal’ is 95% the same as May’s surrender WA.

      Look at each and every DT article about Brexit and then look at the TOP COMMENTS underneath them – each and every top comment on each and every article is anti the Boris Johnson betrayal.

      Why does Johnson not make a pact with Farage to secure a big enough majority to go wholeheartedly for a WTO Brexit?

      Why indeed. I conclude that Boris Johnson has no intention of giving us anything other than a stitch up.

  8. SIR – I was initially inspired to see from your headline that Lord Blunkett, the former Labour home secretary, despairs at the behaviour of Labour’s hard-Left (Comment, November 9).

    However, he lost the moral high ground by stating that he would still, if eligible, be casting a vote for his local Labour candidate. How shameful.

    Dr Alistair A Donald
    Watlington, Oxfordshire

    1. Dr Donald, “How shameful.”

      More like, how stupid to have such blind faith in such a bedraggled party with its wreched leader.

    2. Blunkett lost the moral high ground when he deserted his wife and family to have an affair with the woman who used to own The Spectator magazine,

  9. Morning again

    SIR – Criticism of the Environment Agency for inadequate flood defences (report, November 9) is unjustified, especially as its objections to flood-causing developments are routinely ignored by planning authorities.

    Our climate is getting warmer and therefore we will experience more rain and more heavy downpours. At the same time, we are increasing the extent of impervious surfaces around towns within river catchments. Increased flooding is inevitable.

    We cannot reverse climate change quickly, perhaps not at all, but we can mitigate this aspect of it by banning new impervious driveways and car parks and by modifying existing ones.

    Michael Heaton
    Warminster, Wiltshire

    1. We cannot reverse climate change quickly, perhaps not at all, but we can mitigate this aspect of it by banning new impervious driveways and car parks and by modifying existing ones.

      Yes we should dig up the Motorways and Airports and plant cabbages on them!

          1. Morning NTN.

            Further to my comment, I heard that their hard shoulders had to be replaced when they developed leeks.

      2. We’d be better off reducing the increase in population so as not to have to build so many houses on green fields.

    2. We cannot reverse climate because we have never changed climate and we are wasting our time fiddling with CO2 which doesn’t correlate with temperature.

      1. Well it does but the opposite way around. An increase in temperature results in an increase in CO2. This is logical and conforms to real science. Most CO2 is held in the sea. When sea temperatures rise more CO2 is released

      2. I watched a documentary a few nights ago that dealt with the ‘Great Dying’, an extinction event that took place around 250,000,000 years ago. The cause was an enormous rupture in the Earth’s crust in what is now Siberia, the volcanic rock area is known today as the Siberian Traps. This rupture allowed vast amounts of lava to spew out accompanied by gases, including sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide. This event occurred over hundreds of thousands of years and:

        …the volcanoes lifted as much as 3 million cubic kilometers (720,000 cubic miles) of ash high into the air over this extended period. They said:

        To put that in perspective, the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington sent just 1 cubic kilometer [.24 cubic mi] of ash into the atmosphere, even though ash fell on car windshields as far away as Oklahoma.

        It’s thought that the Siberian Traps eruptions spewed so much material in the air, particularly greenhouse gases, that it warmed the planet by an average of about 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit).

        EarthSky – Volcanoes Caused the Great Dying Extinction Event

        A much, much smaller rupture over a very short time period in Iceland a few centuries ago caused famine in parts of the World for a few years. Is the World’s industrial base approaching these levels of pollution or is Extinction Rebellion exaggerating the problem?

        1. There was a documentary the other night which, if I heard correctly, made the observation that there are still volcanoes throwing out the equivalent of a Nagasaki/Hiroshima bomb’s energy every 10 seconds. If so, one wonders how much that compares with Man’s contribution.

      3. A rise in temperature (cause) will release CO2 from the oceans (effect) and other wet areas such as marshes. The opposite I would take some convincing over.
        EDIT: Temperature rise will also release other dissolved gases, such as oxygen…

  10. SIR – It is all very well for the Government to promise 6,000 more GPs by the end of the next Parliament (report, November 9), but full-time doctors are becoming a rarity as more and more choose to work part-time.

    Thus the actual number of appointments that become available will fall well short of expectations, even if the above target is reached.

    J H Reeves
    Bradfield, Berkshire

    1. The vocational aspect has gone as people grow to exploit their training rather than use it in the service of others. Doctors who do not propose to work properly should seek training somewhere else. There are thousands who long to be doctors now denied their chance.

      2. Doctors can be, and are, imported from non-English speaking countries rather than being grown at home. It’s cheaper, doncha know?

        1. O,
          As in a non English speaking doctor fatally
          OD a patient then returned to Germany I
          believe it was.

      3. The vocational aspect has gone from so much of life, teaching being a case in point. Now (or at least it was becoming so just before I retired) it is just a job.

    2. The simple answer is in my view it is spin if not just lying

      It takes at last 7 years to train a GP and a parliamentary term is 5 years so it is simply impossible. The other problem is you cannot simply create more training places overnight that will take years

      1. BJ,
        But it pads out the fodders for fools AKA the manifesto’s.
        If you put the truth out there then nobody would enter the ballot booth, well only UKIP members.

    3. Morning E,
      Inform J, reeves these governance parties could do it by scouring the planet, they have used in the past non
      English speakers ( German) which cost one patient dearly.
      Plus these political cretins would use witch doctors to fit in with their FGM etc, etc.

    4. One of the problems that dare not speak its name is the problem caused by the fact that there are more and more women doctors and they prefer to work part-time because of family commitments.

      It is the same in France. We have a lovely lady doctor – sadly she is nearing retirement now. She had a late baby at the age of 40 – 22 years ago celebrating her second marriage. This was a daughter who is extremely pretty and is studying to be a doctor herself. She will probably marry soon and go into baby production.

      My niece is married to a GP – he has taken early retirement at 59 because of Osborne’s pension cock up. Their daughter has recently qualified as a GP, has got married and is expecting a child so she will need to take some time off.

  11. SIR – If Bristol bans diesel vehicles (Letters, November 9), where are residents to turn when they need a plumber, an electrician, a carpenter or any other tradesman?

    We all use diesel vehicles. Good luck persuading us to carry all our tools and materials on the bus.

    S M Howard
    Aldershot, Hampshire

    1. Err… buses, ambulances, fire-engines, food delivery trucks, tractors, street sweepers… all diesel fuelled. Good luck with the ban!

    2. From the Urban Dictionary:
      “Bristol is the only suburban town, but called a city, you will see a 14 year old on a skateboard carrying a 40oz while smoking a cigarette. It is also the only place you can catch people dealing drugs on the street attached to the police station.”

        1. Bristol is Green/Lib-Dem territory where they just dream things up and think they can just happen

          Bristol is also the drug capital of the UK and long term use of drugs has a big impact on the brain so they come up with lots of crazy schemes

    3. Bristol’s blind and blinkered city Fathers (Mothers, Daughters & shrieking feminists) will be forced by circumstance and economics to reverse their ban but it will be done, oh so quietly.

    4. The council will stick huge ‘congestion charges’ on diesel vehicles (not buses – it would affect too many voters). The tradesmen etc… will put the extra charges on their bills so the daft burghers of Bristol will indirectly pay even more council tax.
      Serve ’em right for voting in the crazies.

  13. Conservatives to end ‘unfair trials’ for Northern Ireland veterans with pledge they will get new protections. 11 NOVEMBER 2019 .

    Military veterans will be given new legal protection to prevent them being prosecuted over killings during The Troubles, in a pledge to be made in the Conservative Party manifesto.

    Boris Johnson will go into the election with a promise to alter the Human Rights Act in order to bring an end to “the unfair trials” of soldiers.

    The Telegraph has learnt that the current draft of the manifesto includes a promise to end ‘ongoing… prosecutions’. It is unclear if ministers could ever intervene in active criminal court proceedings, and last night the Government refused to comment further.

    I’ve heard this before and it is in fact already supposed to have occurred but as one of my posts yesterday highlighted it hasn’t. This is simply a worthless election promise. No alteration of the Human Rights Act could change things. That the Party does not care to discuss it tells you this!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/11/northern-ireland-veterans-get-new-protections-tories-announce/

      1. Labour would immediately prosecute the millitary for any and all action they’ve ever taken, going back centuries.

        1. I think a union such as Unite, a workers union to help
          with their emotional needs and rights.

    2. Morning AS,
      Two things not in the old soldiers favour and could put them in greater danger from the political reprobates.
      pledge & promise.

    3. When I heard that story this morning I said to myself, “Cynical bastards coming out with that on Remembrance Sunday.” How low can our political class sink?

    4. Ah, but what he did also say a bit under the radar was that we can’t do anything about the trials currently on going.

      They also can’t change the human rights act because it is EU law and we haven’t left yet.

      1. The Human Rights Act is our internal law. Strictly speaking it was never necessary in this country, as we already complied with the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights, and in any case if any legislation was needed, it could have been far looser in wording, given the human rights we already have had under our common law and our constitution as written in the Magna Carta, Bill of Rights etc.

        The HRA was enacted so that Cherie Blair could set up a Human Rights chambers and make a mint.

  15. Abe and Esther are flying to Australia for a two-week vacation to celebrate their 50th anniversary.

    Suddenly, over the public address system, the Captain announces, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m afraid I have some very bad news. Our engines
    have ceased functioning and we will attempt an emergency landing. Luckily, I see an uncharted island below us and we should be able to land on the beach.
    However, the odds are that we may never be rescued and will have to live on the island for the rest of our lives!”

    Thanks to the skill of the flight crew, the plane lands safely on the island.

    An hour later Abe turns to his wife and asks, “Esther, did we pay our VISA and MasterCard bills yet?”

    “No, sweetheart,” she responds.

    Abe, still shaken from the crash landing, then asks, “Esther, did we pay our American Express card yet?”

    “Oh, no! I’m sorry. I forgot to send the check,” she says.

    “One last thing Esther. Did you remember to send the estimate check to the IRS this quarter?” he asks.

    “Oh, forgive me, Abe,” begged Esther. “I didn’t send that one, either.”

    Abe grabs her and gives her the biggest kiss in 40 years. Esther pulls away and asks him, “What was that for?”

    Abe answers, ”They’ll find us!”

    1. Just as well they’re using paper ones. Just think of what all that plastic in the new polymer notes would do to the turtles when the developers come to knock the building down.

      Just trying to imagine how many sacks are needed for a billion of them – a conservative estimate of the price of HS2 after taking out the environmental and fair compensation costs.

  18. Is it me?
    BBC headline; “British Steel to be rescued by Chinese firm in £70m deal”
    How can the take-over of a UK strategic asset by a Chinese company be described as a rescue? The Chinese have been taking over assets, for example, in the form of mines and mining rights all over the world. It is a raid.
    They are our competitors yet we buy from them in order to build bridges and warships. What is wrong with us? What is our Government thinking of? Who is our Government working for? It does not seem to be us.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50369413

    2. Morning HP,
      “Who is the governance parties working for” pretty obvious that one,
      the highest bidder.

    5. That argument was lost when TATA were allowed to buy, then sell to the French in the guise of Greybull Capital.

  19. Climate change: Speed limits for ships can have ‘massive’ benefits

    Most cargo ships operate at a speed which to optimises fuel consumption

    With Cruise liners there is a trade off between speed and duel consumption and staff costs and the number of cruises you can operate

    1. Scientific illiteracy again
      1:Reduce speed by 20% with the same amount of cargo being shipped simply means you require 20% MORE ships
      2:Focusing on speed limits rather than power/weight ratios makes the oldest most polluting tramp ships MORE economically viable
      These people are idiots

      1. Your average ship uses around 40 gallons per mile of high sulphur containing “bunker” oil…..

        1. I love the way that ships keep using long out of date terms. IT has been quite a few years since ships used coal which was stored in bunker

          1. It was replaced by oil, and the tanks were called “bunkers” as a carry over. So, they “bunker fuel”, which (In Norway, at least) is called “Bunkers” – evil goopy stuff that needs heated and contains all the carp, such as sulphur, that isn’t allowed in anything else.

        2. What arrant nonsense,I was promised,PROMISED I tell you by St Greta herself that all those ships carrying wood pellets for Didcot were solely powered by Unicorn Farts in the Great Green Breakthrough
          Soon all shipping and aircraft will switch to the new miracle fuel,we just need an intensive Unicorn breeding program
          This time we will make it work,comrades!!

    4. He is incoherent, dishonest, mendacious and treacherous as well as being drunk and unfit for office. He is a disgrace.

      Do you remember old George Brown? He was habitually drunk but – thank God – he never became prime minister.

  22. Four in 10 Britons prepared to sacrifice Northern Ireland

    ALMOST half of Britons are prepared to sacrifice Northern Ireland from the Union if it meant getting their preferred Brexit outcome, a shock new poll has revealed.

    The December 12 election could see anti-Brexit nationalist groups who favour a reunification of Ireland gain seats at the expense of the pro-Unionist party, tipping the balance of power in the province.

      1. From what I can make of it most of NI are not to unhappy with Boris deal

        There is no border in the normally accepted understating of one. There will be some tariffs to collect nominally at the ports but that just a tax point in practice it will be done electronically

        There are already many tax differences between NI and Ireland such as VAT , Corporation taxes. taxes on cigarettes and fuel etc

      2. I wonder how many out of ten English people would be more than happy for Scotland to go on its own way too?

    2. …and, of course, these ‘shock new polls’ are soooo accurate that they are a major cause for concern?

      I tend to think that my take on all this, is the kind of take that most right-minded Brexiteers will be looking for.

  23. Arron Banks @Arron_banks

    Very pleased to see the @Conservatives respond positively on this this. I said in my article cool heads and less ego required to deliver a Brexit Parliament. The @brexitparty_uk can win some seats and hold them to account ! We have to keep Corbyn / SNP out ! twitter.com/andywigmore/st…

    1:43 pm – 10 Nov 2019

    2. Given the state of London these days, maybe we should hold off the retaliation until they threaten somewhere worth saving.

  26. Oh, to put it more correctly, CCHQ’s intransigence over Brexit could cost them and the country dearly. Probably already said, but worth repeating.

  27. Labour £60B to improve the insulation of homes

    It is really £60B down the drain over 90% of UK homes are now insulated and have loft insulation, Double glazing and cavity wall insulation. Many of those not have such insulation may be listed building where double glazing would not be permitted. Loft insulation would be ok but these building would not have cavity walls so outside cladding would not be possible and in most cases internal cladding would not be possible neither

    In a temperate climate the benefits of further insulation is negligible and as for cost saving they will probably never be achieved, A typical monthly case bill will be about £50 and almost half that will be VAT and Standing Charge

    1. Our cottage is a listed building and we have solid stone walls. Most of our windows are double glazed though, and we have some loft insulation, though two of our rooms are in the loft.

  28. Off topic..

    Have any of you started to watch BBC’s “Seven worlds , one planet ” and changed channels quickly.. Did any of you find the filming of animals in distress upsetting ?

    Am I becoming too hypersensitive in my older years?

    2. Yes – we’ve been watching it. I think Attenborough’s theme this time is how climate change and human encroachment is impeding animals’ survival. Some of it is hard to watch.

      1. Afternoon J

        I find there are many programmes now that are hard to watch .. By the time we reach a certain age we know what goes on .

        I saw this in the Mail today .. I have visited the Kruger park .. and was always amazed by the speed and elegance of Giraffe .. how on earth could someone collide with a giraffe unless they were speeding .. the park gets so overcrowded these days .. In the old days , permits to visit were required ..

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7672255/Tourist-fights-life-crushed-giraffe-Kruger-National-park.html

        Africa is being drained .. We noticed that when we were in Nigeria in the late seventies.. Pigmy hippos and elephants , and many other mammals and birds were slaughtered.. for ornaments, food and export !

        They just don’t care , and nothing seems to matter anymore.

        1. My favourite African mammal – so graceful.

          I don’t understand how the driver could not see the giraffe – they’re not exactly small and hiding in the grass.

    3. St. David gets right up my nose.
      I’ve never been terribly keen on wildlife progs. and DA has become a climate change/emergency DA*.
      (* hint: a Teddy Boy hairstyle.)

          1. Ah but I lived in South Africa – always behind the times. There were still Teddy Boys there in the late 60s/early 70s 🙂

  29. Good morning everyone. Had a lie in after an exhausting day taking part in the Cenotaph parade.
    0900 Horse Guards.
    1040 March into position on Whitehall. From Trafalgar Square to the cenotaph there was scarcely a space not filled by columns ready to march.
    1100 One minutes silence marked by the Royal Artillery.
    1115 A service including one hymn.
    1240 We marched! Feet were frozen and I wasn’t in complete control of my legs for the first 100 yards.
    The route was lined by thousands of spectators who were applauding the marchers. I was mildly surprised to discover that I found it very emotional.
    I don’t know if I will manage to do it again next year but I am glad that I did it yesterday.

    1. After our local service and the wreath laying, I had a pint in the Kings Head where they had the commemorations on the TV. Watching the parade of ex-servicemen I did wonder if you were on the screen.

    3. ‘ Morning, Delboy, I can only say, “Well done, old troop.”

      It seems a helluva time to keep people of our age hanging about but well done for persevering.

    5. Morning DB

      You did it .. you were there part of the ceremony , when our nation comes together to remember

      My word , we can do that alright .. with solemnity and solidness of spirit .

      I do hope the modern politicians who were present but who have no thought for servicemen and women, dig deep into their own consciences.. and hearts … Yesterday was not about a wreath laying ritual .. it was about a deeply held pride that all the Armed services hold in their hearts.. strong bonds , loyalty , friendship and love of our country .

      Politicians are money men, and care not a jot for British values and culture .. they are all desensitised to strong traditions and feelings .. They don’t mind that we don’t matter.

    6. Well done Del. Did you see the squad of RAF ex-apprentices, I didn’t see them on the TV (I might have been making a cuppa)

      1. There were a lot of RAF sections from Armourers to Rescue Launches. I am sure the ex-Brats would have been there.

  30. Brexit Party Election Tour

    Updated list of venues and dates

    The Brexit Party General Election Tour
    November 11 (12:00 pm)
    Best Western Grand Hotel Hartlepool – Swainson Street, Hartlepool, TS24 8AA

    The Brexit Party General Election Tour
    November 11 (07:00 pm)
    Sedgefield Racecourse – Racecourse Road, Sedgefield, TS21 2HW

    The Brexit Party General Election Tour
    November 12 (11:00 am)
    Church House Westminster – Harvey Goodwin Suite Dean’s Yard, London, SW1P 3NZ

    The Brexit Party Election Tour
    November 13 (02:00 pm)
    Gator ABC Boxing Club – Unit GX 11-17 Fowler Road Hainault , Ilford , IGU 3UJ

    The Brexit Party General Election Tour
    November 14 (11:00 am)
    Queens Hotel – Western Promenade Road, Penzance, TR18 4HG

    The Brexit Party General Election Tour
    November 14 (07:00 pm)
    Langstone Cliff Hotel, Devon – Mount Pleasant Road, Dawlish Warren, EX7 0NA

    The Brexit Party General Election Tour
    November 15 (11:00 am)
    Dudley Town Hall – Saint James’s Road, Dudley, DY1 1HP

    Nov
    15
    The Brexit Party General Election Tour
    November 15 (07:00 pm)
    The Willows Hall – Bath Street, Willenhall , WV13 2EY

  31. Boris Johnson’s olive branch to Nigel Farage: PM rules out extending the Brexit transition period beyond 2020 amid pressure on Brexit Party leader to pull most of his candidates out of election to avoid splitting vote

    Boris Johnson has offered an olive branch to Nigel Farage by ruling out extending the Brexit transition period beyond 2020.
    In the Prime Minister’s Sunday evening Twitter video he stressed that his agreement with the EU allowed him to pursue a Canada-style free trade deal with the Bloc and would be free of any political alignment.

      1. The 31 January is when the Article 50 extension expires. The 31st December is when the transition period expires but there was something in the political document about is being able to be extended beyond that date

    1. A differently coloured Titania McGrath.
      But, I agree; you have to read twice to consider that it could – could – be a parody.

  33. A few replies to my ”The biggest heists and attempted heists on Britannia” post on John Redwood’s blog…………….

    Reply
    DaveM
    Posted November 10, 2019 at 6:23 pm

    Well said.

    Reply
    old salt
    Posted November 10, 2019 at 10:49 pm |

    My thoughts precisely.
    Shame the great majority are not so well informed.
    As with the UN and their Global Migration.

    Reply
    Pominoz
    Posted November 11, 2019 at 12:28 am |

    I fear you are frighteningly accurate.

    Reply
    Fedupsoutherner
    Posted November 11, 2019 at 12:46 am |

    Poll, frightening and true. What a great post.

    Reply
    The Prangwizard
    Posted November 11, 2019 at 8:31 am |

    Extremely well put. My thoughts exactly.

    We must resist and fight this Globalist ideology in all its guises.

    1. So it appears that more than half aren’t there to be educated and only want to be presented with things they want to hear.

      1. ”Those who refuse to participate are to be deceived, re-educated, intimidated or silenced if they continue to resist. Such issues as national security and love of country are dismissed as quaint old-fashioned notions that no longer apply..”

      2. It started out as a convenient way of fudging unemployment figures and buying middle class votes; then it proved to have additional benefits.

    3. Morning R,
      Adhering rigidly to the lab/lib /con voting pattern.
      There is also within the country a shortage of tap washer fitters.

    4. How little they realise that a small change in political wind would ensure bans for their favourite speakers. It doesn’t take much…

    5. How… and why ?

      Globalism: No more frontiers. These are the voyages of the Starship Globalize. Its globalist mission: to abolish European nations in favor of EU rule. To seek out independent civilizations and bring all within UN power. To boldly control the world for multi trillion dollar profits as it has never been controlled before !

    6. The Left have sunk their talons into society and convinced the idiots that they shouldn’t challenge the state line.

      They are told what to think. This is all part of the ‘march through the institutions’ to control thought.

  36. SIR – The success of King George IV’s visit to Ireland in 1821 (Letters, November 8) may have owed much to his particular frame of mind at the time, since while he was en route he got the news that his estranged wife, Caroline, had died.

    It was claimed that the rest of the passage to Dublin was taken up with eating goose pie, drinking whiskey, “in which his Majesty took most abundantly, and singing many joyous songs”. This fits in with what happened on his visit to Edinburgh the following year, when an extra supply of Glenfiddich had to be obtained urgently for fear of running dry.

    Roger Hudson
    London W8

    In best NoTTLer tradition, my big bruvver (for it is he) does his best to distract DT readers from the sickening chaos around us.

    Don’t worry; he has long been a dyed-in-the-wool Leaver and doesn’t buy any of the May/Boris tosh.

    1. Having congratulated the brother on getting a letter published, his reply has just arrived in my inbox

      “The Telegraph of course cut out the funniest anecdote from that letter. A few months before Caroline’s death someone came into the room and breathlessly told Geo IV: “Sire, your greatest enemy is dead.” He exclaimed, “Is she, by God !” but had then to be told it was Napoleon that had died. I’ve also discovered on checking that I made a slip and it was Glenlivet, not Glenfiddich, to which he became v partial. No good trusting one’s memory any more. Stand by for irate letters from pedantic Scots.”

  37. We have not heard from, or heard about, Tommy Robinson for some time. Has he now been effectively silenced for speaking truth to power?

      1. The comments are interesting. Perhaps the lowest, stupidest, nastiest, least literate comments that I have ever seen.

    2. The state has made it clear that if he does any more than breathe, he will be jailed on a trumped up charge which will be waived through by the judge. Not dissimilar to the old USSR. I imagine that there is only so much a chap with a family can take, who fights for a cause that has little popularity with our woke generation. As a day job, he works for Rebel Media, apparently a ‘far right’ news organisation. Read into that what you wish! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rebel_Media

  38. War of the World’s ‘narrator’ given name and loveless marriage backstory, in ‘woke’ BBC adaption. 11 NOVEMBER 2019.

    The latest adaptation of H. G. Wells’ sci-fi classic is not expected to cause such a stir, but the BBC One drama may still raise a few eyebrows as its writer revealed it has been “updated” to include a leading female character who is having an affair with the book’s narrator – originally unnamed, now called George.

    Played by Poldark’s Eleanor Tomlinson, the leading lady ‘Amy’ also gets to deliver the “No one would have believed” introduction made famous in previous productions by Orson Welles, Richard Burton and Morgan Freeman.

    Morning everyone. This is why I no longer watch the BBC!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/11/war-worlds-narrator-given-name-loveless-marriage-backstory-woke/

    1. Next up, Rachael Hannay, the intrepid black LGBT…XYZ activist hero(sic) of the 39 Steps. Who will save us from PC?

      1. Why stop there? Jemima Bond, Jane Bigglesworth, Suki Holmes (and her partner Joanna Watson) …

        1. 300 Spartanesses? Although using the feminine form would be a heresy within the hallowed PC walls of Al-Beeb.

        2. Sorry, Bleau, Jane Bigglesworth is already there in the form of Worrals.

          Comes of having a sister during our 1940/50s upbringing – you got to know this stuff.

          Good morning.

      2. Almost certainly BBC Executives have decided that the protagonist in The 39 Steps will be portrayed as suffering from quadraplegia.

        (No insult to anyone suffering from physical disabilities intended or implied).

      3. You’re not that far off the mark. The BBC’s 2008 version (with Rupert Penry-Jones as Hannay) invented a character, a proto-feminist suffragette played by Lydia Leonard.

      4. That really would be Buckin’ ridiculous.

        And what about Sapper’s Bullbitch Drummond and Rider Haggard’s Vengeance of It – they could both do with a makeover.

  41. Clintons in survival talks over shop closures and rent cuts

    They have been in trouble for as long as I can remember. I doubt there is much of a future for shops that just sell cards. Greetings card chain Clintons is considering shop closures and rent cuts as part of a survival plan.

    Could be an opportunity for Thortons etc. It would seem to me logical for shops that sell up market chocolates to also sell cards

    The retailer, which has about 2,500 staff, is in restructuring talks with landlords in another sign of the High Street crisis.

    1. This is rather sad as this is a store that’s niche, specific. It hasn’t an internet competitor, rather out of town shopping has done for it. Why pay £1 toll and £3 parking fighting through traffic and struggling to find a space to get a £2 card?

      Equally we should have levers to help such companies by reducing rents and business rates. Sadly, we don’t – the EU has taken them all away.

    1. Morning PP,
      Seems to me & I imagine many others
      they are “getting it done” in no uncertain manner.
      Plus also doing us.

  43. BBC Studios at Television Centre just ground to a halt and there was absolute silence for two minutes from 11 am. I’m glad that it happened and I’m sure that there are other people here who genuinely care but part of me still questions the sincerity of globalists doing this once a year. Does that make me a sad old cynic?

    1. There’s us and them, Sue, and as long as we know what it’s about, that’s all that matters.

      For me personally, it’s about remembering ordinary people who did extraordinary things, things that my generation have been privileged not to have had to do.

      1. “it’s about remembering ordinary people who did extraordinary things” – exactly!
        And the youth of these extraordinary people – so many so young.

        1. Average age of bomber crew was 22. Fighter pilots were old at 25. Gibson was only in his twenties. Compare and contrast! I’m not decrying all of today’s youth, but I don’t think there would be the strength in depth that was found in the thirties and forties.

      1. You’ve got to wonder if they are put in place as the presenter takes his seat before the cameras roll and then removed when they cut so that the poppy can be ‘re-purposed’ with a different presenter.

        Not that I’m cynical at all.

          3. Buy a ceramic one. You can keep it for years. Just remember to put the quid in the box each year. Not a problem really when they tend to inhabit supermarket foyers.

          5. The ITV racing team all wore brooch type poppies (of which I’ve got a few with different centres – RAF, RAFA and RAFARS). I still wear a cloth one, though.

        2. Can’t get them in Norway.
          I still have mine from 1997. Gets worn briefly every year, and I send a contribution to RBL in lieu of a new one.

          1. Lots of people these days wear the enamel ones, or quite large knitted ones seem to be popular, too.

          3. Someone from a local legion was interviewed on our radio this morning and he had nothing but contempt for knitted poppies. He took a very firm view that the legion own the poppy and no one else should be making or selling poppoes.

    1. Surely the answer to the question is to make JC of Islington look like a towering intellectual……

      2. Those are. Starts with the Arizona Memorial and ends with Arlington and the Vietnam memorial.

        Memories of 1966 when de Gaulle decided to withdraw from NATO and told US forces to leave France. Lyndon Johnson ordered his Secretary of State to ask de Gaulle whether that included the 60,000 troops buried there who died while `liberating France.

        1. Strange that music by a British composer should be accompanied by the visuals only of the American flag over American cemeteries. One would have thought that the pictures could be a little more inclusive of those others who died. Is somebody trying to make a point?

          1. He’s an American:-
            John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer, conductor, and pianist.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Williams

            Are you getting confused with the guitarist who is actually Australian?
            John Christopher Williams, OBE (born 24 April 1941) is an Australian virtuosic classical guitarist renowned for his ensemble playing as well as his interpretation and promotion of the modern classical guitar repertoire
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Williams_(guitarist)

    2. Music used for the HBO series “Band of Brothers”….

      “And in the field the corn sways with metallic clicks
      As man hammers nails in man high on his crucifix”.

    1. Whilst half the world starves, we have our idiot judiciary worrying about what food is on the table.

      1. Why was it deemed unsafe for the children to remain in their own home .. what was more dangerous .. bad parents or a bacon sandwich..

        These judges are lunatics .. and I am afraid that whether we Brexit or not, the judiciary will be steeped in ‘uman roights and liberal views..

      2. There is a point, though. I would not like to be fed bacon sandwiches myself. They are not kosher ..:
        Opera North up here have a special event this season to acclimatise very young children to opera
        to get them interested at an early age. A small specially chisen piece about half an hour long.
        A superb initiative. It is entitled ” Green Eggs with Ham “. about some kids trying to make an old man eat the stuff.
        Automatically eliminating the whole of the Jewish and Muslim communities.
        The point about halal meat for non-jihadists is valid of course.

        1. I have a fair number of Jewish and Muslim friends, they seem to split 75/25 on the eat bacon and drink alcohol sides.

          Clearly not a representative sample, but a good example of why so many people similar to me say they think the Muslims Jews are just like ourselves and that they integrate; failing to see quite how many don’t and actually how completely different the religious ones are in their attitudes to the wider non-religious community.

          I don’t fear orthodox Jews and their religion, I certainly fear Orthodox (for want of a better expression) Muslims and theirs.

          1. The ultra-orthodox of ALL religions are mad.
            I think there is a tendency in normal families to keep the traditions while the childen are growing up, then get more relaxed later on.
            When I was young I would have died in a ditch before eating a bacon sandwich. Even now, I tend to look over my shoulder before doing so.

    3. Ah, but did they like the sandwiches? Did they tell their mother that they would like her to make some? How did it all come out.

      Obviously if the children had been removed – from a muslim home – there must have been real danger to them. Now the mother (who was considered not fit to have the children) complains about bacon sandwiches? Would she have sent the girls for FGM?

  47. “Corbyn would make collective decision before using nuclear deterant ”
    In two ways I believe, to be double sure,
    Way one,
    plucking a hedgehogs spines in a, she love me, she loves me not fashion.
    Way two,
    Whilst gazing into the eyes of abbot his second make sure choice.

  48. A rather good description if our former primes minister by David Starkey:

    Mr Starkey was scornful of Theresa May, the former Prime Minister, describing her as being “like a dose of ice cold water poured over enthusiasm, she is a kind of permanent vacuum – an utter emptiness”.

      1. Seeing her, one sometimes wonders whether womanhood had passed her by. Like when she did that dreadful puppet dance to Dancing Queen. It was more wooden than I have ever seen anything “danced”. Pinocchio was better, even as a puppet.

      2. Seeing her, one sometimes wonders whether womanhood had passed her by. Like when she did that dreadful puppet dance to Dancing Queen. It was more wooden than I have ever seen anything “danced”. Pinocchio was better, even as a puppet.

    3. Professor Laurence Krauss’ book, A Universe From Nothing, posits that the vacuum of space is not empty but is teeming with elementary particles that pop in and out of existence over very short timescales. Is it likely that Theresa May is one of those elementary particles that didn’t pop back out of existence, and here we are?😎

      1. The May boson was a particle so filled with dark matter and negative energy that when it collided with a euron, it collapsed in on itself.

        In the process it created a Black Hole into which the UK is being sucked and from which there can be no escape.

        “Resistance is futile.”
        — Boris Johnson
        :¬(

        1. Very good, DM.
          I’m glad to see your spelling of boson was correct, with the N & M adjacent on the keyboard your comment could have gone tits up.

    5. Or perhaps, “She’s the sort of person who, when she leaves a room, it feels as if someone has just walked in.”

    6. Or perhaps, “She’s the sort of person who, when she leaves a room, it feels as if someone has just walked in.”

      1. Three brackets were supposed to signify support for the Jewish people, and Israel , I believe. (But I may be wrong.) Like a red X after your name meant that you had been banned by something-or-other. I really can’t keep up with it all).

        1. I thought the brackets were in relation to
          Jewish people too but didn’t want to make the assumption
          In case it was incorrect.

        2. I thought the brackets were in relation to
          Jewish people too but didn’t want to make the assumption
          In case it was incorrect.

  53. Family demand answers over knife awareness course killing

    The family of a teenager stabbed to death at a knife awareness course in a town hall demanded answers today over the “avoidable” killing.
    Hakim Ishmael Daba Sillah, 18, suffered a stab wound when a fight broke out in the youth offending service office at Hillingdon council’s civic centre, in Boris Johnson’s constituency.

    His mother had dropped him off for the session 50 minutes before he was attacked on Thursday afternoon.

    Medics tried to save Hakim before he was taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5.25pm.

  55. I wonder how all the Brexit Party candidates who won’t be fighting feel about the Farrage pledge.

    They will have stuck their heads above the parapet to be shot at only to discover that they are victims of friendly fire.

    I hope Farrage is right about Johnson’s deal because I’m completely unconvinced by his assessment.

    Courts have over-ruled him more than once, what makes him think the ECJ won’t again.

    2. They can throw all their resources behind those candidates who will be fighting in Labour held leave constituencies which will help to concentrate efforts where they may be fruitful.

      2. I have been out all morning and this is the first that I have read about where The Brexit Party will be standing. The word “disappointed” does not cover it. All across the country we will have Remainer Conservative MP’s, who are stopping us leaving the EU, getting back into office unopposed by any Leave candidate. I am hoping your assessment is correct and that TBP can pick up those Labour seats.

        The best that we can hope for under this scenario is that Boris does not get a majority so that he cannot force the EU’s deal through, and that there are enough Brexit Party MP’s to remind the Conservatives that we voted to Leave the EU not to be their slaves for years.

  56. Labour security shambles: Emily Thornberry defends renewing Trident nuclear deterrent despite Jeremy Corbyn saying he would NEVER use it – as she admits he has not backed ANY British military deployments
    Emily Thornberry struggled to defend Jeremy Corbyn’s record on security
    Shadow foreign secretary admitted he had not supported any military action
    Ms Thornberry played down his support for unilateral nuclear disarmament

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7672313/Emily-Thornberry-says-doesnt-matter-Jeremy-Corbyn-not-use-Trident.html

    1. Yesterday, I did speculate on Lady Nugee’s thoughts at the Festival of Remembrance.
      Conflicted or what!

        1. All past Prime Ministers can attend the ceremony at the Cenotaph.
          I saw him there, but I’m not sure he was at the Albert Hall on Saturday night.

        2. Oh yes I can, Blair and the Mrs.Blair. He has no conscience, therefore no shame. And of course he genuinely believes that when he goes to confession (that is confession for those things where he actually thinks he did wrong) he genuinely regrets whatever trivia he confessed to.

          Otherwise he is right and has nothing to confess to, does he? It’s the rest of the world that got it wrong – but God will understand.

        3. Corbyn was there laying a wreath, Major and Blair were side by side and Gordon Brown was there, too, with smug-faced Cameron in the background. It made me want to throw something at the screen!

      2. Can Lady Nugee think? Some barristers like to marry female barristers who (goodness knows how) were called to the Bar. I have met some rather intellectually challenged people at the Bar (and the bar), who can simply repeat something, or have a very good memory, and get through their exams without any real intelligence or nous at all.

        P.S. On thinking about it, the male party in the cases I have known have been more like Edward VIII. Their chosen spouses have all been very forceful. (W. Simpson?)

  57. Swedish police theory is that a bomb explosion in Malmö yesterday was to draw their attention whilst two young lads were shot several times through the window of a reastaurant. (https://www.aftenposten.no/verden/i/kJxO3A/15-aaringene-ble-skutt-flere-ganger-en-svart-helg-for-malmoe ) – in Weegie, I’m afraid. The police now say that they are fed up & have had enough. It’s taken them a while – see the statistics below – the rest of the ordinary folk in Sweden must be pretty fed up with it, too!
    So far this year: 78 shot dead in Sweden. 249 people attempted murdered by shooting (Source: Brottsforebyggande Rådet)

    2. Yes, I’ve read it. So the shooting of innocent people is dreadful, according to the female politico – but what does Sweden do about it? And were these two innocent – they were obviously specially picked out, by what seems to have been a belief-related gang (if you read between the lines). There is too much that is not said, and much too much that is not done in Sweden.

    1. It’s a live feed of the 5 hours of the transit with knowledgeable speakers. A yank astronomer is coming back on air soon to tell us about the current lack of sunspots and will open the “climate change can of worms”, his words.

    2. I was set to take a duvet day today to watch it from the back garden until I saw the weather forecast last night – cloudy with rain. It’s been sunny for the bulk of today so far, damn it. Oh well, I’ll have to wait until 2032 now.

  59. If Farage is gone from the fray then all chance of a proper Brexit has gone with him.

    So BRINO it is and Britain is now a vassal state for the foreseebale future.

    When we needed strong politicians we got the total total filth that now infests virtually everything in today’s Britain.

    So is our friend ogga right – is the only party that will remain completely true to Brexit the much reviled UKIP?

      1. My Tory MP who voted for May’s surrender deal 3 times will not be challenged. He will not be getting my vote either, there are still some in the country with integrity and principles.
        I am proud to consider myself one of them!

        1. But he will of course support The Boris May-Clone WA.

          Why are we governed by such completely disgusting people?

          1. Tribal voting, vote C to stop L and vice versa.

            The Tory Boys and Girls prefer to dutifully place their X where they always do rather than to examine the possibility that Johnson’s deal really is BINO.

            Of course similar charges could be laid for other party voters, placing their X in the appropriate box not willing to admit that their choice of candidate is likely to carry on as before, paying lip service to democracy. Labour Party shenanigans for the past 3 years is a good example

            Only a profound change of voting habits will change things.

    2. Afternoon R,
      What really proves UKIP right in many respects is the strength of the hate / smear campaign run by the lab/lib/con pro eu coalition party & their supporting dangerous fools.
      Many were to busy keeping each other out of number 10 & trying to kill off UKIP they endangered their kids and countries welfare, in the former mental scarring for life, in the latter bringing a once decent country to requiring life support.

    3. Good afternoon down voter.

      Do you wish to reveal who you are or do you lack the testicular or ovarian strength to do so?

      1. The answer is obviously no.
        I rose to the bait a couple of days ago – it’s really not worth it, and many people can’t even see the downvotes. I couldn’t for a long time until I got a new laptop which showed them.

        It’s the people here that matter, not some downvoter who won’t even participate in conversation.

    4. When I was a muddle-headed 19 year old I wrote a song which contained these words:

      And I’m trying to find a meaning and I’m trying to write a song
      But the words come out as cliches and they don’t seem to belong
      And the tune is just an echo of some other tune I’ve heard
      And my mind’s become a vacuum with no music and no words.
      And I’m trying to say something but I don’t know what to say
      And I wish I’d find some idols who have not got feet of clay.
      And I wish I were original and gave and earned respect
      And I wish my mind was real and not a pseudo-intellect

      All the politicians in whom I recently had hope: Rees-Mogg, Paterson, Baker, Francois and now Farage have shown they have ‘feet of clay’. I am beginning to fear that I am no wiser and no less naive now at 73 than I was at 19!

      1. I really like the words of your songs,
        given as they are in the context of your age. Why don’t you do a tape, or a small book, with your writings in it?

  60. James Le Mesurier, British ex-army officer who trained Syria’s White Helmets, found dead in Istanbul. 11 NOVEMBER 2019.

    James Le Mesurier, a former British army officer and founder of the organisation that trained Syria’s White Helmets search-and-rescue group, died in Istanbul on Monday, his office confirmed.

    Early reports suggest the 43-year-old fell from the balcony of his home on Monday morning. The circumstances surrounding his death were unclear and his office did not wish to comment further.

    Police sealed the door of Mr Le Mesurier’s flat in a two-storey building in the Istanbul neighbourhood of Karakoy on Monday morning. Turkish state news agency Anadolu reported that a police review of the security cameras didn’t show anyone entering or exiting the building.

    He fell from the bedroom window and was killed? That’s not at all suspicious. Now if he’d gone for a drink and 3 course meal between the ground and first floor I would know that it was the Russians!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/11/james-le-mesurier-british-ex-army-officer-trained-syrias-white/

  61. Early Greetings, NoTTLers. Maybe the most cogent comment in response to today’s letters (of the 45 comments posted so far). At least I find myself agreeing with Mo Bass’ sentiments:

    Mo Bass 10 Nov 2019 10:32PM
    Many of us who are voting Tory are/were also Brexit Party supporters who have a great deal of gratitude and respect for Nigel for getting us an EU referendum and for forcing the Tories to ditch May.

    We are, however, dismayed and frustrated at the ultimatum that he has issued to Boris knowing that Boris cannot accept his terms. What does he hope to achieve? We all know where it could end – a split vote and a hung parliament.

    I very much doubt whether Labour will be able to form a government even with the SNP but we could land up with a large percentage of Remain MPs on the opposition benches who will continue the work of Grieve, Benn, Letwin and Bercow.

    Boris’s deal isn’t the ‘excellent’ deal that he claims but it is good enough to get us out os the SM and CU and 80% out of the ECJ. It is also our only viable exit.

    Unfortunately, while Nigel persists in this ‘do or die’ suicide mission, he attracts valid criticsm. It appears petulant and dog in the manger because there can be no positive outcome to his demands.

    I had thought that he was a bigger man than this and I am saddened to realise that I was wrong.

    1. Unfortunately, while Nigel persists in this ‘do or die’ suicide mission, he attracts valid criticsm. It appears petulant and dog in the manger because there can be no positive outcome to his demands.

      A positive outcome would be for Boris to agree to a pact that would see the Tories returned to Westminster with a majority.

    2. From where I’m sitting, Nigel Farage and the Brexit party are pointing out the deficiencies in the arrangement Boris wants us to sign up to. The fact that Boris tried to bulldoze it through without in-depth scrutiny should have had a alarm bells ringing.

      As for Nigel Farage’s actions, I’m sure there were many dissenting voices in 1930s Germany who were similarly told to shut up.

      Morning ag.

      1. Morning Eddy,

        Because the October 31st deadline has passed, many have decided Boris is May 2.0.

        I’m not so sure.

          1. “The year is 2192. The British Prime Minister visits Brussels to ask for an extension of the Brexit deadline. No one remembers where this tradition originated, but every year it attracts many tourists from all over the world.”

          3. These are all things that can be worked out in chambers.

            What needs to happen in the next two months is Boris needs to tour up and down the country, attract massive, massive crowds, show the general electorate that the Remoaner effort is just a media-driven farce–and in fact–there’s enormous political support for Leaving.

            Then he can pass any deal he wants.

          4. “Then he can pass any deal he wants.”

            My understanding is that once he’s signed the EU’s deal (which Boris tells us is the deal he’ll be signing), the UK is bound by it under international law. Unlike our own laws, which can be repealed, we’re stuck with the deal.

            P.S. Where’s Bill T when he’s needed?

          5. Surely, even with such an International Treaty, it is this (next) Parliament, binding future Parliaments and that cannot be done.

          7. That is the difference between our UK (broadly) law and international law. Under UK law, Parliament cannot bind itself. Under international law, it looks like a Treaty like the proposed WA cannot be revoked or changed without the consent of both the parties.

            What we are potentially faced with is a new parliament agreeing to go back on a signed WA (if it is signed by that time). However, the WA is an international treaty and as such stands over and above what the UK law allows the UK parliament to do. So technically we will be in breach of international law if we break the terms of the WA.

            Personally I would argue that in such circumstance that is perhaps our only hope, and maybe that will only last as long as Trump is POTUS. If we are going to break, or potentially break any abominable treaty that our disgusting politicians drag us into, then the best time to do that is while the USA is on side. Trump is no stranger to breaking agreements, and IMO this country will not suffer unduly – except from the EU. The EU’s existance is in no other country’s interest, except the EU. Will they declare war on us? Will the whole world take the EU side? This country is known for being fair and straight in dealings, why would the rest of the world side with the EU, even if the Vienna Convention is breached?

            And the UK and USA together are stronger than the EU…

          8. A traiTory government with an unchecked majority will be a remain government.
            If we fail to elect genuine Brexiteers to hold the traiTories ( or any section / coalition of liblabcon’s ) feet to the fire, Bojo’s BrINO no go surrender Treaty will be imposed on us, Then the ECJ will have pretty much complete supremacy over our judiciary. Anything we try to implement as an independent nation can then be judged by the ECJ as non compliant with the surrender Treaty, getting out will be more difficult than at any time since the 1975 Referendum.

    3. Boris Johnson said we would leave the EU on 31st October: ‘Deal or No Deal’. He added that he would prefer to be found ‘dead in a ditch’ than to fail to keep his promise.

      We are still in the EU. He has refused Nigel Farage’s offer to help secure a proper Brexit. He has taken ‘no deal’ off the table. He wants to take us into a BRINO from which we shall find it difficult or impossible to escape the EU’s tentacles.

      How can any reasonable, fair-minded person support a mendacious, dishonest charlatan like Boris Johnson?

      1. Morning Rastus, has Farage even once put his weight behind any pro-Leave Tory?

        Or is it “All Farage, All the Time”?

    4. I’m afraid that ‘80% out of the ECJ’ isn’t enough. No foreign court should have jurisdiction over us. They use a different legal system from ours.

  62. Good morning from a Saxon Queen with Blooded Axe and Long Bow.

    Might I ask, does Disqus have your private email address,
    my American blogging chum Sophie doesn’t think it should not have
    private email addesses which has concerned me
    even if their security is very tight.

    1. I used to get email notifications, and occasionally still do get some advertising from Disqus, so yes, they do have it.
      Morning, BTW :-))

      1. Good morning 😉
        Thank you I was worried about that, my American
        chums do get rather nervous of many things .
        Not just Disqus, they don’t like Google Chrome/ Microsoft
        and many things.

          2. A,
            There is no enjoyment in pointing out the work of fools destroying a nation with their party before country, keep out / keep in mode of voting again,again,& again.
            The only thing the electorate can guarantee with certainty is the same odious type politico
            being returned to power.

          4. Morning A,
            All I see is the very same players in action that have been the cause of our problems for years,
            all the eu governance years at least.
            By NOT facing facts for years we are left currently depending on hope, that is not bloody good enough.

          5. Pick your horse, back your horse, defend your horse, but don’t blame me if your horse loses and mine wins.

          6. A,
            You have three horses in the running, ALL ringers, not one the genuine article.
            The forth horse is OK but with a very dubious owner.
            The only genuine article is, after once again being nobbled, in the stable under maintenance but will survive to return to the field.

      1. Yes I know, they have my email address. My friend Sophie
        uses a gmail without her name present, she worries about
        security etc

    3. Don’t you get email notifications?
      Don’t worry about it TPTB and CCHQ know you’re a troublemaker and have you down for a 4am call. On GP Wiltshire plod do the rounds.

      1. Good morning Mr Rainbow, I’d better hide my Bloody
        Axe and Long Bow before the plod decide medieval weaponry
        are a threat to national security.

        1. I was just going to say that they will have certain words that will trigger their interest. For example bloody axe bow security and then on this last message you threw in weaponry and threat or good measure. You’re a marked queen!

          1. I would think that all these posts are subject to statistical analysis as well as by subject.

          3. Yes. But they also have us nicely corralled in three or four places. As the CIA said about Facebook, it was the best spying tool ever invented.

      2. The proof of this pudding will be revealed in 2020 when Mr Barnier tries to play Headmaster when Johnson has a majority.

      1. Well to be fair, he is the spokesman and he was the instigator of the Cameron Brexit referendum. OK it’s rather bullish, but I suppose he could have said “we” – and who would “we” have been, and have they decided.

        IMO Farage has done the right thing, although he could have articulated the decision rather better.

        1. I think he is writing in a personal context. He starts the message with “we” and then says later “I am putting….”

          Some people will bash Farage whatever he puts. If he had written “we” I am sure someone on Twitter would have bashed him for using the “royal we”

        2. Surely BXT should be putting up a candidate in those constituencies which voted
          to leave where their current/future MP refuses to honour his/her voters wishes?
          G.a. HL.

          2. Just as long as they weren’t Tory marginals. Lab might get in (perhaps many of those voters in some areas don’t know what the heck is going on and let their imam or husband decide for them?)

        3. HL,
          He was at the time the party mouthpiece many a party member put more into the party
          than the nige.
          Looking back I will only give him credit for his knife play it was exceptional, 30000 plus in one backstabbing action.
          Wait & watch.

          1. Yes he was the mouthpiece and we were the members. But he did get us the referendum. He has to get credit for that, notwithstanding his unfortunate stance and utterances subsequently.

            I don’t trust him, or like the way he sold UKIP members down. But I appreciate his ability to move things, and getting out of the EU is something i would like to be moved. If it happens, we can vote as we feel afterwards.

          2. Hl,
            Without our help he would have been in no position to get any referendum.
            With an issue of this magnitude you do NOT trust those that have proved untrustworthy,
            seems to me he is on the turn as we type.

          3. I agree; without Nigel and UKIP the referendum would not have been given. It was, however, UKIP members on the streets, delivering leaflets and manning street stalls who delivered the result, although Nigel’s undoubted oratory helped to whip up enthusiasm. I thought it was churlish and ungrateful in the extreme for him to denigrate UKIP and its members (most of whom had worked their socks off for him when he was leader) afterwards.

          4. Yes, I do remember a certain amount of legwork involved ! I agree that he was completely out of order to turn on us afterwards. I don’t know why he did it – did he feel that he had the need to distance himself from UKIP to be taken seriously?

    3. PP,
      How about those that “I will never vote tory again” non members of your group , nige ?
      Did you ask them ?

      1. Ogga.

        He had no need to say ‘kill of[sic] UKIP’……the NEC and other unsavouries
        are doing just that, without any help from Nigel!

        1. G,
          “nige” gave it his best shot, once we have sorted the NEc, work in progress, that IMO will be the last of the faragist in the Nec hierarchy
          and will make once more, for a party of decency, and these Isles are in dire need of one.

    5. Really? What has suddenly changed to make Farage trust Boris? He said we were leaving on 31st October ‘do or die.’ Farage has said that this deal is 95% the same as Theresa May’s deal, but now he wants to back it?

      Has Nigel been got at?

      1. It does sound as if the words “stand down or you will shaking hands with Dr Kelly” may have been spoken.

        2. He’s made a huge climb-down without anything in return from Boris. I wonder how those 317 people who volunteered (and paid £100) are feeling right now. He’s probably damaged his credibility in Labour Leave areas, as they will see him as a stooge for the Tories. This huge U-turn is very strange and most disappointing.

          3. Well I’ve not heard anything to suggest there is a reciprocal agreement for the Tories to stand down for TBP in Labour areas?

      4. Afternoon JK,
        Same as the mogg running a
        defence / attack campaign
        regarding may, erring on defence, right to the wire.
        There is, & since the 24/6/2016
        only ever been one side in this struggle.
        Reminiscent of Kent Walton &
        wrestling.

  65. Labour have said if they get in they’ll get rid of top
    civil servants and replace them with political appointees,
    ( the hard left no doubt ). This is what the hard left do
    once they have a foot in the door, everything will be to their
    benefit, even the electoral system of which They’ll change.
    Once in we’ll never get rid of them.

    2. That’s what they did last time across the institutions.
      At least next time they’ll be being more open about it.

    3. A,
      They in turn will be purged by brussels
      or the top in-country imam, owing to the voting pattern over the last four decades I find it to be sort of poetical justice.

      1. Sorry to disappoint your hope of destruction but the more
        moderate Labour voter is very fearful of that lunatic
        Jeremy Corbyn. I hope your old leader slaughters them
        because they’ll not want Jeremy Corbyn or his lunatic agenda ,
        but anyway, I must be off and talk of Theology somewhere.

  67. Good morning, my NoTTLer friends

    Johnson’s ‘deal’ has been rumbled as being a sell our rehash of the May surrender so, yet again, they are attacking Nigel Farage at the DT,

    Here is a reposting of a post from late last night.:

    Another mindless attack on Nigel Farage – this time by Nick Timothy who helped Theresa May lose her majority in her absurd general election.

    (I print the article below my comment):

    You, Nick Timothy must be worried sick.

    Boris Johnson must be worried sick.

    The Conservative Party must be worried sick.

    The Daily Telegraph must be worried sick

    What else explains these constant attacks on Nigel Farage and those who want a proper Brexit rather than BRINO?

    You could all end your worries by keeping the promises about going for a proper Brexit and making an electoral pact with the Brexit Party.

    The TOP COMMENTS under each and every DT article about Brexit are ALL in favour of a proper Brexit rather than BRINO.

    Why should this be – is it that the majority of DT readers want a proper Brexit and can see that this is not what the Conservative Party under Johnson is offering?

    If you don’t believe this – just look at all the TOP COMMENTS under all the DT Brexit articles for yourselves and buy plenty of lavatory paper….. you’ll need it.

    Nigel Farage has tragically turned into the Frodo Baggins of Brexit NICK TIMOTHY

    The Brexit grandee’s bizarre move to unseat Tory Leavers could ruin everything he has worked for
    In Lord of the Rings, Frodo Baggins undertakes an epic journey and battles all as he seeks to destroy the One Ring, which gives absolute power to whoever wears it. When Frodo finally reaches the Fire of Mount Doom, he succumbs to temptation and chooses not to destroy the ring, but keep it for himself.

    Recently, friends of Nigel Farage have taken to comparing him to Frodo. Mr Farage has spent a lifetime campaigning to get Britain out of the European Union. He overcame incredible odds to become one of the few who can say they made Brexit happen. But now Britain has the opportunity to leave the EU, he risks upending all he has worked to achieve.

    This Friday, Farage will launch the Brexit Party election campaign. Despite his supporters’ boasts – that they can win in Labour’s Brexit heartlands where the Tories cannot – Farage will be not be in Sunderland or South Yorkshire, but the Conservative-held constituency of Walsall North.

    It is a curious choice. Three quarters of voters in Walsall North voted to leave the EU, making it the second most Eurosceptic constituency in the country. But voters there are not represented by some Labour Remainer, like Hilary Benn or Yvette Cooper. They are represented by Eddie Hughes, a Leave-supporting Tory.

    Hughes is in many ways the New Model Tory. He comes from a working class family. He speaks with a Brummie accent. His political interests are not about tax cuts and the pursuit of individual freedom, but tackling real problems for ordinary people in places like Walsall. He has campaigned for better protections for people in rented housing, secured a new train station in his constituency, and won funding for a new Accident and Emergency department at his local hospital. He is a successful local MP, and a committed Eurosceptic: he resigned from his government position to vote against Theresa May’s Brexit deal. Yet now he finds himself in the Brexit Party’s sights.

    While Remainer campaign groups are encouraging tactical voting against Brexit, Farage is deliberately splitting the Leave vote. According to polling, the Brexit Party could win 22 per cent of the vote in Walsall North. With only a little tactical voting, Hughes might lose to a Labour MP who will vote for a rigged second referendum, allowing Jeremy Corbyn to keep Britain in the EU as well as wreck our economy.

    And why is Farage doing this? He insists that the deal Boris has struck with Brussels is a “Remainer’s Brexit.” But this is ridiculous. Forget that Boris was the Leave campaign figurehead in 2016, and is therefore no Remainer. Forget that his Cabinet is full of ministers who are signed up to delivering Brexit. And forget that almost all lifelong Eurosceptics – including many of Farage’s own candidates and colleagues – say that Boris’s policy is the real deal. Examine Farage’s arguments, and it becomes quickly apparent that they are fatuous.

    The Brexit Party claims the new Withdrawal Agreement means “Britain remains under EU rules, but with no vote, no voice [and] no veto.” But this is true only during the transition period, which is due to end in December 2020. From that point, a new trade agreement will govern the relationship between Britain and the EU. This agreement is described in the Political Declaration that accompanies the Withdrawal Agreement. And Farage’s claims about that are completely bogus.

    He argues that EU judges will still rule over Britain, and that we will not control our fishing, will be unable to trade as we choose, and will not be allowed an independent foreign or defence policy.

    None of this is true. British troops will not be “in EU battlegroups … under foreign command.” We will be free to pursue our own foreign and defence policies. We will be out of the customs union and the single market, meaning we will be free to strike our own trade deals and change our laws in all manner of ways. We will reach an agreement with Brussels about fishing in British waters, but what we agree will be up to us.

    In some narrow aspects of policy – such as the rights of EU nationals who came to Britain while we were a member state – European judges might have some influence over our laws, but even then their influence will be indirect, and come via a panel of British and EU members. This is why even veteran Eurosceptic legal campaigners, like Martin Howe QC and the Tory MP Bill Cash, decided to support Boris’s deal.

    So why is Farage campaigning against it, and against Leave-supporting Tory MPs? Some who know him believe – after years of being despised, ignored or patronised by senior Tories – he has a pathological determination to destroy the Conservative Party. But others insist he is motivated much more by ego. Drunk on his own publicity, and surrounded by sycophants, he is incapable of taking yes for an answer. And so he keeps campaigning for a “real Brexit”, even though in so doing he risks destroying the real Brexit that Boris is trying to deliver.

    In swing constituencies, polling shows, the Brexit Party picks up twice as many votes from the Tories as from Labour. On this basis, the Brexit Party would hand Gedling to Labour, and Portsmouth South to the Lib Dems. This is a danger we have already witnessed in two recent by-elections: in Brecon and Radnorshire, the Brexit Party let in the Lib Dems at the expense of the Tories, and in Peterborough, they let in Labour.

    And what, anyway, does Farage hope to achieve? The Brexit Party is on around ten per cent in the opinion polls, which according to independent analyses might not win them a single seat. But it might well be enough for the Tories to lose the likes of Cheadle and Taunton to the Lib Dems and Pendle and Pudsey to Labour.

    And if that happens, we face the misery of another hung parliament. Jeremy Corbyn might become prime minister. Brexit might be stopped. And everything Farage has fought for will be lost.

    In Lord of the Rings, good fortune means the ring is destroyed despite Frodo’s submission to greed and vanity. But in real life, we cannot wait for a stroke of luck. Farage needs to stop, before he kills his greatest achievement.

    1. My response posted on Sunday’s page;
      MrTimothy may be right about Mr Farage. Farage may be the ultimate egotist, “…Drunk on his own publicity, and surrounded by sycophants,…” but he is entirely wrong on his interpretation of the unnecessary, EU-serving Withdrawal Agreement.
      Although, to describe a party that is intent on independence as being composed of sycophants is maybe a bit of a stretch?

      1. Boris’ deal may not be ideal but meets the main requirements of Brexit and realistically there is no enough support for the No Deal approach

        There is legal opinion as well that the Optical document tht Nigel raised most concerns about is not legally binding

        Nigel as well has now changed his stance and says he will except the deal if the implementation period can only be extended beyond December 20330 with our consent and the wording in the political document about close regulatory alignment is changed

      1. I think it was Juncker (there are so many EU apparatchiks I can never remember who’s who) who was saying it was imperative that the EU had an army and military capability. Frau Merkel, die Fuehrerin. has stated that Germany needed to get more involved militarily (this was in response to Macron’s criticism of NATO – or OTAN if you’re French). Shades of the 1930s, methinks. I knew it was a mistake to let the two Germanies reunite.

    4. I accept what you say about Farage, Boris’s BRINO may be May’s BRINO with the rind removed. Yet what are the options on offer to me under the Safe Seat system of a British General Election?

      At the height of its popular appeal, with a hearty public grievance on its side, an excellent and well-defined party identity, a charismatic leader and 4 million votes, Farage’s UKIP managed to get one MP into the Commons in 2015. How can the Brexit Party improve on this, this time?

      My own solitary vote is useless – I can have a Tory brown-noser with a 20,001 majority if I vote for her, or a Tory brown-noser with a 20,000 majority if I don’t.

      As regards the choices over Brexit – there is No Deal, Revoke or some form of BRINO.

      Any hint of No Deal and the pound collapses, opening up the nation to being bought up cheap by every foreign asset stripper going, starting with the Chinese State. Goldman Sachs and the markets, so protected by our representatives, will see to that.

      Revoke is very attractive to the London Establishment, to the Scots and to the students and academics, but a betrayal to everyone else who was hoping with their 2016 victory to get their country back and take back control over it.

      That leaves BRINO. We might be spared the worst of the foreign takeovers by keeping the pound at a merely morose level, and we may maintain some sort of goodwill with our continental neighbours facing serious cash flow problems without the British money feed. Otherwise, it is a gross and fudged compromise that pretty well achieves nothing.

      The best that can come out of it is damage limitation – above all to remove anything that is binding on the future, especially in a time when we can hope to run our affairs rather better than we have recently. I do believe that this is what Boris Johnson is attempting, although I would like to know if he has secretly made the Political Declaration legally binding. We must be told if he has.

      I suppose it’s back to Gay Strictly now, which is about the level the British public can handle.

  68. These people are tragically stupid……..they’ll probably insist that there are at least two 16 year-olds on the committee ‘because it’s their future.’

    Labour will not allow Jeremy Corbyn alone to push nuclear button and will instead decide by committee, Emily Thornberry says

    Harry Yorke, political correspondent
    11 NOVEMBER 2019 • 12:43PM
    *
    *
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/11/labour-will-not-allow-jeremy-corbyn-alone-push-nuclear-button/

    BTL:

    albert bellamy 11 Nov 2019 1:45PM
    We’d be toast as Jezza would have the committee on a four day working week and the savvy enemy would send their nukes when Jezza was down the allotment, Abbott was at her maths class, Thornberry was out chasing white vans.

    1. A frightening thought, Labour being in power. They could easily wipe out Iraq.again.
      (They fired at Israel and missed ?)

  69. Nothing to do with the letters, but for anyone who is interested in soccer and VAR in particular…

    All players wear GPS trackers so their performance can be analysed post match. Instead of drawing an at best dubious line across the pitch where the referee judges it to be drawn, why don’t they just use the GPS location.
    While they’re at it, it would be much simpler to judge if they changed the rule to taking the offside point from the nearest foot to the goal, rather than trying first to decipher which part of the player’s body is furthest forward.
    I think I’ll write to Mr Cheese and Onion.

  70. I’m disappointed in Nigel. He should have said he would stand his candidates down only where the sitting Tory was a Leaver, not Remainers as well.

      1. I have a choice between a Conservative MP who is a Liberal and is in favour of a 2nd Referendum, and a Liberal who wants to Revoke Article 50. Millions of us now have no-one to vote for who will let us Leave the EU.

        On Sky News they are trying to hold in their delight and using all the labels that they can find to describe Nigel Farage, including capitulation, backing down, humiliated. So those who want to keep us in the EU see this as a victory. The only hope that we have now is that Boris does not get a majority and that there are enough Brexit Party MP’s to block this Withdrawal Agreement going through.

        What a day.

        1. If I were Nigel I would say: “Given the MSM reaction, I have changed my mind and shall now be standing a BP candidate in ALL Tory seats”.

        2. That’s fine until the EU decide to keep giving extensions whenever the remain parliament asks for one. Then we’re still in limbo. Heads we lose, tails the remainers win.

          The ideal would be a Brexit party of clean leavers holding a strong balance of power and the EU saying “sod it, get them out now”.

          1. This is what many of us have always argued. Without leverage the BP can do little good and Boris will get away with his beastly, bumbling BRINO and we Britons shall be enslaved in a vassal state.

            As Psalm 146 urges us:

            Put not your trust in princes.

            Many of us are beginning to regret having put our trust in Farage.

          2. I don’t regret it, but I am not hopping up and down with joy at this latest twist. If he can get 30 MP’s from Labour seats than that is better than if the Brexit Party did not exist. Without Farage our only chance of freedom from the EU would be UKIP – and look at the state their NEC has left them in. It is a borderline non-party now.

          3. Gee, thanks, Meredith. With any luck I shall be campaigning for a UKIP candidate in a seat where a remainer Con candidate is replacing the remainer incumbent (who has gone to the LDs). They will at least have a true leave candidate, DV.

          4. Heh heh, no serious offence was intended, but even I have lost track of what is going on inside UKIP, and I still get the emails. Has the leader resigned / stepped down / been suspended?

            We get local emails from those who run the party in this neck of the woods and even they are going to vote for The Brexit Party if a candidate is standing. Although that looks unlikely now. Good luck to your candidate.

          5. Thanks. Richard Braine resigned, but is now agitating to get an EGM going. I have emailed him to say leave internal dissent until after the 12th December; we have an election to fight!

          7. sosraboc – well obviously. 🙂

            Yes, the EU will keep extending forever as long as we continue to pay them membership fees. They don’t care what our politicians choose to call the process or how they choose to label our remaining in the EU. But Boris’s deal is something else…

            It would give them more control over our country than they have ever had before, and more control than they have over any other European Country. It is bad now, but that Withdrawal Agreement would finish us off. The borders would stay open, new pro-EU voters will flood the country, and we would never leave.

          8. It’s why I want sufficient Clean leavers in parliament to go with the remain rump so that the BJ WA can’t get passed.

            Even the EU might baulk at having five more years of disruptive Brits still in the Parliament and us still with a veto. My view is that we have a better chance of a quicker clean break going that way than we do going via BJ’s death by slow starvation.

            Industry and agriculture across the EU won’t like five more years of uncertainty and business will pressure the politicians.

          9. The EU is on the point of economic collapse in weeks / months, not years. Even Germany cannot hide the train-wreck that is its own economy, and that is the one that the Euro was designed to serve. They really want control of our country and treasury when that happens to “debt share” the problem and keep them on life-support for a while.

            If that W/A goes through, then the position of the United Kingdom in 5 years time will be disastrous. We think that it is bad now, but we will know what REAL poverty and government cuts look like by then. The EU will do to us what they have done to Greece, Spain, Portugal and so on.

          10. I think they can still suck a few more countries dry and the ECB can “print” more money over the next few years.
            A crash on the scale you suggest and it won’t matter whether we are in or out.

          11. I don’t know if I can find the article that I posted a few weeks ago that showed why “printing money” won’t work anymore. It was something to do with “squeeze” and there being none left. Any further moves in that area causes a cascade effect and badly damages banks. I am not an economist but those who wrote it were. Ahh – here is it. It is 2 pages, but it is packed full of information. The funeral pyre for the Euro:

            “Here is a heavily edited comment that I read yesterday (which was 6 full laptop screens long.) I don’t understand all of the economics behind it, but the collapse of the Euro looks very close now, if it is not imminent, when the next EU quarterly figures are revealed. It appears there is nothing the EU can do to stop it:

            “”Britain’s constitutional crisis has hit before the next great spasm of Europe’s intractable monetary crisis. But they are in close competition. The eurozone faces a category five economic storm. It is structurally defenceless as the world slides into recession. This will not be an ordinary downturn because central banks no longer have the instruments to fight it.

            If there is an October election in the UK. EU leaders will have to decide whether to risk adding the shock of a no-deal Brexit to all the other shocks hitting their industries.

            The US economy has been the last pillar holding up the global edifice. It is now crumbling too. The yield curve is deeply inverted. Consumer sentiment has dropped to a seven-year low. The ISM manufacturing index has tipped into contraction. Export orders are the lowest since April 2009.

            The recessionary door has already closed. Even if the Federal Reserve were to slash rates by 50 basis points this month, it would be too late. World trade is contracting. The eurozone has in turned stalled. It is paying the price for its chronic reliance on global demand to keep afloat.

            It is also the chief casualty of Donald Trump’s trade wars. Chinese goods that are shut out of the US market are being diverted into Europe. The more that Beijing devalues the yuan, the worse it gets. The European Central Bank cannot do much to counter the Chinese deflationary wave. The policy rate is still stuck at minus 0.4pc after decade of global expansion.

            There is much talk of an imminent ECB rescue package. But Frankfurt has already reached the ‘reversal’ threshold where further rate cuts turn contractionary. They hurt banks. They lead to a rise in ‘precautionary’ savings as household puts aside more money. In any case, inflation expectations are crashing faster than the ECB can possibly cut rates. The real cost of borrowing is rising. It is a pro-cyclical nightmare.

            Yields on five-year German Bunds have dropped to minus 0.93pc. The entire sovereign debt structure of Germany is trading at negative rates, with France close behind. Even if the ECB does relaunch QE next week there is no further yield compression for the taking.

            The central banks have been stealing prosperity from the future for the last quarter century. Eventually the future catches up with them. The world is starved of adequate demand. Businesses refuse to invest. Excess savings have nowhere to go – hence the monetary death spiral.

            The best book written on EMU woes is EuroTragedy: a Drama in Nine Acts by Princeton Professor Ashoka Mody, the International Monetary Fund’s former deputy director in Europe. In essence, he argues that Europe’s political elites have gone against the grain of economic anthropology, tried to conjure away the North-South chasm, imposed fiscal straitjacket that has no founding in economic science, and have driven their economies into a deflationquagmire from which there is no return. The denouement will be an Italian debt default and an ugly chain-reaction.

            A report three years ago by a group of eminent economists for the Delors Institute warned that the eurozone will remain unworkable
            unless it embraces some form of fiscal union and debt pooling. “At some point, Europe will be hit by a new economic crisis. We do not know whether this will be in six weeks, six months or six years. But in its current set-up the euro is unlikely to survive that coming crisis,” they said. Nothing was done.

            France’s finance minister, Bruno Lemaire, has repeated these warnings. “If there was a new financial and economic crisis tomorrow, the eurozone could not respond. Either we get a eurozone budget or there will eventually be no euro at all,” he said.

            “The German economy is sliding into crisis and the government is asleep at the wheel,” said Mario Ohoven, head of the Mittelstand federation. The Ifo Institute’s confidence indicators have crashed to 2009 levels. “There are ever more indications of a recession. Not a single ray of light is to be seen in any of Germany’s key industries,” it said.

            When the collapse happens, stressful times favour the nation state. Britain would have the institutional levers to defend itself quickly. It would let rip with fiscal stimulus. The eurozone would be hamstrung by the Stability Pact, the Fiscal Compact, and debt brakes imposed on everybody else by Germany.

            Automatic stabilizers would be the first line of defence. Budget stimulus would trickle out, too little, too late. European fiscal paralysis would match European monetary paralysis. The currency bloc would disintegrate.

            We might then be having a very different political discussion in the early 2020s.”

          12. ”
            I don’t know if I can find the article that I posted a few weeks ago that showed why “printing money” won’t work anymore”
            I think there was something about that in the Times recently.

          13. The article that I edited above was from one of those “global economic” websites that warn about future trends. I have not studied Economics since I was at college and I was told that apart from the basics, politicians ignore economic realities and pursue political aims, no matter what the damage. It did not see to be a field that I would enjoy.

            It might make you rich, but pursuing policies that will badly hurt the poorest is not a career that I could follow.

          14. My bet is on the EU changing the rules regarding the Euro. EUrozone budget here we come.

            The peripheral countries will be allowed to leave the Euro.
            If I was the Greek (or even the Italian or Portuguese) equivalent of Carney I would convert all Euro denominated debt back into local currency at the rate I entered the Euro and then promptly devalue the local currency by allowing it to find its own level in the international markets. Very painful short term, particularly potential inflationary pressures, but better than what they are presently seeing. If it could be enforced I would also put very strict exchange control in place over my “New Drachmas” to make capital flight expensive and difficult.

            If necessary threaten default or get the creditors to accept restructuring.

          15. The EU is on the point of economic collapse in weeks / months, not years. Even Germany cannot hide the train-wreck that is its own economy, and that is the one that the Euro was designed to serve. They really want control of our country and treasury when that happens to “debt share” the problem and keep them on life-support for a while.

            If that W/A goes through, then the position of the United Kingdom in 5 years time will be disastrous. We think that it is bad now, but we will know what REAL poverty and government cuts look like by then. The EU will do to us what they have done to Greece, Spain, Portugal and so on.

          16. The transition period cannot be extended without us requesting it

            One need to remember that Boris’s deal has not yet been approved by the Commons. It got through the first two stages but never made it to the committee stage so is sstill open to admendment

          17. The transition period cannot be extended without us requesting it

            One need to remember that Boris’s deal has not yet been approved by the Commons. It got through the first two stages but never made it to the committee stage so is sstill open to admendment

          18. And what makes you think that if hung but remain majority parliament can’t get a WA agreement through that they will not request further extensions?

            It is certainly not beyond the realm of possibilities that we will get another hung parliament and that as far as Brexit itself is concerned a remain majority exists within it.

            Even within the Conservative party there will be plenty of remain supporting MPs voted in.

        4. Then you must spoil your ballot paper. Write a slogan about leaving on it (the choice of wording is yours) to let them know what you feel.

        5. The Brexit Party are a complete and utter shambles.

          The well meaning likes of Richard Tice and John Longworth thought they could contain and control Farage but they couldn’t. He refused to have it constituted as a proper political party; he refused to have any NEC; he refused to share the limelight; there was never an agreed upon strategy with planned counter-moves for the anticipated onslaught from Cummings/No10. So many echos of Farage’s departure from UKIP.

          Over the past couple of weeks I’ve heard of TBP candidates for the GE who have been told to ‘gear up’, ‘stand down’, ‘find an alternative’ and ‘gear up’. More than a few of them are utterly fed up with Farage who couldn’t organise a proverbial in a brewery. The only thing that has been organised is Farage’s bus tour around parts of the UK. It has to be all about him.

          As a minor donor to TBP who voted for them in the EU elections and really wanted to vote for them in the GE, I’m massively P’d off.

          1. It is very disappoint that the Brexit Party is pretty much the Nigel Farage Party . It still appears to have no organisation and there is very little about it’s polices and that is costing it support

            The Bexit Party also needs to work with the other parties to try to leverage political reform. Labour and the Conservative will not be keen on it but nearly all the other parties and Independents would

          2. You have just admitted that what I always claimed about the Brexit Party is true; it’s the Nigel Farage show. It doesn’t have an NEC because Nigel wants to run it his way. Ditto it doesn’t have members, only subscribers so they have no power.

          3. You have just admitted that what I always claimed about the Brexit Party is true; it’s the Nigel Farage show. It doesn’t have an NEC because Nigel wants to run it his way. Ditto it doesn’t have members, only subscribers so they have no power.

    2. Having re-read his letter, I note his use of ‘Remainer MPs’ is slightly ambiguous. Does it mean Remainer Parties or just MPs, which would include Tory Remainers?

    3. Three hours is a long time in politics…

      Dear Brexiteer,

      Today in Hartlepool, I made clear The Brexit Party’s strategy for the General Election. I always said that I would put country before party – and I meant it.

      We want to stop the Remainers winning enough seats to introduce a second referendum, offering us a false choice between Remain and Remain. That’s why we are not going to contest the 317 seats that the Conservatives won in 2017. For months, I have argued for a Leave alliance. Now we have launched it unilaterally. This will ensure that there will not be a second referendum and that Brexit can finally be delivered.

      We will though contest every seat held by Corbyn’s Remainer Labour Party, which has openly betrayed five million Labour Leave voters. And we will stand in all seats held by the other Remainer parties.

      Let me explain how we came to this difficult decision. When Boris Johnson came back with his new EU Treaty, I made no secret of my concerns. Two aspects in particular stood out. First, it did not ‘get Brexit done’ – it would mean at least another three years of agonising negotiations in which EU negotiator Monsieur Barnier would have the upper hand. And second, the Treaty meant we were committing ourselves to regulatory and political alignment with EU rules on everything from our fishing to our financial services.

      That’s why last week we signed 600 Brexit Party candidate nomination forms, because I felt that in a democracy everybody deserves a genuine choice.

      Last night, however, I heard something from Boris Johnson that at last made me feel more optimistic. In a video the Prime Minister said that he would not extend the Transition Period beyond the end of 2020 – a huge challenge to Barnier and Juncker.

      Even more importantly, Boris said that he would seek a ‘super Canada-plus’ free trade deal with the EU, with no political alignment. That is a significant step in the right direction. It starts to look more like the Brexit that 17.4m of us voted for.

      So, we have decided to give Boris half a chance, and focus on taking the fight to Labour in their Brexit heartlands. It was The Brexit Party that beat Labour here in the May European elections – and we can, with your help, do it again. There are millions of traditional Labour voters waiting for a party that is on their side, that believes in bringing more money and jobs back to the regions, that says we need sensible immigration controls. These are messages that will resonate hard in those Labour Leave areas.

      How do we hold Boris to his promises? We have to start winning some of those Labour seats, by making Corbyn’s Labour pay for their betrayal of Brexit. Getting MPs into Parliament is the way we can hold Mr Johnson to account. We cannot win those seats without your help.

      I have no great love for the Conservative Party. But I see stopping the Remainers and their rigged second referendum as the biggest issue facing our country. Our actions today have stopped the Remain alliance in is tracks.

      The question of trust is key. There can be no real Brexit without The Brexit Party in Parliament to keep Boris honest. And we cannot get there without your help.

      Thanks for your support. Together we can beat the Remainer alliance and change politics for good.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fce967950c142b10ac91e300c5bb6765b9bf502b8a7befd8a709981c2098efb6.png

    4. I am very disappointed in Farage too – he has bowed under pressure and he should have been considerably more demanding re. the sort of Conservative candidates for whom the BP would be prepared to stand down. He should have agreed only to stand down for committed Brexiteers.

      If there are too many Remainer MPs in the new Parliament then the sell out May/Johnson surrender WA will suffer the same fate as it did in its last carnation. Mind you a totally clean Brexit is what many of us want and I am still not sure that the BRINO is not worse than staying in the EU and starting to leave again with no strings starting from scratch.

    5. Three hours is a long time in politics…

      Dear Brexiteer,

      Today in Hartlepool, I made clear The Brexit Party’s strategy for the General Election. I always said that I would put country before party – and I meant it.

      We want to stop the Remainers winning enough seats to introduce a second referendum, offering us a false choice between Remain and Remain. That’s why we are not going to contest the 317 seats that the Conservatives won in 2017. For months, I have argued for a Leave alliance. Now we have launched it unilaterally. This will ensure that there will not be a second referendum and that Brexit can finally be delivered.

      We will though contest every seat held by Corbyn’s Remainer Labour Party, which has openly betrayed five million Labour Leave voters. And we will stand in all seats held by the other Remainer parties.

      Let me explain how we came to this difficult decision. When Boris Johnson came back with his new EU Treaty, I made no secret of my concerns. Two aspects in particular stood out. First, it did not ‘get Brexit done’ – it would mean at least another three years of agonising negotiations in which EU negotiator Monsieur Barnier would have the upper hand. And second, the Treaty meant we were committing ourselves to regulatory and political alignment with EU rules on everything from our fishing to our financial services.

      That’s why last week we signed 600 Brexit Party candidate nomination forms, because I felt that in a democracy everybody deserves a genuine choice.

      Last night, however, I heard something from Boris Johnson that at last made me feel more optimistic. In a video the Prime Minister said that he would not extend the Transition Period beyond the end of 2020 – a huge challenge to Barnier and Juncker.

      Even more importantly, Boris said that he would seek a ‘super Canada-plus’ free trade deal with the EU, with no political alignment. That is a significant step in the right direction. It starts to look more like the Brexit that 17.4m of us voted for.

      So, we have decided to give Boris half a chance, and focus on taking the fight to Labour in their Brexit heartlands. It was The Brexit Party that beat Labour here in the May European elections – and we can, with your help, do it again. There are millions of traditional Labour voters waiting for a party that is on their side, that believes in bringing more money and jobs back to the regions, that says we need sensible immigration controls. These are messages that will resonate hard in those Labour Leave areas.

      How do we hold Boris to his promises? We have to start winning some of those Labour seats, by making Corbyn’s Labour pay for their betrayal of Brexit. Getting MPs into Parliament is the way we can hold Mr Johnson to account. We cannot win those seats without your help.

      I have no great love for the Conservative Party. But I see stopping the Remainers and their rigged second referendum as the biggest issue facing our country. Our actions today have stopped the Remain alliance in is tracks.

      The question of trust is key. There can be no real Brexit without The Brexit Party in Parliament to keep Boris honest. And we cannot get there without your help.

      Thanks for your support. Together we can beat the Remainer alliance and change politics for good.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fce967950c142b10ac91e300c5bb6765b9bf502b8a7befd8a709981c2098efb6.png

  71. I have just had a look at the Brexit Party site. I don’t like it very much. I don’t want to watch videos that last forever, when I could read the information in 2 minutes. (That, after visiting “dinner swingers” which is where BrexitParty.org gets you.)
    There is no list of candidates and constituencies. Maybe there is as yet no list. Perhaps this is all being made up on the hoof, on the fly, or whatever?

    2. There are those who want to destroy the Conservative Party
      and would encourage a Corbyn government, to them I
      hope they get a hard LEFT local MP at some time ( poetic justice).
      I hope the Brexit Party do real damage in those Labour seats of which
      are terrified of the dangerous Jeremy Corbyn and will get Brexit Party
      seats in Parliament. But I do think the Conservatives should stand down
      In constituencies the Brexit Party are most likely to succeed.
      Well anyway I must get back to it .

  72. Did anyone else notice there is an awful lot of hope comments about, as in we live in hope regarding brexit,
    we hope may does the right thing, we hope johnson can get it right after may, all our hopes are with mogg & baker, seems to me IMHO to much hope, not enough common sense, when entering the ballot booth.

    3. Dante passes through the gate of Hell, which bears an inscription ending with the famous phrase “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Dante and his guide hear the anguished screams of the Uncommitted. These are the souls of people who in life took no sides; the opportunists who were for neither good nor evil, but instead were merely concerned with themselves. Among these Dante recognizes a figure implied to be Pope Celestine V, whose “cowardice (in selfish terror for his own welfare) served as the door through which so much evil entered the Church”. Mixed with them are outcasts who took no side in the Rebellion of Angels. These souls are forever unclassified; they are neither in Hell nor out of it, but reside on the shores of the Acheron. Naked and futile, they race around through the mist in eternal pursuit of an elusive, wavering banner (symbolic of their pursuit of ever-shifting self-interest) while relentlessly chased by swarms of wasps and hornets, who continually sting them. Loathsome maggots and worms at the sinners’ feet drink the putrid mixture of blood, pus, and tears that flows down their bodies. This symbolizes the sting of their guilty conscience and the repugnance of sin. This may also be seen as a reflection of the spiritual stagnation in which they lived. Wikipedia. Dante Alighieri. The Inferno.

      Things and people haven’t changed all that much since 1300 have they?

  73. I am so glad to see the deal between BoJo and Farage means the Tories will be standing down in Labour leave seats to aid TBP
    Oh Wait………………………

    Jeez,I despair

    1. It will be up to the Conservative voters who live there to use their common sense. Their MP’s seem to have run out of it.

    2. Actually, Rik, it seems that it might happen. They’ll never admit a deal publicly, but see Polly’s post up (or down) there, re Hartlepool and Richard Tice…

  74. “Although we know that the deal negotiated by Boris Johnson is not in any way a true or acceptable Brexit, it may be a step closer to Brexit than we would be if either the Liberal Democrats or Labour were to win, for their admitted intentions are to overturn the results of the 2016 Referendum.”
    Who said (wrote) this yesterday?

    3. “…the deal negotiated by Boris Johnson…”
      Dearie me. I’ve done more negotiation in a single visit to the local newsagent than Boris did for Brexit.

  75. Chip shop owner ‘killed wife with boiling oil’

    A fish and chip shop owner killed his wife by “throwing boiling oil” over her, a court has heard.
    Geoffrey Bran, 71, denies murdering Mavis Bran, 69, in Hermon, Carmarthenshire, in October 2018.
    Mrs Bran died in Swansea’s Morriston Hospital, six days after suffering burns at The Chipoteria.
    Swansea Crown Court heard Mrs Bran rang a friend after having scalding oil thrown at her, pleading with her to come and help.

  78. BREXIT Party Policies

    Political Reform

    There is growing frustration with the political class. The Brexit Party wants to deliver a cascade of political reform and end the mission creep of the unelected and unaccountable. In the last four years the political establishment has conspired to frustrate democracy. This has shown clearly that our institutions are moribund and in need of reform. The Brexit Party is in a unique position to deliver real democratic reform because we are not part of the political status quo.
    Reform the voting system. The First Past the Post system has failed to deliver strong and stable government, disenfranchises millions and causes many more not to vote. A more proportional system of representation is needed.
    Abolish the House of Lords and introduce a smaller, democratic second chamber.
    Make MPs who switch parties subject to recall petitions so constituents can hold their MPs to account.
    Overhaul the postal voting system. Tony Blair introduced changes to postal voting in 2001. As a percentage of votes cast, postal votes have grown from 2% to more than 20% and the system has been subject to voter fraud and abuse.
    Reform the Supreme Court. The politicisation of the judiciary requires that judges be subject to political scrutiny. A written constitution now needs to be considered.
    Introduce more direct democracy to empower voters and hold the elected to account.

    Brexit Dividend

    The Brexit Party has already announced a series of policies aimed at regional regeneration, supporting key sectors of the economy and targeted investments in the young, the High Street and families. All these investments can be financed by scrapping HS2, retaining the £39bn payment to the EU and refocusing part of the foreign aid budget on domestic priorities.
    Raise £200bn by scrapping HS2, keep the £39bn which Parliament confirmed is not legally due to the EU (this becomes £65bn under Boris’ ‘Deal’), recover our £7bn from the EIB and redirect 50% of the foreign aid budget.
    Invest £100bn in the left behind regions in local road and rail schemes.
    Invest in digital infrastructure – now a vital personal utility – to provide free base level domestic broadband for everyone and free Wi-Fi on all public transport.
    Invest in our High Streets – reduce business rates to zero for High Street retailers and leisure operators outside the M25 – funded via a small online sales tax.
    Invest in young people by scrapping all interest on student loans (currently charged at over 6%); abolish the apprenticeship levy and introduce a new workable apprenticeship scheme.
    Abolish Inheritance Tax (IHT). This hated tax raises less than 1% of total tax revenue. By taxing income that has already been taxed it is ‘double taxation’ and is levied at a time of family grief. It is complex, expensive to administer and the wealthiest can afford to dodge the tax.

    INVESTMENT PRIORITIES

    The Brexit Party is developing policies in a number of areas that can only be implemented via a Clean-Break Brexit: investing in and supporting key public services, protecting the environment and growing recycling initiatives, and other targeted investments in fishing and strategic industries.
    Invest in Fishing and Coastal Communities: with a Clean-Break Brexit we recover full control of our waters, a huge opportunity to regenerate our coastal communities with new investment, jobs and tourism. The Boris EU treaty does NOT return control of our territorial waters.
    Invest in the Environment and Recycling: we need to plant tens of millions of trees and ensure we recycle our waste in this country and not export it across the world to be burnt.
    Invest in Health and Social Care: these are essential and treasured public services – we need to invest for better health and care outcomes.
    Invest in Strategic National Industries: Boris’ ‘Deal’ traps us within regulatory alignment, leaving us tied to EU rules. We need the freedom to invest in key strategic industries and create thousands of jobs in Steel, Railways and Defence. We also want to create Freeports across the country.
    Cut the cost of living by reducing tariffs on food, clothing and footwear.

    2. Bj,
      That sounds just like the original real Brexit party, the one that has members, the one that has been calling for total severance for 27 plus years & not 27 plus minutes, sounds just like that.

  80. Wales Green’s leader says country does not need an airport

    Wales does not need an airport, the leader of the Wales Green Party has said.
    Anthony Slaughter said the Greens in government would halt Cardiff Airport expansion and tax aviation fuel.
    Mr Slaughter said he had not gone as far as calling for the airport’s closure, but said contemplating expansion was a “crime against future generations”.
    The party launched its election campaign in Barry on Monday.

        1. Interestingly there is no such thing as the Green Party UK they could not agre with each other and split into 3 separate parties as below

          Green Party of England & Wales
          Green Party of NI
          Green Party of Scotland

          1. What do the Orange lot have to say about the Green Party of NI?

            It’s a wonder they aren’t marching.

      2. Apparently not – every time you think they’ve reached stupidity zero, they go one better!

  81. BBC apologises after using old footage of Boris Johnson at cenotaph

    The BBC has apologised after using old footage of Boris Johnson at cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday.
    Footage from the 2016 event of the then-Foreign Secretary was used by the broadcaster instead of a clip from Sunday’s proceedings.
    BBC Breakfast said their use of the three-year-old footage was a “production mistake” and apologised for the error.

    The footage was used after the Prime Minister was reported to have made two mistakes during this year’s ceremony, including stepping out of line too early and laying his wreath upside down.

    2. Upside down? Perhaps it was in recognition of the sacrifices made by our Antipodean cousins?

      1. Still have one, Tony.

        In fact, I remove my gas fire every Christmas to give the owd lad some room for manoeuvre. Unfortunately, he never turns up.

        1. We did have one in our old house, actually. But the only visitor we had was a fat squirrel who we found dead on the couch in the morning.

          1. I don’t see the point of keeping the whole house warm when I spend most of my indoors time in the living room or in bed so the central heating stays off a lot of the time. My living room gas fire and winter woollies keep me from freezing to death.

          2. We do the same, and always have. We don’t heat rooms we don’t use. It’s a waste of energy and money.

          3. You’ve described my early years. Frost on the inside of the windows, etc. Central heating can be set up so that the bedrooms, etc., are much cooler than the living rooms. Thermostatic radiator valves help.in this respect.

          4. Thanks Geoff but that doesn’t help when you’re a tight-wad such as I am. I do have TRVs and do switch on the central heating now and again but not as a regular event – more so as I don’t get up at the same time every day or have a regular daily routine.

            On the point of saving fuel, the last house had separately controlled upstairs and downstairs heating circuits, which I reckon should be mandatory for new-build two storey properties (see below).

            Growing up, we froze, as did most people in those pre global-warming days.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/294f0fc98f91ecbe563a1e00fd762d3df2219894222aa323ae3675e463adb3a7.png

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e356ba5d355d619d293beb0f43ded2e92d6de4e603b3f1bdf45d52774d3a11e3.png

          5. That’s interesting. I could be interested in that so that the oil heated the upstairs and the Rayburn the downstairs.

          6. As I mentioned to Geoff, the principle – zone control – isn’t new but is used mainly on commercial buildings rather than domestic. In fact, building regulations require it on new-build premises above a specific floor area.

            The control side is the easy bit on existing properties, the pipework layout and hydraulics being the hard bit.

          7. I’m arguably a tighter wad than you are… :-))

            I’ve never had a two / multi zone system, but I’m not convinced it makes a great deal of difference. My system had a room thermostat at the foot of the stairs, but facing the Hall radiator. Not helpful. I now have a Nest thermostat, currently in the Dining Room, but it can be moved around, depending on where I spend most of my time. Leaving aside the fact that Google Nest went down for an hour or so today on a global scale, I have good control over temperature. The TRVs upstairs are set so that the bedrooms are several degrees cooler than the Dining Room.

            Nest talks to Alexa – I have a couple of Echo Dots, and I can enquire what the temperature is where the thermostat is based, and increase or lower the temperature, verbally…

          8. I’m arguably a tighter wad than you are… :-))

            I’ve never had a two / multi zone system, but I’m not convinced it makes a great deal of difference. My system had a room thermostat at the foot of the stairs, but facing the Hall radiator. Not helpful. I now have a Nest thermostat, currently in the Dining Room, but it can be moved around, depending on where I spend most of my time. Leaving aside the fact that Google Nest went down for an hour or so today on a global scale, I have good control over temperature. The TRVs upstairs are set so that the bedrooms are several degrees cooler than the Dining Room.

            Nest talks to Alexa – I have a couple of Echo Dots, and I can enquire what the temperature is where the thermostat is based, and increase or lower the temperature, verbally…

          9. Believe me, Geoff, it can make a difference, especially if you consider the heat radiated from unlagged pipework serving radiators in unused areas. In fact, zone control, as it’s known, is mandatory in new-build premises above a certain floor area.

    2. I already have a tree planted in my name by Scottish and Southern Electric.
      I’m also sending out Xmas cards, and I don’t give a rat’s about my CO2 footprint. It’s all blx.
      The US has had its harvest season cut short because of very cold weather and snow, resulting in potatoes having frostbite, and grain harvests being much lower than in previous years. CO2 doesn’t cause global warming, so I don’t care about my CO2 output.
      I’m going to light a fire. ‘Tis a bit cold tonight…

      1. I am a member of Shell Go Plus. They keep telling me they will plant a tree every time I buy some of their fuel to offset my carbon footprint. Only problem is, their petrol and diesel is so much more expensive I choose a cheaper brand.

    4. Most new houses don’t have chimneys anyway. Even if they appear to (because they have to fit in with existing housing styles) they are often purely cosmetic and serve no functional purpose.

      1. Some built in town not long ago don’t have chimneys. All very well until there’s a power cut or electrical fault preventing the central heating pump from working – not to mention a boiler problem.

    5. How can you rent a proper Christmas tree? Take it back to have it glued back onto its roots?

      We have a pre lit tree which consumes electricity. We took that route after giving up on going to the local Christmas tree farm and cutting one down, ‘cos laying in the snow cutting a tree down is no fun when you reach creaky joint age.

      1. My neighbours have a white plastic tree which looks quite smart, more so when lit up. Having as my middle name, Ebenezer, I don’t do trees or decorations.

      2. Presumably it’s a rooted tree in a pot which then goes back to the supplier to be looked after and re-leased next year.

        That reminds me, our last tree was retired up the hill this year and we need a new one! So far we’ve 5 trees flourishing up the hill!

        1. Our living Christmas tree spends 50 weeks of the year in a pot in the garden.
          In effect, it’s a 5 foot high bonsai.
          The pot controls its growth and we trim off any roots that creep through the drainage hole. (Because of weight considerations, this is the only time we use a plastic plant pot.)
          This must be the 6th Christmas we will bring it in. A quick trim of any branches that have grown too much and we just pop it onto the usual corner near an electricity point.

        2. When I moved into this house there were Christmas trees everywhere in the garden. There must have been twenty years’ worth! I had to cull them.

          1. My 5 retired trees represent 25 years worth, but we did lose a couple along the way.
            The 1st one we planted is quite a decent 20′ tree now, but there is a much older Norway Spruce at the Cromford end of the garden that must be pushing 100′!

    1. The depressing thing about such actions is that people who haven’t a clue about how the world works, let alone aware of their own contribution to CO2 production, are in a job and being paid for it.

    2. As the BP Portrait Award attracts very high quality entries and benefits a wide range of artists of all ages and nationalities, by refusing to take the exhibition the Scottish Gallery is both cutting off it’s nose to spite it’s face and depriving the artists of very well deserved exposure.

      1. And yet, there seems to be no outcry from the woke over the EU shifting it’s base of operations so regularly – what sort of carbon footprint must that generate?

          1. Certainly trying to take photos or video of the move prompts a very fast and aggressive reaction!

    3. ” National Galleries Scotland acknowledged that “for many people, the association of this competition with BP is seen as being at odds” with its aim to help tackle climate change.”
      They’ve got to tread carefully with the petrochem companies because after their independence they will be their golden tin goose.

          1. Pedant moment: It was Healey.

            Sadly, I remember him and the rest of Wilson’s crew all too well. Especially, the trail of Trade Union leaders into No 10 to give the government of the day their orders. Same happened with Callaghan, except Harold was somewhat brighter. Not hard you might say. Both screwed the economy and had to call in the IMF to be bailed out.

          2. Yes, my mistake.

            It might be my memory fading but I recall Healey stating that it was far easier to give away money (he meant benefits allowances and tax breaks) than ever it was to take them back.
            I always think of that whenever things like TV licences, bus passes, winter fuel allowance tax relief for loans etc. are discussed.

            I’m a great believer that the poiticians should never take them away from those who have them but they should have the courage to stop future recipients from receiving them.

            That means pension changes, retirement ages tax rebates etc. etc should be left for those who already benefit have but tough for those who might have to wait another year or lose them altogether.

          3. I’d rather they ditched the TV licence altogether. Let Al Bebeera sink or swim on the quality of its programming. It might concentrate a few minds and we’d actually have something worth watching for a change.

  85. Romanian man admits murdering grandmother as she house-sat over Christmas

    A Romanian man has been jailed for life after pleading guilty to the 2013 murder of grandmother Valerie Graves. The killing of the 55-year-old artist around Christmas time shocked the small village of Bosham in West Sussex. She was found bludgeoned to death in the ground-floor bedroom of a luxury £1.6 million property where she was house-sitting. Cristian Sabou, 28, previously of Dej, Romania, pleaded guilty to her murder when he appeared at Lewes Crown Court today. He will serve a minimum of 23 years.

  87. -The BXP should really be standing in Conservative seats that voted to leave and where the sitting MP has been an active remainer

    1. I hope they don’t contest Eddisbury; there is a strong UKIP candidate available for that constituency who is fairly local and has contested a seat om a GE before.

  88. The world’s first hybrid cruise ship is currently on its maiden voyage⁠—take a look inside

    Luxury and sustainability are merging in the world of yachts. In September, the world’s first hydrogen-powered superyacht was unveiled at the Monaco Yacht Show. And right now, the world’s first hybrid, battery-supported cruise ship is making its maiden voyage to Antarctica with 450 passengers aboard, according to Robb Report.

    The MS Roald Amundsen’s first expedition to Antarctica is fitting – it was named after the eponymous legendary Norwegian polar explorer. The ship was unveiled by Hurtigruten, a Norwegian expedition cruise company, this summer.
    The 459-foot cruise ship is equipped with battery packs that support its low sulfur, diesel-powered, Rolls Royce-built engines.

        1. Split by what energy, derived from which fuel?

          And the spitting uses more energy than the hydrogen releases in its combustion.

          They’ll say they’ll be using wind power of course, but even if they did, the knock-on from that is that the wind power they use to do that is not then there to power the grid, so it’s back to fossil fuels in the long run.

    3. As far as I can tell its diesel electric hybrid, i.e. RR supplied diesels running the same kind of low sulphur diesels used in heavy vehicles, etc., rather than the old “bunker” fuel, with electric drive and batteries which can be used as needed for power. No references to Hydrogen fuel that I saw on the various technical sites.

  90. HAPPY HOUR – What’s the weather Alexa…?

    My Octgenarian neighbours received a present ….Alexa!
    They are totally enthralled with Amazon’s robot digital assistant. She can help with all sorts of things, from ordering pizza to checking the weather they tell me.

    But you don’t like pizza, I said.

    ‘What’s that got to do with it …….” they replied.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a85c7cf3365b015e556119704fe6d81487cb174e4bbd882b3b19a67c3cfbb2d8.gif

    1. Old people: “Alexa, can you give us the name of a good funeral director?”

      Alexa: “You’re too young to be thinking of that”

      Old people: “Not for us silly, we’ve put out a contract on that dreadful Corbyn chap.”

    3. “Alexa – Can you make yourself secure so that you cannot be used by the authorities or hackers as a microphone listening to every word we say?”

      “No. What would be the point of that, when they can already do that with your smart phone and see you as well by turning on the camera with no visible signs that they have done so? At least I don’t track your every movement and know exactly where you are at all times.”

      Even without these slight drawbacks, I have no earthly use for one.

      1. He should have asked ‘Who are your customers?’ in response to one of her replies, not that that would have elicited any more information either.

    5. Alexa where did I leave my glasses?
      – In a glass by your bed.

      Alexa where did I leave my teeth
      – Down at the dentist when he pulled them out.

  92. Prediction based on opinion polls from 01 Nov 2019 to 09 Nov 2019, sampling 8,210 people. (Can easily be a +-3% error rate so take as a trend rather than being accurate)

    The pattern is that support is warning for the minor parties and moving to Labour & Conservatives

    Con 382
    Lab 185 (29%)
    Lib 20 (15.6%)
    Brexit 9 (7.8%)
    Green 1 (2.8%)
    PlaidC 2 (0.6)
    UKIP 0 (0.4%)
    Other 0 (0.8%)
    DUP 9
    SF 7
    Aliance 1
    NI Other 1

  93. “I’ve been launching our programme to build 40 new hospitals in this country”
    Boris Johnson, 29 September 2019

    Many are claiming this to be false but as worded it is correct. The actual facts are

    It has confirmed that six hospitals in England are being given £2.7 billion by 2025 as part of a “new hospital building programme”. For example, one of the hospitals earmarked for the money is Whipps Cross in London. Its initial plans involve building a new hospital on the existing site, which will take up less space and “brings all the hospital’s services closer together under one roof. The remainder of the estate would be released for… new homes and community facilities”.
    Another 21 hospital trusts are being given £100 million in seed funding to prepare a business case for their hospitals—but no money for any actual building work. The plan is for works on these hospitals to take place between 2025 and 2030.

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d90da14ed915d55661e939c/21-trusts-being-given-seed-funding-to-develop-their-plans-for-hip-2.pdf

    1. Whipps is a small hospital with many low buildings so I suppose they want to flatten all that and build a 15 floor royal free type monstrosity with no parking so they can sell off public land to developers again.

      1. Good you are here. I’m looking for help on email providers. I have decided to cease to use Yahoo.
        I’m looking at ProtonMail. Do know of them?

          1. He did say email providers rather than Internet providers. I use mail.com. It does POP3 and it’s supposed to be private.

          2. He did say email providers rather than Internet providers. I use mail.com. It does POP3 and it’s supposed to be private.

        2. gmail works for me and millions of others. It’s free, use as many addresses as you need, and not tied to a particular ISP so if you move your provider you’ll not lose access to email. Or there’s hotmail or as it is known now outlook.com. The interface to that is basically outlook lite as a service. Both should cover both personal and business needs.
          Protonmail I don’t know.

      2. Bringing all the facilities together i one building rather than a random collection of buildings make sense. Any spare land would be used by the NHS

        1. It doesn’t make sense. Ever been in the Royal free when the lifts are out of action? I have.
          And of course there’s this bit… “The remainder of the estate would be released for… new homes and community facilities”.

          4. FWIW, I was involved in building the Borders General Hospital near Melrose. Two variations to the contract were to build a Recreation Centre and a Residential Zone for the staff…

          5. Um, there are not nearly enough parking spaces. The nearby narrow roads are choked with parked cars.

      1. Well hospitals are very expensive to build and it is importent you get it right and there is a lot of work in preparing a business case and coming up with an outline plan for the new facilities and identifying a site for the hospital and how many patients it would need to cater for and what facilities it would need at the time it opened and in say they next 50 years. Could it be built on the existing site, Would it need more land or would it be on a new site etc

    3. The present approach to building multipurpose hospital facilities on one site only makes sense financially.
      It makes no sense in medical terms. Maternity is not an illness, but maternity wards share facilities, and nurses, with wards treating diseases such as Diptheria (which has now made a return to Edinburgh, courtesy of two people who returned there from abroad).

      1. There is a plan to amalgamate two hospitals on one A& E site here. What it doesn’t seem to take into consideration is a) the wishes of the potential patients and b) the distances involved. It can take nearly three quarters of an hour for an ambulance to get to an incident up here if everything is favourable (recently it took three hours).

      1. Not true. Most are but given the distribution of the population in England’s that’s to be expected

  94. Evening, all. Hope you are all well. Very cold wind here today, although we had some welcome sunshine. The ground is saturated and won’t take much more rain.

      1. Rainbow, I have stated it many times (and again this evening if you look at my earlier post), that I greatly admire his oratory and if it weren’t for him putting the wind up the establishment we wouldn’t have had the referendum. He is, however, an extremely poor judge of character, not a team player (the Brexit Party is all about him) and it was churlish and ungrateful to denigrate UKIP (under whose banner he was returned to the EU parliament) and, more particularly, those hard-working UKIP members who made winning the referendum possible and who worked their socks off for him when he was leader. FYI I am not a “former” Ukipper, I am still a member, active in my local branch and will be supporting the prospective Parliamentary candidate for a neighbouring constituency if all goes to plan.

  96. Swedish police theory is that a bomb explosion in Malmö yesterday was to draw their attention whilst two young lads were shot several times through the window of a restaurant. (https://www.aftenposten.no/verden/i/kJxO3A/15-aaringene-ble-skutt-flere-ganger-en-svart-helg-for-malmoe ) – in Weegie, I’m afraid. The police now say that they are fed up & have had enough. It’s taken them a while – see the statistics below – the rest of the ordinary folk in Sweden must be pretty fed up with it, too!
    So far this year: 78 shot dead in Sweden. 249 people attempted murdered by shooting (Source: Brottsforebyggande Rådet)

  97. Brexit Party.

    I am pretty unimpressed by their campaign to date. It has not been much of a campaign and that’s reflected in the declining support for the Brexit Party
    Lets hope their appearance on TV improve things. In spite of their various conferences we still have almost nothing about their policies or people

    1. Jumping into bed with the despicable Tories is not putting your country first.

      Is the BREXIT Party now the BRINO party…?

  98. The newly formed Soylent Green Party guarantees that all old people will be offered a completely clean Brexit.

  99. Off topic.

    My wife is a sadist.

    She appears in my bureau and says: “your favourite woman is on the TV”

    I rush in, expecting to see one of my lust objects and what’s there?

    Hillary Clinton

    Grounds for divorce; she very nearly got my supper on the floor.

    1. That was rather cruel. And on that note i shall wander into
      the kitchen and cook some chicken fillets..
      they strangely resemble Clinton actually .

    2. You should have seen the way HC was greeted by the 2 little toads hosting the programme.

      1. I suspect I was spared.

        And if they keep from ever criticising her they might be spared Arkansacide too.

  100. I’ve just watched the video of Farage’s announcement that he won’t fight the Conservatives in the GE. He talks about how awful Johnson’s deal is, but then says that he ‘watched a video’ where Johnson promised not to extend beyond 2020 and negotiate a free trade deal, not a political union.

    So, with no firm offer in return from Johnson, he has stood down 317 of his troops and given him a free rein. Just on ‘Mr Die in a ditch 31st October’s’ promises.

    I’m a big fan of Nigel, but seriously what is he doing? Has he been nobbled?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKYFj6egBRg

    2. One thing is now sure, when Johnson with the majority he is expected to have in Westminster delivers his deal, or not as the case may be, there is no one he can hide behind.
      The whole country will know exactly who is responsible, the excuse TBP split the leave vote just flew out the window.

      1. Evening VVOF,
        If he gets his deal through will it matter brussels will be in full governance and johnson & co will be duly rewarded for services rendered.

    4. Well given there is no support for no deal in the commons and the Conservatives and even the Brexit party are split on it and given Brexit Parties support is under 10% going with Boris’s deal is the most sensible approach. The deal as well has not bee passed by the commons so potentially can get changed
      It is best for the Brexit Party to try to get MP’s into the commons where they potentially can have some influence

      It would be best for the Brexit Party to focus on a small number of key seats possibly as few as 50 and then really campaign on those seats with almost saturation coverage. They need a full set of policies as well just have leave the Eu is not going to work

      1. It’s just such a huge u-turn after weeks of saying that Johnson’s deal is BRINO and that he would fight every seat. He would have been better to pursue a limited strategy from the start. It’s also rather disrespectful to the candidates and the people who supported them.

        He’s also given the whole Tory party a free pass including the arch-Remainers. I’d have been happier if he’d left the ERG alone and gone for the rest. But no, now he’ll be seen by Labour Leavers as the Tories attack dog.

        I just hope his gamble pays off and he gets a decent number of BP MPs in Parliament. Otherwise, he’ll be known as the horse who fell at the final fence.

        1. Well remember so far only the WA and even that has not passed through the commons the trade deal is still to be negotiated and Boris is talking of a Canada ++ type deal

          1. From what I’ve read he’s taken WTO/No Deal off the table. We will be stuck in an endlessly-extendable transition period whilst Barnier strings us along and takes our money. We need a clean break now or we will never leave.

            I don’t trust Johnson as far as I can throw him, and can’t understand why Farage has made this huge decision apparently on the basis of a video he has watched of Johnson – not even a face-to-face conversation!

        2. Are we getting a bit too worked up about this? I have my doubts as to how many seats the BP might win whatever its tactics. Can we say that fielding a candidate in a Leave-voting constituency with a Remain Tory MP would result in victory for the BP? That assumes that enough Leave-voting Tories would switch to the BP to win the seat and prevent it being taken by a Remain candidate from one of the other parties.

          I’ve heard endless speculation about the possibilities on the news this evening and frankly one could agree with all of it and none.

          1. I’m a big admirer of Farage, I just hope he knows what he’s doing. I was at Brexit Party rally only three weeks ago where he was forensically taking apart Johnson’s WA. There’s an excellent summary on their website outlining why it isn’t Brexit. But suddenly, he’s prepared to take on trust that the transition will end after 2020 and Johnson will only go for an FTA. Trust in politicians is in pretty short supply at the moment.

            Let’s see how the land lies on 13th December. I hope there are enough BP MPs in parliament to justify this gamble and force Johnson to keep his word.

          2. I hope there are enough BP MPs in parliament to justify this gamble and force Johnson to keep his word.

            Indeed. I wonder if Farage has taken this stand to present himself as ‘reasonable’ rather than the media’s hardliner and so broaden his appeal.

            I also wonder if the EU has yet to play a part by playing too hard…

    1. The mother died on Sunday at around 10.30am, when the scarf she was wearing became entangled in the food mixer while she was making a cake with her 15-year-old son, according to firemen and police.

      Shades of Norman Bates there!

      2. Something I would imagine the police will be investigating.
        As I say, the family dynamics should be looked into.

    3. Maybe it was a Kenwood type, there’s a lot of grunt in the motor but even if it was running at high speed the concatenation of unfortunate circumstances leading to an Isadora Duncan via a kitchen implement is a difficult one to swallow, a bit like the cake mixture afterwards.

    4. A sudden entanglement causing her to be pulled sharply face first onto the rim of the mixing bowl, crushing the Adam’s apple area/pharynx/larynx and promptly tightening off the main blood flow to the brain. This could cause rapid loss of consciousness and the body slumps just enough not to pull the machine off the work top but adding to the weight on the scarf.

      Panic on the part of the boy, and even if he did disconnect the power the strangulation would not cease.

      By the time he got though to the emergency services and explained to an incredulous despatcher what had happened it would be too late.

      Unlikely I know, but I do recall how quickly someone being strangled at judo starts to go under.

  102. Ever been done ?
    Nearly out of the chrysalis then ? fully formed ALL in it together group / party.
    Starry, starry, night………

    1. Well it appears a lot more honest and constructive than the Water Aid ads we get on tv here. You can have clean water if you stop peeing in the well.

    2. I think Nigeria has a procreation problem – go a lot easier on that and they might be able to catch-up. Oh and BTW, does the Nigerian Embassy in London need all those dozens of Mercedes?

      1. Of course. They are the Wabenzi tribe*.

        *Seriously, that is what these types (crooks, politicians etc) are called in Nigeria.

        2. They are all crooks in Nigeria. Especially the politicians.

          Mind you, we could have said that some decades ago, feeling smug. Our present politicians are no better.

    3. Afternoon TB,
      Please face the fact that under the governance of lab/lib/con the pro eu
      coalition it is eye brow level faeces as we type.

    4. We have paid enough in aid to ensure that every Nigerian gets clean water and decent sanitation. If they still don’t, it is not going to be solved by throwing more money down the same hole.

      1. It certainly was. It was blinding rain when I arrived, and blinding rain just after I left (an hour and a half later), but in between the rain and hail showers the sun broke through occasionally.

        1. I remember one of the coldest hours of my life was doing some football training in front of the Plaza Ballroom building at Tynemouth in a howling mid-winterish easterly wind (circa 1960).

          1. You should try beach fishing for cod for a four or five hour session at night in December or January on a falling tide in a hard frost with studded waders to transfer the heat from your feet to the wet sand beneath them at the most effeicient rate, having to take your mitts off to use bare hands to unpick by torchlight pounds and pounds of wet seaweed that has hung itself like washing on the hundred yards of fishing line between you and your hook.

            That’s cold.

            🙂

            Fun, though, and if there’s a good moon, beautiful with it.

          3. You, Bob of Bonsall and some other people on here are really very good photographers – you all catch atmosphere, without trying to labour a point (which is what so many professionals seem to do nowadays. Well I guess they have to live .

  105. A quick question to fellow Nottlers – have any of you watched the Beeb’s World on Fire (on Sunday nights)?

    I have to admit being a little bemused. What with Polish soldiers trekking overland across Germany to land up in France in time for Dunkirk, half of the northern working class being darker toned, women brazenly owning up to being pregnant outside of wedlock, Indians running the SOE and England running SOE flights into Poland at the beginning of the war, I get the the feeling that I’m watching an alternate reality version of WW2.

    Maybe I’m wrong in which case I’m sure that our erudite group will correct me.

    2. Give the BBC another 25 years and we will discover to our surprise that white people never existed at all, apart from a handful of evil barbarians who lived underground in the North and who only came out to tear civilisations down.

    3. It is childishly dreadful .. Moh is addicted to it .. he hasn’t complained , but I feel it is history according to diversity and millenial licence!

      1. MOH is too. I pointed out the inconsistencies and ludicrous plot twists but she responded “I pretend it’s a fairy story”.

        1. “I pretend it’s a fairy story”

          Lol! That’s one way of dealing with it I suppose!

      2. Even my (Polish) wife has started to laugh at it and my wish that all the characters get bumped off and the production team are transported to Gestapo headquarters for (very) cross-examination.

    5. There was one very brave and famous Indian in SOE, a woman. She was a Sufi moslem.

      Noor Inayat Khan
      Khan was a World War II British secret agent. She was of Indian descent. She was the first woman radio operator sent into Nazi-occupied France by Winston Churchill’s Special Operations Executive (SOE), an organisation created for espionage and sabotage on the German forces.

      Noor Inayat Khan

      SOE involvement in Poland.

      SOE in Poland

      The above linked dissertation mentions that the Polish Chiefs of Staff fled SE to Romania and probably some of the Army. IIRC the Enigma crypanalysts followed that route as well.

      The rest sounds PC nonsense.

      1. Speaking of the Polish, I have just watched a new film called “303” about one of their RAF Hurricane squadrons in World War 2. Some of the shots of the aircraft and the dogfights were very good, but I did find myself pressing the fast forward button around half way through the film, as the “romantic subplot” was really dragging it down. At the end though this statistic came up on the screen:

        “During the Battle of Britain the 303 Squadron shot down 126 enemy aircraft, losing only 8 pilots.”

        That is an impressive achievement by any standards.

        1. I saw that – agree about the subplot and the main plot seesawing backwards and forwards in time. Fast forward, as you say, is your friend in respect of this film.

        2. The highest scoring squadron of all, I believe. The English (plus other Anglo-Saxons on our side) played a gentlemanly game. The Poles hated the Germans and ensured that they killed the enemy.

        3. Very much so. I read a pamphlet in the school library in the 1960s. I was about the Battle of Britain and it gave figures for comparative losses. They were quite close. We lost 3 planes to their 5, something like that*.

          *From memory.

          1. HP, just looking at comparative aircraft losses doesn’t tell the whole story. Shortage of pilots was a problem for Fighter Command, not aircraft, as we were producing or repairing more than enough. Another problem the RAF had was the lack of cannon armed aircraft; the early Spitfires and Hurricanes had rifle calibre, .303 machine guns and it wasn’t the best armament to bring down a bomber.
            .

          2. The influx of Polish, Czech, Canadian and even American pilots was a blessing, even though the recruitment and training of British pilots was going full tilt.
            I read somewhere that a German bomber returned to base with over 200 bullet holes (from 303 guns.)

          3. HP, just looking at comparative aircraft losses doesn’t tell the whole story. Shortage of pilots was a problem for Fighter Command, not aircraft, as we were producing or repairing more than enough. Another problem the RAF had was the lack of cannon armed aircraft; the early Spitfires and Hurricanes had rifle calibre, .303 machine guns and it wasn’t the best armament to bring down a bomber.
            .

    6. No, you are spot on. As someone who’s studied WW2 in detail (and in particular the Battle of Britain – I expect real joy when they get to that ), I keep muttering “X wasn’t tinted, the Sikhs in the RAF didn’t arrive in Britain until October – and then most of them went into Bomber Command – women weren’t brazen about being single mothers, etc, etc”. I record it and then I can whizz through the obligatory black on white h o m o scenes.

    3. That’s an awful lot cheaper than having the whole family living in the UK, using the NHS, being educated, housed and still gettig the same child benefits.

      Be careful what you wish for.

        1. Might be the Indians or Chinese.
          If it’s the Indians we should claim a share of the cheese, we helped pay for their space programme through foreign aid.

  108. Walkers in Canada often wear bells to warn a bear they are approaching.
    The idea being that bears don’t want to meet people, so they clear off
    if they are disturbed.

    As an aside, he also said that you can tell the type of bear from its
    droppings. Black bear droppings contain berries and seeds. Grizzly bear
    droppings contain…bells.

    3. A few years back, the state of Montana, which is mostly empty, decided it would abolish the maximum speed limit on its highways (motorways). Later they put it back as too many Silicon Valley types were buying fast cars, driving to Montana and promptly piling them up – California snow flakes not being known for their driving competence. What was quoted as a triggering event for the experiment to end, was the discovery of a smashed up supercar a long way off the highway and into the woods.

      As the State Police said at the time, “We don’t know whether the driver died before or after the bears got to him”.

    1. Absolutely fabulous! The HD video quality is stunning. How she managed to stay in her dress I’ll never know….?

  110. I followed the first link from this website:
    http://participator.online/articles/2019/11/weekly_roundup_of_news_and_opinion_we_9_november_20191110.php
    Which detailed how one of the contributors to the website had been arrested:
    https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2019/10/26/im-back-and-have-i-got-a-tale-to-tell/
    The person was arrested and “was booked in under the catch all and increasingly misused ‘malicious communication and racial and religious hatred’ acts”
    The police also claimed that they had in possession written correspondence that they believed was between me and others who have challenged both Islam and ‘hate speech’ laws and certain organizations.

    Although I did not answer any questions, the questions themselves gave me an inkling into what the arrest was all about. From what I could gather both Mr Mughal, who is the founder of the Tell Mama organisation and London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan had complained about memes mocking them that the police allege they saw on the Fahrenheit211 website.
    Combined with this:
    The long arm of EU law now reaches worldwide:
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-long-arm-of-eu-law-now-reaches-worldwide/

    On October 3, the ECJ ruled that the courts of EU member states may order Facebook – and by implication any social media company – to remove comments and posts deemed illegal by that state worldwide.
    While it is unclear how a worldwide ban would be enforced, the ECJ could enforce one within the EU, and the upshot is that the most draconian censorship laws of any member state will be given effect throughout the Union.
    As Facebook pointed out, this ‘undermines the long-standing principle that one country does not have the right to impose its laws on speech on another country’.

    The boot is starting to come down with a stamp upon all our faces…

    2. Shocking, but no surprise. Criticism of Islam has become a crime by using indirect laws. We must not forget that there is a move to outlaw Islamophobia itself. As mentioned by F211, its OK for slammers to say what they like about the kuffir, but don’t you dare say anything about followers of the prophet.

    3. There are already US websites that carry warnings that they are not for EU users, in order to avoid dealing with GDPR issues. I suspect FB and others would not find it hard to tailor their products if necessary. And if needed, separate out their businesses. Europe would get the the watered down, inoffensive to everyone censored version – which no-one would want to use anyway. Shades of Southpark’s non-offensive, non-denomination Christmas play.

      US companies will rightly assert that whatever they do in the US is subject to US law only, as other countries have no jurisdiction over the USA. Or maybe the US could just assert that its constitution prevails worldwide. About as sensible as the ECJ ruling.

      Next up, the EU will be proposing a Chinese style “firewall” to cut their Internet off from the rest of the world, to avoid their citizens being exposed to non conforming thinking or frightening concepts.This new firewall will be managed by the new Europe-wide Ministry of Truth.

  115. “Mr Farage also said he was encouraged by recent commitments from Mr Johnson to seek further divergence from EU rules in a post-Brexit trade deal.”
    Let’s see;
    “commitments” from Mr Johnson. Known liar (see ditch for evidence).
    “seek” – why? We can tell the EU what we want and what we will accept. We have the whip hand. They need us more than we need them. Unless.
    Unless there is already some agreement, some”understanding” that has not been made public?
    Surely not?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50377396

    2. T,
      It has always been so for the last 3 decades especially since the 24 / 6 / 2016 when the golden trough was seriously threatened.

      Edit, Sorry horry meant for tony.

  117. Could it be another c rusade is about to kick of in the near future, all the decent peoples of these Isles have just been commemorating the Tommy Atkins that fell, we are, I believe fast approaching the time when we will sorely need the Tommy R obinsons to be arising.

    ………………It was not part of their blood
    ……………….it came to them very late
    ……………….with long arrears to make good ……………….when the English began to hate.
    These words could not be ringing any true than now.

  118. Watched Smuggled 8 attempts 7 total successes the only failure?? a kayak crossing
    No wonder this country is awash with drugs and illegals
    What a farce

    1. Your are not going to catch them all but I expect better than 1 it should be at least 5 out of 8

  120. Cameron’s call for a Brexit referendum was actually superbly timed, although he didn’t expect the result.
    On a wave of confidence, the result whatver it might be, would prove a point and our country could carry on with strength from there.
    Whoever would be in charge, whether remaining or leaving, would know where they stood and would be confident and competent to
    be in charge. Things were good.
    Then, with the help of duplicitous Theresa, the vested interests took over.The decision to leaved had to be aborted whatever the cost.
    And all of a sudden there was nobody capable of handling this Brexit. It was almost like a disease that nobody in parliament wanted to catch.
    Legalities overcame common sense. The true Brexiteers were kept at arms length and banned from the media.
    Johnson has done his best, with his hands tied behind his back.
    And we criticise Putin and the Russians ? Not much difference, here. The voting citizens are just a bloody nuisance to be dealt with when necessay.

    1. “Johnson has done his best…”
      If that’s the best that a UK Prime Minister can manage, then we are finished.

        1. That’s not the point , is it? Three Tory PMs were given a job to do by the people. A job that could have been immediately accomplished in an afternoon by an Order in Council.
          Each one of them foozled it. The Parliamentary Conservative Party is not without blame.
          (It is now unlikely ever to happen.)

          1. You have to remember, Horace, that the Cons have always been a pro-EU party. Heath took us in, Maggie signed the Single Market Act (and was defenestrated when she twigged the direction of travel and didn’t like it), Major signed Maastricht, Cameron campaigned for remain, May is a remainer and Boris saw the way the wind was blowing and jumped on the leave bandwagon, although he was happy to make the case for remain before he decided which side his bread was buttered.

      3. He hasn’t even done that. There were two missed opportunities to stop the Benn surrender Act. Bojo pulled the first and didn’t take advantage of the second. Conveniently, his hands were then tied and hey presto! We’re kept in.

      4. I’d post a video of Christopher Hitchens talking to Peter Whittle, saying that this country is facing a catastrophe (nothing to do with Brexit, everything to do with a left-wing Tory party and unlimited immigration), but it’s too depressing.

  121. Should UK mainland flight have fuel duty applied to air travel ? This would encourage the use of rail

    Should buses be exempt from fuel duty to encourage the use of public transport. Currently they pay a discounted rate on local stage carriage services

      1. Are you suggesting that planes are not horrid and smelly as they use very low grade fuel. Most trains are electric so no smell

    2. What is a bus, exactly? It’s OK for you urban types, but every time I try and catch one of these mythical objects, I find they’ve moved the nearest stop half a mile further away…

      1. It’s something that passes your house twice a day, going to somewhere you don’t want to travel to at a time you don’t want to travel.

        1. And if you’re 10 seconds late you’ve missed it, and if you’re 10 minutes early they’ve cancelled it?

        2. Full disclosure: I had to get to St John’s Church, Wimbledon, for a ‘Come and Sing’ Fauré Requiem, yesterday. I walked the mile and a half to the nearest bus stop, and caught a bus (which was on time) to Guildford Bus Station. The Rail station is a six minute walk away, but there’s a bus which would have got me there in three minutes (and there’s one every seven minutes, allegedly). Due at 15:50, by the time it arrived, my 16:04 train had reached Woking. There followed another ten minutes while they changed drivers, the pace of which was glacial. Should have walked. There are lots of apps and the like, which should help with public transport – but they don’t reflect reality. Thankfully, I arrived at the venue with a few minutes to spare.

          On the way home, Uber failed miserably to produce a car, so I ended up paying thirty-five quid for a taxi. Still, the Fauré was excellent, and I caught up with a few friends in the pub afterwards (though £11 for two pints is a bit extreme. I thought Surrey pub prices were bad…)

          1. That takes me back. We learnt Faure’s Requiem at school. Loved it.

            Requiem eternam, donaeis Domine et lux perpetua if I remember correctly.

          2. Exactly. We had a professional string quintet, plus a cathedral organ scholar, providing the accompaniment. The conductor was my old Assistant Organist from many years ago. I sort of discovered him, and I maintain that was my greatest contribution to church music. Next year is prolly (© BT) Duruflé – which means I’ll have to actually practice…

          3. I have sung that Requiem. It’s one of my favourites. In Paradisum deducant angeles … (not that I can sing the soprano parts!)

      2. It’s something that passes your house twice a day, going to somewhere you don’t want to travel to at a time you don’t want to travel.

  122. Boris Johnson’s a liar and Jeremy Corbyn supports terrorists so I’m voting Lib Dem, says Nick Boles

    Former Conservative minister Nick Boles today announced he will vote for the Liberal Democrats and urged voters to back anyone but the “appalling choice” between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn.
    Mr Boles, who resigned the Conservative whip over Brexit, claimed voters “wouldn’t trust either of the Prime Ministerial candidates to mind your children for an hour let alone run the country”.

  124. London Ambulance medics view live images from 999 callers to assess critical incidents

    London Ambulance control room medics are viewing live images from the mobiles of 999 callers to decide whether to dispatch a trauma team.
    The technological breakthrough allows immediate assessment of critical incidents such as stabbings and road collisions.

    It means London’s Air Ambulance specialist medics are sent to incidents where the level of need is greatest — and prevents them being dispatched to lower-level calls.

    Paramedics in the LAS control room in Waterloo are even able to assess how serious a patient’s injuries are from watching the live video stream.

    LAS chief medical officer Dr Fenella Wrigley said: “This technology is ground-breaking in London Ambulance Service and is already making an impact helping the most critically injured people in the capital.”
    She added that it “helps clinicians assess the patient’s condition and enables them to provide medical advice and support while ambulance and air ambulance clinical teams are on the way to the scene”.

    It means London’s Air Ambulance specialist medics are sent to incidents where the level of need is greatest — and prevents them being dispatched to lower-level calls.

    Paramedics in the LAS control room in Waterloo are even able to assess how serious a patient’s injuries are from watching the live video stream.

    LAS chief medical officer Dr Fenella Wrigley said: “This technology is ground-breaking in London Ambulance Service and is already making an impact helping the most critically injured people in the capital.”
    She added that it “helps clinicians assess the patient’s condition and enables them to provide medical advice and support while ambulance and air ambulance clinical teams are on the way to the scene”.

    The technology is the latest innovation on the GoodSAM app, which was launched in 2015 to alert off-duty doctors to nearby emergencies such as cardiac arrests. Under the GoodSAM instant-on-scene platform, 999 callers are asked for permission for their phone camera to be accessed remotely. If they agree, they receive a text message with a link. Clicking on it sends a video stream to medics in the control room. The technology even allows the medics to measure a pulse and the phone’s GPS data confirms the incident location.
    It has been used by LAS 67 times since launch last month. On eight occasions, a trauma team was dispatched immediately — rather than waiting for a call from the first ambulance crew on scene.

    In 10 cases, the LAS control room medic was able to provide advice over the phone to help the caller to provide immediate first aid and increase the patient’s chances of survival.
    On 38 occasions, air ambulance medics were not required — meaning they could be kept on standby for more serious calls.

    3. One of my nieces lasers off tattoos.
      Apparently she has to check carefully both age and country origin of the tattoos.
      There are huge variations in chemicals that are used, particularly the colours.
      What appals me is that most of her customers are having hi-tec scrape downs – like clearing parchment – to create a new surface for fresh tattoos.
      They must hanker a secret wish to develop skin cancer.

      1. I hope your niece has plenty of professional indemnity insurance.

        I think this is an area of compenso abuntitori in due course, and the ones sued will be those who tried to help.

    3. Well, yes. Tories have, do (and have been proved to do for a long time now) lie through their teeth with no compunction. They are already exercising Orwell’s doublethink. They can now believe their lies, even though they know that those statements are lies.

  127. ‘Night All

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bdf760a045ab00c1b77668d0d3ad41428a5ce39c71989ea7f1c0aefc47cabebe.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6f9f3b12ef75e413070e232ddc7babd2bfea22de2cd61b9eab9abd96b5178931.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7c0d8a0cbf5c0022b697d655e7c2ed81d01132c218be220a656d5129c8259650.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/26bd389860841536c2092f73d330c8c153f50ca16de4d27a0851da31cf84a1c7.gif
    Edit forgot this
    https://twitter.com/_youhadonejob1/status/1193951280542158849?s=20

    1. Oh dear.. I felt like no 4 earlier when I heard the news about Farage backing down , and all the wannabee Brexit MP’s having to stand down from Tory areas

      Seems like a case of kill or cure now..

      Will some one explain what THEY believe is going on, because I just cannot keep up.!

  130. I cannot understand why Nigel Farage did not hold out for a better offer.

    Surely he could have said he would just stand down in constituencies where the referendum vote was to leave and the MP was a committed leaver – BUT that he would not stand down in constituencies which had voted to leave in the referendum but their Conservative MP was a remainer.

    I am beginning to wonder if Johnson organised some thugs to threaten Farage unless he withdrew. Maybe they threatened to harm him and his family? Perhaps it was some other bribe or blackmail?

    I certainly would not have put this past the thoroughly foul Conservatives who have already shown just how low they are prepared to stoop..

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