502 thoughts on “Monday 16 September: David Cameron is seeking a bitter revenge on those who foiled his weak-hearted compromise with the EU”

  1. I heard on the radio that “Bor s John on is tr velli g to Lux mbo rg for alks with the Euro ean Com iss on pre id nt”.

  2. In the BBC’s long piece about climate change – this one – there’s a comment “that would convince the public to act.”

    I know it’s a radical suggestion, but how about the BBC and other prominent organisations taking some action? Using a plastic bag twice doesn’t count.

    All I see when I watch the BBC and other large organisations is business as usual and waste on a grand scale. I also suspect that the scientists quoted in the piece haven’t made too many changes to their lifestyle.

    1. But Eddy, why would they need to? They are and always will be comfortable in this remarkable scam, retaining privileges whilst the poor of the world fester in their polluted poverty.

      1. Morning Epi.

        I suspect many can’t join the dots and see that they’re a bigger part of the problem than the hoi polloi.

  3. Just to let you all know, since it’s not on the BBC, I won’t be joining or voting for the Lib Dems, nor will I be relinquishing my British citizenship and becoming Dutch.

    I will however be stocking up on stuff to help ease the strain on the system in the first few weeks in November and I am optimistic that Britain can overcome the obstacles that lie ahead.

    1. Morning Eddy. “Stocking Up” is an eminently sensible thing to be doing in todays Political Climate!

      1. Morning Araminta.

        I reckon we should all do it, if for no other reason but to spike the guns of the fearmongers.

        Similarly, I’ve got a bit of a cold at the moment and decided to have it early to avoid any problems should I need any medicine when we leave.

  5. SIR – Had David Cameron been in touch with public sentiment, he need not have called a referendum on our membership of the EU.

    A manifesto commitment to prise from the EU serious reform of freedom of movement as it applied to the UK, with the threat of invoking Article 50 if Brussels refused, would by now have resulted in one of two happy outcomes.

    The fact is that he would never have trusted the British electorate to deliver a Conservative election victory on such a stark manifesto provision, so he abdicated responsibility by the enticement of reform or withdrawal by means of the referendum. The ensuing chaos is his responsibility

    Mr Cameron is a poor loser, and he now seeks revenge by traducing the characters of the main players who foiled his weak-hearted compromise with the EU. That he should choose to do so at such a critical point of play in the Brexit process is unforgivable.

    He is an embittered and vengeful individual, but he also has a book to sell. These points should be weighed against the veracity of his narrative.

    Steve Haynes
    Runcton, West Sussex

    Cameron always looked like the podgy son of a Home Counties stockbroker……which is what he is.

    1. As I commented yesterday, like many Old Etonians Cameron is a nouveau-riche, arriviste counter-jumper who is a common little twerp.

      How sad that they prevailed upon him to wear a morning suit at Prince William’s wedding when he could have shown his proletarian dress sense in a sharp and shiny mohair lounge suit as he did at his own sister’s wedding where all the other male guests were appropriately dressed.

      .

    2. Does Steve Haynes believe that freedom of movement was the sole reason for the UK wanting to leave the EU? I hope Mr Haynes has read Max Bonamy’s and Richard Vine’s contributions.
      Would Mr Haynes, or anyone with any sense, apply to join the EU as currently branded? This is the question every one of those flag waving Remainers we have to endure should ask themselves. If they answer in the affirmative then may I suggest that they decamp to the EU country of choice and therefore allow true Britons get on with their lives free from the interference and control of the EU.

    3. Cameron promised to stay on as PM even in the event of a Leave vote. In the event, he took his ball home in a sulk and even quit as an MP. And yet, those on the Leave side who stood down seem to get all the criticism for ‘causing this mess then leaving others to sort it out.’ Farage stood down as UKIP leader, but remained an MEP and said from the start that if it looked like Brexit was being betrayed he would come back. He has been as good as his word, unlike our former PM.

      But regardless of his motives, Cameron did this country a service. At some point the people had to have their say on the EU. The current political convulsions are merely the necessary birth pangs which will mark the beginning of a new era for this country. I believe that we will ultimately be a free, independent nation again, no matter how long we have to wait or how hard we have to fight.

    4. Morning zx.

      Most of us haven’t a clue about our politicians, never having met them, so it’s useful to get an ‘insider’s’ view.

      Whatever we think of Cameron and/or his motives, I think he’s doing us a favour by giving us that, especially with regard to the man tasked with honouring the EU referendum.

    5. The EU would never have given us any reforms – it’s incapable of reform. Even remainers admit that the project needs reform, but it’s pie in the sky.

  6. Trump says US ‘locked and loaded’ after Saudi Arabia attack, as oil prices soar. Mon 16 Sep 2019 .

    Donald Trump has said the US was “locked and loaded” and to ready respond to drone attacks on a petroleum processing facility in Saudi Arabia, saying the US knew who was behind them.

    The Yemeni resistance have admitted responsibility for the strike and Iran has denied it. Both these sources are more reliable than Saudi Arabia who started this War with the invasion of the Yemen. If the Americans should attack, the second casualty will be the rest of the Saudi oil industry!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/16/trump-says-us-locked-and-loaded-after-saudi-arabia-oil-attack-as-crude-prices-soar-iran-aramco

  7. SIR – Mr Cameron gave Britain its 
only chance to leave the EU. John Major should have given us a referendum in 1992 when the Maastricht Treaty changed the successful EEC trade bloc into a political entity.

    I have yet to hear praise from Remainers on the benefits of the EU today, let alone in the future. If we remained we’d become a nonentity member state –the world’s fifth largest economy as a net contributor paying for all new members to improve themselves while our own country needed investment.

    We would be forced to join the eurozone and projected military projects, with no real say in future developments.

    Remainers have no idea where the EU is going. Thanks to Mr Cameron our independence is nigh.

    Stephen Bailey
    Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, France

    Harry has been busy overnight

    BTL:

    Max Bonamy 16 Sep 2019 1:46AM
    “Remainers have no idea where the EU is going.”

    Stephen Bailey
    Nantes, Loire-Atlantique, France

    I think some do, and they love the smell of it.

    We’ve had Yellowhammer, so I’m compiling Blackhammer, which lists the hazards if we Remain or get a reheated WA and its accompanying Political Declaration (still Remain, only on worse terms than ever):

    1. Hazard for the Crown.

    Armed Forces come under the control of the EU. Allegiance no longer sworn to King or Queen but to bureaucrats in Brussels. Ipso facto, our monarch will no longer be Head of the Armed Forces and Commander-in-Chief. Denuded of this symbolic and pivotal role, it sets in train further diminution of the role of monarchy, the logical outcome of which is its eventual replacement with a republican president;

    2. Hazard for the Commonwealth.

    Denied the ability to make FTAs with the Commonwealth, coupled with a eunuchized monarchy, the Commonwealth will wither and die;

    3. Hazard for CANZUK.

    Already on the ropes, absorption within the EU Superstate will deliver the coup de gras – culturally, politically and economically;

    4. Hazard for FIVE EYES and TRIDENT.

    Under the terms of the Political Declaration our Intelligence Services and Trident also come under the control of the EU’s ‘Military Planning and Conduct Capability’ (MPCC). Five Eyes is CANZUK + USA – currently no European country is considered trustworthy enough to join this axis. Trident is the shared intellectual property of US / UK. In both cases it is inconceivable America will share either with the US-antipathetic EU;

    5. Hazard for the Special Relationship.

    Self-evidently flows form the above;

    6. Hazard for British identity.

    EU policies will continue to atomise it;

    7. Hazard for British business.

    90% of businesses do not trade with the EU but are nonetheless 100% subject to EU regulation;

    8. Hazard for our coastal communities.

    Under the PD, Britain is scheduled to relinquish all control of its fishing waters in June 2020;

    9. Hazard for Parliament’s ‘omnipotence’ (derived form the sovereignty of the British people.)

    The leaching of the UK’s ‘national competencies’ to the Superstate will accelerate;

    10. Hazard for sterling.

    If we are forced to give up the pound we lose our ability to set our own interest rates;

    11. Hazard for our democratic accountability;

    12. Hazard for meaningful elections;

    13. Hazard for our Common Law.

    The Napoleonic Code will continue its encroachment;

    14. Hazard for our Civil Liberties.

    Notably free speech and criticism of The Project.

    Flag32LikeReply
    Richard Vine 16 Sep 2019 2:47AM

    @Max Bonamy 15. The end of our veto. 16. On the hook for the ECB’s appalling balance sheet. 17. No longer able to prevent the march to full Union. 18. Outside the EZ but inside the EU leaves us in zombie land where policy is set for the EZ and we have no veto.

    Max Bonamy 16 Sep 2019 3:06AM
    @Richard Vine @Max Bonamy

    Very good, Richard. I shall add. Thank you.

    Others have commented that, under the the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty, we lose control of our energy policy as well in 2020.

    I am aware of the EU ‘renewables’ target in 2020, but I don’t think that is what is being referred to.

    Perhaps someone can enlighten with specifics.

    1. Good morning , good morning to you, as the song says ..

      Has anyone wondered what meddling the future King may be involved in re Remain.. I just get the feeling that there may be some interference and Liberal involvement coming from the heir to be .

    2. Morning z – I was wondering how I could get the letter on here as well as Max Bonamy’s brilliant Black list reponse to Yellowhammer. I doubt the media won’t publish the Black list. David Cameron is not getting much sympathy in the letters today.

    3. A very interesting post, Citroen. But I am puzzled by your line “Harry has been busy overnight”. Are you suggesting that Archie Harrison will soon be having a new brother/sister?

      :-))

    4. On the subject of lying… Found this – just for reference:
      https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/why-the-government-believes-that-voting-to-remain-in-the-european-union-is-the-best-decision-for-the-uk/why-the-government-believes-that-voting-to-remain-in-the-european-union-is-the-best-decision-for-the-uk
      Like this bit:
      A once in a generation decision
      The referendum on Thursday, 23 June is your chance to decide if we should remain in or leave the European Union.

      The government believes it is in the best interests of the UK to remain in the EU.

      This is the way to protect jobs, provide security, and strengthen the UK’s economy for every family in this country – a clear path into the future, in contrast to the uncertainty of leaving.

      This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide.

    1. Morning T-B – The armament dealers will be rubbing their hands as well. The Iranians, although they deny it, could have initiated the drone strikes that caused all the devastation in Saudi Arabia in the last few days.

    2. Morning.

      But my car doesn’t run on oil. it uses windmill power.

      A. Green
      Cloud Cuckoo Land

  9. David Cameron’s protest against Brexit ‘lies’ is deceitful
    CHARLES MOORE – 15 SEPTEMBER 2019 • 9:00PM

    The extracts and interview with David Cameron which precede his memoirs remind us that he is a sensible man. He can admit his mistakes, see the other person’s point of view, and usually avoid being consumed by bitterness (though he is certainly not fond of Michael Gove). History will not judge him a decent prime minister, though not a great one.

    Yet even the moderate Mr Cameron takes up the cry that, in the referendum campaign, “Leave was lying”.

    “Lie” is – or ought to be – a big word. It does not mean being careless with facts. Nor does it mean saying untruthful things, such as “The food is delicious”, out of politeness. It does not even mean fibbing to excuse yourself e.g. “I’m sorry was late: I was held up in traffic.” A lie is a deliberate untruth told with bad intent, something which makes the person who utters it dishonourable. That is why the word is classified in the House of Commons as “unparliamentary language”.

    In absolutely all election and referendum campaigns, both sides say things which are not strictly true. They do this chiefly by suppressing the virtues of the other side’s case or the disadvantages of their own. In 1979, for example, Mrs Thatcher campaigned to cut income tax. She carefully avoided saying – though it was the natural concomitant of the policy – that she would have to put up VAT. She was not lying, but neither was she telling the whole truth.

    Similarly, I remember William Hague saying in the 2001 election that we had 15 (or whatever) days left to save the pound – absurdly hyperbolical, but surely not mendacious. I recall, with a wry smile, George Osborne’s 2007 announcement that the Conservatives would get rid of inheritance tax. Politicians argue for victory: I’m afraid they have to, because otherwise they don’t win.

    The idea has gone round the world that the Leave campaign lied with its £350 million a week saving for the NHS painted on the side of a bus. It didn’t: it grossly oversimplified in the much the same way as the Remainers, abusing government information provided by the Treasury, warned of instant recession if we voted Leave.

    Mr Cameron fastens in particular on Leave’s campaign warnings about Turkey joining the EU. This was “ditching [the truth] altogether”, he says. Actually, it wasn’t. It was an exaggeration of the true fact that both the EU and (which he does not directly admit) Britain itself had a policy of eventually admitting Turkey.

    In politics, to say that the other side are liars is always the pot calling the kettle black. Better – indeed, more truthful – to leave the word out altogether.

    A dangerous precedent for China
    It was moving to see Hong Kong people protesting outside the British consulate in Hong Kong yesterday. In their view, the 1984 Sino-British Agreement which created “one country: two systems” to safeguard Hong Kong after its re-absorption by China in 1997 is now dead. It has been killed by China’s recent oppressions of the territory.

    The protestors are right that Britain has a moral responsibility and treaty obligation to Hong Kong. One way of fulfilling these would be to give proper British passports to those who hold British National (Overseas) passports. If they knew they could escape if necessary, they would be more confident in staying.

    One must pray they are wrong that the agreement is dead. As China spreads its power round the world, it holds up the Hong Kong model as the key to a harmonious future in which human rights, legality and economic freedoms are guaranteed in territories which fall under its influence. If China cannot behave in Hong Kong, its first big test on this, what chance is there that it will behave properly anywhere else?

    Under British rule, this tiny territory never achieved full democracy. But it did achieve liberty, the rule of law, prosperity and, perhaps surprisingly, an impressive identity of its own. If the West, especially Britain, lets this be snuffed out, we shall be looking at a bleak future for many other parts of the world, even in our own Continent.

    Gardens in decline
    The green, green grass of home is more and more often artificial, thus damaging the environment, says the Royal Horticultural Society. This is observably true. Why might it be happening?

    Probably the main factors are a lack of time and space. The first is caused by the growth of single-person households and of households where both partners work. The second is caused by absurdly high land values. If you have two cars, but only 50 square feet of garden, you cannot park them on real grass without destroying it.

    Actually, the problem is worse, because even natural lawns, unrelieved by other planting, are not bio-diverse. A garden which is nothing but a grass monoculture will not attract much wildlife or nurture wild flowers.

    I am lucky enough to live in the country, where lawns and plants have room to coexist, but when I look out on back-gardens from the train, or front ones walking along city streets, I notice that more and more are uncultivated – artificial grass or unrelieved lawn, paved areas for cars instead of earthy ones for plants.

    “Our England is a garden” begins Kipling’s famous poems. It ends, “And the glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!” Only if the people of England still wish it so.

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

    Was it Cameron who asserted that voting Leave would lead to World War III? Verhofstadt calling for the abolition of the nation state and the establishment of the EU Empire at the LibDem conference yesterday is far more dangerous.

    BTL:
    Diana Holder 15 Sep 2019 10:30PM

    Darren Grimes: fully exonerated.

    Leave.eu: did not act improperly.

    Marcus Ball’s case against Boris slung out by the judge.

    Contrast:

    Remain campaign fined by the electoral commission for misreporting spending.

    Leaflet delivered to everyone said what a vote to Leave would mean, and it never included having our civil servants that we pay conspiring with the EU negotiators.

    David Cameron himself said what a vote to Leave would mean, and it never included Parliament behaving like this.

    And he’s got the nerve to say that the Leave people have behaved badly?

  10. Bill of Rights ‘can defeat Remain court case’, says David Starkey

    Christopher Hope, chief political correspondent Yohannes Lowe
    14 SEPTEMBER 2019 • 9:30PM

    Boris Johnson should rely on the 1689 Bill of Rights in seeing off the Remain challenge in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, leading historian David Starkey has said.

    The television historian warned the nine justices to avoid getting involved in Brexit saying: “If judges rule on political matters where is no obvious law to base themselves on – it is simply three legal opinions against one legal opinion.

    “I am afraid what they are doing is political. And I will write the headline ‘Three judges against 17.4million voters’.”

    Mr Starkey said he was astonished that Mr Johnson’s Government lawyers had failed to rely on the legal protections set out in section nine of the 1689 Bill of Rights, which is the nearest statute the UK has to a written constitution.

    The section states: “That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament.”

    Speaking to LBC radio, Mr Starkey said: “The great problem is that we are mistaking the rule of law for the rule of lawyers.”

    He claimed judges were confusing “two forms of sovereignty – the legal sovereignty of Parliament and then he distinguishes the political sovereignty of the nation, and the devastating, dangerous thing is when judges rule on the political sphere”.

    Mr Starkey said that the Bill of Rights “tried to distinguish from the legal and the political sphere. Clause 9 says proceedings in Parliament should not be impeached or otherwise questioned in any other court or place”.

    He continued: “For reasons I do not understand the Government has not resorted to this – the whole problem of the supreme court judgement in the Gina Miller case – it was not put against this broad historical background.

    “This is the issue that was debated by Jonathan Sumption in his [BBC] Reith lectures. What are the bounds of law, what are the bounds of politics?”

    The Brexit debate heads to the Supreme Court – the UK’s highest court – on Tuesday for a three day hearing when petitioners including Ms Miller and former Tory Prime Minister John Major will argue that Mr Johnson was wrong to suspend Parliament for five weeks.

    The judges are due to publish their ruling next week – during the Labour party conference – and any defeat will most likely only see MPs return to the Commons a week early, shortly after the Conservative party conference.

    An investigation by the Sunday Telegraph found that several of the justices have expressed support for the European union in the past, putting their impartiality as neutral proponents of the law into question.

    Lady Hale, the president of the Supreme Court since 2017, said that politicians had to decide whether withdrawing from the Human Rights Convention, and in effect the EU, was a “price worth paying” to reduce immigration.

    The Yorkshire born judge, who is married to law commissioner Julian Farrand, has also said that the government’s austerity policies have posed some “uncomfortable problems for the courts”.

    The spouses of some of the other justices have also voiced anti-Brexit sentiment through their social media accounts.

    Miranda Wolpert, a clinical psychologist married to Lord Sales, has retweeted articles on Twitter claiming that a No-Deal Brexit poses a danger to the UK science industry.

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

    BTL:

    William Goodwin 14 Sep 2019 10:04PM
    Will the judges be able to help themselves regardless of their elevated position and constitutional neutrality? Their Europhile proclivities are a matter of record and it’s questionable whether they will be able to resist the temptation to hole Boris’s position below the waterline.

    If they do declare the issue to be justiciable, against the view of the High Court, and decide against the Government, it will herald a real awakening among the electorate about the extent of the establishment’s reach and ruthlessness. It would have serious implications for the Court’s credibility unless they can demonstrate that their ruling is beyond reproach.

    We may well be approaching a watershed moment, the implications of which may be incalculable.

    1. Well the legislation as I understand it only requires us to ask for an extension. The EU does not have to agree it and we do not have to accept it

      1. Our PM can ask for an extension but add conditions. “We would like a 3 month extension, and we would like th EU to pay us £39bn as well.)

    2. The criminal classes pay no heed of the law or the judges, it will soon come to the point that neither will the law-abiding.

  13. Morning all

    SIR – Is it irony to wave a blue flag with stars when singing “Mother of the free” at the last night of the Proms?

    Simon Warde Bognor Regis, West Sussex

  14. Morning again

    SIR – I felt like a grown-up (Letters, September 14) when I started paying my own subscription for The Daily Telegraph instead of hogging my parents’ copy.

    Anne Jappie
    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    SIR – I am old, 83, and find being addressed as “young man” demeaning, patronising and infuriating.

    George Holder

    London SW20

  15. At the Lib/Dem Conference Guy Verhofstadt proposed the abolition of the nation state and pushed for the building of an EU “empire”.

    Let us prepare for this straightaway by sacking each and every MP and member of the House of Lords cutting off their perks, pensions and salaries with immediate effect.

    1. To me the way he spoke tended to sound like an old German leader who had similar ambitions whose name began with the letter H

  16. SIR – I was so annoyed by Mr Speaker Bercow’s bombastic murder of our language that I sent him the latest edition of Plain Words, the excellent guide to simple English written by Sir Ernest Gowers for civil servants afflicted by the disease of officialese.

    He hasn’t read it, for he remains as pompous as ever. I hope his successor finds it in the Speaker’s bookcase.

    Philip Hirst
    Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire

    1. Bercows approach is to use obscure words and if possible use five words instead of one and speak incredibly slowly

  17. Coincidence alert…..

    Dave’s rubbishing of Brexit looks like fitting in exactly with those Daily Mail articles about Uncle George from 2018 !

  18. Brexit & Shortage of Medicines

    This is scaremongering by the Remainers of the worst possible kind. There is no basis for this claim at all. Additional buffer stocks are being held by chemists and the NHS and manufactures short term delays occur as we change over to the new process. The highest priority would be given to clearing g drugs through the ports as well so the risk is pretty much zero

    The other scare tactic is the claims that short shelf life drugs would pass the expiry date during shipping. Well there are almost no drugs that are short shelf life. Most drugs has an official shelf lifer of 12 to 18 months and general they will last far longer then that and work is going on to establish more realistic shelf life dates. For critical medicines at present it is best to stick to the date given

    1. 1) Our politicians can rubber stamp EU directives while pretending that they are all their own ideas so that they can spend years on the EU gravy train laughing at us

      1. That is pretty much what happens with EU directives. The MP’s spends months talking about them but usually have no knowledge of the subject matter . THey then give I a BSI number and stick a UK cover sheet on it and enact it into UK law and that’s it

        1. If only they just adopted the Directive as written, it wouldn’t be so bad. Problem is, they like to gold-plate the wretched things, making them much more onerous than they should be.

          1. Indeed, in the 1990s when working for the Property Services Agency, which was being privatised and the contracts let out to croney contractors, I had to implement a Quality Assurance scheme.

            It started life as a two page EU Directive, and in Germany that’s what it stayed. In the UK, however, the City & Guilds along with the Civil Service turned it into an 8-volume monster two feet thick nobody in their right mind would read if they wanted to remain competitive with the Germans.

  20. We all know that there are some appalling people sharing the planet. There’s a heavy concentration of them editing the Guardian

    The Guardian apologises for David Cameron editorial
    Steerpike – 15 September 2019 – 10:43 PM

    What is going on at The Guardian? They don’t like David Cameron, fair enough, but an editorial published earlier on this evening attacked him for only experiencing “privileged pain” following the death of Ivan, his six-year-old, severely-disabled son. Its leading article, published at 8.40pm – and presumably in the print issue tomorrow – had this to say:-

    Mr Cameron has known pain and failure in his life but it has always been limited failure and privileged pain. The miseries of boarding school at seven are entirely real and for some people emotionally crippling but they come with an assurance that only important people can suffer that way. Even his experience of the NHS, which looked after his severely disabled son, has been that of the better functioning and better funded parts of the system. Had he been forced to wrestle with the understaffed and over-managed hospitals of much of England, or had he been trying to get the system to look after a dying parent rather than a dying child, he might have understood a little of the damage that his policies have done.

    Privileged pain. As Zac Goldsmith put it well when he said that these aren’t “just the ugly thoughts of a maverick columnist. These are the words of the actual Guardian editorial. It is their corporate view.” A leader that would typically be seen and approved by at least three senior editors.

    Sajid Javid, the Chancellor, said he has never read an editorial that lacked so much in empathy.

    @sajidjavid
    Shameful thing to read, @guardian. Never has an editorial so lacked in empathy, while so righteously criticising others for lacking it.

    Anita Singh
    @anitathetweeter
    I’m no fan of David Cameron but to describe him as only experiencing “privileged pain” when he had a profoundly disabled child who died aged six is a terrible thing to say

    While James Cleverly questioned how anyone could think it would be appropriate to publish it.

    @JamesCleverly
    How could anyone think this? How could they think it OK to write this? How could an editor look at this and think it appropriate to publish this?

    The leader has now been corrected and a Guardian spokesman said:

    The original version of this editorial posted online fell far short of our standards. It has now been amended, and we apologise completely.

    But how does a leading article – the voice of the newspaper – end up being published without anyone checking if it meets the standards? Mr S has no doubt that most Guardian journalists will be as shocked as anyone else about this. It will have been a system failure. But a pretty bad one.

    PS The Guardian has given its apology to Buzzfeed, but not its readers.

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

    BTL:

    Fencesitter • 9 hours ago
    “The original version of this editorial posted online fell far short of our standards. It has now been amended, and we apologise completely.”

    Translation: We’ve just shown our true colours and, yes, we really are that twisted.

    1. I have absolutely no time for Cameron, but the Guardian is well out of order writing shameful stuff like that. Good God, what a nest of vipers.

    2. Being at odds with politicians is “just business” as they say in the Mafia. Attacking them personally by way of their children, or other relatives, is dirty and shameful.

    3. The mask has come off the far Left. This is what they think. They hate people not like them, whilst preaching tolerance and inclusion. They’re only tolerant and inclusive to those on the far Left.

      It’s also allowed others that hate us to voice their opinions:

      https://forums.catholic.com/t/swedish-rapper-calls-for-white-people-to-be-shot-and-taken-as-slaves-on-instagram/566111
      Swedish rapper calls for white people to be shot and taken as slaves.

      Know your enemy.

  21. More than 1,400 UK restaurants close as casual dining crunch bites

    I t is more of a case of e have far to many food outlets for the size of the market. Look at the average High street now and compare it to a few decades ago. There are probably 5 to 10 times more restaurants and takeaways. They cannot all survive the business is simply not there

    The article has to chuck Brexit in as well. Have you ever come across anyone who has said they are not going to east out or get a takeaway because of Brexit. It is pure nonsense

    More than 1,400 UK restaurants collapsed in the year since June 2018 – underlining the scale of the so-called “casual dining crunch”, which has led to customers turning their backs on chains such as Byron, Strada, Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Jamie Oliver’s restaurant empire.
    The number of restaurants falling into insolvency in the year to the end of June 2019 increased by 25% to 1,412 compared to 2018, according to research by the accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young. It is the highest number of insolvencies since at least 2014 and is said to reflect tightened consumer spending on the back of concerns about Brexit and rising costs because of the collapse in the value of the pound.

    1. Why spend £15 on a squiggle of sauce on a square plate, when one can get a plastic-wrapped meal, microwave-ready, from Lidl for under £2?

      1. Why an earth people pay a fortune to dine in a pretentious Micheline starred establishment I do not know. I don’t want my meal just thrown on a plate equally I don’t want it to be a work of art.

    2. As Bill writes, why would you not eat out because of Brexit? Also, the pound has NOT collapsed.
      What utter bollox the article is.

    3. A natural thinning out of an overcrowded market.
      The ones that will suffer most will be the big chains, often part of conglomerates that will have minimum profit targets.

    1. Is there anything better than insults, bluster and spin to refute what this scientist is observing?

      2. Yes, compare all their previous predictions of doom and gloom with the reality of what has happened.

        Their forecasts have been worse than useless, the grounds for their forecasts have later proved to be inaccurate if not down-right fiddled. They have given advice that has done the opposite of what was intended, eg diesel cars and almost every month they make a discovery that contradicts or worse still makes even worse what they were trying to ameliorate.

        1. Yellow Hammer is another false document. Written by Civil servants who have not a clue

          They wrote it without visiting and speaking to the port authorities in Dover & Calais, Those two ports are very well prepared for Brexit and have been for some time. They are not expecting any delays but should any occur they have plans in place to deal with them

      5. Yes. Facts! Such as the climate has always been changing and humans cannot influence it either way.

      6. It is the climate that is not observing the scientists’ projections.

        Scientists need to refake the climate model to instil enough fear into polititians that their actions to control the planet are making things worse and not better.

  23. Boris Johnson is now boasting that he is getting very close to a complete surrender agreement with Juncker enabling Britain to be chained forever to the EU without any way of wriggling free or influencing anything.

    I am beginning to understand Auberon Waugh’s view that British politicians are so spectacularly incompetent and corrupt that even those in the EU would be preferable. At least they don’t even pretend to have any integrity

    2. I was one of those who, a few years ago, trusted the Prime Minister to get on with the job of bringing us out of the EU properly, and felt that Parliament should not hamstring her efforts. I was wrong, and jolly glad now that Remainers pushed through the “meaningful vote”, considering the “Deal” she and her team produced.

      Can we trust Boris Johnson, now pushed for time and cornered by the Speaker’s revolutionary forces in Parliament, any more than we could trust Theresa May?

      I want this whole thing over with now. Either we get out on 31st October on whatever state we are in, and then improvise our way through the chaos, or we follow Ms Swinson’s advice and give up on the whole thing as a bad job, and just submit to the will of Brussels same as every other Member State, plus Norway and Switzerland, have learnt to do.

        1. There is a lot of confusion over Brexit some of it deliberate

          The WA is just ho we leave. It is not linked to trade at all and signing the WA does not give us a trade deal. In my view it is a trap just as bad as the backstop. May and the politicians have undermined our chances of getting a sensible trade deal from the EU whilst we remain in it

          The best approach no is we leave under WTO. From memory we are the EU’s second largest single export market and I think we are Germanys largest export market for cars. If we leave on WTO trade deals will quickly follow particularly as Germans car market is not doing well

          1. The WA is the price to pay for getting out of a contract.

            We could follow precedent set by Family Law. If you are a woman, you are free to petition for divorce unilaterally for no good reason other that “women’s rights”, and use the courts to screw the innocent discarded husband father out of large amounts of money while shutting him out of the home and family life. Finally, the woman pushes him out of his career too, because that again is “women’s rights”.

            We should be charging the EU for leaving, and make sure they keep up their maintenance payments, not the other way round. Where are the Scottish judges when we need them?

        2. Morning O,
          In doing that he is going to curtail a great many current / future lucrative lifestyles
          in my book the elusive deal has been there all the time the only thing lacking was how to present it to the peoples.

      2. Morning JM,
        The other options is the one that should have taken place on the 25/6/2016 that is, join UKIP
        After 6 years of the cameron ( the wretch ) / may
        combo surely an anti treachery force was called for, and UKIP fitted the bill.
        Instead up went the cry “leave it to the tories”.

        1. “leave it to the tories”.
          Yep!
          The known ‘party of Europe’.
          Taken us in.
          Lied.
          Put through nearly every treaty taking us further in.
          Threw out Maggie.
          And Brits voted for them to implement Brexit.
          Well how daft could they get.
          We have all had to suffer what they voted for.
          Betrayal and three years of lies and deceit.

          2. Said the tribalistic loon that’s imploring people to vote for Bojo’s traiTories to keep out the Brexit party.

      1. I don’t understand why they want a “People’s Vote”, as she has already said that if the vote goes against them, they’ll ignore it. How democratic is that?

        1. Lady Nuggee wants to campaign vigorously for a better deal for leaving the EU and then to scrap that deal to stay in the EU. She is incapable of seeing the absurdity of this.

          The reason why the Pro-Remain MPs want another referendum rather than a general election is quite simple.. Even if the second referendum vote is once again a vote to leave the EU then the same MPs in parliament will carry on blocking it just as they have been blocking it for the last three years.

          A general election with a new composition of MPs might just manege to implement Brexit which is the last thing they want.

          .

          1. Morning, Rastus.
            Just a wee problem… where does one get a new composition of MPs – as in, ones that pay heed to the electorate?
            [Edit: lost the second part of the post – below]
            The same old useless ones will stand and 98% of them be re-elected.

          2. A general election with TBP well represented either in a pact with the Conservatives or on their own might achieve something.

            A referendum is a waste of time as a Leave vote would never be implemented by our current MPs.

  24. The Next Big Mis-selling Scandal

    It looks as if Solar Panels are going to be the next mis-selling scandal. The number of complaints is escalating fast. People are frequently given false claims about the benefits of them and how much they will save and the sales are frequently linked to very expensive loan schemes. Most people find that far from saving them money it cost them money and they are locked into expensive schemes they cannot get out of

    1. It’s not the solar panels that are at fault. I’ve seen far worse ways to spend £5000 – I now generate over the year about the same amount of electricity as I consume.

      It is the energy companies pulling a fast one by unfair pricing between what they offer in buying power, compared to what they offer in selling it, coupled with smart meters designed to con little people even more and up the directors’ bonus pot,

      As for these idiot loan schemes, with such low interest rates, we have created a culture from top to bottom where we are told it is better to borrow to pay the bills, and never to save for a rainy day. That is not the fault of solar panels – I blame the Governor of the Bank of England and “global market forces”.

      1. For the engineers and builders amongst you, the long-term risk of roof-mounted PV panels is that the fixings extend through the roof material and into the purlins or rafters. During cold weather these screws will attract tiny amounts of condensation which, over many years, will potentially allow fungi to develop on the wood surface. If and when the rubber grommets perish, extra moisture may penetrate from outside. Of course, it all creates work for the working man to do.

      2. Yes, but I expect you ”generate” it most at a time when it isn’t wanted which is on a nice warm sunny day when other peeps don’t want to switch on.

        So surely your little installation is part of the problem of hugely increased electricity costs, the ”green” absurdities and escalating director bonuses ?

        1. The problem is that the pricing model is not geared to local generation of power.

          Better might be to recognise that there are costs involved in the transmission and storage of electricity that can either be met locally (using batteries, hydrogen creation or whatever) or provided by the grid with the advantages of economies of scale. A half-decent algorithm should be able to work it out.

          I actually think the market is on the case. One plan is to use a network of electric vehicles to act as a huge storage battery spread far and wide. When cars are parked and folk are cooking dinner, the car batteries are tapped to top up the grid. Then these are charged when the cars are parked during the day. It would need tweaking, so the cars are not flat when doing morning trips – a device setting the maximum draw on the battery that could be turned up for morning trips, and down for maximum return, and would be up to the owners to set as they wish.

          One looming problem is the world-wide shortage of lithium for the batteries. However, promising developments are coming with a capacitor battery using graphene – a cheap and plentiful material made of carbon, and which could be built into the bodywork of a car.

          1. I think you should pull out of your solar panel scheme because it’s increasing electricity costs for everyone else, and is a drag on the economy.

        2. When electricity is generated on a ‘warm sunny day’ I use it to do the washing, drying, making bread in the machine etc ie maximising the benefit of generating electricity, using it and still getting paid for it. Before any of my ‘spare’ electricity is sent to the grid it is diverted to heat the water – only when that is hot does it go to the grid

          1. Yes, everyone else is paying for you to bake bread and heat your water.

            I hope you give everyone a nice slice of bread after you’ve let them come round to yours for a warm bath.

          2. Everyone’s welcome to do that. :o)
            My council tax pays for everyone elses kids to be educated

          3. Certainly there’s no sign of ”everyone elses kids being educated” so I think you should be refunded.

    2. The same problem in France. We had a salesman round and discovered that he wasn’t really trying to sell us solar panels he was trying to sell us a loan we neither needed nor wanted.

      The idea was that the money saved on electricity would pay for the loan for buying the panels so we would be getting them for nothing.

      1. Good morning Rastus.
        Some friends in Spain have installed more than 50 photovoltaic panels on their roof, linked to a a box of circuitry and some massive lead acid batteries, which are stored in a shed about 30 metres from the main building. Installation should have a six year payback period, and it often produces more than 5 kw. No loan, and probably they do not feed in to the grid. Ok, so there is slightly less sunshine in Brittany than southern Spain, but there is no tax on the ‘dividend’, so for higher earners solar panels can make sense. But you need the batteries to be well away from the house. In UK, planning permission is required if you don’t want the panels on the roof.

        1. If you generate electricity in Norway, even for your own use and not for sale, you still have to pay El-avgift – tax on the power generated.

    3. Let the buyer beware. I was and would never have them on my roof. They have seagulls nesting under them here. A roofer is making a fortune making them bird proof. They also need washing down every few months to keep them working properly. Its the something for nothing brigate that has bought them without investigating all about them. Its becoming harder to sell your property with them.

      1. We had them. We bought them under the more generous tariff scheme, and they’d generate up to 22kW per day in summer (4kW array, and we never washed them, just let the rain do it), but in winter it could be as low as 1-2kW. The payback was around £2000+ a year. We had no problem selling our house.

      2. They must be small seagulls – mine are so close even a sparrow doing a limbo dance couldn’t get under them, as for cleaning – not necessary, mine are self cleaning. I went into it in great detail before I had them installed and it has proved to be a good move although you really have to be at home using the electricity as it’s generated (and getting paid for it) to get max benefit.

        1. Those old fashioned night storage heaters, heated during the day might cut down on winter heating bills, assuming you get enough sunshine in Winter.

          They are big and ugly but it is a method of storing at least some of the energy

    4. Oh, ffs.
      Right now, with the reduced tariff, they will not pay for themselves for years, if ever. People should be able to work that out. Getting a loan to buy them is crazy, unless it’s an interest-free loan, and even then…
      Under the previous tariffs, the solar panels could pay for themselves unless than five years…but that relied on tariff pay-backs from the electricity companies, i.e. other customers. But this was the wheeze designed by the last Labour government, to get people to buy solar panels. It was less about generating electricity and more about the subsidies. They’d pay for themselves by reduced electricity bills, but it would take years, e.g., the lifespan of the panels.

      1. I’ve had mine for nearly 6 years and are close to paying back my investment as forecast by the installer never mind the reduced electricity bill and I’m in the far north of Scotland

    5. Parasite Panels. A scheme to make money out of the pockets of others by making them pay your electricity bill whether they want to or not.

      My heart bleeds

  25. 41 illegals intercepted in the Channel yesterday, two in a kayak for goodness sake. The LBC report stated that they were stopped but later on in the report confirmed that the illegals were handed over to Border Force. That’s not stopping them from succeeding in their endeavour, it’s assisting their illegal action and letting them in. Stopping would entail immediately taking them back to the country they set sail from.

    1. They keep coming because 98% of them are never deported and the other 3% make further attempts and get to stay on the second or third attempt

      The numbers will keep on increasing and I am pretty sure they are coming cross in large boats and then put into dinghy’s just off on the coast. The channel is a very busy nd very dangerous street of sea. Even with good seamanship skills and equipment getting across in dinghy’s would be highly dangerous. Most seem to arrive overnight or early morning which tend to indicate that what is happening.

      There seems to be a very well organized people smuggling operation going on. It would not surprise me if the Charites in Calais are also involved in it

      1. Of course , they will bring their strange dietary habits with them .

        I am horrified to hear this ..Tantamount to cannibalism..

        Monkeys slaughtered in cruel bushmeat trade then smuggled into UK
        EXCLUSIVE: Monkeys are being slaughtered and illegally shipped into the UK, being sold as ‘dry-meat’ in our markets, as demand for ‘bushmeat’ in the UK soars.

        Kept behind bars in this tiny cage for the first year of his life after his mother and family were shot, this chimpanzee is one of the tragic victims of a bushmeat trade being fuelled by UK demand.

        Wild animals have been hunted by rural communities in Africa for thousands of years as a much needed source of food.

        But now thousands of monkeys are being killed in cold blood and then smuggled into cities in Britain, Europe and the USA – part of a lucrative international crime racket leaving the West African Chimpanzees critically endangered.

        Leading primate scientist Dr Ben Garrod warned: “I can almost guarantee that African bushmeat has been illegally smuggled into a city close to where you are sitting.”

        https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/monkeys-raised-chains-slaughtered-smuggled-20069368

      1. No of course not because the Human Rights legislation which Uncle George wanted Tony to introduce and perpetuated by every subsequent Uncle George manager prevents it.

    3. Meanwhile an American woman is on her 4th lap swimming the Channel which if she succeeds will be a first

  26. The Next Big Mis-selling Scandal

    It looks as if parliament is going to be the next mis-selling scandal. The number of complaints is escalating fast. People are frequently given false claims about the benefits of it. Most people find that it costs them money and they are locked into an expensive scheme they cannot get out of.

    2. The trouble is that many people don’t want to leave the hell holes they have left to come to Britain so they try to bring their hell holes with them.

      That is why it is so hard for those of entirely different cultures to coexist peacefully and why multiculturalism cannot ever work.

    3. Reminds me of the time, when Blair was addressing a meeting in the UK, an asian told him that he didn’t belong in the area and shoudn’t be there.

          1. I was agreeing with the statement “….he didn’t belong in the area and shoudn’t be there”.

  28. Morning, all. Great family party in Somerset. Now back in Dorset and on Wednesday pick up the Canucks and head North for ten days. Thank goodness my Passat does about 750 miles on a full tank.

  29. Good morning all. I do hope PM Johnson reads the comments on the article he has written in the Telegraph this morning! Top one so far:

    “Boris, the withdrawal agreement is not a deal, so any attempt to pass it off with one will see your party completely destroyed.

    Think very carefully about putting even a DNA trace of Mays deal back on the table, as it will explode in your face and the tory party will be toast.

    Even worse, the country will pull itself apart because we need to leave the EU, not enter an arrangement with no exit mechanism!”

    It’s not every day we get to let our PM know exactly what we think of his efforts to get a deal out of the EU. It’s especially relevant as he is meeting Drunker today. Do please let him know what you think. Withdrawal Agreement – Backtop = Tory Party Annihalation!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/15/passionately-believe-can-strike-eu-deal-within-weeks/

    1. Unless he is running the clock down to 31/10/2019 he is playing with fire. The ERG faction have stated that they will not support any “deal” that has anything to do with May’s WA/PD. It’s also unlikely that Corbyn will support a rehash, if not for patriotic reasons, for he has none, then purely because Johnson, a Tory, will be the promoter of the “deal”.
      Bring back May’s pig with a dab or two of make-up and destroy your party while trying to destroy your country.

      1. Agreed. There are already over a thousand comments on the article and every one of them is saying pretty much the same as you. Bring back any version of the Awful Surrender Document and you are toast.

        At least we should hopefully know this week what’s Johnson’s plan is, it took two years for it to be clear that for Theresa May Brexit meant Remain!

    2. The WA is the political equivalent of toxic waste injected into a cancer victim.

      The cancer, of course, is the anti democratic Left. The victim, the UK.

  30. A novel twist to an old problem:

    A man with a bald head and a wooden leg is invited to a Xmas fancy dress party.
    He doesn’t know what to wear so he writes to a fancy-dress company to explain his problem.

    A few days later he receives a parcel with a note:

    Dear Sir,
    Please find enclosed a Pirate’s outfit. The spotted handkerchief will cover your bald head and with your wooden leg you will be just right as a Pirate.
    yours faithfully etc.

    The man is offended that the outfit emphasises his disability, so he writes a letter of complaint.

    A week passes and he receives another parcel and note.

    Dear Sir,
    Sorry about the previous parcel. Please find enclosed a monk’s habit. The long robe will cover your wooden leg and with your bald head you will really look the part.
    yours faithfully etc. etc.

    The man is now really incandescent with rage, because the company has gone from emphasising his wooden leg to drawing attention to his bald head. So he writes a really strong letter of complaint.

    A few days later he gets a very small parcel from the company with the accompanying letter:

    Dear Sir,
    Please find enclosed a tin of Golden Syrup. We suggest you pour the tin of Golden Syrup over your bald head, let it harden, then stick your wooden leg up your ärse and go as a toffee apple.
    Your obedient servant.

  31. A troupe of Morris Dancers could be banned from performing in blackface after a shocked woman came upon a centuries-old festival in a Yorkshire Dales town and reported it to the Mayor.

    Katie Kedward, 28, from Leeds, was on a walking tour in the Dales when she chanced upon the Morris dancers taking part in the four-day festival in the town of Settle.

    She said that, as a person of colour, the performance left her uncomfortable and she reported the troupe to the town’s Mayor.

    Mayor Dan Balsamini, has joined the protests after shoppers saw the Morris men and women prancing in the market square with their faces dyed black.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7467397/Morris-Dancers-face-banned-performing-blackface-shocked-rambler-28-complained.html

    Why on earth do i feel so faint with absolute rage?

    1. Balsamini – good local Dales name, that. I guess that he will know the history & folklore behind the blacking-up?

      1. What has really annoyed me is the person of colour who is so full of inferiority complex, as they all are , yet not having a clue about traditional English local folklore .

        I wish people like that would stay in their chicken takeaway infested ghettos , and leave our natural Britain alone !

      1. And someone in the U.S. complained about racism over a photo of miners covered in coaldust that was up on the wall of a restaurant…
        I have no link for this. It was something I read about six months ago.

    6. They should absolutely not back down over this. This is nothing to do with racism (explanation from JM below). If this woman has a problem with it, the problem is with her, not the Morris dancers.

      1. Actually, we do; I’ve not long ago had my chimneys swept. It’s just that they use a large vacuum cleaner and tend not to get so dirty.

    9. The article is misleading us. It has nothing to do with Black-and-White minstrels, American slave culture or any form of racial expropriation, and I am afraid Ms Kedward is shockingly ignorant to the point of being a hate criminal herself.

      It is much older than the 19th century. Fruit workers in Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire modified the traditional dances from the Cotswolds (which are themselves an adaptation of the Islamic Moorish dances as a parody of the Spanish). These were greatly simplified. The costume was simple rag tatters on old clothes.

      By December, there was little work about on the orchards, the last of the money had been spent by Christmas, leaving them destitute in the middle of winter. So on Boxing Day, they’d go out with their tatters and their simple dances as a form of aggressive begging. Local folk would pay them to go away.

      At the end of the 20th century, the more involved Cotswold dances have started to die out. The ban on mixed dancing by the Morris Ring did not help, since contemporary men and women prefer to do things together these days. What has become much more popular in morris circles is the Border tradition, but with a lot more mixed dancing and rag coats, rather than a few tatters on a shirt. Some sides are quite inventive with their kit. Face painting of all sorts is encouraged, and doesn’t have to be black, but black is traditional.

      The point of the black faces was to be a disguise, so future employers would not recognise them when work picked up in the Spring. The cheapest way to do this, and a plentiful material that time of year, was soot from the fireplace. That is all there is to is – there is no racial element in it whatsoever – that has been raised by American-inspired woke folk from this century.

      ‘All About the Morris’ by Mike Salter, who ran the Madcap Border Morris weekend from 1986 to 2019, explains the history of morris dancing since 1975: http://www.castlehillbooks.co.uk/products/author/SALTER%20Mike/~/product_id_desc

        1. Though there were North African influences in the dancing and music, indeed such influences were very common in the Middle ages, the “Moorish” connection to the name is disputed and may be a corruption of the Latin “Mores Est”.

  32. ‘Morning All

    Daily Brexit Betrayal

    Extract

    “Allegedly even more Tory MPs are preparing to jump ship (link, paywalled),

    but names are not being named. We can take all those pronunciations for

    what they are: blatant attempts to get re-elected, blatant attempts to

    gain votes in a GE with a shiny manifesto which then will be ditched.

    It’s all a game to them, calculated to get the largest number of trotters into the HoC trough. In their leading article today, The Times observes:

    “This relative

    recovery has led the party leadership into hubris. The Lib Dems have

    announced that, in the unlikely event that they won an overall majority,

    they would revoke Article 50

    without even the mandate from a second referendum. The first way to

    look at this shift is to ask whether or not it is wise, politically.

    Perhaps the Lib Dems fear that Labour will soon move to a clearer Remain

    position and that its own policy needs to keep moving to be

    distinctive. Perhaps the party leadership feels that a straightforward

    pledge to revoke will lock in its core vote and please the activists. It

    may well achieve that, but surely at the price of alienating reasonable

    Remain voters who think it illegitimate to cancel one referendum

    without seeking an equivalent mandate in another.” (link, paywalled)

    One other item about that LibDem conference: Mr ‘liberal’ EU, Guy Verhofstadt, was the ‘star’ invited speaker (here), telling the crowd that the nation state is over:

    “In the world order

    of tomorrow, the world order of tomorrow is not a world order based on

    nation states or countries, it’s a world order that is based on Empires”

    Read the whole thing, it’s hilarious,

    especially since Leavers have always been labelled as ‘little

    Englanders dreaming of their past Empire’, whereas it’s perfectly

    natural to dream of an EU ’empire’, because ‘old British empire’ – bad,

    ‘new EU empire’ – good. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t mention that huge

    federation, the Commonwealth, which would receive such enormous boost

    once we’re Out.”

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-brexit-betrayal-monday-16th-september-2019/
    I trust NoTTLers have seem Gap Toothed Guy’s wonderful speech,it’s been up a few times,it goes far beyond “Leading Beyond Authority”
    These people want to rule us like serfs

  35. Aldi to double London stores as price cuts dent profits

    in its dash for growth Aldi has seen its profits sink. Over expansion can be dangerous. It sales are increasing due to opening more stores but it bottom line is suffering badly

    Aldi has said it plans to more than double its store numbers in London as it moves forward with plans to open more smaller Aldi Local outlets.
    However, the German discounter also said that operating profits fell by 26% to £197.9 million in the 2018 full year on the back of significant investment.
    Aldi said profits slipped on the back of price cuts for customers and rising infrastructure investment.
    Meanwhile, sales continued to surge as shoppers switch to the discounters, with annual sales across its UK stores rising 11% to £11.3 billion.
    The UK’s fifth biggest supermarket, which currently has 840 stores, said it is still on track to open 100 new stores across the UK in the next two years as it aims to have 1,200 sites by 2025.

  36. Grieve is a lying sh*t!’ Spiked 15 September 2019.

    Dominic Grieve was not elected in a personal capacity. He was elected as a Tory on a Tory manifesto which promised Brexit. That man did not dissent at the time. His claims to dignity, to acting honourably are totally false. He is a shit – a lying deceiving shit from start to finish. And an oiled shit – look at that awful, greasy hairdo. We really have to start calling things by their proper names.’

    ‘The old word is treason. We are engaged in a highly contentious negotiation with a strong, united and determined opponent. A large part of the political elite has deliberately gone and negotiated with them against their own country. It’s another aspect of the elite I find disgusting – most of the elite hate their own country and they regard the people with absolute contempt.’

    Well I wouldn’t have phrased it exactly like that but it doesn’t seem inaccurate! They really are traitors!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/09/15/david-starkey-dominic-grieve-is-a-lying-sht/

    1. The thing about parliamentary elections in the UK is that you do elect the MP as an individual. They then group themselves into parties – that is why there is no By-election when one of the slimy sods changes party.
      In Norway, you vote for a party, and they decide the order of their members for priority in getting the MP position. I believe it’s the same for all PR-type systems.

      1. But they represent the party and the manifesto. We might in theory vote for individual MPs, but in reality we wouldn’t know one from another if we’re not heavily involved in politics, and it’s widely said that too many Labour voters would vote for a dead donkey as long as wore a red rosette and represented Labour.

        1. I am no Labour supporter because I have a sense of morality and I know what socialism does to a country, but in these sad times that we live in that “vote for a donkey as long as it wears a red rosette” now also applies to some in the Conservative party (who I have fully supported until very recently.)

          There are those Conservatives who would have voted for Ken Clarke and Dominic Grieve if they had not been kicked out, in spite of the damage they have done to our country. There are still those who will vote for Theresa May who tried to hand our country bound and gagged to the European Union. She has delayed our Brexit for over 2 years now already by telling lie after lie and has been actively working with the EU against the United Kingdom. But they will still vote for her because she wears a blue rosette.

          So our problem will be tribal voters of all stripes who don’t understand what many of our MP’s are trying to do to our country. We can get back to the bun-fight of Right vs. Left after we have left the EU. Although I suspect that MP’s and politics are not going to be the same anymore after what we have seen in the past 3 years, when their masks have clearly slipped and we have seen them working against our nation.

          In any case, when the EU falls apart under economic and ethnic strife, then we may all be facing different problems in the 20 years ahead. I still believe that many will put country first before party when the time comes. Many already have in the recent European Elections. Getting free of the EU prison should be our highest priority now.

          1. I think the problem for many voters is the lack of the viable alternative given our FPTP system. Tory voters were more Han happy to vote for the Brexit Party in the EU elections because it was a proportional representation system. Many Tory voters will worry that voting for a minor party like UKIP or TBP will split the vote and let in Labour or Lib Dems.
            Plus: until the last three years, the complete and utter betrayal of Conservative principles and voters wasn’t quite so blatant.
            If anyone votes for Teresa May or Dominic Grieve, unless they are Remainers, they need their heads examined.

          2. “Many Tory voters will worry that voting for a minor party like UKIP or TBP will split the vote and let in Labour or Lib Dems.”

            This is a statement that I have not heard in a long time, and I have only heard it expressed here recently. All hail the fall of the Disqus free channels that bring people together. 🙂

            In the wider online world in the United Kingdom this is a very niche view now, as all of the “politically active” Conservatives that I have spoken to see what is going on in the world today and recognise the unfolding threat to all our countries that is happening now. Our politics today is not what it was 40 years ago. Islam will rewrite the way that we live, pull down the monuments and burn the history books so that our British history will only exist in the memories of those still living. Most of the culture will be gone.

            This has happened in other countries who have lost the fight to islam. Our music will be silenced and the tapes erased. There are hidden videos of people listening to Western music in some islamic countries and the “religious police” walk past outside. They hear it and run into the building, beat them and destroy the CD’s / Tapes. No more 50’s, 60’s, 70’s or any other music.

            Hastings will just be a word and a place on a map, if they don’t rename it. Those Cathedrals will be either pulled down or have an islamic flag and crescent placed over it as a sign of victory. There will be no political parties that are not islamic. The call to prayer will wail out 5 times a day, every day. The list goes on.

            The above sentences are not an exaggeration in any way – this is the future we have seen unfold in other countries and is now happening in European ones, but it can be stopped. The idea of voting for someone who will allow this to happen just because they are from “a traditional party” is very hard to understand. As for The Brexit Party being a “minor party” – the media and those EU paid for polls will try very hard to keep that illusion alive.

            But if Boris comes back with a modified Withdrawal Agreement then it will be the Conservatives who are deserted by all of those who have given Boris his “bump” in the polls. They are only supporting him because of his promise on Brexit to Leave the EU. If he tries to pull a Brexit In Name Only then he will be the 3rd Conservative leader who has betrayed us. As our American cousins say “Three strikes and you’re out.” That will be richly deserved and the party going into the wilderness for a few years will give them time to sort themselves out and remember what being a real Conservative means.

            To avoid any concept of partisanism, many of The Brexit Party supporters are real Conservatives who have recognised what has been done to the party that we supported for so long. We will not let these pro-EU Liberals destroy our country. The time is coming to choose sides. It does only come down to voting for a Leaver or a Remainer.

            Outdated concepts of party loyalty to people who are betraying us all is the only thing that can stop us leaving the EU.

      2. It is called head of list and is a system widely used in Europe where there is PR. The trouble is that some sh*ts get high on the list and then they are there for ever and impossible to get rid of.

        1. The Norwegian system allows you, as voter, to rank the party nominees, or even nominate a representative from another party… it’s confusing at best.
          We also have a blank voting slip, for those who want to vote “None of they bassards”. Blank is never elected… ;-))

          1. “Doesn’t matter who(m) you vote for, the Government always gets in.”

            Heard on the wireless some years ago.

    3. Seems eminently reasonable to me, but then I’m from ‘ackney so a little fruity language is fine…Starkey calls it as it is.

    3. Out of consideration for other arachnophobic nottlers such pictures should really posted as a spoiler with large health warning.

    2. I put a lot of hope on Baker. Looks like yet another turncoat. Why does NO ONE have any sodding principles any more?

          4. Nope, it’s just a random picture off the internet, I don’t think it represents any character in particular, but I may be wrong.

  43. Hasn’t the gender-blender agenda gone bonkers? E.g. The parents keeping their child’s gender a secret.

    I saw an animal last night and it was obviously a dog, in much the same way that the one I saw last week was a cat. Definitive words which specify exactly what the animal is.

    Surely, if a child is born with a willy, it’s a boy and without one, a girl. Why complicate the language that denotes that?

    More to the point, why are the minority who do want to complicate simple, time-honoured definitions given so much publicity?

    1. There was a person called Jamie singing at the Last Night of the Proms to critical acclaim but with overtones of gay pride and fat shaming. What was going on? Is this a woman called Jamie or a man called Jamie wanting to be a fat lady called Jamie?

      2. She’s American and Jamie (or Jaime) is I believe a common female name in the US. That doesn’t excuse any of her other sins.

  44. ‘Ethical’ BBC will defeat Netflix and Amazon, says Lord Hall. 15 SEPTEMBER 2019.

    The BBC “will ride the second wave of disruption” and emerge as winners, he will say this week in a speech to the television industry, because “in this market, services that are distinctive and different will stand out.”

    It is the BBC’s “unique mission and purpose” that makes it different, Lord Hall will say. “All audiences – young and old – believe in it. Purpose and values matter today more than ever, as people pick and choose services for ethical reasons as much as economic ones.”

    Some critics may question Lord Hall’s description of the BBC as an “ethical” company following controversies in recent years, including the row over equal pay. But the reference is to the corporation’s public service mission to ‘inform, education and entertain’.

    Morning everyone. There is nothing “ethical” about the BBC! It is a broadcaster of PC propaganda. The only reason it has survived so far is because it is funded by coercion.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/15/ethical-bbc-will-defeat-netflix-amazon-says-lord-hall/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget

    1. If Hall is so confident, how about going subscription-only, like Amazon & Netflix, who have to satisfy people to keep the money flowing in? Or is it just hot air based on the safety-net of licence-payers obligatory fees?

      1. I imagine hot air. The BBC sees itself as a government department, not as a TV channel. It believes it’s real role is a sort of statist propaganda departments.

    3. He’s got to say that sort of thing though. The market will out. If people want to watch it, BBC will succeed. If people sit there and think £25 a month to be lectured about climate change and told I’m a thick racist? Stuff that.

  45. Good morning,all.

    Just tried to post a BTL comment on the DT Letters page. It got deleted – instantaneously! Shome mishtake, shurely, I thought, so I tried again but with the same result. I had hoped it would last a least five minutes but no. The DT censors must be hovering over the comments like vultures over a dying animal today, so be warned.

    Anyway, here’s my innocuous comment for your perusal:

    The sight of the gap-toothed Guy Verhoftwat standing alongside the gap-toothed Jo Swinson on the podium at the Limp-Dumb Party Conference got me to wondering if a gap in the front teeth might be a sure means of identifying a fanatical believer in the European Project. Then it dawned on me that neither “Call Me Dave”, T. Bliar nor that poison dwarf Bercow have such a gap, which rather spoils my theory.

    However, just so they don’t feel left out, I’d be very happy to put a gap in the front teeth of any or all of these ‘gentlemen’.

    1. DM, you’ve just created another “hate crime” i.e. Gap-toothism, to add to the burgeoning list of such folly.😎

    2. It was probably the “tw@t bit that got it instantly removed. Try putting in a “@” instead.
      But-chute has the same effect if you don’t put the hyphen in.

    3. As lms2 has pointed out, it was that word that blocked you. You can normally tell if your comment hits the “word filter” because it will be blocked automatically by the computer. It won’t go up at all. No amount of human censors can react that fast to every comment.

      If your comment DOES get through though, and is deleted after a few minutes, then you have passed the word-checker and it is a human who has taken action. There are exceptions to this, but they are tedious and even more boring to explain. 🙂

      1. I trust one of the exceptions to which you refer, includes mentioning the town of Scunthorpe?
        ;¬)

          2. As a Caledonian born and bred, Dunc, was that your little test to see how geographically-challenged the rest of us are?

            Kirkwall is the capital of the Orkney islands, not Shetland! :•)

          3. My carelessness, Grizz. I picked the wrong Twatt. There are two Twatts, one on the Shetland Mainland and one on Orkney.

            Easy mistake to make, both Orkney and Shetland are well-known for their Twatts.
            ;¬)

          4. Are both the Orkney and the Shetland Twatts in the House of Commons along with the 638 other Twatts? :•)

    4. Afternoon Duncan,

      I’m afraid as a gap-toothed Leaver, I too spoil that theory. When my veneers and crowns were done, it was decided that the gap in the middle should stay.

      The Archbishop of York has the widest gap I’ve ever seen – enough to insert an extra tooth. I do find it odd though that well-off folk such as Sentamu and Verhofstadt appear to neglect their teeth.

      2. With one, it is in the gene pool, with the other it must be because the EU don’t pay him enough…

        And Sue, you must remember that not too many years ago, Brits generally had snaggly teeth. We went to a Peter Noone concert here a couple years back, and he has standard issue “perfect” teeth now. Have a look at pics of him back when he was Herman of the Hermits – a bit more character then, I think.

  47. German state considers offer of €5000 to former residents to return to the region amid brain drain. 15 SEPTEMBER 2019.

    In the central German state of Thuringia, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party is hoping to lure former residents back to their “homeland” by offering a one-off payment of €5,000 for anyone who returns to live and work in the state.

    What happened to the 1 million brain surgeons and rocket scientists that they invited in a couple of years ago?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/15/german-state-considers-offer-5000-former-residents-return-region/

    1. If Abbott and Lammy, Jo Johnson and Anna Soubry can be elected what makes you think it’s impossible?

    3. How on earth did the North Devon constituency association ever select such a person? She seems to hate Devon people, considering them bigoted ill-informed yokels and due for clarification about what they will get from Civilisation whether they like it or not.

      https://www.northdevonlibdems.org.uk/news

      Fascinating reading the above link. She was selected in June 2018, and seemed to be a bog-standard local campaigner Liberal Democrat under Vince Cable, but seems to have gone very peculiar under Jo Swinson – all feminist and “inclusive” (meaning the exact opposite). It confirms to me that the problem may be Swinson.

  49. To all NoTTLers:

    Harry (Elsie Bloodaxe) has asked me if I would kindly post this correspondence, which he has received via private email, on his behalf due to technical problems with his computer. It is all self-explanatory:

    I have just received the email below from someone I went leafleting with in Chelmsford on behalf of Leave.EU earlier this year (or was it last?) just before The Brexit Party was formed. The man is called Andrew Greenstreet and he is an intelligent man, well-informed on legal matters. I hope this will give us all hope that – sooner or later – the Remoaners will be defeated (if they haven’t been so already).

    A further, lengthy, email received today – it takes some careful reading but is very encouraging.

    Harry

    Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union on 29th March 2019: Statutory and legal framework

    European Union Referendum Act 2015

    Section 1(1) ‘A referendum is to be held on whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union’

    Section 1(4) The question that is to appear on the ballot paper is ‘Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?’

    Section 1(5) The alternative answers to that question that are to appear on the ballot papers are-

    ‘Remain a member of the European Union

    Leave the European Union’

    Referendum held on 23rd June 2016

    72.21% of 46,500,001 registered voters participated in the referendum

    The result: Leave: 17,410,742, Remain: 16,141,241

    EU Withdrawal Procedure

    Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union

    Article 50.1 ‘Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.’

    Article 50.2 ‘A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Union of its intention. In light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.’

    Article 50.3 ‘The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.’

    Gina Miller case

    Certain extracts from the Judgment re R (on the application of Miller and another) (Respondents) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Appellant): Hilary Term {2017] UKSC 5

    Paragraph no. 26

    ‘In these proceedings, it is common ground that notice under article 50(2) (which we shall call “Notice”) cannot be given in qualified or conditional terms and that, once given, it cannot be withdrawn. Especially as it is the Secretary of State’s case that, even if this common ground is mistaken, it would make no difference to the outcome of these proceedings, we are content to proceed on the basis that that is correct, without expressing any view of our own on either point. It follows from this that once the United Kingdom gives Notice, it will inevitably cease at a later date to be a member of the European Union and a party to the EU Treaties.’

    Part of paragraph no. 50

    ‘it is a fundamental principle of the UK constitution that, unless primary legislation permits it, the Royal prerogative does not enable ministers to change statute law or common law.’

    Parts of paragraph no. 51

    Further, ministers cannot frustrate the purpose of a statute or a statutory provision, for example by emptying it of content or preventing its effectual legislation (and, in some cases, even without any domestic legislation’ ‘Of course, consistently with the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty, this unprecedented state of affairs will only last so long as Parliament wishes; the 1972 Act can be repealed like any other statute.’

    Part of paragraph no. 61

    ‘That point simply reflects the fact that Parliament was and remains sovereign’

    Part of Paragraph no. 69

    ‘The Divisional Court concluded that, because ministers cannot claim prerogative powers to take an action which would result in a change in domestic law, it was not open to ministers to withdraw from the EU Treaties, and therefore to serve Notice, without authorisation in a statute.’

    Part of Paragraph no. 94

    ‘If ministers give Notice without Parliament having first authorised them to do so, the die will be cast before Parliament has been formally involved. To adapt Lord Pannick’s metaphor, the bullet will have left the gun before Parliament has accorded the necessary leave for the trigger to be pulled. The very fact that Parliament will have to pass legislation once the Notice is served and hits the target highlights the point that the giving of the Notice will change domestic law; otherwise there would be no need for new legislation.’

    Part of Paragraph no. 101

    ‘the prerogative could not be invoked by ministers to justify giving Notice; ministers require the authority of primary legislation before they can take that course.’

    Part of Paragraph no. 122

    ‘A notice under article 50(2) could no doubt be very short indeed, but that would not undermine its momentous significance. The essential point is that, if, as we consider, what would otherwise be a prerogative act would result in a change in domestic law, the act can only lawfully be carried out with the sanction of primary legislation enacted by the Queen in Parliament.’

    Part of Paragraph no. 123

    ‘A resolution of the House of Commons is an important political act. No doubt, it makes it politically more likely that any necessary legislation enabling ministers to give Notice will be enacted. But if, as we have concluded, ministers cannot give Notice by the exercise of prerogative powers, only legislation which is embodied in a statute will do. A resolution of the House of Commons is not legislation.’

    The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017

    ‘An Act to confer power on the Prime Minister to notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European, the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU.’

    Section 1 Power to notify withdrawal from the EU

    The Prime Minister may notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU.

    This section has effect despite any provision made by or under the European Communities Act 1972 or any other enactment.’

    The Prime Minister wrote to the European Council on 29th March 2017

    The Prime Minister wrote to the European Council on 29th March 2017 giving notification of the United Kingdom’s intention to leave the EU pursuant to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017

    Negotiations commenced on an agreement for the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union (‘Withdrawal Agreement’).

    The Withdrawal Agreement from the first published draft and in the form presented to the UK Parliament stipulated that it would not come into force if the depositary of the agreement had not received confirmation of conclusion of the necessary procedures by the Union and the UK before 30th March 2019.

    The Prime Minister reiterated on numerous occasions that the United Kingdom would leave the EU on 29th March 2019

    The position was set in law: The United Kingdom would leave the EU either with a withdrawal agreement before 29th March 2019 or without a withdrawal agreement on 29th March 2019.

    Before 30th March 2019:

    There was no new Referendum Act to re-run the 2016 referendum or to extend the Article 50 period and thereby delay the UK’s departure from the EU;

    There was no new referendum which reversed the result of the 2016 referendum;

    There was no new referendum to seek to extend the Article 50 period and delay the UK’s departure from the EU;

    There was no primary legislation to reverse the intention of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union as set out in the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017;

    There was no primary legislation to repeal the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017;

    There was no removal of the Prime Minister’s notification of the United Kingdom’s intention to leave the European Union;

    There was no primary legislation granting the Prime Minister or any other minister power to seek or obtain on behalf of the United Kingdom an extension under Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union;

    There was no democratic mandate to reverse the result of the 2016 referendum (on the contrary there was a clear democratic mandate in a general election to implement the result of that referendum);

    There was no change in the fundamental constitutional position as set out in the Gina Miller case;‘it is a fundamental principle of the UK constitution that, unless primary Legislation permits it, the Royal prerogative does not enable ministers to change statute law or common law.’ ‘ministers cannot frustrate the purpose of a statute or a statutory provision, for example by emptying it of content or preventing its effectual legislation (and, in some cases, even without any domestic legislation)’

    The UK Government failed to secure the approval of the House of Commons to the ‘Withdrawal Agreement’;

    The United Kingdom and the people of the United Kingdom were not consulted on a possible delay to the UK’s departure from the EU beyond 29th March 2019;

    The United Kingdom did not provide authority for anyone to seek or agree an extension of Article 50; and

    The United Kingdom (as compared with the Government/ Prime Minister) did not agree to an extension of Article 50

    The United Kingdom gave notice to leave the EU on 29th March 2017 in accordance with the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 (which flowed from the European Union Referendum Act 2015 and the 2016 referendum result).

    Article 50.3 ‘The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.’

    The withdrawal agreement did not enter into force (30th March 2019 came and went the depositary of the agreement had not received confirmation of conclusion of the necessary procedures by the Union and the UK before 30th March 2019); – two years after notification, occurred on 29th March 2019; and – the Member State concerned (the United Kingdom, as compared with the Government/Prime Minister) had not agreed to extend the two-year period.

    The Treaties of the European Union ceased to apply to the United Kingdom on 29th March 2019 i.e. the United Kingdom left the EU on 29th March 2019 without a withdrawal agreement.
    Remember Prime Minister Theresa May stated on over 100 occasions that the UK would leave the EU on 29th March 2019. She was correct in her statement.

    During the Brexit saga, some of the principal actors may have believed they were doing the right thing based upon their level of knowledge and understanding at the relevant time, some may have felt they were under particular pressure to take the action which they did. Whatever the situation, such actors are not the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom in a lawfully held referendum (in which 72.21% of 46,500,001 registered voters participated) voted to leave the European Union. ‘It was a vote to take control of our borders, laws and money’ (Mansion House speech, 2nd March 2018).

    P.S. This note is provided in a spirit of goodwill. If you agree with it, please feel free to copy and paste it (together with this postscript) and send it to family, friends and contacts. Thank you and have a good day.

    1. Dear MP,

      I’ve copied below a statement about the Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union on 29th March 2019. As one of your constituents I would be grateful if you would seek clarification from either the PM or the Department for Exiting the European Union why, if the contents of this statement are correct in law, it is not being acknowledged that the UK did indeed withdraw from the European Union on 29th March 2019.

      Yours sincerely,

      Stephen

      1. Why hasn’t Nigel Farage published his thoughts on the statement above that we left the EU on March 29th as the law was that we did leave and the government were too late or wrong in getting the extension of Article 50 granted. The Remainers are quiet on this subject. Theresa May just seemed to shrug this off

        1. Good question, Clyde.

          I find it a bit more than weird that no one in authority, within the Leave camp, has started to rattle their sabres over this fundamentally important (nay: vital) point.

          1. I wrote to Daily Telegraph letters last week to request clarification on this matter but it wasn’t accepted as is usual with my infrequent letters to the paper.

    2. Just as only white people can possibly be guilty of racism so only white people can be guilty of hate speech.

      Just imagine if Tommy Robinson stirred up a crowd of supporters urging them to burn down mosques.

      1. Morning R,
        Which leads me to ask why do parties / politico’s who condone PC / Appeasement find
        support / votes ?

    3. Well that looked more like a Nazi rally than a religious service. How can anyone believe that Islam is anything but a political ideology?

  51. Cameron really is venting his spleen. He comes across like a school bully who got his nose bloodied and is now complaining because he didn’t have the courage to fight back alone.

    Fancy the little wimp phoning Obama and EU leaders to apologise.

    How dare he apologise for the British people taking the opportunity to extricate themselves from the ravening maw of the EU superstate.

    1. How dare he apologise for the British people – that’s all that’s needed, Sos. He arrogates to himself the position, as a failed politician, of “speaking for the British People”, does he?
      #NotInMyName

        1. Blair-Cameron-Mandelson-Campbell-May-Grieve-Hammond-Letwin-Benn-Clegg …. they’d make a magnificent display hanging from lampposts along where? – Whitehall? Parliament Square?

          1. Tempting though it might be I sincerely hope that that is not the way we are moving.
            Gangs executing other gangs in the streets already, criminals of all types breaking the law with impunity.
            Next up vigilantes and civil war, no thanks.

    4. He should be expelled from the Old Etonian Club.

      If the current chairman of govdernors and the headmaster have any testicular strength they will attend to the matter straight away. If they fail then Floreat Etona meum rectum.

  52. Good morning from a Saxon Queen .

    Advice for those who endeavour to obtain book reviews,
    does anyone know of where besides Good reads.
    There doesn’t seem to be the such in terms of blogsites
    although Mr Nelson might allow such with the Spectator
    culture section but journalism seems to be a requirement
    and so do literary agents.

    1. I know someone who has self-published and who now sells his books on Amazon. Flourishing, although he is retired and it is pocket money.

      1. I believe there is Good Reads and there are a few others.
        Barns & Noble and Booklife publishers weekly
        but I am not familiar with them.

      1. I believe Amazon removed it’s review section last
        year.It has a customer review section instead .

  53. I was looking forward to the rugby world cup starting at the end of the month, but now it seems that it is going to be upstaged by the news about the former Welsh player getting a nasty illness. Unfortunate timing really.

    1. Such trumpeting of his courage in talking about his condition has masked the questioning of poor judgement of having unprotected sex with infected partners. Much talk of him not being able to pass of the virus which is suppressed by drugs, so a green light for free-play (at taxpayers expense).

      1. He retired from playing rugby in 2011. While I have sympathy for him in dealing with the disease, my sympathy is limited due to the probable way it was contracted. The “Don’t Die of Ignorance” adverts in the 1980s should surely have got through to everyone by now.

  54. In addition to a dire need for a strong Right-wing government with balls in the UK, we have a clamant necessity for political and economic reform. Not just in the UK, but throughout every sensible, independent, sovereign nation in Europe after the inevitable fall of the EU.

    A modern-day Hanseatic League-type of trading agreement, run on the lines of the old EFTA, is what is called for.

    Does the UK (or, indeed, any of the more sensible European nations) have politicians possessing the wisdom, perspicacity, plus the testicular solidity and durability to see their way towards starting such an intelligent venture?

    2. We have far too much government. They should go back to basics and let the people get on with it. Get off the peoples backs.

  55. ‘No guarantees’ Crossrail will be open by 2021, but bosses optimistic

    Starting to drop hints that the 2021 date will not be met

    2. What happened to the plans to bring back the tram ? Solar powered, no bid construction works necessary,inexpensive..

  56. Someone I know recently spotted a strange bird of prey perched outside their property. Photographed it, but unable to identify. Spoke to a birdwatcher, who was flummoxed. Birdwatcher asked if he could post the picture on …. Twitter.
    Result!
    Turned out to be an escaped South American Hawk Eagle (Spizaetus — ).

          1. For me the irony, or dis-irony, is that a ‘twitcher’ should use Twitter to gossip about birds. Incidentally, the hawk eagle was accompanied by two magpies, subservient, not hostile. Probably their intention was to eat the remains of any victims.

  57. Douglas Murray

    “‘I was listening to them sing the other day, and their voice is no

    better than when they was a he.” No, ladies and gentlemen, the

    Telegraph’s sub editors have not gone on strike. I am simply referring

    to Sam Smith in the way he now says he prefers. For just before the

    weekend, the pop singer came out as “non-binary”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/16/vacuous-liberal-wokeness-now-beyond-parody/
    These idiots are resembling the Oozlum Bird…………….
    Edit
    this fits
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EEkpyLCXoAAKxiZ.jpg

    1. There are 10 types of people in the world.
      Those that can count in binary, and those that cannot.
      :-))

    2. Vacuous liberal ‘wokeness’ is now beyond parody

      DOUGLAS MURRAY

      Our half-baked obsession with ‘diversity’ is holding us back

      ‘I was listening to them sing the other day, and their voice is no better than when they was a he.” No, ladies and gentlemen, the Telegraph’s sub editors have not gone on strike. I am simply referring to Sam Smith in the way he now says he prefers. For just before the weekend, the pop singer came out as “non-binary”.

      It is some months since Mr Smith made any announcement about his gender identity. In 2014 – at the age of 22 – he came out as gay. Three years later, in 2017, he announced that he was “genderqueer”. And now we have this latest announcement which means Smith would henceforth like to be referred to using gender-neutral “they/them” pronouns.

      Beyond being an invitation to torture the language, even Smith seems confused about quite what this entails. For as he said in his latest brave statement: “I am at no stage just yet to eloquently speak at length about what it means to be non-binary, but I can’t wait for the day that I am.” Nor can the rest of us, I’m sure. Though in the meantime, perhaps Smith can let us know when he has worked out any difference between coming out as non-binary and shouting “Look at me!”

      The dementing whirlwinds of our time have many oddities. But among them is the fact that in the face of such demands so few people are willing to do anything but nod and comply.

      Perhaps it requires somebody who is gay to say this, but I call “enough”. It is so tedious, boring and unproductive, this endless game of going on about sexuality and gender. The whole LGBT issue is – along with issues of race and relations between the sexes – among the most deranging issues in our time.

      Just this weekend we learnt that the next UK census will allow people to choose which sex they are. In other news, there was a reminder that schoolchildren are now being taught that there are dozens of “genders” rather than just two sexes.

      Few people in our society think that gay people should not be accorded human dignity, respect and equality. But the monotony of “diversity” is becoming endless. Ahead of the Last Night of the Proms on Saturday, Radio 3 interviewed the American soprano Jamie Barton. Her interviewer expressed an inordinate interest in what the soprano was going to wear. It transpired that Barton had had a dress specially made in the colours of the bisexual flag. Saturday night also opened with another example: a BBC commission from a young composer called Daniel Kidane.

      Proving that parody is in freefall, the new piece was called Woke. The composer explained that he benefits from having an Eritrean father and a Russian mother who was born and raised in the UK. Kidane concluded that “having three cultures at hand to quarry for ideas is much more fruitful than just one”. Which ought to have meant that his composition was three times as good as any by his boringly monocultural contemporaries. Except that it wasn’t.

      Other than wanting to lie down, it is hard to know what to do in the face of this endless force-feeding. When will it stop? Among much else the lack of self-awareness is staggering. Does anyone think that flying a rainbow flag at the Proms is an act of bravery? Is there anyone on earth who thinks that the world of classical music is some hell-hole of homophobia? Of course not. But “woke” exhibitionism portrays the most liberal societies on earth as the most repressive.

      The commissars of wokeness keep missing something. Which is that we have arrived at equality already. And what we are in now just feels like some horrible over-correction. There was a time when such points needed making. But today, all these efforts to fixate on race, sexuality and gender aren’t bringing us all together. They just keep highlighting differences.

      Instead of escaping or superseding our characteristics we are being invited to define ourselves by them. Instead of differences being minimised they keep being highlighted. There are many things the next generation should be encouraged to be. Brilliant, exceptional, inventive, remarkable. All of this and more. But one way to stop that happening is by continuing to fragment the most tolerant societies on earth along group identity lines. And then invite people to spend their lives gazing at their navels. Or indeed at their pronouns.

      2. I noticed while on the Number 3 bus from Crystal Palace to Whitehall at the weekend, that pedestrian crossings in one of the sections have been painted in rainbow colours. What do they hope to achieve?

    3. There is one advantage to all of this transgender / transsexual ideology that is being forced on us to confuse children, and to make them vulnerable to abuse in their teenage years when they have no idea what they are.

      These people who suddenly claim to be one of these many gender-types, identify themselves as having no grip on reality and that they are living in a fantasy world. If they don’t even know if they are male or female, then their others views are not going to be based in the real world either.

  58. RNLI loses donors because money is saving lives abroad

    I don’t care if it is only 0.000001% of their budget I it is not the RNLI’s role to get involved abroad. If they want to become the International RNLI they are getting no money from me

    Why do all these charities want to get involved in things beyond their remit

    A number of people have stopped donating to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution because some of the money they give is being used to save lives abroad.
    The RNLI operates lifeboat stations around the UK coastline and lifeguard stations on our beaches – funded by charitable donations.
    But after finding that some of the cash they give is spent abroad, a number of people have stopped their giving.
    Among the projects the RNLI helps fund abroad are one helping women swim safely in Zanzibar and lifeguards in Bangladesh where 40 children a day die from drowning.
    But a number of people have been unhappy with those choices.

    2. Self-aggrandisement is common to most charities, clubs, organisations, etc.
      They start fine, the want to get bigger and more important, and forget what they are there for.
      Upsetting the membership is par for the course.

      1. All large charities lose their way: the RSPCA, the NSPCC and the RSPB as well as the RNLI of which I am Shoreline member.

        When we learn that David Miliband receives a salary of 500,000 $ pa from a US charity we might begin to undertand the cause of the evil:

        RADIX MALORUM EST CUPIDITAS

        (Love of money is the root of evil)

        Mind you I have not heard a whiff of scandal about the Distressed Gentlefolk’s Association.

        1. Would that be Mliband head of International Rescue? The organisation with 250 board members on 6 figure salaries and 3 project managers and 1 actual aid worker? That ‘international Rescue’? The one that gets millions from poor US tax payers?

      1. Ahh, I didn’t see your comment. My screen tends to jump around and get difficult to read if there are too many comments displayed.

      1. According to the BBC Radio 4, Boris suggested going inside to hold the Press Conference but the Luxembourg PM said no and then went on to slag off the Uk.

        1. Pathetic little man from a pathetic little country. As they all are from there – is it small country syndrome perhaps?

          1. Hi Hertslass. I remember driving through iLuxembourg many years ago and it didn’t take long. I wonder if they are a net contributor to the EU?

          2. Even if they were, when you take into account the amounts creamed off into their economy from having so many EU institutions based there, almost certainly not.

            As a trough it runs Brussels close.

          4. Surprise, surprise….
            How much does Luxembourg contribute and receive?

            Breakdown of Luxembourg’s finances with the EU in 2017:

            Total EU spending in Luxembourg: € 1.827 billion
            Total EU spending as % of Luxembourg gross national income (GNI): 4.97 %
            Total Luxembourg contribution to the EU budget: € 0.307 billion
            Luxembourg contribution to the EU budget as % of its GNI: 0.84 %

    4. “I wanted a photo-op with a politician from a serious country and they sent me the invisible man instead. Even with Macron you could have seen the top of his head. I am so angry… Watch me shake my fists.”

  60. WE need to have a new law that requires MP’s that are elected on a party ticket to resign if they defect or are booted out of the party

  61. Lib Dems are the real Brexit extremists
    Brendan O’Neill – Coffee House – 16 September 2019 – 1:04 PM

    https://spectatorblogs.imgix.net/files/2019/09/GettyImages-1161809225.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=820&h=550

    The Lib Dems are now the most extremist party in the UK. They might not look like extremists, being made up of mostly nice, middle-class people from the leafier bits of the nation. But they have just adopted a policy that is arguably more extreme, more corrosive of British values, more counter to the great traditions of this nation, than any other party policy of recent decades.

    Yes, this is the new Lib Dem policy to cancel Brexit. At their party conference in Bournemouth the Lib Dems voted overwhelmingly in favour of a policy of ‘stopping Brexit altogether’, in Jo Swinson’s words. New member Chuka Umunna spelt it out: ‘This [policy] will stop this national embarrassment’ — he means Brexit — ‘and enable us to focus on the things that really matter.’

    I often find myself wondering if politicians think before they speak. Have the Lib Dems thought through what their Stop Brexit policy means? It means they have devoted themselves to blocking the largest act of democracy in the history of this nation. It means they want to void — literally void — the votes of 17.4m people. It means they want to do something that no other party in the modern era has proposed: prevent the enactment of a free and fair democratic vote.

    This is serious stuff. Certain members of the Remainer elite — Lib Dems included — will often condemn Brexiteers as ‘extremist’. But I have heard nothing from any leading Brexiteer that comes even close to the extremism of cancelling a democratic vote. That’s banana republic territory. What is this, Zimbabwe?

    We really do have to challenge the idea that Remainers are the moderate force in UK politics. Because if you are a Remainer who wants to cancel the votes of millions of people and dash the hopes of the largest democratic majority in our history, I have some bad news for you: you are not a moderate. You pose a threat to the democratic values of this nation.

    Let’s be honest about what cancelling Brexit means. It means cancelling the votes of eight million women. It means cancelling the votes of millions of working-class people. It means cancelling the votes of some of the poorest people in society, who often don’t vote but who did vote in the 2016 referendum.

    It means reneging on promise after promise from the political class that our referendum votes would be respected and enforced. It means sending a message to the public that their vote is not the powerful thing they thought it was, and in fact it can be casually cast aside if the political establishment decides it was misused.

    Politicians seem not to understand how thoroughly this approach would devastate democratic life in this country. It would ravage the right to vote itself. Because if our votes can be revoked, then the right to vote itself loses all meaning. It becomes conditional on the approval of the establishment. Voting would become pointless.

    Lib Dems, like so many other wings of the political class, are on record arguing in favour of an EU referendum. ‘The Liberal Democrats would like to have a referendum on the major issue of in or out of Europe’, said Swinson herself in 2008. The 2010 Lib Dem manifesto supported a referendum. Vast numbers of MPs voted in favour of holding the referendum and voted to invoke Article 50 after the referendum. Most of them also won their seats on the basis of manifestos, in 2017, that promised to deliver Brexit. If they backtrack on all of this, then one question will hang over British public life like a shadow: why should we trust any member of this political generation ever again?

    The vote is the only voice most people have. They don’t have seats in the Commons or the Lords, or access to BBC panel shows, or columns in newspapers. They only have the vote. Undermine that and you risk disenfranchising the people. With this extremist new policy, the Lib Dems are playing with fire.

    1. Hi cv3,

      The PTB are hoping that people will think that their vote is worthless – and therefore not bother to vote. This will make things so much easier for the Elite to do what they want “well not enough people voted against it”.

      What the Elite forget is that giving the power to parliament to act for us is a two-way process. We agree to abide by the rules, and they agree to abide by the rules. If those in power stop abiding by the rules, then there are no rules. No reason why we should obey laws, not take up arms (ooops – they took those away, didn’t they – but science and technology have developed).

      It takes two to tango and as we have seen it takes both parties to abide by the rules of parliamentary democracy. Once parliament breaks that bond of trust, we, the people are not bound. No doubt the kind of catastrophic turmoil that Coundinhove-Kalergi wanted to bring about – so that repressive forces can be brought in “for our own safety”…

  62. The BBC’s latest attack on Netflix is galling
    Ross Clark – Coffee House – 16 September 2019 – 2:32 PM

    Lord Hall of Birkenhead is feeling pretty bullish about the quality of the organisation he leads. “We’re not Netflix, we’re not Spotify. We’re not Apple News,” the BBC’s director general will apparently tell the Royal Television Society on Thursday. “We’re so much more than all of them put together.”

    To which the obvious answer is: if you are so confident that the public loves your product, then why are you so frightened about exposing it to commercial competition?

    Surely, Lord Hall would be relishing the opportunity to get rid of the tax on TV-ownership which funds the BBC and fund itself in the way that all other TV and radio stations have to do – from subscriptions or advertising.

    Yet funny enough, Lord Hall doesn’t want to do this – describing it earlier this year as ‘the wrong model’ for funding the BBC. Instead, his BBC is going in the other direction, threatening to send ‘outreach teams’ to the homes of over-75s who have failed to buy a TV licence when blanket free licences for that age group are abolished next year.

    Most galling of all is Lord Hall’s suggestion that the likes of Netflix have only been established thanks to “huge losses or massive cross-subsidy”. What on Earth does he think the TV licence is if not a huge form of cross-subsidy? You want to watch ITV, you want to watch Sky, you want to watch Channel 4? It is the BBC you have to pay. It is rather as if we were all forced to hand over an annual lump sum to Tesco whether we wanted to do our shopping there or at Sainsbury’s or Aldi.

    Why governments of all colours have been happy to continue with the anachronism of the licence fee defeats me. But in the end it will be hubris which does for the BBC. Last year, the number of TV licences fell by 37,000. That is a small percentage fall given that 25.9 million people still bought a licence, but it threatens to become a flood as young people, able to access as much entertainment through streaming services as they want, see no need to buy a television or licence. The trend is exacerbated by a change in the way people live – increasingly, young people are flitting from one short-term rental contract to another. A property-based TV licence makes no sense to them. The trend will only increase as superfast broadband improves download speeds.

    If the BBC had genuine confidence in its product it would see which way the wind is blowing and voluntarily abolish the licence fee in favour of subscriptions. Instead, I fear the opposite will happen – it will lobby the government to try to bolster its revenues by extending the scope of the TV licence to users of mobile phones, laptops and so on until a government is brave enough to rebuff it. Then we will find out for sure how much we all really love the BBC.

        1. Well there are 4 London orchestras (LSO, RPO, Philharmonia, LPO), and out of town the Bournemouth Symphony O, Birmingham S.O & the Hallé as well as a lot of smaller independent groups like the Age of Enlightenment so though it might be sad to lose the BBC ones it wouldn’t mean the end of orchestral concerts in this country.

  63. The London Fire Brigade has been interviewed under caution by police investigating the Grenfell Tower fire.
    The fire service said it voluntarily gave an interview “as a body, rather than an individual” in relation to the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
    London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said she recognised that survivors and the bereaved needed answers.
    The Metropolitan Police is probing the fire in west London in June 2017 in which 72 people died.

    1. Have an uptick, zxcv3. I had copied this and was primed to paste when I saw that you’d got there before me.😎

  65. There is a great but belated ( he died on August 13 ) full-page obituary of Sir John Drinkwater, former naval officer and later barrister.
    He had a long life and died at age 94. ( Some of you may do the same if you emulate his name ).
    ” His most notable success was his spirited defence of the London Fire Brigade at the public inquiry into the Kings Cross fire in 1987.
    He’s needed now, as history seems to be repeating itsself.
    This is an excellent read, and a fine example of how the upper-upper class live.
    I can’t give you a link as I can still read paper and don’t pay for a subscription.

      1. Here you are, Maggie

        Sir John Drinkwater obituary
        Barrister and wartime submariner with a liking for rum punch who successfully defended the fire brigade after the King’s Cross disaster

        September 16 2019, 12:01am,
        The Times

        https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F288ed544-d7cb-11e9-9cfd-b79996a387b0.jpg?crop=1176%2C661%2C29%2C69&resize=685
        Sir John Drinkwater on his wedding day in 1952

        As flag-lieutenant to the First Sea Lord, Admiral Lord “Tubby” Fraser of North Cape, John Drinkwater was assisting at a function attended by a galaxy of top brass, including King George VI.

        When he encountered the monarch, Drinkwater thought he was leaving and proceeded to help him on with his overcoat. However, the king had just arrived and wanted his coat removed. In a scene that would have graced a Laurel and Hardy film, Drinkwater spent what seemed like an age in front of horrified onlookers wrestling with the notoriously shy and self-conscious sovereign before realising his error.

        As it turned out, it was not a royal command that shortly afterwards ended Drinkwater’s career in the navy, but the more prosaic obstacle of stomach ulcers. Yet it led to a second career as a barrister in which he distinguished himself in several high-profile cases and public inquiries, as well as being an independent UK observer of the Rhodesian election that ultimately brought Robert Mugabe (obituary, September 6, 2019) to power in 1980.

        He believed that “you get more by kissing than kicking”, and his most notable success was his spirited defence of the London Fire Brigade at the public inquiry into the King’s Cross fire, when 31 people died at the underground station in November 1987. The brigade faced intense scrutiny over its conduct that night, but Drinkwater showed that London Underground (now Transport for London) had failed to plan properly for an emergency at the station. His advocacy did much to restore the brigade’s reputation, and they thanked him by presenting him with a framed fireman’s axe.

        By then Drinkwater’s portly figure had earned him the epithet of the “bow-fronted QC”, ironically in view of his wartime adventures as a midshipman when he survived only because of severe toothache. He had served on six patrols off Norway in 1943 and early 1944 in the S-Class submarine HMS Syrtis, which was helping to protect Arctic convoys taking supplies to Soviet Russia and abortive attempts to deploy midget submarines to attack German battleships.

        On March 16, 1944 Drinkwater arrived at the dockside in Lerwick in the Shetland Islands ready for a seventh patrol off the Norwegian coast north of Trondheim. In view of his toothache, his commanding officer sent him to the dentist and he missed the patrol.

        Syrtis later sank a Norwegian merchant ship, the Narvik, but then disappeared. When ordered to return to Lerwick, she never replied. She may have been hit by gunfire from German shore batteries or, most likely, hit a mine. All hands were lost.

        Deeply saddened, Drinkwater kept Syrtis’s bell, which, by tradition, had remained ashore, and ever after used it as a doorbell at his home at Meysey Hampton Manor in the Cotswolds, near Cirencester.

        Earlier, aged 17 and part of the crew in the heavy cruiser HMS Cumberland, he had completed three voyages from Liverpool to Murmansk and Archangel in late 1942 through some of the most hostile seas in the world, with the ever-present threat from U-boats. He spent much of his time on deck supervising ratings hacking off sea ice clinging to the gun turrets and superstructure of the ship, causing it to roll alarmingly. Among his shipmates was midshipman Desmond Cassidi, who went on to become Second Sea Lord and a lifelong friend.

        Drinkwater recalled that the Soviet soldiers and civilians that he met appeared ungrateful for the efforts being made on their behalf, concluding that there must have been no word for “thank you” in Russian.

        By the final months of the war Drinkwater was serving in the T-Class submarine HMS Trident in the Far East, which was famous for having operated for several months in 1941 off Norway with a live reindeer mascot on board. In June 1945 he was rowed to the shores of a remote island in Indonesia, to find out if it was occupied by the Japanese. Armed only with a pistol, a bicycle and pockets stuffed with boiled sweets to bribe local children, Drinkwater, then a sub-lieutenant, completed his mission undetected.

        After he was invalided out of the navy, he tried several occupations before studying for the Bar. He passed the exams without difficulty, but was then struck by polio and spent months in hospital composing ribald nursery rhymes to pass the time while the paralysis subsided.

        Called to the Bar in 1957, he built a busy criminal practice in London and the southeast as an incisive cross-examiner, always courteous, but firm.

        By 1965 Drinkwater had joined the parliamentary and planning chambers of Peter Boydell, QC (obituary March 7, 2001) at Harcourt Buildings in London’s Middle Temple, sharing a room with Roy Vandermeer, QC (obituary, May 10, 2017). He took silk in 1972. His most celebrated cases and public inquiries included the National Gallery extension, the Channel Tunnel Bill and the Sizewell B nuclear power station inquiry.

        https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F29a9d9d8-d7cb-11e9-9cfd-b79996a387b0.jpg?crop=421%2C632%2C66%2C27&resize=498
        Sir John Drinkwater on becoming a QC in 1972

        According to one former colleague, Drinkwater “was the antithesis of the stuffy, pompous barrister, ever ready to engage with all and sundry whether it be his opponent, the court clerk or the usher”.

        He was regarded as an inspirational colleague and helped many pupils in his chambers. His advice on courtroom tactics included: “Never say ‘I put it to you’ in cross-examination”; “compared with local authority litigation, Russian roulette is an exact science”, and “make sure the clerks have got you a decent brief fee!”

        John Muir Drinkwater was born in 1925 in Tring in Hertfordshire, the only son and second child of Commander John Drinkwater, OBE, a submariner in the First World War, and his Australian-born wife, Edith Muir. They had met when she was 14 and he was visiting Sydney with the Royal Navy. He told Edith’s parents that he would like to return to marry their daughter when she was old enough, and did so in 1919.

        Like his elder sister, Diana, who won a place at Oxford, but was forbidden to take it up by her father, Drinkwater was educated exclusively by tutors. The first institution he attended was the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, where he was sent as a naval cadet aged 13.

        After his service with Lord Fraser, he served in 1950 as equerry to Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone on her appointment as the first chancellor of the University College of the West Indies.

        In 1952, by then a lieutenant- commander, he married Jenny Wright, who had no academic qualifications, but whom Drinkwater regarded as the most intelligent women he had known. She was one of three sisters known as “beautiful, batty and bloody awful” — with Jenny being the batty one. They formed a formidable pairing and had five children, all given first names starting with “J”, just for fun.

        Jane runs her own fragrance brand, Branche d’Olive; Jonathan is a land agent; Joanna, who died in 1995 of breast cancer, was deputy editor of Tatler magazine; Juliet is an interior designer and Jessanda — an invented name conjured up to keep the pattern going — is a teacher. Jenny died in 1990.

        https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F27059f3c-d7cb-11e9-9cfd-b79996a387b0.jpg?crop=617%2C411%2C49%2C240&resize=498
        Sir John Drinkwater relaxing on holiday in later years

        In 1985 he was appointed to the board of the British Airports Authority to help in its privatisation as BAA. He was also an income tax and parliamentary boundary commissioner, Crown Court recorder and governor of St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. He was knighted for public service in 1988 and in 2016 was awarded the Arctic Star, the medal instituted in 2012 to honour those who served in the Arctic convoys.

        Always known in the family as “Jake”, Drinkwater was a raconteur and bon viveur who appreciated the good things in life: a rum punch, dancing with Jenny, sunshine, evenings with friends in the Garrick Club in London and, especially, his family. He organised holidays to the Greek islands and Portugal and acquired a Napoleonic mill in the Pyrenees – “at the back of Bayonne”, as he was wont to say, where his grandchildren swam in the pond and fished in the river.

        After the death of his wife and loss of his daughter Joanna, Drinkwater met and married Deirdre Boscawen, who survives him. They moved to nearby Fairford in Gloucestershire. They spent many summers in the Pyrenees until in 2008 the mill was burnt to the ground by Basque separatists who scrawled “the Basque country is not for sale” on a window shutter. There was nothing left to rebuild and the family sold the site. “It is a shattering blow,” Drinkwater said.

        Despite his achievements as a barrister, Drinkwater was prouder of his service in the navy. His hero was Nelson, and he collected all the great admiral’s biographies. He said it wasn’t so much Nelson’s appetite for risk that attracted him, as his forthrightness, his sense of duty and his unerring ability to come to the right decision in perilous circumstances.

        Sir John Drinkwater, QC, barrister and wartime submariner, was born on March 16, 1925. He died on August 13, 2019, aged 94

        1. Thanks for that, very interesting.

          I would humbly suggest that there is an exception to his statement:

          He believed that “you get more by kissing than kicking”.

          That doesn’t apply to “árse”

        2. And now, just to prove how mendaccious the state has become, the Fire Brigade is being sued over Grenfell.

  66. Have you ever realised that sometimes, to other people, you are old ?
    I just went to a local pharmacy to pick up a prescription. The assistant gave me one of those paper forms to fill in – where you tick boxes
    to tell them how good you think they are.
    In conversation with me she said that she had picked me out to give me the form, as I didn’t seem digital ….
    Ouch.

        1. My mother’s 80 birthday present was an iPad, she had never used a mobile phone let alone a computer.

          It gave her a new lease of life. She always said it was the best present she had ever received. Being housebound, she loved the new horizons it opened.

    2. A couple of months ago, a young muslim-looking man offered me his seat on the train… I must look really decrepit, nobody does that in Norway.

      1. Old Spanish joke:
        Man arriving home from work, greeting his wife:
        “Phew what a day! The bus was so full even the men were standing.”

    4. I work with computers all day long. Can’t stand them. When I go into Tesco I make a point of breaking their automated tills so someone has to help me.

      The record so far is going through 4, with a proper crash on each. I always say ‘Wouldn’t it be quicker to open more manned tills?’

      1. I’ve never had to make a point of breaking those tills – they do it all by themselves with little assistance from me.

    6. Should have given her the ‘stiff finger’ salute, Tony, thus proving you were completely au fait with digital communication.

  67. And so the escalation begins:

    Saudi Arabia oil attack: Iranian weapons were used in drone strike, Saudi military says

    I can’t help feeling that that is no different from Yemen saying that British weapons were used in hospital strikes, even though they were fired by Saudi Arabian forces.
    The source of the arms, even if one is anti the arms trade, is not always the country that uses them. People buy arms where they can.
    Gangsta rubs out rival in London with Kalashnikov so let’s declare a retaliatory strike aginst the produers?
    I don’t think so.
    This affair might well trun very nasty very quickly.
    I trust the Saudis no further than I can spit them.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/saudi-arabia-oil-attack-iranian-weapons-were-used-in-drone-strike-saudi-military-says-a4238066.html

      1. Brown trousers more like – Sh*tting themselves that the UK will leave and not produce anymore Danegeld. for EU largesse.

    2. It would have been more humiliating had he taken part with the protesters drowning him out.
      He was right to decline the outdoor speeches.

    3. ‘Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán responded to European Union president Jean-Claude Juncker’s description of him as a “blind national politician” in brutal fashion, suggesting he would not expect a Luxembourger to understand national pride.
      “It’s hard to see the world through the eyes of a Luxembourger,” Orbán said of the outgoing President of the European Commission in an interview with Kossuth Radio, a transcript of which was seen by Breitbart London.
      “In negotiations, I sometimes wonder how my counterpart sees the world. What does someone from Luxembourg say when they want to be proud of themselves or their nation?” he asked.’

      https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/09/16/orban-buries-eus-juncker-blind-national-politician-comments/

    4. Are you sure?

      Perhaps he’s playing a “long game” and annoying all the jumped-up little dictators in the EU, just so one or two of them refuse an extension and we get ot on the 31st October.

      If one genuinely wanted to leave come what may, it’s certainly one tactic I would use to get around the Benn bill.

    5. I don’t think so. The Luxembourg premier was made to look a fool. The activists booing Boris were quite obviously an EU organised bunch and Boris did the right thing in boycotting a staged event.

    6. No, Bill, I think not. Boris handled the situation in the only way possible. He refused to take part in a staged ‘press conference’ deliberately set up by the Luxembourgish Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, to belittle him and, by extension, the UK.

      Who gives a toss what Bettel thinks or says anyway? He is a pathetic little man, from a pathetic little country no bigger than the Isle of Lewis, the economy of which is based on international tax fraud and money laundering.

      Jean-Claude Juncker too, during his tenure as PM of Luxembourg, was involved in this criminality, right up to his dirty, corrupt little neck.

      1. The EU apparatchiks are nothing if not unoriginal in their approach to dealing with people who do not buy in to their project. Small people using the tactics of the school playground to attempt to isolate, intimidate and humiliate the people they see as opponents.
        Johnson was correct in not falling for what was a staged protest designed to undermine him when under the public gaze. Quite pathetic really but it appears that these tactics coupled with ceding a point in private and then stating the complete opposite to the media are how they operate because that’s all they’ve got.
        Today’s disrespectful display should be a wake up call for Johnson: these people are NOT our friends and if he thinks selling us out to these people is a good idea he is as big a fool and traitor as May turned out to be.

  69. They know that Boris is a good orator so the remainer tactic is to drown him out at every opportunity.

    4. 1. Corruption.

      2. Nepotism

      Most eurotroughers probably have their money there. I’d bet Lux probably has sweet heart deals with the EU to be the ‘money hub’ for eurocash which they then invest making a tidy cream off the top – which they no doubt give a bit of to the troughers.

      1. I was an internal auditor whose remit covered Private Banking in Luxembourg.
        Corrupt doesn’t even get close. It’s a third world country living in a first world body.

    5. Even when the EU harmonises taxes throughout the Empire I fully expect Luxembourg to retain its tax haven status, especially if the EUcrats lose their access to Swiss bank accounts because they’ve p*ssed them off.

      1. Having worked in Private Banking in both Switzerland and Luxembourg I can assure you that Luxembourg is “dirtier”.
        Believe it or not, there are many many worse jurisdictions, some of them rather too close to home.

  71. Philip Hammond should learn to come clean when he is proven wrong
    NORMAN TEBBIT – 16 SEPTEMBER 2019 • 2:11PM

    It is not that often that I feel I have to hold up my hand and confess to having been wrong, so enjoy this whilst you can.

    Back in 1972 when Idi Amin expelled Uganda’s Asians I argued that it would be best had they gone back to India where their roots lay, rather than coming here where their arrival might increase racial tensions and where they would simply not fit in to our society and be a burden on our economy.

    My colleague on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords, Lord Popat has recently published his memoirs of the expulsion of his family, their arrival here and his business and political career, entitled A British Subject.

    I really should not have needed to read his book in order to decide that I should own up to my mistake. Lord Popat and his fellow Ugandan Asians have been an asset to this country.

    On the other hand, do not expect former Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond to follow my example by admitting his errors. He forecast that if the British people voted for independence and freedom from the European Union in the referendum, unemployment and prices would soar as our economy collapsed.

    Instead, a headline in The Telegraph last week proclaimed “Pay growth at 11 year high as jobs total rises” and the story below tells that pay growth surged 4 per cent, as the jobs market defied fears of a recession over the summer sending unemployment down to a 45 year low. The number of people in work is up by 31,000 on the quarter and 369,000 on the year.

    To be fair, the report added that economists worry that the pace of new hirings has slowed and that, according to a Mr Tombs of Pantheon Macroeconomics, “Britain’s so-called jobs miracle is starting to lose its shine.” All that as Germany sinks into recession.

    If so, perhaps it stems from a growing fear that desperate Remainers might end up getting Jeremy Corbyn into Number 10, where he would soon turn the United Kingdom into a European version of the Venezuelan Marxist miracle.

    Boycott’s lessons for Boris
    Staying with the good news, even as a Middlesex cricket supporter, I gave a great cheer on reading that Mrs May’s final Honours List included a knighthood for Geoffrey Boycott.

    We could do with someone of his like in the England team today. Indeed, Prime Minister Boris Johnson might do well to emulate the Boycott style as he struggles against the bouncers delivered by Remainers, the European Union, Scottish judges and the BBC (or Brussels Broadcasting Corporation as it has now become).

    It is also encouraging to read that the malign Fixed-Term Parliaments Act is coming under fire. Like the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition itself, the FTPA was a product of the hapless Mr Cameron’s compulsion always to take the easy option, regardless of where it might lead. That shows up even in his memoirs, in which he declares that he would not rule out a second referendum on Europe as Brexit “is just about impossible to deliver”.

    The greatest excitement of last week probably arose from the finding of the Scottish judges that the Prime Minister acted unlawfully over the prorogation of Parliament. I think it best to await the Judgement of the Supreme Court in London and not be drawn into judge bashing, but I have a long record of expressing what I have described as judicial imperialism.

    A country fit for heroes?
    I wondered, as we gathered last Sunday in Bury St Edmunds for our annual march and church service to remember our victory in the Battle of Britain, what kind of justice we would have enjoyed had that battle been lost.

    There are now only four survivors from the 2,917 men who flew in that battle. By the 50th anniversary next September there may well be none.

    Hopefully by then we will have again become an independent free nation of the kind that our Battle of Britain pilots fought to save.

      2. I wonder how many of the ones taken into the UK were Muslim and whether they integrated as well as the Sikhs etc.

    2. She said the rape was politically motivated and the rapist was a right-wing retard.

      When asked how she could be sure he was a right-wing retard, she replied, “Because I had to show him what to do.”

    3. Raped but not reported by an articulate and educated individual! Sure. Now, do you have anything of value to say.

    4. I simply do not believe her. Lying cow.

      As for Owen Jones being ‘attacked for who he is’. So he should be!

      1. I don’t believe either of their stories.

        Thought for the day:
        They had a drunken fumble together, woke up in the same gutter, and were both appalled and made up a story about the same event to salve their consciences.

        OK I know they are shameless, but give them some slack..

    5. It wasn’t convenient to report it back then. Now she’s facing election she needs the publicity.

      It’s that same arrogant that sickens me about the MeToo brigade. They were not raped. They gave a leg over for a leg up. At least be honest with themselves and call it what it is – prostitution. Now they’re ashamed of themselves – but more importantly safe in their careers – they are complaining.

  73. Just returned from Sister’s and a delicious fried trout dinner,the downside was checking out the Times which had a long section on the Limp Dumb confo with mysteriously no mention of Guy Verhotwats “Imperial speech”
    Followed by the ITN news,sick making Cameron,BoJo bashing and a fawning interview with Swinson,true in depth political analysis
    “What Superhero would you be??”
    “Well you can’t beat Wonderwoman”
    How utterly puerile
    Like Bill I now need a glass of something!!!!!!!!!!!

    2. What Jo Swinson will not admit is that, although the number of LibDem MPS has increased from 12 to 18 since the 2017 General Election, the defectors to her party have effectively stolen the votes of their constituents, who elected each of these MPs on the basis of them standing for a different political party. So much for democracy.

      1. Console yourself with the fact that at the next GE the Libdems might well come out with fewer MPs than they went in with.

  74. Nicked

    Excellent comment sums it up well

    Just
    think how the saggy minded Treeza would have handled todays
    stitch up . She’d have dutifully stood next to an insignificant Prime
    Minister of a country with a population little greater than
    Sunderland.

    She’d have tried to say her piece while being
    remorselessly heckled and would have stood there like an Aunt sally
    even if tomatoes had been thrown

    I still don’t trust BoJo
    fully , but at least he had sufficient pride in himself and Britain
    to say ‘ Fluck this for a bunch of soldiers’ I’m off

  77. Boris so Ignored,
    The remain trap in Luxembourg,
    Instead of being berated,
    He sat inside sated
    With a hulking bowl full of Smörgåsbord

    1. “… With a hulking table full of smörgåsbord.”

      Smörgåsbord [pron: “smur-goss-boord”], literally “butter-goose-table”, is a table full of buffet items, not summat you can have in a ‘bowl’.

      Funny Limerick, though, all the same.

    1. Yes. Good idea.

      Let’s give up our nuclear deterrent.

      On Berlin, Paris, Strasburg, Brussels, Luxembourg etc.

    2. “Since we voted to Leave the British Government has surrendered… etc.” NO! It’s “Since we voted to Leave the British Government under Theresa May has surrendered… etc.”

  81. Newest meaningless phrase in language of UK politicians:

    “Our friends in Europe … ”

    Let’s face it, those 27 friends find it hard to find any principles and exhibit no shame in clinging to the handouts of UK money.

    2. “Kommen wir zu den wichtigen Fragen des Lebens.”
      “Why are the fragile witches making love” ???

  85. Well, well, well………….more of the same

    EU’S PROPOSED JUSTICE COMMISSIONER FACES CORRUPTION PROBE

    Belgium’s foreign minister Didier Reynders, was unveiled last week as incoming president Ursula von der Leyen’s pick for Justice Commissioner, has been named by a former Belgium spy as part of a corruption scheme. Awkward for a Justice Commissioner…

    The former spy testified that Deynders was part of a “veritable criminal association” involving arms sales to the Congo and Libya as well as money-laundering and taking bribes. Naturally, the EU Commission has declined to comment on the revelations. Justice, EU style…

    September 16, 2019 at 12:12 pm

    https://order-order.com/2019/09/16/eus-proposed-justice-commissioner-faces-corruption-probe/

    3. I hold no brief for Tommy Robinson, but I can’t help thinking that he gets banged up for comparative misdemeanors compared with what these toads get away with.

    4. This should come as no surprise. Shirley it’s de rigueur for any senior EU apparatchik to have a dodgy past.🤷‍♂️

    1. It’s really quite frightening that she may be able to vote and that she really wouldn’t know what she was voting for.
      A product of Blair’s ejercashun policies.

      1. Evening GG,
        Sad to say there are many of the same ilk, if it was not so we would never be in the deep sh!te
        we are in currently.

        1. I know ogga but I have grandchildren aged 15, 16 and 17 and, I firmly believe, our country will be safe in their hands. People like her have always existed and will continue to do so but unless we have faith in the future generations then we might as well roll over and did now.

          I have faith in my grandchildren, their children ad infinitum.

          1. GG,
            Then to fulfill the faith in the future generations there must be a radical change in the voting pattern because the voting pattern
            currently is the very same that has brought us to our current odious pretty pass.
            Personally I prefer in the proven past pre eu, until we have proof otherwise.

    2. That video is at least two years old and has been aired on here (and elsewhere on the internet) many, many times before.

      1. G,
        Complain then,if you think it does harm.
        Personally I would say that airing the same voting pattern many times over has more serious consequences as we are currently witnessing.

        1. The electorate has been brainwashed into providing the Globalists with the ‘manufactured consent’ which they then make the duplicitous claim that it was voted for ‘democratically’. Notwithstanding that the personnel making up the electorate is subject to continuous change. Even had voters not been brainwashed into providing the Globalists with ‘manufactured consent’, the Globalist dictators would be enacting their agenda’s including the UN Global compact for migration anyway. This is not an imposition unique to the UK , the Globalists are in fact, enacting their agenda, Globally.
          Your ‘victim blaming’ only serves to deflect attention from the Globalists evil activities.

          1. Are you really an African gray ?
            You make these brainwashed voters more like patients in need of treatment.

  87. Evening, all. Nice lunch – in the open air by the Canal du Midi. We were taken there two years ago for one of the worst meals I have ever eaten in France. I dreaded going again, only to discover that the place has been taken over by new people who are the complete opposite of the former shower. Efficient, friendly, good cooks etc. An excellent meal for €16 (about £35…joke) a head. Plonk included.

    Now sitting with a glass of anaesthetic having prepared the potager to receive broccoli, blette and celery tomorrow.

    The dead bloke at Cap d’Ail on Friday is reported in The Sun. Almost every aspect of the report is wrong. Reporters, eh?

    I’ll love you and leave you – just glad that there was no news of any kind today.

    A demain.

    1. The media are going hot and strong on a hate fest against Boris. The enemy is the EU not the Leavers, but they refuse to accept that.

  89. “Manhattan DA ‘subpoenas eight years of Trump’s tax returns’ – live news”
    And you think we’ve got problems ?

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