Monday 17 August: Quarantining holidaymakers engenders fear when what we need is hope

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/08/16/letters-quarantining-holidaymakers-engenders-fear-need-hope/

712 thoughts on “Monday 17 August: Quarantining holidaymakers engenders fear when what we need is hope”

  4. SIR – Any school leaver whose exam results are downgraded, leaving them unable to access a university place, could have been done a good turn.

    Despite some 35 years teaching A-level mathematics and also having a degree in law, I am not able to charge as much for tutoring per hour as the amount charged by my plumber, mechanic, electrician, joiner and other tradesmen.

    Disappointed students could be well advised to take an apprenticeship, which incurs no lifetime debt.

    David Vigar
    Sedbergh, Cumbria

    You’re an old fogey and out of date. Modern woke maffs gives different answers.

    2. “Disappointed students could be well advised to take an apprenticeship, which incurs no lifetime debt.”

      Good grief, don’t scare the effluent out of the little buggers! Taking an apprenticeship means work.

      Real work! After a life of constant mollycoddling how would you expects the poor little dears to cope with that as a wake-up to reality?

      1. SaH the Younger is doing a lot better in his welding job than he ever would have done at Uni.

          1. Started a welding course at Chesterfield Tech at 16, did a side job as an office cleaner via the Dad of one of his mates and not long after he turned 17 got taken on by one of the firms he was cleaning as an apprentice welder.
            He’s now 22 and will be 23 in October.

  5. Har, har, har

    Home Office apologises after ‘error’ led to them housing asylum seekers in a hotel in Priti Patel’s constituency
    *Home Office chiefs say ‘error’ meant migrants hosted in hotel in Witham, Essex
    *Bosses have now promised a ‘full review’ into how accommodation for migrants
    *It comes after Nigel Farage claimed Rivenhall Hotel was hosting asylum seekers
    *He claims Priti Patel’s constituents ‘are not happy,’ with migrants staying at hotel
    *Former UKIP leader has described refugees coming to the UK as an ‘invasion’
    *Mail on Sunday probe finds up to 50 hotels are being used to shelter refugees

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8632547/Home-Office-apology-Channel-migrants-sent-Priti-Patels-Essex-constituency.html

        1. It reminded me of a run down motel. Very 80s and the function suite – or whatever they call it – is like an aircraft hanger.

      3. To be honest, after her demonstrated inability to do anything about all this lawbreaking, I don’t care any more. I’m very disappointed with Patel – I had high hopes when she was appointed, but since then, she’s been AWOL. So, better the truth was out, that no minister actually manages the HO for all to see, and maybe, just a tiny maybe, something will be done about it. I’ll not be holding my breath though, doing something useful does not seem to be anything UK government is capable of, nor even desires to do.

        1. Morning OB

          Potential parliamentary candidates are interviewed, ( I have been involved with that) These people are unworldly , many candidates are parachuted in to an area by central office, and very few PPCs are local, and if they are local , they are usually business men/ women/ landowners etc.

          Priti Patel is tick box stuff, as are many of the MPs from both sides .

          They should be interviewed and put through the stringent tests that the services put potential officers through, then they should be examined by trick cyclists and thoroughly vetted for flaws.

          Boris is the greatest deceiver , and I hate saying that , in fact I would down grade every single one of them , ALL of them.

        2. How about Priti Patel resigns from her job and resigns from the Conservative Party along with John Redwood and Owen Paterson and that they all join forces with Nigel Farage to form the party of the next government?

          Once a few Conservative MPs break away then the party will split completely.

    3. The “error” being that they should have housed them in some backwater with a backbench MP so nobody noticed.

    4. what sickens me is that there are genuine homeless people in this country who the state doesn’t give a toss about. Why are we not putting them up in a hotel? Make the blasted local councillors pay for it out of their own pockets.

      1. I would like to point out, that not all local councillors get paid. Some of us are voluntary (in Parish Councils).

    1. Good morning all.
      Dull & Damp in Derbyshire this morning after a very wet night.

      1. Was more than sweaty last night, and this morning had to wrap up under duvet. Chilly! and very damp with dew.

  7. Only one in seven civil servants working at the Cabinet Office are back at their desks, new figures show
    *Mail can reveal that just one in seven civil servants have returned to the office
    *This comes despite the Prime Minister asking people to stop working from home
    *Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘If civil servants don’t [come back], then other people can’t be expected to.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8633723/Only-one-seven-civil-servants-working-Cabinet-Office-desks-figures-show.html

    1. Pathetic. I was back at my desk after a few weeks, because I had a job to do that couldn’t be done remotely*. I was disgusted to see on the British Telecom website that you can’t phone them, due to coronavirus and their call centres not being manned (personned?). If BT can’t figure out how to connect call centre operators at home, why should anyone trust them with their own telephone?
      .
      .
      * Private sector, naturally.

    2. Pathetic. I was back at my desk after a few weeks, because I had a job to do that couldn’t be done remotely*. I was disgusted to see on the British Telecom website that you can’t phone them, due to coronavirus and their call centres not being manned (personned?). If BT can’t figure out how to connect call centre operators at home, why should anyone trust them with their own telephone?
      .
      .
      * Private sector, naturally.

      1. At a previous employer, we had a thing called “OnePhone”. That meant that you could divert your calls from your deskphone to your mobile – so why can’t BT do that??

      2. On the flip side, I have friends who work for BT. They have worked continuously since the start of lockdown, only one of my friends who is customer facing has had restrictions on his working methods, ie entering people’s premises, the others have worked normally at their normal locations.
        With such a large organisation I would expect a difference of working practices for different staff. Call centre staff in close proximity would naturally be affected.

          2. That remains to be seen. I suspect that the answer will be “No” for very many poor buggers.

    4. There’s a difference of back at their desks and working. I’m not ‘at my desk’ but I am working – well, I would be if I’d slept at all last night.

  8. In Ms Weaver’s film posted yesterday, there is an extraordinary claim that powerful organisations are making use of data in such a way that some see the employment of Police as unnecessary and that social control can be achieved by implementing IT solutions hence multiple calls in the States to ‘Defund the Police’. I suspect those who took the time to review Ms Weaver’s documentary found that assertion a little far fetched. However, I came across this piece a short while ago:

    49 People Shot In Last 72 Hours In New York

    The scale of New York’s shooting problem becomes apparent when one considers that just the start of this month marked more shootings in New York City so far this year than in all of 2019, a continuation of the violent protests, rioting and looting that was unleashed in New York in recent months.

    As the Washington Examiner notes, “protests, riots, and vandalism sparked by the death of George Floyd have increased the anti-police sentiment in the city at a time when de Blasio has pledged to strip $1 billion from the city’s police budget and disbanded the plainclothes anti-crime unit. Hundreds of police officers have filed their retirement papers in recent weeks as tensions between the force and the public become more strained by the increase in crime.”

    Only time, and The Pulitzer Prize, will tell if Ms Weaver is right

    1. Thank Heavens our wonderful government has made visits to New York – or even Leicester – so problematical that we can’t be @rsed. That shows real forethought.

      1. You know Anne it’s funny how thought process in a brain work. In your paragraph above I read the words government and forethought and within milliseconds my brain transposed the combined meanings into foreskins and head et Voila – Dickheads…..

        1. Cripes. So far, I’ve only had a few slurps of gay tea, so I’m not up to that standard.

        2. Foreskins? So, Stephenroi, are you a circumcisionist? APM, all penises matter (pricks is a more apt description) will have noted your leaning towards the complete males in our midst and the exclusion of those with a bit missing.

          3. Good morning Dandy Front Pager

            An old one but a good one:

            What is the difference between a Muslim, a Jew and a Morris Dancer?

            The Morris Dancer is a complete prick.

      2. You know Anne it’s funny how thought process in a brain work. In your paragraph above I read the words government and forethought and within milliseconds my brain transposed the combined meanings into foreskins and head et Voila – Dickheads…..

    2. Oh my goodness. That hadn’t occurred to me, but it sounds scarily likely. It’s a very plausible theory. The whole BLM thing was planned and well thought out, so it is only logical to deduce that the calls to defund the police are not randomly made.

      1. Watch out for the opportunists.
        They likely had the campaign all sorted out, just waiting for a suitable opportunity to launch.
        So – who takes over the unpoliced vacuum? A gang boss? Qui bonem?

      2. They were very quick off the mark on two continents BB. Almost as if they were waiting!

        1. A pandemic was not hard to predict. As soon as this ridiculous lockdown started, they would have been busy planning how to take advantage.
          Not hard to predict that young, stupid people would be easy to get out on the streets after two months of boredom.

          Incidentally, we talk about Rent-A-Mob, but I was talking to someone recently who admitted openly that they get subsidised by their union to attend far left demonstrations. So it really is rent a mob, as the protesters are getting their expenses paid.

  10. Around this time Mr Thomas usually makes an appearance so assuming he is awake & kicking; Good Morning.

      1. And when yer plugged in to all sorts of equipment it’s impossible to sleep.
        I hope he has a catheter in place.

      3. I was wondering if Eeyore’s asthma attack was triggered by cats. I understand he was looking for two kittens to adopt…
        Hope he is ok…..

        1. I have wondered about this extremely hot and dry weather. We’ve seen lots of tree pollen and some sort of fluffy stuff floating around.

  11. The last pandemic couldn’t even stop Woodstock. Spiked 16 August 2020.

    During the Hong Kong Flu, dealing with uncertainty was the order of the day. Today we might think of this as a cavalier attitude towards a real threat. But there were grounds for some resilience. A health threat did not come to dominate life in the way it has today. When vulnerability informs the social imagination, nothing else can compete. It has an iron grip on what society regards as the choices before it. Which is why the very idea of mitigating Covid-19 is now ruled out – eradicating Covid-19 is now the only game in town. Which means that any spike in cases, regardless of the fact that 99 per cent of people who contract Covid-19 will survive the illness, is regarded as a failure of policy. This is a true dead-end – a bottomless self-fulfilling spiral from which there is no escape.

    This is why remembering the Hong Kong Flu pandemic (and why it has been forgotten) is so important. Some may say it tells us our politicians and experts have become more responsible and proactive. But really what it shows is that the crisis around Covid-19 is manmade. It was not inevitable. Nor are we dealing with an unknowable accident of evolution that has us cornered. In the past, human agency and a desire to change the world, not a sense of passive vulnerability, managed to transform a health crisis into just another of life’s experiences that we had to go through in order to get to where we felt we wanted to be.

    There’s no doubt that the politicians are milking this minor infection for all it is worth, both for the sense of control it gives them and of course more sinister motives. Large sections of the population (much to my surprise) have been terrified into compliance. I was in Morrison’s last Friday and being rather Laissez Faire about the whole thing myself inadvertently drew nearer to the woman in front of the delicatessen counter. She jumped about a foot, squealed some unpleasant instruction through her mask and legged it for the fish counter. There’s nothing you can say to anyone like that. They have bought the story and that’s it!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/17/the-last-pandemic-couldnt-even-stop-woodstock/

    1. During the Asian flu epidemic (1957) our class was reduced from 32 pupils to a mere 5.
      What a superb week we had; the teachers who were still vertical revealed themselves to be human beings.
      Buses, shops etc…. continued doing their thing. I don’t remember parents getting into a lather.
      What a spavined bunch of bedwetters the British have become.

    2. Tony Blair was on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning to discuss Covid -19. He rambled on in a confusing mixture of false negative and positive tests, the percentage of positive cases who were non symptomatic etc. He sidetracked briefly onto the A-level fiasco but decided to start on how he would get the planes flying with testing at the core, At this point the female presenter abruptly cut him off in mid-flow. I cheered as I imagined Blair spluttering in annoyance at this dismissal by the BBC.

  13. ‘Morning All

    According to the Telegraph, holidaymakers returning from France will be allowed
    to make one visit to a supermarket before going into quarantine.

    A government spokesman said “We have made an arrangement with the virus
    that it will not infect supermarket workers or shoppers when there is a
    returning holidaymaker in the store, but will only resume its normal
    virulence when the holidaymaker returns their trolley in the carpark”

    1. Simple; head to the supermarket while walking the guide dogs, change your mind, repeat as necessary.

  14. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8633157/Moment-white-man-knocked-racist-rant-telling-black-passengers-theyre-going-back.html

    I’d just point out here that we’ve tolerated a few months of blacks trying to destroy our society by defacing and vandalising our statues.

    That doesn’t excuse this yob, but this difference is interesting. We’ve tolerated it – despite seeing our servants running away from these thugs – and not reacted at all, even though we should have.

    Now some idiot starts ranting the very same things the black looters are mindless group have and one of the savages gets uppity and hits him. The right thing to do would be to walk away – as we have done but no. The feral yob is a beast and hits the thing he disagrees with. It needs raising that his response is wrong – provoked or not, that is not how a civilised person behaves.

  15. While the government is renting out 4* hotels for six months at a time for
    their beloved new immigrants the RAF Association is closing Rothbury
    House, its respite centre in Northumberland and an hotel it owns in
    Weston-super-Mare which is used to give holiday breaks to veterans and
    their families.due to a lack of funding.

    I don’t know how anyone in government can bear to look at themselves in the mirror.

    1. 322645+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      On 80 plus K & exs, they view themselves in the mirror as
      having a lifestyle to be envied.

      Also the same politico’s / parties in the main have the peoples blessing via the polling booth, that has been proven over decades.

      That helps make it bearable, you wait until the peoples
      realise that their party is wearing the transparent robes of
      treachery, they will be annoyed,maybe, well a little bit then,

    3. Covid has really hit RAFBF/RAFA fund-raising. I was due to do an effort for them, but it had to be cancelled.

  16. Some perspective data on COVID for Norway, from https://www.fhi.no/en/id/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/daily-reports/daily-reports-COVID19/

    Current deaths are 261 as Friday 14th, out of 9850 reported cases, a rate of 2,6%.

    The timing and size of the outbreak varies widely between the different winter seasons. In years with larger epidemics, 10 to 30 per cent of the Norwegian population may be infected. During the Hong Kong influenza outbreak in 1970, an estimated 15-40 per cent of the population became ill.
    Estimates made in Norway suggest that about 900 deaths a year are caused by influenza. However, this is only an average and can vary greatly from year to year. The people who die are most often elderly and or have chronic underlying diseases.

    Current COVID deaths 261… so, about 29% of those expected from flu.

    1. Is the normal Norwegian reaction to ‘flu outbreaks the same as that taken for Covid?
      If not, one isn’t really comparing like with like.

      1. If folk are sick, they’ll go to the doctor, and be told to stay home a few days.
        WE would never lockdown the whole freaking country.

        1. I was thinking more about masks/social distancing etc, which I believe Norway has adopted for Covid, were they adopted for ‘flu in the past?

          4. I think Norway probably got the balance about right, particularly with respect to travel restrictions.

            The UK’s response has been pitiful in all areas.

            Although interesting, I can’t accept that the ‘flu figures can reasonably be compared to the Covid ones.

  19. It amuses me to see all those falling over each other in their rush to make use of the Zoom service. People who are dead against Huawei’s influence are encouraging the use of a service which, while quoted on NASDAQ, was developed by an engineer, Eric Yuan, born in Shandong province, China, where most of the development work is done…

    1. Zoom or Microsoft Teams, (others I expect are available) nothing is secure these days, you just try to pick the least worst option.

        2. No I got an elderly cousin who is vulnerable, a FaceTime video call has been a godsend to help ease loneliness.

    2. Yep. I’ve just pointed this out to the secretary of a club, who had proposed an AGM by Zoom. I said I wasn’t in Zoom and would never be.
      While the spy stories are full of secret agent “sleepers”, no one seems to imagine “sleepers in full view”.

    4. After intercepting one of our gym Zoom classes, the Chinese minders are still rolling about the floor laughing at the sight of twenty sixty and seventy year oldies failing to keep in sync with the instructor.

  20. Has the post-Covid future already been decided? Spiked. 17 August 2020.

    Have you heard about the ‘Great Reset’? It’s the World Economic Forum’s new plan to reshape the post-Covid world. It’s top of the agenda at the next conference in Davos. You might not like some of the ideas in it, but they are presented as if they have been decided on your behalf.

    Those behind the Great Reset have decided that ‘capitalism and socialism will need to merge’. It’s hard to know what they mean by this, but you can assume it’s the worst of both worlds – think China, not Sweden. This is also where you meet their doublespeak. They acknowledge that privatisation has delivered poor public services. But the WEF is an organisation full of corporations growing fat on public-sector contracts. So their answer is more of the same, including rip-off public-private financing. You won’t find any articles on the WEF website about what elected governments could achieve with the state, even when it can borrow money at zero per cent interest.

    Morning everyone. This is of course a Lord of the Rings set up where the lesser players who imagine themselves to be partners are in reality enslaved to the Master Ring Bearer by their own lusts and greed. Those in the UK who have played a part in it so far; Blair, Cameron, May etc. have all grown obscenely rich on their treachery. Boris is almost certainly one of them, his wilful incompetence in his response to Brexit, the Virus and the Cross Channel Immigration pipeline pointing the way to his real allegiances. These are of course the apparatchiks; willing servants to that which rewards them so well with Money and Power. Their Shock Troops are the Failures and Social Outcasts of the present, the disgruntled colonised, the Perverts, the Blacks and the Marxists, all promised their little Patch of Heaven in this New Order where all shall be equal. That it will be paid for by their “oppressors” and not only in cash, making it all the more desirable.

    Clearly the White Christian Civilisation that created the present world with its Democracy, Free Speech and Representative Government can have no place in this future, its Religion, People, History and Institutions have to be destroyed for this New World to be.

    I suspect in all this that the UK has been chosen as the Flagship of this policy. Britain the new Multicultural Marxist Paradise! Not only because it explains so much, the Lies, the Betrayal of the People, the corruption of Public Bodies but as a punishment for Brexit. That no one can escape! Pour encourager les autres!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/17/has-the-post-covid-future-already-been-decided/

      1. Morning Stephen. Oddly enough I have been thinking the same thing and debating whether to move the weightier posts to later in the day!

        1. Please don’t. I couldn’t stand an hour or two of what folk are having for breakfast!

          6. Muesli topped with Jersey full cream milk & fresh grapes. Have just started autumn addition of apple straight from the tree. It’s the same year-in year-out. So I don’t need to bore you with it ever again.

    2. Pure happenstance for the WEF that CV-19 appeared when it did and that so many governments around the World reacted in the same way. The reaction continues with the testing results being used to maintain the fear factor and New Zealand being used as a trial for ‘compulsory quarantine camps’. Coming soon, The Vaccination, without which you will be unable to live in the Reset Society being foisted upon us.

      I have donned my tin-foil hat and I am shadowing PP.

      1. Morning Korky. I agree. I think that they have simply seized the opportunity with the Virus and moved the aganda ahead. Needless to say I shall not be taking any vaccinations!

        1. Then you and I will be denied the essentials for life e.g. food, water, access to health care etc. How else will they be able to enforce compliance? Actually, I need to lose a few pounds.😎

      2. Morning Korky. I agree. I think that they have simply seized the opportunity with the Virus and moved the aganda ahead. Needless to say I shall not be taking any vaccinations!

      3. Morning Korky. I agree. I think that they have simply seized the opportunity with the Virus and moved the aganda ahead. Needless to say I shall not be taking any vaccinations!

      4. Good morning all.
        But which vaccine? The Cuban, or the American, or the Russian? etc etc. And how will govts determine if immigrants & holidaymakers need to be re-vaccinated? By force if necessary, one supposes.

    3. Capitalism merging with socialism creates corporatism – corruption, fraud and failure. It is ‘the EU’s’ ideal of capitalism. A command economy where private business is managed by the state.

      That, of course, does not and never can work – as we have seen for decades now.

      1. Yes I know. I take a dispassionate view. As though I were merely a neutral observer at the end of the world. It saves a great deal of angst!

        1. I take the view that my ancestors survived the Dark Ages, and my family will survive whatever fate throws at us in the future, however unpleasant it may be.

    5. No comments under that article? The Great Reset looks like a scary future. Especially the picture of a lot of people with masks on and the caption”Human rights”. what’s happened to my right to go where I want, mask -free?

    6. No comments under that article? The Great Reset looks like a scary future. Especially the picture of a lot of people with masks on and the caption”Human rights”. what’s happened to my right to go where I want, mask -free?

      2. Col. Nathan R. Jessep was absolutely spot on in 1992.
        They (you) can’t handle the truth !

        1. By taking it down and others reposting the total number of views (and public irate comments ) become invisible….

  22. Morning, Campers.
    This first paragraph from Douglas Murray’s Spekkie article made Oi laff:
    “Hearing that Dawn Butler MP had been pulled over by the Metropolitan police, I briefly hoped the taxpayer might get back the whirlpool bath she charged us on her parliamentary expenses. But the officers skipped the boot and went straight to the passenger side, where they found the member for Brent Central recording them with her phone and looking pleased as punch to audition as the new Rosa Parks.”

    1. Dawn Butler police stop ‘rooted in bias’, says UK chief of black police officers. Sun 16 Aug 2020 18.00 BST.

      The police stop of the Labour MP Dawn Butler was rooted in systemic racism that is damaging the legitimacy of policing, the leader of black police officers has said.

      Inspector Andrew George, the new interim president of the National Black Police Association, also called for urgent reform of “a biased system that views black people as criminals or drug dealers”.

      I suppose that when he flags down a White Driver that’s the Law?

      https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/16/dawn-butler-police-stop-rooted-in-bias-says-black-police-officers-chief-andrew-george

    1. That is a classic example of a hate crime.
      It’s worse than this mob………The Branch Davidians Cult

    2. If you wrote islam today, and tried to publish it and get followers, it would be banned immediately as a cult.

      1. 322645+ up ticks,
        Morning BB2,
        Check out Gerard Batten warning of the dangers of
        islamic ideology rhetorically & in book form since 2005, his taking on Tommy Robinson as a personal assistant then the eventual take down via the UKIP nec of the real UKIP with anti Batten / Robinson input from farage.

        Prime example of “controlling” the fight back.

    3. He is quite right.

      Try these quotations from the Holy Book:

      “Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them.” Qur’an 2:191

      “Make war on the infidels living in your neighbourhood.” Qur’an 9:123

      “When opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you
      catch them.” Qur’an 9:5

      “Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable.” Qur’an 3:85

      “The J*ws and the Christians are perverts; fight them.”…
      Qur’an 9:30

      “Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam” Qur’an 5:33

    4. He is quite right.

      Try these quotations from the Holy Book:

      “Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them.” Qur’an 2:191

      “Make war on the infidels living in your neighbourhood.” Qur’an 9:123

      “When opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you
      catch them.” Qur’an 9:5

      “Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable.” Qur’an 3:85

      “The J*ws and the Christians are perverts; fight them.”…
      Qur’an 9:30

      “Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam” Qur’an 5:33

      1. 322645+ up ticks,
        Afternoon J,
        As Gerard Batten has been saying rhetorically & in book form since 2005, and one of the reasons
        himself & us within the real UKIP were IMO treacherously closed down, the truth must NOT be allowed to surface.

    1. Its hard to understand how rational people think this way, but ultimately, there needs to be just one candidate to keep things pure. Oh why bother, just have MPs appointed by the great and good. Saves a lot of phaffing.

    2. By my back of the envelope calculations white caucasians are in a minority in the world. Does that mean he supports all white shortlists?

    3. In effect, he doesn’t trust his own party’s constituency associations to choose the best Prospective Parliamentary Candidates from those who apply. He thinks they choose less able white candidates in preference to more able ethnic minority candidates.

    5. So what he is saying is that the indigenous crowd, you know the ones that have been here for centuries, need not apply.

    7. By my back of the envelope calculations white caucasians are in a minority in the world. Does that mean he supports all white shortlists?

        1. Labour’s new leader, Sir Keir Starmer, and his glamorous wife, Victoria Starmer (née Alexander), are certainly one of the more private couples in politics, with little known about the pair’s relationship.

          Married since 2007, the husband and wife are both trained lawyers, with Lady Starmer previously working as a solicitor, while her husband earned his knighthood thanks to his work around abolishing the death penalty globally. A 2008 Guardian profile mentioned that she worked as a mentor to deprived children.

          The couple met when they were both working in law in the 2000s, although we do not know the exact date. What we do know is that they now live with their two children, a 11-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter, in a £1.75 million house in Camden, North London.

          While Starmer is fiercely private about his private life – hence his reticence to publicly name his children – we do know that his wife is Jewish, and that the couple’s children are being raised in the Jewish faith.

          Speaking to the Jewish Chronicle in March, the Labour leader opened up about his wife’s faith, saying: ‘As you probably know my wife’s family is Jewish. On her father’s side there are barmitzvahs, synagogues — there’s all the traditions.’

          He also spoke about their Friday night dinner tradition, which sees his wife’s family invited to their Camden home for supper, saying: ‘It is about just being with the family. It’s about being a bit more disciplined, about being home with our children and the family — they are growing up fast.’

          https://www.tatler.com/article/who-is-keir-starmers-wife-victoria

    9. That’s all we need – brutal, savage, corrupt, unintelligent, ranting, soiled, indulged wasters.

      Hang on, that’s all of them.

  27. Right, off to Matlock to do an early fruit & veg shop and pick up the paper.
    Cromford newsagent’s have shut down for a couple of weeks well deserved holiday in Italy.

    See you later.

  28. Heaven forfend!

    North Koreans are ordered to hand over ‘decadent and bourgeois’ pet dogs so they can be killed and ‘provided to restaurants for meat’ as the country is rocked by food shortages
    Dictator Kim Jong-un announced in July that owning a pet is now against the law
    Authorities are identifying homes with dogs in Pyongyang and rounding them up
    Some of the dogs are sent to state-run zoos or sold to dog meat restaurants

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8634831/North-Koreans-ordered-hand-pet-dogs-killed-meat-country-hit-food-shortages.html

    6. Of course. Communism always ends in starvation for the masses and it’s always because they didn’t do it right. Lord save us.

      2. My teenager told me that one of her teachers at school actually trotted out that old “it’s never been done right” BS to the class this year.

          4. Just as unemployment figures are going to reach an all time high our Politico’s give themselves a pay rise.

    12. Good job the majority of us don’t eat dog, cat or horse meat – unlike the Orientals.

  30. Every news service, the BBC, and national and local papers are reporting new cases of Covid-19 every day. What does that mean? Fourteen new cases in Aberdeen, for example. It means that fourteen people have tested positive. Are they ill? Have they been taken to hospital? Are they in intensive care? Are they infectious? It may mean none of these things. It may mean nothing. We are not told any of that. These new cases may be told to take a couple of paracetamol and to stay at home.
    In Scotland there are around 230 people in hospital with Covid-19, with 3 in intensive care. Scotland has over 20,000 hospital beds and over 400 IC units.
    Presumably quite a few empty beds and idle staff, then?

    1. To my mind, the more younger people who get the virus the better. anyone who is afraid to go out can stay at home, but the virus is endemic now, like colds and flu and isn’t going away. The only way to gain any immunity is to be exposed to it, to build up one’s immune system.

          1. Isn’t New Zealand establishing concentration camps – for their citizens’ own good, natch.
            I’ve heard that NZ is like going back fifty years, but it would seem that eighty is nearer the mark.

          3. Blimey! Whatever happened to those hardy kiwis who sailed halfway round the world to fight fascism?

    2. WHO ?
      Tony Blair today said the 14-day quarantine requirement for holidaymakers returning from countries such as France or Spain could be cut “substantially” if mass testing was used to minimise risk.

      The former Labour prime minister said only regular testing on a huge scale could restore international travel to levels seen before the start of the pandemic.

      He spoke as Croatia looked set to become the latest European destination to join the “red list” of nations no longer exempt from the self-isolation rules for returning British tourists.

      2. The Blairs. I don’t know which gives me greater satisfaction, the thought of him being married to her, or her married to him.

      3. A great pity that he never tested, or submitted to peer review, that report about weapons of mass destruction.

        1. No one gets near him since he built an 8 ft high wall around his Buckinghamshire property and increased his personal protection.
          I can’t think why ?

          1. Perhaps someone could give a map and address of Tonedeaf Bliar to our resident Jihaddists.

      4. The more testing is done, the more cases are found. It doesn’t mean the virus is getting worse.

        1. Exactly, but it does mean he and is NWO associates will be able to monitor people with more intensity.

    2. He’s a spoiled, petulant ungrateful brat with no concept of how lucky he is to be have been given the opportunities he has. He’s built nothing, created nothing, supported nothing and lives like a parasite. How many race tracks have been designed and built by black fellows?

    3. What a dick he’s turned into.
      He’s lost all respect as ‘sports person’.
      And of course with out his white mother and his dedicated technicians and professional team behind him he’d be a no count.

        1. I thought it should have been “no account”, but at first glance I missed the second O in what was written 🙂

    4. I was really hoping that Spain would have been hot enough to cause the black painted cars to overheat and fail, but sadly all the heat seems to have done is fry a few more of Hamilton’s rapidly diminishing number of brain cells – he seems to be getting more deranged by the week!

    1. “Officers have engaged with the attendees and at police instruction the gathering was dispersed without further issue”.
      Just in time eh…………..no further issues expected.

    2. Honestly, I’m with the mozzies on this one. The regulations are baloney. I hope they enjoyed the wedding and had their party before the puritan police arrived.

      1. Afternoon Sue. Was this revenge for the cops getting a flea in their ear at the Pakistani Liberation Day Celebrations Saturday!

    3. I’m surprised the Beeb gave the name of the establishment, thus identifying the wedding as (probably) Muslim.

        1. Rather like Cologne on NYE. Once the truth (for a change) is all round the globe, denial is shown up as threadbare.

    2. It’s just the first step. Once the database is sufficiently large enough those on it will be invited to pay an annual charge (modest at first) to help pay for facilities e.g. Portage (and of course to cover the costs of administering the database, collection of fees etc etc. Remember there’s no such thing as a free launch!

    3. ‘Fraid not, JN. We haven’t had one of those for about 30 years. Furthermore, there is no sign at all that one arrived in December bearing an 80-seat majority.

      1. ‘Morning, Hugh.

        You beat me to it. The UK has not had a Tory government since November 1990.

  34. Talk about walk on egg shells

    Spitting Image wrestles with race riddle

    Blackface controversies have led to comedies such as Little Britain being pulled from screens. Now the producers of Spitting Image are grappling with another potential scandal.
    Senior ITV executives have held “surreal” meetings to discuss how such figures as Kanye West, the Duchess of Sussex and Beyoncé should be depicted amid concern that presenting black celebrities as grotesque puppets could prompt accusations of racism.
    The satirical classic is being revived by Britbox, the streaming service run by ITV. Puppets of Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings have been unveiled and the first episodes land this autumn
    Roger Law, the format’s co-creator, has promised that the new version will be “more outrageous, audacious and salacious” than the original, which ran for 18 series in the Eighties and Nineties, skewering politicians including Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Ronald Reagan. Preparations have been complicated by the Black Lives Matter movement, which has led to a reassessment of how black people are portrayed, particularly in comedy.
    “I had a curious meeting with Spitting Image,” said Kevin Lygo, ITV’s director of television. “The producers called me and said we need a conversation. We discussed with the writer and the producers about how to portray black people as viciously caricatured puppets. What’s OK, what’s not OK?”
    He added: “Should only a black actor voice a black character? So if you’ve got Kanye West as a puppet, does it, should it, must it be a black person? Should only black writers write for black puppets?”
    Mr Lygo described the meeting as great and surreal, and indicated that discussions were continuing. “Some of the answers are unclear, it’s difficult, everybody is trying their best,” he told a TV diversity session organised by ScreenSkills and Broadcast magazine. “Just having a conversation is what’s good here. We’ve got to get this out in the open and ask everybody and anybody that we can. That would certainly not have happened years ago.”
    Preliminary puppets of West, the American musician who wants to run for president, and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were released last year.
    Beyoncé, the African-American singer, and RuPaul, the drag queen and TV presenter, will also be satirised, alongside global figures such as Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg.
    ITV says the series is “public service satire” but conservative commentators have questioned whether it will parody black MPs such as Diane Abbott with the same zeal as white politicians.
    In its heyday Spitting Image featured a handful of black puppets, notably the boxers Frank Bruno and Chris Eubank. Their caricatures were relatively affectionate, mimicking Bruno’s infectious laugh and Eubank’s lisp.
    The cruellest treatment was reserved for the political class, which in the Eighties was overwhelmingly white. David Steel, the former Liberal leader, was depicted as a squeaky midget and blamed the show for the demise of his political career.
    Mr Lygo said he was embarrassed by ITV’s lack of diversity and conceded that the channel had previously “hidden behind” Sir Trevor McDonald, the country’s first black newsreader.
    He said: “Actually it meant there was nothing much going on behind.”
    In June the US animated comedy The Simpsons announced that it would no longer be using white actors to voice non-white characters. Controversy had surrounded the white actor Hank Azaria voicing the character Apu, an Indian convenience store owner and a number of other non-white character

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/spitting-image-wrestles-with-race-riddle-r69gfssd5

    1. Morning vvof

      There’s not much to have a laugh at these days . Our humour , and our ability to poke fun at politicos, celebs etc has been taken away from us .

      This poor old country is now tiptoeing around for fear of treading on eggshells.

      1. Any chance of taking the pi55 out of BLM? Thought not. Satire should be on the basis of ‘no holds barred’ but if it becomes PC then it just isn’t the real thing.

        ‘Morning, Belle and Oldie.

        1. I’ll send that to our children and grandchildren to reaffirm what they already know. :-))

      4. Not round here, we aren’t. We have terribly un-PC conversations. We just, as in the old CCCP (USSR) days, make sure no one from the OGPU is listening 🙂

      5. That’s what the Left want. If everyone is frightened, no one does anything. A bland, terrified, controlled, ‘managed’ – for their own good, of course – populace.

        It’s tyranny. The Left haven’t changed a bit. They are and always will be fascist oppressors.

    3. If all puppets are ugly, EXCEPT the black ones, is that not condescending and racist against the blacks?
      Asking for a friend…

      1. Pelham puppets. I used to love those stands in toyshops when I were a little nipper, nobut higher than a grasshopper. I actually owned King Coco.

      2. Pelham puppets. I used to love those stands in toyshops when I were a little nipper, nobut higher than a grasshopper. I actually owned King Coco.

    5. So it’s ok for black actors to play white roles (e.g. Sophie Okonedo as Margaret of Anjou in the Hollow Crown), but not ok for white actors to play black parts.

      1. Of course not, say after me, we is white, we is bad. Repeat whenever you have dark thoughts.

    6. They appear to be tying themselves in knots, to appease the permanently offended!
      Apologies in order! Good morning everyone!

  35. Morning all

    SIR – The Government’s benchmark for closing a “travel corridor” is when the foreign destination hits an infection rate of 20 cases per 100,000 people, a percentage rate of just 0.02 per cent. The few Covid-19 hotspots in France exceeding this low threshold (report, August 16) surely do not justify the quarantine rules now imposed on people returning from there and, probably, soon from other European countries.

    It would be laughable if the consequences were not so dire for the travel and hospitality industries, in addition to the unnecessary restrictions imposed on the freedom of individuals. Sadly, the Government’s policy seems to engender fear, which was successful in imposing lockdown originally, whereas what is needed now is hope and optimism.

    Norman Macfarlane

    Kingston upon Thames, Surrey

    SIR – Those who chose to go on holiday to France knew there was a chance that restrictions would come into force and that they may have to go into quarantine – which is what has happened. If they could not risk quarantine they should not have gone.

    More importantly, because our Government gave 30 hours’ notice, there was a great surge of people trying to get back to Britain, en masse, increasing the risk of Covid-19 spreading through overcrowded ports, airports and ferries.

    If restrictions were necessary, the Government should have imposed them immediately and not have waited.

    Jan Greep

    Broughton, Hampshire

    SIR – Not only have these holidaymakers ignored the Foreign Secretary’s advice – he said in spring that he, for one, would not be going overseas this summer – they must have also had their heads in the sand for the past week when warnings of imminent quarantine for travellers from France were all over the press.

    I have no problem with people choosing to go to France on holiday, but complaining when it goes wrong suggests a complete lack of responsibility for choices made.

    Catriona Wylie Carrick

    Shepton Beauchamp, Somerset

    SIR – I am currently in Greece and am endeavouring to complete the necessary form to return to the United Kingdom. Were a manager of a private firm to have produced such an incompetent document, they would be removed from serious office.

    The information required is repetitive and overly long. The PDF document that must be presented on return hashave to be printed and cannot be shown on a mobile phone or iPad.

    I am fortunate in that I am in my own house with a computer and printer. How many others on holiday will be in a similar position? I can only imagine the chaos at the airport when people try to present these documents on their screens.

    Charles Cooper

    Southwold, Suffolk

  37. Prince Harry faces prospect of hefty tax bill in California, expert warns. 16 August 2020.

    The Duke of Sussex faces a significant financial hit from the “zealous” US tax authorities, a royal financial expert has said, warning that the couple had not “thought through” the high cost of Californian life.

    But once Prince Harry has spent 183 days in the US over a three-year period, he will be considered a resident for tax purposes and liable for tax.

    David McClure, author of forthcoming book The Queen’s True Worth, said: “California is a high tax state and he’s likely to get a hit.

    I’m sure the Charity will provide suitable loopholes. That is what they are for surely!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2020/08/16/prince-harry-faces-prospect-hefty-tax-bill-california-expert/

  38. Morning again

    SIR – With the risk of a fine of £3,200 for not wearing a face mask, it would seem highly unlikely that a few fairy lights in Oxford Street will increase footfall, (“Let Christmas come early to spread cheer, shops urge”, August 14).

    I suggest that Jace Tyrell, CEO of New West End Company that represents these shops, has a word in “libertarian” Boris Johnson’s ear, and persuades him to reverse this draconian measure. I am sure I am not the only one who will not be gracing the high street of any town with my presence until he does.

    Alison Watson

    Penselwood, Somerset

  40. Q: Why did Biden choose Kamala Harris as running-mate?

    A: She did very well on the “sniff test”.

      1. Hi Anne ,

        It is noticeable how the trees leaves are turning and crisping up , the hot weather has stopped everything, chestnuts and oaks especially.

        1. Yes. I noticed yesterday that leaves are dropping like fury from the trees, especially shallow rooted ones like beech.
          High winds this Autumn should produce an arboreal cull.

        2. The sumac in my late mother’s garden here is very unhappy and dropping its poor leaves, and it’s been grey cold here for weeks. I feel guilty!

          2. East Yorkshire. I am a devotee of the sun, and it has been hellish imbibing everyone else’s complaints about the heatwave whilst fishing out the winter vests!

        3. I think autumn has arrived early – there’s a very good crop of sloes round our way ready for picking.

    1. I have a very large book The Beatles Anthology by The Beatles.
      Up to 1970, It starts with personal memories by each one and is filled with their own words and photographs.
      My eldest gave it to me for Christmas 20 years ago.

        1. I can still remember the first time i saw them on TV singing Twist and Shout, what a revelation that was. I went to see them live at Finsbury Park Astoria. Couldn’t hear a thing for all the screaming girls.

      2. How much great music was never recorded because of Chapman?
        Mention John Lennon and my mind always goes to his appearance from New York on The Old Grey Whistle Test.

        1. I wonder what the Woke generation would make of Lennon’s song ”Woman is the nigger of the world. Yes she is. Think about it”.

  43. Funny Old World
    I note much whingeing and whining from pupils that the computer modelling of their “A” level results is “wrong”,”unfair” “wildly inaccurate”
    Are these the same pupils who fervently adopt the Globalist Warmists pronouncements??
    You know,the “facts” produced from ermmm computer modelling??
    Sigh…………

          1. He’s been here before but his reply to me went into pending. He has all the hallmarks of a troll.

    1. The most popular boys at my school were those who were good at sport. I was hopeless at all sports that required good coordination, although I was reasonably good at athletics. I was mocked for not being able to catch a ball, for example, and was called ‘butter fingers’ even by my own family.

      Little did I know it then but I have a ‘condition’ that is still with me many decades later. I still can’t play golf, or easily put a key in a keyhole, turn the page of a book, balance on a ledge or sign my name. I have managed it so that hardly anyone ever notices. For example, If I have to carry two cups of tea at the same time (which I can’t) I take one at a time and claim that the other isn’t ready yet!

      My problem is that I have an ‘essential tremor’ which is not well known. However, it is quite common and I often notice people struggling to sign their name in a Post Office, for instance.

      I am not complaining because I have been extremely fortunate to lead a very healthy and adventurous life.

      The good thing about it is that alcohol is an instant cure!

        1. “Here’s to alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.” Homer Simpson.

      2. I was similar at school but found out later that my uselessness at sports was due to my having no stereo vision.

    2. During a school house match, no body else wanted to do it, but our games teacher chucked the blue goal keepers jersey at me and said get in goal.
      I turned out to be the the best goal keeper our school had, had for a long time. If i’d been taller i might have been a pro.
      On the day the photographer arrived to take photographs of classes etc. i was away at a job interview and our team right winger Barry A. wore my jersey.
      I was gutted.

    3. My teacher told me if I stopped acting the goat I could be in the top three of my class…!
      I enjoyed sport, did the minimum of work to scrape through exams and preferred school to home.

    5. No, never popular (too shy for that). When I arrived at my second secondary school and chose Latin over cookery, the rest of my class just thought me weird, confirmed when I also took up Greek. I had a small group of friends, only one of whom I’ve stayed in contact with.

      1. We had a choice of art or cookery. I’d had one compulsory year and I couldn’t wait to escape.
        The parents of many girls in my class insisted they took cookery. I and four others chose art.

        1. I doubt my parents were even aware I was given the choice, though my father would certainly have approved of my choice. The only thing my parents ever forced me to learn was to play the piano. I finally manged to escape lessons when I was 16. I didn’t have the natural talent of the musicians in the family (father, brother, grandmother, 4 cousins of my mother’s in the Sydney Symphony orchestra at one time) so it was always a painful struggle for me, though I don’t regret learning.

    6. I was fairly popular in class, but not so much on the football field.

      I was always made to be the (crap) goalie!

    8. I was useless at all sports. The gym mistress called me “twinketoes”. She chucked me into the deep end at the swimming baths. I hated going there. Other times I kept my head down, did the work and was pretty average. Only popular in my little clique, I think, most of whom are still good friends now.

      1. I was not very good at sports , but I tried . I didn’t have that competitive killer instinct .

        I also kept my head down and got on with things . I sat next to a left hander which was a nightmare , because every time she moved her arm at the desk, my work smudged because I am right handed . I asked to be moved , sadly not !

          2. I think we only had single desks at my secondary school, and double ones at the village primary.

    9. I had a pretty average time at school (except academically, where I really enjoyed learning). I played football at lunchtimes but wasn’t really much good at games, except swimming, and the only sport I really liked was riding, which wasn’t an option at my school. I’m still in touch with one of my school friends, but basically, I’ve always been happy with my own company.

    1. It seems to me the present ‘government’ no longer wants to be in office. Let us pray they don’t resign until after 31st December 2020 when theoretically we will be free of the shackles of the EU:
      It appears to be the plan at the moment.

      And it’s pretty obvious that owning a Soros rubber boat for a short duration leads to a better way of live far. Far, far better than current UK pensioners who worked all their lives. Hoping for a happy peaceful comfortable retirement.
      And I expect the hotel menu’s will be produced to satisfy ‘the most picky’ of the illegal entrants.

    3. I wonder if all this “border control” expenditure is regarded as part of Cameron’s 0.7% of GDP, Foreign Aid allocation?

    4. Anyone in touch with Martin or Matthew – frequent commenters on the Letters page? I never go there now, but they’d be welcome to join us here.

  46. Afternoon, all. Hope? We shan’t get that; the government is too busy trying to cow us into submission. I was up at the crack of dawn this morning, after at most four hours’ sleep to get MOH to the MO. Apart from a BP check (normal, thankfully), the rest was “I’ll sign you up to this team/that team/the other team to see what help they can give you”. Yeah, sure. Most of it will be means tested and I won’t qualify or they’ll just telephone me and ask some questions and then they will have ticked the box for the next six months.

    As you know, I’m a Spitfire fanatic and John Romain’s PRU rebuild with the “Thank you NHS” on its underside will be over Shropshire (although nowhere near me) tomorrow morning. The article writer clearly has only a passing acquaintance with reality or he/she/it/they/ze would never have come up with this gem:

    “During the 1940s, Spitfire funds were set up by local communities around the UK and commonwealth countries to encourage a sense of purpose and hope in the struggle against adversity. [you can pay a minimum of a tenner to have the name of a “hero” of the pan(dem)ic written on the fuselage]

    This Spitfire,which was specifically built and used for photo reconnaissance during the conflict, carrying cameras instead of weapons, will now once again
    embody the sense of freedom and togetherness that it did then.”

    I don’t have any sense of freedom, let alone togetherness; all my activities have been shut down and show no sign of restarting, I’m stifling in a mask every time I go out and venture indoors (and hence only do it when absolutely necessary which means even going to church is on the “don’t bother” list), everything has become twice as hard as it used to be (or needs to be), shops are closing, cafes have already closed, there is no prospect of my being allowed to go racing any time soon and the effing government is still ramping up the regulations (and changing its useless mind every two minutes).

    As you may, just possibly, have gathered, I am NOT a happy bunny!

        1. I think you’ll find that whilst we all admire the Spitfire, most here are members of the UBC….

    2. Do you have to wear a mask when riding your Connemara? I hope not – at least you might have some freedom and togetherness then.

      I am still fed up with the way our normal lives have been impacted.

      1. No, fortunately. I would if I were still in the leading rein category, but thankfully I’m able to ride independently now and have been for some considerable time 🙂 Actually, come to think of it, I don’t recall ever being on a leading rein! I seem to have been thrown up and left to get on with it!

        1. I used to save up my pocket money and go to the riding school with my friend (we were about 11 at the time). We only had enough to get the bus there so we had to walk back. I do remember the instructor shouting at me and I fell off when attempting a small jump. No leading rein.

          There is a small housing estate in the village there now, called “The Ridings”.

          1. I used to help out at the local stables for rides and instruction. On occasion I used to ride the horses back to the fields where they were kept. As we didn’t want to lug the saddles back with us, that meant riding bareback.

  47. I haven’t had a hair cut since February – I’m beginning to resemble an Old English Sheep Dog. It’s just as well I’m not in North Korea right now. However, I do get a bit nervous every time I pass a barber’s shop…..

    1. I had mine done last month. The staff wore clear visors, but apart from that it was more or less normal.

          1. After my hatchet job, moh did the back .. So my hairdresser tweaked the bad bits , and put some layers in . That pic was taken a few months ago, when we were allowed out .

            I visited my hairdresser a couple of weeks back .

            Hair is abit longer now

        1. I had mine in my pocket, but it was the day before they became compulsory in shops. There was pile of blue ones available but I didn’t have to wear one. That’s probably changed now.

          1. So we are both also members of the No Haircut Club and the No Masks Club, I take it 🙂

      3. I had mine done a couple of weeks ago, repaired really after my hatchet job!

        The staff also wore clear visors ..

        One has to queue outside the butchers shop, pre order and go in one at a time , it seems the risk factor in areas with chillers is being taken seriously.

        I wish we had some real facts though, and not hearsay .

    4. Got mine done a few days back. Humanity restored. It feels so much better. Most barbers accepting walk-in trade now.

    5. I started to resemble the wild man of Borneo, so I bought a Remington hair clipper on eBay. All sold out on Amazon. I’m happy with the result, and will prolly stick to DIY from now on…

      1. If I can stand it I might just try to go another 6 months and recreate my lost youth although my hair is now virtually pure white!

  48. DM Story

    Spitting Image bosses hold ‘curious meeting’ with ITV over how to lampoon black characters without being accused of racism

    Be as rude and offensive as you like to white people because they are white and that’s not racist – it’s quite acceptable. But don’t you dare offer one word of criticism or mockery about a black person.

    It’s called BLACK PRIVILEGE and non-white people should be feeling extremely guilty for not feeling it!

    1. You might need to get here a bit earlier Mr. Tastey! See below! Good morning to you!

  49. Just an update from the MR:

    Bill really enjoyed reading your comments this morning but didn’t really have the oomph to reply. Thank you all for keeping his spirits up

    2. I’ve been absent a few days. What’s up with Bill?

      Send him my best wishes for a speedy recovery whatever the issue is please.

      1. He’d been having respiratory problems so was taken into hospital for tests. Turns out he’s developed asthma.

    3. Thank you for the post.
      This is a very trying time for both of you.
      Bill may be an Eeyore – but he’s OUR Eeyore. (And your’s as well, of course.)

      1. I like reading comments from someone even more pessimisticrealistic than me. Makes me feel quite sprightly and light-hearted in comparison.

    6. Missed this morning’s comments on BT. MR, please wish him all the best from a fellow asthma sufferer.

    8. Dear Bill and well done you. I expect you have been quite fraught with anxiety

      I do hope you had a talk with Bill’s GP , who sounded next to useless.

      This could have been sorted weeks ago , couldn’t it.

    10. Thank you MR! It must have been a troubling time for you all! Sending love and good wishes!😍

    1. 322645+ up ticks,
      Afternoon C,
      If things carry on going down the idiots highway & adding a bit of submissive appeasement we will have the islamic ideology students ruling the country a damn sight quicker than we will via the polling booth.

    2. Since there doesn’t seem to be any detail available, what is the basis for the grading? Historical school results, and similar factors? Where’s the individual in this? Does it mean that merely by attending a specific school, you are gifted with AAB? Whether you turn up or not? What kind of basis for education is that?
      They should take exams, marked by examiners. There’s plenty of space to take exams, and youngsters are less susceptible anyway. Teachers and their “profession” are pathetic.

    3. Is anybody surprised? Kick up a fuss – get what you want (unless it’s sorting out immigration or getting us out of the EU, obviously).

      1. We have witnessed unnatural grade inflation for decades now. The late Rhodes Boyson summed it up when he was Education Minister.

        Universities were for the most academically competent. Rigorous teaching and examination was key to finding the brightest and best. Less than 10% were qualified to attend University.

        Now most of our New Universities are former Teacher Training, Polytechnics and dodgy Art Schools and 50% of pupils are conned into attending worthless subjects.

        1. Everyone wants to be an expert.. or a super star.. hence the popularity of some of the Reality progs or those find a new singer/ dancer/ chef/ decorator/ podcast/ zoom / you name it TV progs.

  51. Had a real enjoyable Turkish lunch in St Ives. A lamb dish with vegies, can’t remember the name although I got the pronunciation right. Good side dishes & service in a fairly quiet restaurant, definitely going back.
    Afterwards found the relocated market, which was just closing, but I managed to get a romanesco & 1/2 dozen giant nectarines.

    1. Little Cat used to do that. We collected furry toys, socks, half a bikini, and a rubber snake (that last scared the poop out of me at early o’clock and no specs!) It was awfully embarrassing…

      2. My neighbour was in the habit of leaving her plastic shoes on the decking. She slipped her feet into them one morning only to find a really big slug. Cue screams.

  53. 322645+ up ticks,
    May one ask,
    The pakistani fraternity celebrating independence day attack the police on Friday & Saturday, have they declared manchester an independent state ? can they now be denied welfare ? will slavery & sharia law now have a legal tag ?
    Will an English patriotic army march on manchester ?

    1. “Will an English patriotic army march on Manchester?”

      No. The English are now an emasculated bunch of wimps who will just continue whining and whimpering away on social media. The past 30 years of quasi-socialist governments have withered their gonads. Sir Francis Drake will be squirming in his grave.

  55. ‘Hottest temperature on Earth’ as Death Valley, US hits 54.4C. 17 August 2020.

    California’s Independent System Operator (CISO), which manages the state’s power, has declared a Stage 3 Emergency, meaning “when demand [for electricity] begins to outpace supply”.

    Because so much of the region’s power relies on solar and wind energy, and because people use their electricity for air conditioning, during heatwaves the power grid becomes strained and is at risk of completely malfunctioning.

    So when you need it the most it’s not available?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53788018

        1. Am I right in thinking you now have a grid over the chimney to stop home making jackdaws?

          1. A pigeon committed suicide in one of our chimneys a couple of years ago and when I lit the fire the whole house filled with smoke. We have now put s/s tube linings in both our chimneys with hats on top to stop the rain coming in and since then they have burned even better than before.

        3. I’m expecting my coal delivery this week and I had the chimneys cleaned at the end of last month. Have candles, torches (wind-up rather than battery), oil lamps, solid fuel heating and cooking – should be good to go 🙂

          1. How good are wind-up torches? Are there any you would recommend?
            I’ve just had to chuck away yet another battery powered torch and the nights are now drawing in.

          3. Surely if they are rechargeable, you need electricity to do it. Rather defeats the object in a power cut, I would have thought.

          5. I have two, of various mechanisms, and a wind-up lantern. You have to keep winding or squeezing them (they are quite old now), but they give enough light and as long as you have the muscle power they’re fine. You don’t have to worry about the battery having gone flat.

          6. We have two woodburning stoves and this year I hope I have now cut enough logs to keep them both going for at least two years. The Clearview takes 50 cm logs and the Woodwarm takes 40 cm logs.’

    3. 322645+ up ticks,
      Afternoon AS,
      Libya, lean on the bench outside, scar you for life,well in
      excess of 100F go inside up a 25′ tower start pulling up
      4″ steam piping you wish you were in death valley for a
      chill out.

    4. That’s the point. The entire system is designed to force down usage, not to meet demand. All to meet a nonsense agenda designed by people it will never affect to suppress the lives of those they seek to control.

      1. Doesn’t this rather contradict the Rainy Day principle where you determine to make an effort to protect yourself from hostile weather only to find no one has actually made any umbrellas?

        1. Back to 1574.

          “In 1575, Sir George Bruce of Carnock of Culross, Scotland, opened the first coal mine to extract coal from a “moat pit” under the sea on the Firth of Forth. He constructed an artificial loading island into which he sank a 40 ft shaft that connected to another two shafts for drainage and improved ventilation. The technology was far in advance of any coal mining method in the late medieval period and was considered one of the industrial wonders of the age.”

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coal_mining

          1. 322645+ up ticks,
            Afternoon Anne,
            Yes, I listen to George’s boy regular on radio 2 that
            is Ken Bruce & pop master.

      3. They intend to get rid of oil and gas boilers in a few years’ time. Way to go! Let’s all freeze to death.

          1. Electric boilers, electric cars…we are suckers if we rely on one source of energy that is controlled by the Government.

          2. Once everyone has electric boilers, the grid will be totally inadequate and power cuts (outages for our friends across the Pond) will be the norm. It’ll be like wartime when you were only allowed gas for three hours a day so you had to get your meal cooked then or go without and there was virtually no coal.

          3. “The grid will be totally inadequate” …so the Government will have to decide who gets power, and who doesn’t.

            Welcome to 1984 Mr Conway.

        2. Why, why can’t they just sod off and leave us alone?

          Climate change is an irrelevance. Yes, we’re using more materials than we might want to. Easily solved, recycling plants. Yes there are too many people in the country. Easily solved, halt and reverse gimmigration by radical tax reforms.

          Yesterday in one of my usual rants about tax the Warqueen actually went through the numbers with me (shows how fed up I was) an lo! Instead of being a crackpot I’m actually right. Radical tax cuts relate to consistent on going growth. Tax hikes and suppression leads to recession and negative growth and lower wealth.

          I get that she’s a high flying tax accountant with a planet sized brain but it’s really not complicated. Why do ministers insist on doing the wrong thing? Why are they all wedded to the Left wing communist green agenda? Why do they all support, endorse and pursue utterly the wrong approaches?

          1. I am hugely in awe of the Warqueen and her tax accountancy skills, but even I, mathematically challenged as I am, know about the Laffer Curve and enough history (I’m old enough to have lived through it) to see how cutting taxes actually got the economy growing.

          2. Cutting taxes is the same as more spending economically. Both do the same thing. Both push more money into the hands of consumers. Tax cuts have a direct effect and greater spending an indirect effect. If consumers have more money to spend then aggregate demand rises and as long as companies can supply that demand at reasonable prices growth ensues. Both are likely to lead to deficits. Both are actually needed seeing as how they tend to affect different groups of people.

    1. We had that shit in Norway a couple of years ago. They bought themselves air tickets and went back to Shiteholeistan, where they came from!

    3. A clear case of whatever they get for doing nothing – -is never enough. The council should give them all brushes and wheelie bins and tell them to sweep the streets. – 7 days a week. Idle ****s

    5. They should read The Salt Path by Raynor Winn. She and her husband, made homeless through no fault of their own (perhaps didn’t read the very small print beneath the small print), he with a terminal illness, decide to walk the south-west coastal path with less than £48 a month between them, and one month considerably less than that. These people have no idea. Also interesting in that how the indigenous people of this country are let down in favour of the imported pets.

  64. Mail to a Conservative MP………………

    We’re not really any further forward, are we?

    Not one of those various issues has been properly addressed.

    Why not try one?

    How about the New York Plaza Hotel meeting in April 1996 between Soros and Blair and the subsequent sale of 750 state buildings cheap by Blair to Soros?

    What did each party want from that 1996 meeting?

    Is it likely Blair wanted funding for 1997?

    If so, what is the implication of the consequent sale of the 750 state buildings cheap by Blair to Soros?

    It’s pretty obvious really, isn’t it, but……….

    What is your opinion?

    Polly

  65. On BBC 2 this evening at 9:00pm there will be a programme abut the “Trial of Alec Salmond”. The programme will be presented by Kirsty Wark.
    How objective will this be?

      1. Oooh! Probably. There is apparently a dirty war going on in the SNP. There are strong rumours that there will be a second Nationalist party set up. All good fun.

    3. Apparently ‘this programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting’.

      Probably the ones which reveal that he was acquitted.

    4. This woman Wark is a complete disgrace. I am amazed that she was commissioned to make this programme which struck me as being completely biased.

      1. She is a millionairess*, courtesy of the BBC licence payers. She was very, very close to Donald Dewar and, it has been said, she decided on the site for the Scottish Parliament building.
        This programme was clearly set up in advance of the trial. The programme was brilliant. A masterpiece of its kind. School of Goebbels, methinks.
        The Sultana wonders about the women involved in that they appear to have done nothing at the time. They did not progress a grievance through the employee/boss/HR channels. They did not ask boyfriend/fiance/husband/brother/father to “have a word” with Salmond.
        She has yet to advertise potato crisps.

        *See “independent production companies” -where do they get their work from?

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsty_Wark

  68. How do your animals respond to masks? Our Zoom meeting at work was interrupted this morning when a colleague had to leave because her springer spaniel began barking hysterically. It turned out that her sister, who he knows well, had arrived wearing a mask and it really upset the dog.

    1. Spartacus really freaks out.
      A couple of weeks back a couple were walking behind us; he had a mask, she was using a scarf. Spartie kept looking back and refused to move. In the end, I asked them to walk past us and I told them why.

      1. No response at all from Dolly. She just looks at me quizzically wondering if it’s dinner time yet. She’s got the looking into her empty bowl despondently down pat now.

    2. I know my mother’s dog took exception to me when I cut my shoulder-length hair and shaved off my beard and moustache. It took a while before I was accepted again 🙂

    3. Fortunately, mine doesn’t go with me into town (although, having said that, I did take him with me this morning, but we only went in one shop and the lass behind the counter wasn’t wearing one – I was toting my bandanna) and we have never encountered anyone wearing one when we’ve been out walking. My friends don’t wear masks when they visit us. As his eyesight isn’t as good as it was, he’d probably not notice, especially if you arrived offering treats 🙂

  70. An old lady had a fall on my shift last night. She just slipped over in her room. On her way down she caught her ear against the rounded edge of a small table and nearly ripped the top third of it off. It could best be described as flapping. She fell at 4.55 am, by 5.05am I had assessed her injuries, checked she wasn’t showing signs of breakages or concussion, then I sat her on her bed applying pressure to that ear with a gauze whilst dialling 999 with my other hand on the cordless phone. Got off the phone to the ambulance service at 5.15am then waited for a call from a paramedic or an ambulance to arrive.
    The ambulance came at 7.50am. I asked the paramedic why it took so long. In front of the client she said well she’s an 84 year old lady that took a fall, hit her head, and severely damaged her ear, that’s hardly an important call.
    I am actually disgusted by that attitude. The client has Lewy-body dementia and mild parkinsons but is virtually self-caring, almost fully continent, she’s one of our healthiest residents. Two and a half hours wait for an ignorant, rude pair of young paramedics. By 2pm the client still hadn’t seen a doctor or had her ear stitched up.

    1. Well done, you, Thayaric, but it seems to be par for the course, unfortunately. Over 70? Write ’em off, even if they are relatively healthy.

      1. I can somewhat understand that if they are in ill health and have poor quality of life, but this woman is healthy and I expect her to live a few years more yet.

        1. They only see the age. I think I was lucky when I fell off the Connemara. Because I had been riding, they probably didn’t look at my date of birth!

        2. Poor you , but well done .

          Oh dear , you know now that they don’t mind that we don’t matter , the arrogance is breathtaking .

          Loewy bodies is one of the worst forms of dementia, terrible.

    2. Very frightening for her too, because that kind of injury bleeds out of all proportion to its size.

      1. Yes it hadn’t stopped bleeding even after 2.5 hours of pressure. The client didn’t complain much of any pain, she just wanted a nice cup of tea which we had to deny because we were told not to give her anything by the 999 staff.
        She’s a very jovial person usually but she suffers from the hallucinations that Lewy bodies can bring. She often talks to people that aren’t there, but she can sit and watch a not too long movie, or listen to visiting entertainers etc without issue. She has a good quality of life I think. I felt so sorry for her.

    3. The two paramedics need to be addressed by a senior officer otherwise they will never learn and next time their apparent indifference may result in a life lost. Suggest you refer the matter to the Chief Ambulance Officer for your area.

      1. I think a letter may well be in order. I felt it was obscene to say that in front of the injured lady. I was in disbelief because I explained to the 999 people that the client was generally pretty healthy and self-caring. She’d pass for late sixties to early seventies, she certainly doesn’t look or feel her real age.

        1. Most of the detail required is set out in your original paragraph and the one below.
          If I was the CAO, having told the paramedics the error of their ways I’d suggest they take your resident a bunch of flowers and apologise

    4. My MiL is still in hospital, due to be discharged at some unspecified time. Yesterday my OH went in to see her, but the ogre on duty said ‘Only one visitor per day!’, despite the signs everywhere saying ‘maximum of two’. While my OH was pointing this out, my OH’s sister ran to the desk and said a lady patient next to MiL had collapsed on the floor. Did the ogre jump to it and call a colleague? No way. She just kept on haranguing my OH about the new rule she had made up. Eventually another nurse appeared and attended to the fallen patient, who was unresponsive and the crash cart was summoned. 30 minutes later the Sister turned up and asked what had happened. My SiL told her what had happened and Sister was not best pleased with the ogre to say the least. Shows what warped priorities some nurses have.

    5. What a disgusting attitute to hold, let alone express, towards another human being.

    6. I’m so sorry. Poor woman. At what age do we become euthanasia fodder in the new diverse, equal, inclusive society? Very depressing, and you are on the sharp end of it.

      1. When I was in Addenbrooke’s 2 years ago aged 70, there were times when I thought I was being constructively bumped off. I had blood samples taken nearly every day, which I’m sure, looking back, was unnecessary. Just practice material for student nurses & medical students. On one occasion I had a canula put in my arm, 2 days later it was taken out unused.

    7. Holy smoke. That is disgusting.
      Being realistic, we know that crumblies have have been keeling over everywhere because of the appalling heat, but to say that in front of the patient is just plain cruel.

  71. What will happen to the pupils whose algorithm A and GCSE’s resulted in higher than the grades predicted by their teachers?

    Will they be down-graded or will they be allowed to keep the results predicted by the algorithm?

    They must be at least as hard done by as the others.

    1. Very good point. The only satisfactory solution is to give everyone grade A’s and no fails. At least that way any prospective employer will be aware of the need to improve the employment selection process.

    2. I understood from that which has been said today that they can use whichever grade is the higher.

      1. I would not be surprised, and on balance I’d agree.
        But that too diminishes all the grades

    3. Perhaps they should all have been given either a pass or fail. That would require proper interviews by universities and employers.

      1. Indeed.

        Better still Universities could insist that students take separate entrance examinations.

      2. Both grossly under-rated in my view, only one Oscar between them and not all that many Baftas, Oliviers, etc,

  73. 33ºC today, here in the Arctic. Even the polar bears have unzipped their furs and are now skinny-paddling in a boiling sea.

    No rise in the sea-level yet, though!

    2. I assumed all the grades were now completely dependant on the skin colour/race of the exam taker – – results/work done – -nothing to do with it.

    4. I think this is False News, King Stephen. Surely this is a demonstration of “A” Level students whose results have been down-graded to D (for Dunce). ;-))

    1. So, what he is saying (c Cathy Newman) is that it is not looking good?

      Addendum: Large scale repatriation/expulsion, however “sympathetic and humane” is defined by the UN as genocide. Genocide is not just killing people.

  84. Look what was found on the Thames riverbank !

    https://twitter.com/DailyMailUK/status/1295410330206699522

    Five foot long Boa constrictor is found slithering in undergrowth next to the River Thames in south west London
    A large 5ft (1.5m) Boa constrictor was spotted near Barnes Bridge in Chiswick
    The snake was captured near the River Thames by the RSCPA on Sunday
    Its size suggests that it had recently been abandoned – rather than a stray

      1. I think it was trying to distance itself from Westminster like every sensible creature in the UK…..

  85. I see Meghan Markle is preparing to use her ‘voice’ to rubbish President Trump. Why do these Z list non-entities believe that their views and prejudices are relevant?

      1. We are in dangerous waters. Boris seems to have lost his identity since falling victim to Covod-19. I suspect that Bill Gates arranged for an implant designed to impair his ability to govern. Either that, or else Boris was fucking useless all along.

        We now have a government out of control, unable to deal with the most pressing concern of our time: fucking boat people arriving in their thousands and being put up in fancy hotels.

        We all know that these young men arrivals mean us harm. Once released and embedded in our society they will assuredly create havoc. We have witnessed this before.

        Now listen up Boris, you fat rat, we are sick of your abject and enduring failure to enact policies to reverse these immigration trends.

        Frankly, Boris, we are sick of you.

      2. We are in dangerous waters. Boris seems to have lost his identity since falling victim to Covod-19. I suspect that Bill Gates arranged for an implant designed to impair his ability to govern. Either that, or else Boris was fucking useless all along.

        We now have a government out of control, unable to deal with the most pressing concern of our time: fucking boat people arriving in their thousands and being put up in fancy hotels.

        We all know that these young men arrivals mean us harm. Once released and embedded in our society they will assuredly create havoc. We have witnessed this before.

        Now listen up Boris, you fat rat, we are sick of your abject and enduring failure to enact policies to reverse these immigration trends.

        Frankly, Boris, we are sick of you.

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