Monday 17 March: Britain should learn from health systems that outperform the NHS

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer 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.

498 thoughts on “Monday 17 March: Britain should learn from health systems that outperform the NHS”

  1. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,367 5/6

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  2. Good Morning Folks,

    Bit of a damp start here but in for a scorchio week ahead. so they say.

  4. Good morning Geoff and all your NoTTLer flock. Here is this week's Monday Chuckle. Sorry it's from the USA and rather long…

    At the end of the school year a kindergarten teacher received gifts from her pupils. 
    First, the florist’s son handed her a beautifully wrapped gift. The teacher held the gift above her head, shook it and said: “I think it’s flowers. Am I right?”
“Yes,” said the boy.

    Her second gift was from the daughter of a sweet shop owner. The teacher held the beautifully wrapped gift above her head, shook it and said: “ I think it’s a box of sweets. Am I right?”

    “Yes,” said the girl.

    The teacher’s third gift was from a boy whose father ran the local liquor store. Once again, it was beautifully wrapped.
    The teacher held it above her head and shook it, but as she did so, it started to leak. She touched a drop of the leakage with her finger and put it on her tongue.
    “I think it’s wine. Am I right?”

    “No,” said the boy.

    So the teacher tasted another drop of the leakage. “Is it champagne?”

    ”No,” said the boy.

    The teacher tasted another drop, but, unable to recognise it, conceded defeat. 
    “OK, I give up. What is it?”

    The boy said: “It’s a puppy.”

  5. Good morning Geoff and all your NoTTLer flock. Here is this week's Monday Chuckle. Sorry it's from the USA and rather long…

    At the end of the school year a kindergarten teacher received gifts from her pupils. 
    First, the florist’s son handed her a beautifully wrapped gift. The teacher held the gift above her head, shook it and said: “I think it’s flowers. Am I right?”
“Yes,” said the boy.

    Her second gift was from the daughter of a sweet shop owner. The teacher held the beautifully wrapped gift above her head, shook it and said: “ I think it’s a box of sweets. Am I right?”

    “Yes,” said the girl.

    The teacher’s third gift was from a boy whose father ran the local liquor store. Once again, it was beautifully wrapped.
    The teacher held it above her head and shook it, but as she did so, it started to leak. She touched a drop of the leakage with her finger and put it on her tongue.
    “I think it’s wine. Am I right?”

    “No,” said the boy.

    So the teacher tasted another drop of the leakage. “Is it champagne?”

    ”No,” said the boy.

    The teacher tasted another drop, but, unable to recognise it, conceded defeat. 
    “OK, I give up. What is it?”

    The boy said: “It’s a puppy.”

  6. Good morning Geoff and all your NoTTLer flock. Here is this week's Monday Chuckle. Sorry it's from the USA and rather long…

    At the end of the school year a kindergarten teacher received gifts from her pupils. 
    First, the florist’s son handed her a beautifully wrapped gift. The teacher held the gift above her head, shook it and said: “I think it’s flowers. Am I right?”
“Yes,” said the boy.

    Her second gift was from the daughter of a sweet shop owner. The teacher held the beautifully wrapped gift above her head, shook it and said: “ I think it’s a box of sweets. Am I right?”

    “Yes,” said the girl.

    The teacher’s third gift was from a boy whose father ran the local liquor store. Once again, it was beautifully wrapped.
    The teacher held it above her head and shook it, but as she did so, it started to leak. She touched a drop of the leakage with her finger and put it on her tongue.
    “I think it’s wine. Am I right?”

    “No,” said the boy.

    So the teacher tasted another drop of the leakage. “Is it champagne?”

    ”No,” said the boy.

    The teacher tasted another drop, but, unable to recognise it, conceded defeat. 
    “OK, I give up. What is it?”

    The boy said: “It’s a puppy.”

  10. Protests against pro-Russian leaders sweep Eastern Europe. 17 March 2024.

    Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Budapest, Belgrade and Bucharest on Saturday for separate pro-Europe and anti-Russia protests.

    At least 50,000 people marched in Hungary to demand an end to Viktor Orban’s 15-year rule, while Serbia saw its largest anti-government rally in recent history and thousands in Romania demonstrated in support of the European Union.

    All carefully orchestrated by the CIA and EU

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/03/16/protests-eastern-europe-anti-russia-eu-orban-vucic-romania/

    1. Good morning. Viktor Orbán won more than 50% of the vote. Starmer got less than 20%.

    2. On the subject of potatoes, I have given up buying white main crop even from local farmers' shops.
      I don't know if it's because we had a wet summer, but they seem to disintegrate very easily. I'm not keen on watery slop instead mashed comfort food.

        1. I found that doing them in the microwave makes them loose flavour. Steaming is good.

      3. Is it the variety? Some floury whites break up more easily than others, Roosters particularly so.

        The rare Pentland Crown is the best masher.

      1. Instead of wasting ink printing that massive list of ingredients on the Big Mac, they could just write,
        Ingredients: shit!

    4. One company in the USA thanks to Kennedy has reverted to the original recipe and people rave about how good the chips are.

    1. The purposely organised 'wind up', as in deliberate irritation of the British public continues at every opportunity.

  19. A dull but dry start to the day with a tad over 5°C when I got the milk in half an hour ago.
    Not a lot planned for the day other than carrying on getting the Pantry Woodstack refilled and possibly digging out where I want to extend a wall.

    SIR – The NHS is being abused by patients who do not turn up for their appointments.

    If everyone – apart from those who are truly destitute – were required to pay a certain sum to see a doctor, appointments would be more rigorously attended.

    Jane Maufe
    Burnham Market, Norfolk

    It would be interesting to know how many patients did not turn up for their appointments because the relevant letters did not turn up until after the appointment date and how many found they were unable to attend but were unable to get a response from the hospital so they could advise them.

    1. I have always attended doctors' appointments on time. I have rarely been seen on time. GPs are invariably very busy, and, I suspect, welcome a missed appointment as a chance to catch up.

      2. You have to pay for outpatients and GP in Norway, about £25 – and that whether you turn up or not.

    1. And ever more expensive too – I see they are also now changing for entrance to some estates, even if you don’t visit the house!

    2. As I pointed out before, the National Distrust offers free passes for asylum seekers and refugees. Those of us who have built the history have to pay through the nose.

  21. Good morning, all. Grey dull day. After I logged out las night, Colin the tree man phoned and is coming at 9 am to cut down three trees. So I shall be busy all day. I'll look in when I pause for breath.

    2. I hope you Colin and others stay safe Bill. And don't have another bonfire we haven't got over the last one. 😉🤭

  22. Waltzes in, good morning from Somerset.
    Happy St Patrick's Day to those from the Emerald Isle .
    look out for leprechauns.

  25. Good Morning!

    Part Four of Nanu’s humorous and well-written satire,  Life In The Bunker, on the efforts of the Remainiacs to keep us in the cursed EU is posted, along with an appeal for you all to read it, and comment, make suggestions and give advice, as he’s turning it into a book, to be published on the anniversary of the referendum. Who knows, it might even be made in a movie.

    Frederica’s piece, Alas poor Albion, on the origin of the name and the now lost glories attached to it is well worth reading if you missed it. Please read and comment and support our writers.

    Energy watch 07.00: Demand:  30.65 GW. Total UK Production: 26.37 GW from: Hydrocarbons 48.3%; Wind 13.5%; Imports 19%; Biomass 8.2%; Nuclear 10.64%. Solar: 0.3%.

    We are currently importing almost 19% of our electric power requirements, mainly from France. Over the last 24 hours, renewable sources have provided 21% of our electric power.

    freespeechbacklash.com

  26. Ex-Ofsted chief launches scathing attack on Education Secretary

    Bridget Phillipson must pause her reforms in England before the damage is done, says Amanda Spielman

    Poppy Wood Education Editor
    16 March 2025 5:59pm GMT
    The former head of Ofsted has accused the Education Secretary of putting the interests of unions ahead of children in a scathing attack on her school reforms.

    Amanda Spielman, who stepped down as chief inspector at the schools watchdog at the end of 2023, calls on Bridget Phillipson to abandon her plans “before the damage is done”.

    Writing in The Telegraph on the eve of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill returning to Parliament, she accuses the Education Secretary of bowing to the “demands of unions”.

    Critics have claimed the reforms in the Bill will significantly curb freedoms for academies – state-funded schools able to set their own pay and curriculum that are unpopular with some teaching unions.

    Ms Spielman said: “It is hard to understand the motivation, beyond being seen to be different, though the new minister is clearly giving a great deal of time and attention to the desires and demands of unions.

    “And alas, unions will always defend the interests of the adults in schools over those of children… I do hope she will think again, before the damage is done.”

    She added that she was “astonished… by the speed and thoroughness with which Bridget Phillipson has moved to dismantle every main pillar of the system”.

    Heathcliff O'Malley for The Telegraph
    The Bill is split into two sections, with the wellbeing side focused on improving children’s safety, including by introducing a register of those who are not in school.

    While this half has received broad cross-party support, the proposed school reforms have faced widespread criticism, particularly for their impact on academies.

    Many of the country’s top schools are academies, but unions including the National Education Union (NEU), the country’s largest, have long opposed them.

    The NEU claims: “Academisation is driving down staff pay, terms and conditions, alienating communities and has caused the fragmentation of the education system.”

    Under the proposed changes, academies will be forced to teach the national curriculum for the first time and lose their power to recruit expert teachers that do not have official qualifications, such as retired academics.

    Local authorities will be handed greater powers over admissions under the plans, which will also scrap the requirement for failing schools to be automatically converted into academies.

    Under the original wording of the Bill, academies would have lost their freedom to set their own pay and conditions for staff. This mirrored the demands of the four main teaching unions, who have previously called for the implementation of a national pay structure across all state schools.

    Following a backlash from academies, the Government amended the Bill in January to make clear that there will be “a floor and no ceiling” on teacher pay.

    Threat to autonomy
    Ms Spielman warned the Bill “will cut the autonomy of schools and school groups right back,” saying that a “better first step would have been a proper evaluation to see which dimensions of autonomy should be protected and which need adjusting”.

    The Government has also launched a root-and-branch review of the curriculum and assessment model in England, meaning schools are effectively being asked to commit to a new syllabus they are yet to see.

    Ms Spielman warned the Government against tinkering with a “well-established national curriculum” that has helped children in England catapult to become the best at reading and maths in the Western world, while standards have declined in both Scotland and Wales.

    She claimed that changing the curriculum risked “levelling down” education standards in England, despite significant progress “over the past 25 years, under Conservative, Coalition and also Labour governments”.

    “We have yet to see an interim report from the curriculum and assessment review, but the noises are not encouraging. It may suggest lowering academic expectations, on the basis that this will be more motivating for the lowest attainers,” she said.

    The Telegraph understands that an interim report from the curriculum review will be published on Tuesday, with Labour sources saying it would be an “evolution not a revolution”.

    The former head of Ofsted warned that the impact of the proposed reforms would be exacerbated by the planned shake-up of school inspections.

    The Education Secretary announced last year that one-word judgements would be replaced with more extensive “report cards”, which will give schools a colour-coded ranking on a range of areas including attendance and behaviour.

    The changes were prompted by outcry from unions following the death of Ruth Perry, a headteacher who took her own life after her school was downgraded from “outstanding”, the highest rating, to “inadequate”, the lowest grade.

    Negative message
    Ms Spielman, who served as the chief inspector of Ofsted from January 2017 to December 2023, said: “To please unions, both inspection processes and outcome reporting are being watered down to make it much less likely that inspection will detect weaknesses or convey a negative message.”

    Labour has been accused of surrendering to pressure from unions after the Government brokered above-inflation pay deals for train drivers and junior doctors last summer to end long-running trade disputes.

    Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative Party, said in an interview with The Telegraph earlier this year that “Labour are just doing what the unions want them to do”.

    Ms Phillipson offered teachers a 5.5 per cent pay rise for 2024/25 in one of her first acts in office, which many claim has emboldened unions to demand more next year.

    The NEU is currently balloting members in England over potential strike action following the latest offer of a 2.8 per cent pay rise for 2025/26.

    Ms Phillipson has reportedly met with union officials 33 times since the general election, but has been criticised for failing to engage with other education groups including private school leaders, who are dealing with the fallout from Labour’s VAT raid on their fees.

    Academies in the dark
    Prominent multi-academy trust leaders have claimed there is no evidence to support removing their freedoms, including Sir Dan Moynihan, chief executive of the top-performing Harris Federation of schools, who said it was “not clear” why his academies should be forced to teach the national curriculum.

    Others have defended the Government’s plans. Jonny Uttley, chief executive of The Education Alliance multi-academy trust, told The Telegraph the backlash was a “red herring” and that critics were trying to “rewrite history”.

    “There’s been a huge amount of focus on one or two prominent academy trust leaders, and then people like failed former chief inspectors who get the air time… I have absolutely no concerns whatsoever about the schools Bill in terms of academy freedoms or in terms of standards,” he said.

    A government source said: “Amanda Spielman should spend less time criticising the reforms this Government is bringing and more time reflecting on her failure at Ofsted and on a teaching profession that entirely lost confidence in her as chief inspector.

    “This Government is doing the hard yards of fixing the hundreds of stuck schools that were failed by Spielman and her allies in the Tory Party. The Government is focused relentlessly on reforming our schools to deliver better life chances for every child.”

    A Department for Education spokesman said: “Our landmark Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill – alongside our new regional improvement teams and Ofsted reforms – delivers on our mission for every child to have a good, local school, will get high-quality teachers into every classroom, and ensure that all schools can innovate to attract and retain the best talent.”

    Effective reforms are being reversed
    By Amanda Spielman

    Bridget Phillipson’s many-pronged assault on school standards

    The education sector is prone to accentuating the negative in the public narrative: that is how it leans on government for money. And of course there are problems, some of them painfully intractable.

    Yet so much has been achieved in English education over the past 25 years, under Conservative, Coalition and also Labour governments. This is reflected in a solid trend of improvement in international comparative studies of pupil achievement. England is clearly now a high performing country, in strong contrast with (say) Scotland and Wales. And our equity is comparatively good: disadvantaged children do relatively well here, though we probably don’t give enough attention to the brighter ones.

    So there is much interest from other countries in what has been achieved in England, and in learning from us. Just in the past year I have been working in Flanders and in the UAE, visited Australia, and talked to people in Poland and the USA. They are as astonished as I am by the speed and thoroughness with which Bridget Phillipson has moved to dismantle every main pillar of the system.

    It is hard to understand the motivation, beyond being seen to be different, though the new minister is clearly giving a great deal of time and attention to the desires and demands of unions. And alas, unions will always defend the interests of the adults in
    schools over those of children.

    Most obviously, the schools bill will cut the autonomy of schools and school groups right back, even though this has clearly been a contributor to system success. A better first step would have been a proper evaluation to see which dimensions of autonomy should be protected and which need adjusting.

    High school autonomy has been balanced with accountability through inspection. The unions’ real beef about inspection is that it exists at all, and that government uses inspection information to apply consequences. No matter how well Ofsted does
    its job, the union narrative will always be negative. Yet to please unions, both inspection processes and outcome reporting are being watered down to make it much less likely that inspection will detect weaknesses or convey a negative message.

    We also have a well-established national curriculum, with expectations calibrated to those of other high-performing countries. It is not perfect or immutable, but it has clearly contributed significantly to system improvement. We have yet to see an interim report from the Curriculum and Assessment Review, but the noises are not encouraging. It may suggest lowering academic expectations, on the basis that this will be more motivating for the lowest attainers. It may propose leaning more heavily on the distorted “equivalences” used in school performance tables, whose main purpose is to make it look as though lower attaining children taking non-GCSEs are doing better than they really are. Levelling down, in other words.

    Qualifications themselves may be partly protected by the obvious risks of AI: it is all too clear that the temptation to take shortcuts with homework tasks and assessments is irresistible to many young people. Then we have a strong suite of training standards grounded in the best available evidence of what constitutes good teaching and wider good practice in schools. These have been placed under review, casting the future of all teacher training and development into uncertainty.

    And education will be even more centralised. The Department for Education will have bigger budgets, bigger teams of officials and more powers to manage all interventions and improvement work in schools, despite little evidence that micro-managing individual school improvement from the centre of government is effective.

    Much of this agenda has been influenced by education union leaders and activists, though these people are notoriously unrepresentative of the whole profession. So it is remarkable that as yet there has been so little parent concern. It will probably
    take a while for parents to see through the polished verbiage and jazz hands that accompany every announcement. But unless they do see through it, and exert enough pressure to counteract union dominance, it is current and future generations of children – the people who were most harmed by lockdowns – who will bear the brunt of these changes.

    Does Bridget Phillipson really want to align herself with Portugal and Spain, where effective education reforms were reversed when Left-wing governments came in, with predictable consequences? I do hope she will think again, before the damage is done.

    *************************
    Anthony Rosenthal
    13 hrs ago
    As someone who grew up in the 1970's education chaos under Callaghan and Wilson. History is about to repeat itself. One size fits all has never worked and only delivers mediocrity.

    1. Irene Elizabeth Brown
      15h
      Labour ruined our education system in the 1960s when they destroyed our brilliant Grammar schools and introduced the appalling Comprehensive schools .

      Mike b
      20h
      Education: Why was critical r@ce theory and LG. BT indoctrination allowed in schools over the last ten years, hardly a record to be proud of.

      Ernest Nowell
      Mike b
      19h
      The new Ofsted Chair will sort it.

      Lord Farquard
      16h
      Does anyone know where the new Chief of Ofsted, 'Sir' Hamid Patel stands on the Batley grammar teacher and Wakefield schoolboy k0r@n scandals? Can we look forward to the sinister, threatening, violent undercurrent in 1sl@mised schools to be tackled under his leadership?

      It doesnt add up
      15h
      Latin lessons in a Northern town
      A Mo
      H amas
      A mat (pray)
      Amah m us
      Am at 'is place
      Am ant I the West

      Nowt better to do
      21h
      No such thing as successful state schools any more. The farrr left in the education system have seen to that.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/18086c56ec8ff2fad6c47a532b8259a9d0f73a97ec1445aec764041e64782d7f.png

    2. I've undergone Ofsted inspections; they mainly seemed to be interested in the paperwork. These days I imagine they'll only be interested in the multi-gender, DIE versity agenda.

    1. Ha! Utter nonsense. I said two years ago that Russia had won. All that was happening from then on was Zelenskyy and the West refusing to accept the obvious. These people are a joke. Russia has regained what is its by right and should not relinquish one inch of the territory they have regained. Least of all Crimea which is and always has been Russian. And just to annoy
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLbuvy1X3oM

  29. Good morning, all. Broken cloud following on from earlier overcast.

    Starmer's "Securing Our Future" reads a bit thin when he continues to rattle his made in China plastic toy sabre.

    With nothing much more than my gut feeling being amply fed by the growing anti-Starmer comments on social media I believe that his continual pursuit of putting British boots on the ground in Ukraine and British aircraft in Ukrainian skies is deeply unpopular. Moreover, his fascination with supporting Ukraine is very worrying from both the UK's security and financial aspects and not forgetting the lives he will be putting jeopardy if he succeeds in forcing his idea through.

    Since July last, Starmer hasn't really put a foot right in whatever he has involved himself. Spewing out straplines without plans to back up his words appears to be his modus.

    X comments:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eca2a699120297e97df0f92eaf9a4d6fde8bed5c42f660d17f08910bce8d4ae9.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c6c84b18bf9d5b71ba895ae6bba208b15a7e8f2c7ebce63626d9e29602a35e3e.png

    1. Has there ever been a study into the efficacy of three-word slogans such as "Securing Our Future"? Time is spent on dreaming them up, then money is spent on displaying them in halls, in print, online, on other visual media, but to what end? They're almost always hollow and, to my mind, almost certainly ineffective in achieving whatever purpose they are supposed to serve. I'm often mildly insulted that someone imagines I will in some way be made to feel more optimistic or energised or comforted or whatever passes for a human emotion in the minds of those who target me in particular and the public in general. I'm also a little disturbed by the thought that I could be completely wrong and that the bulk of the populace really do respond positively to them.

      1. Join the club.
        Those 'slogans' are bloody patronising.
        I'm even more disturbed at the thought they could prove effective with many of the population.
        (The confected convid regime is all too vivid in my mind.)

        1. “Coalition of the willing” seems inappropriate since it will forever be associated with Blair and yet another failed African overseas adventure.

          There is no possibility that Starmer will ever be able to put boots on the ground and planes in the air over Ukraine. I doubt that Putin and Trump would sanction any interference in Ukraine by Europeans.

          As regards Starmer he and his circle are surely the most inept cabal of ignoramuses we have ever witnessed. They are so stupid as to be almost comical in their incompetences and delusions.

          Much the same applies to the EU, now a toothless busted flush consumed by its own stinking greed and seemingly unaware of its irrelevance on the “world stage”.

          President Trump has no delusions about Starmer and will not have forgotten the hapless pro Kamala Harris actions of Starmer and the preposterous utterings of the fat oaf Lammy during the Presidential elections.

          Not since Mr Whippy, Douglas Hurd, wished Bush (from memory) “Happy Hunting” has our Foreign Office betrayed this country so blatantly.

        2. “Coalition of the willing” seems inappropriate since it will forever be associated with Blair and yet another failed African overseas adventure.

          There is no possibility that Starmer will ever be able to put boots on the ground and planes in the air over Ukraine. I doubt that Putin and Trump would sanction any interference in Ukraine by Europeans.

          As regards Starmer he and his circle are surely the most inept cabal of ignoramuses we have ever witnessed. They are so stupid as to be almost comical in their incompetences and delusions.

          Much the same applies to the EU, now a toothless busted flush consumed by its own stinking greed and seemingly unaware of its irrelevance on the “world stage”.

          President Trump has no delusions about Starmer and will not have forgotten the hapless pro Kamala Harris actions of Starmer and the preposterous utterings of the fat oaf Lammy during the Presidential elections.

          Not since Mr Whippy, Douglas Hurd, wished Bush (from memory) “Happy Hunting” has our Foreign Office betrayed this country so blatantly.

  30. Morning all 🙂😊
    Second atempt……I dozed off again for two hours 😉
    Back to normal weather, uninspiring damp and grey. But slightly warmer.
    The NHS has served this nation well for many decades. But now as everything else has been, wrecked by our useless political classes.
    There are now more people using the NHS who have never paid a single penny into the system to suported it. No business of any description can afford to do what it is expected to do now.
    But what other reasonably sophisticated country allows its people free health services ?
    And let's be honest people who are still paying in through taxation who are also buying private health insurance. So are infact paying twice.

      1. No , Moh says we can't afford it , nor do we have the energy , and this is an expensive area , so dumbing down would defeat everything .

        Shortage of suitable properties sadly.

        1. I think these horrible bastards have sat down and worked this on out TB. They know that there are thousands of elderly people sitting on property 'gold mines' that it will cost them, us a fortune if they move or try to down size. We are in the same boat.

        3. I could not afford to buy the houses in which my parents lived and where I grew up.

          (i) St Mawes
          (ii) Lymore, near Lymington.

          iii) However the house we bought in France is the home we love and we shall stay here for as long as we can. We bought the place for £55,000 in 1988 – a sum which would have only bought a small flat near Lyme Regis where we worked at the time and lived in school accommodation. Le Grand Osier is a bit shambolic – as are we – and we had to do did a lot of work on the place ourselves.
          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1e4ea0c9e36c722abab101aacbe8428e4e47ffe44fb4fd2029f4e119ca69f5ad.png
          (i) The Thatched House

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e8198d6a6b9b00923b1865e9e9581c84d8e4c8505e177f36d7553b683a202b15.png
          (ii) Agarton Cottage

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/07f013da01d3a3ed9ecb547676215da42e24ba018591e80ca8edce0552ddbc1c.jpg
          (iii) Le Grand Osier

          1. Beautiful homes , Richard , lucky man .

            We have so much updating to do , and our smallish garden with hedges is causing a few problems , hedge is browning off , might have a virus .

    2. A vile and absurd example of a government.
      More Lies than ever before more broken promises more invaders.

  32. Good morning, NoTTLers. The Blob really are criminals, in my view.

    We should train British doctors instead of importing doctors from abroad – A top surgeon lifts the lid on what's really going on inside the NHS
    From Matt Goodwin's Substack.
    The following guest piece is written by J Meirion Thomas, a retired cancer surgeon.

    Some information, when it’s finally revealed, is so unexpectedly shocking that one is left wondering why it was ever concealed in a supposedly democratic country.

    The answer is simple. When it comes to some issues in our society, the elite class that is in charge does not want us to know the truth.

    Take the National Health Service (NHS), for example, where I spent decades working as a cancer surgeon.

    For decades now, it’s been obvious to everybody with half a brain that Britain does not have enough medical school places to train the doctors we desperately need to meet the growing demands of our already collapsing health service.

    The Blob, the elite class, have always understood this.

    But instead of training larger numbers of our own doctors here in Britain, instead of encouraging and supporting more young British people to enter medical school and benefit from world class training, the people who govern our country did what they always do. They decided it was cheaper and easier to import people from abroad.

    A few astonishing numbers you really need to know. Why? Because they reflect what a total shambles the system has become.

    Last year, in 2024, the General Medical Council registered 9,285 doctors who had been trained here in the UK and … get this … 19,279 doctors who trained abroad.

    Of the latter, 2,366 qualified in Europe while 16,913 are what’s called ‘International Medical Graduates (IMGs)’, recruited from low-income countries such as India, Pakistan, Egypt and Nigeria.

    In fact, if you want to take an even longer-term view then over the last five years some two-thirds of all doctors who registered with the General Medical Council —66% of them—were trained abroad, outside of the UK.

    It’s truly shocking, isn’t it?

    Why, you might ask, are we relying so heavily on people trained overseas while refusing to train and support young Brits to become doctors?

    Well, we know why —money.

    As in many other areas of our national life, the ruling class has gone for the easy option, deciding it’s cheaper to import people from overseas.

    But that’s not where the scandal ends —far from it.

    Let me now also tell you something else that very few other people in the health service will be willing to say, even if many will agree with me in private.
    Many of the foreign doctors we are now relying on and importing into the NHS have no experience of British culture or of the National Health Service, raising serious concerns about what is happening and will continue to happen in the years ahead.

    There’s already convincing evidence, for example, published in the British Medical Journal, that the examination taken by International Medical Graduates to achieve registration with the General Medical Council is too lenient.

    The research suggests that the pass mark for non-UK trained doctors needs to be increased significantly in order for successful candidates to reach equivalence of knowledge and skills with their British graduate counterparts.

    This tallies with data published by the General Medical Council, which confirms that doctors trained overseas are three times more likely than their British counterparts to be referred back to the General Medical Council on fitness-to-practice grounds.

    The GMC’s solution is to issue new guidance to employers to raise the threshold for referral, thus disguising this incompetence. This amounts to disgraceful practice by the GMC given that one of their central roles, apparently, is to protect patients.

    It would be a massive disservice for me to malign all foreign doctors and to tarnish the reputation of those who are just as competent as their British counterparts.

    Nevertheless, unlike the United States, Canada and Australia, the simple fact of the matter is that the UK does not have an entrance exam that can discriminate and eliminate those candidates who should not be allowed to practice here.

    Meanwhile, every year, thousands of UK-trained doctors who are already registered with the GMC move abroad or leave the profession for pastures new —often moving sideways into finance and the City of London.

    So, what I’m describing here is a recipe for disaster.

    Nobody in positions of responsibility seem to care so long as there are enough people to fill slots on already-stretched hospital and GP rotas.

    Nobody seems to care anymore about the erosion of skill and leadership in the NHS, including its failure to train and support more British students to become doctors.

    Poaching doctors from low-income countries, furthermore, also raises serious ethical issues which do not seem to bother our politicians or the General Medical Council.

    The UK, for example, is a signatory of the World Health Organisation’s Code of Practice on international recruitment of health workers.

    This states that “member states should discourage active recruitment of health professionals from developing countries facing critical shortages of health workers”.

    On this basis, the UK is in breach of this convention yet in pursuit of national or personal self-interest, no-one in authority seems to care.

    Neither do foreign graduates themselves, who choose to abandon their own people, knowing perfectly well that healthcare in their native country is of an appallingly low standard and where their skills are desperately needed.

    Let me ask, does that action chime with compassion and duty of care, which are important personal attributes needed to practice medicine?

    Some International Medical Graduates are coming to the UK for postgraduate study, which is a worthy reason, especially if they plan to return home with greater skills.

    But GMC data confirm that 70% of IMGs are between 30-49 years of age and are too old to start training in a major hospital speciality. This suggests, in other words, that professional advancement was not the primary reason why they chose to migrate to UK. A better lifestyle, economic security and other reasons are a bigger magnet.

    What I’m describing here is not an accident, far from it.

    It’s the direct consequence of hapless British politicians putting a cap on medical school places for British students for decades.

    During this time, tens of thousands of able and enthusiastic British students with the required A-level grades and aptitude failed to gain entry to medical school.

    This is a national disgrace and a bitter blow for all those British students and their parents, who wanted to help their own people and communities but were rejected at least in part because the elite class preferred to import cheaper foreigners.

    And then these British students and their families have to watch as thousands of foreign graduates, often less well trained than their British counterparts, flood into the UK to take up the medical jobs those British young people yearn to do.

    How is this fair or right?

    It’s not as if the UK does not have enough students who want to become doctors. The opposite is true. Why then are there no voices raised in objection?

    There can be no parliamentary constituencies in this country without students who have been refused entry to medical school. Why don’t those students, their parents and even schools petition their MPs for change, using this article as evidence?

    The moral and ethical case for a major correction has clearly been established. What’s needed now is ongoing, cumulative pressure so this issue can generate the attention it deserves and the British people can get another much needed change of policy.

    1. Good morning HL

      I liked this comment on the DTL page.

      S Thomas
      11 min ago
      There are too many people trying to use the NHS, I’m amazed at the complaints people take to A&E and their GPs . Being born before the NHS started my parents and grandparents could all cope with minor ailments and I have as well and encouraged my children to do the same. It’s over burdened and it also not having time to listen to people properly , hands out far too much medication.
      Some of the mental health problems are life, the normal ups and downs that we all face, people seem to live in a world where they must be happy and fulfilled all the time. I was a nurse and I realized very early on with new treatments and medicines coming on line the NHS would never cope with it.
      We have either got to move to a system that gives better outcomes or restrict what treatments can happen on the NHS.
      It would also help if the people who now have degrees in nursing etc actually discovered if they liked people and had empathy with the patients before they have such expensive training and then treat patients as if they are a nuisance. I’m afraid there a lot of them about!

      1. "People" who are being treated have changed as much as nurses. There are still ordinary, nice people and kind, competent nurses. There are also many in both categories who are not; many some of those do not have British values. 'Nuff said.

    2. Morning HL
      Same old and sadly continuing story. As in every single thing the 'they' come into contact with, they eff it up and big time.
      And stealing 'doctors' and nurses from foreign lands should not be allowed.
      I expect thousands of brits have experienced problems already with recently arrived 'doctors'.

      1. If "stealing" doctors from foreign lands should not be allowed, how about countries which "steal" our home-qualified doctors, such s Australia, the USA etc.? Our home-grown doctors are often far better qualified than those from the countries we import from.

        Plus, why are foreign or DEI trained nurses given preference to our own indigenous candidates, both for training and for jobs once trained? Of course it doesn't affect the policymakers, they are all on private healthcare.

        1. True, a political creature would never have to wait weeks, months or even years for treatment.
          A lot of the NHS staff have gone over to the private sector now it’s far more civilised and orderly.
          But most elderly brits can’t afford the insurance premiums.

      2. If "stealing" doctors from foreign lands should not be allowed, how about countries which "steal" our home-qualified doctors, such s Australia, the USA etc.? Our home-grown doctors are often far better qualified than those from the countries we import from.

        Plus, why are foreign or DEI trained nurses given preference to our own indigenous candidates, both for training and for jobs once trained? Of course it doesn't affect the policymakers, they are all on private healthcare.

        1. Yes Obs our gp is from Northern Europe its very difficult to understand him on the phone.
          Better understood in person, but.
          Not that he's actually available these recent days. I think he's taken on private sector work now.

      4. It is the Laffer Curve at work.

        Instead of spending public money on costly training, we gain a competitive advantage by cutting taxes and enticing those from countries who had put up their taxes to invest in training.

        Of course it works both ways. Other countries may hit on the idea of cutting their taxes by sending their criminals here.

      5. The most basic problem is one of language. The nursing staff for my recent knee op (private, not nhs) was 90% foreign with poor pronounciation of English. I had to ask them to repeat what they had said several times especially with instructions. It made an anxiety-laden situation even more stressful. Just as I was beginning to get accustomed to one accent, up popped a completely different accent. And so on…..

  33. Predators are hiding behind Pride. Spiked 17 March 2025.

    The conviction of Stephen Ireland, co-founder of Pride in Surrey, is a stark reminder of why such vigilance is necessary.

    This week, proud trans activist Ireland was convicted of raping a 12-year-old boy he met on Grindr, a gay dating app. He was also found guilty of three counts of causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, one count of sexual assault of a child under 13, and six counts of making indecent images of children. Ireland’s partner, David Sutton, was convicted of making indecent images of children and possessing extreme pornography. Messages exchanged between the pair, revealed during the trial, were deeply disturbing, detailing plans for child abduction and abuse.

    They are not hiding behind anything. They are Pride.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/03/16/predators-are-hiding-behind-pride/

  34. On topic (this is getting to be a habit):

    "Scandinavian Countries (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland):
    These countries, like the UK, have predominantly tax-funded healthcare systems, with the bulk of the revenue collected via tax and most providers owned by regions or local governments."

    I have always been puzzled by calls for an insurance based system (like the French one); it strikes me a just another layer of bureaucracy.

    I'll get me white coat.

  35. As promised, I re-post this from yesterday;

    There's been a lot of activity over on Freespeechbacklash (which I frequent) with regard to the Online Safety Act – elements of which kicked in today, apparently.
    As a result of this TCW has cancelled its Readers Forum and is considering blocking all btl activity.
    I dont follow TCW but I copy a link that appeared on FSB to explain what's happening

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/my-tcw-week-in-review-9/

    Seems a little concerning and I was surprised to see no reaction on this site……….

    Apparently TCW has been targetted by 'Hope not Hate' and a single complaint has resulted in this response. Maybe some sort of contingency plan would be in order if this site was to be similarly attacked?

    1. HnH, one of the sainted Jo Cox's favourite charities (together with White Helmets).

      1. Using a VPN would be a possibility, as your article suggests.

        I was actually thinking of something a little more basic, such as a mail address to contact for updates etc

        1. I use a VPN all the time. I do not do anything on line until the VPN is activated. I use NORD.

      1. I had that this afternoon with some of the ROC Association members saying how awful Trump was and they wished De Santis had won! One said to me, "it was like when Reagan got elected; we thought he'd press the nuclear button". She seemed oblivious when I pointed out that a) all my lefty student pals were of the same opinion and b) he didn't but America prospered. End of conversation. It seems like group-think; those with TDS think everybody else is similarly affected. The bishop looked round with a laugh and smirked after her pop at Trump.

    1. From AI:
      "In Islam, it is not forbidden to write the word "Allah." In fact, it is common to see the word "Allah" written in various contexts, such as on calligraphy, books, and buildings. However, it is important to treat the name of Allah with utmost respect and reverence.

      There are a few important guidelines to follow when writing or displaying the name of Allah:

      1. **Respect and Reverence**: The name "Allah" should be treated with respect. For instance, if it is written on paper, the paper should be handled respectfully, and it should not be placed in disrespectful or unclean places.

      2. **Proper Disposal**: If the written name of Allah is on something that is no longer needed, such as paper, it should be disposed of respectfully—often by burying it or burning it in a way that ensures it is treated with honor.

      3. **Avoiding Disrespectful Contexts**: Writing the name of Allah in contexts that could be seen as disrespectful (such as in certain casual or inappropriate settings) should be avoided.

      As long as these guidelines are followed, writing the word "Allah" is not forbidden. It is important to ensure that the name of Allah is used and treated with the appropriate reverence and care in all instances."

      Is the side of a bus shelter suitably respectful, I wonder?

        1. On the subject of bus shelters but on a tangential theme, some arsehole recently saw fit to dump numerous plastic sacks of trash by a bus stop local to me. It's not as if there are no waste collection services, including those of the local authority. Although it might be a waste of time and money, I hope the local authority collects this unsightly pile and carefully examines the contents to find evidence of whoever is responsible, then prosecutes accordingly.

          1. I couldn't agree more.
            We have large, card operated, bins, so one pays to use them every time.
            We regularly see waste bags dumped beside them. The wastrels are too lazy/stupid even to place them on top of the bins
            Being in the country the bags get ripped apart by foxes and wild boar and rubbish gets scattered.
            I lift bags on the top, but I can't afford to pay for two or three extra openings a week. We usually do a rubbish run once a month, so the extra costs would be very significant.

            The authorities should try to catch the culprits and fine them eye-watering amounts of money, to make the "hunt" cost effective.

      2. Funded by extortion. We are given no choice but to have our money spent in this way.

      3. 403374+ up ticks,

        Morning O,

        maybe one of the pakistani pedophiles using the bus stop should be asked his / her view.

  38. 𝄞♭♬Ah me lads, ye shudda seen wi gannin',
    We pass'd the foaks alang the road just as they wor stannin';
    Thor wis lots o' lads an' lassies there, aal wi' smiling faces,
    Gannin' alang the Scotswood Road, to see the Blaydon Races.♬

    1. Yes. He is a traitor intent on betraying us all. But what do you expect from a Marxist? I have long thought that it is a philosophy that should be treated in exactly the same way that we treat NAZI ideology. It should be beyond the pale.

      If this video is true he is even trying to undermine the monarchy. And If true the King needs to speak up, not allow a Communist to overthrow the monarchy. If it dies let the monarchy die a natural death. Not be assassinated by an ideology that is the enemy of the British people.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCkiHfiMrY0&list=TLPQMTcwMzIwMjVCBswYIDHGsQ&index=5

      1. IMHO.

        It's not just about the crown is it ?
        It is about the future of our country and it's about our culture and social structure.
        Get on with it. GET RID !
        Russia and the Ukraine has absolutely nothing to do with us. It's a European problem.

        1. Precisely. I may not be happy with King Charles but I am of the firm belief that the main target of the left is the monarchy. Once that is destroyed they will have killed off the British, especially the English, for good.

          1. I hope he’s on top of it all by now.
            And starmer and his repulsive crew are kicked out soon.

  40. Morning, all Y'all.
    Late on parade today, been a bit busy.
    Sun shining, looks like early Spring, with snowdrops and early daffs out… lovely (even though minus degrees). Very energising, so managed to get some fundamental thinking done related to maintenance planning.

  41. 403374+ up ticks,

    The locals should demand a ducking arrangement for the Seven Trents top antagonist, over the local
    sewerage works cesspit.

    ‘If they get away with this, no river will be safe’: The locals fighting to save the River Onny
    UK water behemoth Severn Trent wants to pump wastewater into the pristine flow of the Onny. Residents are sounding alarm bells

    1. I noticed that there were no comments on that appalling story. The barbarians will get their way and destroy the river.

      1. 403374+ up ticks,

        Morning JR,

        Those that live via the sword shall……

        Those that live via pollution shall ……

        1. But sadly the locals will suffer and so will the otters and other wild life. I didn't notice. Is this a French owned firm?

          1. 403374+ up ticks,

            JR,

            No, Severn Trent Water (the company that provides water and wastewater services in the Midlands and Wales) is not French-owned; it’s a UK-based company listed on the London Stock Exchange, with a significant portion of its ownership held by international investors.
            Here’s a more detailed breakdown:
            Privatized Water Company:

        1. I notice that grubby Blackrock has its hand in it. Vile people. Perpetual war if they had their way.

      1. 403374+ up ticks,

        Morning Bob.

        Correct Bob tis that accursed typing lisp again coming to the fore.

  42. Can anyone explain why my county council has set my community charge for 2025/6 at £1,436.29, my district council at £162.31, and the Police & Crime Commissioner at £259.11

    Who collects the bins?
    Who will when they abolish the district councils?

    Why is Worcestershire County Council bankrupt?

    1. Hallo Jeremy. The answer is quite simple. You are a cash cow and will continue to be until you are broke or dead. There are an awful lot of poor immigrants to house, feed, and take care of you know. Are you living in a house that could house a few Rumanians or Somalis? Are you so selfish that you are keeping it instead of moving into a little flat that you can live out the rest of your years? Stop complaining and be thankful, while you still can, for the largesse your dolling out to the needy.

      1. :-). Saved me a helluva lot of typing.
        But you forgot the DEI and Net Zero hossifers + their pensions.

      2. When I considered putting up a few Ukrainians, I was reminded that for Safeguarding reasons, my sort were not considered appropriate hosts (single old Englishman living alone).

        Besides, it's a trek of several miles to the nearest cashpoint to raid, and really there is little prospect for hardworking self-advancement stabbing squirrels or badgers.

  43. Can anyone explain why my county council has set my community charge for 2025/6 at £1,436.29, my district council at £162.31, and the Police & Crime Commissioner at £259.11

    Who collects the bins?
    Who will when they abolish the district councils?

    Why is Worcestershire County Council bankrupt?

  44. Morning all. Nice day, drizzly and damp so Monday, a Mamas & The Papas day!

    Two short videos.
    The first is Douglas Murray telling the Western Churches to buck up about the murder of Christians elsewhere in the world.

    The second is a dark gem. Dark because it is about that killer Mohammad "the prophet" A gem because it really spells out, unadorned what he really was about and how it effects us to this day. It's a video worth keeping so you can send it off to liberals who thing we can live in peace and harmony with Islam.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZijucNS-NBU
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Csj-ja5JQ8&list=TLPQMTcwMzIwMjWXkndFpmOqiw&index=2

  47. I just finished reading: "My TCW week in review: Dark days of online censorship". They are shutting down all comments in fear of the site being ended due to the new censorship laws. Since our site here is nothing but comments we can be easily shut down completely. What to do?
    Is there a way of shifting the site to an American server or some such tactic making NOTTLERs Beyond the reach of the Online Safety Act?

    1. This issue has raised its head before a couple of years ago I think Geoff has a cunning plan worked out already
      'Nuff Said

    2. They've only shut down the Readers Forum. The other articles are still open for comments, but no links allowed, or images. Strict censorship.

      1. Yes. I’m sorry I should have made that clear but they are thinking of ending all comments too.

  48. Well. You really do have my sympathies anyway. It seems that, as a country, we are being deliberately persecuted and destroyed and that in particular the native people's are the target. I think that at the very least it is time for civil disobedience and using creative ways of gumming up the works. At the very least you can talk rebellion to the young. Speak Truth to Power which, by the way, comes from those admirable people, the Quakers, masters of resistance if any are.

  50. Andrew Rixon says he would never buy a timber framed house as he once say a timber frame rained on then covered with bricks before it had dried. He needn't be worried as all building timber is now treated during manufacture.

    1. All Swedish houses are timber-framed. They are still standing.

      They also have 15" of wall insulation and most have tripled-glazed windows.

      1. Same here, Grizz.
        Firstborn's place, being older than the USA, could use a bit of updating.

    2. Little Moreton Hall is a timber framed house. That's still standing, albeit it's a little wonky in places.

  51. Save us Useless White Men Andrew Bridgen and the Lotus Eaters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS0ZFhu0oq8&list=TLPQMTcwMzIwMjWnxDlyoy0U5w&index=3
    TOMMY
    I went into a public 'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
    The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
    The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
    I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
    O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
    But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play
    The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
    O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play.

    I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
    They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
    They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
    But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
    For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
    But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide
    The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
    O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

    Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
    Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap.
    An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
    Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
    Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
    But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll
    The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
    O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes," when the drums begin to roll.

    We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
    But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
    An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
    Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
    While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Tommy, fall be'ind,"
    But it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind
    There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
    O it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind.

    You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
    We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
    Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
    The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
    For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Chuck him out, the brute!"
    But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
    An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
    An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool – you bet that Tommy sees!

  52. Using "amount" instead of "number" when vaguely quantifying countable things has become so widespread that it has become the norm. Therefore, in order to rescue "number" from redundancy, I propose a campaign be launched to quantify water, salt, sugar, oil, coal, rain and suchlike in terms of their number. Who will join me in describing a deluge as a huge number of rain or a very sweet dish as containing a large number of sugar?

    2. There is a huge number of salty water in the Pacific Ocean.

      As you know, I habitually rail against all this modern nonsense, most of it brought about by the ever-increasing reliance on Americanese slang, especially by the gormless millennial generation.

  54. 403374+ up ticks,

    Are we trying to prove we are a nation of very stupid bastards,Arla boss told us yesterday that, reading between the lines, that BOYCOTTING works.

    Boycott everything appertaining to halal as much as possible, any indigenous giving halal food gifts to be deemed treacherous in so far as feeding an anti English evil virus.

    https://x.com/LizaRosen0000/status/1901407660055888272

      1. 403374+ up ticks,

        Afternoon DW,

        In the short run it could be a bloody sight shorter if you don’t… take heed.

        1. My lifespan will not be any shorter by not searching for the halal symbol but it will be less onerous.

          1. 403374+up ticks,

            DW,

            One’s lifespan and torso could be a great deal shorter by not looking …… and stamping out.

    3. "Time for revolution. Time for independence."

      Time to go to an Islamic country of your preference.

  55. Afternoon all. Well it is here.
    Took a long time to find a word to fit in:
    Wordle 1,367 3/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
    🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. We already know millipede is a nut case, set into position to distract what this shiite hole government are up to.

    1. Very rarely in this area. However there is a very pretty thatched house about 10 km from here which we pass by from time to time.

        1. That looks typically Norman. I would have loved to buy a plot and have a traditional Norman house built on it, but I doubt I would have got planning permission. Now, I'm too old.

          1. I was fascinated by the architecture and the villages were so peaceful, we visited in the spring just as the apple blossom was coming out. It felt like a step back in time to the 1600s. We were staying at Honfleur for a few days before heading south, the weather was mostly cold and wet!

          2. Over the years I've spent a lot of time in Normandy (chiefly Seine Maritime). I was impressed by the way that even the new builds mainly fitted into the traditional style of architecture.

  60. Yo and Good Moaning from a dull and cold C d S

    Saving the NHS

    If everyone – apart from those who are truly destitute – were required to pay a certain sum to see a doctor, appointments would be more rigorously attended.

    I have paid, by contributing Natioal Insurance to the Government, for the whole of my working life: 45+ years

    Perhaps incomers, who have not paid it, should bee "charged at the door" for medical services

  61. I got up at 6am this morning and spent money on my Oyster card because the Freedom Pass doesn't kick in till 9am and I got to the GP Practice at Charing Cross Hospital in time for my blood tests which didn't happen because the Practice Nurse didn't turn up. She's supposed to be there by 8am and the receptionist was unhappy because as well as being landed with that problem, she kept getting "Computer Says No". Poor lass was not having a good Monday morning. Computer eventually allowed her to log in and she's rescheduled me for 5.40pm this evening, in the phlebotomy department in the main hospital. To add to that, the NHS app, Doccla, has just texted me to say that I didn't submit my blood pressure etc readings this morning. But I did and the app acknowledged them at the time as sent successfully. There may be a phone call.

    2. A typical Monday morning! Sounds as productive as ours.
      Drove MB up to Colchester General for his blood tests. Dropped him off and parked in nearby close and read for about about 20 minutes as I normally do. The vampire dept is v. efficient so he's normally seen on or even before appt. time.
      Went to collect him; seven no-shows and then a patient had a heart attack. So the morning will be rinse and repeat on Wednesday.
      (And no, he doesn't have a mobile phone, so this is the arrangement that NORMALLY works well.)

    4. Threaten them with nationalisation if they don't snap to and sharpen up their act.

  63. Trump vows no exemptions to tariffs for the UK in blow to Starmer.

    Just shows what parading about ‘leading’ the willing does for you. Less gas Starmer and more do needed for you to look like a Prime Minister.

    I read that as

    'Let's gas Starmer'

    You would have got 1,000s of upvotes

  64. I am leaving the shifting of the "trimmings" (= great piles of branches) to others. It is too damned cold, apart from anything else. Drove into town to get some water softener salt. Now it is £14 a 25 kg bag. Last time I bought some – a couple of years back, they were £7 each….

        1. It never does.

          It gets into office every few years or so, bankrupts the country, gets booted out.
          This time, the Tories beat them to it…

  65. On the subject of odd place names

    Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch?

    which means

    "St Mary's Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel near a Rapid Whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the Red Cave".

    The village was given this long name as a publicity stunt to bring people to the village in the Victorian era of railway tourism.

  66. For corim & Richard:

    This footbridge was built about a year ago over the River Avon linking the outskirts of Bath City centre and the Lower Bristol Road:…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/864c79175b1bf3316726b9b16009bc3798d567e96f9972b9461de4bc15cae59f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8196338e8de2af142945feb59635709fe6d8a453d3fafdbef6b64c4f924edba5.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a5caf8e3f0e3ca392fd8655a1410a02c9eaf17ed954dc6a3e9bdddfeb9c4ec44.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7508b7ba0ac0759a40eaa71136df90941df34954bf63ca4e6779c00bdb499221.jpg

  67. Watched a TV prog about Greece last night (recorded). Some dreadful woman presenter with shocking pink hair, unsuitable clothes ad a lot of hand waving plus "WOW!". Her interview technique appeared to be to repeat what the (excellent) Greek talking heads had said. eg; "Theese was where the Oracle was housed". Baft bint: "So, you are telling me that this building was where the Oracle was to be found?". Ad infinitum….

    And, at Delphi – DB did not go to the fabulous and unspoiled athletics track at the very top. Twenty minute walk to something unique. She missed a treat.

    Will record the next one because DB is going to Athens and Troy.

    How on earth do these vacant people get on? Could be her large chest, I suppose….

  69. Beebsplaining
    52m
    Valance has to go surely 🤔
    But it's no surprise is it as I think the gold plating was wearing a little thin when we got to no symptoms are a symptom 🤔

    Of course there is an inquiry that will totally ignore this important subject 🙄
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7d7eecdc45222aa590fc958d74777fb14333a9fc9ba87ea19148082caf330fb4.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0510dac7e28750bfd0b053a177e66a69b512081883422464c8dc99ed38ef632f.png

    1. The unjabbed remained unjabbed because of their innate ability to think for themselves.

        1. Absolutely correct.
          But Look at the trouble that the ‘THEY’ went to with trying to prove Johnson was in hospital with it.
          And how soon after his assumed nurse went overseas to work.

        2. Not only did they not work, they destroyed immunity making one so much more susceptible to anything 'flying' around, be it 'covid' or anything else. I am surprised how many are still standing after taking their 8th (or is it 9th?) jab.

          1. There were "bad batches" weren't there plus a third of the vials were just saline. When I was laid out with a camera down my throat the other week I was given Midazolam intravenously but only enough to make me slightly dopey (no sniggering at the back there)!

          2. 3% were, allegedly, really bad. Everyone I know seems to have had a ‘contaminated’ batch, I have been told that there were no salines but how do we know one way or the other.

        1. Same with my elder sister and hubby every jab available covid at least twice. But of course as scripted not as seriously as most other people.

      4. Possibly because the Covid jabs degrade the effectiveness of the body's own immune system.

        1. Soon after i had the jabs I had atrial fibrillation. And I knew three people who died. But two had been under medical supervision previously. One had a massive stroke and a heart attack soon after. A previously fit and healthy man in his late 60s.
          And even now I have never sneezed so much in all my life. And my taste buds have altered.

    3. Of course vaccines work if not all have them. Am I supposed to believe that I've been equally at risk of contracting polio, tetanus and pertussis as anybody who hasn't had vaccinations against them?

      1. Yes.

        That's what we were told about Covid, and why the unvaccinated were entirely responsible for the covid deaths.
        So it must be true about all those other diseases.

        /sarc

      2. It was one of the tactics used to try to strongarm the "vaccine hesitant" during the covid debacle, if you remember. The tagline was something like "We're not safe until everyone's safe".

      4. Indeed a lot of them do.

        The covid ones don't, or certainly not in the way we were told they would, and they may well be very harmful in both the short and long term.

          1. A vaccine is a suspension of weakened, killed, or fragmented microorganisms or toxins or other biological preparation, such as those consisting of antibodies, lymphocytes, or mRNA, that is administered primarily to prevent disease.

            They pass that definition.

            Unfortunately.

  70. Back from today's excitement – a trip to the tip. We arrived early and were asked for the confirmation number which was supposed to have arrived by email. OH seldom looks at his emails so he hadn't seen it. But they let us in anyway. It was busy there.

    1. You do have an adventurous life. Our tip would have refused entry – even if there was no one there.

      1. I was kicked out a few years ago when I wanted to put some old glass shelves in the skip. I was in a friends small van.
        So we parked out side and i walked back in carrying the shelves and made sure the over officious idiot could see me as I dropped them all into the skip.

        1. They are usually quite pleasant and helpful at our tip. We had a bag of plastic plant trays as well as the garden waste and I asked and was politely shown where they were to go.

          1. I think they have change their attitude since then. I took some other items to be recycled they have a shop along side that take them in for resale.

          2. We have chaps who are always on the alert for recyclable items.
            Before, it was heartbreaking to see what was chucked into the skips.

          3. I totally agree Anne I hate to see nice timber items going to waste. I made two ukuleles and parlour guitar from an old broken mahogany coffee table.

          5. It’s just smaller version Conners with a less bassy sound. I had to reduce the size because of certain but small amounts of damage that would have been seen.

          7. Being a responsible resident of our Hertfordshire area, I wrote a letter to the council and I had a very informative reply saying that the lady in charge would look into my complaint regarding the issue with the glass shelves.

          8. Our tip is being revamped. I've always found the chaps (and the occasional chapess) very helpful.
            I think the new managing company got rid of a couple of grumpy old municipal timeservers.

    2. A few months ago, I booked a tip trip.
      Printed off the confirmation, rocked up, waved my piece of paper and was allowed in.
      When I got home, I realised I'd gone a day early.

      1. They normally check the car number on their ipad – but apparently the ipad is no longer working……….

        1. I had a laugh a few years ago. W were clearing a deceased relatives flat and they had a lot of very heavy well built furniture. I had permission to take the many items to the tip in a hired van. As one of our sons and I as directed climb the steps to the crusher to drop the timber framed sofa in I asked the guy if it would be okay he replied…. Yesss !! no worries that'll soon crush up. We dropped it in and he started the crusher but it jammed and stopped working. It was still out of order at the end of the week when we went back again. In a sentence ….It wasn't Sofa King good. But Parker Knoll.

          3. Vast quantities of very well-made furniture from decades of manufacturing have had to be destroyed because of that edict, and modern furniture is untterly shoddy in comparison.

      2. They normally check the car number on their ipad – but apparently the ipad is no longer working……….

    3. I'm off to the tip right now.

      We get access by placing your driving licence into a slot that reads it before raising the barrier.

      1. Used to use the local tip, i.e. the "County Waste Transfer Station and Recycling Center,"when we lived in our old house. No checks at all to get in, unless you were coming with a truck, when you had to use the truck entrance and prove you were a resident of the county. "Transfer" as that was where they moved the trash from truck to rail for shipment to the hightech incinerator they built well away from housing.

        Our current trash contractor will pick up "large objects", i.e. too big for the bin, for free as long as you let them know you are putting something out. And up to six bins worth per week. No sorting required. Always had private contractor bin collection here. Works well, not expensive, and no effort required on our part – apart from carting the bins down the 200 metre driveway, but that's what pickup trucks are for!

    4. Talk about socialists controlling everything, we can just turn up without any reservation or residency check.
      Recyclables go in selected bins, you have to pay for real junk which goes in other big bins and anything that the tip wardens decide might be useful goes into their help yourself pile.

  72. She was awful, wasn’t she? I can’t believe she didn’t go up to the stadium!🤦🏻‍♀️

    1. Too far for cameraman, sound man, director, continuity, canteen – to go. Let alone daft bint totty.

      1. Another stunning place! My sister took me there 40 years ago and it took my breath away!

    1. Rupert Lowe is now backed financially by Elon Musk and far more people in Reform support him than Farage. Once Rupert and Co. are up and running Farage will see people draining away to Rupert. Rupert's policies and his quiet support of Tommy Robinson make him far more popular than Farage and far more in contact with the people.

      1. I must inhabit a different planet. Not once in my real-life world has anybody spoken to me about Tommy Robinson. He and his ilk are only the subject of the online world, in my experience.

        1. In that case you must indeed by living on another planet. I suggest you listen to Ezra Levant. He says that when he went to Farage's constituency, when they were counting the votes, he talked to hundreds of people. Everyone supported Tommy Robinson. You are also naive in thinking that the online world is of no consequence. Real people use it, you know and there are only a few channels that support Farage now but dozens support Rupert Lowe. You do realize that translates into more people watching then people watching the legacy media? Or do you actually think the BBC reigns supreme! Dan Wooten alone, gets a hundred thousand a night. Tousi TV is half a million and the Lotus Eaters is in the millions UK/USA/Australia etc. Farage has irrevocably destroyed himself by lying. Are you an antique?

          1. He did say "spoken". Anyone can get a hearing in the Internet if they want to, but it is meaningless if it cannot translate to votes on election day.

          2. The trouble is that since Farage has backed down from dealing with the Islam issue and says he isn't interested in deporting illegals, what is the point in Reform? One might as well vote conservative. Which is what Farage wants to be anyway, the PM of the Conservative Party. He has betrayed his constituency. On top of that his treatment of Rupert Lowe has been disgusting. He has shown himself to be liar and an egotist only interested in himself.

        2. Wasn't there a recent gathering in London re. Tommy Robinson with a very high turnout?

          1. There've been many rallies in support of Tommy and always with a high turnout of ordinary decent folk but the mainstream media look the other way apart from the occasional misleading and insulting putdown.

        3. Whether or not you or I agree with Tommy Robinson is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the way in which he has been treated by the PTB and the MSM which brings disgrace and shame upon the UK.

      2. I am impatient for Trump to publicly pull the plug on Farage, whose bathwater has become very tepid.

        1. That concept troubles me – not because I am any kind of friend of Farage, but the concept of a foreign Head of State choosing who will, or will not, potentially be PM in the UK is not one that sits easily with me.

          1. Oh, err, you don’t even want Trump to hurry Starmer on to obscurity? In a globalist-perverted world, I’m willing to back a foreign leader. The UK is lost and well beyond the point of a purity worth defending.

      4. Many of us here supported Reform while having doubts about Nigel Farage. The last couple of weeks have shown that we were right to have these doubts.

        Zia Yusof has clearly got Farage by the short and curlies and is blackmailing him. What other reason can there be for Farage's absurd capitulation to him which has destroyed The Reform Party?

        I wonder what 'the goods' are that Yusof has on him : sexual misdemeanours or criminal financial activity? I wonder if we shall ever find out?

    1. Get them young, obviously.

      The State has converted.
      And we only need to look at Syria to see our fate.

  77. There's been quite a lot of 6 Nations commentary about how good England are becoming.
    The truth is that France cannot have played as badly as they did against England for many years, and should have won the match easily.
    Scotland could very easily have beaten England too, which would have placed us in a much more fitting 4th place.
    Our last two matches were against the two worst sides, so naturally they should have won them.
    Flat-track bullies, pure and simple

    1. I agree with you about the French match. A cynic might think the match had been fixed. I think it was just nerves – for some odd reason – affecting the whole team. And Scotland had the match for the taking. So there were two fluke wins.

      That said, I have been heartened by the attitude of some of the youngsters who have been given a chance to play for England. Apart from M Smith, of course!

        1. Agree about the Ities. If they had kept their heads on Saturday, they could have beaten Ireland.

  79. More than one million foreigners claiming benefits

    Households with at least one foreign national claimant received more than £7.5bn in universal credit in one year

    Charles Hymas Home Affairs Editor
    17 March 2025 6:01am GMT

    Households with at least one foreign national claimant received more than £7.5 billion in universal credit in 2023, figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show.

    Foreign nationals become eligible for universal credit and other benefits on the same terms as British citizens once they are granted indefinite leave to remain and have settled or refugee status. After paying national insurance for 10 years, they are also entitled to the state pension.

    The analysis by the Centre for Migration Control (CMC) suggests 40 nationalities – after getting indefinite leave to remain, settled status or refugee protection – are claiming benefits at a greater rate per head of population than British citizens. Three nationalities – Congolese, Iraqis and Afghans – are claiming benefits at four times the rate of British people.

    The disclosure of the foreign welfare bill comes ahead of an expected announcement by Sir Keir Starmer unveiling up to £6 billion of benefit cuts. He has described the system as “unsustainable, indefensible and unfair” but is facing the biggest rebellion of his premiership over the planned reforms.

    The cost of foreign benefit claims excludes a further £5.4 billion for accommodating and supporting a backlog of more than 100,000 asylum seekers. That cost rose five-fold in five years under the last Conservative government.

    The bill is likely to increase as 800,000 foreign nationals are expected to receive indefinite leave to remain in the UK over the next decade following record levels of net migration of up to 906,000 a year, according to a separate analysis by the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS).

    The Tories have proposed that jobless and low-paid migrants should be barred from remaining indefinitely in the UK. They have also argued that the length of time before anyone who has come to the UK can claim such leave to remain should be increased from five to 10 years.

    Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said the benefits bill for foreign nationals was “unacceptable” and “astonishing”. “It is immoral that British taxpayers are subsidising nationals of other countries on an industrial scale. No wonder our taxes are so high,” he said.

    “Research shows low-wage migrants actually cost other taxpayers money. This is why the era of mass migration has to end. I have tabled amendments to the Borders Bill to create a legally binding annual cap on immigration numbers and an increase in the visa salary threshold to £38,000 across the board.”

    The CMC analysis is based on DWP data from 2019, which shows that there were 990,000 foreigners – 610,000 non-EU nationals and 380,000 EU nationals – who were claiming working-age benefits, an increase of 9 per cent on the year before. This compared with 6.1 million Britons, which had only increased by 4 per cent since 2018.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/17/more-than-one-million-foreigners-claim-benefits/

    The DWP has not updated the figures since the pandemic but CMC has estimated a further 168,000 claimants would have been added if foreign nationals’ claims continued at the same rate.

    This would give a cumulative total of 1,158,000 but will be lower as some will have left, died or stopped claiming. The CMC calculated rates of claims per nationality in 2019 relative to their overall population in the 2021 census.

    Of the 200 nationalities, Poland accounted for the largest number of claimants at 89,040, followed by Pakistan (85,881), Bangladesh (54,589), Romania (45,727), India (33,561), Portugal (32,063), Nigeria (23,627) and Ireland (17,933).

    The Congo had the highest rate at 445 claims per 1,000 of their population in the UK, based on 2021 census figures from the Office for National Statistics.

    It was followed by Iraq at 434 per 1,000, Afghanistan (414), Algeria (361), Eritrea (355), Syria (352), Somalia (336), Iran (334), Morocco (286) and Slovakia (283). The average for the UK was 100 per 1,000 of the population.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/17/more-than-one-million-foreigners-claim-benefits/

    If the average Universal Credit claim of £393.45 a month for a person over 25 was applied to the one million foreign claimants, the bill would total £4.7 billion a year.

    In a response to a freedom of information request by the CPS, however, the DWP revealed that in 2023, households with at least one claimant from outside the UK or Ireland who had passed a habitual residence test received £7.6 billion in universal credit.

    The DWP said that because universal credit was a household benefit, one claimant could be a UK national and the other not, or vice versa. “We are unable to apportion the total amount to each individual, therefore we have stated “at least one claimant,” said the DWP.

    Karl Williams, research director at CPS, said: “We need to move towards a much more selective immigration system that prioritises migrants likely to be substantial net contributors.”

    This spring Sir Keir will unveil a white paper to reduce migration by banning bosses who break employment law. Bosses who fail to pay their staff the minimum wage will be banned from hiring workers from abroad for up to two years and companies will be required to train Britons for jobs before they can recruit from overseas.

    Rob Bates, CMC research director, said: “It is an unsustainable state of affairs and one that reveals the real folly behind our current indefinite leave to remain laws, meaning someone who has been here for just five years has access to the welfare state that British nationals have paid into for generations.”

    A DWP spokesman said: “We have a duty to pay benefits to all those entitled to receive them, however the figures highlighted refer to 2019, and can’t be used to provide an indication of the current nationality of claimants.

    “Universal Credit is designed to incentivise moving people into employment and progression at work and has a thorough application process. Illegal migrants with no immigration status cannot receive Universal Credit and refugees and non-UK or Irish citizens can only receive payments once they have had their status granted by the Home Office and satisfy the Habitual Residence Test.”

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

    Fried Green Tomatoes
    6 hrs ago
    Words fail me. Successive totally incompetent governments have allowed this to happen and won’t do anything to fix it.

    I’ve paid taxes all my life, more than 30 years, I bet if I ever came in to the situation where I needed benefits the system would tell me to foxtrot Oscar.

    Martin Fowler
    6 hrs ago
    Why are all these ‘doctors, dentists and skilled workers’ the lefties tell are migrating here claiming benefits!

    John Lloyd
    1 hr ago
    Reply to – view message
    If you were Somali you would be stupid not to come here. It's a lifestyle choice not a refuge choice

      2. Available in any colour that you want – as long as it is that wishy washy blue.

        Benefits of these vehicles would be a significant lowering of disability benefits as these three wheelers roll over. Not forgetting how policing the use of disability parking spots would be much easier.

        Buy shares in Reliant.

      4. Around 50 years ago driving my £25 Morris Traveller, on a long downhill stretch of The A31 dual carriageway in Hampshire, I pulled out to overtake a Reliant Robin. At the same moment, the driver of the Reliant pulled out to overtake the blue 3-wheeler. Having reached maximum speed of 75mph I fell back laughing because it was clear to me that in view of the sharpish right bend and the bottom of the hill the person driving the 3 wheeler had a death wish. Even the Reliant couldn't overtake him!

    2. "The Tories have proposed that jobless and low-paid migrants should be barred from remaining indefinitely in the UK. They have also argued that the length of time before anyone who has come to the UK can claim such leave to remain should be increased from five to 10 years.

      Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said the benefits bill for foreign nationals was “unacceptable” and “astonishing”. “It is immoral that British taxpayers are subsidising nationals of other countries on an industrial scale. No wonder our taxes are so high,” he said."

      Is this cretin, Chris Philp, telling us that the 14 years of Tory government had SWA to do with this state of affairs?

    3. After 10 yrs of NICs they get the state pension – at the same rate, I believe, as someone who's paid in for 30 years. I am open to being corrected about this, but I thought the rules had been changed for new pensioners so that all qualified for the same pension irrespective of contributions.

  82. Mike b
    43m
    A Reform win in Runcorn would send shock waves throughout the UK.

    This is is one of Labour's safest seats, virtually nothing would be safe…and Reform 🇬🇧 have a poll lead
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/97eaab43d34020bb88be1b4737153ccc67a8b674af23dc097cae0f8f69c2fdd0.png
    Netzero
    1h
    Labour candidate battling Reform at Runcorn by-election welcomed Afghan and Syrian refugees
    Karen Shore boasted about council providing ‘decorated, furnished accommodation’ and English language lessons for asylum seekers

    Mr Blue Sky
    Netzero
    57m
    She also deleted her FB and X accounts. Wonder why?????

  83. Majority of Brits Think Labour Intervenes Too Much in People’s Lives

    *******************************
    Wally jumblatt
    2h
    Far too many people naively think Socialism is about compassion.
    It isn't, it's about control.

    Steve
    2h
    Communist always need control

    Rogerborg ⬛🟧
    Steve
    2h
    Control freaks become communists and coppers.

    1. They also need to go after the giggling little shit that filmed it and drop them off at a kebab shop.

  88. Ernest Nowell
    1h
    Reports over the weekend say retreating glaciers in Italy and Scandinavia are revealing hundreds of ancient artefacts. Clever of those Iron Age people to bury stuff under 100s of feet of ice to confuse us.

    Monty
    Ernest Nowell
    21m
    I'm waiting for SatanClaws to tell us how they performed this 'trick'…
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/95ef8268de59fe52c1d935d4d236acabce93e59d5bc9a2b9e6ef6955622e3a74.png
    Peterg123
    1h
    Amazing…people slowly figure our that politicians and grifters can't re-write the laws of physics, and as the penny slowly drops,so do the green-scam stocks. Follow the money…. it's graft.

    Truth Hurts
    1h
    Only a few benefit from investing in green energy and it's certainly not the public who pay for it. Another lie like covid!

    1. Reminds me of a weeping eco-freak global boiling arse saying – through his tears – "This is the first time in 2,000 years that this footpath has been used".

      The clown failed to see the stupidity (as well as irony) in his comment.

  91. Well, one large chestnut taken down – with enormous care – by Colin. It will give us half a year's logs. His sidekick was an unemployed lad who – although enormously strong – was about as much used as a pint of rainwater! Spent a great deal of time on his phone (of course).

  93. Well how about this….I have just had a nice conversation with a lady who lives at the top end of our cul-de-sac.
    She's has had both her knees replaced with excellent results both on the NHS. One at a local private hospital the other one at the Stevenage Lister general hospital. Both a great success both carried out inside of the last two years.
    She use to be a GP practice receptionist and knows the ropes. And has informed me that (for some time) the NHS are no longer funding partial knee replacements. I think this is what the surgeon will be telling me this week at my appointment. 6 years in waiting …..
    What would Nottlers be saying to such a statement ?

    1. If it is going to increase your quality of life then look to self-funding if you can. Pain is debilitating. I can highly recommend Joel Melton who did my knee op at the Spire in Cambridge.

  94. You should apply to become a GP Receptionist, with all the Nottl Training you've had you'd be a shoe in!

  95. Wordle No. 1,367 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟨🟨🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 17 Mar 2025

    A snare for Birdie Three!

    1. I'm sure this word should be spelt differently….
      Wordle 1,367 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟨🟨🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. I know what you mean – but the most recent example I've seen was the American TV series 'Ted *****'

      2. Well done, BB2!

        Sorry! One version is 'Stateside; we use another. Comes from Spanish apparently.

          1. To be fair, O, it's well known we come on here at 5 o'clock to discuss today's Wordle and generally dont give too much away.

            I always say that if you havent done it and dont want to know then dont come on here.

            Same with sports events…….

          4. I think we've generally got the balance right. I do Wordle fairly early in the day but dont come on here to post until 5.00pm.
            If someone isnt going to do it until later than that I dont think its unreasonable to suggest they dont come on here until they have done it, if they dont want any hints etc.
            This is a social media site and people come on to discuss things like Wordle, the weather etc etc.
            I remain perplexed that anybody should think that no-one else should be able to discuss the Wordle answer (although outright reveal should be avoided if possible) simply because they havent done it ……..

      3. I think you’re right.

        Wordle 1,367 3/6

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

    2. Well done, just par here.

      Wordle 1,367 4/6

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

    3. Got it in three this morning, tried to replicate on my phone and forgot where I had been, so par this time

      Wordle 1,367 4/6

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

      Sitting and supping a coffee (slowly) whilst we watch the hail storm !

      1. Well done you lot.
        Wordle 1,367 5/6

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

    4. #MeToo – with the three letters I had there werent many options….

      Wordle 1,367 3/6

      ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. Yes, I do like him myself – but he is, in fact, as corrupt as hell! Shame, really…..

          1. It is well documented that he models himself on the Russian Oligarchs and directs vast amounts of the EU funds his benighted country receives to himself and his cronies.
            It is a kleptocracy.

    2. "Very cold" is when you breathe in through your nose and you feel ice forming in your nostrils. Typically below about -12 to -15C.

  98. Not sure what Nigel Farage is upto suggesting and criticism of Mohammed Zia Yosuf is racist. Don't know if the speccie have anything up on this

    1. Is Farage working with Labour to bring in a definition of Islamophobia which dictates that any criticism of a chap like Zia Yusuf is racist as is any reference to the ethnicity of a rapist.

  99. That's me for today. Tree work partly done – there are two more to fell. A few days stacking logs lie ahead.

    Have a jolly evening. A few warm days start on Wednesday – won't last, of course, back to the cold come next Monday.

    A demain.

  100. It's weird how nobody gave a second thought about Greenland until Trump showed some interest, in any case what business is it of ours?
    Remainers do not like the USA interfering in European matters, why should Europeans interfere with what goes on in the North American continent.
    Why shouldn't all their countries be part of a union, the EU wants all of Europe.

  101. Damn all UK politicians of all parties

    The Boriswave Indefinite-Leave-to-Remain time bomb is about to go off

    17 March 2025 12:24pm GMT
    Sam Bidwell

    This week, the Telegraph is running a series of essays on immigration, one of the great issues of our times. The full list of published essays appears at the bottom of this article

    Those concerned about immigration often focus on the number of people coming to Britain, and rightly so. Incoming migration is far too high, and has been for many years. In 2022, 2023, and 2024, gross migration ran at more than 1 million – a population the size of Birmingham, each year.

    But quantity is not the only consideration. We must also think about the terms on which immigrants come to Britain, the rights that they have once they are here – and what, if anything, we can do to remove those migrants who do not contribute to our society.

    Under the current system, most migrants on work or family visas will be eligible for Indefinite Leave To Remain (ILR) after just five years in the UK. After ten years here, almost all migrants are eligible to apply for ILR – an eligibility period which includes time spent on a student or graduate visa. Once they have ILR, migrants can access Universal Credit, social housing, and other benefits. It also puts them on the path to citizenship, and entitles them to surcharge-free access to the NHS.

    The number of people receiving ILR is already ticking up, as the long-term impact of Britain’s migration failure filters through the system. In 2024, 147,053 people were granted ILR, up 31 percent on the 2023 figure.

    But a much bigger threat now looms, which could permanently damage our economy, our public services, and our society as a whole. Those who came to Britain in the migration explosion of the last few years – dubbed the “Boriswave” by some commentators – will soon become eligible for ILR. Those who arrived in 2021’s record-breaking migration wave will start to become eligible from 2026, with the number of eligible migrants growing with each passing day.

    This will, in effect, bake in the ‘Boriswave’, making it much harder to reverse the damage of our immigration failure over the past few years. These newly-minted ILR recipients will be able to access our already-stretched public services, and will begin to receive taxpayer-funded welfare. With just five per cent of migrants from the 2022-23 cohort expected to be high earners, the vast majority of these new ILR holders will not be net lifetime contributors. In other words, we will be adding enormous strain to our public services, and paying for the privilege.

    How many migrants from the Boriswave will actually claim ILR? Incredibly, we don’t know. The Government has issued no official prediction about the number of people who could receive ILR over the course of this Parliament, nor any prediction of the impact that these people will have on public services over their lifetimes.

    As such, we must rely on estimates. According to research from the Centre for Policy Studies, more than 800,000 migrants could receive ILR over the course of this Parliament, at a lifetime cost of £234 billion. That’s equivalent to £8,200 per household, or six times our annual defence budget. This represents an enormous opportunity cost, and will be financed by either increased taxes or borrowing. Why should working people, already squeezed by historically high tax rates, be forced to pay more in order to cover the costs of an immigration wave that they did not consent to?

    We must act now, and act decisively. The eligibility period for ILR must be extended, to at least 10 years – and ideally longer. As I argued in December, a 15-year eligibility period would be preferable, giving a future Government more time to decide whether or not to issue new visas to those who arrived in the past few years.

    Extending the eligibility period for ILR would make it possible to withhold visas from those who have come to the UK legally, but have not contributed enough. Those who are not expected to be net lifetime contributors should simply be refused a visa extension and compelled to leave. We should not add more pressure to an already-strained public purse. As Nick Timothy MP has so rightly argued, the future of immigration policy must not only be about who comes here, but about who we decide must leave.

    There is precedent for such a change. In 2006, then-Home Secretary Charles Clarke extended the qualifying period for ILR, a change which applied retroactively to those already moving through the settlement process. Since 2006 our activist judiciary has expanded its scope significantly, but this is not an insurmountable hurdle by any means. Cleverly-drafted legislation, and a well-placed ouster clause, can thwart even the most skilful judicial meddling. Like it or not, Parliament is still sovereign.

    But times have changed, and our present situation is significantly more precarious than it was in 2006. We can, and should, go further. We should expand the conditions under which ILR can be revoked, allowing us to exclude criminals, low-earners, and welfare claimants from permanent settlement. We should also tighten eligibility rules for future migrants, restricting ILR status to high earners, with an in-built preference for those from culturally compatible societies. Settled status must work, and continue to work, in the interests of Britain.

    These are not radical steps. They would simply reflect the expressed wishes of the British people, who have, at every election in living memory, voted for an immigration system which is selective, limited, and tailored to our needs. Time and time again, politicians have failed to deliver such a system – but it is not too late to do so. If, as the Prime Minister himself has said, our “open borders experiment” was a mistake, then we should endeavour to reverse that mistake.

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

    Michael Hope
    5 hrs ago
    Do you ever get the feeling that the British Government, of whatever party, is incapable of solving many serious problems ?

    tony platts
    5 hrs ago
    Reply to Michael Hope
    Which, paradoxically, they themselves cause!

    1. "Do you ever get the feeling that the British Government, of whatever party, is incapable of solving many serious problems?"

  102. STOP PRESS – URGENT REQUEST

    Can any NoTTLer in Colchester – you know who you are! – recommend a competent firm of solicitors (I know, I know) to handle a house purchase?

    I'd really appreciate some local advice. Many thanks.

    2. We used Thompson, Smith and Puxon.
      In fact, most our friends and acquaintances use them, not just for house purchases but for all the other legal stuff that life throws at us.

  103. Farage needs to get his ducks in a row .. a few wise people are saying he is a joke and not PM material .

    They are rooting for Rupert Lowe who has core Conservative principles , old fashioned Conservative principles .. true Conservative principles .

    Strange isn't it how Europe is leaning towards right wing politics , yes, and now they are learning fast , the immigrant invasion has taught them a swift painful lesson .

    Starmer is like a two headed snake .. he seems to be leaning slightly right , just slightly .. to please Trump and , but he will be on his own , because the devil is in the detail re Ukraine .. Britain is leaking money , £billions of it .

    Have you noticed he has been trying to ditch quangos, however he then adds a few more . His other head is vote catching Muslim votes , he doesn't give two hoots about us , his team are driving us down into recession .

    What a twerp raising the basic wage to just over £12 per hour , and then guess what.. bringing low wage earners into a different tax bracket .

    Badenoch has to go , look, I was deeply strongly Conservative .. how on earth can Badenoch deliver policies when she doesn't have the soul of the UK in her heart .. words are not enough . She hasn't gripped me .

    Farage just has a big mouth , and shilly shallies with Trump , who is playing with Farage the way a cat plays with a mouse .

    The rest of Starmer's team are greasy spivs , focussed on a Marxist agenda .. mendacious two-faced smooth-tongued double-dealing mealymouthed bunch of greedy individuals .

    1. Well done, Maggie, but smooth-tongued or fork-tongued, or would that be unfair to our reptiles?

  104. Theodore Dalrymple
    Britain has become a pioneer in Artificial Unintelligence
    17 March 2025, 6:00am

    In some countries, the study and pursuit of Artificial Intelligence (AI) proceeds apace, while in this country the practice of Artificial Unintelligence (AU) becomes ever more widespread.

    AU is the means by which people of perfectly adequate natural intelligence are transformed by policies, procedures and protocols into animate but inflexible cogs. They speak and behave, but do not think or decide. They are always only carrying out orders and stick to them through thick and thin.

    AU is much in evidence in the organisation of the NHS. Its great advantage, from a certain point of view, is the multiplication of job opportunities for bureaucrats that it necessitates. But for patients, it often turns the simplest of tasks, such as the obtaining of a prescription, into a nightmarish labour of Hercules.

    My wife’s situation was simple. She had seen a cardiologist who prescribed a medication for her which was effective. He gave her a prescription for two weeks, to be repeated by her general practitioner. Towards the end of the two weeks, the consultant’s letter had not arrived at the surgery and we were soon going abroad. My wife needed to talk to a doctor at the surgery to obtain a prescription, which no doctor would have refused, since the medication was a perfectly ordinary one in wide current use, and cheap as well.

    The problem was the procedure, the policies, and the protocols. Over a period of several days, she was told by the staff of the surgery, inter alia:

    That the doctor could not prescribe her medicine without the consultant’s letter, an evident absurdity;
    That she could not consult a doctor in less than two weeks because the renewal of a prescription was not an urgent matter and therefore not eligible for an urgent appointment; That it was her responsibility to ensure that the consultant’s letter arrived, and also to phone every day at 8.30 a.m. sharp on the off-chance that there had been a cancelled appointment that she might take; That there was nothing that could be done because of the policies, procedures and protocols laid down, and that all patients had to be treated the same, irrespective of their situation.

    When I went to the surgery, I asked the receptionist – making clear that I did not blame her personally – whether she did not think it shameful that it would have been easier and quicker for my wife to obtain her medication by going abroad than by walking 300 yards to the surgery from her house: to which the receptionist replied that she understood our frustration, but that the protocol was the protocol. My suggestion that she actually thought rather than followed a protocol seemed almost shocking to her, like a criticism of Mohammed’s character in a mosque.

    We had already discovered quite by chance, my wife and I, that e-mails apparently sent to the doctors in the surgery were diverted to some kind of computer, and were not read, as we had naively supposed. So I took a letter, couched in no uncertain terms, to the surgery to be handed in person to the senior partner, with a mild threat of further action if the request were not complied with.

    At seven in the evening a telephone call from the surgery informed us that the doctor had written a prescription and sent it to the pharmacy. The Artificial Unintelligence of the staff, trained and enjoined never to think, had wasted hours of our and their time over a period of days, to say nothing of the misery it inflicted on us.

    But it should not be thought that we were just unlucky. A friend of ours had a very similar experience and had to resort to a virtual sit-down to obtain what should have taken a fraction of a moment to obtain.

    The whole country is rotted by AU, not least the police, but also schools, social services, town councils, universities and even private companies, especially large ones.

    It is of no recent date. Some years ago, I was asked to investigate six untoward events – five murders and a suicide – that had happened in a hospital in a comparatively short time. Was there any single factor that accounted for this unexpected cluster?

    In the event, I found that in only two of them were actually attributable to professional error, but what united them all was the evident stupidity of the staff. They were not so much stupid by nature, as stupefied by policy, procedure and protocol. For them, obeying procedure was their work, an end rather than a means.

    I will always remember my interview with the medical director after I completed my inquiry.

    ‘I didn’t find anything in common in these cases,’ I said, ‘except the stupidity of your staff.

    I expected him to get angry, but he maintained a Buddha-like calm.

    ‘Oh, I know,’ he replied, ‘but that is the standard expected now.’

    I am rarely lost for words, but on this occasion I was. And he was right, of course – Artificial Unintelligence, or Bureaucracy-Induced Stupidity, is what we expect in Britain.

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

    Impresario
    11 hours ago
    A busy city centre branch of a well-known building society is accessed by three steps or a disabled lift device, but the steps were covered by the detritus of someone who had camped there overnight. Customers were deciding against going in.

    I climbed over the cardboard and other junk, as had, I assume, the staff themselves. As a member, I asked why the mess had not been removed. They had called for the cleaner, they said. I went outside and removed all the impedimenta, cramming it into a nearby bin. The manager came out to 'advise' me not to do that. No, there are no facilities for customers to wash their hands.

    It is pitiable that these young workers have such a reduced idea of taking responsibility for their place of work.

    CLC
    9 hours ago
    Recently, an elderly woman hobbled into my local medical centre, which is now so lacking in staff that it resembles the mystery of the Mary Celeste, and asked the receptionist if she could make an appointment with a doctor. 'No', came the firm reply. The thwarted patient then asked what she should do. 'You need to go home, fill in a request online and wait to hear from us', said the receptionist briskly. 'Get a relative to help you if necessary. If you're really stuck, 'phone us and we'll help you fill out your online form.'

    At this point the would-be patient ventured to say that, since she was at the surgery and the receptionist was currently in front of her, might there not be a way of doing things directly? Silly question. The computer says no.

    1. "Please may I have your name and your manager's name?"
      "Why?"
      "Because I need to know who I am going to sue."

      It was my father-in-law's standard approach to such idiocies, he was a barrister. It usually did the trick, but I doubt it would nowadays.

      1. Hate crime. And if the person spoken to was not white – almost certainly racist.

        1. If the person was not white I am fairly sure my F-i-L would also claim racism, he was that way inclined.

          He used to tell a story, almost certainly untrue, but he told it frequently, of how a white man was being tried for arson at a black family’s home and he summed up:

          “In mitigation, I remind the jurors that the accused tried to warn the occupants by shouting “burn you bastards, burn”

    2. I have a similar response at my surgery to making an appointment when I'm actually there.

    1. "What does these voices"
      "do" surely?
      I think that Jones is one of the worst journalists and one of the biggest bullies of the left.

    2. Malik in the Grauniad says, "But you don’t hear that much any more. The radicalism not only has not transpired, but something else, something cold and stomach-sinking, has emerged: a government clear in its intent on making savings by targeting the most vulnerable in society – the sick, disabled people, mentally ill people. This isn’t simply a locking in of the austerity state Labour inherited, but an extension of it."

      No mention of us scrounging pensioners of course.

    1. Of course it is; you don't go to the first sources (the koran) but believe any taqiyya and kitman that's thrown at you.

  107. Patrick West
    The audacity of ‘decolonising’ Shakespeare
    17 March 2025, 12:52pm

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-audacity-of-decolonising-shakespeare/
    William Shakespeare (Credit: iStock)

    It seems to have become an unspoken requirement of recent that anyone in charge of promoting or putting on the plays of Shakespeare must first of all hate him and his works. We have long grown accustomed to the Royal Shakespeare Company prefacing his plays with trigger warnings reminding us of what a terrible man he was, that his works contain all manner of bigotry, sexism and racism. So it was no surprise to read yesterday that his birthplace is now being ‘decolonised’, in response to concerns that the playwright is being used to promote ‘white supremacy’.

    According to the Sunday Telegraph, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which owns buildings connected to his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon, together with archival material including parish records of his birth and baptism, is now ‘decolonising’ its collection to ‘create a more inclusive museum experience’. This undertaking will involve examining ‘the continued impact of Empire’ on the collection, the ‘impact of colonialism’ on world history, and how ‘Shakespeare’s work has played a part in this’. The trust has stated that some of items may now contain ‘language or depictions that are racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise harmful’.

    This arrant, knavish nonsense is nothing new, of course. The custodians of British culture, in thrall to a voguish hyper-liberal doctrine that demands no original thinking, merely the robotic repetition of slogans and key words, have been at this for decades. Despite optimistic declarations of late about ‘woke being over’, our museums, galleries and theatres remain awash with this spirit of knee-jerk, ignorant self-abasement.

    Those who advocate a woke dogma primarily because their progressive peers, colleagues and friends are doing it will seldom shine when it comes to intellectual or historical rigour. What came after Shakespeare and his time is not his fault, and his legacy and influence through history are a matter for historians to discuss. It is not in the remit of those in charge of collections or in the heritage industry, let alone the job of those putting on his plays.

    What’s for sure is that to employ that buzzword ‘decolonisation’ in relation to the Bard makes no sense. Britain had no colonies in his time, not least because Britain as a nation didn’t exist, and the paltry possessions owned by England were nothing on the vast, deep scale of what was to come.

    Trying to make Shakespeare relevant to 21st-century multi-ethnic Britain, to unearth traces of racism in him, is also fraught with difficulty, nay impossibility, given that his England was almost entirely white. Seeking to detect racism in a country where people had no experience of others with different coloured skin is no mean undertaking.

    This hasn’t stopped our modern-day flagellants from trying. This latest initiative by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust comes in the wake of claims made in 2022 by a research project it made in collaboration with Dr Helen Hopkins of the University of Birmingham, which condemned the use of Shakespeare as a symbol of ‘British cultural superiority’ and ‘Anglo-cultural supremacy’. That report also took issue with the understanding and the continued presentation of the Bard as a ‘universal’ genius. On the contrary, it said, this claim to universality ‘benefits the ideology of white European supremacy’.

    The legitimate and justified global perception, that Shakespeare spoke of humanity, and spoke to all humanity, has invariably been employed by those who counter-argue that Shakespeare, though quintessentially English, spoke not of one people or one ethnicity, but of the human condition itself. Othello makes the point explicitly, Hamlet implicitly. Shakespeare has forever had universal reach that transcends time, culture and custom.

    Rational argument and empirical evidence will never wash, alas, with those beholden to the enchantment of ‘decolonisation’. Hyper-liberals are not reasonable people. This is made obvious in their unwitting promotion of ‘asymmetrical multiculturalism’, that accidental dogma which decrees that all cultures are equal, that none must be judged better or worse than another… except ours, which is obviously much worse.

    What makes this report all the more despairing is that here, once again, we see an incoherent and illogical worldview on display, disseminated and accepted without anyone pointing to its contradictions. The trust at Stratford wants at once to dethrone the Bard from his status as ‘greatest’, placing him as ‘part of a community of equal and different writers and artists from around the world’, yet in the same breath it damns him and his legacy for its racism and bigotry.

    The incoherence of asymmetrical multiculturalism can be explained by the irrational, vainglorious motives and desires of those enraptured by the performance of ‘decolonisation’. Ostentatious displays of self-loathing and atonement, whether it be of oneself or one’s culture, have always been a devious, inverted means of self-aggrandisement, of flaunting one’s superior, compassionate moral worth and elevated social status. And ’tis pride that pulls a country down.

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

    Blindsideflanker
    5 hours ago
    It is not the Birthplace of Shakespeare Trust doing this . It is these toe rags who are on the Board of Trustees who are doing it …

    Lady Cobham (Chairman)

    Professor Lena Cowen Orlin (Vice Chair)
    Nick Abell (Vice Chair)
    Ralph Bernard
    Rebecca Dobbs
    Professor Michael Dobson
    Kathy Gee
    Mike Huggins
    Ayub Khan
    AJ Leon

    And this is what they are obligated to do……

    The objectives of the Trust, as defined by its Act are:

    To promote in every part of the world the appreciation and study of the plays and other works of William Shakespeare and the general advancement of Shakespearian knowledge
    To maintain and preserve the Shakespeare properties for the benefit of the nation
    To provide and maintain for the benefit of the nation a museum and a library of books, manuscripts, records of historic interest, pictures, photographs and objects of antiquity with particular but not exclusive reference to William Shakespeare, his life, works and times

    Which seems, by doing this, they have failed in their duty.

    Dahlia Travers
    5 hours ago
    Dear Lord. I turned on GBN earlier and found some uber-grifter (possibly Femi something or other) was defending this absolute Sh!te. I wanted to tell him in words of one syllable that Shakespeare was/is an English author and that, if he wants to counteract any influence Shakespeare's writings might have in Africa, he should go to Africa and tell people there how to live their lives and educate their children. There is absolutely no reason for the English to be concerned if one of our own writers (arguably our greatest writer) isn't relevant to the 'global majority'. They can go forth and read their own writers if they want.
    Instead I just turned it off.

    1. You jus' stoopeed – well none that Shakespeare waas blaaaack. Woz yor problem wid dis ting?

      2. On a scale of 1 -10 where would lady Nottlers put David Mellor for attractiveness – with or without a Chelsea football shirt. |He looks pretty limacean to me.

        (My housemaster when I was at school was nicknamed Slug)

          3. I wouldn't want poor old Phizzee/you to catch something nasty because you rate Mellor as high as a -58

        2. Perhaps he makes her laugh.
          (NO, I'm not drunk; merely recovering from a grey Monday.)

  108. Evening, all. A mixed day; my team won the ROC Association quiz again, but I went to try and have my car key cloned (my car and my garage keys have disappeared in the house somewhere) and I nearly fainted when the bloke said, "£89"! I am going to resume the search, although I'm running out of places to look; they definitely aren't in the fridge.

    I should think just about every health system outperforms the NHS!

      1. I have; I’ve looked in all the likely (and even unlikely) places with no luck. I am mystified. They must be in the house because I distinctly remember picking them up in the kitchen.

  109. Theodore Dalrymple
    The real problem with mental health benefits
    23 February 2025, 6:01am

    A contributory factor to the continuing impoverishment of Britain is psychiatric diagnosis – or rather, the superstitious official belief in it.

    More than two thirds of Incapacity Benefit claims over the space of two years were for supposed psychiatric conditions. Psychiatric diagnosis has produced more invalids than the first world war. It is the foundry in which the mind-forg’d manacles are produced – mass-produced, in fact.

    The most common diagnoses – of depression and anxiety, for example – are completely dependent on what the patient tells the doctor. The doctor’s default position, quite rightly, is to believe what his patients tell him. Failure to do this can lead to disaster, besides which he has little time to investigate further. Moreover, questioning of any kind often appears to the patient to be first disbelief and then accusation, which may call forth anger and resentment, complaint, aggression, or even violence. The easiest and quickest thing for the doctor to do is to accede to what he assumes the patient is asking for. There will then be no unseemly scenes in the surgery or consulting room.

    Belief in what the patients say works very well where patients are mostly honest with others and themselves. Unfortunately, the concept of mental health has undermined this honesty and where people can derive benefit from feeling anxious and depressed – or saying that they do – they will claim to be such. The supply calls forth the demand, the reward the effort.

    The situation is more complex than that of straightforward fraud or lying. Both anxiety and depression are normal features of life, except in the most severe forms, and in fact activity is one of the ways in which they may be overcome. Unfortunately, they have been medicalised to the point where any degree of them is regarded and then treated, both by the patient and the doctor, as pathological.

    Outright fraud exists, of course, and it is probable that the NHS stands more in need of private detectives than psychotherapists, to check the authenticity of claims to mental incapacity. I remember legal cases in which claimants who allegedly could not get out of bed because of their illness nevertheless made it to Brazil or South Africa on holiday. They resolved this apparent contradiction by claiming they had their good weeks and their bad – and, incidentally, they were believed by the courts.

    But outright fraud is not the whole problem. The fact is that if you believe yourself to be or to act something long enough, that is what you become. A belief in illness feeds on itself, as was pointed out long ago in a song by Stanley Holloway. In the song, the barmaid tells him he looks unwell:

    My knees started knocking, I did feel so sad.
    Then Brown said, ‘Don’t die in a pub, it looks bad,’
    He said, ‘Come with me, I’ll show you what to do.
    Now I’ve got a friend who’ll be useful to you.’
    He led me to Black’s Undertaking Depot,
    And Black, with some crepe round his hat said, ‘Hello,
    My word you do look queer!
    My word you do look queer!
    Now we’ll fix you up for a trifling amount.
    Now what do you say to a bit on account?’
    I said, ‘I’m not dying.’ He said, ‘Don’t say that!
    My business of late has been terribly flat,
    But I’m telling my wife she can have that new hat!
    My word, you do look queer!’

    This captures the way in which the belief that you are ill leads to feeling ill, as well as the vested interest in the psychological fragility that has been encouraged. As the Viennese satirist, Karl Kraus presciently put it, psychoanalysis is the disease it pretends to cure. There is an equal and opposite effect, however:

    I crawled in the street and I murmured, ‘I’m done.’
    Then up came Old Jenkins and shouted, ‘Oh son!
    My word you do look well!
    My word you do look well!
    You’re looking fine and in the pink!’
    I shouted, ‘Am I?… Come and have a drink!
    You’ve put new life in me, I’m sounder than a bell.
    By gad! There’s life in the old dog yet.
    My word I do feel well!’

    Our current belief in the chimera mental health is the sovereign means of turning fraud into illness and illness into fraud. This is no small matter: it cost billions, increases misery, and brings forward encroaching poverty, not only for individuals but for the whole country.

    1. I have been feeling depressed and anxious lately, but it's because life has been stressful. Once I've managed to resolve the stress, I expect to get back on an even keel. I don't need to go to a doctor about it.

  110. From the Telegraph

    In the two short months since he took office, Donald Trump has signed through a blitzkrieg of executive orders on everything from banning paper straws to launching a strategic Bitcoin reserve.

    But one edict, aimed at law firm Perkins Coie, has stood out even among his supporters.

    The Trump administration has effectively blocked law firm Perkins Coie from working for the US government – including the highly unusual step of removing its lawyers’ security clearances and banning them from federal buildings.

    The order explicitly targets the Seattle law firm on political terms, accusing Perkins Coie of working for “activist donors including George Soros” to “judicially overturn … popular laws” and for helping to manufacture a “false ‘dossier’ designed to steal an election”.

    The Trump administration’s targeting of Perkins Coie has sparked fierce criticism from across the political spectrum, with opponents viewing the president’s actions as unprecedented.

    1. The Don wasn't just playing golf in his 4 years off as we all know on here. His black book must be as thick as Lammy.

    3. They're entitled to choose not to use a particular firm of lawyers.
      Doing everything by executive order, thus bypassing any democratic votes is more worrying.

    4. Hasn't he done well?
      An unpleasant collective finally being targeted.
      At last Trump has done something we can approve of.

  111. II am havinghaving greatgreat difficultydifficulty in composingcomposing comments forfor NTTLNTTL on mymy Kindle.Kindle.oncommentsinam

    1. Is the alphabet soup you had for lunch repeating on you?

      Edited a smelling bigsteak. Twice.

      1. NNo matter what I tap, it repeatsrepeats and inserts characters II haven't touchedtouchedthavencharactersinsertsandittap,IwhatttermaNo

    2. Is the alphabet soup you had for lunch repeating on you?

      Edited a smelling bigsteak. Twice.

        1. I had use of a borrowed smartphone recently during my internet outage at home. I had similar problems with it on Chrome but not with Firefox.

    6. 1. Open window
      2. Throw Kindle out
      3. Use desktop computer with keyboard as nature intended.

    7. I've got a Kindle – but I only use it for reading. It's no substitute for a laptop or even an ipad.

    8. Hi David – LMS2 ( who does sometimes post here) was having similar trouble with a tablet – she posted this on Free speech Backlash:
      "lms2 Tom Armstrong • 5 hours ago

      DependsDepends on on whatwhat you're you're usingusing.
      It'sIt's usuallyusually okok onon my my phone.phone."

      So whatever's happening it's not just you.

  112. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/even-italians-are-horrified-by-the-nhs/

    Even Italians are horrified by the NHS

    17 March 2025, 4:11pm

    Anyone who has the misfortune of stepping foot into a hospital recently will know how bad things are with the NHS, where the only good thing about the long waits is that they stave off the subsequent terrible treatment.

    Still, it is helpful sometimes to see how other countries view our health service – which has for years been described by politicians as the ‘envy of the world’. In that vein, Mr S was alerted by Spectator commentator Susucat to a revealing article which was published yesterday by the Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, based in Milan.

    In the piece, the paper’s correspondent, Luigi Ippolito, explains his experience of dealing with the NHS over the last 12 months after suffering from diverticulitis, a condition which affects the large intestine. Unfortunately, it seems that his experience was not a good one, going by the headline of his piece, which Google translates as: ‘My terrible experience with English health, the mad carousel where life is played.’

    Explaining the NHS to Italians, Luigi points out that after feeling pain in his abdomen, he would have liked to have spoken to his doctor, but in England:

    ‘There is no possibility of calling a doctor. This is because in London there’s no basic doctor in charge of you: you are assigned to a public health centre and every time you find yourself in front of a different doctor, in a whirlwind where no one knows you and your medical history’

    That can only mean one thing: a visit to A&E, which as he points out:

    ‘Everyone goes to… even for trivial things, because it is the only way to be seen by a doctor (and for this reason, A&E is a Dantesque circle of hell).’

    When our Italian correspondent is finally seen, there is no room on a ward, so instead he spends the night on a stretcher in the emergency room.

    The next day, he is moved to a ward, but things are not much better there:

    ‘First of all, the English hospitals are entirely run by nurses: doctors are a mirage, they only appear once a day for a few seconds, then disappear. Secondly… nurses and doctors come from the four corners of the world, except from England… It is not a question of being xenophobic, or worse racist, but even newspapers here have highlighted that there is no real verification of the qualifications, obtained abroad, of these health personnel: so you are in the hands of doctors and nurses that only God knows where and how they were trained.’

    After not being seen by a doctor for two days, Luigi confronts someone in the corridor. They check a computer and find out that someone had forgotten to register him, so no one knew he was there. As he points out, what would have happened if someone elderly had been forgotten in this way?

    Unfortunately, things do not improve in subsequent visits to the hospital, where he spends another night on a stretcher and at one point his antibiotic treatment is stopped by mistake.

    Eventually, our hero finally snaps and, fearing for his life, is forced to shell out around £10,000 for private healthcare.

    He concludes that the English are trapped ‘between Scylla and Charybdis: a public health system that is falling to pieces and a private one that costs an arm and a leg.’

    Mr S is inclined to agree…

    There have been plenty of people who have made excuses for the NHS over the years. But when a country with a lower GDP per capita and an even older population than us is starting to notice how bad things are, it really does underline how much the NHS is falling apart…

    1. Horrifying, particularly when I compare it to the fantastic treatment I have received in France.

    2. When entering a hospital in Norway, one is asked whether one has been in a UK hospital in the last (I think) 3 months. If so, a blood test is taken to check whether you are bringing some awful disease with you, as these are very difficult to eradicate once established.

    3. Part of the problem is taxation is so high and private healthcare cannot be claimed back. Thus it seems hideously expensive when it needn't be if insurance were compulsary and not, well, UK insurance where the intent is to screw you over rather than pay for what you think you've paid for.

  113. If you can open it.
    (refresh the page and press escape as it loads)
    This will make your blood boil.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-14507965/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Motability-Mercedes-boy-racers-balaclavas-mental-illness.html
    I quote a substantial part:

    My local BMW dealer once told me the only thing keeping his business afloat was knocking out 1-series hatchbacks on the Motability scheme.
    That was 14 years ago, in the wake of the financial crash. I wrote about it here. Even then I was astonished to learn that the government was leasing flash German cars for people on disability benefits.
    Today, Motability is responsible for a staggering one in five of all new cars sold in Britain. Last year a record 815,000 people took advantage of the scheme, an increase of 170,000.
    Since Covid, the number of people claiming to be disabled has gone through the roof and the definition of ‘disability’ has been stretched to breaking point.
    Even the obese and those allegedly suffering from anxiety are eligible. I’ve heard of Money For Nothing And Your Chips For Free but this is ridiculous.
    Feeling a bit grumpy? You can drive away in a brand new £50,000 Mercedes coupe, courtesy of the mug British taxpayer. That should cheer you up. Cue Janis Joplin.
    Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?
    No problem, madam. Sign here. In exchange for a modest down-payment and portion of your Personal Independence Payments (PIP) or Disability Living Allowance you’re good to go.
    Since then, it’s become even easier. Mental Elf Ishoos are impossible to prove one way or the other. Three million people claim they are too sick to work, many with anxiety. Presumably they all qualify for a gratis Beamer, too. And why should you get a free car simply because you’re fat?
    In such cases, GPs and the Department for Work and Pensions appear to take the line of least resistance. Motability’s customer base grew almost 15 per cent last year ‘thanks to a growth in the eligible base of recipients’.
    It’s not just ADHD, either. Thirty-five per cent of people who claimed Personal Independence Payments for ‘bedwetting’ were successful. Talk about taking the proverbial.
    So were 66 per cent who claimed for agoraphobia, 51 per cent for depression, and 54 per cent said to be suffering from Munchausen syndrome – a psychological condition which involves pretending to be ill.
    But you don’t have to be ‘disabled’ to benefit. Every vehicle comes with free road tax, breakdown cover and insurance for three named drivers. So friends and family of the claimant are entitled to drive the car, too.
    There are TikTok videos on the internet demonstrating how simple it is to game the system. One features a young man in a red balaclava – he looks like an Isis terrorist – boasting about how he managed to get a £30,000 Fiat sports car.
    In another, the mother of an autistic four-year-old daughter shows off her shiny new Skoda Kodiaq so she can be ‘driven around in style’.
    Motability is a private company, but receives the lion’s share of its income from the taxpayer. It also keeps the cash when the cars are sold at the end of a three-year lease.
    Why do claimants need a new car every three years? I had my last car for 12 and only got rid of it because it was a diesel and I refused to pay Genghis Khan’s extortionate Ulez charge every time I took it out of the garage.
    While the country is drowning in debt, Motability is sitting on a £4 billion cash pile. Its annual turnover is £7 billion. The chief executive is paid £750,000 a year. His predecessor got a mind-blowing £1.7 million. Nice work if you can get it.
    Look, I’m not opposed to the genuinely disabled being given help to get around, even a free car. The scheme was introduced in 1977 to replace those ghastly three-wheeled invalid carriages to which the disabled had been consigned up until then. Think Del Boy’s van with a canvas roof.
    My old neighbour Miss Davey, who was crippled by polio as a child, drove a modified Daf 33, with Variomatic transmission. No one could begrudge the essential mobility, dignity and independence it bestowed upon her.
    But Motability was never designed to buy 50-grand Mercs for bedwetting boy racers in balaclavas with imaginary mental illnesses or be overseen by a boss on three-quarters of a million a year.
    Nor was it ever envisaged that one in every five – repeat one in five – of all new cars bought in Britain would be paid for by the taxpayer.
    It was revealed that more than a million foreign nationals are receiving benefits in Britain, costing us £7.5billion a year. Are we going to buy them all a new motor, too?
    The Mail also reported that one-in-four Gen Z youngsters are considering giving up work for good and living on benefits because of, you guessed, Mental Elf Ishoos. How long before they’re all swanning round in a BMW 1-series?
    Surkeir Starmer admits that the welfare system is out of control and the Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall is due to announce money-saving reforms, despite fervent opposition from the Labour Left. Let’s hope she keeps her nerve.
    She should start by taking an axe to the scandalous abuse of the hideously expensive Motability scheme.

    Parp, parp!

    1. It'll be the genuinely disabled (like the polio sufferer or amputees) who will be at the receiving end of cuts.

      2. I guess the amputees have already been on the receiving end of cuts …

        (Sorry, couldn't resist it…)

  115. Off to bed, nice day, lovely georgious 18 month old granddaughter here for a few hours.
    And after our discussion last week about premium bonds. I have won 50 quid. In probably 15 years. …..don't tell Rackquel from accounts.
    Night all. 🥴😴

  116. Not a freezing day, though not a warm one either, but, with Grad.Son's assistance, I've got the woodstack about half full.

    Not a lot planned for tomorrow, though I might have a run into Matlock.
    Good night all, I'm off to bed.

    1. It's been really cold here in the Spanish interior (northeast Spain). Overnight temperature 0 degrees, tonight's low up to 6 degrees. Rained all day Sunday. Tomorrow may be better.

      1. We had a chilly day today with no sun at all – but the forecast for the next few days is better – sunny and warm on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday then rain on Friday and the following days.

  117. From the Telegraph

    Call me a snob, but JB Priestley has no place on the GCSE English syllabus
    George Orwell implied that the author of An Inspector Calls was a glorified hack. How right he was

    16 March 2025 3:00pm GMT
    JB Priestley was a household name from the late 1920s until the 1960s, but his reputation has suffered since his death in 1984, shortly before his 90th birthday. With one exception, Priestley has always left me cold, but I am loath to say so for fear of being categorised among the literary snobs who patronised him in his heyday, such as Virginia Woolf (who called him a “tradesman of letters”), and Graham Greene, whose portrayal of Priestley as a preposterous literary mountebank, Q C Savory, in his 1932 novel Stamboul Train caused Priestley (whose skin was not thick) to threaten to sue.

    Priestley was a prolific, but unexceptional, writer who thought there were extraordinary aspects to his creativity. Woolf and Greene disdained him not simply for his refusal to embrace the new literary currents that prevailed after the Great War, but because of his northern origins and his perceived pomposity. His father was a headmaster in Bradford and his mother had worked in a mill. Yet Priestley, who was a clerk before joining up in 1914 (his simple patriotism might also have offended his elevated critics), secured a commission before the end of the war, then in 1919 managed to get into Cambridge as one of the first undergraduates on the English Tripos.

    In 1927 he published the first of what became a regular stream of novels. The third and fourth of them made him famous: The Good Companions (1929), about a music-hall troupe, which became a huge bestseller despite critical scorn, and Angel Pavement (1930), about the employees of a firm in the City of London.

    These were novels for the lower-middle-class masses, and they were hugely successful. But George Orwell, reviewing Angel Pavement, referred to the ordinariness of Priestley’s prose, implying that what he wrote was glorified hackwork. While there was much truth in that, his readers were perfectly happy. The problem was that Priestley, though writing for that readership, expected to be esteemed for doing so.

    There is a sense of the routine about his novels, 28 of which he published by 1976, his productivity tailing off in the last 20 years of his life. Recently, I read Blackout in Gretley, his 11th novel, about the breaking of a Nazi spy ring in a grim Midlands town with several arms factories. By the time it was published, in 1942, his casual, easy style had become formulaic. The book was clearly designed to aid the war effort, but also makes a contribution to Priestley’s criticism of the British ruling class (the book’s fifth columnists are mostly toffs).

    Prolific but unexciting: author JB Priestley
    Prolific but unexciting: author JB Priestley in 1941 Credit: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS
    Priestley appeared to see himself as the natural successor to H G Wells, a centre-Left intellectual who also dabbled in the occasional political tract. Unfortunately for Priestley, he lacked Wells’s vivid imagination and also his deep understanding of the politics of the Left. Nor did he have Wells’s care with words, something more obvious in that novelist’s works before the Great War than after it.

    Priestley was also a prolific playwright, though he had his share of flops. He wrote nearly 30 plays, most of them now forgotten, except for the work for which he is most famous, An Inspector Calls, also about the hypocrisy and selfishness of the well-to-do, often featured on the GCSE syllabus to boost the indoctrinating aspect of our education system.

    For me, the one exception to his rather ordinary writing is English Journey (1934), in which he travels around an England pulling itself out of the slump. It lacks the fire of Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier, or Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood, but is none the worse for that. Priestley leaves London on a bus, passing the new factories to the west of the capital reflecting the rise of emerging industries such as electricals and cars; he is more at home in the North, for all its problems, where old industries are beginning their long death. He attends a reunion of his regiment in Bradford, and conveys beautifully how the war affected his comrades and, more subtly, him.

    One of the most memorable moments comes when he climbs the tower of Boston church in Lincolnshire, almost 300ft high, and stares on a winter’s day at the vast, flat, land and seascape. It is a book that he clearly took huge trouble to write; and it is why it is his best.

    Simon Heffer

      1. Much as I have always enjoyed Orwell's writing, he, too, always struck me as a bit of a snob, granted he wrote at a time when people didn't disguise these sentiments as much as they would today.
        Of Priestley, I think I've only ever read English Journey which I found fascinating. I saw An inspector Calls in the theatre and loved it although as I was running a business at the time I realised exactly why they wanted that troublemaker out of the factory.

    2. I enjoyed reading The Good Companions and Angel Pavement when I was young. Priestley's play: An Inspector Calls, has been made into a couple of films and a televised version.

      My father was four years younger than Priestley but they were up at Cambridge together immediately after WW1 and got to know each other quite well.

      1. The characters in An Inspector Calls I thought were very well defined and in the version I saw the acting was very professional. It was a memorable evening, I had always wanted to see the play and I was not disappointed.
        Most certainly a glorified hack is an unjustifiable insult.

      2. My mother always used to say that the BBC trotted out An Inspector Calls before every election as left wing propaganda.

  119. From the Telegraph

    Not being the United States is why Canada exists
    The King should go to Ottawa and open parliament as a reminder to Trump who the head of state is

    Charles Moore17 March 2025 5:09pm GMT
    The news that the prime minister of Canada saw the King yesterday would not normally set the pulse racing, but we live in new times.

    Let me go back a bit. As a young journalist in 1982, I remember being faintly perturbed by the Canada Act of that year. This “patriated” the Canadian Constitution, getting rid of the last vestiges of British power over Canadian affairs. It came into effect just after Argentina had invaded the Falkland Islands. I sensed it might be a bad idea.

    The Act was perfectly logical, however. It was the final step in the emergence of Canada as an entirely independent country.

    After Confederation in 1867, the Balfour Declaration (no, not the famous one) of 1926 and the Statute of Westminster of 1931, Canada had the unquestioned right to control both its internal and foreign affairs. The 1982 Act confirmed in law what had become true in fact – that the British Parliament no longer exercised authority.

    The only important remaining constitutional commonality was that the British monarch was also, and would continue to be, the Queen or King of Canada. The Act passed without difficulty.

    In those days the background was extremely placid. The United States of America had no problem with Canada. The joke was that the dullest American headline was “Canada: friendly neighbor to the North” – dull because it was so uncontroversially true.

    But that was before Donald Trump. Now the 45th and 47th president threatens Canada over tariffs and speaks of it becoming the 51st state. He teasingly called the outgoing Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau “Governor Trudeau”.

    Mr Trump’s behaviour stirs up long latent feelings. Canada began to take its present shape in reaction to the American War of Independence. Large numbers of American colonists who did not want to break with the British Crown fled north and were accommodated in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. King George conferred upon them in perpetuity the title of United Empire Loyalists. Canadian identity, even including French Canadian identity, was forged by a wish not to be part of the United States.

    In 1793, Benjamin Franklin tried and failed to take Quebec for the rebel colonies. In the War of 1812, the US again attacked Canada, again unsuccessfully. Much later, new Canadian provinces, including British Columbia, were created in the West, partly to repel American gold prospectors a bit too keen on their country’s “manifest destiny”.

    When the Americans were trying to wipe out the Sioux, chief Sitting Bull was given sanctuary in Canada. Legend has it that he later wrote to thank Queen Victoria for protecting his people as “feathers protect the snowy owl in winter”.

    So the spirit of the Canadian half of North America (the two cover a very similar landmass) is quite different from that of the United States. The first began and has evolved retaining loyalty to the British Crown. The second came into existence through revolt against it.

    Their underlying ideologies are different, too. The US Declaration of Independence rails against the “repeated injuries and usurpations” perpetrated by the British King and speaks of the “inalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.

    The British North America Act of 1867 created a Canadian parliamentary system like ours, retained the Crown and spoke not of Enlightenment doctrines but of “peace, order and good government”.

    Americans can be a bit vague about the Commonwealth and especially about the “other realms” of the British Crown. In 1983, President Reagan caused consternation to Queen Elizabeth II and to Mrs Thatcher by invading the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada, which had been the victim of a Marxist coup, without clearly informing Britain. He did not seem to know, or perhaps to care, that Grenada (133 sq miles) had the Queen as its head of state. There was a lot of upset, but ultimately little harm was done.

    Canada (3,855,103 sq miles) is something else. Possibly, President Trump does not realise how great a potential storm he could be brewing. He may imagine that because Canadians are mainly white people who share the same language and similar heritage they will be thrilled with the idea of amalgamation. Many, however, will see Trump’s behaviour as meriting the headline “America: unfriendly neighbor to the South” if he starts inflicting on their country the sort of disruption he so enjoys.

    Mr Trump is right, of course, that many Canadians are fed up with the extreme wokery of Canada’s Trudeau era. Some, particularly in the West, like the sound of his proposed takeover. But the effect is the opposite of what he intends, empowering Trudeau’s almost equally woke Liberal successor, Mark Carney, the Remainer former governor of the Bank of England, who is Oxford-educated and married to a posh, green Englishwoman. The previously rising Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre are now quite widely regarded as being too close to Trump. The Liberals have recovered in the polls.

    You can see why most Canadians, Left, Right or centre, would be annoyed. After all, it is incredible cheek for Mr Trump to abuse an allied government’s prime minister and then announce that you want to annex his country. Anti-Americanism, both there – and indeed, here – is bound to grow.

    Canada’s next federal election is due before October 20 this year. It would be a fine thing if the King, who has already subtly reminded the United States that he is Canada’s head of state, were to go there to open the ensuing parliament, as his mother did twice in her reign.

        1. In favour of William? I don't think so. He's not doing a bad job. At the moment there are four of them which is better than two so long as they're all on the same team.

      2. And never will be. But he's doing as the government bids and performing duties with dignity, can't ask for more than that.

        1. I think we could ask for more. He's so effing woke, he still talks to the trees and plants used for 'biofuel'!

          1. I am very far from being woke yet I talk to.plants and trees all the time.

            Indeed, I appear to be talking to a fish as we speak…😉🤣

    2. The sentiments described in this article are probably why Trudeau opened the border to multi-kulti in the 70s and it's stayed open ever since. My son said that he met in a major city, Pakistani Canadians who regarded themselves as Canadian and were completely integrated though, and didn't see the kind of enclaves that exist in Britain.

  120. 6:00 p, and the sun finally came out. Now it is incredibly bright. Temps yesterday hit 25C, today only 15C. But it looks like the cold is really over – no more 10 below nights, I hope.

  121. Well, chums, it's my bedtime, so I shall wish you all a Good night. Sleep well, and hope to see you all tomorrow morning.

  123. I'm now better off than earlier. Although composing a comment is not entirely without technical hitches, it's much more manageable than before. I have no explanation for the utter disarray that prevailed this afternoon.

Comments are closed.