Monday 19 July: The pinged PM’s U-turn demonstrates the Government’s complete absence of common sense

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/07/18/letters-pinged-pms-u-turn-demonstrates-governments-complete/

703 thoughts on “Monday 19 July: The pinged PM’s U-turn demonstrates the Government’s complete absence of common sense”

  1. Believe In The Lord

    Two nuns were driving down a country road when they ran out of gas. They walked to a farmhouse and a farmer gave them some gasoline; but the only container he had was an old bedpan. The nuns were happy to take whatever they were offered and returned to their car. As they were pouring the gasoline from the bedpan into the tank of their car, a minister drove by.

    He stopped, rolled down his window and said, “Excuse me, sisters. I’m not of your religion, but I couldn’t help but admire your faith!“

  4. It is time for Priti Patel to step in and force change on the failing Met Police. 19 July 2021.

    When Cressida Dick’s term as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police ends next April, ministers will be disinclined to renew it. The Met has been in crisis for some time, and Dick has not only failed to fix things, she has in several ways made things worse. The failure to maintain order outside Wembley Stadium recently followed the shambolic policing, last year, of the Black Lives Matter protests and the now-familiar sight of police officers facilitating criminal activity every time Extinction Rebellion tries to close a road or attack an office building.

    Morning everyone. Nothing can be done. The Met is simply one other example of the collapse of the institutions that provide the mechanisms to rule the UK. Kneeling Policemen! Support for BLM and Extinction Rebellion! Hate Crimes! Its personnel divided even at the lowest level. This is what an organisation penetrated by the virus of Cultural Marxism looks like. It has left its host weak, delirious and incoherent, devoid of real life giving purpose! Cressida Dick was the means by which this pathogen was injected into the mainstream. It is patently apparent to anyone knowing her history that she was appointed for just this purpose. Feminist. Incompetent. Gay. She could never have been appointed to the position on her abilities.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/18/time-priti-patel-step-force-change-failing-met-police/

    1. As they say in HR: ” It’s not your vaulting ambition, it’s your lack of abilities that worries us”.

      Morning Minty.

    2. I know a fat old policeman
      He’s never on our street
      A fat and jolly red faced man
      He really is a treat
      He’s too kind for a policeman
      He’s never known to frown
      And everybody says he’s the Gayist man in town
      He kneels on duty
      He kneels apon his beat
      He laughs at everybody when he’s kneeling in the street
      He never can stop kneeling
      He says he has not tried
      Only once did he arrest a man
      And kneeled until he cried

      1. A few suggestions to improve the scanning, King Stephen. (No, I am not Peddy in disguise.):

        “and everybody says that he’s the Gayest man in town.
        He kneels when he’s on duty,
        He kneels upon his beat’
        He laughs at everybody when he’s kneeling in the street…

        Just once did he arrest a man
        And kneeled until he cried.”

    3. I must discretely declare an interest here.

      I would say that the vast majority of constables are not kneelers. They go out day after night and deal with difficult stuff in ways that never reach the media. They are frequently clumsy about it, true enough. But if they did not do what they do the situation would be indescribably worse.

      My rule of thumb is that if the media are agreeing on it – and police bashing is a popular theme – then it is probably a sliver of the actual reality, if true at all.

          1. Apropos our exchange yesterday, where do you get your French news? I look at BFMTV – which is marginally less biased that the State Channels – and Le Monde and Figaro – plus Nice Matin for a local (generally biased) view!

  5. SIR – It seems the Government is perilously close to considering further lockdown restrictions in order to cope with the (non-Covid) healthcare consequences of (Covid) lockdown policy. Sage doubtless likes the idea of that inescapable vortex.

    Andrew Shouler
    Grays, Essex

    1. Narrow and unbalanced Sage leaves the Government in a lockdown bind

      Requiring Sage members to be confirmed by Parliament would help to ensure that the widest possible variety of interests are represented

      Upon taking office, the Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, said that “we have to take a broad and balanced view” of pandemic policy. He ruled out Covid status certification as a condition of entry. Promising certainty and irreversibility, he said, “make no mistake: the restrictions on our freedoms must come to an end”. Face coverings would no longer be a legal requirement in any setting, including public transport.

      And yet by 12 July, the new Health Secretary was encouraging businesses to use certification, and telling us we would be expected to wear face coverings. We know his original intent but we must ask why he changed his plans.

      A broad view takes in all the considerations, and a balanced view knows how to weigh them. There are trade-offs between economic issues such as unemployment and health issues such as Covid transmission rates. There are trade-offs between non-Covid health issues such as cancer screening rates and health issues such as Covid hospitalisations. Mr Javid rightly asked, “What are the challenges faced by ministers in liberal democracies that make it hard for them to properly weigh up trade-offs?”

      Politicians need access to a broad and balanced view of events, especially in the most urgent moments of crisis. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) is No 10’s main knowledge source in a crisis. Unfortunately, the organisation of SAGE ensures that the Government will get a narrow and unbalanced view, with trade-offs absent.

      The trouble begins with SAGE’s “role” of providing the Government with “unified scientific advice on all the key issues, based on the body of scientific evidence presented by its expert participants”. If “scientific” advice is “unified,” it cannot be broad and balanced. It is “unified” only if one view prevails. Science is about inquiry and the contestation of ideas, not the imposition of orthodoxy. In What is Science? the physicist Richard Feynman said: “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts”. So SAGE ought to have a team assigned the task of challenging as strongly as possible the results of the rest of the group.

      The narrow governance structure of SAGE reinforces the tendency toward uniformity and orthodoxy. The power to select SAGE members is narrow. Currently, it rests on two people: the Government’s Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty, and the Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor, Patrick Vallance. Such narrow governance encourages uniformity of opinion and disciplinary narrowness.

      It’s not that Vallance and Whitty are bad actors. They are serious figures with illustrious careers. But they must make judgments when selecting SAGE members, and their illustrious careers can give them no immunity from the partiality of all human judgment. Each of us has a point of view, and all points of view are imperfect and incomplete. Requiring SAGE members to be confirmed by Parliament could create broad democratic governance and help to ensure that the widest possible variety of interests and perspectives would be represented in SAGE.

      SAGE has been criticised for disciplinary narrowness, including the neglect of economics and education. Disciplinary narrowness can produce blind spots. Standard epidemiological models, for example, neglect the ways people respond to the risk of infection. But if people respond to risks the way economists predict, interventions that make interactions safer can be undermined if people respond by interacting more. SAGE needs a broader set of represented disciplines.

      These problems matter because SAGE has an effective monopoly on the provision of scientific advice to the Government. If SAGE were competing in a free market of ideas, we might be able to rely on rivalry among experts to create the broad and balanced view the government needs. But SAGE is a part of the Government, and it cannot be a competitor in the open marketplace. It could be required to simulate a market by forming three multidisciplinary expert teams that would compete against each other. Such a reorganisation would return SAGE to its roots. When it was first activated in 2009, it “reviewed modelling from three independent groups of mathematical modellers,” which helped it to “communicate the uncertainties, particularly from the mathematical modelling, to ministers.”

      Javid is a deep thinker who has studied pandemic policy. Now, he will have seen how deeply institutions steer policy making. If he is willing to adopt reforms which follow from a study of human action in the field of expert advice, Mr Javid could swiftly make SAGE the source of broad and balanced wisdom we desperately need.

      Steve Baker is Conservative MP for Wycombe. Professor Roger Koppl is the author of ‘Expert Failure’

      Blow up SAGE. Any attempt to ‘reform’ it will leave a poisonous residue. Parliamentary confirmation of appointees would open up the chances of members being ‘captured’

      1. Smells like whitewash. SAGE were the people who condemned Galileo. Every particle of expertise in SAGE was derived from books written by others, the standard texts.

        1. And I strongly suspect that even those particles of expertise were cherry picked to be used to suit their political agendas.

          1. Two of the members of SAGE are openly admitted communists, with the avowed intention of destroying capitalism.

            Are we quite sure that these attitudes don’t taint their advice to the Government?

  6. Morning all 🤩
    Happy Birthday Ellie and happy anniversary, have a lovely day.
    I’m just popping in for a few moments i have a hospital appointment this morning………. i’m worried and i’m not trying to mask it. 😉😷

      1. Thanks all for the concern and good wishes, I think it’s something my GP dismissed as ‘probably normal’ about 2 years ago.

      2. Many thanks.
        Well it was quite a performance I can tell you, interesting to begin with very uncomfortable as he went around the bends. And burnt off the two larger polyps also chopped off the 5 other smaller versions. Nobody seems to know what causes them. The surgeon said I’ll probably see you in three years……….I told him I would be washing my hair that day.

      1. All necessary work carried out and polyps removed from lower tubing, surgeon said they bits and pieces look normal and we now await the all clear confirmation from the lab. One hell of an experience i can tell you, all the staff were brilliant.

      1. Thanks Sue.
        Well it was quite a performance I can tell you, interesting to begin with caught on camera, very uncomfortable as he went around the bends. And burnt off the two larger polyps and chopped off the 5 other smaller versions. Nobody seems to know what causes them. The surgeon said ill probably see you in three years……….i told him I would be washing my hair that day.

        1. Yes thank you.

          I have had at least a dozen blood tests since January. I don’t understand why they didn’t notice my potassium levels dropping to almost zero.

          I do have a theory though.

          I am under two Consultants and a lot of different Doctors. Most of them looking for different things when ordering a blood test.

          Had the call yesterday afternoon. My levels are now at optimum at 4.3.

          I hope this day finds you in good health.

          1. Good.

            I am seldom surprised when people only find what they are seeking and miss what’s also there.

            It does.

          2. Too many doctors spoil the…?
            Another shambles. Maybe the doctors were too busy going for an easy diagnosis rather than dealing with the whole person? Surely the blood test is an adjunct to observation, not a replacement?
            In any case, it’s good they found what ails thee, and can fix it. Hope you’re perked up back to being the same pesky person you always were! :-))

          5. It is possibly because each of the tests was required to search for a particular “thing”. The results were examined to see if the “thing” was there or not. None of those examining would have bothered to look to see what other things might be missing – such as your potassium….

            When I was in the NNUH, on several occasions half a dozen phials were taken so that each could be tested for one “thing”. I did ask why they didn’t test one sample for all – but was given a funny look…

          6. Each test costs money.
            It’s a production line: one vial goes down one route to one testing machine for one (set of) answers. No order test, no get test. Nobody will do a test because they think it might help, all that thinking is supposed to be done by the Dr.

      2. Well it was quite a performance I can tell you, interesting to begin with very uncomfortable as he went around the bends. And burnt off the two larger polyps and chopped off the 5 other smaller versions. Nobody seems to know what causes them. The surgeon said ill probably see you in three years……….i told him I would be washing my hair that day.

      2. I hope you both had a good day.
        My ‘investigation’ went well, polyps removed I wont go into details .

  7. Putin flexing his naval muscle: Destroyers, submarines, minesweepers and fighter jets all go through their dress rehearsal for Russia’s annual Navy Day show of strength. 19 July 2021.

    Russia flexed its naval muscles Sunday in its second rehearsal of the huge Main Naval Parade, set to take place in St Petersburg next week.

    The annual event is a national holiday celebrated on the last Sunday of July and sees the superpower show off its latest state-of-the-art warships, weaponry and aircraft.

    Typically, a two-hour procession sees the battleships sail along the Neva River in St.Petersburg and the Port of Kronstadt.

    Actually it’s just a Naval Review. The UK used to have them when we had a navy!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9800113/Russian-Navy-prepares-make-annual-strength-Putins-warships-bare-teeth.html

    1. I saw Boris denying this on TV and saying how we all have to stick together. He was quite good but Sociopaths are invariably good at lying!

      1. Everything Boris says is true. Right up until he stops speaking.

        Good morning, Minty.

        1. Yo Fizz

          I have tried to find the Mike Yarwood sketch, about Haraold Wilson………… everything is OK ’til he opens his mouth..

          I have not had any luck, but did find this, Well worth watching (well SWMBO and I think so)

          https://youtu.be/FHW3Xk0sTIc

          They do not make them like this anymore…………. regretably

    2. Habari ya asubuhi, Peter. Omelette yako ilikuwaje asubuhi ya leo na hali ya hewa ikoje huko Huntingdon?

  12. John Bercow breaks pledge not to take Speaker’s pension until he is 65
    Former Commons Speaker decided to take final salary pension – reportedly worth more than £35,000 a year – after stepping down in 2019

    John Bercow has broken his vow to defer taking his gold-plated pension until he has neared retirement age. And we are supposed to be amazed and surprised? Self-serving little oik.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/18/john-bercow-breaks-pledge-not-take-speakers-pension-65/

  14. Fearmongering is no way to win over vaccine refuseniks. Spiked. 19 July 2021.

    This atmosphere of fear has consequences. Fearful people are more likely to support harsher restrictions on their fellow citizens. Fear-based messaging can be divisive and corrosive of social bonds. In my neighbourhood, during the lockdown, people called the police on a cancer-charity bake sale and on a children’s birthday party – even though the latter was being celebrated by a large family who already lived together.

    The Fear Campaign is one of the main contributors to my scepticism about the virus and its beginnings. In all other National Emergencies considerable resources were devoted to maintaining morale and reassuring the public. During WWII; a far greater threat; pubs, cinemas and dance halls remained open. Winston Churchill did not speak on the Radio and say, “Save yourselves and surrender to the First German who asks for your Identity Card.”.

    The truth is that Covid and the response to it have been massively overegged and that has been done by the Government and its Agencies. For what purposes is still unclear. We should, as individuals do everything possible within our own power, to ignore their decisions and undermine any restrictions that they impose.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/07/19/fearmongering-is-no-way-to-win-over-vaccine-refuseniks/

    1. Delingpole: Masks Are About ‘Social Control’ Realises Leading Tory, Finally…
      *
      *
      *
      Brady and his Brexiteer crew were once risibly dubbed the Spartans. What events of the last 16 months have shown us is that Xerxes I, had he ever met these milksops in battle, would have had them on toast for breakfast. Steve Baker MP, the most slippery of the bunch, would probably have played the Ephialtes role and betrayed them by revealing the path the Persians used to outflank the 300.

      We can all agree with every word of Brady’s article, which might equally have been titled ‘Pope Found In Vatican’ or ‘Bears Defecate In Forests’.

      But I still smell a rat, especially since the newspaper that published him also happens to be the most bedwetting, Covid-fanatical, and on-message organ in the whole of what used to be Fleet Street.

      The wankerati are shifting the narrative. Masks are no longer good, m’kay, they’ve decided, because the public have shown themselves sufficiently scaredy cat and malleable. So now it’s on to the next stage of the operation: jab everyone now; and scapegoat and marginalise and vilify anyone who doesn’t want to take one of those new shots.

      https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/07/18/delingpole-masks-are-about-social-control-realises-leading-tory-finally/

      1. The whiff of ‘controlled opposition’ will hang around Brady, Baker et al. until they actually DO something to get shot of the nasty and incompetent bunch known as the Cabinet. I’ve posted a tweet re the latest U-turn caused by an earlier U-turn: this is a novel event even by this hopeless bunch of no-marks. Brady has to step out from the wings into the spotlight’s glare and call Johnson out for what he is and set in motion a leadership challenge to sweep Johnson et al. out of power. Sadly, I think that Party will prevail over Country and Brady et al. will miss their chance of making history.

    2. ‘people called the police on a cancer-charity bake sale and on a children’s birthday party’

      Not sure that is down to the fearmongering. Some people are naturally spiteful.

  15. GB News looking more like the BBC every day. Lets hope Farage can change it.

    1. 335535+ up ticks,
      Morning JN,
      This depending on hope has brought us to our present condition as a nation,check out the nige
      past very dubious record.

    2. I’ve tried to get on with GB News but I find it amateurish and unwatchable. Even some of the early ‘teething troubles’ remain unresolved. It’s a shame, I had high hopes for it.

    2. On the upside, if politicians and civil servants can’t work, the country will almost certainly be better off.

  17. Spanish woman in UK for 44 years sacked over post-Brexit rules. 19 July 2021.

    A Spanish woman who has lived in England for 44 years has been sacked from her job in a care home because she is unable to prove she has the right to work in the UK, in a case illustrating the difficulties experienced by EU nationals as employers grapple with post-Brexit right-to-work regulations.

    The 45-year-old woman, who arrived in Britain as an 11-month-old baby and who has never left the country, said she has tried more than 100 times to get through to the Home Office-run helpline in the past three weeks, but has never been able to speak to an adviser.

    I’m only surprised she’s not a quadriplegic! I do have some sympathy for this woman, but it is not because she is being deported (She won’t be) But because she’s been chosen by the Home Office to show us all what Heartless Beasts we all are for wanting to be rid of the World’s riff raff!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/19/spanish-woman-in-uk-for-44-years-sacked-over-post-brexit-rules

      1. Good question. The good burghers (sic) of Bath put up lots of signs all over the city encouraging EU nationals to apply to stay in the UK.

    3. Son’s Danish other half had no problems. But then she is organised and got her paperwork done early on.

    4. No, it isn’t a difficulty experience by ‘EU nationals’ – as the EU is not a country, there can be no ‘EU nationals’.

      It’s people being lazy. If she wants to live here, she should do the paperwork.

  18. Morning all

    SIR – I was recently mulling over the idea that a Ministry of Common Sense should be established so that the claptrap currently emanating from our government might in some heaven-found way be at least minimised by someone living in the real world.

    Alas, I could not think of one MP to fit the bill as its minister. The U-turn of yesterday morning, regarding isolation for the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, who purport to be our leaders, illustrates the problem.

    Anthony Bolton

    Church Stretton, Shropshire

    SIR – Yesterday’s pantomime, with a swift U-turn by the PM and Chancellor confirms the “them and us” system.

    Freedom for the nation? Forget it!

    Diana Dixon

    Tonbridge, Kent

    SIR – Does anyone else remember the time when a Conservative government provided strong and stable leadership?

    David Miller

    Chigwell, Essex

    SIR – I suggest Boris Johnson changes his doctor. What lamebrained medico suggested he needed to self-isolate when he has (a) had the disease and (b) been further vaccinated against it?

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    Rev Philip Foster

    Hemingford Abbots, Huntingdonshire

    SIR – I have voted Conservative all my life, but I cannot take this shambles of a government any more. It appears that Boris Johnson is just a big bag of wind who has no grasp of reality and no sensible advisers at No 10.

    John Dore

    Hertford

    SIR – I had a most unsettling Sunday lunchtime. I agreed with everything Tony Blair said in his interview on The World This Weekend.

    Trevor Jones

    Sidmouth, Devon

    SIR – It seems the Government is perilously close to considering further lockdown restrictions in order to cope with the (non-Covid) healthcare consequences of (Covid) lockdown policy. Sage doubtless likes the idea of that inescapable vortex.

    Andrew Shouler

    Grays, Essex

    SIR – In our household we have a new name for the UK Government’s NHS Test and Trace app. We call it the Trick and Trap app.

    Daphne MacOwan

    Ballajora, Isle of Man

    SIR – Installing and using the Test and Trace app are not compulsory. The advice to isolate if pinged is not a legal obligation. The app is clearly deeply flawed. Why is anyone still using it?

    Advertisement

    Claudia van der Werff

    London SW1

    SIR – I do not own a smartphone and therefore have no Test and Trace app.

    I have often visited restaurants since the reopening of hospitality venues. My contact details have been recorded, with no problems, with pen and paper by a helpful staff member or by me. I am ping-free and have had no contact from anywhere I have visited.

    Government guidelines make clear that no venue can refuse entry to a person without the phone app, and it must have alternative recording arrangements in place.

    Richard Hall

    Belper, Derbyshire

    SIR – How long until something like the Test and Trace app becomes a pre-installed, permanent application on the mobile phone operating system?

    Every new phone and software update comes with “bloatware” that customers cannot delete. Big Government surely won’t miss this trick.

    James Mann

    Taunton, Somerset

    SIR – I often leave my mobile in the car when I shop. If, on return, I find it has been pinged, should I put the car into quarantine for 10 days?

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    Michael Yates

    West Moors, Dorset

    1. As I commented yesterday, the UK is being mismanaged by a bunch of f**kwits, most of them drunk.
      Seen from outside, this is actuall quite a mild observation.
      Even the tellygaffe is printing letters that agree with me. I particularly like this one: “I have voted Conservative all my life, but I cannot take this shambles of a government any more. It appears that Boris Johnson is just a big bag of wind who has no grasp of reality and no sensible advisers at No 10.”

      1. Goood morning OB

        The best honest letter yet.

        Johnson is a bigger gas bag than his father .

        I cannot remember voting for any input from his toothy squeeze either.
        She should just shut up.

        1. Morning, Belle. :-))
          Hope you’re well & have decent weather. Nice here, at 20C and sun.

          1. Morning OB ,
            Temps reached over 30c late afternoon, and last night was the hottest ever .. 25c, we hardly slept .

            I am a misery re hot weather , always hated it .. the air is stifling . I cope quite wll with cold weather .

            Moh now looks as if he has stepped off a boat in Dover . He loves the sun , sadly he has paid the price for sun exposure re his scalp and tops of his ears , and face .. he lives in his shorts, he has many pairs in different colours for golf etc

            He is so brown , we look like a mixed marriage!

            That sounds very rude .. but once when his dear late mother was ill in hospital, we visited her , and a dear Indian lady in a bed near Mil , shouted excitedly to him and threw her arms out to grab him , by saying , “oh my son , I have missed you so much, you have come to visit me “… Such a very sad business.

    2. Interesting.
      Just tried posting this only to see it vanish into the ether:-

      Like Richard Hall I am devoid of a Smart Phone and am more than happy to provide name and telephone number when requested. I usually provide Eric Blair, 0198448910″.

      1. Would I get away with Margaret Thatcher?
        I have no desire to self-identify as Matt Hancock.

  19. Morning again

    A GP you can see

    SIR – A number of letters (July 17) have cited the impossibility of seeing a GP. I wonder why good practice is not shared.

    We have lived in our village for 34 years, and in all that time, from the births of our three children until now, we have never struggled to get an appointment when needed.

    Our local health centre operates a system that separates acute and routine appointments, and we have never had to wait more than 24 hours for a consultation when appropriate.

    During the Covid pandemic, we have had a variety of online consultations, phone consultations and even a couple of face-to-face appointments. I would say the record response was 20 minutes.

    I’m sure that others could emulate our health centre’s great system.

    Jeanne Leader

    North Curry, Somerset

    1. North Curry has a population of 1,600.

      There is your answer Jeanne.

      My Doctor surgery is in the process of amalgamating with two others bringing the patient book to 36,000.

      1. And in all probability 99% native English speakers. Re (telephone) response times: In multi ethnic areas it can take a lot longer for receptionists to make patients understand and vice versa…….

        1. A chap rang the doorbell – twice, the second time getting an electric shock as I was sick of people doing that.

          He then banged on the door, so I let Gerry answer. Stood there pushing a brown bag in my face was a fellow who spoke almost no English. Trying to say to him the postcode was right, but there was no such pub here was pointless, as he just couldn’t understand me.

          I’m getting tired of that, to be honest. Tired of seeing other languages in my doc surgery to sign in. If you don’t speak English, sod off. Yes, I appreciate that clears out half of Newcastle even before massive uncontrolled gimmigration but tough. You’re here. We deserve your obedience. Learn our language. Speak our language, or leave.

        1. The three are owned by Sovereign Health. Once the dust has settled they will begin to sell off the property bank for development.

          We will end up having our consultations in a Bus Stop.

          1. Telephone consultations will be outsourced to India and the Philippines.

            The plebs have already shown that they are happy with this.

            Then Sovereign Health can get rid of lots of expensive doctors.

          2. Doctors can be replaced by even cheaper algorithms, that don’t get sick or need meal breaks. Supported by machine learning, these will soon be the way forward (?) for medicine.
            It’s actually not that hard to develop the algorithm – I’ve developed the decision processes for similar thought processes, it just takes a bit of structured thinking. What’s a bit difficult at the moment for the medical algorithms is “Does it hurt when I press here?” questions, which is why you need a hands-on doctor. And, H O Doctor can also feel for the consistency, size and location of the “lump”, take blood pressure, and look into throats and ears, that the algorithm or telephone doctoring cannot.

      3. Similar where I live; one surgery now has the patients of two more that closed added to its books. It’s no wonder we can’t get through on the phone and appointments to actually see a doctor are non-existent.

  20. SIR – If Boris Johnson is serious about childhood obesity, why doesn’t he ban ice-cream vans?

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    Every day from March to September, between 4pm and 5pm, one comes down our road belching diesel fumes, playing the same jarring tune as for the last five years.

    It calls to the children like the Pied Piper: “Come and buy a 99 cornet, only £3 each. Ruin your dinner and your waistline.”

    Supermarkets have removed sweets from the checkouts, let’s now remove this scourge from our residential roads.

    Elizabeth Gomm

    Loughton, Essex

    3. Ahhh… one of the delights of childhood, the Mr Softee van.
      Softee ice-cream in a cone, and on a really good day, a Flake in it.
      TBH, if anyone is fussing about an ice a day, which is actually not a huge calorie loading, they need to get a life. Children won’t be fat due to the ice-cream, more due to heavy sugar loadings in pretty well everything else they eat, plus endless colas.

      1. I suspect that her beef has more to do with noise and exhaust pollution.

        1. There’s one van goes down my road every evening at about 7.30 playing the Blue Peter theme tune. I’ve got used to it.

      1. We have a local ice cream factory within walking distance and the common gets clogged up with cars but we never have an ice cream van down here.

        1. An ice cream van visits the village , the ring tones can be so irritating , and there is also a mobile fish and chip van, once aweek which parks near one of the open rec spaces .

          Moh and son indulge sometimes . I have to say the fish is the freshest ever , they serve most generous portions !

          1. If we want an ice cream or fish & chips they’re not too far away. We have more traffic than we used to but none of those.

    5. Thank God I don’t live in Loughton.
      Is there an EG lurking behind every set of net curtains?

      1. We have a net curtain lurker but then she is our neighbourhood watch. Margaret also gives me fresh veg from her allotment so i won’t hear a word against her. :@)

        Good morning.

    7. Ms Gomm reminds me far too much of a miserable, nasty crone complaining that people are laughing and having fun of any sort as she plots the overthrow of the human race and finally, finally! gets to strikeout ‘joy’ from the dictionary.

      I am mostly live and let live as long as you life doens’t infringe upon others. When there was screaming from across the way during the football that did, and it wasn’t appropriate because the dozen roaring blokes thought nothing of other people.

      Yet it was a temporary event, and the tear gas I made up wasn’t needed.

      1. People can be annoying.

        I resent the overloud music of the ice cream van. I told them as much and they toned it down.

        Having an ice cream once a day or once a week doesn’t cause obesity.

        As far as the grown men roaring is concerned. It can’t be considered nuisance because as you say, it was temporary.

        I bet Liz Gomm doesn’t have any children.

        Good morning.

    8. What a sad specimen Liz Gomm is! A Lady Macbeth made flesh! Sadly lacking ‘the milk of human kindness’

  21. 335535+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    Monday 19 July: The pinged PM’s U-turn demonstrates the Government’s complete absence of common sense

    Common sense has been replaced with anti United Kingdom / pro brussels common purpose, operating big time.

    The DOVER illegals intake is showing that quite clearly,what has been the object of the exercise is that the herd has been / is being domesticated and acclimatised to being milked on a regular basis.

    Dt,
    Freedom Day is yet another false dawn
    The PM has caved under pressure and left us with more rules than we had before the vaccines

    Truth be told The UK governance politico’s are leading the world on overseeing and domesticating their indigenous herd for common purpose purposes,ALL in the name of reset, replace,political domination.

    One wonders at the black comedy beauty of the odious set up when one realises that the herd are colluding & financing the resetting, reshaping,replacing knackers yard they are in many cases entering willingly.

  22. A culture war between East and West threatens to tear the EU in two. 19 July 2021.

    The latest spat between Brussels and its partners to the East has centred on a new schools policy in Hungary. The government of Viktor Orban has passed a new law similar to Britain’s now-defunct Section 28, forbidding the portrayal or promotion of LGBT people to the under-18s. The law is draconian, misguided, overly broad and likely to fail. But it has allowed the EU to once again attempt a punishment-beating of Hungary.

    TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE.

    Hugo McEwen18 Jul 2021 8:36PM.

    Frankly, if I was looking at Western Europe from east of Vienna and Berlin, I’d see a civilisation in terminal decline, tearing itself to pieces over issues of niche sexuality and identity that have nothing to do with the broad swathe of the public, and pandering to the most extreme and medieval end of a religion that has historically been at war with our civilisation since its inception. All of this is antithetical to what we try to be and want to be, and yet the liberal/left intelligentsia, their political puppets and their media megaphones continue to thrust it on us.

    If I was the Visegrad lot, I’d keep this stuff out with any weapons that came to hand.

    Amen to that brother. Somehow I’m beginning to feel that I’ve been stranded on the wrong side of the Warsaw Pact Border!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/18/culture-war-east-west-threatens-tear-eu-two/

    1. The promotion of homosexuality is a great example of ‘white privilege’. Go to any non-white country and see how you get on being homosexual or promoting homosexuality.

      Politics, including sexual politics, has no place in schools.

    1. I appreciate the sentiment, but he’s wrong. He is actually waking up. He’s waking up to see the authoritarian power of the state, the abusive intolerance of those who dissent from the state line. From the twisting of language that has gone on for nearly a decade now. The creeping power the state has taken from us. The obeisance the public are now forced to pay toward that same statist authoritarian abuser.

      He’s right though, that society has become divided into the obedient and the dissenter. Previously the disenter was the questioner, the normal person who asked ‘why?’. Now the disenter has been branded as nothing but evil by the state machine and worse, those seeking to *use* the state to further their own malevolent ends.

  26. I see that the ever suffering, deeply oppressed, perpetually offended bame multi-millionaire cheated his way to victory, yesterday. And then – hypocrite that he is, was showing waving a large Union Flag.

    1. As much as I’m interested in Big Boys’ Scalextric I just always hope someone other than LH wins.

    2. It was a “racing accident” Bill. I didn’t see it but I understand LH held his ground as was his right and V didn’t give him space, ending in the wall as a result. LH also entitled to wave the Union flag.

    3. I despise the man, but IMO He didn’t cheat. He may be an rsehole out of his car, but in it he’s one of the most honest and fair drivers on the grid. I think the Sky TV analysis by a former F1 driver is spot on: racing incident with 2 racing drivers refusing to give an inch.

      https://youtu.be/fw2r2-9LWJQ

      Verstappen gets up my nose as much as Hamilton does. He is an arrogant, aggressive and obnoxious driver who, true to type, believes he can do whatever he likes on track and no-one can do anything to him. In an almost identical reversal of their positions at the previous corner sequence, a clearly-faster Hamilton didn’t try to cut across Verstappen’s nose and lost out to Verstappen’s aggressive driving; had Verstappen responded in kind by giving more room then he wouldn’t have crashed. Serves him right that he did.

      1. Verstappen would have done exactly the same – if he can’t take it he shouldn’t dish it out.

  27. Good morning all. With 14° in the yard, another scorching day ahead and I’ve got to go into Derby today!

  28. Good Moaning.
    Busy day – including the dreaded housework.
    Meanwhile, to keep my brain active, I will ponder on who I hate enough to spend 18 smackers on this as a gift.
    Or do I know any nonagenarian billionaires with a dodgy ticker who have included me in their will?

    “Get a jigsaw done!

    To many, Boris Johnson is still a puzzle, a man of many parts and difficult to piece together in order to create a clear picture of him. Now the Conservative Party is cashing in on this enigma by marketing a Boris Brexit Jigsaw.

    The 252-piece puzzle, at £18, shows the PM in blue boxing gloves with each bearing the slogan Get Brexit Done. Just the thing to pass the time for anyone stuck at home isolating or not being able to go abroad on holiday.”

    2. 335535+ up ticks,
      Morning Anne,
      Is the 18 sobs inclusive of a miniature bottle of whisky & noosed rope ?

    3. What about a Snakes and Ladders Brexit Bungle Board game with the ladders leading straight to a snake which takes you back to the Irish Sea, an EU fishing boat in British waters, an exit fee far in excess of the original cost, a group of customs officials trying thwart you at every border and a court prosecuting NI veterans? An epidemiologist statistician should study the dice and help design the board to make sure that it is impossible ever to get to the finish line.

      1. It gets even harder when the player is actively trying to land on the Eurocracy snake – to the point of fudging the dice after they’ve been rolled.

      2. It gets even harder when the player is actively trying to land on the Eurocracy snake – to the point of fudging the dice after they’ve been rolled.

  29. Another GREAT YouGov “poll” telling the govt that a majority want lockdown to go on for ever.

    2. The YouGov polls are so riddled with biases and selections that their results are meaningless to honest people, but you don’t get many of those in media and politics.

      More importantly, ask the question after saying that the government is borrowing at more than £15,000 pa per taxpayer, over half the average wage, so you’ll have to do 2 weeks of unpaid work for the government for each month of lockdown, and I bet YouGov would get a very different response. Of course, the statement is misleading as the government would still be borrowing without lockdown, marginal extra spending being more like 1 week than 2 weeks, but what’s sauce for the goose . . .

        1. Happy birthday, may your memory be as that of an elephant for all good things.

        4. Happy Birthday for Today

          and 364 Happy Unbirthdays for the next Twelve months

    3. I bet the elephants didn’t forget her birthday.
      Many Happies, Ndovu.

      (I still can’t get my head round The Great She-Elephant’ being a serious title for a king’s mother.)

        1. Good Grief. I haven’t read RH since my teens.
          I remember a chap with the catchy name of Umslopogaas.

          1. Ah! The Woodpecker! I still read him. Oddly enough Haggard was not the racist the Wokeys would expect!

          2. Good morning, Anne.

            Hard to forget him. John Mortimer’s Rumpole referred to his wife as She Who Must Be Obeyed and the DT crossword used to be littered with cryptic references to the author.
            I read King Solomon’s Mines to the boys when they were little. They were most amused by the chap with the good lwhite legs.

          2. Bizarrely, Covid has shrunk all my trousers and all my shirts. Also made the sofa a bit more saggy, and seems to fill up the bottle bin faster than before.
            Don’t know how that works… :-((

          3. #MeNeither, Paul – same symptoms, should I self-isolate (more than I have already?)

      3. Wasn’t that Queen Salote of Tonga, who drove to the coronation of Her Majesty, in an open carriage with the minuscule Japanese Prime Minister by her side?

        Some wag identified him as, possibly, her lunch.

          1. Thank you, Bill.

            As I was only 9 at the time, I think I may be forgiven for forgetting the wag’s name but not her ‘generous proportions’.

          2. Thank you, Bill.

            As I was only 9 at the time, I think I may be forgiven for forgetting the wag’s name but not her ‘generous proportions’.

    1. One does get just a little tired of the noble Lord, Lord Sumption…and his pontification.

      1. Bright eyed? Not really, as too bally hot.

        Bushy tailed? Yes, from the humidity.

      1. As a fat bloke – no, as a big fat bloke – this weather is the second level of hell.

  34. The Daily Human Stupidity.

    “In the sphere of rights the irresistible trend is towards a situation where, if something can be taken for granted, all rights are otiose, whereas if a right must be demanded, it means that the battle is already lost; thus the very call for rights to water, air and space indicates that all these things are already on the way out. Similarly the evocation of a right to reply signals the absence of any dialogue, and so on.

    The rights of the individual lose their meaning as soon as the individual is no longer an alienated being, deprived of his own being, a stranger to himself, as has long been the case in societies of exploitation and scarcity. In his postmodern avatar, however, the individual is a self-referential and selfoperating unit. Under such circumstances the human-rights system becomes totally inadequate and illusory: the flexible, mobile individual of variable geometric form is no longer a subject with rights but has become, rather, a tactician and promoter of his own existence whose point of reference is not some agency of law but merely the efficiency of his own functioning or performance.

    Yet it is precisely now that the rights of man are acquiring a worldwide resonance. They constitute the only ideology that is currently available – which is as much as to say that human rights are the zero point of ideology, the sale outstanding balance of history. Human rights and ecology are the two teats of the consensus. The current world charter is that of the New Political Ecology.

    Ought we to view this apotheosis of human rights as the irresistible rise of stupidity, as a masterpiece which, though imperilled, is liable to light up the coming fin de siecle in the full glare of the consensus?”

    Jean Baudrillard.

    1. Good morning, Grizzly

      I remember that you did a very impressive painting of an elephant which you posted here. I am sure today’s lovely birthday girl would be delighted if you posted it again for us.

          1. It’s very good, Grizz. :-))
            The water dripping down the trunk and splashing around the legs is very well executed – difficult to get right. The reflections, too. And I like the way you let the background become fuzzy.
            You bin practising!!

          2. Thanks, Paul.

            I painted this just a couple of years ago. It was my first ever attempt with oils on a gessoed board of MDF. It annoyed me since I had previously steered clear of oils for no sensible reason. I was angry with myself for not trying them earlier. I had previously only used acrylics but oils are much more fun to use.

        1. Remember the corrupted Rugby Club version of the Eton Boating song:

          Recent research at Harvard by Beckinsworth, Holby and Hall
          Shows that the poor old hedgehog just cannot be buggered at all.
          Why why don’t those fellows from Harvard
          Learn well from the fellows at Yale
          Who successfully buggered a hedgehog by shaving the spines from his tail.

  39. Just back from an agreeable 4 mile bike ride to the Post Office. Lovely sun – strong easterly – the direction for our return!!

    2. And there were many fewer people on the earth back in 1707 compared with today, too.

  42. In relation to the bedwetting Aussies, there’s some interesting statistics published at https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-case-numbers-and-statistics#covid19-summary-statistics
    Main points:
    With a population of about 25.5 million, the total deaths due to covid as of yesterday were 914. Or, 0.0035% per head of population. Compare that with the UK (152 606) at 0.23%, Sweden (14 592) at 0.143% and Norway (796) at 0.015%.
    And they are going into super-Gestapo mode. What’s the matter with them?

    3. Perhaps they think the Covid is starting to build up like winds bringing radiation from the northern hemisphere. Shades of Shute’s ‘On the Beach’?

      1. They probably had many times more than that number die on the roads in the same period.

        2. If my party is left-wing, and your partty is even more left-wing, does that make my party right-wing?

    5. I remember reading in the Daily Mail many years ago some journo asserting that we didn’t need the MOT tests, because so few RTAs were caused by unsafe cars.

      1. And there were so few MoT-failure cars due to having to be maintained to pass the test.
        Circular argument.

    1. They’re all just waiting to see off the illegal invaders.

      Please be sure to steal their phones and wait until they’re in very deep water before puncturing their rubber dinghies.

  47. Pompeii’s ancient brothel to reopen to visitors after restoration. 19 July 2021.

    The brothel, famous for erotic frescoes and explicit graffiti, has traditionally been one of the most visited sites at Pompeii.

    It inspired a recently-published book, The Wolf Den, by the author Elodie Harper, which imagines the lives of the women who were forced to work there.

    I don’t think this service appears in the travel brochure. One would have like to have known whether it caters to Ancient or Modern tastes bearing in mind that the majority of encounters in the Empire were of anal sex regardless of gender.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/07/18/pompeiis-notorious-brothel-reopen-visitors-restoration/

  48. Throughout the panic we have been told that people with ‘other health problems’ are more at risk, the most obvious being those with circulatory problems but how many with cancer are vulnerable? After all, there are many forms of that disease. I doubt that we will ever be given a proper analysis of how cancer deaths have been affected by the pandemic.

    However, this article raised my ire because it’s another example of the fear unnecessarily induced in so many people. And those bloody masks. Will Lara and her companion (I can’t use the ‘w’-word) be in any greater danger in the company of people without masks?

    It’s easy to be critical of the fearful. Who put the fear into them?

    Freedom Day means anything but for people with cancer as thousands won’t return to normal

    One in five people with cancer in England believe they will not be able to return to normal life despite ‘Freedom Day’ today.

    Despite England ending all legal restrictions on social contact, 21% told a survey they could not enjoy day-to-day activities until new Covid cases stop being reported. And 3% – equivalent to around 70,000 people – said they did not think it would ever be safe for them to return to the way their life was before the pandemic.

    An estimated 2.4 million people are living with cancer in England.

    Charities including Macmillan have slammed the government for ending mandatory face masks, despite Wales, Scotland and some English cities all continuing them on public transport.

    A group of 37 experts warned government guidance for the clinically extremely vulnerable is too broad to be useful for people with blood cancer.

    The guidance says people may want to continue social distancing, wait for 14 days after friends’ second vaccine dose, meet outside if possible, avoid crowded spaces, ask friends to take a test before meeting, and only go shopping at “quieter times of day”.

    Lynda Thomas, chief executive of Macmillan, said rising cases and the bonfire of laws have “made people feel even more anxious”.

    She added: “The use of the word ‘freedom day’ makes it feel definitely not like freedom day and they’re feeling anything but free right now. We are asking members of the general public to respect the fact that there will be many clinically vulnerable people still in our society who will not be feeling safe. It’s not that much to ask.”

    Macmillan and pollster YouGov surveyed 2,156 adults with a previous cancer diagnosis.

    The poll found 29% believe they will still feel isolated from family, friends and their wider community, and 23% thought it was unlikely the vaccination programme would allow life to return to normal.

    Lara Montgomery and her wife Theresa, both of whom have been diagnosed with cancer, told the charity a full easing of restrictions was “really frightening”.

    “I think the terminology of ‘freedom day’ is awful, it just doesn’t capture the feeling of the whole country and I think for a lot of people… it’s not freedom day at all,” Lara said.

    “I think people are just going to become too relaxed (and) the situation for people like ourselves…is going to become really frightening. We’re already talking now about how difficult it’s going to be for us, just going to the supermarket to do our shopping and who’s going to be wearing a mask and who won’t be.”

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/freedom-day-means-anything-people-24562230

    1. I do feel sorry for people like Lara who think a cloth mask is going to save them from a horrendous death.

      1. Called me old-fashioned but I do find this sentence very odd.

        “Lara Montgomery and her wife Theresa”

        1. Call me old-fashion but I do find this sentence very odd, queer.

          There, that’s better.

        2. Mrs M and Mrs M had a son together; quite an easy procedure, in which the male role has been almost completely eliminated. Probably inspired by Afro-Caribbean cultural traditions.

          1. Except the father figure. As, while the modern Left don’t lie to mention it, without a father figure to demonstrate masculine behaviour children – of both sexes – are denied good parenting.

    2. There seems to be some confusion here; though one is not too surprised bearing in mind Lara’s matrimonial arrangements. Masks, so far as I am aware do nothing to inhibit cancer!

      1. Masks, so far as I am aware do nothing to inhibit cancer!

        That was my point – that the ‘advice’ from government has made nearly everyone with any medical condition think they are far more likely to die. That is irresponsible. Mask-wearing is subsidiary to that.

    3. Just because some unfortunate cancer sufferers don’t feel ‘safe’ enough to live as normally as possible, that is no reason for the vast majority to keep living with restricted lives, being denied access to normal healthcare, and destroying the economy in the process. While I have every sympathy for anyone battling such a serious and horrible disease, if they feel that ‘endangered’ they should just take their own precautions. presumably they would be just as ‘at risk’ from a serious bout of regular flu every year but don’t expect others to wear masks, keep 1-2 metres away and so on.

      1. I wrote on Saturday about one of the panellists on R4’s ‘Any Questions?’ who said she would wear a mask in certain places to reassure the fearful. She didn’t see the obvious flaw in this: how many mask-wearers are the fearful and how many are the deferential? We end up with a situation where a majority wear masks because they think all the other wearers are scared!

        1. Not deferential , just thinking of others not ourselves .. in shops etc

          People who are on courses of chemotherapy etc , low immunity , or even people who have streaming colds , a mask stops the aerosol spread of germs , I have always been disgusted when people sneeze, very few people carry a hanky these days , especially children .

          See how a some use their hands to wipe their noses upwards .
          Edit.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergic_salute

          1. “I have always been disgusted when people sneeze, very few people carry a hanky these days…”

            Indeed, but it’s not argument in favour of permanent mask-wearing, especially as we are now told that the virus is present as an aerosol; droplet infection (by sneezing or coughing) is a minor cause of spread.

            And wouldn’t some cancer patients be isolating anyway, even before covid?

        2. Not deferential , just thinking of others not ourselves .. in shops etc

          People who are on courses of chemotherapy etc , low immunity , or even people who have streaming colds , a mask stops the aerosol spread of germs , I have always been disgusted when people sneeze, very few people carry a hanky these days , especially children .

          See how a some use their hands to wipe their noses upwards .
          Edit.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergic_salute

    4. There will always be someone who feels unsafe around others. As a miserable git I despise cigarette smoke. Given the choice I’d have smokers put in a sealed suit.

      Yet there comes a point where you have to accept other people.

  49. Took a walk down to the local Co-Op to buy some essentials, I noticed there is still plenty of sheep with a face nappy firmly in place.
    At least the staff on the shop floor and on the tills were nappy free.

    1. Our little village shop doesn’t ask for muzzles to be worn, just asks us to keep to the limit of no more than 3 customers at a time. The latter is fine as the shop is small and cramped. Off to Tesco later – minus muzzle. I will also pop in to the cheapie shop to buy one of the pointless face shields. If (when, it’s only a matter of time) face coverings once again become mandated in shops, I’ll just use a clear face shield – at least my glasses won’t steam up. Plenty of other ‘seniors’ wear them – maybe that’s because we’re the ones who know cloth/disposable muzzles are just as useless.

      1. maybe that’s because we’re the ones who know cloth/disposable muzzles are just as useless.

        You will never be invited to be a member of SAGE with knowledge like that.

      3. I bought a face shield but it’s quite useless as it has the same effect as taking my glasses off – the world becomes a blur and I can’t see to read!

        1. I keep my reading glasses on (and the muzzle has been OFF for the duration) to deliberately blur the outline of people, it makes them feel less threatening and I avoid eye contact. My glasses and the blurring act as a psychological barrier between the potentially hostile and myself. Apart from the gestapo on the door nobody has bothered me.

      4. Of course the virus can’t get around the sides of a face shield can it! 🙂
        We have never worn masks as the government website says you don’t have to.

      5. Mum – do you know that, if you look at the government’s own website, exemptions include those who find wearing/putting on and taking off a face mask extremely distressing. You do not have to wear one.

        Alf and I have never worn them. No member of the public has ever challenged us. Occasionally a ”guard” at the supermarket will ask do you have a mask. We smile sweetly and say we are both exempt. You can even print off a badge from the website, which I did at first as well as the paragraph, as a precaution. You do not have to explain to anyone why you are exempt.

        Please try to be brave. We need people to help break free from the shackles that are closing in on us. The government is now “encouraging” businesses to ask people to carry on wearing masks – in other words, getting other people to do their dirty work for them. They are relentless in their psychological warfare and scare tactics. Anything to keep us all submissive and under control.

      7. 335535 + up ticks,
        Morning Mib,
        I want one also, purely for working with the grinder in the garage.

        1. May I recommend Uvex Ultrasonic S/Vision Goggles? Like ski-ing goggles, and big enough to cover most spectacle frames.

        2. They are no protection against Grinder on the Internet but, each to his/her own.

    2. 335535+ up ticks,
      Morning VVOF,
      Really must stop melining sheep, these wanna be sheep have not the rhetorical bollocks of the genuine article, the sheep are innocent.

      Ps My course in animal husbandry did not prove a success in many ways.

      1. Sheep are very well ‘melined’. I think you mean maligning.

        Must do better.

        1. 335535+ Up ticks,
          Afternoon NtN,
          No excuses given only that daily “must dos” take precedence, spell in haste …..

          Will try to improve.

    1. The press and TV stations should start away.
      Don’t give this racist the oxygen to spread his hate.
      Of course the BBC/ITV/SKY will be there like a shot.
      We really need someone with backbone but jellyfish Bonking Johnson is not up to it.

      1. 335535+ up ticks,
        Morning VW,
        The polling booth gave him & his ilk the publicity plus peoples consent time & time & time again, it could have been stopped long,long,ago but…..

    3. In a free country (stop sniggering at the back) Choudary can air his views – short of libel/slander – but I see no need for our supine meeja to promulgate his views.

      1. It’s not that – the real issue isn’t his incitemet to riot, religious hatred and sheer intolerance and abuse of the freedoms we gift him: it’s that others promoting the alternative are silenced.

        1. It is that; the meeja wouldn’t dream of reporting what e.g. Tommy Robinson (NHRN) would say on his latest release, so why kowtow to this muppet?

    4. And a cricket player was banned from playing for the English team because of something he said on social media when he was a teenager 9 years ago.

      “Those whom the gods would destroy the they first make mad”

      Phase One complete. Phase Two imminent.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfZVu0alU0I

  51. Will somebody read this to the buffoon please and tell him to grow a pair.

    Freedom Day is yet another false dawn

    Jonathan Sumption 19 July 2021 • 6:00am

    For a fleeting moment, Boris Johnson seemed to have discovered some backbone. From July 19, we were promised the right to make our own risk assessments in the light of our own situations and those of the people around us. Infections would continue to rise, along with hospitalisations and deaths. But sooner or later that would happen anyway. Better sooner, to avoid a winter disaster. It was a rational position.
    We waited for the howls of rage, and they duly came. The fanatics of the so-called “Independent Sage” wagged their fingers and waved their clipboards. Hundreds of medics signed a letter to The Lancet declaring that the decision was dangerous, even criminal. All those selfish people who believe that to make them feel a bit more secure, everyone else must be deprived of live music, theatre and sport, nightclubs, foreign holidays, dancing at weddings and singing in churches, pursed their lips and registered their disapproval with the pollsters.
    And what did the Prime Minister do? He ran for cover. The contrast between the rhetoric and the reality was stark.
    He told us that precautions against transmission must become a matter of personal choice. It turns out that the choice is to be made by employers, supermarkets, public transport authorities and pub landlords, who have been brought under heavy pressure to enforce the old restrictions.
    He declared that the vaccine had transformed the situation. The reality is that we have more restrictions on our freedom now than we had a year ago before vaccines became available.
    He pointed out that we must open up for the sake of the economy. Yet hundreds of thousands are being pushed into self-isolation every week by the pings of the Test and Trace app. The great majority of them will not test positive for Covid, let alone suffer serious symptoms. Yet numerous businesses are grinding to a halt.
    He acknowledged that we must learn to live with Covid. Yet it seems that he is not prepared to live with the one feature of viruses that is all but universal, namely that they mutate.
    This constant chopping and changing has nothing to do with science. It is the result of Johnson’s engrained habit of making policy on the hoof, without thought, research or strategic principle.
    The latest example is the abrupt extension of travel restrictions to people returning from France even if they have been double-vaccinated.
    The decision, which will ruin the holidays of many thousands of Britons, is completely irrational. It has been defended on the ground that the beta (or South African) variant is more common in France than it is here. But the beta variant is not a new scientific fact, discovered since the original announcement. It has been around since at least December 2020. It is present in at least 98 countries, including ours. The worst-affected European country is not France but Spain to which, however, no equivalent measures have been applied. Ironically, on the day after the UK announced this volte-face, France lifted all restrictions on double-vaccinated travellers passing in the other direction.
    Border controls were first introduced in June 2020 for political reasons, without scientific endorsement. They were adopted in the teeth of repeated advice from Sage that they would have “a negligible effect on spread”. Sage thought that at best the controls might retard the progress of the disease by between five days and a month. Experience has since borne this out. We are on our third wave, each occasioned by a variant of the virus. By the time a new variant has been sequenced, it is invariably too late to keep it out. Borders are porous even when they are theoretically closed. There have to be exceptions. Quarantine is unenforceable and widely ignored. The delta (or Indian) variant has been spreading rapidly outside India since February 2021. It is currently present in at least 90 countries, and dominant in many of them. Some of these countries have had even stricter border controls than we have.
    There are lessons to be learned from the follies of over-ambitious governments. It is impossible to halt the spread of Covid-19. States can retard its progress, although not by very much and at phenomenal economic and social cost. States can make vaccines available which have an uncertain impact on infections but a dramatic effect on hospitalisations and deaths. But states cannot extinguish pandemics or stop variants taking root. There will certainly be more. Inevitably, some will increase transmission and mortality. Others will bypass the vaccines.
    Vaccination is an impressive achievement. It represents the best that humanity can do about Covid. If it is not enough, then there are only two options. One is to impose total and permanent restrictions on human interaction, something which even governments realise is impossible. The other is to recognise defeat and allow their populations to live with Covid-19 – just as humanity had learned to live with worse pathogens for centuries before governments embarked on their current unprecedented and ill-advised experiment.
    Lord Sumption is a historian and sat on the UK’s Supreme Court from 2012 to 2018

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/19/freedom-day-yet-another-false-dawn/

    1. Let’s all watch the “…supermarkets, public transport authorities and pub landlords, who have been brought under heavy pressure to enforce the old restrictions.” go bust with something far more serious than any Covid – it’s called public opinion and it manifests itself in Boycott.

      1. … Other Yorkshore cricketers are available! ;-))
        But I’m not sure how effective a boycot might be – since so many are terrified of breathing fresh air, how many might not go to an establishment that make public “Face nappies not wanted”? It might prove to be the opposite.
        I forsee that nappies will become fewer & fewer, all other things being equal. Once people discover that life without a nappy isn’t an immediate death sentence, they’ll get used to not using one again.

  52. Well that was a thoroughly depressing trip to Morrisons,outside sign still up saying no mask no entry except for medical reasons,walked through the door and there’s the double masked security guard,6’4” who started to step forward then hastily retreated as he clocked the murderous snarl on my face.
    Staff about 70/30 masked interestingly it was the older staff that were mask free
    Customers about 80/20 still muzzled,I wonder if my quiet “Baaaa,Baaa” as I walked around had any effect……..
    Freedom Day my arse,the fear mongers have won

    1. 335535+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      They have only won when the kneel is mandatory
      and MUST be observed every morning by ALL.

    2. Rik you didn’t expect the supermarkets to remove their signs straight away did you? They will be up for months. Just like the signs in the streets about keeping your distance and staying safe.

    3. If everybody took their custom away from Morrison’s then the message would soon get across, insist on a face nappy lose customers. I bet the other major supermarket chains would heed the consequences.
      The problem is as you say, the fear mongers has created so many sheep, happy to shop/live with no freedoms.
      We badly need a UK version of this.

      https://youtu.be/5DkWcbPPw18

    4. It’s alright for big blokes like you and Alf. Some of us have to run between the security guards legs !

      Street Party tonight laid on by the local Barbers and the Beauty shop. They said they would provide food but bring your own booze. Masks not allowed !

      1. You’ve seen the videos when the tiny black kitten chases away the black bear? And teh tiny black kitten chases away the alligator? It’s all in the attitude, not physical size.
        SWMBO is short, made that way to stop her taking over the world!
        It’s all in the attitude…

    5. I suppose it’s early days. Went via Aldershot to Frimley Park for a routine appointment this morning. Lots of faceless gimps still prowling the streets of Aldershot. I thought Freedom Day might actually have arrived when the driver and first three passengers on the No. 3 bus were all mask-free – but it all went downhill from there. One slightly positive sign was the absence of any mention of face coverings of social distancing when the train guards did their announcements.

  53. 335535+ up ticks,
    The major mistake was made by the electorate post M Thatcher receiving the order of the knife, that was in giving the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration / paedophile umbrella close shop coalition
    continuous peoples carte blanche consent on the altar of party before Country regardless of consequence, ie vote in to keep out from a trio of proven sh!te parties as in the coalition.

    The evil consequences via the polling booth & mass uncontrolled immigration parties still found / do find support / votes even after the JAY report revealing rotherham, rochdale etc,etc,etc.

    They are coming for the kids again, THAT is FACT.
    Honest pharmaceutical trials can take years,
    political trials can take days depending on desperation.

    Dt,
    All children could get Covid vaccines as experts warn of threat to herd immunity
    Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation expected to leave the door open for more children to be jabbed once trials conclude

    1. Apologies for the broken record nature of my posts but if my tax bill were 20% I’d be very happy.

      But it isn’t. It’s dozens of other lumpy taxes that add up.

    1. I would have said that Piers Morgan had completely lost it apart from the fact that he never had it in the first place.

    2. “crèche” is, I assume, a motor collision in New Zealand…

      I’ll get me fern

    3. Hey Boris, you know how frigging bad you are when someone suggests Blair could do a better job!

    7. I call for Boris Johnson to shoot Blair and have Morgan dig the hole for the waste, then throw himself and the corpse into it. Holding Morgan down would be the best use Blair has ever been.

  59. China accused of ‘systematic cyber sabotage’ by UK and allies. 19 July 2021.

    Foreign secretary Dominic Raab described the hacking campaign – which is believed to have indiscriminately compromised tens of thousands of on-premise email servers worldwide with an intention to subsequently target specific victims – as “a reckless but familiar pattern of behaviour” from the Chinese government.

    In his statement attributing the campaign to China, Mr Raab said that Beijing “must end this systematic cyber sabotage and can expect to be held [to] account if it does not”.

    Cue. Chinese quivering in terror before Raab’s threats. Not! During all those accusations against Russia I have always thought the greater likelihood was that, where they were genuine, (not often) that China was responsible. The problem is of course that the West’s credibility is zero!

    https://news.sky.com/story/china-accused-of-systematic-cyber-sabotage-by-uk-and-allies-12359056

    1. Anymore adverse comments and China will recall all it’s spies

      All Takeaways and Slopehead Nosh Shops clos

  61. Just got back from walking a hot dog. Up on Kit Hill in the quarry for a splash and a drink and saw an adder just moving quickly away from us. Popped into the nearby Tesco just to see what the story was. It was busy and fairly crowded and 98 or 99% were wearing masks. I saw 2 youngish men, not together, and a young mother and son who were not masked (plus me of course). I was shocked to be honest. I even saw a friend, who was in the Paras for gawd’s sake, wearing one. I felt much better without the mask. There might have been a few odd looks but no one said a word.
    I shall do the weekly shop in Morrisons on Thursday to see if things have changed.

    1. I’ll probably wear a mask when out shopping as for a month or so it’ll stop some paranoids, then no doubt one day I’ll forget to take it with me and the whole issue will blow over.

      As for a hot dog – when it hit 28’c inside I said stuff this and stuck the cooler on. Sod the bill. I cannot think straight.

      1. If you were to identify as black, would you become immune from the sunstroke? Depends on the variant of uv, I suppose.

    3. Just the same in Sainsbury New Haven About 5 of us and one member of staff not wearing masks. All the rest were. What wetts they are.

    1. Another deluded politician who is probably on the make. Well renamed as Treason May.

      1. I think they are far from deluded, Tom. Since they seem to get what they want, as well as rich, I think they are very focused – and entirely psychpathic or sociopathic. Like an attack dog, they should be put down or at least controlled through a choke chain.

    2. 335535+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      What thinks you Og,

      Methinks,

      The nine month delay mayday was due to you giving birth to a complete set of treacherous bollocks and triggered the eu semi reentry
      ( the deal ) campaign, part & par, of the reset
      repress, replace (tory ino) agenda.

    3. Green is the most apterester colour for NetZero, Climate Change followers:etc

      3. unripe, fresh, raw, immature Pick and ripen any green fruits in a warm dark place.

      4. inexperienced, new, innocent, raw, naive, ignorant, immature, gullible, callow, untrained, unsophisticated, credulous, ingenuous, unpolished, wet behind the ears (informal) He was a young lad, very green and immature.

      5. jealous, grudging, resentful, envious, covetous Collectors worldwide will turn green with envy.

      6. nauseous, ill, sick, pale, unhealthy, wan, under the weather By the end of the race the runners would be green with sickness.

      2. 335535+ up ticks,
        Afternoon P,
        Proved to be useless as home sec, then going on to be
        treacherously successful as an eu asset.

    6. Keep the homes fires burning

      That was the British watchword in WWII to galvanise the general public into working for a return to normality.

      That is precisely what China is doing now because they can’t actually put out the naturally occurring spontaneous fires in their coal seams.

      Might as well just use the mineable coal while it lasts to fuel more electrical generation and power their industrial capacity whilst producing zero carbon products for the West like solar panels.

      https://www.energylivenews.com/2021/02/04/china-built-over-three-times-as-much-coal-plant-capacity-as-the-rest-of-the-world-in-2020/

      1. 335535+ up ticks,
        Afternoon AOE,
        Has no one passed this on to the turkish delight so as to tell
        the CinC pillow whisperer squeez ?

    7. Is she personally paying? No? Then she really, really hasn’t the right to demand we do.

      This is NOT what tax payers money is for.

    2. I have never understood why people try to argue with the police, they aren’t there to discuss politics

  66. Hi NoTTlers, feeling the heat?
    Movie Choice –
    Scott of the Antarctic – BBC2 2.30pm
    Great timing….

    1. Disgusting isn’t it – why can’t they take their rubbish home?

      Even in our quiet part of the world, discarded masks are everywhere.

      1. “Why can’t they take their rubbish home?”

        Because they are the entitled generation. The whole universe exists just for them. The fault for their vile antisocial behaviour was learnt directly from their worse-than-useless parents and their not-fit-for-purpose teachers.

        They are, indeed, the scum of the earth.

  72. MoD rules out foul play after discovery of secret papers at Kent bus stop. 19 July 2021.

    MPs have previously been told the leak appeared to be the result of a mistake by one individual, who reported the loss to the Ministry of Defence.

    Wallace said: “The investigation has independently confirmed the circumstances of the loss, including the management of the papers within the department, the location at which the papers were lost and the manner in which that occurred.
    “These are consistent with the events self-reported by the individual.”

    The individual concerned has been removed from “sensitive work” and has had their security clearance suspended pending a full review. “For security reasons, the department will be making no further comment on the nature of the loss or on the identity of the individual,” Wallace said.

    This guy was almost certainly a whistle blower appalled that the UK government was using one of its ships and crew as catspaws to create an incident with Russia! This just tidies it up. He gets no publicity and the story is killed. He’ll probably get the sack later!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/19/mod-rules-out-foul-play-after-discovery-of-secret-papers-at-kent-bus-stop

  78. We walked down to our local pub for lunch – recently reopened under new management. We sat outside – from choice – and it was warm…….. the staff were wearing muzzles, though they took them off to chat to us. Most of the customers weren’t, though a few were. It was a hot walk back up the hill. Cooling off indoors at the moment.

    1. Aaw.
      (But Bridgend isn’t a county. Porthcawl is near Bridgend – both are in Mid Glamorgan.)

      1. Swelled by the idea of their own importance, Bridgend is indeed a county.

        I wonder if my old stamping ground, Pencoed, is now a county along with Heol y Cyw.

    1. In early maths classes here, they teach estimating, so you can very quickly get an idea of what the answer is close to.
      eg: 21*41 is very nearly 20*40, so the answer should be close to 800.
      If you get, say, 600, you know you went wrong somewhere & can try again.

      1. I asked for 10 first class stamps (85p each). The obese young woman in the Post Office used a calculator to work that one out – and was amazed that I had £8.50 in cash,,,,

        1. If you had asked for ten cream buns, she would have had the answer in a shot.

    2. Hmm, mental arithmetic didn’t do me any good. I consistently got the answers wrong every Friday morning in junior school.

  82. Jonathan Ross’ daughter Honey, 24, shows off her curves as she poses in a brown bikini during the UK heatwave.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9802111/Honey-Ross-shows-curves-poses-red-bikini-UK-heatwave.html?login#readerCommentsCommand-message-field

    ABHTL Comment:

    A brilliant line in the film ‘The Producers’ where Zero Mostel looks out of his garret window to see an immaculate Rolls Royce limousine: “If you’ve got it, flaunt it!” he says in admiration.

    Ms Honey Ross might learn that the opposite is more prudent: “If you haven’t got it, don’t flaunt it!”

    5. Oh, lordy, please let me forget that. J Ross must have mated with a lowland gorilla, and an ugly one at that.

    1. Yes, but only for those on full or 80% pay while they put their feet up. Tht proportion of the voting population is going to decrease.

      1. 335535+ up tcks,
        Evening HL,
        If found to be popular with the herd I believe they, the overseers, will stick a regulating valve on it as a herd appeaser for as & when required.

      1. 335535+ up ticks,
        Evening M,
        I have never witnessed a valve chamber with so many control valves in it.
        It really does surprise me they have got away with so much sh!te sinse 24/6/2016.

    1. https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/the-health-and-care-bill-will-accelerate-nhs-privatisation-it-must-be-scrapped

      Patients do not benefit from NHS service fragmentation, which creates postcode lotteries and inequitable care. We deserve an ambitious vision for the NHS which truly holds patients’ needs as the central priority.

      When the proposed Health and Care Bill was announced in February, it was described as a way to “support recovery from the pandemic” and act in ways which will “support our NHS…and lead to direct benefits for patients”. This framing of the Bill, as a support mechanism to new problems facing the NHS as a result of an unprecedented pandemic, is false.

      We do indeed have a struggling NHS, a struggling workforce with almost 84,000 staff vacancies, and millions of patients waiting too long for treatment. However, after a decade of government-led NHS cuts in the name of austerity, none of these issues are new.

      What will be new, should the Bill pass, is a proliferation of privatisation within the NHS. Private healthcare providers will be introduced with greater ease, allowing profits to be skimmed from provision of public healthcare, and the introduction of these private providers will further fragment and weaken the structure of the NHS. This Bill must be scrapped, and politicians from all parties should re-imagine an honest, ambitious vision for the NHS which truly holds patients’ needs as the central priority.

      Private health companies will play a part in de

          1. Burying patients, lots of patients quite soon too, I imagine, and not from Covid-19.

      2. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing. OH had his shoulder op in 2019 at the Spire hospital in Bristol – via referral from the GP. He’d already paid for an MRI scan and a first consultation with the surgeon. You could call it queue jumping I suppose, but he didn’t take up an NHS bed.

        In normal times this system works for orthopaedic treatment especially, and also cataract surgery.

      4. Since it’s almost impossible to find any good news (including all the moaning on Nottl) about the NHS apart from the emergency service, maybe privatisation is the way forward? Pretty well everything else that has been tried hasn’t changed anything much, particularly the cost-cutting, so following the model of the railways, privatising might improve things. It won’t be an overnight improvement, but look at the trains in the UK now compared to 30 years ago (sweaty, grubby, unreliable, slam-doors) and the improvements in service are enormous.

        1. I have seen signs in shop windows “masks preferred at the till”. Leaves an element of choice.

      2. Don’t blame you – I wouldn’t want to be recognised in Sainsbury’s…{:¬))

      3. Personal choice.
        It should always have been personal choice. Sufficient studies saying they don’t work and others saying they do.
        We have never worn them but it used to be a free country so we won’t.

    2. Exactly the same as i’ve done for the past 10 years.People in the village largely ignore all the hype and the pubs/restaurants have been open till midnight(used to be 2:am.)
      Was in K-Market today.Out of about 30 customers i saw 5 masks.
      I’ve never heard of anyone being sick,let alone going to hospital.
      Its all a farce.

    4. Visited 5 shops sans mask before going to the boat. Wanted to scream at the dipsticks wearing completely ineffectual face coverings of which there were many……

  87. 28c here indoors , with the fan blowing and + 31c outside .

    Moh played golf this morning ,,early start slow game .. I think he has more in common with a camel than me .

  89. ‘The Met Office has issued its first ever “extreme heat” warning as the scorching temperatures across the UK are set to remain for a number of days. ‘
    Reminds me of the definition of a consultant – you want to know the time so he asks to borrow your watch then charges you £50k for the answer.
    What possible purpose is there in the Met Office telling us it’s hot – we know already!

    1. Even with the warnings people will still end up in A&E with sunburn. There’s no telling some people.

    3. Same reason as half the weather forecast slot after the evening news is spent telling us what the weather was like earlier.

      1. Millions dead from heatstroke by weekend – and the rest drowned in the torrential rain and devastating floods to follow

        (an expert predicts).

  90. ‘Evening Nottlers – today’s “Daily Betrayal” daily newsletter from Viv on Independence Daily

    Is this it?
    Posted by Vivian Evans

    Is this it? Is today really the promised day of freedom? Or is it yet another fata morgana, fabricated by the covid mafia? Will we take this opportunity to kick down the whole crumbling covid edifice? The ‘news’ coming from No 10 yesterday and from those few ‘sources’ who apparently haven’t yet been pinged are a clear indicator that even the covid emperors couldn’t possibly believe one word they are saying.

    We were told that this nice ‘trial’ according to which BJ and Sunak wouldn’t have to self-isolate but could go out after two days and one PCR test wasn’t some sort of privilege just for the cabinet members, oh no! Other government departments like the Border Farce were part of this trial, as was Transport London, we were told.

    Why then are there staff shortages in Border Farce personnel controlling retiring Heathrow passengers? Why are tube lines close, why are shelves in supermarkets empty when all those workers should’ve followed that ‘pilot scheme’? Did anyone ask why that should be the case when they’re all part of this ‘trial? Of course not!

    Next, we’re told that BJ and Sunak did a very quick U-Turn: it took them “only 160 minutes” to declare that yes, they’d be obedient covid lemmings now, following ‘teh rulz’. What is so galling is that this is only described as political embarrassment:

    “In a further embarrassing climbdown, it has since been confirmed that Number 10 has withdrawn from the scheme entirely. But on Sunday night, Cabinet ministers warned that the damage may already have been done. One said: “It does look like it is one rule for politicians and senior civil servants and another rule for everyone else. I just wouldn’t have piloted it with the Cabinet Office.” (paywalled link)

    Why did the covid empire need such ‘pilot scheme’ in the first place? Was it to exempt the VIPs while we peasants were kept in line? Why was this scheme kept so well hidden, even by our diligent MSM which only mentioned in passing that Gove had made use of that scheme last month? Was there no SAGE-sanctioned ‘scientific’ rationale behind this scheme?

    Now we’re told that No 10 – the whole lot of them, from the PM down to the last SpAd – has withdrawn from that scheme. Does this mean the Cabinet Office and all who were ‘in contact’ with Mr Javid now also have to self-isolate? What a delicious image: the ‘levers of power’ are all unoccupied while finally, finally all the faceless bureaucrats in the 2nd row can show how well they can rule us, no democratic legitimation required!

    We also learned that the Sacred Cow – well, the ‘frontline staff’- will be permitted to go to work, pinged or not, provided they’ve been double-jabbed (link). Has it occurred to the covid cabinet and to BJ that this is another embarrassment, showing that the political class is indeed more equal that the rest of us? Are they not embarrassed when they declare that workers must work while they ‘follow the ping rule’ and sit at home – another nice little holiday during this heatwave!

    All those wonderful minds in No 10 and Whitehall don’t seem to grasp what they’ve done. Do they not understand that their to-ing and fro-ing means that we can ask why the double-jabbed – more than two thirds of the population at the last counts, with over 80% now having had one jab – are still treated like potential lepers by an app? What does this say about the validity of the jabs, the tests, the NHS Apps?

    Do they not understand that their ping-shenanigans show us plebs that it’s not just ‘one law for them – one for us’ but that this demonstrates that they, who have secure, well-paid jobs, can enjoy a life of ping-induced leisure while we serfs can and must of course keep working, from NHS frontline staff to supermarket and transport workers? I for one do not believe for a minute that the various bosses won’t tell their workers to disregard the NHS pings and get back to work, now!

    And what do the events of this ping-weekend generally mean for our freedom and for the SAGE doomsayers? They hope to keep us cowering indoors, ‘freedom day’ or not. The scare graphs produced at the end of last week were suitably frightening. How come then that just one (!) MSM science editor was permitted to write the following yesterday evening:

    “​The most recent data show that, despite a rise in case numbers, the seven-day rolling daily death rate is just 40 compared to 654 on Dec 26 when the seven-day case rate was close to the current rate of 45,000 new infectious per day. Death rates in England and Wales are currently 5.2 per cent below the five-year average, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), with Covid now accounting for just 1.2 per cent of deaths.” (paywalled link)

    Are the collective minds of the MSM “science and health” editors incapable of looking at public, government data without the filter of ‘sources’? I’m not even demanding the SAGEs and the rest come and tell us that jabs work – clearly this isn’t about jabs and infections, it’s not even about ‘protecting’ that Sacred Cow when their frontline staff is told to disregard government’s own covid rules.

    By now even the least informed, BBC-addicted covid lemmings must ask themselves if those rules have any meaning other than unelected, self-appointed covid tinpot dictators wanting to keep their control over all aspects of life. Apparently, it’s only when the absurdity of those ‘rules’ impinge on the cushy lives of the well-cushioned political class that they’re changed. After all, what fun is it to enjoy life as a neo-feudal overlord when the neo-feudal serfs also cannot work because: ‘rulz’?

    Do we need any more proof that, regardless of BJ’s u-turn, our nation has been neatly divided into those who enjoy secret ‘pilot schemes’ and those who must obey? Our nation is divided, not according to class or politics – never forget that Labour is a firm supporter of all covid rules and regulations! – but along the neo-feudal division of covid overlords and the rest of us, the serfs whose work keeps them in clover.

    When will people, when will even the propaganda mouthpieces inside the M25, inside the Westminster MSM, realise that this isn’t about covid, illness, infections and pingitis but about these covid overlords, and the rest of all of us? When will we all realise that those covid emperors and overlords are as nekkid as can be?

    KBO!
    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-betrayal-monday-19th-july-2021-is-this-it/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=INDEPENDENCE+Daily+Newsletter1

    1. There are increasingly skeptical articles in the L and RW press.
      Maybe there is hope.

    1. Bert ” Ada, what animals have to stay in lockdown the longest in Winter?”
      Ada ” I don’t know, Bert.”
      Bert ” Pinguins”

    1. Don’t worry about this new variant, I forecast it will only produce a micro wave…..

  93. OT – message for Our Susan.

    I have e-mailed you the text of Richard Chartres’s Homily at Bill Scott’s Memorial Service on Saturday. I am afraid it is a bit tricky to read as it came as a PDF – and I couldn’t cut and paste it properly.

  95. Apparently, 20-30 cm snow expected in the hills in North Norway in the very near future. Not normal for the time of year, but unusual all the same. A pisser if you’retaking summer vacation there right now.

    2. Every country that has the ability does it. Even the U.K.

      Rather than Raab making pointless threats they should strengthen their systems.

      1. 335535+ up ticks,
        C,
        But the current lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration ,
        mass foreign paedophile purveyor, close shop coalition member / voters, would have the satisfaction of having died
        been injured in the name ( & ino) of the “party.”

    1. Al Gore predicted that London would be permanently freezing and submerged under water by 2016.

      1. And all the beaches on the US eastern coast were predicted to be gone by now.

        1. He became very wealthy.

          Just like all those invested in big Pharma.

          We are really being taken for fools.

  103. From https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/double-vaccinated-nightclubs-venues-large-crowds-september-boris-johnson-freedom-day-b946585.html
    “Only double-jabbed allowed into clubs and other venues within weeks. Boris Johnson cautioned that 35 per cent of 18 to 30-year-olds – three million people – remain unvaccinated”
    “I can serve notice now that by the end of September when all over 18s will have had their chance to be double jabbed, we’re planning to make full vaccination the condition of entry to nightclubs and other venues where large crowds gather,” Mr Johnson said.

    So – another “pilot”, Boris? What other venues? Supermarkets? Pubs? Parks?

    Edit: BTL comment
    Halo
    17 min ago
    And we’re also told today that 60% of the current hospitalisations are double jabbed people..

        1. It had already been agreed at Davos. Which is not open to scrutiny.

          The next conference in Glasgow will be the same. They are all following the same plan.

          James Bond…SPECTRE.

    2. Boris Johnson is a criminal. He and his medico cohorts and advisors will eventually be brought to justice for knowingly advancing crimes against humanity for personal gain, no different to any other tyrant in history.

      The ‘vaccines’ are not by definition preventing infections by immunisation but are harming the recipients in a number of ways, principally by causing blood clotting along with other severe reactions.

      The clue was there with the photo of Cameron and Johnson posing as members of the Oxford elitist Bullingdon Club. The man has no scruples, comes from a family of miscreants, cannot keep it in his trousers, destroys personal relationships and leaves societal chaos in his substantial wake.

      2. 335535+ up ticks,
        Evening C,
        The clue came to light with with margaret Thatcher receiving the order of the knife.
        Started with major, the coalition was consolidated with the likes of charlie lynton,
        brown, the wretch cameron, may the treacherous, and now the pilot of the three tier eu limited, brussels damage semi reentry missile, johnson.

        The current lab/lib/ con member / voters have a great deal to answer for.

      3. Unfortunately, they won’t be brought to justice. Justice doesn’t exist in this country any more, thanks to Blair and his Tory successors.

    3. Boris Johnson is a criminal. He and his medico cohorts and advisors will eventually be brought to justice for knowingly advancing crimes against humanity for personal gain, no different to any other tyrant in history.

      The ‘vaccines’ are not by definition preventing infections by immunisation but are harming the recipients in a number of ways, principally by causing blood clotting along with other severe reactions.

      The clue was there with the photo of Cameron and Johnson posing as members of the Oxford elitist Bullingdon Club. The man has no scruples, comes from a family of miscreants, cannot keep it in his trousers, destroys personal relationships and leaves societal chaos in his substantial wake.

    7. So glad our lives are not ruled by track and test apps, (adds ‘yet’ ) here in US

      1. The only person who could have stopped it was Trump. It’s why ‘they’ went all out to get him.

      2. There’s no obligation to download the app, switch on the GPS, or the Bluetooth.

          2. I didn’t mean you, I meant generally. As I assumed that you were addressing your comment. Most Nottlers are in the UK.

          5. I didn’t mean you, I meant generally. As I assumed that you were addressing your comment. Most Nottlers are in the UK.

  104. What a day. Stepson’s problems are getting worse but not a lot can be done.
    Went to t’Lad’s and left with over a ton of top soil that I’ve unloaded, but still need to get up the garden.
    Now sat relaxing after a cold bath, the 3rd of the day.

    Walking through what used to be called The Eagle Centre in Derby and I reckon 1/3 unmasked to 2/3 masked. with at least one young lass looking scared to get too close to me!

      1. He is supposedly being looked after by a Community Psychiatric Nurse, but even he is restricted in what he can do and seems more than a bit frustrated himself.
        Typical Don’t Care In The Community.

        1. I wish i could think of a suggestion to help in some way.

          As with Nottlers who have partners with dementia i am completely at a loss.

        2. He really should be in a supervised setting, why on earth were hospitals closed down,

          I hear there are many units opening because mental problems that have arisen from illegal drug taking are growing rapidly and an early type of dementia is one of the many complications of disturbed minds.

          1. Don’t get me onto that one, Maggie.
            Even from Lulworth, you’ll see the mushroom shaped cloud over Allan Towers.

    3. Did you consider the possibility that she wasn’t afraid of the virus? 😉

    1. But is the BBC saying it’s a bad thing and an unnecessary burden on the atypical white British taxpayer by a criminal gang intent on sponging off the tax payer before eventually weilding a knife and killing that same tax payer or are they saying ‘diversity strength’ and the usual tedious tripe?

      1. A group of about 50 people have crossed the English Channel and landed on a Kent beach in a single dingy.
        Photographs show dozens of people, including women and young children, arriving at Dungeness on Monday.
        On Sunday, Eight boats carrying 241 migrants reached the UK, the Home Office said. Nearly 8,000 people have reached the UK in about 345 boats in 2021. The Home Office said it was bringing forward new laws to deter crossings.

        A dinghy on the beach at Dungeness
        IMAGE COPYRIGHTPA MEDIA
        image captionThe dinghy’s arrival was watched over by the crew of an RNLI lifeboat

        The average number of people in each small boat has increased sharply in the past year, according to BBC analysis of Home Office figures. In 2020, an average of 13 people arrived in each dinghy, rising to 22 per boat this year. Dan O’Mahoney, clandestine channel threat commander, said: “We continue to target gangs responsible for these crossings. “We have doubled the number of police officers on the ground in France, leading to more interceptions and arrests.”

        ‘New Plan’
        French authorities intercepted seven small boats, preventing 129 people making the crossing on Sunday.
        New legislation was unveiled this month which the government hopes will deter migrants crossing the English Channel. The Nationality and Borders Bill will make it a crime to knowingly arrive in the UK without permission, punishable by a prison sentence of up to four years. Mr O’Mahoney said: “Our New Plan for Immigration will break the business model of these criminal gangs whilst welcoming people through safe and legal routes.”
        The Home Office has been asked to comment on Monday’s crossings.

        1. Aha,finally some photogenic women and children to tug at the heartstrings as oppossed to the usual full cargoes of fighting age men
          No wonder the Al-Beeb sweeps into action
          They take us for idjits………

    2. This is completely off topic. I was idly looking through Trip Advisor (perchance to dream and reminisce) and I think I came across your gîte (a word which, now I type it looks very similar to guest, the circumflex denoting a missing ‘s’) and it looks utterly delightful. If only we didn’t have one careful, soft and gentle dog we would be on our way, although we would have to cross the channel by dinghy as we are unjabbed (a reverse immigrant). Another life, perhaps.

      1. We are currently waiting for notification of the last UK cancellation this year. They will leave it to the last minute.

      2. We are currently waiting for notification of the last UK cancellation this year. They will leave it to the last minute.

    1. Isn’t it interesting that the word Janus also includes the word anus…….

    2. I don’t remember government praising Yom Kippur or any other Jewish festival. Why are Muslims – in a non-muslim country – getting special treatment?

          2. Yup. Just as Thatcher was frit of the IRA.

            Edit: Blair was even more shit scared of the IRA and this led to the Good Friday Agreement, concocted with Bill Clinton, whereby terrorists were effectively pardoned whilst British troops were demonised and prosecuted.

            We now are supposed to have no idea who the Birmingham bombers were. We paid vast monies in compensation to those accused and convicted. The cycle of government and law incompetence continues apace.

          3. And the frit ones keep on letting more in. If I was younger and more fit I would try to give them something to be frit about. B*stards. Evil gits.

      4. “Why are Muslims – in a non-muslim country – getting special treatment?”

        Because they scare the pants off the PTB and the MSM. They are getting it because they inspire fear – but we must not confuse this with islamophobia!

    3. Well we all know that Johnson is a lazy, easily-bought liar, who cares nothing for this country.

    5. 335535+ up ticks,
      Evening TB,
      A very dangerous treacherous clown, leading a very dangerous treacherous political circus.

      Many very good peoples have been warning of the dangers of islamic ideology for years only to be tagged as far right fascist.

  108. Evening all. Happy Freedom Day! I had to go into town to pay a bill this morning and people were still walking around in the fresh air wearing masks. The population has lost its marbles.

      1. Been moved from the Acute Medical to a numbered ward now, but will be in for five days (course of antibiotics).

        2. ‘Tis an ill wind, Con… Enjoy your peaceful days with Oscar. Are you permitted visiting rights?

          1. Yes thanks Bob. I am in Lincolnshire for 2 days. My keyboard is playing up so expect some very strange posts!

      1. Aaah.

        Edit: I should have realised especially after our exchange a couple of evenings ago about coriander.

  111. ‘Night All

    Difficult to argue with………..

    “The UK Vaccine Minister” is a millionaire ex -Pharma employee who was

    born into a filthy rich family from Iraq. The UK “Chancellor” is a

    multi-millionare, the son of a filthy rich Hindu who migrated here from

    East Africa, and is married to a billionaire’s daughter from India. The

    UK “Home Secretary” is the daughter of a “Ugandan/Indian” family with a

    huge chain of commercial outlets. The UK “Deputy Chief Medical officer”

    is a filthy rich privileged, descendant of the elite ruling class of

    Vietnam. The UK’s “Health Secretary” is a multi-millionaire who spent

    three quarters of his adult life getting filthy rich in foreign

    countries. Anyone who beieves this country is run by British people is

    off their rocker. These are bought-and-paid-for globalist agents,

    planted into our corrupted democracy to dismantle and destroy the

    country we used to love.”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/720b16b29bd73158af0aafeaf055dadfb716ed850c880679b6ff3bddff4587bd.jpg

    https://is2.4chan.org/pol/1626610959654.jpg

  112. Sod it.
    Nearly propping my eyelids open so off to bed now.
    Sweet dreams to all.

  114. So good to see vast numbers of our people confronting the Met Police in central London.

    Whitehall is our thoroughfare and should never be obstructed by the Met Police as we saw earlier today.

    On a purely personal note, as the principal architect of Richmond House Whitehall, I am able to report that Bercow’s scheme to demolish the Grade II* listed building has been thwarted and that a more intelligent architect than the opportunists greasing up to Bercow, has been engaged. The new architect has proposed fitting the temporary Commons Chamber within one of the existing courtyards of my building.

    There remains a semblance of common sense in our government.

  115. A very early Good Morning to any insomniacs.
    Woke up to pump bilges and, being too warm to get back to sleep, ran a cold bath and have just been soaking in it.

    1. Global warming is so Thunberg-pre-Biden.The flooding is caused by racism and anti-vaxxers.

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