Monday 2 December: Scrutiny of the assisted dying Bill must be compassionate but objective

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

660 thoughts on “Monday 2 December: Scrutiny of the assisted dying Bill must be compassionate but objective”

    1. Guns in the Street
      Well, I suppose that now Assisted Dying is heading towards becoming legal, if you shout hurty words at them, they could save a lot of court time by just using their weapons to "Assist your Dying". Cheap and effective.

  4. Good Morning Geoff and Readers
    Was awoken by the usual 06:30 alarm, but stayed in a cosy bed, reading and nodding at all the BTL comments (except Malik's), so missed the NTTL gate opening.
    Today's Tale
    A public speaker had an appointment with his psychiatrist who ran his private practice at a mental hospital. Whilst in the waiting room, the psychiatrist came out and said, “You’re a public speaker, aren’t you? Would you do me a favour? I’ve got a group of hospital patients in the lecture room and the speaker hasn’t turned up. Could you fill in for an hour or so?”
    “Certainly,” said the public speaker.
    The speaker stood behind the lectern and looked down at the group of patients, who stared blankly at him. But being a pro, he gave forth his most motivational talk. He was constantly being interrupted, however, by a patient at the back of the room, who kept calling out, “Bullsh!t.”
    When he had finished speaking, the speaker said to his psychiatrist that he didn’t think the man at the back of the room was very impressed with his motivational talk. “No!” said the psychiatrist. “You were fantastic! That’s the first intelligent thing that patient has said in three years!”

  6. 'Morning All
    Medley
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    1. I’m being a bit stupid. Re the Lurpack one. Is it the fact that it is loads and loads of plastic packaging for a tiny amount of “butter”.

      OK i’ve worked it out! D’uh!!! In my defence, it’s early (back on the train again; team Christmas “party” tonight).

      2. We have one of those extra large packs in our fridge right now.
        But as its for domestic use and as ours will I expect most of the used packages end up in a recycling bin.
        Unlike the millions of plastic bottles that usually end up in the open water.

        1. Council recycling rates are under 25%. So 75% of what goes in your blue bin is either buried, burned or sold off to some third world country who throw it in open water.

          1. Ahhh I thought that they used the plastic to remodle the local committee members.
            They can't even work out how to fill pot holes.

      3. Arla does not experiment on Danish farmers so Lurpak (being Danish produced) is still safe.

      1. ……..and here's another one:

        Arla, the Danish owned company experimenting on the British public, states in its

        publicity release that Tesco sells its milk products.

        However when reading the packaging statement on my Tesco milk bottle, it only

        states: "produced in the UK using milk from the UK"

        NOTHING about Arla, NOTHING about Bovaer.

        Many years ago this kind of statement was defined as "lying by omission".

          1. So who is responsible if this experiment on the British public turns out badly?

            It appears that Arla is not willing to try it on the Danish populace???

  8. 397870+ up ticks,

    Misplaced compassion of a sort is to be found for the invading forces, NONE via the politico cartel governing these Isles currently, for the indigenous as the treatment of the elderly is CLEARLY POINTING OUT.

    Monday 2 December: Scrutiny of the assisted dying Bill must be compassionate but objective

    The future could very well deem that you will die at your allotted time.

    Allotted time to be considered by the governing cartels allotted
    time keepers department,

  9. Joe Biden issues ‘full and unconditional’ pardon to son Hunter. 2 December 2024.

    “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong,” he said.

    “There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

    No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than that he deserved to go to gaol and his father with him.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/01/joe-biden-pardons-hunter

    1. My son is a global financier, Chief of Staff of the London branch of an American corporation.

      I forgive him on the understanding that his father is not tarred with the same brush.

      Edit – he has just done the honourable thing and stood down https://www.tmf-group.com/en/news-insights/press-releases/tmf-group-appoints-charlie-netherton-to-its-executive-committee/ . He has been appointed Head of Client Data Surveillance with a brief to create AI analyticals. So much for honor (sic) among thieves!

      1. I congratulate you on knowing what your son does. I haven't the faintest idea what my elder son does – except that it brings him lotsa money!

        2. Metoo, he just goes round in circles talking about his 'teams'. I have never heard of what they actually do.

      2. I congratulate you on knowing what your son does. I haven't the faintest idea what my elder son does – except that it brings him lotsa money!

      1. That isn't possible. The BBC decides who is guilty in the UK and also the severity of the sentence. Paedophiles and child molesters are exempt if they work for the Beeb. Hurty words against middle class, middle aged women is a very serious offence. Wallace will be punished appropriately.

      2. That isn't possible. The BBC decides who is guilty in the UK and also the severity of the sentence. Paedophiles and child molesters are exempt if they work for the Beeb. Hurty words against middle class, middle aged women is a very serious offence. Wallace will be punished appropriately.

    4. Good morning, this stinks, it's only been a few months since Biden insisted he would not pardon his son. The pardon stretches back to 2014, or just as Hunter was becoming involved with Bursima in Ukraine, trying to skim 10% for the 'big guy'. Therefore Sniffer Joe is also self-pardoning.

      1. Biden doesn't remember what he's had for breakfast, let alone any promises made a few months' back.
        It isn't his decision. Like the others made over the past four years.

        1. Biden’s still canny enough (or at least, his team is). On the back of this scandalous move, there will be NO White House press briefings this week. Apparently, even KJP couldn’t keep a straight face.

    5. Surely Hunter was "singled out" for breaking the law and any reasonable person, not his father, would agree that he should be in gaol? If any "selective prosecutions" have been taking place they have been aimed at Donald Trump.

    6. On that note, apparently prisons now have loads of old lifers who need nursing care rather gaol.
      Imagine trying to push a wheelchair up those stairs.
      At least the in-cell loos would save some heavy lifting.

  10. It baffles me how covering square miles of productive Yorkshire farmland with solar panels is described as "Green", rather than "Black".

  12. Good morning, chums, and thanks to Geoff for today's NoTTLE site. Today's (Monday's) Wordle solution was done in 5).

    Yesterday (Sunday), BB2 asked about how I got to my solution but didn't want me to tell him yesterday. So I have waited until today, Monday, to print here How I proceeded. Bold letters are in the correct place, and letters in bold and italics are correct but in the wrong place. Other letters proved to be neither in the right place nor in the wrong place, so they were eliminated on the next guess. Here is are my steps to success:

    (1) A U D I O (I always start with this word)
    (2) G A U Z E
    (3) P A U S E
    (4) J A U N E
    (5) M A U V E – Voila! (or, as Pa Glum once memorably said in an episode of "The Glums": Viola!)

    Wordle for today (Monday) 1,262 5/6

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

  13. How Usman Khan slipped through the net. Spiked. 2 December 2024.

    There are conflicting reports about whether and how Khan engaged with efforts to address his toxic ideology in the eight years he was in custody. We do know that he participated in the Healthy Identity Intervention (HII) programme – a scheme developed to disengage prisoners from extremist offending.

    You have to laugh at the sheer gobsmacking naiveté of these people. This man never had the slightest intention of “reforming”. He walked through these programs laughing at these morons. The only bright spot, if there is one, is that he killed them instead of innocent members of the public.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/12/01/how-usman-khan-slipped-through-the-net/

    1. I think those youngsters died through naivety, not from a desire to destroy this country.
      In the 'deserve to be totalled by a Mad Mullah' stakes, a retired virtue signalling vicar or teacher would be the more worthy target.

    2. I think those youngsters died through naivety, not from a desire to destroy this country.
      In the 'deserve to be totalled by a Mad Mullah' stakes, a retired virtue signalling vicar or teacher would be the more worthy target.

    3. Bring back the death penalty for religious/terrorist murder. The justice system is broken and the prison service is useless.

  14. Good morning all, grey and damp on the Costa Clyde. Rained most of the night, but seems to have run out before this morning's walking football.

  15. At the weekend, it was reported that Musk is preparing to give $100 million (£78 million) to Reform leader Nigel Farage as a 'f*** you Starmer payment'.
    Insiders fear such a move could obliterate the Conservative Party and open the door to near-limitless anti-government advertisements from Reform.

    Next.. impose sanctions on UK. Please. A short n sweet end to Labour.

    1. How much has Waheed Alli lobbed at the #KeirmerRouge, or the unions, or the major financial donors to both cheeks of the uniparty?

  16. Morning all. Today we have Jeremy Morfey's article ' Let There be Light ' on the implications of changes to the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. It's a good read, and a welcome diversion from the daily outrage that is modern life. And if you missed it yesterday, Jacqui Derriman's highly moving article ' A Widow's Tale ' is very much recommended.

    And don't forget our war on woke, in the form of a Boycott Book , in which you can list companies and products you think we should boycott, not forgetting to give a reason.

    1. Add to the boycott list the Scouts. According to a Matt Goodwin substack article they have gone full-on gender queer.

    1. Relaunch a catastrophe after only 4 months? Way to go.

      Starmer's labour party are unfit for purpose, rather like our new aircraft carriers.

  19. Good morning, all. Clear and bright here and frost free.

    The UK is falling into a deep pit of lawlessness and the government and its agents are responsible for 'excavating' the pit. This state of affairs is long in the planning; in step with so many other situations being created that are making the UK an undesirable place for sensible, hard-working and decent people. The forces of law-and-order are disintegrating before our eyes.

    Here are two examples;

    https://x.com/pursuitofprog/status/1863167979019473383
    https://x.com/mattjameswright/status/1862817117285814514

    1. I suspect that Dr Newport might find himself on a list, charged with wasting police time. Met Plod are too busy moving Christian preachers along to go chasing a self-inflicted crime.

    2. The Telegaffe headline about the bike theft from near the HQ of the finest police farce in the world read "Met fail to find bike stolen outside of Scotland Yard" Why the "of"????

    3. Anarcho-tyranny.
      Or, as Mark Steyn put it: "Britain, where everything is policed except crime."

  20. Доброе утро, товарищи,

    A bright morning at Castle McPhee. A steady westerly breeze and 8℃ all day. Mizzle tonight.

    Is this a sign of desperation just five months into this regime?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/943cf0ad9b9205d04ddbf53d5ad2e921a1d669f768a175d550401aeeda4ada4f.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/01/labours-relaunch-is-a-desperate-act/

    Yes, of course it is. Starmer's ship is holed below the waterline and he knows it.

    1. I guess that's why the MSN are being told to make a splash..

      Royal Navy told to ‘patrol Channel, return migrants to France and destroy dinghies’..

      Clearly, this guy means business. He's a man of the people. He loves Britain, and its people.
      "Let me say directly to the people watching: where the last government failed you, this one will not."

          1. The BBC is strictly impartial in its rancour and antagonism. It hates whites too and its abhorrence of the English is beyond description.

        2. Obviously not – last night there was an "advert" on the BBC about how their news service was a source of absolute truth! Today a radio advert about the danger of a stroke – act fast, phone YOUR NHS – the same service that left a old woman with a broken hip out in the cold because she "wasn't a priority"!!

          1. The same service that told Kadi's owner for months that she was fine, it wasn't cancer (despite high markers to the contrary and a family history of it) until they finally admitted it was – Stage 4 terminal. Criminal.

  21. 397870+ up ticks,

    May one ask,

    Question one,

    How many indigenous lives have been lost in the English Channel this past year against how many indigenous lives will be lost via the 20,000 foreign invaders BROUGHT ASHORE these past
    41/2 months.by the RNLI.

    Question two,

    Are the RNLI solely manned by foreign seaman ?

    1. Most of the 'old school' RNLI volunteers have been replaced. Obviously by people with the same mindset as their woke management.

      1. And they still ask for public donations. But I expect our useless government is supporting the invasion now.

        1. I changed my Will on the back of their behavior. I'm sure others have too. But as you say…the government will make up any shortfall out of our taxes.

    2. 397870+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Dt,
      Jeremy Warner
      The mass migration myth is falling apart
      Lazy assumptions that Britain needs migrant-driven population growth to thrive are being shot to pieces

      It did and is doing what it was set up to do,destroy a nation through its own lab/lib/con parties and the polling stations.

  22. Morning all 🙂😊
    Rain overnight, more on the way and the sun trying to make an appearance.
    Very much like Wastemonster predictable, mostly unnecessary, not needed at all, but it has to go on somewhere. And unfortunately it happens again and again and the none inspiring effects are focused all over our country and our lives.

  23. I know most on here aren't interested in crypto but i know at least two Nottlers are.

    Buy Dogecoin. Now. The price is low at the moment. About £0.30.

    Remember one Bitcoin at £200 is now worth £80,000

    Market analyists predict the 'Bull Flag Formation on analysing all previous trends. Particularly how it follows Bitcoin.

    Also..

    Elon Musk is talking it up again. Interesting that he will be head of the new Department Of Government Efficiency.

    Commonly known as DOGE. Just a coincidence…i'm sure.

    1. Elon Musk has that quality now so rare that one might think that it has been banned, a sense of humour.

  25. Good morning all.
    A late start after a rather disturbed night.
    4°C on the Yard Thermometer and a dull grey start with a light, misty drizzle.
    However, since taking the DT's tea & cereal up for her, it appears to be getting brighter with a reddish tinge to the otherwise grey sky.

  26. Letter from
    Malik Fraz Ahmad
    Bradford, West Yorkshire

    As a young Muslim law student,

    Not studying British Law then!!!!!

    Shirley, the writer means

    As a young law student, of Muslim heritage, I am deeply troubled by the recent vote by MPs in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

    He should also look at the goings on in Israel

    1. As used in the letter, Muslim is an adjective to define the type of Law being studied, not of the religion of the student

      1. Muslim Law. Presumably, there's a module on Mob Rule ….and Multiplication …. and Living on Infidel Benefits

    2. David Kurten, whom I admire greatly, has expressed his opposition to this bill as a Christian.

      1. I think of myself as a Christian and I support the bill. My reason is that of all things in life we should have the choice to end it as we see fit. To me that is fundamental to the concept of human beings, at the very core, free to choose. God gave us this right, the freedom to sin or the freedom to follow his way. If we are deprived of that right then it makes a sham of free will and, by extension, Christian teaching and the Christian concept of God. I doubt very much that at the end of life I will take the option. But, metaphorically speaking, it must be a choice to pick up the cross freely, not to have it imposed upon us because others fear death. Which I am convinced is, at root, where the belief that a voluntary death should not be allowed, stems from.

        1. Johnathan, if you have the ability to commit suicide then you have the right. Even if it were illegal, who could prosecute you beyond the grave? The issue is the right to take another life. It isn't possible to prove definitively that another person desires to be murdered and for that reason abuse is guaranteed.

          1. No matter what a law is, it will be abused. Witness today the persecution of people who have told the truth and jailed for upsetting the government.

          2. With government involvement, abuse (certainly in terms of widening the remit) is pretty much guaranteed.

        2. It's the involvement of the government that is troubling.
          Governments of all stripes manipulate legislation to suit their own purposes.

          1. Well, it was imposed upon us by the state acting on the bidding of the Church. So, if anything, it is the government removing itself from something it imposed in the first place.

          2. Well, it was imposed upon us by the state acting on the bidding of the Church. So, if anything, it is the government removing itself from something it imposed in the first place.

        3. It's the involvement of the government that is troubling.
          Governments of all stripes manipulate legislation to suit their own purposes.

    1. Hence all the hoohah about GW (and I don't mean Global Warming).
      Keeps the proles' tiny minds occupied with trivia.

      1. Never heard of him before, never seen the programme. Now you can't avoid it. Radio 4 has devoted several department to denigrating this person and the news aint news without fifteen minutes talking about Gromit Wallace.

      2. That’s how it all works Anne.
        There is still too much information about sacked Mr Gobby from the BBC.

    2. Hence all the hoohah about GW (and I don't mean Global Warming).
      Keeps the proles' tiny minds occupied with trivia.

  31. Good morning all ,

    Sunshine here , 9c, and a slight breeze , we had a restless night .

    Last night , 12.30 ' ish , whilst out in the garden with spaniel for last minute you know whats, a large aircraft flew somewhere in the background over head .

    Moh consulted his flight radar and located the flight .. Airbus .. flying out from RAF Brize Norton .. he tracked it to Portugal and beyond .

    Where was it heading for ?

    2. Hopefully dropping off illegal migrants that have absolutely no right to be in our country.

  32. Good morrow gentlefolk, especially Geoff and thanks for his wonderful work on this site.

    Not feeling at all well – Bad reaction to some steroid cream, prescribed for the bad lesions on my legs. I can only KBO!

        1. I have been having that sort of a problem on one of my legs and the person who helps me out recommended E45 Lotion, 24 hour moisturisation for very dry + sensitive skin. Worked really well and fast. If you haven't tried it you can buy it from eBay. I was very happy with it.

    2. I realise that this suggestion will lead to a rictus grin – or even an outright horse laugh ….. I assume you will be contacting your GP.

    3. Ow! That doesn't sound good, Tom. Hope it goes over very soon.
      Have a wee tincture before dinner to ease the stress!

  33. Sickness benefits worth more than minimum wage job
    Claimants could earn £3,000 more per year than minimum wage workers, according to analysis by CSJ
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/01/sickness-benefit-worth-more-minimum-wage-job/

    What a great motivation to go out and get a job!

    We are fortunate in that neither Caroline nor I have never had to claim sickness benefit or the dole.

    Caroline and I decided to wait for 5 years before we started our family because we had moved to France and wanted to make sure our business was able to support us as neither of us liked the idea of being dependent on the state. Our two sons have been in full employment since the day they left university and have not had to come to us or the state for handouts.

    2. Same here, Richard. I left the RAF at the age of 30. While still on my two week discharge leave I was in training for a new career.

      1. My father was made redundant on Christmas Eve. By the New Year, he'd found himself another job. Not necessarily one that he liked, but it brought money into the household.

  34. Morning all, especially Susan 👍👍❤️😊😊
    Cold here 8c and it is sunny without any breeze.

    1. Zia Yusaf describes himself as 'a "British Muslim patriot" and, to date, he is the Reform Party's largest donor.

      Keir Starmer looks as if he will bend to his Muslim voters and introduce blasphemy laws. I wonder what the Party chairman's view on this is and whether Farage, like Starmer, is keen to attract Muslim voters.

      Farage has shown his hand recently by expressing the views that deportation of illegal immigrants is impractical.

      1. We cannot even get rid of individual convicted foreign criminals, so there is not a chance of deporting tens of thousands of those who will jump on the asylum bandwagon as soon as they are apprehended.

        1. You might remember that after convicting some Pakistanis of beating their ten year

          old daughter to death that the Court declined to sentence them to deportation upon

          completion of their sentence.

          1. Which case is that? The Sarah Sharif case is, I think, still ongoing.
            However, I am quite prepared to believe that other P***s/Indian Muslims have also indulged in the same practice.

        2. Adjust the law if necessary: Commit a crime, get deported. And illegal entry into the UK is a crime.

          1. It used to be the case; back in 1976, we had two Italian students, here legally, who were caught shoplifting. They were back on the train to Italy the next day.

        3. Quicker, easier and cheaper to shoot them. (I wonder if Starmer contemplates that in a different context? My guess is not since his brain is hard wired for the "rules based order" scam.)

          1. A quick note to plod, our Sue means shooting as in filming, or you’ll be invited down the station with Tousi TV . Oh hang on, he is there for filming. Better order a new front door…

      2. We cannot even get rid of individual convicted foreign criminals, so there is not a chance of deporting tens of thousands of those who will jump on the asylum bandwagon as soon as they are apprehended.

    2. Zia Yusaf describes himself as 'a "British Muslim patriot" and, to date, he is the Reform Party's largest donor.

      Keir Starmer looks as if he will bend to his Muslim voters and introduce blasphemy laws. I wonder what the Party chairman's view on this is and whether Farage, like Starmer, is keen to attract Muslim voters.

      Farage has shown his hand recently by expressing the views that deportation of illegal immigrants is impractical.

    3. Is Musk in danger of doing what we here complain that Gates, and other WEF types do, interfere in the democratic process by dint of colossal amounts of money? Is he squaring up to run the world, in place of Gates? I'm beginning to wonder – just because I maybe agree with him doesn't make him right.

      1. He needs to outspend people like Gates and Soros to redress the balance. I'm all for that. Force the pendulum to swing back the other way.

  36. Now for some bad news

    Bovaer, a cutting-edge animal feed additive designed to reduce methane emissions from livestock.

    Arla is the largest supplier of fresh milk and cream in the United Kingdom, producing over 2.2 billion litres of milk per year. It produces two premium milk brands: Cravendale filtered milk, which undergoes a filtration process to remove bacteria before pasteurization; and Lactofree milk, from which lactose is removed, making it suitable for most lactose intolerant people. Following the success of Lactofree milk, Arla introduced a range of lactose-free products, including cheese and yoghurt.

    As well as fresh milk, Arla produces the Anchor butter brand in the United Kingdom and Lurpak is produced by its Danish farmers. This was not widely publicised by the company, even though the brands had been established over decades as brands for butter imported from Denmark and New Zealand respectively. Other products include fromage frais, yoghurts and the blue cheeses Rosenborg and Danish Blue. The firm also produces fruit juice.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arla_Foods_UK#Products

    1. Arla Foods Group is a Danish-Swedish multinational co-operative based in Viby, Denmark. It is the fifth biggest dairy company in the world and the largest producer of dairy products in Scandinavia and United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is the company's third-largest market, accounting for 16.8 percent of sales. Arla Foods (UK) Ltd. is a major dairy products company in the United Kingdom, based in Leeds, and a subsidiary of Arla Foods.

    2. Aria collect milk from 2 farms near where we used to live in Norfolk One had a Gurnsey herd and the other Holstiens.The milk was just all mixed together.Gurnsey milk should be sold as a better quality product not mixed like they do and turn it into gloryfied stererlised milk. Milk is so poor today we hardly ever drink it. Such a pity what the EU allowed to happen.

      2. The first time I had milk straight from the cow, it was so strongly flavoured that I thought it was off – until I realised that it had just been collected from the cooling tank, having been in the cow about a half-hour earlier!
        Flavour – something missing from modern milk.

        1. I grew up on unpasteurised but TT tested milk from a herd of pedigree Ayrshires locally. Our milkman, Charlie brought it round by horse and cart. I think I owe my good health and lack of allergies to that nutrition as a child. So not exactly warm straight from the cow but unadulterated.

        2. People think governments will look after people, and they do not. We are the problem.

          1. They used to, back in the day. Now they are more interested in some global BS, like the EU, WEF, giant agreements for climate, as that's more exciting and they feel significant. So, the day job (looking out for citizens) gets forgotten.

      1. The next implication is that Arla milk tainted with Bovaer is safe for the British

        public, but not safe enough to be tried on the Danish public.

  37. Not to difficult:
    Wordle 1,262 4/6

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

    1. We contend that for Sir Keir Starmer of Rochdale & Rotherham to try to tax the nation into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

    2. We contend that for Sir Keir Starmer of Rochdale & Rotherham to try to tax the nation into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

  41. This is one of the best expositions of Islam that I have heard. Brings to the fore the idea that Islam has always existed and that all the "prophets" Jewish and Christian are Muslim and that we, Jews and Christians, have strayed from the path set down by God. This aspect of Islam is not understood in the West because of our concept of history and the idea that things happen within a temporal context. That history is a movement that moves inexorably forward so Islam comes after Judaism and Christianity, which, from the Islamic point of view is wholly inaccurate. Islam is as ancient as Adam and we come after as manifestations of the ancient teaching being corrupted.
    This is almost an hour long but strongly encourage you all to watch it.

    Jew Exposes Arab Muslim Beliefs From the Inside | The Caroline Glick Show
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsE5B-9uMYk

    1. Doh. We had it all wrong. There is no Israel. Never was because everything is Muslim.
      Kingdom of David..? Muslim.
      Solomon.. Jesus? All muslim.
      They were all Muslim. Never was a Jewish temple doesn't exist. Al-Aqsa Mosque built by Abraham the Muslim. so this land belongs to the Muslims. Obv.
      Question: when was Islam invented?
      You don't understand. There is no other religion. So Adam was a Muslim. It says so in the quran.
      Everything we know in the Torah is islam. They perverted the text and became Jews. In fact Muslims are the chosen people. Jews left the path of Islam. Moses Jesus.. all Muslims.
      Mohammad was the last prophet. And conveniently the Jews lost the promise to the land.

      Summary:
      Like debating with a progressive liberal.. there is zero agreement on terminology and so zero basis for conversation.
      Fight it out in the car park. Winner takes all.

      2. It's because of this mentality that it is a waste of time to believe in a two state solution and why I advocate that Israel restore their country to the ancient Judea Samaria. Drive the so called 'Palestinians' out, drive them from the temple mount and restore the Temple. Those that submit can stay, those who wont, go elsewhere. Forget Gaza, they have forfeited that too.

      1. Yes, I learnt this in the late 1960’s because it is a prominent idea in Sufism. Then it is used in a good way, to emphasise unity and brotherhood amongst all religions. Probably one of the reasons the modern fanatics target Sufism as heretical.

  42. Good Moaning, Doomed Peeps.
    Bright and sunny.
    Step back from that toaster. Switch off that boiler. Junk the car.
    IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!!!!!!

    Meanwhile: in the Land of the Free.

    "Once in office, the Democrats set about making sure Trump wouldn’t win again. A series of politically motivated prosecutions were rolled out as the party rediscovered the zeal for upholding the law that so curiously left it during the Black Lives Matter riots.

    In 2020, suggesting crime was bad was so unfashionable Democratic strategists were ostracised for merely suggesting that heaping praise on rioters might be unpopular with voters. In 2024, new and innovative legal theories were deployed to make sure Trump and his allies felt the full force of their disapproval.

    Social media companies were pressured to censor Covid content the White House disliked, and traditional media allies were drawn into colluding in the delusion that Biden was fit to govern despite the evidence available to anyone with eyes. And when after all this they lost anyway, Biden made sure to pardon his son before he left office.

    Remind me again: who was the threat to democracy and standards in the oval office here?"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/02/biden-and-the-democrats-have-done-more-damage-to-america/

  43. Biden pardons son Hunter in U-turn
    The president had previously pledged not to pardon his son, but said he changed his mind because Hunter had been ‘unfairly prosecuted’
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2024/12/02/joe-biden-pardons-son-hunter/

    Will history reveal Joe Biden to have been the most corrupt politician ever?

    It makes a mockery of US Law if the president can say something is unfair without even attempting to prove it.

    US presidents are often embarrassed by having dodgy relations!

    "Roger Clinton, the president's brother, was pardoned for drug charges after having served the entire sentence more than a decade earlier. Roger Clinton would be charged with drunk driving and disorderly conduct in an unrelated incident within a year of the pardon."

    BTL

    Donald Trump is a 'convicted criminal' – but if the conviction was unsound and politically influenced the surely he can lose that title. He was the victim of lawfare and he should clear and absolve himself when he takes control.

    I expect that Trump will clear himself but I hope that he will provide concrete evidence that he was wrongly convicted.

  44. I really must repeat my thanks to Robert for mentioning the live feed from the chapel at Trinity Collage, Cambridge last evening. We immediately connected and listened to the whole service. (Slightly odd version of the Bible!) A young woman whom we have known all her life is in her first term at Trinity – and was there with her mother (whom the MR taught in 1984 – and has remained close to for 40 years).

    It was heartwarming – in these dire times – to see such an event taking place without wokery – young people in suits and ties: young man organist who looked about 16 – played like a dream.

    And, to cap it all, said young person invited us to the Christmas Carol service this Thursday – which we cannot, unfortunately, attend, as it clashes with a memorial to our chum who died in July.

    The young can still pleasantly surprise us.

    2. All part of the process designed to turn university students in general and Oxbridge progeny in particular into good enlightened little liberals that's been going on for years. Same at the Cambridge Union. It's like the 'gepp yar"; you haven't had your education until you've had a formal chance to express your outrage about these things in a way that others will wrongly assume was done in a weighty forum.

  47. A couple of things about the new Legal Murder Bill. Did anyone in yer Parliament mention life insurance policies and the effect of choosing suicide? I imagine not. If one has to pay – that may be a disincentive – not mentioned in the Bill (as far as I am aware).

    One just hopes that the Lords will throw it out.

    1. Regrettably I doubt their lordships will throw it out, Bill. More likely they'll go through a hand-washing routine in order to reassure themselves that they aren't to blame for the consequences.

      1. Possibly – though many “peers” are in the older age brackets – and it may seem too close to home…{:¬))

        1. Oh yes I hadn't thought about that. Turkeys often prefer not to vote for Christmas of course.

  48. Hi Sue, hope you are feeling a little better today?
    I think it really depends how the mechanics, as it were, are sorted out. We haven't reached that point yet. I would favor, for those of sound mind being given some sort of ability to do it themselves, which is what a friend of mine did, but she was lucky because she had the resources of a university behind her. But most people aren't that lucky.

    For those who lack that ability, then a provision in the form of a document asking that if they be to ill to do it, someone administer an injection or something that will help them along. In truth I know that the latter option in already done. Doctors do it all the time by increasing pain medication. Everyone looks the other way but it is done every day in, I'm willing to bet, in almost every hospital. The law would simply be the legitimisation of that so doctors don't have to sneak around in fear of being prosecuted which is the case now.

  49. It's actually quite simple.
    Just imagine the maddest, most nationally, financially and socially damaging scenario and – bingo – Blighty in a nut shell.

  51. Already been covered in several countries.. here's the gist.

    Voluntary assisted dying does not affect life insurance claims or death benefits from superannuation funds. Although most life insurance policies exclude claims if a person has died by suicide, Australian laws make clear that voluntary assisted dying and suicide are two different things. A person’s death certificate lists their illness as the cause of death, not voluntary assisted dying.

      2. I don't think so, but I'm not expert. After all I believe we aren't sending our convicts there anymore.

          1. Yes but they let him come back! The rumour is that Mrs JWK gets on well with her sister-in-law. Does that make her a good influence?

      3. No of course not. But they use the same process and often cite each others conclusions. Which is why Giggle vs. Tickle in Oz is so important to UK.

        Tickle v Giggle is significant because it is the first case where the court has been asked to decide if a transgender person can be protected from discrimination under the SDA.

        One thing your countries both share is.. they do not defer to Allah or or refer to some remote court in Strasbourg to seek guidnace from an activist expurt. [sarc.].

        1. But since 1963, Australian courts are no longer obliged to follow English decisions.

          "Thus, DPP v Smith had proved a valuable catalyst in Australia, contributing to the
          development of its distinctive juridical identity. Formerly, the High Court had
          regarded itself as bound by decisions of the House of Lords on issues of general
          legal principle, even in the face of contrary High Court precedents. By refusing
          to follow Smith, the High Court in Parker v R was forced explicitly to sever the yoke
          of English legal authority. "

      4. I'd bet some firms will try it on anyway, as much English law is case law, so once a claim is legally rejected…

  52. Ex-UK schoolboy 'Jihadi Jack', 29, begs to be sent to Canadian jail from his Syrian prison as his mother moans British government 'thinks it's okay to completely destroy him'.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14146273/Britains-Jihadi-Jack-29-pleads-repatriated-Canada-rot-jail-Syrian-prison-camp-television-interview-years.html

    As a Christian i should care. I don't. He is an enemy of our country who gave him succour. Perhaps it will teach others there are consequences to your choices.

    1. Presumably, given half a chance, Jihadi Jack would have "thought it ok to completely destroy a good few Britons".

  55. Morning all! Just! Still battling here with after effects from yesterday's power cut and an outside light which seems to have a mind of its own……… after the power cut it stayed on shining brightly into our neighbours' bedrooms so before he went to bed OH turned it off at the fuse box, which also turned off the internet and all lights, phones, etc in our bedroom and the room downstairs.
    He's now turned it all on again so I can start to catch up with things online. How did we ever manage before we had the internet??

    1. Ours has been off since Friday morning, only in this case our provider states that many companies are chasing BTOpenreach over it for causing "damage". There's war in heaven, it appears.

      As I've written before, whenever we see a BTOpenreach van at the side of the road me and the missus always repeat like some liturgical duty, "Oh dear, someone's going to lose their Internet."

      It's getting like Russia in the UK. Cynical jokes about the way we are run in the UK abound 😆

      1. Whenever I see a BT Openreach Van it is usually parked up in a lay-by on a weekend. I look to my wife and say “I bet those useless bastards are on double time”.

      1. It seems to me Biden has made himself hoarse repeating that he'd never do that. He's just boxed himself in, I'd say. Making a right show, jumping ship from his own position that's all.

  58. Moh and I had several errands to do yesterday morning late ,

    We had a bonfire slowly burning in the bonfire incinerator.. Moh is a very good enflamer or what ever the word is .. and the smoke didn't annoy anyone.

    Then we needed to drive into Dorchester .

    Moh grabbed his hat and jacket , and I picked up my phone , car keys etc and off we went ..

    We travelled halfway to Dorchester and Moh started to feel uncomfortable .. why , he was fishing around in his trouser pocket for his phone (I was driving ) and he pulled out the large box of matches instead from his pocket ! No phone .. left at home.

    Laughed , I couldn't believe it

    4. I don't use matches.
      I've a refillable gas clickey thing that is more reliable and allows me to keep my fingers clear of the flames!

  59. Moh and I had several errands to do yesterday morning late ,

    We had a bonfire slowly burning in the bonfire incinerator.. Moh is a very good enflamer or what ever the word is .. and the smoke didn't annoy anyone.

    Then we needed to drive into Dorchester .

    Moh grabbed his hat and jacket , and I picked up my phone , car keys etc and off we went ..

    We travelled halfway to Dorchester and Moh started to feel uncomfortable .. why , he was fishing around in his trouser pocket for his phone (I was driving ) and he pulled out the large box of matches instead from his pocket ! No phone .. left at home.

    Laughed , I couldn't believe it

  60. Indeed. But they often "refer to".. findings & conclusions because they have identical language, terminology and observe the notion of evidence based objective truth.. (until everybody scrapped that nonsense on 9th August 2014).

  62. 397870+ up ticks,

    The highly dangerous fools missed the turning away point 30 plus years ago
    And when did the word torture come under the
    patronise banner ?

    Nick Timothy
    Politicians must persuade and lead the public, not patronise them
    Voters will continue to turn away from leaders who offer platitudes rather than solutions to problems

  63. I haven't been around much lately, 5 day break in Eastbourne etc. and I'm wondering if anyone has commented on the last four letters of Bovaer. I can't be certain that someone is taking the p!$$ or not but…

    …in the USA VAER —> Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting. The latter is their version of the UK's Yellow Card System, both of which have been heavily criticised over the CV-19 fiasco. Probably nothing but a rather odd coincidence?

    2. My hairdresser has a husband who after many years working in the building trade now teaches building project management at a North London tech college. When the Labour plan to build 1-5m homes was announced, Tom scoffed and said it can't be done. I took his word for it over Rayner's.

      1. Towards the end of my working life in construction I ran my own business and was also a contracts manager.
        I agree it is impossible. The political classes all seem to be on a knife edge or trigger happy they don't have a clue with regards to reality.
        Most of them should be being useful and working on a factory production (present company of course accepted) line somewhere, or in an Amazon warehouse.

        1. I've seen it somewhere within the last year so either Penlee House or the Pallant Gallery in Chichester. It could have been on loan to Penlee House because the subject is spring in Cornwall? What does the the box say the painting is called and who is the artist?

          1. It is entitled "Spring". It could be that there was an exhibition of her work in which it was included. The RA had a small one a few years ago.

      2. I think it might have been on loan there. Pretty sure I saw that earlier this year in a special exhibition. I wasn't that impressed overall with the exhibition itself, as about half the space was given over to museum stuff, thus squeezing the space for art in an already pokey building.

    4. I did a jigsaw once. It said 3-5 years. It only took me a couple of weeks so I was well pleased.

  66. Oh dear.
    The brief spell of brighter weather a couple of hours ago was a bit of a come-on. I went out to chop wood, began on one of the larger logs and it began raining.
    So when I finished chopping that one log, I came in and carried on the dinner done.
    Sausage stew with mashed potatoes and sweetcorn.

  67. I wondered if M&S use Arla. This is the Google answer:
    AI Overview
    Learn more
    Marks & Spencer sells a variety of products from Arla Foods, including:
    Lactofree: A dairy product that's suitable for most people who are lactose intolerant
    Cravendale: A filtered milk brand that's pasteurized after being filtered to remove bacteria
    Arla Foods is a farmer-owned cooperative that also sells other brands, including:
    Apetina, Lurpak, Castello, Arla Cream Cheese, Arla Buko, Arla Cheasy, Arla Cheese, and Arla Dano.
    Marks & Spencer also sources milk from a group of long-term farmer partners, known as the Milk Pool. The company pays the farmers a fair price for their milk in exchange for meeting their animal welfare standards.

    2. Arla / Kraft… sometimes I'm undecided as to which rubbish to eat today. A bit harsh I know, but these big corporates only serve to make one suspicious.

    2. Some advertiser has cottoned on to Maxwell by the sound of it. They do know kinetic-molecular is still only a theory don't they?

    1. Actually, I remembered that it was last Autumn I saw it when we went to an exhibition in the Penlee House Gallery on the Lamorna Colony so it must have been on loan to them.

  72. I think it fair to say that Wallace is a Wally:

    Sunday: Gregg Wallace has claimed it is only “middle-class women of a certain age” who have made complaints about his alleged sexist behaviour as pressure grows on the BBC over how it responded to claims made against the MasterChef presenter.

    Monday: Gregg Wallace has apologised for “any offence that I caused” after posting a video saying complaints about his behaviour came from “a handful of middle-class women of a certain age”.

    Chap just doesn't know what shutting up is the best thing….

    (Clement Attlee to Harold Laski – 1946: "I can assure you there is widespread resentment in the Party at your activities and a period of silence on your part would be welcome.")

    1. Its better than watching Materchief. All that seasoned TV totty pretending to be shocked by some smut and Ulreka (3 husbands) Jonsson having a fit of the vapours. Wonderful, and takes our thoughts away from WW3 and the country going to the dogs. Gosh, is the sun over the yard-arm already….

      1. It is alleged that Ms Jonsson was catcalled by a builder who cried out: "Come and sit on my face!"
        To which she allegedly replied: "Why what's the problem? Have you got a small dick?"

        1. A middle-aged nursing sister of my acquaintance was once 'flashed' by a chap as she walked to work.
          The flasher shouted, "What do you think of this?"
          In a beat she responded, "Well, it looks a bit like a penis … only smaller."

    2. Who cares though? I mean, really, who cares? I didn#t even know the man's name before this storm in a teacup blew up.

  73. Rain stopped, so got five large diameter logs chopped, a couple of 14" long examples too, and have just had a rather tasty meal of the aforesaid mini sausages done in gravy, mashed tatties and sweetcorn.
    Very nice.
    Holding off from doing more chopping until Graduate Son has got the ones I've just done stacked.

  74. Britain paying wind farms record £1bn to switch off

    Curtailment cost climbs to ‘absurd’ highs as grid struggles to cope with power

    Matt Oliver
    Industry Editor
    02 December 2024 12:50pm GMT

    British bill payers have spent an “absurd” £1bn to temporarily switch off wind turbines so far this year as the grid struggles to cope with their power.

    The amount of wind power “curtailed” in the first 11 months of 2024 stood at about 6.6 gigawatt hours (GWh), according to official figures, up from 3.8 GWh in the whole of last year.

    Curtailment is where wind turbines are paid to switch off at times of high winds to stop a surge in power overwhelming the grid. Households and businesses pay for the cost of this policy through their bills.

    The cost of switching off has reached about £1bn so far this year, according to analysis of market data by Octopus Energy which was first reported by Bloomberg. This is more than the £779m spent last year and £945m spent in 2022.
    Advertisement

    The jump in curtailment follows the opening of more wind farms at a time when the country still lacks the infrastructure needed to transport all the electricity they generate at busy times.

    Clem Cowton, the director of external affairs at Octopus, added: “The outdated rules of our energy system mean vast amounts of cheap green power go to waste.

    “It’s absurd that Britain pays Scottish wind farms to turn off when it’s windy, while simultaneously paying gas-power stations in the South to turn on.

    “We need to change the rules that govern our system to make the most of our homegrown energy and get bills down for British households and businesses.”

    Octopus and others have called for the country to shift to a regional pricing system, which they say would incentivise more wind farms to be built closer to where power is needed.

    This would reduce the need for hundreds of miles of cables to deliver electricity from the North and Scotland, where many wind farms are, to the South where demand is greatest.

    However, the plans would be controversial as it would likely mean homes and businesses in the South paid more for their energy than those in the North.

    Jason Mann, an electricity markets expert at FTI Consulting, said the high curtailment costs underlined the lack of cables to transport power to the South.

    However, he also argued the £1bn cost was partly the result of Britain’s national electricity pricing system.

    Mr Mann said: “Congestion costs are an inevitable problem under the current market design we have in Britain.

    “Increasing the amount of transmission capacity we have can alleviate the problem but not fully – it will remain an enduring issue.

    “At some point you have to do something that encourages greater demand in the North, for example lower prices.”

    According to the National Energy System Operator (Neso), curtailment costs are on course to surge to £6bn by 2030 if the status quo continues.

    Ministers are said to be examining potential options for market reform after the Neso warned that a decision should be made soon to provide electricity generators with certainty.

    Critics of regional pricing, including manufacturers’ body MakeUK and wind farm lobby group RenewableUK, argue that switching to such a system would plunge a slew of planned developments into uncertainty.

    That would threaten the Government’s ambitious plan to reach a “net zero” power system by 2030, which will require an unprecedented investment and building spree, they say.

    In 2022, some 3.5 GWh of power were curtailed – far less than in 2024 – but electricity prices were much higher after Russia’s attack on Ukraine sent the cost of gas soaring.

    Just five years ago, 1.9 gigawatt hours were wasted at a cost of £242m.

    2. Surely to goodness someone can find a method of storage or use for the power, if only to lift water into lakes or for battery charging.
      If people were informed that power was discounted through smart meters for EV's, etc the generators could earn money, the consumers save money and the government not have to pay subsidies.

    3. It's really very simple. Unreliables are just that. The solution is reliable, consistent power provided continuously. Not fiddling around marking time, not controlling when and where, just simply, reliable energy use, on demand at a really low price due to massive over supply.

      The idiocy of controlling when people can use a product – or where – is utterly moronic. It is simply a complete failure of market forces. That's the problem though. The state doesn't want energy to be a market. It wants it to be controlled.

      When I suggested my theory that eventually data centre/tech companies will supply power and data he was horrified. His comment 'but how would the state control energy use? People could do what they wanted….' was telling.

      1. My Noddy car is a nippy little ICE. Give it a year or three and she'll be worth as much as the Koh-I-Noor.
        She's my secret hoard of cash to finance my escape from blighted Blighty.

      3. If I had been wealthier when I was young and single I would have loved to have had an XK150.

    4. I'm going to embarrass myself, but surely that's just the render. The real vehicle won't look like that.

    1. I wonder how much of the decision to pardon his son was driven by the likelihood of Joe Biden himself being incriminated in future trials and lawsuits concerning his son?

      1. approaching 100%

        Perhaps Trump should get the Justice department to go for Biden himself.

        It's almost as if Biden did it so that Trump would be tempted to pardon the 6 January protesters and then claim Trump doesn't accept the law or the justice system.

        It would be extremely hard on the Jan6ers, but if Trump stated he wasn't going to do so, because he stands by the justice system, he would utterly destroy what little credibility the Democrats have left over the law

        1. The Jan 6ers need to be either pardoned or have all charges dismissed (as do the political prisoners held in the UK following the unequally policed riots)

          1. Either one believes in the law and accepts the outcomes or it ceases to be the law.

            Whilst I completely agree that both groups were subject to politically motivated persecution, yes persecution not prosecution, I don't believe they should be pardoned.

            Appeal the sentences by all means, but changing the law so it works better would be my view.

            I also believe that if Trump took my approach he would be on unassailable moral high ground.

          2. My view is that the law was changed (suborned) in both cases to political ends, sos. I think this is even worse than what you posit.

          4. Judges seem to have got round to making the law nowadays, under the guise of interpretation.

          9. I think it’s just got more noticeable because the anti-democracy movement has become more blatant.

          11. True, but the judges interpret the law, and if it’s badly written, which these are we reap what Blair sowed.

      2. I am certain that a person like Hunter Biden would be more than happy to spill the beans on his father.

        I imagine that Hunter applied a certain amount of coercive blackmail on the old idiot.

        1. A slight correction:-

          I imagine that Hunter applied a certain amount of coercive blackmail on the senile old idiot.

    1. He was very tubby and lost it. He's defecting his own angst on others. Same for his overly sexualised comments. He's desperate for attention, wasn't getting it and saw a way to.

      He needs to marry a woman who won't tolerate his stupidity and toddlerish nature but will still lift him up when the cloak of guilt falls.

      He's just not having mine.

      1. I'm a softy.
        I was thinking along the lines of the thumbscrew and the rack, and the devildoms of Spain.

    3. We had a brat screaming his head off down the road. Bellowing anger mindlessly at the sky.

      A bloke on his way home stopped beside the boy, exchanged very few words and the lad stopped – just like that. Some children just have never been told no. The mother is continually going to 'soothe' the child. To drop to their level. One thing – maybe it's because I do it with the dogs. Maybe it's the brother – I've always tried to be is consistent. If Junior drops a plate when putting them away there's no major harm, I just want him to learn from the accident – put 3 away rather than 6, or 2 instead of 4.

      1. If people treated their offspring more like trainers treat their dogs (consistency, praise and reward for doing right, correction when going wrong) I sometimes think the world would be a better place.

  80. Oink ….. pass down the trough.

    "Louise Haigh will receive thousands of pounds in severance pay after her resignation as transport secretary, No 10 has confirmed.

    Ms Haigh quit Sir Keir Starmer’s Cabinet last Thursday after she admitted pleading guilty to misleading the police a decade ago.

    All departing ministers aged 65 or under are entitled to a quarter of their annual salary, no matter how long they are in their post or the circumstances in which they leave."

      2. After she's cleared Superdrug of red hair dye; on her Parliamentary credit card, natch.
        I wonder of she has one of their Health and Beauty cards?

    2. Given that Starmer knew about the fraud – the deliberate attempt to mislead – why did he continue with her recruitment?

          1. I was thinking during my sleepless night just gone that they are, de facto, robber barons. They are lawless and rapacious and they lie, and lie, and lie.

          2. Over to Mr Lewis:

            “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

            https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/526469-of-all-tyrannies-a-tyranny-sincerely-exercised-for-the-good
            ― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)

      2. Because they are of the Left: the good guys. Always numbered amongst the angels, unlike the evil Right, forever torturing, enslaving and grinding the faces of the poor into the dust.

  82. He's a twonk. Became inflated by his own success.
    This hoohah is being whipped up to hide what this government is getting up to behind our backs.

    1. A close shave here.

      Wordle 1,262 5/6

      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩
      ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Lots of divots here
      Wordle 1,262 4/6

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

  85. Syria is Russia’s southern flank – and it is fast crumbling. Hamish de-Crettin–Gordon. December 2 2024.

    In a bizarre twist of fate, it is possible that the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) may be inadvertently coming to the aid of the West – and more importantly, Ukraine – by disrupting Putin’s southern flank.

    Only Gordon would cheer on this gang of Islamic looneys. Of course they were pals back in the days when he was dreaming up those False Flag chemical attacks for them.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/02/syria-is-russias-southern-flank-and-it-is-fast-crumbling/

    1. That Hamish fellow is certifiably insane. Assad is a nasty piece of work but does anyone believe Syria would be a more stable country if Assad was regime changed. Has he learnt nothing from regime change in Libya or for that matter regime change in Ukraine.

  86. Syria is Russia’s southern flank – and it is fast crumbling. Hamish de-Crettin–Gordon. December 2 2024.

    In a bizarre twist of fate, it is possible that the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) may be inadvertently coming to the aid of the West – and more importantly, Ukraine – by disrupting Putin’s southern flank.

    Only Gordon would cheer on this gang of Islamic looneys. Of course they were pals back in the days when he was dreaming up those False Flag chemical attacks for them.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/02/syria-is-russias-southern-flank-and-it-is-fast-crumbling/

  87. I've never understood why UK supported rabid Islamists against Assad – surely absolute insanity?

      1. Didn't the 'THEY' fix Gaddafi because he wanted to have middle eastern oil paid for by an African gold Dinar. And he supplied water to all his towns with his new pipeline and pumping stations.

          1. Remember they found him hiding in a concrete pipe pulled him out and stuck a knife up his backside.

  88. Well, after two guesses I thought, excellent, there's only word which will fit, nice birdie… Wrong! there were two! Another boring par…

    Wordle 1,262 4/6

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

      1. Absolutely Herts, but in the long run it definitely adds to the fun of the game (Grrrrrrrrr!!!!)….

    1. Anne , well done ..
      Perfect , and thank you for reminding us all , wonderful poem ..
      I can remember only this ..

      "We have fought such a fight for a day and a night
      As may never be fought again!
      We have won great glory, my men!
      And a day less or more
      At sea or ashore,
      We die—does it matter when?
      Sink me the ship, Master Gunner—sink her, split her in twain!
      Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!"

  90. Edit for formatting

    ANDREW NEIL: The REAL and sickeningly self-serving reason Biden pardoned Hunter. And why it now greenlights Trump to unleash a judicial jihad in revenge
    Despite repeated denials that he would ever do it — the most recent only last week — in the end the Big Guy (Hunter Biden's handle for his father) came good for his sleaze-bag son with a pardon for the ages.
    Far from bringing closure to a sordid affair, it is mere prelude — pretext even — to Donald Trump going on a rampage of revenge against his enemies.
    He will now be able to use as justification the very same reason President Biden has given for his extraordinary grant of clemency to his son: that America's justice system is hopelessly politicized.
    Something Trump has always claimed — and which Biden, for his own self-serving reasons, now confirms.
    The presidential pardon doesn't just wipe out the gun and tax crimes, for which Hunter was likely about to serve lengthy jail sentences, it covers 'all offences against the United States which he [Hunter] has committed or may have committed or taken part in' from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.
    So whatever federal crimes Hunter might have committed in the last decade, including ones we know nothing about, the president's son can never be held to held to account for them in a court of law. It is a remarkably comprehensive 'get-out-of-jail' card.
    Indeed it is hard to think of any previous presidential pardon quite like it. Bar one: President Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon after he'd been forced to resign over the Watergate scandal and cover up in August 1974. The Biden pardon even copies its wording.
    The Ford pardon didn't just cover any and all crimes associated with Watergate but extended to 'all offences against the United States' that Nixon 'has committed or may have committed' between January 20, 1969 and August 9, 1974 — in other words anything criminal Nixon might have done during the exact span of his presidency.
    Despite repeated denials that he would ever do it, in the end the Big Guy (Hunter Biden's handle for his father) came good for his sleaze-bag son with a pardon for the ages.
    Just as there was no mystery about the dates in the Nixon pardon, there is none in the Biden pardon.
    Why the January 1, 2014 starting date? Simple. Hunter joined the board of Burisma, a dodgy Ukrainian energy company, in April 2014. He was paid millions for his role in the company, despite having no background or expertise in the oil or gas business.
    But he traded off his father's name — the 'Big Guy', who was then President Obama's vice president — in a notorious bout of influence-peddling. Hunter's shady Burisma years have spawned an avalanche of accusations, some false, more as yet unproven.
    The pardon has been carefully concocted to protect him from any new evidence of criminal behavior that might emerge. In doing so it also protects his father from being swept up in any of Hunter's wrongdoing. I doubt there has ever been a greater misuse of the presidential pardon since it was devised by the Founding Fathers almost 250 years ago.
    It certainly marks the end of Saint Joe, the supposedly selfless leader who made way for Kamala Harris for the good of party and nation. Instead, he will see out his final days in the Oval Office as Sleazy Joe, prepared to pervert the pardon process to protect not just his son but himself.
    Not quite the 'Biden Crime Family' of Republican mythology. But a step in that direction. It makes a mockery of all those Democratic cheerleaders who've tried to depict Joe as a cross between George Washington and FDR.
    The Biden pardon is all the more unpardonable because of the President's repeated statements (reinforced by his aides) that he would not pardon his son. Even after Hunter was convicted at trial this summer, the president was unequivocal: 'I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process.'
    In the event, he neither accepted the outcome nor respected the process.
    Indeed, it's now emerging that the President started game-planning a pardon with some of his closest aides the moment Hunter was convicted in June (according to sources close to the discussions). The hapless White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was briefed to keep parroting the 'no pardon' line. But behind closed doors, it was under active consideration.
    The pardon has been carefully concocted to protect him from any new evidence of criminal behavior that might emerge. In doing so it also protects his father from being swept up in any of Hunter's wrongdoing. (Hunter is pictured holding a handgun).
    The pardon has been carefully concocted to protect him from any new evidence of criminal behavior that might emerge. In doing so it also protects his father from being swept up in any of Hunter's wrongdoing. (Hunter is pictured holding a handgun).
    Thus did the Biden White House become synonymous with lies and deceit.
    No wonder, then, that even Democrats are dismayed.
    Colorado Governor Jared Polis attacked Biden for 'putting his family ahead of the country' and setting 'a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents.' Clearly, he had Trump in mind.
    Greg Stanton, a Democratic congressman from Arizona, said: 'I respect President Biden but I think he got this one wrong. This wasn't a politically-motivated prosecution. Hunter committed felonies and was convicted by a jury of his peers'
    Stanton was referring to the reason the President gave for his pardon, a reason which will probably do the greatest damage of all to the American judicial process.
    'No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter's cases can reach any other conclusion,' claims the President, 'than that Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong.'
    'Here's the truth. I believe in the justice system. But as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.'
    Put aside the fact this is self-serving nonsense — as Rep. Stanton says, Hunter was 'convicted by a jury of his peers' — and consider that this is what Trump and his supporters have been saying for some time.
    When Biden says, 'In trying to break Hunter, they've tried to break me — and there's no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough,' he sounds exactly like Trump when he claims the judicial system has been politicized on multiple fronts to bring him and his allies down. Hunter's lawyers even prepared the case for a pardon with the title 'The political persecutions of Hunter Biden.'
    There had been hopes that Trump might drop thoughts of a judicial jihad against his enemies when he returned to the White House, just as his regular promise to 'lock up' Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign came to nothing when he took power.
    Trump will not be able to undo Hunter's pardon when he takes office. Its sweeping nature means the Trump Justice Department, no matter who runs it, will be unable able to reopen the criminal probe into Hunter.
    Trump will surely now weaponize Biden's reason for pardoning Hunter as justification for draining the judicial swamp, taking down those who had tried to take him down.
    You can see now why Trump wants an outsider like Kash Patel to run the FBI. But this all risks becoming a massive diversion from everything Trump needs to concentrate on to get America back on track.
    It is Biden's toxic parting gift to the American people, undermining whatever good he has done these past four years in a departure which will forever taint his legacy.
    As the finishing touches were being made to the pardon over the weekend, the President and his son dined at a Nantucket restaurant called 'The Brotherhood of Thieves' — a fitting venue as the Biden family heads into the history books discredited, disgraced and disparaged even by its own side.

    1. In case you hadn't noticed Mr Neil.. the UK also has a politicsed judiciary. Remember Lady Hale and her eleven EU funded justices?
      At least US gets to appoint them according to their party.

      1. Which brings us back to David Starkey.
        Why is it that he is the only person in the whole of the UK that understands the significance of Tony Blair's ridiculous Supreme Court? What's up with the so-called enlightened journalists?
        Why aren't Kemi Badenoch & Robert Jenrick & Nigel Farage pledging to undo Blair's vandalism?
        Are they thick or what?

    2. The Bidens, and by extension the Democrats, are the most corrupt individuals going at the moment – and that’s saying something.

      I am convinced the war in Ukraine is being fought partly to cover up the Bidens’ corruption.

      Why the MSM is not al over this is unfathomable (except, of course, we know how partisan they are).

  91. I felt brave enough to watch Wolf Hall last night .. and thoroughly enjoyed it ..

    The last series left me with horrible images and some nightmares .

    When I was a child , and at b/school in Yorkshire , our class visited Haddon Hall in Derbyshire .

    The house wreaked of atmosphere .. and I still shiver remembering the bleak coldness and size of the place .

    Hilary Mantel must have been infused with the spirits of medieval or whatever age one calls it .

    Congratulations to the producers who took us back to those cruel uncertain volatile times .

    I must confess I have never visited Wolfeton house nr Dorchester , where Wolf hall was produced .

    The house belongs to Captain Captain Nigel Trwhitt Lumley Luttrell Thimbleby and his wife Katherine, nee Weld, of Lulworth Castle.

    The house that stands now is Elizabethan, with truly superlative decorated plaster ceilings, overmantels and carved woodwork https://bibleofbritishtaste.com/wolveton-or-wolfeton-manor-stands-in-its-little-plot-of-green-verdant-land-bordered-by-water-meadows-lazy-sheep-dung-the-old-rutted-carriage-drive-and-slow-everything-down

  92. After failure yesterday, I was functioning a little better today.

    Wordle 1,262 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟩🟨🟨
    🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  93. Not so much forgotten as pushed to the back of the mind. What a tragic story.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/lena-zavaroni-the-tragic-life-and-death-of-child-star/

    ‘In the end she just withered away’: The sad life of child star Lena Zavaroni

    The Scottish vocal powerhouse was a global sensation by her teens – then her problems began. Her family tell her heartbreaking story

    02 December 2024 4:41pm GMT

    “When our wee Lena sang, she lit up the stage,” says Margaret Zavaroni. “But she was separated from her home, her family. I realise now she was separated from her own adolescence and in the end she just withered away.”

    It’s been 25 years since the death of Lena Zavaroni – the little girl who shot to fame, aged just 10, in 1974 by winning TV talent show Opportunity Knocks for a record breaking five weeks in a row. In a new BBC documentary, Lena Zavaroni: Forgotten Child Star, you can see clips of her in her long white socks and pinafore dress, hurling her mighty little lungs into her winning song Ma! (He’s Making Eyes At Me).

    There’s an echo of the young Judy Garland in the breathtakingly mature ballast of her rich, deep voice – a voice which gave the illusion of a character in total control of her life when in reality she felt anything but. By the age of 13 this once “bonny little firecracker” would be diagnosed with the anorexia which became painfully apparent as she fronted her own TV shows from 1979 to 1982, and would eventually lead to her death from pneumonia, aged just 35, in 1999.

    “Going back over it all for the documentary was very emotional,” says her cousin Margaret today. Over the phone from the Isle of Bute – where Lena was born in 1963 – she sighs that looking back on Lena’s early TV appearances means: “You’re always thinking: what should we have known? What could we have done? The parents always blame themselves in these cases, don’t they? Her dad, my Uncle Victor, has been destroyed by it all. But we just didn’t know what was happening to her down in London…”

    The child of musical parents who ran a chip shop in the small town of Rothesay, little Lena was discovered – singing in a band with her father and uncle – by record producer and songwriter Tommy Scott in the summer of 1973. By that time he’d scored hits with The Dubliners and Them and he heard echoes of the latter band’s frontman, Van Morrison, in the way he recalls the force of her talent “coming at me, like a truck”.

    Scott contacted impresario Phil Solomon and his agent/manager wife Dorothy Solomon who astonished Lena’s parents – Victor and Hilda Zavaroni – by flying up to Bute for just one night to snap up their daughter. Victor had no time to consult lawyers – a contract was dangled before him like a winning lottery ticket and he signed it. Little Lena flew down to London to live with the Solomons in their Mayfair apartment.

    Weren’t the Zavaronis worried? Margaret sighs. “Back then it was all excitement,” she recalls. “We were so proud. We also thought she’d be coming back home all the time. We didn’t realise that wasn’t what the Solomons wanted.”

    Former Solomon client Neil Reid agrees. He had been their previous child star and he says that “the Solomons had learned from their time with me that having parents around could get in the way of their plans.”

    Reid had been discovered in 1968 singing at a pensioner’s party near his home in Glasgow aged just eight. He won Opportunity Knocks, aged 12, in 1971 and the following year became the youngest person to top the UK albums chart. He looks back on the era as “a more trusting, deferential time”. So his parents were happy to send him off on a tour of South America with the Solomons in loco parentis. It wasn’t a happy experience for him: “They were keen to get me shut up into my room so they could go off and have a good time.”

    As soon as he returned home he told his parents he didn’t want to go away with the Solomons again and they supported him. “That became a battle with the Solomons. It was a battle we eventually won, but we really had to fight them.” He feels huge sympathy for Victor Zavaroni who he says “would have been made to feel he was doing the best for his daughter by not getting in the way of her success.”

    The most chilling part of Reid’s account of his time with the Solomons is his claim of the pressure they put on him to lose weight. “At 12 I was a chubby kid,” he says. “They offered to give me a pound [sterling] for every pound [of weight] I lost.” He sighs.

    Margaret suspects similar pressure may have been put on young Lena as she was whisked around the world to sing with Frank Sinatra and for the then-president Gerald Ford at the White House. “I remember her going on about how the camera is meant to add 10 pounds to your figure or something like that.” She says that Dorothy Solomon “did seem quite fond of Lena at first, but she didn’t have children of their own and she was out of her depth. Wee Lena was homesick and she was lonely with them. I think she stayed young in her mind, too. She didn’t have the patter of other growing girls around her. She was separated from her own teenage self.”

    When the Solomons began to realise how unhappy Lena was, they invited 20-year-old Margaret down for a short stay to lift her little cousin’s spirits. At that point the Solomons were employing a tutor for Lena. Margaret believes the situation worsened when they transferred her to the Italia Conti stage school, “where all the kids were trying to be skinny”. Bonnie Langford was there too, but Margaret notes that Langford “had her parents around, to keep an eye on her and make sure she was alright. But I think that school was very bad for our Lena at a time when her body was changing, when she was becoming a young woman.” Her weight dropped to just four stone while she was at the school.

    By the age of 15 Lena was diagnosed with depression as well as anorexia. But watching her on television in her teens, it was hard to tell how ill she was becoming. “We’d all go to Uncle Victor’s to see the shows together,” says Margaret. “Afterwards we’d have a natter about how she wasn’t like that at home. She spoke quite broad Scots but in interviews she sounded different, she quickly got this English accent. She would have made a great actress. She was acting fine when she was really being torn apart by anorexia.”

    Looking back, Margaret winces at how little the family understood about the eating disorder which ravaged Lena through the 1980s and 1990s. “Lena would get up in the night, while we were sleeping. When I got up in the morning the sink would be full of porridge oats. She would suck them and spit them out. There was no nourishment in that whatsoever.”

    Lena’s parents moved down to London to be close to her and soon separated. “She’d come back to the island to visit her mum, but her dad stayed on in England. She was always closer to her dad.” In 1989, Lena married computer consultant Peter Wilshire – later admitting she didn’t love him but hoped the union would “help me to grow up”. Later the same year her mother Hilda died of a tranquilliser overdose and Lena had a fire in her home which destroyed all her showbiz memorabilia. Her marriage broke up after 18 months and she moved to Hertfordshire to be near her father and his second wife. But she was unable to work and had ended up on state benefits.

    “We would sometimes ask why she didn’t try singing again,” says Margaret. “But she said she didn’t have the energy. I remember the last time she came up to stay with me – to sing on Songs of Praise – and she just curled up in a ball by the fire. I went to the chippy for our tea but she only ate a bit of fish the size of your thumb. She said she was cold and her head was always ‘fuzzy’.” In her later years, Lena tried to hide her skeletal condition with “big white coats and padded clothes.”

    Towards the end of her life Lena underwent electroconvulsive therapy and threatened suicide if doctor’s didn’t attempt brain surgery to alleviate her depression. In September 1999, she was admitted to University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff for a “psychosurgical” operation. Although she was reported to be making cheerful conversation during the three weeks she spent in the hospital after the surgery, she contracted pneumonia and died.

    Does Neil Reid think we’ve learned anything from Lena’s story? “A lot has changed,” says Reid, who continued to work as a professional singer throughout his twenties before marrying, becoming a father and retraining as a financial adviser. “These days you’d never tell a child to lose weight like that. We now accept that people come in all shapes and sizes.”

    Although Margaret Zavaroni thinks “you don’t see young kids on talent shows so much any more”, the minimum age for X Factor contestants has fluctuated between 14 and 16 over the past decade. There is no minimum age for contestants on Britain’s Got Talent – which has auditioned children as young as 4-5 – and last year the youngest child to audition was Camille Hunt, aged just 6. “I do think that Lena’s story helped educate people about anorexia,” concludes Margaret. “I hope it showed people that it’s often something that happens when people are trying to get control over situations.” She sighs. “I do believe that, in raising awareness, Lena saved lives.”

    Lena Zavaroni: the Forgotten Child Star is on BBC Two, Friday December 6 at 9pm

  94. That's me done for today. A wet day all day. Tomorrow = dryish, colder but sunny. So they say.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain – if I'm spared.

  95. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/12/02/intel-chief-pat-gelsinger-quits-failing-deliver-turnaround/

    Making CPUs is, once designed, an almost automated process. Packing, sorting fairly mundane.

    Testing them a full on process requiring huge skill sets.

    The problem is America doens't have the skills to do this. It lacks the work force who won't do the menial work and can't do the clever work. You can throw everything you want at it, but the US is still vastly more expensive than Asia because of, well, rational things like americalandians demanding holidays and fixed working hours rather than 16 hour days, most of it unpaid.

    Gelsinger didn't fail as we've had a move to some really, really good CPUs under his watch. The latest core ultras are very power efficient.

    As I advised a chum yesterday the problem isn't the technology, it's the damned naming conventions. You don't know which is which to get the latest and greatest because it's either a product name, a marketing slogan or simply not there yet.

  96. Evening, all. Dirty stop-out that I am, it's a case of ave atque vale again as the first Monday is parish council and I'll be off to do my bit for local government shortly.

    Never mind "compassionate", the scrutiny of state-assisted dying should be rigorous, hard-headed and thorough.

  97. Good evening , floats in on a scented breeze – well pops in :- )
    hope you're all in fine fettle- just three weeks to Christmas .

    1. All presents done, all kit wrapped. No food in, but that's hardly unusual. I think folk expect more from it than it can provide. For children it can be a huge anti climax. For parents it can be exhausting with lots of travelling. We are bunkering down. If you could imagine gun turrets and sand bag emplacements that's us.

      1. Same as Conners below (for some reason i cannot post) – except i have no food in my freezer…….

  99. I rather envisage a world where most fighting is done by remote, using drones. Drone carriers, drone air craft, drone vehicles with specialist ground troops only deployed in extremis. Imagine if instead of a gunner in a big truck half a dozen quadrupedal robots were rolled out armed with small arms and carrying heavy weapons.

    The next generation of weapons technology will be in jamming and ECM. I expect the MoD to get to that in about 2080 (not that we'll last that long).

    1. I seem to remember Star Trek from 1969 has already done a more advanced version of that. Fed up with having to rebuild after wars the world decided to fight wars using computer games and if a missile obliterated your district thus virtually blowing up your house you were obliged to step inside a vaporising machine within several hours.

      1. Star Trek was always ahead of the game even then. A hand held communicator where you could speak to anyone on the planet and get visuals.

  100. Why on earth are the newspapers obsessively rattling on about this Greg Wallace thing, I assume it's a diversion for this weeks evil Starmer misdemeanours.

      1. Bread lightly pan fried in clarified butter with a poached egg on top.

        Sounds to me some middle class women of a certain age were prepared to..give it a go.

        BTW…I take bookings…………………..

      2. Bread lightly pan fried in clarified butter with a poached egg on top.

        Sounds to me some middle class women of a certain age were prepared to..give it a go.

        BTW…I take bookings…………………..

  101. https://thedefensepost.com/2024/11/22/uk-sweeping-defense-cuts/

    And of course, the UK is going in the wrong direction. Instead of, you know, expanding the pointless, ineffectual, expensive and irrelevant ministry of defence, why don't we invest that money in, you know, actual defence?

    After all, a civil servant squealing about his her pronouns isn't going to stop a missile. Hell, why do we bother, as the Home office is deliberately importing a violent military.

  102. I am the complete opposite! No cards written or presents wrapped, but I've acquired a new tree and all the food is in the freezer.

        1. I know – but pressure builds. As I think I’ve said before, I never used to really get it all together until Christmas Eve, which I enjoyed, but now I’m getting hassled from all side, and money money money, and am finding it more and more of a chore – which it shouldn’t be. It is the birth of our Lord, after all.

  105. Farage acting like a true opposition party with the launch of Action on World Health.. with Trump & JFK Jr's encouragement.
    The mandate will be to reform The WHO or set up an alternative.

    Meanwhile Starmer spaffs £300 million by signing up to a WHO Treaty giving them absolute power over the UK during the next Global Gates Pandemic scheduled for March 2026 Tuesday afternoon.

    https://www.actionwh.org/

      1. The time for petitions is over. We need action on the streests. It won’t happen, of course. Everyone (who is not far left) is too frightened.

  106. 397870+ up ticks,

    James Frayne
    Voters have already woken up to the uselessness of mainstream parties
    The Tories were bad, and now so is Labour. There time is ripe for parties like Reform to benefit

    If they have it is post successful coup, paedophilia, killings,serious life changing injuries, ALL running smoothly and rife on a daily basis.

    "The Tories were bad, and now so is Labour"? lab was proved ROTTEN TO THE CORE, by the Jay report and since the demise of Mrs Thatcher ( RIP) the odious trio openly formed a coalition party finding the same party names to continue to be used as a
    form of comfort blanket for the tribal fools.

    As for Reform party body in the main GOOD, leader requires serious checking out on a regular basis,the whole shebang has a strong scent of tory (INO) about it.

  107. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    President Joe Biden’s unexpected pardon of his son, Hunter, on federal gun charges may appear as the ultimate example of lawfare hypocrisy, but it’s really the best outcome for everyone – including Donald Trump. Despite indications that such a pardon was unlikely, Biden – who infamously declared on X in May that “no one is above the law” – now believes that Hunter was “unfairly prosecuted.”

    Jail time would have kept the Biden family in the spotlight long past their expiration date

    “I believe in the justice system,” Biden said on Sunday while announcing an end to his son’s legal drama, “but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”

    No matter the reason, ending the spectre of jail time made the most sense – despite the extra-strong splash of nepotism. The younger Biden was actually facing two sentencing hearings – the first on 12 December for gun charges followed by another on 16 December for federal tax evasion charges. Hunter, the first ever child of a sitting president to be criminally convicted, faced up to 17 years behind bars.

    It’s easy to understand the outrage around the Hunter pardon. Beyond the president’s insistence that his son would not receive special treatment, the Biden White House has used the nation’s court system to enact a similarly personal “lawfare” campaign against Donald Trump. Despite the announcement last week by Special Counsel Jack Smith that he was dropping two key cases against Trump, the prospect of charges against the once and future president haven’t gone away.

    Despite the legal battles still awaiting Trump, the conclusion of the Hunter Biden judicial drama is in the best interests of everyone. For Hunter, it ends the threat of jail time, but most crucially, for America it means an end to Hunter Biden. This is a man who, despite every privilege available, has burdened his family — and nation — with a list of sex- and drug- and weapons-related sagas that have damaged and diminished both the Biden clan as well as the presidency.

    America needs to move on from Hunter’s sex tapes and baby-mamas – his hacked laptops and tawdry rehab stints and apparent obsession with his own endowment. Jail time would not have allowed for this; just the opposite, in fact. Along with the double sentencing appearances later this month, his actual confinement would have fanned the flames of tabloid fodder with unprecedented vigour.

    Hunter would have immediately become the highest-profile prisoner in US history, his saga consuming critical air – and air time – at the exact moment America should be spared any additional fallout from a disappointing Biden presidency. Jail time would have kept the Biden family in the spotlight long past their expiration date, a reminder of both the circus-like atmosphere that defined the Hunter saga, along with the equally chaotic final months of the Biden-Harris administration.

    Trump has pledged to return to the White House in order to clean house. And Biden in the big house would have proven a distraction that would have only benefited the Bidens and their progressive enablers and surrogates. The inevitable images of his prison entry, the unending family visits, the constant speculation – a la Martha Stewart and Jeffrey Epstein – about his prison conditions the stuff of legend across a pliant and sympathetic mainstream media.

    Having spent his life battling the demons of both his mother’s tragic death and contending with such a famous family, Hunter Biden has always elicited a level of compassion far beyond he deserved. Spending years in prison would have merely supercharged Biden’s nepo-sympathy on a grand and very public level. His father’s pardon provides what Biden — and the nation — needs most right now, for Hunter to fade into the historical footnote he barely warrants.

    With more than a month to go before inauguration day, Hunter Biden should be well on his way to footnote status by the time Trump returns to the Oval Office. This is both a blessing and challenge for Trump. Armed with the Biden pardon, Trump can continue to press for an end to his remaining legal cases, demanding a playing field levelled and equal to the future former first son.

    But Hunter’s sudden status-shift also means less focus on Trump’s predecessor – and even more eyeballs on Trump. Long saddled with his own litany of unseemly charges and allegations, Trump can now make the claim that pre-existing transgressions – like with Hunter – no longer matter. He can enter the White House with a future-first agenda, demanding to be unburdened by the past – just like the democrats he so spectacularly defeated.

    WRITTEN BY
    David Christopher Kaufman
    David Christopher Kaufman is an editor and columnist at the New York Post

    1. "Jail time would have kept the Biden family in the spotlight long past their expiration date"

      This is one of those Spectator articles I used to get to about this far in and just say, "drivel". It's good to 'move on'.

      1. "Jail time would have kept the Biden family in the spotlight long past their expiration date"

        The Biden family and any other of the many poor families who have a member doing prison time. An article full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

        1. Yes, we might even have taken a leaf ourselves from the book of wisdom presented here. If only they'd pardoned Myra Hindley, say. All those years fretting over whether she was innocent, Lord Longford shedding so many tears for her in his anguish and the relatives not knowing where their children went, to their dying days. Why, we still have it hanging around even though Hindley is now long gone.

          Yes, put it all to bed. Saves so much angst by just scrubbing round it all.

      2. "Jail time would have kept the Biden family in the spotlight long past their expiration date"

        The Biden family and any other of the many poor families who have a member doing prison time. An article full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

      3. It was savaged below the line. I'ge already cancelled my subscription since Sam Leith did his "Ratner" article following the petition. Then Rod Liddle piled in. I assume the new editor is behind this. Well he's lost my support, and that of many others, judging by the comments.

        1. Glad to hear it was savaged, Geoff. What was “Rayner” and Rod’s pile on about? I’ve been out of it for so long. The fact that Leith is still there is bothersome enough.

  108. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Joe Biden’s whole presidency has been built on untruths. We were led to believe, for instance, that since 2021 the Commander-in-Chief has been fit and well enough to serve, when everybody could see that he was not.

    So the latest proof-of-dishonesty over the pardoning of Hunter Biden comes as no great surprise. Of course, Joe was going to grant clemency to his errant and only living son. He just pretended he wouldn’t all year for electoral reasons.

    The maudlin love of the father used to dress up the presidential deceit

    ‘I believe in the justice system,’ said the president in a statement. ‘But as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.’

    ‘I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision,’ Biden said in his statement.

    There it is. The maudlin love of the father used to dress up the presidential deceit. Joe and Jill repeatedly made out that, in contrast to Donald Trump, their respect for the justice system meant they wouldn’t use his presidential power to pardon Hunter. But now they have nothing to lose.

    The ‘raw politics’ Biden is referring to is not just the Republican efforts to prosecute Hunter; rather Joe’s own politicking led him to stand aside as the wheels of justice ground against his son. It’s worth remembering that Hunter was initially let off with a judicial slap on the wrist. Then, as the Democratic-led lawfare campaign against Donald Trump started to backfire politically, the Department of Justice suddenly did charge Hunter over three felony counts relating to his purchase of a handgun in 2018.

    The surprising part about the pardon is its timing. Why did Biden announce the news this weekend, rather than waiting for January to let his loved-one off-the-hook, as is customary for presidents vacating the White House? ‘Once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further,’ says Biden. But nobody quite believes that.

    Did Joe think that Americans would be in a forgiving mood on Thanksgiving? Or is his health in such precipitous decline that he felt necessary to pardon his son now before it’s too late?

    Is the Biden presidency, in fact, likely to end before inauguration day on January 20, 2025? In that case, might Kamala Harris become the first female US President after all, albeit only for a few days? That may sound outlandish. Never put anything past the Democrats, though.

    It’s also interesting that Trump has not directly attacked his rival for his ‘full and unconditional’ pardon of his son. On his Truth Social platform last night, the Donald posted:

    ‘Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!’

    That suggests Trump may use his executive power to grant clemency to the many Americans who have been pursued by Biden’s Department of Justice over the disorder on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.

    But it also looks as if Trump, having had a fairly amicable-looking meeting with Biden in the White House after his election victory last month, is willing to let the murky Hunter story fade away.

    Freddy Gray
    WRITTEN BY
    Freddy Gray
    Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator

  109. How come the GB News studio set looks so Christmassy, warm and seasonal while all the others, like BBC, Sky, ITV and Channel 4s all look so spartan, utilitarian, cold, they remind me of Starmer's Labour government.

    1. The only UK news channel I watch is GB News. Headliners with three comedians reviewing the newspapers. Last night they had a Christmas tree. Quite a treat, I thought.

      3. I haven’t seen it for eight weeks or so but caught what I thought was Josh Howie briefly on last night’s Free Speech Nation (presumably standing in for Andrew Doyle).

        I am terrible at recognising people, but it sounded like him.

        Of it was, he looks terrific for the haircut. Much better than before.

        1. Free Speech Nation is my weekly treat. But not so much without Andrew, I don't dislike Josh and agree about his makeover. But feel cheated when it's not Andrew.

    2. Personally, I think it's premature. Advent only began yesterday. In a perfect world, I'd decorate on Christmas Eve. My diary makes this impossible. But I've never forgiven Sainsbury's since a pre-closing visit one Christmas Eve, some years ago. Vast armies of staff were perched on ladders, taking down all the decorations…

  110. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    There are less than 50 days until Donald Trump takes back the White House – so the Democrats are now doing some last-minute future-proofing. In a bombshell announcement overnight, President Biden revealed he has signed a pardon to a victim of a ‘miscarriage of justice’ whose case has been ‘infected’ by ‘raw politics.’ Who is this hapless victim you ask? Why, none other than the President’s own son Hunter Biden. And they call the Trumps nepotistic…

    The U-turn comes just weeks after the White House denied that the President would make such a drastic move in the final months of his lame duck presidency. Biden, himself, said as recently as June that he would ‘not pardon’ his son, who was facing sentencing in two criminal cases on federal gun charges and federal tax evasion charges. His spokesman Karine Jean-Pierre even told reporters in July that ‘It’s still a no, it will be a no, it is a no and I don’t have anything else to add. Will he pardon his son? No.’

    Yet now Biden Sr. has intervened, declaring that people are ‘almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form’ and that ‘It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.’ In a lengthy 350-word statement, the President raged against ‘several of my political opponents in Congress’ who he claimed made the charges a public spectacle ‘to attack me and oppose my election.’ He added that the plea deal Hunter agreed to with the Department of Justice was a ‘fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases’ but that deal fell through at the last minute under political pressure. Biden ends his letter by insisting:

    No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough… I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.

    So much for ‘no one is above the law‘ eh Joe?

    Steerpike
    WRITTEN BY
    Steerpike
    Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

    1. I just dont get it – why is there such a long period after the election result in the US before the new administration takes over? It doesnt happen here – it's immediate.
      The delay can only cause potential (severe!) problems for the incoming government…. it's barmy!!

      1. Yes, The political careers of so many British PMs really have finished in tears as they are pushed out the back door to make way for the new Downing street occupant. Some of them have even become suddenly homeless having to spend the night of defeat in the spare bedroom of a supporter’s London flat. Champagne for the winners, humble pie for the losers.

          3. Do try it.
            I'm sure you know, but if not, a word to the wise:
            Don't try to remove cards too quickly, very often the best route is the leave pairs open because you then have 4 potential entries.

          4. That makes about as much sense as my talking about breeding, going, distance, trainer form and last runs!

          5. I think I found it, sos, it was 20 TriPeaks challenges on the Daily Challenge button. I completed all 20 challenges, increasing in difficulty, and was then told I need to wait 20 hours until the challenge ends (for what?)…. it was enjoyable, and a little different (eg clear 9 Aces etc) and I definitely would do it again.

          6. That’s the one. I thought you might like it.
            There are different challenges every day, of very varying difficulty.

            If you click leader boards you can see how you did in your group of 50 and clicking the top 100 and how you fare against the bots and cheats and everyone else.
            Tomorrow you can see how you did against the other, approaching 500k, contestants.
            I’m only just back from the hospital so will start after supper.

  113. Another long one on the Biden mafiosi

    RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Biden's spared his son Christmas in jail. But the real reason why is utterly self-serving – and he's the one who REALLY benefits

    With less than seven weeks to go before the second coming of Donald J. Trump, Joe Biden is cleaning house.
    On Sunday night, he pardoned his degenerate son Hunter who was due to have been sentenced for gun and tax crimes, despite repeatedly denying that he had any such intention.
    'No one is above the law,' he insisted.
    Biden Junior could have faced up to 25 years in prison, although it was unlikely as a first-time offender he would have been given such a long sentence.
    But the timing of the pardon was crucial. Hunter was due back in court this month, and would almost certainly have served some jail time. If Joe Biden had waited until he left office in January, his son could well have spent Christmas and New Year behind bars.
    Presidents have traditionally handed out pardons at the end of their term, often on the very last day. Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger, who had a conviction for drug trafficking.
    Trump pardoned, among others, his son-in-law's father Charles Kushner, who had been found guilty of tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign contributions. (Former presidential candidate, New Jersey governor and big-time Bruce Springsteen fan Chris Christie, prosecuted Kushner and called him one of the 'most loathsome, disgusting' criminals he had ever had the misfortune to deal with. Kushner has just been nominated by Trump as America's ambassador to France, which probably deserves him.)
    Barack Obama pardoned, commuted or rescinded the convictions of almost 2,000 people.
    While every President since George Washington has handed down pardons, few – if any – have been as self-serving as that granted to Hunter Biden by his own father. The suspicion is that Joe is not just pardoning his son, he's also protecting himself from possible future prosecution.
    This particular pardon applies not just to the charges for which Hunter was due to be sentenced, but all and every crime he may have committed since January 1, 2014.
    The significance of that date is that it extends to the time Hunter served on the board of the Ukrainian energy corporation Burisma, for which he was paid an astonishing $1 million a year, despite having no previous experience in the oil and gas sector.
    During this period, Joe Biden was Obama's Vice-President, responsible for America's foreign policy in Ukraine. It has since been alleged by a source described by the FBI as a 'trusted confidential informant' that both Bidens received bribes of $5 million each from a corrupt Ukrainian businessman.
    It is also alleged that Joe put pressure on the government in what we used to call Kiev to sack a prosecutor investigating corruption at Burisma, threatening to block $1billion in U.S. aid unless he got his way.
    What isn't in dispute is the fact that Hunter and Joe's kid brother James have for decades been involved in a string of commercial enterprises cashing in on his political connections, leading Trump to dub them the 'Biden Crime Family'.
    Two Inland Revenue Service agents told a Senate hearing that the Biden family had received $17 million in fees from overseas corporations.
    I covered all this in a Saturday essay for the Mail last year. It was further reported that Hunter is said to have leveraged his father's position to force through a lucrative business deal with a Chinese conglomerate.
    In 2017, an email from Hunter about the Chinese deal stated that 10 per cent was for the 'Big Guy'. Whistleblowers have since said that the Big Guy was Joe Biden.
    That email was recovered from a laptop abandoned by Hunter at a Delaware repair shop, along with another to his sister complaining that he was expected to hand over half his income to his father.
    The hard-drive contained a mine of explosive material and was copied by the repair shop's owner, who handed it over to Trump's then lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
    It featured photographs of Hunter taking crack cocaine and consorting with prostitutes. One picture showed a stark naked Hunter waving a handgun.
    Although the potentially incriminating evidence was published by Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, Fox News and http://Dailymail.com online, it was ignored by America's pro-Democrat mainstream media because it might have compromised Joe Biden's first Presidential election bid in 2020.
    In the run-up to that election, the FBI refused to admit that the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden and insisted it was part of a Russian disinformation campaign – a fiction advanced by none other than Joe Biden himself.
    President Biden has always denied that he ever discussed business or was 'in business' with his son or his brother, something disputed under oath by Hunter's former business partner in evidence to a Senate committee.
    Whatever the truth of these claims and counter-claims, there is no disguising the fact that Biden has done well financially over the years.
    He has always traded on his 'middle-class' – what we call working-class – Ordinary Joe image. When he became Veep in 2009, he claimed to have a net worth of just $30,000. As he prepares to leave office, his wealth is estimated at anything up to $40 million, depending on who you believe. It must have come from somewhere.
    There's a widespread belief that any jail time for Hunter, especially with an incoming Trump Presidency, would open up a jumbo-sized can of worms, which could implicate Joe in all manner of financial impropriety.
    For the past eight years, the Democrat-dominated Deep State has been waging total lawfare against The Donald and now he is gagging for revenge. He's putting MAGA loyalists into the Department of Justice and the FBI, and they'll soon start going through what's left of the files.
    That sound coming out of the retreating administration in Washington is shredders working overtime and hard-disks smashing under the hammer, Hillary Clinton-style.
    The Biden presidency is ending in ignominy and disgrace. No one was especially surprised that he pardoned Hunter, but what sticks in the craw of genuine 'Ordinary Joes' is that Biden has repeatedly lied to the American people.
    When he stood down in the summer, was there a deal with the Democrat establishment based on the assumption that Kamala Harris would beat Trump and grant Hunter a Get Out Of Jail Free card?
    When she lost, having painted himself into corner, Joe had no other option than to walk out over the paint.
    Can't be ruled out. Biden had already lost one son to an untimely death, and didn't want to lose another to Rikers Island prison.
    He claimed yesterday that his decision to pardon Hunter was based on paternal love, but couldn't resist adding that 'raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice'.
    Which is pretty rich coming from a cynical, partisan President who set the legal dogs of war on his Republican political opponent, dragging Trump through the courts, raiding his home in Palm Beach military-style and trying to put him in jail.
    The politically motivated cases against Trump have collapsed since the election. And while he seeks retribution against the Democrat Deep State apparatchiks responsible, there are indications that he's prepared to let Joe slink off into the sunset, taking Hunter with him.
    Was there a carve-up when the two men met at the White House recently, which would allow Joe to pardon Hunter and, in exchange, Trump would pardon all those January 6 'rioters' at the Capitol found guilty of non-violent offences?
    Shouldn't be surprised. Everything is transactional with Trump. America needs him to start with a clean sheet, after decades of bitter division.
    As for Biden, he's a Dead Man Walking, but I don't give much credence to the speculation that he might now withdraw and let Kamala become America's first female President of Colour for the last ten minutes.
    I think Trump got it right when he told a pre-election rally: 'I think Joe likes me more than her.'
    So Biden's got another few weeks to clean house before the Second Coming. But, whatever else, he won't be leaving office with clean hands.

    3. Those of us who paid attention knew all this.

      Just as Araminta kept us informed about the novichok bollocks.

      A conspiracy theory lasts about six months before the truth is revealed.

      David Kelly was murdered.

      No one will pay the price.

      Politics.

        1. Bing bong merrily we'll try
          Just over sofa bending
          We waggle sticks and dicks up high
          Your earlobes will be ringing?

    3. Glooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooria says she would like to join too.

  116. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    The chamber of the Oxford Union, that once-proud institution, has been breached by the forces of bigotry, hatred, and mob rule.

    Invited to speak against an anti-Israel motion, I attended with three colleagues, each bringing unique expertise and experience to the room. But what unfolded on Thursday night was not a debate at all. It was an assault on the very principles the Union once claimed to uphold, presided over by organisers who behaved more like a mafia than custodians of an august society dedicated to free speech.

    This was an extremist mob dressed up like a wolf in black tie

    The motion for debate was itself a grotesque provocation: “This House Believes Israel is an Apartheid State Responsible for Genocide.” Apartheid and genocide are not just loaded terms; they are distortions when applied to Israel, as I planned to explain in my speech. That the Union had decided to frame this debate around them was bad enough. It had caused some to decline their invitation to speak at all. But the problems were much deeper rooted even than students seeking attention through sensationalist wording.

    This wasn’t an evening for intellectual rigour or balanced argument. From the very beginning, it was clear the organisation of this event was deeply and worryingly dishonest, aggressive and one-sided. Speakers infamous for their unhinged views were invited to confront us; we were left in the dark about who had been invited on our side. Deception and dishonesty characterised the entire run-up to the debate.

    When the day finally arrived, the atmosphere in the chamber was hideous, sinister, and suffused with tension. Jews who might have attended were clearly too afraid to show up: many had written to me privately to tell me of their fears. In a packed chamber, I identified four Jewish students who sat huddled together across from me, but soon realised there were unlikely to be many more present. When I acknowledged them with a thumbs-up, they returned the gesture with a heart symbol: a fleeting moment of solidarity in what was otherwise an unrelentingly hostile environment.

    The tone was set long before the debate began. The president of the Union, Ebrahim Osman Mowafy, an Egyptian Arab, seemed to me to be openly biased from the outset. His behaviour throughout the evening was not that of a neutral chair but of an orchestrator, stacking the odds against the opposition and fostering an environment of unchecked hostility. In the end, perhaps his most disgraceful speaker against Israel withdrew, seemingly intimidated by the strength of the team we had managed to assemble despite the Union’s best attempts to stop us. Having been told a student would take his place, we found out only on the night that Osman Mowafy himself would forgo the traditional impartiality of the chair’s role and speak against us himself.

    At the pre-debate dinner we were completely ignored by the president: the vibe felt decidedly more like Mean Girls than Brideshead Revisited. Meanwhile, after cancelling the traditional pre-debate group photo altogether, Mowafy posed alone for private snaps in the chamber with the anti-Israel team, beaming like a Cheshire cat in white tie. As we entered the chamber itself, I reached out to shake hands with the opposing speakers. All but one refused the gesture.

    From the moment the debate began, the crowd displayed its unbridled hatred towards us. Aware that tickets had been tightly controlled ‘for security reasons,’ we soon felt it has been to decrease our security. As I rose to speak, the mob of a crowd pointedly giggled and coughed to show their animosity. Their interruptions grew louder and more vicious as I progressed, culminating in a young woman standing and screaming obscenities in my face like a banshee: “Liar! F*** you, the genocidal motherf***er!” It took an intervention from me to finally prompt the president to have her removed. Even then, it seemed that he did so begrudgingly, as if I had overstepped the mark by expecting basic order.

    This was not an audience interested in debate or even in hearing arguments. It was a baying mob, openly hostile and emboldened by the president’s refusal to enforce the most basic rules of decorum. They interrupted every pro-Israel speaker with jeers, coughs, and outright abuse. Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a senior Hamas founder and leader who defected to Israel’s side and saved countless lives, was met with jeering derision and cried of “traitor” and “prostitute” (in Arabic), as he recounted his extraordinary story of moral courage and bravery. In a genius move, after explaining his choice to report information of forthcoming suicide bombing attacks over ten years to the Israelis he asked the audience to indicate by a show of hands how many of them would have reported prior knowledge of the October 7th massacres. The vast majority of the room remained still. Here was an Oxford Union audience which would have buried its head in the sand over the barbaric Palestinian terrorism of that dark day, without trying to prevent it at all.

    Yoseph Haddad, an Israeli Arab who has dedicated his life to dismantling the apartheid lie, faced similar treatment. The international law commentator Natasha Hausdorf was hectored to finish her speech far quicker than her proposition counterpart.

    Meanwhile, the proposition speakers trafficked in unforgivable and dangerous rhetoric. Miko Peled, a relentless anti-Israel activist, described the atrocities of 7 October as acts of “heroism.” I presume that includes the slaughter and kidnap of babies.

    This felt like a marker, the moment when the Oxford Union truly fell

    Novelist Susan Abulhawa demonised Jews as foreign colonisers, claiming their true homeland lay in Europe. Her later post on X branded me and Natasha “white colonisers”.

    Mohammed El-Kurd, in the mode of a moody teenager, peddled unverified claims of Israeli atrocities to cheers from the crowd, and then flounced out as soon as he had finished his speech. All the while, the president sat unmoved, in my view, permitting this orgy of hate to continue unimpeded, as members of the audience cursed us in Arabic and disrupted the proceedings. This was an extremist mob dressed up like a wolf in black tie.

    By the time the motion passed – 278 in favour to 59 against – it was clear that the entire event had been a sham. This was not a debate; it was a show trial, it seems to me, orchestrated by a deeply biased president and cheered on by a mob that had no interest in facts or truth.

    This felt like a marker, the moment when the Oxford Union truly fell. Not just as a debating society, but as a symbol of intellectual freedom. The room that night was not filled with future leaders engaging in the battle of ideas; it was a mob baying for blood, intolerant of nuance, and utterly resistant to the values the Union claims to uphold.

    The Union has long been a proving ground for ambition, a training ground for those destined to lead. But if this is the intellectual and moral climate shaping the leaders of tomorrow, then the implications are chilling – not just for the Union, but for society at large.

    As we swept out of that chamber of horrors after midnight, we escaped down a side alley marked ahead of time for us by our security team, past a gay nightclub with youngsters spilling out in skimpy vests and crop tops. Did these carefree, liberal partygoers know of the horrors just the other side of the wall, of the decline of a once respected institution of intellectual debate into a chaotic, morally compromised shadow of its former self?

    As our driver sped us out of Oxford, my colleagues and I compared notes about what we had just experienced: it was no less than the fall of the Oxford Union.

    WRITTEN BY
    Jonathan Sacerdoti
    Jonathan Sacerdoti is a broadcaster and writer covering politics, culture and religion

    2. I guess debating societies don't have the same meaning in Egypt as they do in Britain.
      The Union won't be able to attract high quality speakers if that's the level of the "debate." Nobody's going to go for an evening of crass student union politics. Of course, the fool in charge of organising it will be long gone with "President of the Oxford Union Society" on his CV.

    4. "Novelist Susan Abulhawa demonised Jews as foreign colonisers …" Um, what is she, then? This isn't her homeland, is it?

    5. Reminiscent of the bear pit that was Question Time, David Dimbleby and Nick Griffin many years ago.

  118. All it was, was a demonstration of how the long march through the institutions is now at the point of the Iwo Jima flag raising.

  119. I read that article. It made me very angry, and also very sad. What on earth goes through these peoples minds? Supposedly intelligent humans behaving like ignorant, uncaring Neanderthals.

    1. They are not intelligent. This is unbridled unthinking manipulated narcissistic emotion.

      1. I did say ‘supposedly’! These cretins attend Oxford, for gawds sake, which was once an educational aspiration!

      2. I did say ‘supposedly’! These cretins attend Oxford, for gawds sake, which was once an educational aspiration!

    2. They are not intelligent. This is unbridled unthinking manipulated narcissistic emotion.

    3. University entrance isn't what it was. Nor are universities any longer places where intelligent debate and questioning of everything takes place.

  120. I see channel 4 news is giving plenty of time to the white helmets.

    Presumably that pretty young girl, who was rescued by them from so many artillery and airstrikes is now old enough (nine?) to be a sex slave and can longer be rescued.
    I wonder what her replacement will be like.

  121. The DT has become VERY VERY GRAPHIC.

    I have been browsing through the different sections of the DT.. and found their Well Being site , under the Health link .

    The article I whisked through , and felt quite uptight about was written like something from Lady Chatterley's Lover .

    Don't get me wrong, I am not a prude .. but what I feel is outrage that the DT have not printed a single sensible letter from me nor have they allowed me to make comments on any article for nearly 6 years ..

    The DT banned me and have refused to allow me to comment despite the fact I subscribe to their wretched newspaper on line .

    My comments have either been political , I threw disdain at various Tory leaders and an exiled prince and his missus , or castigating them when they dismissed some really good journos and replaced them with silly spoilt sixth form twits.

    Are these sort of porno articles only on line , or are they in the paper version.

    1. Try writing in with something along the lines MoH is having affairs with 3 different women I’m at my wits end what should I I do etc.

      1. Or write and complain that there isn't enough LGBT content and someone mis-gendered you and used the wrong pronoun.

    2. Try writing in with something along the lines MoH is having affairs with 3 different women I’m at my wits end what should I I do etc.

  122. I escorted an excited 8 year old granddaughter to school this morning en route she posted a very important letter to Father Christmas

    1. It's amazing how naive children can be. Do they really believe the Post Office actually delivers letters and cards?

      2. They do indeed, and i have had to speak very sharply to my husband about dispelling this belief by careless talk.

        1. Our little grandson was very excited because the 'elf on the shelf' arrived once again yesterday morning, the herald of Christmas; he was peering at him from the top of a mirror when g/son came downstairs for breakfast.

          Yes, I have to watch poppiesdad with the careless talk, and not just at Christmas…..

    2. If she was really smart, she will have read it out to you before putting it into the envelope!

      1. It’s ok I was told the contents including “A surprise….because he usually brings me lots of surprises!”

        1. I hope granddaughter paid the right postage stamp. I hear Father Christmas gets really pissed off being fined £5 a time for begging letters….

    3. If she was really smart, she will have read it out to you before putting it into the envelope!

    4. If she was really smart, she will have read it out to you before putting it into the envelope!

  123. I escorted an excited 8 year old granddaughter to school this morning en route she posted a very important letter to Father Christmas

  124. Thought for the day.

    Could Trump get Jill Biden prosecuted as "an accessory after the fact"?

    She probably knew what was going on, may have been a direct beneficiary, and was certainly an indirect beneficiary and, given recent interaction, might even be prepared to turn "kings evidence" against Joe in exchange for immunity.

    That would be fun.

    1. Can a wife be prosecuted for the millions of dollars frauds her husband commits? I think the IRS should take a look at her bank accounts and see if she earned that money.

  125. Thought for the day.

    Could Trump get Jill Biden prosecuted as "an accessory after the fact"?

    She probably knew what was going on, may have been a direct beneficiary, and was certainly an indirect beneficiary and, given recent interaction, might even be prepared to turn "kings evidence" against Joe in exchange for immunity.

    That would be fun.

  128. I'm plunging these ear drops into my head. They seem to go in. Why, despite how long I lay there (I fell asleep today, so they were in for a good hour), do they always seem to run out when I sit up?

          1. Not cotton wool. That can leave fibres and make it worse. Better off with a piece of styrofoam.

    2. 397870+ up ticks,

      Evening W,
      Sorry for your malady, but really you should begin to worry when the drops enter via one ear and leave via the other.

    3. Glad my week of ear drops is at an end. I have been stone deaf in my right ear for months since I went swimming in the summer. I finally got my wax removed today. Waiting list was weeks and weeks and although it can be done locally I had to travel 20 odd miles across country for a 10 minute procedure. I have stereo hearing again!

          1. It’s often said, though, and I guess not everyone tries to get the water out, as it just trickles?

        2. It makes the wax swell and then harden, Hertslass. I suffered from this in my teens, a condition I grew out of it in my mid twenties.

      2. They're charging £49 for dewaxing ears here in Cornwall. Got an appointment for next Monday, started 'Otex' drops so it's liquid enough in a week's time. An NHS nurse will do it. How mad can things get?
        Oh, it's £49 for 2 ears or just 1.

        2. Once upon a time , the nurses in the local GP practise used to do that .. under the NHS.

          How do elderly people cope , and especially those with hearing problems .. Why on earth has it been outsourced .

          Bit similar to chiropody , where attention has to be paid to toe nails , especially those with diabetes .. £35 for a session of toe nail cutting .. every couple of months .. Moh has his done , and found the treatment very useful , and the chiropodist removes corns as well as any other rough stuff.

          Older nails become nigh on impossible to cut because they become horny and thickened .

          Years ago I can remember seeing some terrible foot cases .. yet scant attention is paid to the problems of bad feet .

          1. The same nurse did it for me 18 months ago as part of the NHS. I don’t know how much of the £49 she now gets.

    4. It's the shape of the ear canal. Ball up a little bit of lint free tissue and gently prod it in. You can't hear much but the the oil mostly remains.

  132. What a crazy world we live in when this ludicrous situation exists. Utter madness. Only politicians could create a situation where this is accepted as normal.

    "Cost of switching off UK wind farms soars to ‘absurd’ £1bn.

    British bill payers have spent an “absurd” £1bn to temporarily switch off wind turbines so far this year as the grid struggles to cope with their power. The amount of wind power “curtailed” in the first 11 months of 2024 stood at about 6.6 terawatt hours (TWh), according to official figures, up from 3.8 TWh in the whole of last year. Curtailment is where wind turbines are paid to switch off at times of high winds to stop a surge in power overwhelming the grid. Households and businesses pay for the cost of this policy through their bills. The cost of switching off has reached about £1bn so far this year, according to analysis of market data by Octopus Energy which was first reported by Bloomberg. This is more than the £779m spent last year and £945m spent in 2022."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/12/02/britain-paying-wind-farms-record-1bn-to-switch-off/

    Afternote: Sorry Belle, I didn't see the content in your post before I posted mine.

  133. What a crazy world we live in when this ludicrous situation exists. Utter madness. Only politicians could create a situation where this is accepted as normal.

    "Cost of switching off UK wind farms soars to ‘absurd’ £1bn.

    British bill payers have spent an “absurd” £1bn to temporarily switch off wind turbines so far this year as the grid struggles to cope with their power. The amount of wind power “curtailed” in the first 11 months of 2024 stood at about 6.6 terawatt hours (TWh), according to official figures, up from 3.8 TWh in the whole of last year. Curtailment is where wind turbines are paid to switch off at times of high winds to stop a surge in power overwhelming the grid. Households and businesses pay for the cost of this policy through their bills. The cost of switching off has reached about £1bn so far this year, according to analysis of market data by Octopus Energy which was first reported by Bloomberg. This is more than the £779m spent last year and £945m spent in 2022."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/12/02/britain-paying-wind-farms-record-1bn-to-switch-off/

    Afternote: Sorry Belle, I didn't see the content in your post before I posted mine.

  138. Wel, chums, it's almost time for bed. So Good Night all, sleep well, and I'll see you all tomorrow morning.

  141. Gregg Wallace suspended by the BBC for telling jokes.

    What an idiot,

    Anyone who has seen their comedies in the last 20 years would know the BBC is no place for jokes.

  142. Press release just in from Greg Wallace

    "There are a lot of people saying I am misogynistic, and anti women, this couldn't be further from the truth, I love women, especially blondes with huge tits.

  145. I’ve just been up the attic to get the decorations down and come across a present I forgot to give the kids last Christmas.

    It’s a bloody shame as well as they would have loved that kitten.

    Sorry………………………..

  146. **NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN:**

    Please be advised that anyone planning to dash through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh, going over the fields and laughing all the way are required to undergo a full Risk Assessment addressing the safety of open sleighs. This assessment must also consider whether it is appropriate to use only one horse for such a venture, particularly where there are multiple passengers.

    Please note that permission must also be obtained in writing from landowners before their fields may be entered.

    To avoid offending those not participating in celebrations, we request that laughter is moderate only and not loud enough to be considered a noise nuisance and therefore must not occur after 11pm and before 7am.

    Benches, stools and orthopedic chairs are now available for collection by any shepherds planning or required to watch their flocks at night.
    While provision has also been made for remote monitoring of flocks by CCTV cameras from a centrally heated shepherd observation hut, all facility users are reminded that an emergency response plan must be submitted to account for known risks to the flocks.

    The angel of the Lord is additionally reminded that prior to shining his/her glory all around s/he must confirm that all shepherds are wearing appropriate Personal Protective Equipment, including Eye Protection, to account for the harmful effects of UVA, UVB and the overwhelming effects of Glory.

    Following last year’s well publicised case, everyone is advised that EC legislation prohibits any comment with regard to the ‘redness’ of any part of Mr. Rudolph Reindeer. Further to this, exclusion of Mr. Rudolf Reindeer from reindeer games will be considered discriminatory and disciplinary action will be taken against those found guilty of such an offence.

    While it is acknowledged that gift-bearing is commonly practised in various parts of the world, everyone is reminded that the bearing of gifts is subject to Hospitality Guidelines and all gifts must be registered and where necessary, taxes and import duties paid as appropriate. This applies regardless of the individual -even royal personages.

    It is particularly noted that direct gifts of currency or gold are specifically precluded under provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Further, caution is advised regarding other common gifts, such as aromatic resins that may initiate allergic reactions.

    Finally, in the recent case of the infant found tucked up in a manger without any crib for a bed, Social Services and the Local Authority Safeguarding Board have been advised and will be fully investigating. The RSPCA are also seeking reassurance that no donkeys were harmed during this incident.

    Compliance of these guidelines is mandatory in order for you to fully participate with the festive spirit. Wishing you a very Merry Christmas (but bear in mind this must be under 107 milligrams per 100 millilitres of urine or 35 microgrammes per 100 millilitres of breath if driving – UK, Wales & Northern Ireland).

    Regards,
    The Christmas Regulatory & Assessment Panel (CRAP)

  148. This is better (but do listen to Ben Habib on the Lotus Eaters):

    “A RETIRED police dog on its first walk since recovering from major surgery rescued a vulnerable man after locating him in woods.

    Bear, a German shepherd, was being walked by owner Julia Pope near Eastbourne, East Sussex, when it sensed the presence of the man, who was the subject of a police search.

    The dog, which celebrated its 12th birthday on the day of the incident, took Ms Pope to the missing person.
    Ms Pope said: “This was his first proper walk since his surgery and we thought it would be a gentle wander but then it ended up being quite dramatic.

    “Bear went into work mode. He suddenly stopped and indicated towards an area of dense undergrowth – and then dragged us to it, where he located and alerted us to a vulnerable man.

    “The man was confused, wet, cold and had fallen over, and was unable to get up unaided. I’m not sure he would have survived the night as it was extremely cold and almost dark at that point with no one else in the vicinity.

    “We were able to assist the man back to an area where we could co-ordinate with police officers who had been searching for him and thankfully reunite him with his family, with Bear leading the way back.

    “It’s an amazing stroke of luck really that we were in the right place at the right time – two former police officers and a retired police dog.””

  150. Brilliantly, thank you.

    Heart doing well, drugs to be reduced, can fly long haul, everything is as the surgeon hoped, back in 6 months for an “exercise” check-up as well as the ECG, Ultra sound and other tests I had today.
    The French Health service is amazing.

    1.5 hours, one on one, with the surgeon who did my stent doing the ultrasound, as well as a nurse for the ECG part.

    1. It sounds like the NHS should be!!! (but never will???)

      Anyhow, I’m very pleased for you and I hope you continue to enjoy life to the full! Have a drink to celebrate (though, like me, I suspect you dont need an excuse!)

      1. Re racing Solitaire.

        I was 37.39 and am currently 2nd in my group of 50.

        The top bod did it in 31.33!

        I had a very good series and made relatively few mistakes.

        The top one must have hit every board correctly first time of asking.
        I will be interested to see where I rank tomorrow on the full contenders list.
        My overall is 100 1st, 151 2nd and 162 3rd
        Top gun in my group today is 762, 384, 198.
        I think he’s cheating somehow.

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