Monday 20 July: Remote working is demoralising the young and will stifle independence

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/07/19/letters-remote-working-demoralising-young-will-stifle-independence/

579 thoughts on “Monday 20 July: Remote working is demoralising the young and will stifle independence”

  1. Hey, I haven’t even finished reading Sunday’s posts and Monday makes an early entry. Hello everyone. I am off back to finish reading Sunday’s.

    1. I am perpetually behind nowadays, hence I prefix an apology in front of any article I post in case it is repetition…
      Morning, cynarch

      1. Can’t be arsed to get up… Trying again for more zeds. Love the pic! Night…

      2. Yo Rik

        May I sort a bit:

        A cuppa tea with a shTot of Wood’s rum may do the trick

    1. Must be the only office in the country with upward trending graphs… although the date is Aug 01 so maybe the cartoonist has some inside information that leads her/him to believe everything is going to be booming again in a week’s time.

    2. ‘Morning, Citroen. Good cartoon from Blowers, although the graph on the office wall may be over-optimistic? Although on second thoughts perhaps it is showing business losses, rather than gains…

  5. SIR – William Loneskie (Letters, July 17) suggests that, having left the European Union, British police forces might start buying British vehicles. Unfortunately, buying British has never been a major factor for either government or industry.

    In the Seventies, Michael Edwardes, then the chief executive of British Leyland, propounded to me the idea that the British government should only give tax breaks for company-car fleets if they bought them from his company. When I asked if he bought electrical components from Germany, he said that he did, as it was his company’s right to source the cheapest products. Nothing much changes.

    John Ralph
    Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire

    Ah yes….British Leyland….government handouts for anyone buying their products….pre-Maggie nostalgia.

      1. What goes clip clop clip clop bang bang clip clop clip clop
        An Amish drive by …………
        ‘Morning

  8. https://youtu.be/Se5NPq-0SY4

    SIR – Kneeling on the neck of someone armed with a knife is not excessive force when an unarmed police officer attempts to disarm that person and place him in hand cuffs (report, July 18). Immediate suspension seems harsh when the officer was doing his job. He should be supported by his superiors for removing a knife from the streets, not castigated by them.

    Lt Col Paul d’Apice (retd)
    Dawlish, Devon

    1. 321530+ up ticks,
      Morning C,
      When sanity returns police training will include if a person is shown to have a knife then the first step is taser from a safe distance.

    2. My father, who was trained in unarmed combat during WW2 to be commissioned as an Army captain, once taught me that the knees are best used on a sensitive nerve on the arms when decapacitating a foe.

      1. I read that three times as decapitating before getting it right. I was beginning to wonder if your father was a member of ISIS.

        1. There is a nerve in the neck that swiftly and silently stuns before decapitation. Strictly haram though.

    3. Yo Citroen

      To make life easier for the Perlice, let us just give them all guns

      Along comes a BAME with a Knife: Bang-Kerpowee-Splat

      Then along comes BLM protestor who would say

      ‘There was no need to shoot him, he could have just phyically overcome him’

      The most disgusting thing about the whole affair is that The Black Perlice Club were at the heart of the complaint

      I dread to think what life is going to be like, for The Whites; in UK, in 50 years time

      1. I am coming round to the view that the final two sentences in your post would be better if they read: “The police response is: Bang-Kerpowee-Splat. BLM protester joins BAME with a Knife.”

      2. ‘Morning, Tryers. You think there will be any left 50 years from now? Not if people like Lewis Hamilton get their way. (What a total James Hunt that man is!)

  9. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/opinion/2020/07/19/TELEMMGLPICT000235282626_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQfyf2A9a6I9YchsjMeADBa08.jpeg?imwidth=680
    SIR – What shameful ignorance of history is displayed by the West Midlands Fire Service, which has banned the use of the Black Country flag because it has a design based on chains and therefore has “a potential link to slavery” (report, July 17).

    Chainmaking was a staple industry of the Black Country, especially in Cradley Heath. The glory of the industry was the manufacture of anchor chains for Britain’s once vast merchant navy. The Titanic was one of many great ocean liners equipped with anchor chains from the Black Country.

    In the Sixties I dealt briefly with one of the last of the chainmakers of Cradley Heath, which supplied the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. I remember seeing chainmaking in progress, with leather-aproned workers handling the huge links, which glowed red-hot.

    Robert Darlaston
    Goostrey, Cheshire

    2. Another example of the imposition of American political analysis where it is inappropriate in Britain. To the American, a chain is used to restrain a slave; to the British, which once wrote an anthem boasting that it “rules the waves”, a chain is used to restrain a ship.

          1. Today’s starter for ten, BT. Couldn’t tell you how many perches in the Nile but the Nile Perch is quite edible with a muddy flavour.

      1. “Chains” was also a track on one of the Beatles’ early LPs, Grizzly. Any chance of you posting it here, for a pretty useless technophobe?

  10. BTL@DTletters

    A Long
    20 Jul 2020 12:09AM

    I wager hundreds of people have sent letters to the papers on the subject of Begum over the past few days.

    Odd how, given her trial is very much NEWS, the letters pages of the MSM seem to be devoid of any correspondence on this subject?

    Ideas anyone?

    1. There is said to be an Appeal in progress…that said, the principle of sub judice rarely seems to be followed these days.

      1. There is absolutely NO need for her to come here in person. Do it by video link. Once here ( to NEVER leave ) she will be a beacon for every other one who want to return to the land they love ( but want to destroy ) – of course they will all be straight onto benefits, free NHS, Mobility cars etc. And the inevitable compensation claim off the UK taxpayer.

  11. Woke culture isn’t a laughing matter. It must be stopped before it’s too late

    Fuelled by social media, cancel culture has been accelerating throughout 2020

    NEIL O’BRIEN – 19 July 2020 • 8:00am

    “Woke” culture is often seen as a joke, but it is changing our country for the worse. We need to stop complaining, and start taking action against it.

    There are three main things we should do. First, fighting the forces of identity politics – a mentality which refuses to treat people as individuals and promotes new forms of sectarianism. Take Pran Patel, the founder of “decolonise the curriculum,” who claimed: “Priti Patel is the perfect example of whiteness inhabiting a different coloured vessel”.

    The public sector cannot – wittingly or unwittingly – promote such ideas, as it does by lumping together non-white minorities under the umbrella term “Black and Minority Ethnic” in official publications. Woke warriors like this divisive framing because it creates a sense of “them and us”; white people versus everyone else.

    It’s also unhelpful, concealing important variations we need to understand to improve things. The employment rate among Indian men is higher than among white British, while for Pakistani and Bangladeshi men it’s a little lower. Asian pupils are more likely to get five good GCSEs than white, black pupils less likely. An average for “BAME” conceals these things. And people feel connections to real places, not a sociologist’s acronym. I have constituents who’d say they’re British-Punjabi or Gujarati. They wouldn’t say they’re BAME.

    Though numerous bestsellers promote this divisive new politics, public sector bodies should not be regurgitating their messages. One Sheffield headmaster recently wrote to parents: “Our society is built upon white supremacy.” Apartheid South Africa was such a society. Britain is not. Schools have no business pushing this rubbish – and the Government must issue guidance to that effect. Mandatory “unconscious bias training” is also widespread in the public sector, despite the poor scientific evidence for its effectiveness: it may even be counterproductive.

    A second aspect of the woke revolution we must resist is its assault on free speech. We are importing American “cancel culture”, in which people may be harassed or sacked for tiny deviations from new orthodoxies. The author JK Rowling writes thoughtfully on transgender issues, recently critiquing the use of the term “people who menstruate,” rather than “women.” Immediately, this triggered accusations of “transphobia”, numerous authors quit her agency, and staff at her publisher refused to work on her new book. One author was sacked from her contract simply for tweeting “I stand with JK Rowling.”

    Fuelled by social media, cancel culture is accelerating. Last week a bureaucrat at the Environment Agency cancelled an event with the independent mayor of Middlesbrough who had said: “Don’t listen to careless talk in the media about white privilege … Deprivation here appears to be colour blind.”

    To fight back, employment law may need to change to protect free speech. Of course, firms should be able to fire people who do racist or sexist things. But firms and public sector bodies must respect employment law and free expression. We particularly need to defend free speech in our universities, where cancel culture is most powerful.

    Third, we need to counter the excessively negative view of British history that is being pushed on young people. Someone recently spray-painted “racist” on a statue of Churchill, a shameful consequence of this unbalanced view of the past. Liverpool University is renaming buildings named after the great Liberal reformer Gladstone, merely because his father owned slaves. There’s good and bad in our history, but balance has gone out the window.

    Let’s turn the conversation about slavery and statues towards something forward-looking. Let’s fight slavery today, with a commission on modern slavery to work in the run up to the 200th anniversary of the Slavery Abolition Act in 2033. Priti Patel is working with France to fight the trafficking gangs smuggling people across the Channel. But more is needed. Let’s clamp down even harder on sweatshops in Britain. Let’s hold to account western companies which benefit, disgracefully, from the slave labour of Uighur Muslims in China.

    Perhaps we should make the Queen’s birthday a national holiday. Many other countries have national service: let’s replace National Citizen Service with something much bigger. In my constituency groups like the cadets bring together young people who might not otherwise meet: let’s build up such institutions.

    Woke politics offers a bleak future of division, censoriousness and negativity. We need an alternative that is positive, free and uniting.

    Neil O’Brien is the Conservative MP for Harborough

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/19/woke-culture-isnt-laughing-matter-must-stopped-late/

    1. He is quite right in everything he says, but his suggestions all involve action by the government.
      For this, a spine would be necessary.
      I still have hopes of Cummings, but he is too much in thrall to trendy theories and bright young things, when what is needed is old foxes who have seen it all.

    2. A while ago, Disqus stopped their free ‘Channels’ service and deleted the archive.

      They did this because they could no longer moderate these channels fairly, and there were a number of rogue moderators at the very core of their operations in California. One I know had a dislike of the British, and had a personal vendetta against a British troll, who was not me this time.

      I was banned from a number of channels, finding all my comments there cancelled. One was a Christian discussion site that refused to accept that Catholics were Christians, and any defence of the Catholic Church was considered inappropriate. Another was a site discussing personal relationships and courtship which cancelled me for criticising the US “Me Too” movement.

      I was even cancelled from the Banned Club, there to provide a sanctuary for those banned from other channels to vent about the injustices meted out by rogue moderators. When I was cancelled, I had to contend with defamatory and completely unfounded comments from moderators suggesting I had paedophile tendencies, and any attempts to reply to these were deleted. They dug up and quoted a comment I made years earlier and taken out of context, and then hyped it up with lots of emotional disgust. I found a workround to get my points across, and to lay into the moderators about their libels, and was duly banned from the Banned Club.

      While Disqus finished with Channels, they carried on (as here) with supporting discussion from those prepared to pay for the service and to provide their own moderators. On The Spectator’s BTL Comments, I was personally threatened by members of a powerful factional pressure group in the UK, who claimed to have the ear of a long-serving Home Secretary (who went on to become Prime Minister) and a Chief Constable, who had the power to order a squad to raid my home. They even knew where I lived. This particular gang (and their trolls still lurk there) had the power to take down senior politicians, including the Leader of the Opposition, and their antics had a direct influence on the result of the 2019 General Election.

      The Spectator could do little about this, but to their credit they allowed me full Right to Reply on the comments, and did not go out to cancel either me, or those who took issue with what I had to say. It was a spirited debate, and probably entertained their readers and boosted their circulation.

      I was disappointed when the New Statesman cancelled BTL comments, considering public comments as equivalent to writing on toilet walls. I had grown up believing the Left encouraged public discussion of the issues of the day, and that it was Conservatives who bound people’s minds to conformity to the “done thing”. Margaret Thatcher’s first question was “are you one of us?” – the very identity factionalism that is so galling to me today. Well, it seems that the libertarian streak in the Right has been their saving grace, and it is the self-identified Left that is suffocating freedom of expression today.

      1. Just wondering.

        Do you not have any other interests in life other than sitting before your computer and posting comments on Disqus sites?

        You’re not from Royal Tunbridge Wells by any chance?

        1. I belong to four local choirs, but they are not allowed to sing right now. I am also a morris dancer, but they are not allowed to dance, and I have just been made an unperson for criticitising the appeasement of BLM over traditional Border blackface.

          It’s either posting comments or making serious inroads into the housework. No contest really.

          1. Good lad. Tradition needs to be upheld; not trashed by gormless halfwits. Time for a fight back.

    3. Either they are British (and embrace British values) or they are Punjabi of Gujarati – which language do they speak at home?

  14. Recovery from Covid-19 will be threatened if we don’t learn to control big tech

    John Naughton
    We need to curb misinformation. Otherwise, confidence in answers to the pandemic will be undermined

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ee36b45ba0064ae9ebf4f9a614868b8256162dfa/3_0_10661_6400/master/10661.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=67e32361fee3292f697a37bd26ff41e0
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/19/twitter-hack-could-be-a-watershed-moment-for-social-media-giants

      1. It was for me; despite having had next to no sleep the night before, I was still prey to insomnia 🙁

  17. There must be a concerted Western response to the threats of China and Russia. 20 July 2020 • 6:00am.

    For a country like Britain to be embroiled in one serious diplomatic stand-off is manageable. To be involved in three at once is problematic because they consume so much of a government’s time and energy. But to have a health emergency and an economic crisis happening at the same time is potentially debilitating.

    This is the parlous position in which the UK finds itself, as a sharp deterioration in relations with China and Russia coincides with difficult discussions about to resume with the EU over the final stages of Brexit.

    It’s difficult to feel any sympathy for the Political Elites here. After sucking up to China for the last ten years the UK now finds itself at odds with what was always a particularly nasty regime. Russia on the other hand is a self- created difficulty the UK having gone out of its way with False Flag operations and Fake News to make it an enemy.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/07/20/must-concerted-western-response-threats-china-russia/

    1. Do politicians have to wear face masks when they go to the shops to buy their specially designed rattling sabres?

      1. Good afternoon, Rastus.

        It’s bloody well time some sabres were rattled domestically.

  19. In valuing only how to argue, we are forgetting how to talk. 20 July 2020.

    Even the language we use to describe the interlocutors shows how conflict is manufactured. We have “provocateurs” and “controversialists” who demand a hearing. Characters such as Katie Hopkins and Nigel Farage are given platforms and coverage in our “polite media”, spreading misinformation about immigration and race, which contributes to racism and xenophobia. In these conditions, engaging in a back-and-forth with someone holding an opposing viewpoint is not a constructive act with the aim of reaching common ground, or at least an understanding of the other: it is to feed an insatiable appetite for public spectacle.

    You have to laugh at Malik’s hypocrisy. She herself lives (unadmittedly) in Egypt, that beacon of Middle Eastern democracy. Hopkins has been hounded out of her job and the ability to earn a living while Farage was probably the prototype of the “Racist” cancel culture.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/20/how-to-argue-talk-dissent-disagree

    2. That’s exactly what the N.Y. Times writer, Bari Weiss, said in her resignation letter:
      “a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.”

    3. When did the Guardian last publish the truth?

      The trouble with Hopkins and Farage is that they tell the truth and this is completely unacceptable.

      The only way the wokeocracy (Sp?) can cope with them is to say they are lying and heap abuse upon them.

    4. Bit a maverick suggestion here: would trashing British statues, injuring British police and ignoring the rules by which much of British society functions have contributed to racism?
      Just a mad suggestion from an evil, white haired colourfully highlighted old biddy.

    5. When did the Guardian last publish the truth?

      The trouble with Hopkins and Farage is that they tell the truth and this is completely unacceptable.

      The only way the wokeocracy (Sp?) can cope with them is to say they are lying and heap abuse upon them.

  20. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Here is some muddled thinking for you, where the writer attempts to compare chalk and cheese. The purpose of an aircraft carrier is to project air power beyond our shores, but to do so requires a small fleet of both surface vessels and submarines to protect it. We might have some of the latter (those that are not in dock for repair or upgrading) but we are pitifully short of the former, thus negating the potential power of a carrier. RAF stations provide the primary means to defend our airspace, which is a totally different kettle of fish.

    The RAF’s Operation Black Buck – the first bombing raid on Stanley Airfield – was not only daring (and very nearly disastrous) but was also a great success when it bombed the only runway. Bomb craters can be repaired in short order, but the effect of the raid was to persuade the Argies to withdraw their Mirage fighter aircraft back to the mainland, where they were well out of range. The repair of the runway enabled continued use by Hercules transports, but not fast jets as the repair was botched. The Vulcan raids also resulted in the destruction of secondary radars, thus damaging the ability of the Argues to defend the place. To describe these raids as “ineffectual” therefore beggars belief. Nevertheless, thanks to people like Campbell-Roddis the raids remain controversial in the minds of some.

    SIR – In a “serious war” (Letters, July 15) I would rather be on one of the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers (well protected and mobile) than a poorly defended RAF airfield.

    The RAF talks down the role of aircraft carriers because it doesn’t like the Navy operating fixed-wing aircraft, and would rather have the money (and the glory) itself. But the fact is, these ships are terrific assets for our country. The RAF’s ineffectual Black Buck bomber raids in the Falklands War and lacklustre response during the 2011 Libyan conflict demonstrated the limitations of shore-based aircraft.

    The F-35B aircraft being acquired for the UK carriers (and their Crowsnest early warning helicopters) will provide world-leading capability. The only issue with these aircraft is the paltry numbers of them in service, and the snail’s pace at which they are being acquired.

    Squadron Leader James A Cowan (Letters, July 17) underestimates the huge cost and other through-life burdens of fitting aircraft-launch catapults to the new carriers. He cites the French carrier Charles de Gaulle as an example of what should have been done, but this ship suffered endless delays in entering service on account of the decision to proceed with old-style steam catapults. Recent American experience with new Ford-class carriers also highlights the cost penalties and teething problems of fitting more modern electromagnetic launch catapults.

    To remain credible in future conflicts, it is highly desirable that the UK starts fitting land-attack cruise missiles to some of its surface ships. Such cruise missiles are a key to allowing aircraft carriers to enter areas protected by anti-access/area-denial weapons of the type now being fielded by China.

    The strikes on Syria from the Mediterranean in April 2018 demonstrated the limitations of relying on submarine-launched cruise missiles in limited conflicts, where it is undesirable for a submarine to reveal its location by launching missiles. This year’s UK defence review should give serious consideration to this issue.

    Dr Mark Campbell-Roddis
    Chartered Naval Architect
    Dunblane, Perthshire

      1. In what respect is it muddled? As someone who has served and continues to serve the RAF and its interests, both in and out of uniform, for the past 60+ years, I nevertheless remain certain that the two carriers are an excellent investment.

        1. In general term he is describing solutions without defining the problem, and jumping to conclusions with no justification.

          1. Indeed.
            Every solution comprises three aspects that are indivisible:
            * People – who will operate the solution, how many will be required, what location, training, experience & competence?
            * Plant – the hardware & software – what is it’s function, how should it do that, what are the requirements?
            * Processes – how should the people operate the plant? Working processes, management processes, control, operation.
            Failure to address all three TOGETHER results in, at best, ineffective assets, at worst, people die.
            Think of the carriers.
            What was the purpose of the carriers – what threats are they designed to address? Can they actually address those threats? Looks like they are not capable of landing other than F-35B – an expensive limitation.
            Are there enough properly trained crew for them? Have they trained in addressing all offensive & defensive threats, and are they up-to-date?
            How will the carrier address the threats? By flying off aircraft (specific type, short duration sorties only, how will they manage standing patrols – will there be standing patrols?), by use of a defensive screen of smaller vessels (where they??), own missiles and AA guns? If they are to project power remotely, why cannot they float landing craft full of Bootnecks out from a semisubmersible dock? I cannot believe a catapult is so difficult – they have been used since before I was born to launch aircraft, not exactly new technology.
            It’s not an easy thing to get right, this, but I suspect Richard has hit the nail on the head – “Just build me a carrier or two” rather than fulfilling a defined and clear purpose.

          2. Here is some of the thinking behind not having a catapult. With fixed-wing aircraft, you need three carriers – one at sea, one in refit and one for training. We can’t afford three carriers. But with VSTOL aircraft we can get by with just two carriers as training can be done mostly at shore bases, and if you have VSTOL aircraft, you don’t need catapults which take up a lot of space that can be better used for fuel, supplies or more aircraft. All weapons system involve compromise and the carriers represent the optimum for the UK.

          3. True – didn’t think of the endless refitting & training bit.
            Glad to have received some education!

          4. His solution is that aircraft carriers should be well protected. Obvious!

            What he didn’t say is how long it will take to build, man and train the protective cover around the aircraft carrier.

            Until then the carriers will be confined to harbour, and just be an expensive cocktail party platform.

          5. Last time I saw the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle it was in dry dock in Toulon. I don’t know if it ever got out.

        2. …but a carrier without proper protection is about as useful as a chocolate fireguard. The construction of a carrier (never mind two carriers) required a corresponding increase in surface ships from a pitifully low number, but until this happens they are highly vulnerable and are unlikely to ever realise their full potential. Sad but true.

          1. There was a brilliant book a few years ago where the Argentines were secretly given access to an ultra silent submarine. The Argentines then reinvaded the Falklands and a Blairalike PM sent a task force.

            The sub was just lying in wait and as soon as the aircraft carrier led task force arrived the first thing the British knew about the USDE sub was when the carrier was sunk.

            Goodbye Falklands hello Malvenas.

            I wish I could remember the title and author.

            EDIT Patrick Robinson Ghost Force.

          2. That could so easily have been the case. Fortunately the only Argie sub requiring any action from us was the Santa Fe, an old ex-USN WW2 tub. Disabled, captured and then towed away by us and scuttled a few years later. Very satisfying.

          3. We need around 13 highly capable warships to protect an aircraft carrier. The usefulness of a carrier may be determined by how far it can project power beyond the circle of its protective screen. This is determined by the range of its aircraft.
            (I wonder if we built these carriers on the assumption that they would only ever operate as part of a US/NATO fleet?)

          5. That was Brown’s intention, the carriers were destined to be the UK contribution to an EU naval force.

          8. Quite possibly, HP. You would think that the Falklands war would have demonstrated that we cannot always rely on NATO when the chips are down. Short memories, obviously.

    2. I’m getting fed up with reading these opinions from armchair Generals, Wing-Commanders, Rear-Admirals etc.

    3. We need an effective Air Force and a Navy that is supported by air defences. Air defences can be anti-aircraft capability such as missiles and quick-firing guns. It can also include aircraft. Of course, these items have to be effective and in sufficient quantity and combination to resist all likely attacks.
      As regards, firing cruise missiles from submarines, of course actually firing them will give away their position as Dr M C-R says, if the enemy are looking in the right place.
      However submarines are almost undetectable in normal operation. The RN has worked very hard to make them so.
      Once an Astute class submarine has fired off a cruise missile with a nuclear warhead the intended recipient won’t be concentrating on the launch vehicle.
      Perhaps it may be worth noting that our cruise missile armed surface warships can be detected and identified anywhere on the planet, not just when they fire a weapon.
      Be that as it may, the real question is do we have an aggressive military or a self-defence force? If it is self defence we don’t need aircraft carriers.

    4. If they had fitted cats and traps in the first place we wouldn’t be looking at expensive retro fitting. Bloody Brown and his pork barrel politics.

    1. Problem is, Grizz, the anti-Woke are always on the back foot, trying to counter the latest blether from the woke.
      What’s needed is to be offensive and make the case of unwoke to put the woke on the back foot.

  22. SIR – I read that economic recovery depends on the extent to which workers can be enticed back to the office. I wonder whether companies may consider salary adjustments to reflect working in the aftermath of Covid-19.

    It may be prudent to have basic reimbursement for working at home, with extra allowances for working at clients’ premises.

    Peter Vickers
    Ash Vale, Surrey

    Major corporations, The City, London’s IT hub, Advertising, etc., etc. will continue and thrive and pay Corporation Tax as before without everyone going back to the office. The coffee shops, Retail, Hotels, etc., etc. will struggle and flounder. Country bumpkins such as many NoTTLers may be able to afford to stay in London and go to theatres and galleries.

    Eliminate the Civil Service’s London Premium for those working from home. I heard (anecdotally) from an accounting firm that HMRC personnel appear to be working (‘from home’) at about 30% of previous levels. HMRC are hiring lots of new people,… mostly unqualified or under-qualified BAMEs to meet quotas for positive discrimination.

  23. SIR – I am appalled that the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets has given the go-ahead for a £6 million subsea cable to Shetland, which will allow the 103-turbine Viking Wind Farm project to proceed.

    The Shetland landscape will be trashed for ever. The island’s importance to bird life can hardly be overstated. Who could forget the sight of a white-throated needle tail being felled by a turbine in front of horrified bird watchers on Harris in June 2013?

    The blades of a turbine can be as long a football field and rotate at over 180 mph, meaning that birds, bats and insects don’t stand a chance. The number of insects killed annually in Germany by wind turbines stands at a staggering 1.2 trillion, equivalent to one third of the total annual insect migration in southern England. Wiping out wildlife is an abhorrent way to attempt to save the planet.

    George Herraghty
    Lhanbryde, Moray

    Who cares? It’s only the punters’ money and environment. (/sarc)

    1. We keep on hearing exhortations from all manner of sources that we must “save the planet”. What I want to know is: “Who or what are we saving it for?” Equally, “Who or what are we saving it from?”

      The only organism that is proving, more and more each passing day, to be a danger to the planet is mankind. The very same organism that increases its population on this planet by A QUARTER OF A MILLION PEOPLE EVERY DAY.

      Each day vastly more than that number of other species disappears from the only ecosystem in the known universe that supports any form of life. If those turbine blades pulverised people instead of birds, bats and insects — all of which are vital to a balanced biodiversity — then, maybe, we could say they were doing a good job, in helping to restore some kind of balance. A balance that humanity is hell-bent on destroying forever.

    2. 321530+ up ticks,
      C,
      Does George realise that the governance parties are not only carrying out the annihilation of the insect kingdom
      but also doing the same to the indigenous peoples of these Isles.
      ( replacement etc )
      As it goes that is one of their successes.

    1. I suspect most of the excess fees find their way into increased remuneration for Vice Chancellors and higher administrators, including academic department heads, and a general expansion of the (non-teaching, non-researching) administration.

  25. News item elsewhere: “Leeds has launched an ‘independent’ review into statues of figures including Queen Victoria, former prime ministers the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo and founded the police, respectively, and even the Black Prince, who long predates the British empire and the Atlantic slave trade.”

    Of course, the statues depicting colonial-era figures demonstrate how “racism continues to be prevalent in everyday life”.

    Independent? Ah yes, of course! It is to be chaired by a black Labour Councillor!

    God help the people of Leeds!

    1. Will we ever get a proper government which stamps this nonsense out? Boris has turned out to be as weak as water and as spineless as a worm – to use a couple of convenient cliches!

      Like him or loathe him, at least Macron stands firm against statue vandalism in France.

      1. I’m terminally disappointed in Boris. He talked a good talk, and started with promise, now is as wet and useful as our washing-up water. Patel the same. Sunak – Osborne mk2. Where’s a backbone amongst all these tozzers? Why are they all paralysed? Hell, they have a good majority and are doing PRECISELY NOTHING to govern.
        “In government, but not in charge”.
        Bah!

        1. I’ve said this many times, the government do not run the country it’s the civil service that call the shots. Yes Minister !

        2. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s all because they’re a novice government and they are sitting on top of a remainer civil service that is not looking forward to re-learning how to govern, having spent 45 years of rubber stamping. Thus the civil servants are not in the business of helping to govern , they will intentionally make difficulties. We saw this in action a few years ago in the Cameron days when Gove actually tried to do something about education and ended up being replaced.

          1. That’s why I was hopeful with the spat between Patel & wotshisface – who lost.

          2. There’s talk of Gove replacing Patel at the Home Office.
            I’d like to see that.

      2. 321530+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        Many of us in the REAL UKIP tried to point this out time & time again.
        I personally called it as a cameron ( the wretch)
        fall back campaign damage limitations to brussels.
        I likened it to a semi re-entry rocket, cameron the first stage, mayday the second then I asked who was to be the nose cone on course for a leaving but not quite campaign, johnson.
        You could read it like a script since the 9 month treacherous delay that mayday dealt us.
        To many fools commited to the party first mode of voting linked to a large amount of hope.

      1. Yes. But not living in Leeds.
        (Other formerly proud Yorkshire cities are available.)

        1. My family hails from Guiseley. My grandfather wandered south 100 years ago,

          1. I know Guiseley well. It was en route to Ilkley, where some of our relatives lived, once upon a time. I wandered southish 50 years after your grandfather.

        1. My upticking ability is sporadically playing up and I sometimes just get sent to the personal page of one of the previous uptickers.

          So morning, Plum, have a deemed uptick!

          2. The problem arises when the small window of previous up-voters covers the up-tick arrow. Try scrolling up or down very slightly before you vote. Then you have a clear run.

          3. Thanks Peddy, but I’ve done that. It’s just a sporadic thing that hsppens.

      2. The start to solving a problem is identifying it. The do not like the answer, of course.

    2. 321530+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      They would say that wouldn’t they, by the by could these
      muslim police explain the 16 plus year cover up regarding
      rotherham via the JAY report & pakistani paedophilia input.

    3. 321530+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      They would say that wouldn’t they, by the by could these
      muslim police explain the 16 plus year cover up regarding
      rotherham via the JAY report & pakistani paedophilia input.

    4. ‘Morning, Rik. Anyone thought of forming a National Association of Non-Muslim Police? (Same applies to an Association of White Police Officers.)

      Thought not. It’s all a bit one-sided if you ask me.

    5. Surely… surely, same as the black police officers – this is racist?

      When will we stop labelling?

      When a Muslim blows himself up looking for a loo and a snack bar you judge him on his actions. More, you look at the desperate refusal to accept there’s a problem amongst the others.

  27. Middle Eastern website describes Newcastle as a ‘remote tribal community’ worse than Yemen and says Geordies have a ‘well-documented penchant for violence’, as Saudi prince launches takeover of the city’s football team
    *A Middle Eastern website published an opinion piece criticising Newcastle
    *The article described the city as ‘remote’ and ‘tribal’ with ‘volatile’ residents
    *Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman could take over the city’s football team
    *The article criticised the city’s football fans and also the ‘Geordie lasses’
    By SAM BLITZ FOR MAILONLINE

    PUBLISHED: 01:51, 20 July 2020 | UPDATED: 02:00, 20 July 2020

    A Middle Eastern website has slammed the city of Newcastle and its residents in an article discussing the potential takeover of Newcastle United by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

    The opinion article, published on ‘Inside Arabia’ and written by Tom Pollitt, describes Newcastle as a ‘remote, tribal community’ which is worse to live in than war-torn Yemen.

    Mr Pollitt also claims it is ‘illegal not to drink’ in Newcastle and also criticises the dress sense of ‘Geordie lasses’.

    The author of the piece accuses the people of Newcastle of having a ‘well-documented penchant for violence’ and being ‘volatile and arrogant’ and incomprehensible to outsiders.

    The article reads: ‘Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) is the de facto ruler of a desert Kingdom where drinking alcohol is officially illegal and, until recently, half of the population were prohibited from driving simply for being women.

    ‘It may seem surprising therefore that he has taken interest in the rainy British city of Newcastle, a place where it is unofficially illegal not to drink alcohol.’

    Crown Prince bin Salman is looking to claim a majority stake in the north East club and is reportedly preparing a bid worth £300million.

    The ‘Inside Arabia’ article continued its comparisons between the Saudi prince’s place of origin and the city where he is looking to make his sporting investment.

    The article claims: ‘At first glance, Newcastle and Saudi Arabia are stark opposites. Newcastle-born women are unlikely to be seen sporting head-to-toe black cloth in the desert sun.

    ‘On the contrary, Geordie lasses are renowned for queuing outside night-clubs in sub-zero temperatures, wearing outfits flimsier than MbS’ alibi for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

    ‘In fact, aside from a shared, well-documented penchant for violence, MbS has little in common with Newcastle folk. So, what could he possibly want with them?

    ‘For a man notorious for his opposition to freedom of speech, it will be refreshing for him to get involved with a city where outsiders cannot understand a word the locals are saying.’

    The article mentions how the CIA refer to the Saudi prince as ‘volatile and arrogant’, which, according to Inside Arabia, ‘makes him sound like a Newcastle fan on a night out.’

    Labour MP for Newcastle Central Chi Onwurah reacted angrily to the piece, branding it ‘cheap, shoddy journalism’.

    She tweeted: ‘They say -“Our vision is to build bridges of understanding between Arabs and Americans to promote peace and tolerance.” – obviously by stereotyping & insulting everyone else.

    ‘Dear @saeb_sakkijha, CEO of @Inside Arabia by so grossly insulting & patronising #Geordies, people living in the region & #NUFC fans you undermine both your reputation & the interests of the causes you serve.’

    1. Good morning all! I love a good bit of stereotyping to start the day! I’m still chuckling about the illegality of not drinking alcohol! A pint of Exhibition sorted most crises!

      1. ‘Scuse me Mr. Scheckter! Tom Pollit is extremely ill-informed! We Geordies do not have a penchant for violence, nor are we arrogant and volatile. And if you say we are I’ll thump you, you ignorant pleb!

    4. Any sensible objective view which considered the history of the British people would inevitably conclude that we were the possibly most dangerous people on the planet.

      1. 321530+ up ticks,
        Morning PT,
        As much as I get along with him no, this chap is much to positive in steering a course that should be taken.

    2. He’s not wrong is he, there seems to be a very dark world wide agenda and ‘other stuff going down’.
      This morning on TV there was a feature about trainee nurses out of the 6 of 7 featured only one was of colour she happened to be a muslim.
      Guess which one of the group was shown on their knees praying ?

      1. Well the Christian nurses are forbidden from showing or sharing their faith….can get them sacked.

        1. ..and remember that BA fired one of its check in staff for wearing a crucifix on duty

        2. I remember an air stewardess being disciplined for wearing a crucifix.
          But later in the day the section was shown again on BBC news and the kneeling nurse (trainee radiologist) section was missing.

  29. Liberalism made the Western world, but now it is destroying it. 19 July 2020 • 9:30pm

    The arson attack on Nantes Cathedral is a terrible yet apposite metaphor for our troubled times. We do not know who tried to destroy this beautiful place of worship, but we should understand the significance of the action.

    Attacks on churches in France, common in recent years, have been carried out by anarchists, nihilists, Islamists and others. But regardless of the cause – or lack of one – behind this attack, its symbolism is unmistakable.

    Churches and cathedrals stand for religious faith, of course. They represent Europe’s Christian heritage, too. They are part of our cultural and national identities.
    Some have stood for hundreds of years, physical monuments to the long sweep of history, and a reminder, through wars, plagues, recessions and depressions, of the continuity of the institutions and traditions of our societies.

    The Church is just one institution, and Christianity just one traditional belief, that for generations have encouraged us to compromise with one another, and make sacrifices for one another, in the name of community. They have taught us to pursue not only our own material benefit but the common good.

    Other institutions have played similar roles of course, such as charities, trades unions and philanthropic foundations. And other beliefs systems, from other religions to political creeds such as conservatism and social democracy, have also sought to foster a sense of solidarity to build a cohesive society.

    And yet Western countries are today hardly cohesive societies. In Britain, the wealth of the richest 10 per cent of families is five times higher than the wealth of the bottom half of all families combined. With children’s life chances defined more by their parents’ prosperity than talent, social mobility is in crisis. With the working class demonised and despised by many, social solidarity is in crisis too.

    Then there is the pernicious effect of cultural liberalism and militant identity politics. While elites debate the number of black students at Oxbridge with guilt and urgency, few acknowledge that white students are less likely to go to university than any other ethnic group, and white working-class boys fare worse than anybody else at school.

    While the powerful engage in exclusively elite equality debates, such as the number of women on boards, they give little thought to the availability and affordability of childcare for low-income parents.

    Those who try to raise the plight of the white working-class are often written off as racists and cranks. And those who argue in favour of unifying identities – made possible by patriotism, or our attachment to more local communities – are lampooned as reactionary and ridiculous.

    Like letters through a stick of rock, running through each of these problems is liberalism, the ideology that made our modern Western world.

    The pursuit of the common good has little place in liberalism, for liberalism is principally concerned with the maximisation of individual freedom. Liberals have always tended to underestimate how the freedom of the rich and powerful can undermine the freedom of the poor and powerless. But it is only now that this reality is becoming so blatant, prevalent and, in the eyes of many, inevitable and even legitimate.

    So we have a mirage of meritocracy, in which many of those who reach the top do so not through their own achievement but the headstart handed to them by their parents.

    Believing they succeeded on their own merits, however, they feel they owe little to those who “failed” to make it. This is just one reason we see a selfish corporate class, paying themselves sky-high wages and marking one another’s homework, tax avoidance by rich families and big business, and faltering support for progressive taxation and universal public services.

    Also to blame is the misplaced universalism of liberalism. Partly because much of liberal thought starts with a misconceived “model” of human nature and political organisation, liberals underestimate the cultural and institutional context and history of communities and countries.

    They assume we are all rational freedom-seekers, the same the world over. This leads liberals to all sorts of flawed judgments about foreign policy (think Iraq), democracy (think European Union) and immigration.

    Viewing countries as little more than a platform, upon which anybody from anywhere in the world can live and work with only minimal obligations towards others, liberals support mass immigration.

    In fact, they are often maniacally in favour of it, because for many of them, borders are a restraint on freedom, and culturally diverse countries are more likely to put irrational attachments to majority culture and identity behind them.

    But study after academic study shows that the more diverse a society becomes, the less trust and reciprocity there is, and less willingness to pay taxes to fund universal public services and welfare systems.

    Liberalism attacks the institutions and traditions that bring us together, in part because they are seen as hindrances in the pursuit of freedom. But this destructiveness is also down to the problematic relationship liberalism has with the idea of inevitable progress.

    Because some liberal thinkers justify pluralism and tolerance on the basis that they create trial and error that leads to an increasingly perfect society, liberalism can become illiberal and intolerant: conservatives who worry that change can bring loss and not just gain, institutions and traditions that ask us to put others first, and beliefs that seek to achieve the common good are mocked, undermined and attacked.

    The irony is, the more we see the full extent of the crisis of Western society, it becomes clearer that liberalism has always depended on those very institutions and traditions and ways of life it attacks.

    Perhaps liberalism can survive without Christian virtues and stable national identities, but we cannot yet know that for sure.

    And so we return to the tragedy of Nantes Cathedral. We saw on Saturday a place of worship going up in flames, but without a greater willingness to pursue the common good, it will be more than a cathedral that succumbs to fire. The very basis of Western civilisation will be in serious danger.

    Morning everyone. This is a good article by Timothy but he still misses out that Liberalism has been weaponised as a tool of the Globalists.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/19/liberalism-made-western-world-now-destroying/

    1. One of the best and most thorough critiques of Liberalism I have read. It is so refreshing to read something that is better than mere McCarthyist bluster.

      What is missing from this selective interpretation of Liberalism (and you are right, it’s probably the Globalists who are in with greedy oligarchs to “cancel” its good side) is the fundamental principle that personal responsibility and ethical conscience must be directly proportional to freedom and rights, and both are universal, not limited to self. Without this direct correlation, there is tyranny coming from the gated estates of the self-servers in the false name of Liberty.

      If this opens Liberals up to a charge of sanctimony and self-righteousness, then so be it, but it is necessary. The alternative is a raft of rules and regulations, imposed centrally, and “the done thing” that is so stifling to the Liberal.

      1. To advance the cause of liberalism, we must all be coerced into a way of thinking and behaving.
        How does that work again??

      2. There are no “rights”. This is an immoral concept highlighted by the term “Human Rights” which was dreamed up by drunks on a miserable wet night at the UN building in New York. The result of this notion is that terrorists are accorded privileges in return for bombing us.
        There are only privileges and concomitant responsibilities. Christians will treat these as derived from God. Atheists will not, yet if we consider outcomes rather than sources even atheists must surely agree that the Christian approach makes for fairness in life and in law, in a manner more efficacious than “human rights”.

  31. I see daily diatribes by the Left against colonialism which, to them, is all bad. I doubt if many of them have ever been to Africa. I have been told by people in African countries on several occasions that they wish the British would return, specifically in Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana. I even met someone in a Francophone country who said that he wished the French would return!

    At the same time, there is much news about China, led by the Chinese Communist Party. Far be it for the left to criticise anything with the word ‘communist’ in it, but I wonder what they think about colonialism, Chinese style.

    I refer to China’s Belt and Road agreements with numerous countries, using “debt trap diplomacy.” The typical pattern is that China lends an enormous sum of money to a country, and the country then uses that money to pay Chinese companies for parts and services, and then pays salaries of thousands of Chinese workers that will develop the projects. Once the target country fails to make its debt repayments (having already sent all the money to China), China seizes control of the country’s strategic assets. China has used these agreements to acquire and control ports and other strategic assets in Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Zambia and Kenya with others at risk. Ultimately, China stands to own large parts of Africa – literally!

    Either the countries snared by this trap are naïve or, dare I suggest, seriously large brown envelopes exchange hands!

    2. Thought for the day.

      The countries caught in the trap could nationalise all the assets and repudiate the debts. (what’s sauce for the goose).
      They could then do an Idi Amin on all Chinese living in their countries and expel them.

      We’re constantly being told how capable Africans are, I’m sure they’ll work out how to use and repair evrything without white or Chinese assistance.

      1. It’s what they should do.
        As for the expertise, the Chinese are clever enough to exclude the Africans from anything more technical than labouring jobs when installing their facilities.

        1. I’m fairly sure they will retain the ability just to close things off remotely too.
          It’s why I would be very wary of getting China involved in any very large infrastructure/technological projects in the UK.
          You just have to see how they are trying to bully Australia to realise that they are very bad news.

          1. I recently read that in the UK because of recent stupid H&S regulations it is no longer viable to have parts chromed in the UK, so metal objects that need this sort of treatment is now being sent to china who obviously won’t bother with such stringent regulations such we have in Europe. we just recently threw away a ‘stainless steel’ kettle made in china it was going rusty. And have a wall mounted chrome rack in our shower cubicle, that is going rusty as well. China………
            I remember Grantchester Meadows saying the NHS and catering in the UK wouldn’t buy anything that was supposed to be made of stainless steel from China.

          2. There’s stainless steel and stainless steel, depending on the alloy. I seem to remember that high grade stainless is non-magnetic, so shopping with a magnet might be a good idea.

          3. The austenitic stainlesses are non-magnetic, and being one phase only are significantly less rust-prone than the ferritic or martensitic stainlesses. Problem is, you need lots of chromium & nickel, both rather expensive. And, instead of rusting, they suffer other forms of degradation, such as chloride stress cracking (the rammed-in cork in the base of MiL’s salt shaker was a good example – cracks up the base as a result of damp salt).

          4. It’s how they sold their goods cheaper to undercut the better quality suppliers. Make ’em shoddy, sell ’em cheap. Time we learned the lessons and got British manufacturing back up and running. There will be plenty of out of work people to man the production lines.

          5. Problem is Ellie we don’t appear to have the choice of buying goods made in the UK any more.
            We have and Aqualisa shower that is going wrong and like many other UK companies they seem to have built a brick wall around themselves, customer services no longer exist.
            Over the recent years we have thrown away many electrical items made in China. More especially solar lighting it’s such a waste of material.

          6. And very often it’s only when you get it home and read the small print you see those words…… “made in China”. A lot of redundant hospitality people might find jobs in a revived manufacturing sector if the government could encourage that.
            It could also mean young people from Europe working in coffee shops and the like could go home.

          7. We had a 10 year-old Aqualisa shower scheduled for replacement just as Covid struck. The company went out of its way to get us sorted out as soon as was possible. The only annoying thing was the new shower’s power setting was disabled, courtesy of some EU rule regarding water saving.

          9. Morning, how did you contact them ? I have tried at least twice via their online link but nobody seems to be in attendance.

          10. Don’t really remember but I think I found a phone number on their web page.

          11. Chinese ‘quality fade’.

            The initial batch are made to a reasonable standard and then industrious Chinese blokes set to work with a will to chip away at every aspect of quality and workmanship.

            Materials get cheaper, construction is thinner and weaker, assembly becomes more shoddy. After a few iterations the end result is the perfect Chinese product – something which crumbles into a pile of scrap as one unwraps it.

            But the process is just long enough for a western company to pay for a new plant in China, close the alternative in the west and lay off the workers.

            I got some little nails from B & Q last year, the simplest industrial product imaginable and probably one of the earliest. Yet these things were bending and breaking at least 50% of the time. Utter crap. Looked on the label and, needless to say – another classic from the Middle Kingdom. Nails FFS. It used to be the only problem with nails was one’s cack handed ability with a hammer, the nails would do their job if treated right, nail manufacture had been perfected for decades.

            I’ve noticed the same with screws too. They look and feel like steel but appear to have been made from a cunning formulation of metallic Camembert, a property which only manifests with the application of a screwdriver.

          12. Ditto with some gardening tools.
            “Stainless steel” doesn’t mean what it used to…

          13. We are right to jettison Huawei and wrong to rely on aircraft carriers. They are about as useful as a terracotta army. The threat will not come from the barrel of a gun or a nuclear missile but a computer keyboard.

          14. We are right to jettison Huawei and wrong to rely on aircraft carriers. They are about as useful as a terracotta army. The threat will not come from the barrel of a gun or a nuclear missile but a computer keyboard.

        2. China certainly knew how to exploit Mugabe and the ‘mining rights’ in Zimbabwe.
          They have fallen out with the Ozie’s after receiving millions of tons of assorted ore from the NT.
          Now they are getting their beef from south America.
          To produce enough cattle for the demand, thousands more acres of rain forest have been felled.

    3. In a similar vein a late uncle who lived in Spain always said that many of the more mature population longed for a return to the Franco days!

        1. Apropos of nothing at all, my mother knew Count Yusupov, Rasputin’s assassin, when he was in London in exile.

      2. One of my neighbours (a delightful woman) is Portuguese; we had a chat today as I was putting my car back in its garage and she was weeding her boundary. She said she remembered what it was like when Portugal was run as a police state – and she thinks we are rapidly heading that way here. She didn’t have a good word for Hamilton of the diamond studs, or for BLM, come to that.

    4. It’s unfair to tar all imperialists with the same brush (snigger (snigger)). The Belgians were bastewards, closely followed by the Germans and the Portuguese. Not sure about the Spanish and Italians, but I think that the Brits and the French left the place a lot better than they found it.

      2. The Spanish interbred readily with the natives. Most present-day Chileans are descendants from Euro-Indio hybrids.

  35. The only moral option we have is to defend the Uighur people from the Chinese state. 20 July 2020.

    At a time when we in the West are facing up to our own history, whether to the horrors of anti-Semitism or to the consequences of racial oppression, we seem ready to overlook what is happening in the present. There is currently a relentless campaign of genocide and re-education taking place in Xinjiang that we must use our energy to put a stop to. Now.

    I see. The evil white oppressors have to go out and rescue the oppressed from the oppressed!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/07/20/moral-option-have-defend-uighur-people-chinese-state/

    1. Well the white people in the UK are certainly being re-educated and racially oppressed, will some other country step in to help us?

      1. 321530+up ticks,
        Morning B3,
        As with many an issue we have internal problems
        in-house that should be sorted first starting with the politico’s / judges as a priority.
        Reclaim London as a prototype for the rest of these Isles via the courts and very tough sentencing.

    2. Yo Minty

      Boycott your local Chinese Take Away and Cafe ^

      At least, that will hit the Chinese spies in their pockets

      (* I cannot spell Restaurant)

      2. It’s worse than that. We have been buying noodles and rice from Pat’s Chung Ying Chinese Supermarket for about thirty years.
        They sell authentic Chinese items. Our especial favourite is You-Mein Noodles, a product of the Sun Shun Fuk company (but what’s in a name?).
        Now this will end. No more authentic imported Chinese cuisine.

          1. They sound a bit Chinese. We now boycott everything Irish and everything Chinese, if we know the origin.

          2. I used to use Wing Yip; one of my neighbours used to make a regular trip to shop there and I’d go with him. I don’t use a lot of spices, though – I’ve just finished the cinnamon I bought last year. I do find they are the only place that does 1 gallon containers of spirit vinegar, though.

    4. At a time when Britain is being castigated for its history of colonialism i.e. interfering with other countries’ affairs, do we really want to attract more criticism for more meddling? David Lammy’s “White Saviours” comment springs to mind. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.

      1. So let’s not. We never did any good by supporting any muslims, anywhere.Mr. Lammy doesn’t seem to be doing all that much black saviouring, though.

        1. Piddle Trenthide also. I have on my kitchen bookshelf a copy of the Piddle Valley Cookbook.

          1. Most of these names feature in Douglas Adams and John Lloyd’s book “The Meaning of Liff”.

          2. I’ve spent a lot of time in the Piddle Valley & environs. It was one of my favourite area when I lived in Dorset.

        1. Dumb Woman’s Lane (near Outwood, Surrey). I managed to take a picture of Mrs HJ standing right next to the sign before she realised.

    3. Sounds as though it was originally the name of one house.

      There’s a place in the Forest of Dean called New Fancy, which was a now closed and landscaped colliery.

        1. Rimsting in Bavaria.
          Fu@king in Austria.
          Wank near Fussen.
          Wankbahn the cable car up Wank mountain.

      3. There is a house called New Invention, it’s close to the River Barle in Dulverton.

    1. Wife calls from the bathroom ” Does my bum look big in this ?”

      I replied ” Well dear, it is a very small bathroom ”.

      Time of death 18:46 Cause : COVID

  38. ‘Why are we helping Russia?’ UK to send coronavirus vaccine to Moscow despite hack. Mon, Jul 20, 2020.

    RUSSIA will receive doses of coronavirus vaccines developed in the UK despite allegations against Vladimir Putin’s agents hacking Britain’s COVID-19 research, said the chair of the UK vaccine Taskforce.

    In other words the allegations of hacking were a load of Political Bo££ocks.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1311741/russia-news-coronavirus-vaccine-covid-19-vaccine-latest-news-kate-bingham

    1. 321530+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      ” if a terrorist attack is carried out by islamist then it is an islamist terror attack”
      “When” would be more appropriate methinks.

  40. SIR — Kneeling on the neck of someone armed with a knife is not excessive force when an unarmed police officer attempts to disarm that person and place him in hand cuffs (report, July 18). Immediate suspension seems harsh when the officer was doing his job. He should be supported by his superiors for removing a knife from the streets, not castigated by them.

    Lt Col Paul d’Apice (retd)
    Dawlish, Devon

    If I were prime minister, Lieutenant Colonel (that is, a rare prime minister with common sense), I would appoint you as overall overseer to the British police service. You would have the power to dismiss all those who are responsible for this appalling lack of support and guidance for police officers.

    You could start, maybe, by weeding out the Common Purpose crew and sack them all, without pension, for criminally aiding and abetting the preponderance of knife crime on the streets of the UK.

    1. Couldn’t agree more, Grizz – and good morning – but you have inadvertently demoted the writer of this fine letter…

      1. Sugar! I did, didn’t I? I’ll promote him back (and restore him to Army from Navy) .🤭 Good morning (and thanks), Hugh.

        2. We half- Colonels are sensitive about these things, Grizz!
          Morning, BTW.

        3. We half- Colonels are sensitive about these things, Grizz!
          Morning, BTW.

    2. Couldn’t agree more, Grizz – and good morning – but you have inadvertently demoted the writer of this fine letter…

    3. “… weeding out the Common Purpose crew and sack them all, without pension, for criminally aiding and abetting the preponderance of knife crime on the streets of the UK.” – you’re too soft, Grizz. Make the buggers clear up the mess they have created by getting out there on foot patrol, armed with a stick, to sort it out & apprehend the perpetrators. Once that’s done, they can be rehabilitated.

      1. You’re spot-on, Paul. Would you care to be put in charge of the discipline to get this sorted out? I’ll promote you to full Oberst. 💂‍♂️

    4. I like the quaint idea of superior police officers supporting their underlings.
      Sooooooooooooo twentieth century.

      1. I know It’s almost as quaint as nurses obeying Matron, being scrupulously clean and attentive, and not needing degrees.

        1. Giving bed baths and oral hygiene, preventing bed sores, feeding patients, noting bowel movements …..

          1. I was taught how to do all that as an 11-year old St John’s Ambulance Brigade cadet. I still have my Home Nursing stickyfoot.

    1. This is potentially more catastrophic than Wuhan’s COVID-19 release which was not contained early enough to prevent a global pandemic. Whilst we have had some degree of COVID-19 control through human social distancing and the wearing of masks, the prospect of requiring the UK importation of an insect borne disease for which there is no treatment and moreover capable of decimating UK food sources is certainly both alarming outrageous.☠️😱

    2. Yes, it is.
      It is an absolute right to prevent diseases being imported, especially to an island!

      1. But Brussels forbade Britain preventing the import of diseased ash trees, and the May government just rolled over and allowed them in.

        Around here ash dieback is now very noticeable.

          1. Yes, and do you think by acquiescing to Brussels our politicians were doing the right thing?

          2. Certainly not. May (& her pal Rudd) was a ‘wrong ‘un’ as they say….

  42. 321530+ up ticks,
    May one ask,
    Senior train / coach tickets are these to be honoured by say, extending their expiry date by three months ?

  43. I heard from someone local that the rave was organised (probably from Bristol- it’s that side) so that the dealers could sell their drugs which they have not been able to during lockdown.
    What are the police thinking of? And did their soft appeasing approach during the Bristol BLM event enbolden this lot to risk an illegal rave?
    Can they not see how disastrous it has been for the police to sit back in the rioting Dem states in 🇺🇸?
    *
    I still have a migraine today.

    1. Their excuse was “We didn’t want to endanger public safety’. Not a word about the mental health of the nearby residents.

    2. Just ask the question were any of the organisers arrest and their equipment seized, of course not!
      I understand the rave was advertised earlier in July, there was no excuse for the police not to be prepared. Perhaps going up Swainswick hill on their knees hindered them!
      No chance sleeping soundly in your bed with Avon & Somerset Police on the job.

    3. Perhaps the police recognised the dangers of not allowing the drug trade to function…the implications of that would be too depressing.
      We have effectively no law and order now – anyone can get round it via a show of strength, or the flimsiest reason, usually “there were no witnesses.”

      2. I wonder if that is part of the picture in all the rioting,& looting & chaos in the Dem run city states 🇺🇸?
        That is, the ‘normal’ sub-culture of selling & using drugs hasn’t been possible in lockdown?
        People going off their heads without their drugs, and others looting because desperate for money?
        It’s not just the recreational drugs either, is it…I heard the fentanyl & opioid crisis is still ongoing…

        1. I think most of us are totally oblivious to the criminal underworld that is operating alongside us, hiding in plain sight.
          Rural criminals also appear to have no fear of the police these days, and it’s easy to see why. We’re coasting along on the fact that most people are law-abiding, but in fact there is very little protection.

          1. Rural crime is rampant because there are no rural police. It’s very rare to see even a police car, let alone a bobby on the beat in these here parts. It’s a case of, if you want something solved, do it yourself – then the urban PCC goes berserk at “vigilantism”.

          2. It’s getting serious though. In the last year, the roof was stolen from a church near us; the farmer next door was robbed – they drilled out locks on the gates to drive in – and a house sign was vandalised. The owners of the vandalised house sign are popularly believed to have taken revenge upon the person they (wrongly) believed to be responsible, by stealing their house sign.
            This is more crime than has happened in the last thirty years in the area.

  44. Many links form a chain. Do the people who have censored the Black Country flag also think that when they click from one webpage URL to another then another that this evokes connotations of slavery?

    2. 321530+ up ticks,
      Morning Msk,
      Sack a few decision makers of that ones ilk will soon put a stop to that sh!te.
      The submissive campaign regarding the herd is proving successful at a time when the herd should be united in
      putting the knee onto the neck of the submissive pcism & appeasement stranglehold.

    1. Our “world beating” track and trace COVID- 19 system is apparently not complying with the Data Protection Act. { BBC Radio 4 News this morning]
      More grist to the mill of the anti- Boris brigade.

      1. I would like to think that the emergency powers would have included some wide-ranging, short term suspension of some laws and regulations…obviously not.

        1. Like you Hugh, I was thinking that the Government could use Force Majeure to alter some Legislation to deal with COVID-19 and possibly Illegal immigration. When I looked up Force Majeure a few minutes ago I found that we are not alone. Are the Civil Servants not advising the Government on such possible actions or is the Government ignoring such advice?

          1. If not, why not?? I suspect that both government and snivel serpents were – and still are – asleep at the wheel. Even given the great urgency of the developing pandemic, it does seem as though obvious opportunities were missed. The enquiry, if ever it is started, will surely run and run. Wish I could be confident that ‘lessons will be learnt’ but I’m certainly not putting any money on it.

    2. BoJo becomes Bozo….

      Clucking bell – the enquiry is done and dusted and it ain’t looking pretty.

    3. It’s not a matter of hindsight. It is a failure to understand and implement a crisis management response. A process of which businesses have lots of experience. “Act fast, go big, overwhelmingly big”.
      Or, in terms a politician might understand, “if you see big wave coming, get off the beach (don’t wait, and don’t stand watching)”.

    4. BoJo becomes Bozo….

      Clucking bell – the enquiry is done and dusted and it ain’t looking pretty.

    5. He didn’t work weekends. Neither would I.

      He didn’t chair meetings. Oh, I’m sorry. Is he a virologist? A medical doctor? Could he really have contributed anything useful?

    2. I can recommend StormClear anti-fogging sticks available on Ebay or other outlets.

          1. Except that we don’t have to go shopping except for essentials. They will, eventually, realise the error of their ways.

        3. This week I will be stocking up.
          After that, dairy and fruit and veg only.
          Sit back for the next few weeks and watch.

          1. That’s be back indoors then and online shopping. Not quite the response TPTB wanted, I think. I found myself having to wear one for the first time last week.. Awful, awful thing. What with glasses and hearing aids… And I’m not wearing one of those welder’s mask things.

    3. I can recommend StormClear anti-fogging sticks available on Ebay or other outlets.

    4. I can recommend StormClear anti-fogging sticks available on Ebay or other outlets.

  47. Communication is a wonderful thing… I have a credit card account with 3 family cards. Asked for one of the cards to be cancelled, so the daft buggers have closed the whole ccount! Not the inde at all – they didn’t query what I meant, just went ahead anyway. Now trying to get it reopened… :-((

    1. I remember, when working, receiving a memo from my boss’s boss that had been ‘cascaded’ from head office. It was full of acronyms and gobbledygook. It said please read this communication from Head Office. It was impossible to understand.

      I wrote back saying it wasn’t a communication it was an email and it would only be a communication when the recipient understood what it said. She didn’t appreciate my comment and told my boss to have a word with me.

        1. One hundred percent support. That used to be one of the mandatory textbooks at Staff College, sadly no longer. I still have mine and refer to it often.

        3. My father got me to read it when I was in the Sixth Form. He also pointed me towards Fowler.

          1. As you know, I didn’t have a formal education in English grammar so I set out to teach myself . I found Henry Watson Fowler (and his brother, Francis George Fowler) to be the most stimulating authors on the subject.

      2. We used to have a marketing VP like that. Without exception we would receive numerous emails every day, all full of the latest buzzwords but little else.

        Most sales folks had his email redirected to junk.

    1. At least your crowd are working on phase 2 of your plan.

      Our Canadian lot have ordered enough syringes, alcohol wipes and other paraphernalia to inoculate everyone twice. No vaccine, just the syringes.

    2. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m not rushing to get vaccinated:

      https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/history/narcolepsy-flu.html

      Narcolepsy Following Pandemrix Influenza Vaccination in Europe

      An increased risk of narcolepsy was found following vaccination with Pandemrix, a monovalent 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine that was used in several European countries during the H1N1 influenza pandemic. Narcolepsy is a chronic neurological disorder caused by the brain’s inability to regulate sleep-wake cycles normally. This risk was initially found in Finland, and then some other European countries also detected an association. Most recently, scientists at the United Kingdom’s (UK) Health Protection Agency (HPA) have found evidence of an association between Pandemrix and narcolepsy in children in England. The findings are consistent with studies from Finland and other countries.

      Just another of those nice flu vaccines that one could have.

      1. Very interesting.
        The only time I gave in and had one flu vaccine, I didn’t sleep well..was wakeful & slept very lightly.
        Also had constant snivels & increased rheumatism.

        1. It seems that a lot of people who’ve had the flu vaccine have been unwell afterwards. I’ve had the flu once, in my early twenties, and a flu vaccine once, in my early thirties. Had neither since, and don’t intend to rush to get this latest one.

          1. I don’t trust the vaccine because I don’t trust the disease – I don’t trust that it is entirely natural.
            Therefore there must be degrees of unnatural manipulation in unknown territory with possibly unforeseen results.

          2. Those are my thoughts, too, Rosie. It is the unnaturalness of it all that is so worrying. And how do we know they are not putting something else in these vaccines, how do we know it is what it purports to be? The word ‘vaccine’ is starting to sound very sinister to me.

          3. I’ve had flu three times in my life – the last time was 25 years ago. So far, I’ve never bothered with the flu vaccine. Not decided whether I’ll have the CV one when it’s available. I’m not anti- vax – I have the ones needed for travel.

    1. My comment on the Daily Mail did not get through for some reason. I said,

      “Bombings and stabbings do not help community relations either.”

      1. Don’t forget your local community Muslim groomer and raper who’s doing his best to normalise what he does and fit in.

      2. Disgusting!! Discrimination against the first syllable of your name! Demand reparations!

      3. Look, if you’re goingto go around stating facts that aren’t popular then you’re just a troublemaker. Those police will be round soon to ensure ‘community relations’ are upheld by making sure you’re reducated.

  50. Did anyone post the Telegraph article about the 200,000 deaths due to lockdown and not the CV19 virus?

    2. Does this mean lockdown alone could possibly have caused up to 160,000 extra deaths?

        1. Don’t worry Ims2.

          There are regular intakes of migrants at Dover.

          Soon fill all vacant houses.

        2. So the answer to the question in my comment is:

          “Yeah, but no, but yeah, but no, but …”

    3. More than 200,000 people could die from the impact of lockdown and protecting the NHS, an official government report shows.

      As national restrictions were imposed, experts from the Department of Health, the Office of National Statistics (ONS), the government’s Actuary Department and the Home Office forecast the collateral damage from delays to healthcare and the effects of recession arising from the pandemic response.

      It estimated that in a reasonable worst case scenario, around 50,000 people would die from coronavirus in the first six months of the pandemic, with mitigation measures in place.

      But in the report published in April they calculated that up to 25,000 could die from delays to treatment in the same period and a further 185,000 in the medium to long term – amounting to nearly one million years of life lost.

      It comes amid debate over the easing of lockdown restrictions, with some arguing it is both too early to lift the measures and that they should have been imposed earlier, while other politicians have questioned whether the cure is worse than the disease.

      The Prime Minister has stressed his desire to avoid a return to national lockdown.

      In an interview in The Telegraph, Boris Johnson likened the measures to a nuclear deterrent, and said he did not want to impose blanket restrictions again, or think it would be necessary.

      The UK’s National Statistician, Prof Sir Ian Diamond also said on Sunday that there had been no uptick in cases since lockdown measures had been eased but warned the nation would need to be vigilant come the autumn.

      Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), and Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific advisor (GSCA) have both expressed concern that the damage from lockdown could be severe.

      The report came to light after Sir Patrick told MPs at the Science and Technology Select Committee last week that calculations had been made to predict the number of deaths caused by the effects of lockdown, which was announced on March 23.

      The report produced in the following weeks warned there could be 500 more suicides during the first wave, and between 600 and 12,000 more deaths per year resulting from a recession which had a significant impact on GDP.

      They also forecast around 20 more deaths this year through domestic violence, and an increase in the number of accidents at home – in the ‘low tens.’ In total, under a worst case scenario, around quarter of a million people would die because of the pandemic response.

      The figures were based on 75 per cent of elective care being cancelled over six months without significant reprioritisation when things returned to normal.

      The number of elective hospital appointments dropped to around a quarter of usual levels in March and April and had only recovered to around half by the beginning of July.

      Charities have increasingly warned that delaying diagnosis, pausing surgery and postponing treatment is a ‘ticking time bomb’ which will cause long-term harm.

      Figures released by Cancer Research UK today show that as of May 30, there were more than 180,000 people in England waiting for an endoscopy – a rise of 44 per cent from the same time in 2019.

      And around 2.3 million fewer tests that help diagnose cancer have taken place since lockdown compared to the same time last year, and 51 per cent more people are waiting for colonoscopies.

      Michelle Mitchell, Cancer Research UK’s chief executive, said: “Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on cancer patients and services across the UK.

      “In the early weeks of lockdown urgent referrals plummeted, screening programmes were paused, surgeries were cancelled, clinical trials were put on hold, and existing health inequalities were exacerbated.

      “It’s now more crucial than ever that the Government works closely with the NHS to ensure it has the staff and equipment it needs to clear the mounting backlog and get services back on track before this situation gets even worse – especially in the event of a second wave.”

      The report points out that nearly 500,000 people would have died from coronavirus if the virus had been allowed to run through the population unchecked. And there would have been more than a million non-Covid deaths resulting from missed treatment if the health service had been overwhelmed in dealing with the pandemic.

      But charities said more should have been done to get medical care up and running quickly when it became clear early on that the NHS was not stretched. Nightingale Hospitals in particular were largely empty even at the peak of the pandemic and have only recently been reassigned for normal care.

      Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation and Consultant Cardiologist, said it was a priority to restore heart and circulatory care: “This report is a sobering wake-up call for governments and the NHS across the UK to urgently restore and maintain care for people with medical conditions including heart and circulatory diseases.

      “Although the latest statistics have shown fewer excess deaths in recent weeks, people are still experiencing delays in accessing vital treatment and care, which could make them sicker and ultimately lead to more deaths from both undiagnosed and existing conditions.

      “The growing and significant backlog must be tackled to prevent a tidal wave of illness overwhelming the NHS whilst it’s fighting Covid-19.”

      Last week, the University of Oxford found that 5,000 fewer heart attack patients had attended hospital from March to May, many of whom could have died through lack of medical care.

      The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) also warned that delays in diagnosis and treatment meant many people who would have recovered from their illness were now facing incurable cancer.

      Modelling by the ICR suggests that a three-month delay to surgery alone across all Stage 1-3 cancers could cause more than 4,700 attributable deaths per year in England.

      Clare Turnbull, Professor of Cancer Genomics at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, said: “Lockdown and re-deployment of NHS workers as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is causing significant disruption to cancer diagnosis and management.

      “For patients with cancer, delay of surgery has the real potential to increase the likelihood of advanced disease, with some patients’ tumours progressing from being curable – with near normal life expectancy – to non-curable – with limited life expectancy.

      “At this point, it is crucial to ramp up capacity as quickly as possible to allow cancer services to clear the backlog accumulated during lockdown.”

      Figures released last week from Target Ovarian Cancer showed that more than half of women with ovarian cancer surveyed said their treatment had been affected by coronavirus.

      Annwen Jones OBE, Chief Executive of Target Ovarian Cancer, said: “It’s hard to overstate the difficulties faced by women with ovarian cancer during this pandemic. We must not let them down as health services recover.

      “It is urgent that we now see comprehensive plans and a timeline for the full restoration of diagnostic, treatment and support services. This is the only way to avoid worse outcomes and a devastating toll on women’s lives.”

      Data compiled by The Telegraph showed that by the end of May there had been more than 23,000 excess deaths in care homes or at home, not linked to Covid-19, since the middle of March.

      There are also fears that the government’s ‘protect the NHS’ message was too effective, with many people staying away from hospitals when they needed urgent medical help.

      In April, Chief Executive of NHS England Sir Simon Stevens was forced to issue an urgent message asking people to come forward if they needed treatment.

      However the report did predict some good news for lockdown. Experts calculated that there would be approximately 200 – 500 fewer road traffic and air pollution deaths, 67 fewer murders and a small drop in work related accidents during the six month first wave period.

      There may also be a positive impact on health as a result of increased physical activity as people take the opportunity to use their one instance of daily exercise, the authors state, although they also warn that some may become more sedentary whilst staying home. And there is some evidence that recessions can improve mortality rates, possibly saving a few thousands lives.

        1. What are The Times journos saying, Belle, to add to all of this…. it cannot possibly be worserer…. can it?

      2. Thanks for posting this. I was interrupted by MOH coming back with shopping before I could post it myself.

        Are you still suffering from the chest infection?

      3. My father invented a cure for which there was no disease and unfortunately my mother caught it and died of it.

        Victor Borge

    1. That’s one end of it. The other is those being contacted telling the caller to “push off”.

  54. I wondered how long it would take for a lipid lowering medication to become the new wonder drug for treating COVID.
    Having looked up fenofibrate it appears to have worse side effects than statins.
    At least statins might only give you painful muscle spasms whereas with fenofibs you risk getting heart attack or stroke.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/19/cholesterol-lowering-drug-could-see-coronavirus-treated-like/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

  55. Apropos the request by Slammer Perlice Assn to drop any reference to Islamist or Islamic when describing murderers, I understand that the perlice are taking it much further. They want to ban the word “terrorist” – because it is so judgmental. The preferred term will be, “Freedom fighter”……

    (Sarc…!)

          2. GP’s have been found to be moonlighting. They won’t see an NHS patient face to face but will see someone if they pay a fee.

            In Bill’s case i would go private.

          1. Nah – stopped a week ago.

            Chest is fine – it’s the dizziness that is a bore.

          2. Have you asked for a good old fashioned ear syringing at the surgery?

            I know it is now generally frowned upon, but if all else fails, sometimes one must revert to old remedies.

          3. You jest. This is England. Doctors don’t do anything on request any more. And to see one of the practice nurses (who sit all day with no patients) the earliest apptmt is at least two weeks away…

          5. OH did, as he’s gone a bit deaf – he was told they’re not doing stuff like that at the moment.

          6. I use a carefully-applied bic biro top as an ear spoon. Very effective it is, too.

          10. No problem. Just don’t ram it into your head like a spade into soil, and all will be well.
            No appointment needed, too.

          11. I get that.
            I call it wifitis.
            When she asks, I tell her it’s to do with the router.
            };-O

          14. Possibly the after effects.
            I stopped taking mine three weeks ago, just beginning to feel better.
            They left me feeling dizzy and nauseous …drinking lots of water to
            flush them out of my system.
            Never again…

          15. When I had dizziness some years ago, my doctor explained that crystals in the inner ear had moved and performed something called “Epley Maneuver” whereby he moved my head in a set of movements. Very weird but cleared it up immediately. You can look it up, can’t remember exactly what causes it. Hope you feel better soon.

    1. Our politicians have a death wish or a suicide wish for their countries and their citizens. I cannot fathom out why this should be.

        1. But that makes me think of the old story of the man in the desert who is offered a choice between and infinite quantity of gold and jewels which will make him the wealthiest man in the world or a glass of water which will save his life.

          What point is having money if one has turned one’s country into a stinking open sewer?

          1. If you’re a very rich politician you can always “retire” to another country.

          2. Money = Power.

            Most successful businessmen show psychopathic tendencies and megalomania.

        2. But that makes me think of the old story of the man in the desert who is offered a choice between and infinite quantity of gold and jewels which will make him the wealthiest man in the world or a glass of water which will save his life.

          What point is having money if one has turned one’s country into a stinking open sewer?

        3. It’s power. They think they will be in the driving seat.
          And, like Rastus’ notes just below, once you have power (water), then riches will follow. Look at Blair if you don’t believe me.

      2. 321530+ up ticks,
        Afternoon R,
        Look no further than well padded brown envelopes
        for treachery rendered.

      3. Money. Their country and the citizens in it mean far less to many of our politicians – except in the case of countries like Hungary.

      4. They cannot believe that Islam is anything more than a religion similar to many others whose followers live in harmony with their neighbours. Muslims themselves are taken in by the softly softly approach of the leaders of islam but when it enslaves them, they are desperate to leave the land of their birth. Malala Yousafzai is typical of one who has been harmed by the faith but is sill beholden to it. Its a curious attraction because one only has to read up a little and observe events in the world to see that islam does not coexist with other faiths. Our leaders will not accept that the ideology has all the time in the world to infect like a cancer and take over its host. I believe that as Western society has morally degenerated and will not stand and fight for its values, Islam will see us as weak and unprincipled and increase its attacks on our culture and whats left of our values. It is prepared to fight and die for its cause, something that out forefathers did just a generation ago, but the present generation are not.

        1. It is similar to political correctness, which is incapable of accepting that there might be other ways of seeing the world and living in harmony with those who see things differently.

          The question is whether political correctness will conquer Islam or Islam will triumph.
          I know which side I am placing my bet.

          2. I suspect so.

            I’m not suggesting that PC is trying to conquer Islam, merely that at some point the two must clash.

        2. The PTB have an entirely blinkered European view of everything. They cannot comprehend that some tribes are, well, tribal and trying to impose European ideals won’t suit at all.

  58. Awkward….

    How the hell do you even tabulate the degree to which black people have been “exploited”? Why is it permitted—actually, it’s encouraged—to

    compare their conditions to American whites but never to African

    blacks? If you want to see how black people prosper when there aren’t

    any whites around to oppress them, take a gander at Haiti. And if you

    want to bring up a truth that’s so uncomfortable it will make their

    thighs chafe, remind them that blacks already benefit from slavery’s

    legacy merely by living in America. In the painfully truthful words of black writer Walter Williams:

    Though it’s not politically correct to say, today’s

    blacks benefitted immensely from the horrors suffered by our

    ancestors.…Had there not been slavery, and today’s blacks were born in

    Africa instead of the United States, we’d be living in the same poverty

    that today’s Africans live in and under the same brutal regimes.

    We’re supposed to believe that all whites benefited tremendously from the black slave trade, despite the documented fact that not only did black slavery suppress wages and destroy opportunity for the vast majority of Southern whites, it was designed to do precisely that.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/from-asheville-to-trashville/

  59. A Middle Eastern website has described Geordies as having a “penchant
    for violence” & Newcastle Upon Tyne as a “remote tribal community”
    which is worse than Civil War stricken Yemen.

    I think thats extremly harsh and unfair!

    There are in fact some lovely parts in Yemen, especially down by the
    coast…. 🙂

      1. When shipbuilding was a major industry in South Shields many Asians worked in the Shipyards. My great- great grandfather worked in the shipyards in the early 19th century and my great- grandfather was born in South Yields but moved up to Edinburgh later in life.

    2. They were right about no-one being able to understand them, though.

      I remember an interview with Eric Burden many years ago in which he was asked about his love for New Orleans. He said that in Newcastle it was always windy, cold and wet, with rain that came at you horizontally straight from the North Sea, and N’awlins was the complete opposite.

      p.s. as as for the tribal community bit, not in the same league as Scousers.

  60. Latest re the rave:
    ‘Police officers have arrested a person, seized five vehicles, a generator and other equipment after dispersing a huge illegal rave near Bath.’
    I guess on balance the organisers thought it worth it…

    2. My eldest brother gave me a driving lesson on Charmey Down Airfield. The car was a Riley 1.5 with twin carbs.

      The drug traders often stage impromptu raves where ‘music’ is a front to drug selling. They choose venues which are close to motorways as is this site near Bath (M4 & A46). This enables mass arrivals and easy escape.

      Every year the same sort hold a Cambridge Rock Festival in a muddy field just off the M11 on the turn off to Coton. They employ aggressive private ‘traffic control’ unmonitored by Cambridge constabulary, obstructing free passage of the highway. All you see are black men carrying holdalls and stupid Wokes wearing plastic bags over their shoes as they wade through the mud. The supposed music is execrable.

      It is everything about drug pushers.

      1. Pity there are no fighter aircraft on that airfield to take off, fly low, and give the entire ‘rave’ a good strafing.

      2. Indeed, John.
        I don’t suppose the soppy Avon police arrested any of the dealers…

      3. Another trick the pushers have in their repertory is to bury drugs well in advance of the festival.
        And they bury dog poo on top of the cache, because supposedly sniffer dogs don’t like that.

      1. Both cities have high neoliberal & labour support especially among the young& universities. Oh and greenies. Lots here.

  61. 321530+ up ticks,
    The johnson governance party have kicked back the “protect the statues / monuments petition” I believe it is on the grounds that a majority of politico’s do not deem it necessary.
    I honestly believe that a very large super jail ( 3 off) is well in order to be constructed in place of HS2.

      1. If the MSM gave Biden the Trump treatment he would come across as a senile old goat, ranting dribbling drooling and raving.

        Heads they win tails you lose.

        In some ways I would be delighted if the USA got Biden and all the BLM Democratic garbage and really suffered as a result.

        The problem is that that would hurt the West as a whole.

  63. Manchester police to investigate swastika scrawled on officer’s belongings. 20 July 2020.

    Greater Manchester police have launched an investigation after a swastika was found scrawled on an officer’s belongings. It is suspected a colleague of the officer was responsible, police said.

    The incident, which occurred on Sunday, was reported to GMP’s leadership team, who declared it a hate crime and a critical incident.

    Assistant chief constable Mabs Hussain described the act as “absolutely disgraceful and disgusting”, adding that it was being treated “incredibly seriously” by detectives and GMP’s professional standards team.

    It’s like watching a very bad play acted by hams of Olympic stature. One wonders if they go to bed spouting virtue memes in place of prayers!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/20/manchester-police-to-investigate-swastika-scrawled-on-officers-belongings

    1. An SS memorial in Canada (we have one?) was defaced at the weekend. Police have revised the hate crime designation and are now just treating it as vandalism.

      Although it was in a national news feed, I must check this out, I cannot believe that the woke Trudeau would allow anything SS.

    2. The kind of nonsense that would have earned a reprimand back in Normal.

    3. Mabs Hussain? Very “British”, that. At least it is in today’s “anything goes as British” slackness.

      1. Formerly of Yorkshire police, now ACC or similar at Manchester. Is he OK, well, think Rotherham…

    4. I thought the swastika was a traditional good luck sign?
      (Admittedly, it seemed to be of limited value to Mr. Schickelgruber.)

      1. Afternoon Anne. The left facing swastika is a very old religious symbol from various Asian religions. The right facing Nazi version is a relative newcomer!

    5. He did it himself – guaranteed.

      Remember: ‘hate crimes’ which involve swastkas are almost always hoaxes. Mostly the alleged ‘victim’ is the perpetrator and if not the perp is at least of the same ethnic/religious/political affiliation as the ‘victim’. In fact almost all ‘hate crimes’ which involve no witnesses are false flags. Swastikas, nooses etc.

      In the unlikely the event the perp is identified they will bleat they were raising awareness of a real problem or some such nonsense and usually go unpunished.

      There used to be a website that listed these things, probably got cancelled in the Current Year.

    1. Well at the city and state they sat back trying the softly softly approach instead of breaking up the riots. They ignored Trumps hard talk instead of trying to work with him to close the riots down. The complete lack of bipartisan efforts looks good on the US doesn’t it.

      In other news, BLM protestors in Toronto are very angry because the police dared to arrest some yobs throwing paint at statues. They are demanding that all charges are dropped. Ah well, demand on.

  65. DM Story

    Meghan Markle’s mother Doria Ragland has moved into $18 million mansion with her daughter and Prince Harry – where she ‘reads’ to Archie and makes his ‘all-organic’ baby food, sources tell Us Weekly

    Meghan Markle’s mother Doria Ragland, 63, is continuing to live with her and Prince Harry, a source told UsWeekly – making it the most time she has spent with her grandson since he was born.’

    I actually got on extremely well with Caroline’s parents – but they would not have wanted to live with us any more than we wanted to live with them

    Somebody should send Harry this song to cheer him up!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EN5eJf5h_k

    1. Sunbathers
      flee Bournemouth beach as massive fire breaks out in three beach huts
      and rages up the clifftops towards homes and businesses

      The pictures show no fleeing – they are all just lying around on the beach.

    1. Lovely! One of my favourites! Enjoy several – one must keep hydrated, you know!

      1. Under normal circumstances I’d agree Grizz, however ‘John Barleycorn’ beers just don’t suit the hot weather. I keep a small supply of wheat beers for clammy weather. It’s 22.16 and still 27C.

      1. He will have done very well when he puts the Colston statue back in place. And creates a big stink with the local cops about arresting the vandals.

        1. And the local cops not stopping the latest rave because they were outnumbered!

      2. Really? Completely headless chicken approach to the statue being toppled and then platitudes about democratic? decision by the citizens of Bristol! The only thing he did right was taking the ghastly woke thing down but to say it didn’t have planning permission….!

    3. I wonder if “offensive books about African inferiority” includes The Bell Curve. Waterstones have just e-mailed to say my copy is ready to collect. It’s one of those books that I want in my possession before the burning begins, regardless of how long it takes before I get around to actually reading it.

      1. Good for you Sue! Have you still got a copy of Little Black S****? I have!

        1. I used to love those books. I was fond of him. His mother was funny, & very forgiving.

        4. Was it on this site that someone used to use the pseudonym ‘Little Black Censored’? What has happened to him or her?

        5. I am a Sambo. True. I was told this fact, to my face, by a black Ethiopian at a school I attended in 2012 where I attempted to learn the Swedish language.

          “You are a Sambo,” he said. And he was correct in every detail.

          Sambo Grizzly.

          “Sambo”, in Swedish, is the standard term for unmarried people who cohabit.

          1. Our late & much- loved cat, Sam was black, and often known as Sambo.

            I was told once by a lefty friend that it was very unPC. Didn’t stop me calling him Sambo.

    4. The abuse he’s received is utterly wrong. It’s absurd but sadly typical of the bovine morons pushing this agenda.

      I don’t care if he sprays himself purple every morning. It simply does not matter what colour he is. To be the first black mayor is silly. The first competent, effective mayor might be something to praise. The first one to cut taxes, certainly, but black? No.

      The statue issue is simple to solve. Colston returns to his rightful place and those who vandalise it, attempt to take it down, anything get shot. I’ll be nice and start with rubber bullets.

      However what really bothers me is the ‘meeting regarding billions of pounds’. Half a million people live in Bristol. A billion is a thousand million. What could it possibly be wasting two thousand quid per person on? Public finances are so utterly out of control that there’s no rational balance any more. No concept that, actually, this is simply waste.

  72. I am off – TTFN. I’ll look in sporadically. Tying to be a brave boy (as all men do, when a bit under the weather…!)

    Enjoy your evening.

  74. Evening, all. The first of the week’s major spends was accomplished today; I took my car in for its MoT and annual service. It passed, thankfully. Sometime this week the sweep will install some wires to stop the birds getting in the chimneys and, weather permitting, the house paint will take place. Then, on Thursday, the chap is coming to service the oil boiler. It’s all go!

          1. They hadn’t nested as it happens, but there was a kamikaze bird who had flown down, got trapped and expired. The wires are to stop that happening. Jackdaw lives matter – as long as they aren’t in my drawing room!

    2. Busy!
      We just had our house painted outside, and just finishing ff the deails on Firstborn’s (window frames &c).
      TBH, somewhat fed up with paint…

      1. That’s why I’m getting someone in to do it. I could, theoretically, do it myself (I have a City and Guilds qualification in decoration, after all), but I’d rather pay somebody else than have to do it myself.

          2. My knees are fine. But the prostheses are useless on ladders. I basically have to grab each ankle in turn, and haul the foot onto the next rung.

          3. That sounds like a damn good excuse to get someone else on the job, Geoff!
            Roof work last week had me all stiff & tense at the beginning, all relaxed & walking around on the tiles by Saturday.
            This morning, looked at the house from the hill, looks great! All shiny & fresh! Mega sense of achievement! :-))

          4. Brill! Occasionally need access to the loft. Have achieved that by fixing the ladder at a much shallower angle. Outside, I reached the cooker hood louvre by placing two ladders side by side. If memory serves, Hoppy had a method of climbing ladders which involved jettisoning the prostheses. Might give it a whirl. It certainly works if I’m working on stuff at floor level…

          5. I live in a loft!

            Swedish houses don’t have lofts. The upper floor has sloping ceilings and form part of the living space. My house is a converted cow shed (has also been a cobblers and a blacksmith’s shop in its time). My living room, bedroom and bathroom are all in the “loft”.

        2. Smart move.
          We paid for our place, but Firstborn doesn’t have the readies, so we are helping him out with labour (and, for a time, it’s fun!). A paint sprayer that can apply ordinary housepaint with no thinning has speeded up the job enormously – 1/2 an hour on the spray gun to do one side of the house, 2 hours to shifting the mobile scaffolding to allow the 1/2 hour to take place. Still very fast. Good finish, too.

          1. Fortunately it’s only the window frames, soffits, conservatory and doors that need doing. The house itself is unpainted brick. Plus the garage doors and the front gate, of course. It shouldn’t take too long to do once we get a decent spell of dry weather.

          2. Both ours and Firstborn’s houses are totally clad in (verttical) wood panels. Lots of surface to paint! Joy! And wash every spring… less joy.

          3. I wouldn’t have a clapperboard house, or one that was rendered and painted – far too much maintenance!

          4. Almost impossible to avoid wood panelling in Norway, unless you live in an apartment block. Same in Sweden, afaik. Brick or stone house is very unusual.

  76. 321530+ up ticks,
    I bet you the bloody vegans are behind this latest issue, Beefeaters of the tower under threat of redundancies, that will be yet another part of the furniture erased.
    Divert some overseas aid wonga.

  77. Damn, Blast and Buggeration.
    My enjoyable walk last night, Barton on Humber to Barrow Haven & back, was not only a bit much for the knackered ligaments in my right hip, but it’s triggered an aching back.
    I drove to Barrow Haven this morning and did a 4 mile circular to New Holland & back, but it’s knackered me.
    I’m parked up less than a quarter mile from the Crown & Anchor at Tetney Lock, just South of Cleethorpes, and that’s the most walking I’m doing tonight!

    The pub is very pleasant and serves a couple of decent ales. I’ve not tried the food, but from what I’ve seen of it, it looks very nice.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ac83315ffed8ced1ec930734548fd30306c8cf98ffdef862877662efba47df2d.jpg

    I had a reminder that Curlews are not just moorland birds:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5c7b5a7ca70b3658528acf66b168e8fd4ea0d318baba787782ce2c8bbb9e3ada.jpg

    Surprised to see the old ferry pier at New Holland is not only still in use, loading cement instead of passengers, but also still has the old station platforms at the end!!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c348e0c509bdafa370a0cba1ccf6d6a6ca3ff894c5e41f6521d1d84163b88563.jpg

    Had a pause at Thornton Abbey. Here’s some of the detail from the beautiful Gate House.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0ec26140c01f681f6835e6b05e169b3f684ab1694ef1c599ab3c2409e92a19d6.jpg

      1. It was a reasonable (blond) pint when manufactured by Charles Wells; however, the quality deteriorated when the brewery merged with Youngs.

        1. Young’s produced good beer until they sold out to Wells and closed the Ram Brewery in Wandsworth. The beer now produced in Bedford is nowhere near as good as the original.

          1. Charles Wells have never produced a decent beer imho. Whoever thought that Youngs products would transfer to Bedford successfully need stringing up. I miss them very much and won’t drink the Wells stuff.

    2. One can only step back in awe gazing at the beauty of that enormous gatehouse , so famous , but so little written about it .. The architecture is unbelievable . How on earth did they erect statues like that over 500 years ago?

      1. Scaffolding. Rollers. Big pointy sticks. manpower. It’s surprising the size of blocks of rock you can move around with pretty basic equipment. The timber scaffolding still remains inside Salisbury cathedral spire. The pieces of pre-modern construction that amaze me are the castles and such like built right above a sheer cliff face with hundreds of feet drop below – I can’t imagine how people could work next to such an abyss usually on an uneven rocky outcrop.

        1. All cathedral spires consist of permanent oak framing upon which stone slabs are laid.

          It is worth remembering that our mediaeval ancestors were as clever as us but were deficient merely in technological advancement, and not by much.

          At the base of a cathedral spire you will normally find a capstan viz. a large diameter wheel similar to a ship’s wheel but fitted horizontally. This was used to winch heavy materials up through the tower to enable the roof and spire to be completed.

          The finest capstan winch I have seen is in the Tower of London. This started life as a mediaeval lifting device but was beefed up in Tudor times with a system of ropes and gears.

          We should never underestimate the creativity and application of our forefathers.

          Edit: Coincidentally I have a copy of Sir Christopher Wren’s survey report to the Dean and Chapter following his examination of the structure of Salisbury Cathedral. He advised the insertion of iron ‘chains’ which were heavy wrought iron sections (think 4” x 4”) inserted through the walls of the tower to arrest the spread of the tower walls.

          A similar system exists at Norwich Cathedral. Each iron chain section comprises three pieces such that they could be inserted between the walls with friction joints (serrated surface joints) and sweated wrought iron bindings internally at the overlaps. Externally there are the most enormous nuts with lead coverings.

          I found Wren’s advice to be the most literate and economical use of the English language. As befits an architectural genius, the man was also a scientist, astronomer and eloquent writer.

          I sometimes question how far we as a nation have fallen both in ambition, erudition and humanity.

          1. Fascinating! If I recall, a similar chain is used to react the horizontal forces at the junction of St. Paul’s dome and its tower.

          2. That is correct. In his report to the Dean and Chapter at Salisbury Wren advises that the wrought iron should be obtained from a dockyard and not some local smithy.

          3. There’s another advantage of wrought iron. It doesn’t corrode as easily as cast iron or steel, and so the (expanding) corrosion products will do less damage to the stonework over time.

    3. Amazing they escaped the Puritans’ iconoclasm. Perhaps they are too high up and Cromwell’s crew didn’t have a ladder 🙂

      1. I noticed that in Ely cathedral.
        You could see how high the iconoclasts’ reach – and enthusiasm – could stretch.

  78. Goodnight, all. I am going to try to get some sleep tonight. At least, tomorrow I don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn regardless of when I manage to drop off.

  79. Beethoven … poor man . I hate the dissection of his presonality and family.

    I would prefer to concentrate on his art, his genius , and how he was inspired to write his music.

    1. I do agree. Some of the criticism by the women commentators in particular was clearly slanted and biased. You cannot judge people in the nineteenth century by the Neo-Liberal woke standards of today.

      1. Why not Ludwig? They are doing it to everyone else.

        I agree, you cannot really judge actions from one generation ago by todays standards, let alone nineteenth century.

    1. The BBC has abandoned our last interviewer of political integrity; WTF should we continue to pay ?

        1. I’m not still paying, Elsie; but I expect to be billed before the end of the month …

    1. Bert: “I heard the Archbastard has banned Church services.”

      Ada: ” No – he’s only banned singing”

      1. Bert: “I heard the Archbastard has banned Church services.”

        Ada: “Only for Christians”.

        1. Just home from a meeting in Church – prolly (©You) illegal. Our first (and possibly last) service since Mothering Sunday is the funeral of a local ret’d Lt. Col., next Tuesday. His widow sang, until recently, in the choir. Hopefully she’ll be able to return – dunno which year though. No singing allowed. Recorded music only, which I’ve been discussing with the deceased’s son, who is very senior in the military, but must remain nameless. I’m not allowed to play the organ (I think the Rector is over-egging this), yet there’s a piper at the start and end of the service. I’ve suggested that we insist the piper drinks at least a gallon of hand sanitiser before he starts…

          Mentioned the new Abp of York to the Rector. Apparently, he’s always been a lefty twat. That’s what you need to progress in the Church of Wokeland. Hear Damian Thompson and Gavin Ashenden’s views on +Ebor, here.

          1. We had a soloist (right by the altar and thus very socially distanced from us plebs in the nave) while we took the sacrament on Sunday and the organist has been playing for the last two Sundays. It can be done – all it needs is the will.

          2. Trouble is that clergy have sworn an oath of obedience to their Bishop. Our Rector is quite right-leaning, and regards the current restrictions as excessive, yet at today’s meeting, he was the only one to arrive in a face nappy. Go figure.

          3. I met a friend from church in town today. He was wearing a face nappy and complained, when I mentioned I hadn’t seen him in church, that he thought it was “far too early” to be holding services. He seemed petrified of catching the lurgy, which could be on “surfaces, clothes, anything”. We had to agree to differ, because I reminded him that the only certainties in life were death and taxes 🙂

          7. I can see absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t play the organ. (Singing, yes we may be stymied for a while). You’re separated from the congregation and not blowing into the thing; what on earth is their thought process? Keep buggering on!

          9. Ah, I’d have posted the link to that podcast if I knew how to do it! Apparently Gavin had 30 minutes notice. I think he did brilliantly as ever.
            I phoned in this evening to a parish visitors meeting and dutifully took minutes but I think not meeting face to face when we’re a group of nine maximum is stuff and nonsense.
            The vicaress mentioned that she hasn’t seen me back in church and I ducked out of confrontation by just saying that I’ve been going elsewhere and hurriedly adding that that’s a conversation to be had at another time. Cowardly of me. I’ve got to tell her at some point. I won’t do woke and my disgust and discontent has been bubbling under the surface for a long time.

          10. The “difficult converstaion”. Best bite the bullet, plan what to say, and get it over with. Excise the pus, and things get better.
            If you need / want my advice, of course.
            I hate these things, being conflict-averse.

          11. You could ask her why she thinks you haven’t been. It could be good for her soul to do some self examination.

    2. Ada: “How was church?”

      Bert: “I’m not sure…
      We did the usual:
      ‘spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch’
      But the new deaconess added, ‘ you’re no longer Christians, Islam’s your crotch’
      I must say I didn’t scratch”

        1. Ungala, Tarzan. Lone Ranger’s companion say “White man speak with forked tongue, Kemo Therapi”.

          :-))

  85. 321530+ up ticks,
    The invasion continues on a daily basis seemingly 200 crossed on Sunday
    500 in a week.
    This is even with priti pet, standing on top of Shakespeare cliff shouting “go back you can’t come in” as she has been doing for months all to no avail.
    She is really due a clappin at 8 o’clock, that is clappin irons for treachery.
    The peoples supporting / voting for these mass uncontrolled immigration parties must surely hate these Isles.

  90. Just watching the BBC News, for the first time in ages, and they have Andrew Lloyd Webber rattling on about his inability to open The Palladium (and presumably other of his venues).

    I remember when you could go to any number of West End theatres to see plays. Thanks to Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh all that is on offer are ruddy musicals. At least the bloody Mousetrap was already out of business.

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