Monday 20 November: Conservative voters will not forgive or forget how they were betrayed

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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535 thoughts on “Monday 20 November: Conservative voters will not forgive or forget how they were betrayed”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolk. today’s story

    Children

    A husband and wife have four sons.
    The oldest three are tall with red hair and light skin while the youngest son is short with black hair and dark eyes.
    The father was on his deathbed when he turned to his wife and said,
    “Darling, before I die, please be totally honest with me: Is our youngest son my child?”
    The wife replied, “I swear on everything that’s holy that he is your son.”
    With that, the husband passed away.
    The wife muttered, “Thank God he didn’t ask about the other three.”

  3. ‘Morning All

    Off to see the senior Fang Wrangler

    Medley before I go

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/722ee8fcb9183a6abdfe65121cc18be484141e341de1dfb8b898dd40446628f6.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0e748d060e66c1774140ea5c54850418664deb853f5a3f262c11be9b2b3769fd.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/98d6ee5afb8ebe6a282d0366f1a0e1161c8867a60aba7aa4cf3954430f2a18a9.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2273eb1f05dd936599bdf7e1e61e1e5bcae7a5bdb6aea93149bbdb8eb7ddc844.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8070b52b34ab50924057aa907c39390b74ae772fbe0e06eec79c7c1b951887f9.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0644b16cc676440d33e6c4f1130db14e74da6e8d0fcc1d6a0d49e37e9dabe25d.png

  4. Good morning all.

    Katy has only been there a few weeks, but already Argentina has elected an Honorary Nottler as its new President!

    Well done Ashes! x

    1. Javier Milei was elected President of Argentina in the recent elections and will take office on December the 10th. I fail to see how you can claim he is an Honorary NoTTLer. Please can you explain?

      2. He has pledged to sweep away the old (corrupt?) guard…..Nottler tendencies at the very least!!! 🙂

    2. It’s certainly going to make life more interesting!! I haven’t been able to make my mind up about him, so I’ll see what he actually does. Sometimes comes across as ultra-rational (as in that Tucker Carlson interview), other times madly pro-American or quite simply mad.

      Car horns beeping in the streets for hours last night.

  6. Conservative voters will not forgive or forget how they were betrayed

    But where do they go now?
    I suppose we should give Labour voters there turn to feel betrayed, it’s only fair.

  8. Good Moaning.

    Blimey. And I felt silly when I left a set of keys in a friend’s barn after picking up yet more boxes of stuff.

    “A stray tool bag dropped by astronauts on an International Space Station (ISS) space walk will be visible from the ground as it flies over Britain on Tuesday.

    The kit bag was lost by Nasa astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara as they fixed a solar panel on the ISS, 250 miles above Earth earlier this month.

    It has already been spotted orbiting the Earth around five minutes ahead of the ISS by astronauts on board the space station.

    But astronomers on the ground have now spotted the bag, shining like a slow moving star as it precedes the trajectory of the ISS by a few minutes.

    Experts say the bag is surprisingly bright and although it is shining slightly below the limit of naked-eye visibility, amateurs should be able to spot it using binoculars or a telescope.”

    2. Wonder if they get billed for the missing tools or even put on an AF252 for “Negligence, misuse & damage”.

      1. “Conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline contrary to section 69 of the Army Act 1955, in that she, at (insert galactic coordinates here)…..”

  10. The West is abandoning Israel. Spiked Melanie Phillips. 20 November 2023.

    Is the West giving up on Israel? Given the scale and the barbarism of the 7 October pogrom, you might have expected more people to rally to Israel’s side. Instead, we have seen vast anti-Israel marches, an explosion in anti-Semitism and a widespread apologism for Hamas’s terror. Many among the establishment, media and political left seem to revel in chastising Israel as it seeks to defend itself from terrorism. What does this lack of solidarity say to people in Israel?

    No the West is abandoning itself Melanie. It is in irreversible decline. Multiculturalism has destroyed its solidarity both ethnically and culturally. Israel is just a side effect. Another generation will see Israel facing a hostile world. A European Caliphate in everything but name and a latinised United States.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/11/19/the-west-is-abandoning-israel/

    1. Good morning mr T. Reminds me of the old saying: ‘Red Light at night shepherds’ delight. Red Light in the morning Shepherds yawning!’

      1. I know it as “Red Light at night shepherds’ delight. Red Light in the morning, Shepherds yawning cottage on fire!’

  12. Morning, all Y’all.
    Snowed overnight. -2C and about 3″ deep.
    Whole place looks so much brighter decked in reflective white. A great improvement, without being pesky and too slippery.

  13. 378929+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Monday 20 November: Conservative voters will not forgive or forget how they were betrayed,

    Many of the current conservative voters have their selective memories geared up already, same with labour / lib/dems.

    I do believe it is a fact that “back to the future” via Tardises / polling booths has been in political play these past forty years.
    Having, in point of fact, made ALL reasons for WW2 defunct.

    RESET heralds the onset of WW3 ALL the ingredients are in place ALL it needs is the peoples majority consent, just a continuation of the voting pattern that has succeeded in
    us in being undeniably, world leaders in the race to the bottom.

    1. I think the next GE will see many come out of their shells, except for a few die-hard Lib/Lab/Con voters.

      The majority of voters are all pissed off with Lib/Lab/Con and Green has been shewn to be a dead duck.

      I wouldn’t be surprised if Reform didn’t win.

  14. Guten Tag Alles,

    A wet start at Castle McPhee, wind going Nor’-West, maybe some sunny periods around mid-day, 9℃≫10℃.

    What we have undergone since Blair won his General Election in 1997 is a revolution. It has picked up pace since the Convid episode of 2020 to the present; in fact you could be forgiven for thinking that Convid was devised to facilitate the revolution. We have had a nominally conservative government since 2010 led first by the fraud Cameron who described himself as the ‘Heir to Blair’ then by a succession of frauds in May, Johnson, Truss (though maybe not her) and Sunak.

    Now it had never occurred to me that England is the only country in the world ever to have reversed a revolution which had been total. One knew about Cromwell, of course, and the Restoration and the Glorious Revolution of 1688/89 but it didn’t strike me that England is the only country in the world ever to have undone what was done.

    It needs doing again but this time by Britain, not just England. Let our favourite historian, Dr David Starkey, explain:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G59FLLpz_bU

    While were at it there is one statue we should topple – that of Cromwell. And rename the Cromwell Road in West London. In fact, remove all trace of the man. Once the counter-revolution is complete we can remove all trace of Blair and all his doings, including devolution, removing his knighthood in the process.

    One can but live in hope.

  15. BBC’s credibility with Jewish community has reached breaking point

    The BBC’s credibility with the Jewish community is reaching a point of no return.

    On a daily basis Britain’s Jews are being harmed through its unbalanced reporting of the Israel-Hamas war and the failure of its senior management to get to grips with it.

    This means that the time has now come for a long overdue independent inquiry into the corporation’s editorial and management failures in its reporting of Israel.

    Really? Mine vanished years ago. We don’t need another fake inquiry. The BBC needs to be shut down so it doesn’t resurrect itself out of General Taxation!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/19/bbcs-credibility-jewish-community-reached-breaking-point/

      1. Morning MacPhee. Jews have a strong traditional adherence to Socialism. They were enthusiastic supporters of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution and until quite recently they were over represented in the Labour Party. This, though it is not acknowledged of course, is the cause of what passes for a great deal of the ant-Semitism in Europe over the last hundred years.

        1. They were more than just enthusiastic supporters of Bolshevism, they were Bolshevism. The Khazarian Jews that is, the Ashkenazi. The Sephardim and those living in the Holy Land knew better.

  16. Good morning all.
    A dull, damp and drizzly 4½°C start this morning.

    The DT & Graduate Son will be travelling down from Dr. Daughter’s in Newcastle today. Expecting them about 2ish so will have a meal ready for them.
    In the meantime, a bit of tidying up and a bit more done to the replacement van.

  17. I’ve been asked by Elsie what makes Argentina’s President Elect an Honorary NottLer?

    The first 10 minutes of the interview with T Carlson (Predominantly in Spanish with English Subtitles) explains it more precisely than I could.

    https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1702442099814342725?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1702442099814342725%7Ctwgr%5E4574bb622ba665f0f95a6f8437332bec06c9b871%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fpreview-argentinas-consequential-election-sunday

      1. Having their own design on the £note is just vanity. It’s not, AFAIK, a separate currency.

          1. Scottish pound: As far as I know. It doesn’t have it’s own interest rate, for example.
            But, I might be out of fate.

          2. Morning Paul, I read somewhere that the only legal currency in Scotland is/are it’s coins

          3. All UK banknotes are legal currency, but only B of E notes are legal tender and then, only in England and Wales.

          4. As in Northern Ireland, a number of banks in Scotland are allowed to issue currency notes. These are (for the time being) expressions of Sterling.

          5. And for every note they issue, the equivalent amount must be deposited with the B of E. These deposits are covered by one million pound notes (giants) and one hundred million pound notes (titans). These remain firmly in the vaults and never see the light of day.

          6. However, the banks concerned are only required to show these notes once a week, after which the funds go back into the money markets. If this were not so, the banks would gain nothing, but would only incur expense, by issuing their own notes.

          7. Working some years ago in Suffolk, I called in to a convenience store on Monday evening, just outside RAF Lakenheath (which, for the uninitiated, is a USAF base). Ahead of me at the counter was a black American lady with two small children in tow. When she paid, it was in dollars, which I found slightly surprising.

            I’d returned that morning from a weekend in Carlisle, where Scottish notes are commonplace. I proffered a Bank of Scotland fiver, and the assistant scowled, saying “What’s this? We don’t accept foreign currency.” or words to that effect. The impasse was resolved by referring her to her supervisor, and I was happily able to eat that evening. If irony meters existed, mine would have broken.

          8. It doesn’t have its own Lender of Last Resort, more importantly. It relies on the Bank of ENGLAND to bail it out.

    3. No need to cry for Argentina any more. Salvation is at hand. I wish we had someone like him.

      1. I used to sing “Don’t laugh at me Venezuela” when the Lloyd Webber/Rice song was in the charts.

        Now everybody is laughing at Venezuela rather than Venezuela laughing at me!

      1. Yes.
        But if you consider such well groomed individuals as Sunak, Macron, Trudeau, etc, they could elect Wurzle Gumage ir Captain Caveman for all I care.

        1. My lovely and talented wife adds haircutting to her many skills but since she has had her problem with the cartilage in her right hand she finds it difficult to wield the scissors and so I am allowing my hair and whiskers to run wild.

          I am taking her to the clinic where they did my hip eight years ago for an operation this Wednesday.

          4. Since haircuts were deemed illegal, I’ve gone DIY. Bought some clippers, and put a wall-mounted telescopic shaving mirror opposite the main bathroom mirror, so I can see what I’m doing round the back. It helps that I’m somewhat follically challenged these days. I had one haircut in January when I was in Carlisle for a funeral. I had taken the clippers, but realised that I had no means of dealing with the clippings, in the hotel room. It was worth it, if only to be told by the barber that my home city was very dangerous – much more so than his native Azerbaijan… 😟

        2. My lovely and talented wife adds haircutting to her many skills but since she has had her problem with the cartilage in her right hand she finds it difficult to wield the scissors and so I am allowing my hair and whiskers to run wild.

          I am taking her to the clinic where they did my hip eight years ago for an operation this Wednesday.

    5. Stunning interview, and this was more than a month before yesterday’s election. He’s a bit of a political zealot, but at least he seems totally sincere. He obviously got the Catholic vote too. Good luck to him but he should watch his back, he says he would give up his life for the cause of freedom.

  21. Good morning all .

    Breezy now, but the gale howled last night . No rain just yet.

    No 1 son ran well in the Wimborne 10k yesterday.

    I will not be watching anymore I’m a Celeb we agreed it was terrible and switched channels.

    1. It’s something we’ve never been tempted to watch. Last night we caught up with Shetland- but the dialogue is not easy to follow.

    2. My good lady watches it.
      As soon as I saw and heard some of the ‘contestants’, one in particular I went to bed.
      It’s pretty obvious that Nigel Farrage will never restore his political career after taking part in this crap. He can’t be that hard up.

      1. He is, apparently, hoping to attract a lot of younger people to follow his political views…

        1. He won’t be able to get a word in edgeways with other contestants voicing their opinions. And constantly moaning.

  22. 378929+ up ticks,

    May one say,

    He would have a real fight on his hands if he came up against the lab/lib/con coalition party.

    Game Changer’ — Geert Wilders’ Populist Anti-Mass Migration Party Surges to Top Place in Dutch General Election Poll

  23. Money is leaking out of the Uk coffers, and now Sunak has promised £millions to sustain starving Africans .. in order to solve the Channel boat crossings , or have I misread his brief?

    SIR – Rwanda was picked by Suella Braverman as a trustworthy, honest and moral destination for illegal immigrants. So it will presumably be only too pleased to return the £140 million if the plan comes to naught.

    Timothy James
    Courteenhall, Northamptonshire

    Here in this village , we have food banks , because carers/ hospitality staff/ those on anticultural wages / and many who are on low wages are genuinely finding everyday life difficult to cope with .

    1. Your homework for today: what was the population of sub-Saharan Africa in 2020, 2000, 1980 and 1960?

  24. I can say with almost absolute certainty that this will be the tip of an iceberg across Europe.
    As to “sources” I’m glad they are confident, I’m not. My emphasis

    Manhunt under way after suspected terror cell cross the Channel to the UK on a small boat then vanish
    Three suspects with links to Islamist groups have vanished after arriving in UK
    Six suspects with links to Islamist groups were initially monitored by the security services in the UK.
    But three have disappeared and are thought to be using fake identity documents, the Sunday Express said.
    The alleged plotters are thought to be planning to damage a government building or launch a cyber attack.
    They are not believed to be plotting a mass casualty terror attack, sources told the newspaper.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12769083/Manhunt-suspected-terror-cell-Channel-UK-small-boat.html

    1. I just hope now and at last our Dopey Wokie politicians Whitehall and the police under stand what is and has been happening and get their collective fingers out.
      Whoops I’ve just remembered how absolutely useless and totally devoid of common sense they are collectively.

    3. I am sure terrorists have been entering our country on a daily basis for this very purpose. Is govt preparing us for a false flag event?

        1. Aided by the Muslipolitan Perlice. Come to think of it, what better place fr terrorists to hide?

        2. Aided by the Muslipolitan Perlice. Come to think of it, what better place fr terrorists to hide?

    5. I think MI5 were actively monitoring about 2000 islamists. A few more will not make any difference to what islam will be capable of.

      1. And no doubt the really “good” ones will have been extremely careful to stay under the radar, so MI5 won’t get a sniff until it’s too late.

      2. And no doubt the really “good” ones will have been extremely careful to stay under the radar, so MI5 won’t get a sniff until it’s too late.

  25. Morning all 🙂😊
    Was sunny earlier. Looks good for the rest of the week. I’ll be able to spray moss killer on our drive, paths, Patio and grass.
    And I have only voted Labour once. After Blair lied his way into Downing Street.
    I’ve run out of options now. So It will be an independent or NOTA.
    As it’s so obvious when politicians lie or have lied, perhaps they should be arrested and go on trial. It would be cheaper in the long-term to have them all in prison.

    1. I could never bring myself to vote Labour even though our previous Labour MP was a good man. Will have to see who to vote for next time.

      1. Morning Ndovu. I am veering toward voting Reform. This would break the habit of a lifetime. A measure of how seriously I regard the situation!

        1. I am very doubtful about Richard Tice though. He supported the vaccine and Ukraine vehemently. Otherwise I agree.

          1. My opinion of Tice as a leader has fallen, he’s too vanilla and inhabits a charisma free zone. Good on the detail of the political/technical stuff but doesn’t have the necessary gravitas to put it across to the people in a meaningful manner.
            Your two points are spot-on. However, I think his stance on the “vaccine” has shifted: perhaps his sidekick’s opinion initially was too easily taken on board?

          3. Most of his party’s candidates will lose their deposits. I predict 5% of the total votes cast, at best.

          4. We shall see.

            Bill’s view is backed up by the fact that in the general election of 2015 UKIP had more seats than the SNP and The Lib Dems combined.

            UKIP got one seat, the Lib Dems and SNP got over 160.

            The one thing that has changed significantly since 2015 is that the Conservative Party is probably held in deeper contempt than ever before: many loyal conservative voters have said they will never vote for The Conservative Party ever again. It remains to be seen how many of these will abstain and how many will vote for Reform.

          5. More seats? More votes, surely?

            Providing they have a candidate in this constituency, I shall vote Reform UK. I have no expectation that they’ll win, but the Unconservative Party needs to be defenestrated. I don’t relish the prospects of a Labour government, but if a truly small ‘c’ conservative party arises from the ashes, it will have been worth the pain.

          6. We have an LD MP thanks to last election’s disenchantment with the Cons (first time it’s gone non-Com since the beginning of the 20th century). I predict she will get in again; not that she has actually done anything but she’s been in the papers a lot – every opportunity, whether she is relevant or not, she’s there, front and centre.

          7. We’ve had unLib unDem in Guildford in recent memory. With re-organisation of boundaries, I’m now in Woking constituency, which has sweet bugger all in common with this rural bit of the Surrey Hills. Current MP is Tory. I pondered whether I should stand for Reform, but frankly, it needs someone younger and more mobile.

          8. More VOTES than the SNP and LDs combined, not seats, Richard. Had they had the seats we would not be in this mess now.

          9. Most of his party’s candidates will lose their deposits. I predict 5% of the total votes cast, at best.

          11. My opinion of Tice as a leader has fallen, he’s too vanilla and inhabits a charisma free zone. Good on the detail of the political/technical stuff but doesn’t have the necessary gravitas to put it across to the people in a meaningful manner.
            Your two points are spot-on. However, I think his stance on the “vaccine” has shifted: perhaps his sidekick’s opinion initially was too easily taken on board?

          12. Richard Tice is taking Farage’s place on GB News while Farage is making a fool of himself in Australia. Tice is not very convincing.

            Nevertheless I think that when he comes out of the jungle, Farage should take Tice’s place at Reform.

          13. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the
            fool no where but in’s own house.

            [Hamlet to Ophelia about her meddlesome father Polonius]

      4. Earlier I was saying after all the lying from Heath I’d had enough of the tories.
        And so it goes on. They have no other direction or purpose but to lie.
        Sullela Braverman was kicked out because she was telling the truth. This is how bad its become. I predict that a huge crowd will attack and enter Westminster.
        From the news today it looks as if school children of a certain religious background are being trained today, to demonstrate.
        And our idiots like Vine on TV are supporting this.

    2. It would be cheaper in the long-term to have them all in prison.

      Personally I favour hanging Eddy!

      5. What is the difference between a cat and a comma?

        A cat has claws at the end of its paws and the comma is a pause at the end of a clause.

  26. Anyone listening to radioswissclassic?
    It seems to have been hacked to nasty and gormless pop music.

  27. Argentina votes in hard-Right Javier Milei as next president
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/11/19/argentina-election-result-javier-milei-president/

    So there are at least three groups of right wingers: extreme right, far right, and hard right.

    i) Sunni Muslims are extreme right: who want to wipe out the state of Israel, kill all Jews; and keep women in a subordination; state;
    ii) Shia Muslims are far right: who also want to remove the state of Israel from the surface of the earth, kill all Jews and keep women in a subordination as vassals;

    and

    iii) Tommy Robinson and Co are hard right and wish no harm to Jews but want to protect their country from invasion by illegal immigrants and deport those who wish to destroy Britain from within.

    My observation may be incorrect – please would a well-informed Nottler tell me if there are other significant right wing groups and who are their constituent members?

    1. Morning Richard. I’m not certain that Tommy Robinson can be described as Hard-Right. He’s gained this soubriquet from the MSM. It’s a useful label for them since its implications are negative. I think he’s a Nottler!

    3. Is Javier Milei genuine or is he another Georgia-fake-right-Meloni? These days I’m suspicious of anyone actually allowed to take power. Jair Bolsonaro was genuine but that’s why he’s no longer in power.

          1. Most of them are rabid Peronists and will be in deep mourning now (think London post-Brexit-vote) and I have been very careful to avoid political discusión, on the whole, getting out of it by saying I don’t know enough about the situation. Which I really don’t!

    4. Is Javier Milei genuine or is he another Georgia-fake-right-Meloni? These days I’m suspicious of anyone actually allowed to take power. Jair Bolsonaro was genuine but that’s why he’s no longer in power.

    5. The gist of an email I’m thinking of writing to my MP:

      Dear Mr Malthouse,

      I wasn’t physically at the Centotaph on 11th November but I support those who were. I’m a 72-year-old former RAF officer and fighter pilot. It’s nice to know that our ridiculous little Indian Prime Minister classes me as a far-right thug.

      Yours &c

      Fiscal

    6. The gist of an email I’m thinking of writing to my MP:

      Dear Mr Malthouse,

      I wasn’t physically at the Centotaph on 11th November but I support those who were. I’m a 72-year-old former RAF officer and fighter pilot. It’s nice to know that our ridiculous little Indian Prime Minister classes me as a far-right thug.

      Yours &c

      Fiscal

    7. No evidence of any right-wing political groups anywhere. Characteristics:
      – Light regulation
      – Small State sector
      – Value-for-money
      – Tolerance
      – No desire to force their views about anything onto anybody
      – for the individual, not collective
      Show me any group that wants even two out of the above? Thus, all the “right-wing” groups are actually left-wing (socialists), such as Communist party, Nasty party, and so on.

      1. Just as Hitler was extreme Left Wing.

        By allying with those who wish to exterminate the Jews it is not just the extreme left but the common or garden left who are just following their mentor, the Führer.

          2. Even in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France and Spain – I still operated on the Great British QWERTY keyboard.

          3. I had to buy a new laptop and the best value was a French one.
            Prior to this one I’ve always had a Qwerty and as I don’t touch type it makes little difference for me, except in instances like this.

          4. I’ve bought various laptops and the best value has always been reconditioned with WIN7 Professional.

          6. We used to have to get our keyboards from the UK because only azerty keyboards were available in France. I am a very mediocre typist with a qwerty so an azerty one is completely beyond my very limited ‘skill set’!

          8. In other words, the whole English alphabet is on the keyboard – all the correct letters but not necessarily in the right order.

    1. Normally I would attack Biden at almost every opportunity, but in this case the little girl is wearing false ears, presumably to attract attention.

      All he’s doing is commenting on them and she doesn’t appear concerned.

        1. I don’t disagree with that, but in this case it looked reasonable.
          A longer clip might show things differently.

    3. As I said to a very, very vain woman once, I love your legs, your hips, you bum, your thigh gap…. we should show it off with some very, very short, very, very tight hot pants.

      2. Well, as it’s likely made polyester or silicone it’s as zero carbon as our DNA.

        Personally I’d rather like councils to be zero carbon.

        1. Even if it was cotton, ie cellulose, it wouldn’t exactly be carbon free either, C₆H₁₀O₅.

      3. If you have followed any of my absurd posts I have been saying for some time that the Idiot King should spend the winter in a unheated tent in the grounds of Balmoral to show that he is prepared to experience directly for himself the effects of net zero policies .

        He should, to borrow from Shakespeare’s King Lear, expose himself to feel what wretches feel and show the heaven’s more just by shaking some of his superflux (=excessive wealth) to pay for cheap and effective means of heating the poor wretches’ hovels!

    2. Soon home owners with homes, that don’t comply with newly invented ‘standards’, will be liable for an annual charge of 2,000 pounds extra per year.
      Some one has to pay for all the illegal invaders.

        1. We are told we canot put any more insulation in the wall, yet the front bedroom window is damned cold of an evening.

          1. I thought the point of a cavity wall that it had a cavity? Like birds fluffing up their feathers to create an insulating layer layer of warmer air between the outer feathers and their body? We have found that an extra curtain layer such as fine net really does make a difference in the winter (and in the summer it assists in keeping the heat out). I don’t really like nets from an aesthetic point of view but sometimes needs must…. Also shutting out the bleakness of a dank winter’s day can be comforting.

          2. My mother made winter and summer curtains. She changed them all in April and then changed them back again in November,

          3. Yes, I know people who do that today, but storage of these items is a problem. We no longer have floor-to-ceiling cavernous cupboards.

        2. They Gotcha.
          Most homes built before the 1970s won’t pass either.
          They’ll find fault with everything they can.
          Ours was built in the 50s. I already know if we tried to sell a visiting surveyor would say the cavity walls need insulating the whole house would need rewiring. And even the 4-6-4 double glazing is inadequate. But it’s been all good for a long time. That’s how people make a living these days. Newly invented Fault finding.
          Just ground source heating can cost over and above 10k.
          And you’d still have turn on the emersion heater in the afternoons.

  32. Interesting piece by Steve Tucker.
    https://www.takimag.com/article/the-royal-koran-nation/

    In a meeting with various faith leaders (or self-appointed faith leaders, in some possible cases) in September, King Charles III reassured those gathered that he had recently acquired a self-created “additional duty” to his traditional role of royal regnant. From henceforth on, a key part of any new monarch’s role was now to be “protecting the diversity” of the U.K. and its current holy status as a “community of communities.”
    “A community of communities,” eh? You know where else is one of those? Lebanon. And Burma. And Syria. And Iraq. And the Balkans, circa 1914. The descent of any formerly ethnically, politically, and religiously coherent nation into a state of utter disjointedness, mutual mistrust, and division is nothing to be celebrated and protected, like Charles fondly imagines; it is something instead greatly to be feared and avoided.

    Amazingly, G.K. Chesterton once also wrote an even more prophetic (and consequently even more forgotten) novel on this very same theme, his 1914 satire The Flying Inn, about life in a future Islamized England—it’s a bit like Colin Jordan’s neo-Nazi sci-fi novella Merrie England: 2000 that I talked about on Takimag last month, only well-written and not (currently) illegal to possess a printed copy of.
    It tells the story of a degenerate and quisling British elite who, through sheer ennui and self-hatred of their own culture, conspire to hand it over toward their ancestors’ age-old enemies on a plate, forging a fake pseudo-Islamic history for their own nation and pumping it into kids’ heads in schools to make them submit to forthcoming dhimmitude. Even GKC didn’t foresee what would one day become of Remembrance Day, however—probably because it didn’t even yet exist at the time he wrote his amazingly prophetic warning.

    1. At the moment it is mainly the large cities that are “diverse” – the countryside far less so.

        2. I saw one too when we were there a year ago, propping up a wall outside Tesco. I was quite surprised to see him.

      4. They are working on it. Even here, in the sticks, we are seeing more and more bleks, going round in large groups, jabbering away in foreign.

      3. That’s another reason why I love this site/you people. I am always learning something!

    4. “Left-wing Labour Party leader Keir Starmer recently courted trouble for “accidentally” removing his poppy prior to recording an election video aimed at his Party’s large Muslim client vote. Around 71 percent of Muslims voted Labour at the last 2019 election, but many Britain-based Mohammedans are now reconsidering their allegiances, with a new Party of Islam in the process of being established, although there is currently a delay, after its leaders apparently filled in its registration forms incorrectly—perhaps in Urdu or in Arabic by sheer force of habit?”

      The possibility of this ‘party to be’ was talked about here a few days ago I think.

      2. Indeed we did.

        It is inevitable and when they hold a balance of power they will become even more insufferable, demanding special treatment for Muslims.

          3. We understand that they already have special treatment.

            The ‘papers reported that ULEZ is not applicable to those driving to mosque.

            As good Muslims attend mosque every day that means ULEZ regulations do not apply to them.

            Clever, eh?

  34. 378929+ up ticks,

    I really can’t see what their point is
    many of teir ilk will suffer if they kill the golden goose off.

    breitbart,

    Manhunt Launched as Suspected Iran-Backed Islamist Terrorists Sneak into Britain on Migrant Boats: Report

    1. More like

      Hunt Launched by Salvation Army to give aid to migrants who are NOT Suspected to be Iran-Backed Islamist Terrorists Sneak into Britain on Migrant Boats: Report

  35. I’m not sure what to do. But when I’m looking at replies from comments. My phone screen is one third filled with effing advertising by Google. I cannot find anyway to stop this. It’s absolutely sickening.

    1. There is an Ad block for phones – I get them in the notifications, and at the top of the page which I can scroll through when opening Nottl, but there are none in the chat section. On my laptop, where I am now, ad block+ gets rid of tem all.

    4. Firefox mobile allows extensions. That’s what I use; instal uBlock Origin and all the ads and trackers disappear!

  36. I wonder if we will be saying after the Autumn statement

    You wait 13 years for a Tory tax cut then none come at once

  37. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7d711b7e00cd7ee648bee08aa16992b64c018aebab6036cc370f6f62f32613d0.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/20/teachers-self-censoring-offending-muslim-pupils-batley/

    If the UN were actually interested in world harmony they would insist that Muslim refugees sought safety in Islamic countries and Christian refugees came to countries such as Britain.

    It is as clear plain as a pikestaff that it is almost impossible to tolerate those who do not tolerate others in return.

    BTL

    The tolerance that the Muslims enjoyed when they decided to come to Britain is not regarded as something for which to be grateful but regarded with contempt as a weakness to be exploited.

    Why do no politicians ask why Muslims don’t seek refuge or asylum in Islamic countries?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2016ceb47e29fb7cdeccadc916bd2e23cf824f56bb1a60e1ecb65ee2c81d959f.png

          3. It was the rash intruding fool, Polonius – the meddlesome father of Ophelia, who was not actually blown up by a bomb but stabbed through the arras by the Prince of Denmark.

    2. Why did Egypt close its borders to people fleeing from Gaza? Jordan seem none too keen to take Palestinians either.

    5. Going to Islamic countries is not spreading Islam – that’s why they go to non-islamic countries

  38. Gardeners’ Question time….

    “What is the best method of dead-heading Cyclamen?”

    ‘Twist the stem of the flower that has finished anti-clockwise and pull. (It doesn’t work if you twist the stem clockwise)…..’

  39. Whitty was like Johnson, a sceptic who allowed himself to be beaten down by the hardliners.

    Patrick Vallance branded Chris Whitty a ‘delayer’ over lockdown

    Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government’s former chief scientific officer, described Sir Chris Whitty as a “delayer” when it came to imposing lockdown.
    His evidence to the Covid inquiry on Monday revealed that there was apparent “palpable tension” between him and the chief medical officer (CMO) over draconian restrictions.

    The Covid inquiry was shown an extract from Sir Patrick’s notebooks following a meeting in February 2020, which said: “CMO talked afterwards about inquiry – was lockdown too late in March, could we have known (he was a delayer of course).”

    The hearing was also shown an extract from the memoir of Jeremy Farrar, who was a member of the Sage committee, which read: “That friction, between waiting and wading in, led to a palpable tension between Patrick and Chris in the early weeks of 2020, particularly given the apparent absence of political leadership in that period.”

    Asked if there was tension between him and Sir Chris, Sir Patrick told the inquiry: “He was definitely of the view that the treatment and the result of that treatment needs to be considered together. And that pulling the trigger to do things too early could lead to adverse consequences.”

    “I didn’t have exactly the same worry. I was more on the side of we need to move on this. But I think that’s partly why the two of us found it useful to work together,” Sir Patrick added.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/20/uk-covid-inquiry-latest-patrick-vallance-live

      1. And the findings and recommendations have been decided in advance. We should have locked down harder, faster and longer.

  40. For those celebrity watchers, I know you are there behind the sofa, a chap called Puff Daddy or P Diddy was accused of rape by his ex girlfriend. Why she took 10 years to bring charges, I do not know. However, an ‘agreement’ has been reached and the charges dropped. Amazing! I thought paying for sex in some states is illegal but if it goes through the courts it seems to be just fine. All the details here, anyone who has work to do, dont bother… https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12768649/Dejected-Diddy-breaks-cover-Sean-Combs-seen-looking-stressed-appearance-settling-rape-lawsuit-ex-girlfriend-Cassie.html

    1. I see Russell Brand has been interviewed under caution about his activiities years ago. These kind of allegations become a bandwaggon and impossible to prove.

  41. Strangely sunny just now. Will risk going into the garden – that’ll bring the clouds and rain…

  42. Socialist nationalism is on the rise in Germany. 20 November 2023.

    Like many former communists, Ms Wagenknecht, 54, is a social conservative and an anti-globalist. She is against mass immigration and multiculturalism; she refused to be vaccinated during the pandemic; she is hostile to costly green policies; and she is fiercely anti-woke.

    Perhaps the most problematic aspects of Ms Wagenknecht’s brand of “Left conservatism” are her implacable opposition to Nato and her passionate support for Putin’s Russia.

    Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, she has demanded an end to sanctions and a “peace” that would legitimise Russian occupation.

    Ooerr! Well apart from the communist bit; though I have never lived in East Germany, she sounds a lot like me!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/19/socialist-nationalism-is-on-the-rise-in-germany/

  43. I have just had ‘a fall’ or maybe I simply tripped up and fell. I was walking along the fields late morning with poppiesdad who was 200 yards ahead of me, and excited puppy, when something grabbed my foot. I had been trudging through the mud but had hopped on to the grass verge when it happened. I went flying forwards, landing face down. Winded, I heard the thunder of paws and three seconds later an excited puppy was dancing around my head trying to lick my nose, mouth ears and eyes. My camera was embedded in the mud, the lens hood providing a new home for a worm. Eventually poppiesdad sauntered up, hauled the camera and then me out of the mud. I am shaken but ok, my landing was fairly soft because of the mud. Trousers and jacket are in the washing machine at the moment clonking around. My camera is covered in mud. Although I landed face down I ended up on my back, I am not sure how this happened. The thing that grabbed my foot was a young bramble tendril snaking its way across my path.

    2. I fell over earlier this year on the raised rim of a pavement slab. Ostensibly. Not absolutely sure though. I remember nothing of it! The woman who came to my aid asked if I had high blood pressure! Fantastic black eye!

    4. Sorry to hear that, pm. It’s such a shock and horribly embarrassing! I fell last week in Morrisons cafe in Hartlepool and clattered down on my ‘new’ hip, dropping what I was carrying. My daughter was with me, but not one person in the busy place even moved! My new black funeral shoes had very slippery soles! Cracking bruise I’ve got!

        2. It was always the first thing we did with school shoes!
          No, not one person came near and the only one who said anything was a young man (17 or so) who asked if I was OK!

        1. Yes thanks, pet! As I say, just a shock! My dear Aunty Ann had fallen the morning of the funeral, and bashed her head and shoulder! She had vertigo and we think she got through the day on adrenalin, poor little soul!😘

        2. Yes thanks, pet! As I say, just a shock! My dear Aunty Ann had fallen the morning of the funeral, and bashed her head and shoulder! She had vertigo and we think she got through the day on adrenalin, poor little soul!😘

      3. Oh no, Sue, what a shock, and so glad your daughter came to your rescue .

        Things just happen when we least expect them to .

        Do you wear varifocal specs ?

        Your bruise , not a head wound I hope?

        1. Yep! Life’s a b…., and then you die! I only wear glasses for reading and my bruise is on my hip scar! Thank you, Belle!

        1. H’Angus? The Rugby club are known as the Monkeyhangers! The funeral bunfight was at the Cricket club!

      5. About a year ago, I slipped in the conservatory and walloped my artificial hip.
        Very painful; but then, effectively, you are being whacked with an iron bar – from the inside.

        1. Did you only have one new hip, and is the other still ok? Most people seem to need the other one doing eventually.

    5. I like the way he rescued the camera first, and then you! Hope all’s well now – if you tripped over a bramble, that’s a good reason for falling, it might be more of a worry if there was no apparent reason and you just ‘fell’.

      1. He thought I was sitting in the mud taking a photograph from an unusual angle for a few moments….as if! I should add that cameras and their lenses is his way of life, we all trundle after.

    6. Oh dear , poor you, PM,

      So pleased that you are one piece, mud mud glorious mud , and not too shaken up.

      A soft landing eh? Puppy was so pleased you were at ground level to her, bless her..

      When that happened to me the week before last in the garden with Pip , it was dark , I am still covered in bruises , but intact and alive , just like you .😄

      I was given a Blackthorn thumbstick decades ago, very useful for bashing brambles or anything else like bracken or furzey..

      There is something quite satisfying about splodgy mud .. but be very careful next time .. My varifocal specs are my worst enemy.

      1. When MB (briefly) wore varifocals, I had to lead him around by the hand as if he were an idiot child.
        Kerbs and steps were a nightmare for him.
        It was very odd; for a period of less than a year he needed to wear glasses all the time, and then on (some 30 years ago) he didn’t. He can still wear cheap readers, whereas I need prescription glasses (NOT cheap).

        1. I’ve now got my first pair of prismatic lenses, to counter diplopia – they do seem to be an improvement.

      2. I am ok, Belle – just a bit stiff now, nothing like your prickly adventure which must have been frightening in the dark. I hope your bruises fade quickly now. The bottom line is always ‘still alive therefore all is well’. Puppy, having seen to all intents and purposes, that all was well, because his ministrations caused me to sit up quicker than I intended, went bouncing off another 100 yards or so to wuff at and dance around a chocolate labrador. Poppiesdad 200 yards away in the opposite direction turned to see me sitting there and thought I had decided to sit down (in the mud!) to take a photograph!!

    8. Sorry to hear that PM, done that myself due to camera round my neck hiding what’s in front of me and my brain hasn’t programmed the limits of my feet and thinks they are smaller than they are. Glad you’re ok anyway

      1. Thank you, yes I am ok, Alec. It was probably my camera that was obscuring my vision but the brambly tendril had wandered a fair distance from the hedgerow and I was simply not concentrating on where I was putting my feet although I am usually on the look-out for rabbit holes.

      1. No, just shocked and winded with a sore left shoulder and wrist which took the brunt of the fall.

        1. I’m sure you will, but keep a particularly close eye on pains that don’t disappear, especially your wrist, it is very easy to displace a small bone.

    10. Like Richard below, been there, done that. Also have the T-shirt. Nearest church in our parish is just over a mile away as the crow flies. Unfortunately the road wasn’t designed by a crow. Several sharp bends, no footway and lunatic drivers. There’s a footpath across fields, which takes a few yards off. Tried it last year, when the ground was reasonably dry. The initial narrow path, between two barbed wire fences, was hard enough. When the path opened out into a field, I breathed a sigh of relief and strode on. Until I caught my left (prosthetic) foot in a root, and down I went.

      I was shown how to get up from the floor at Roehampton. Fine, but you need to grab hold of something to haul yourself upright. In the middle of a field, there’s no chance. The forces involved in trying to stand up unaided would simply have resulted in me being unceremoniously detached from my legs. So I did an undignified 200m crawl to the edge of the field, where I could grab hold of a stile, and haul myself upright.

      1. Of course, the second bottle probably didn’t help…{:¬))

        Falling is one of my (many) dreads.

        1. Hadn’t started the first bottle, Bill. Perhaps that was the problem…

          Should have taken a stick. I’ve tried once more since then, but the mud was such that with every ten paces, I was an inch taller. I’ve since taken my chances with the traffic, and thus far, have survived. 🤞

      3. That sounds a terrible and terrifying experience. Even with functioning limbs as one gets older it also gets harder to get up from the floor when the rug has been pulled away suddenly from underneath one’s legs. You were fortunate there was a ‘nearby’ style to come to your assistance, it could have been a prickly hedge. Tree roots are treacherous.

        1. Nah – embarrasing, rather that “terrible and terrifying”. Tractor driver in the next field must have wondered what was going on. As for hedges, the robotic mower I bought after the amputation had a tendency to bury itself in the hedge, and send me a text message. Since the hedge was at the bottom of a slope, I more than once ended up in the hedge, and had to crawl across the garden on hands and knees. Funny, really. What doesn’t kill you, etc…

    11. Like Richard below, been there, done that. Also have the T-shirt. Nearest church in our parish is just over a mile away as the crow flies. Unfortunately the road wasn’t designed by a crow. Several sharp bends, no footway and lunatic drivers. There’s a footpath across fields, which takes a few yards off. Tried it last year, when the ground was reasonably dry. The initial narrow path, between two barbed wire fences, was hard enough. When the path opened out into a field, I breathed a sigh of relief and strode on. Until I caught my left (prosthetic) foot in a root, and down I went.

      I was shown how to get up from the floor at Roehampton. Fine, but you need to grab hold of something to haul yourself upright. In the middle of a field, there’s no chance. The forces involved in trying to stand up unaided would simply have resulted in me being unceremoniously detached from my legs. So I did an undignified 200m crawl to the edge of the field, where I could grab hold of a stile, and haul myself upright.

    12. I do hope you are OK and haven’t broken/sprained anything. There are brambles across several of the local footpaths – hidden by leaves.

      1. Yes, I am ok thank you, Bill. Shocked and a bit stiff in the left arm – wrist and shoulder which took the brunt. I was also shocked at how far the lens hood of my camera was buried in the mud, I couldn’t pull it out by myself, it needed poppiesdad to release it and even he said ‘ouf!’ as it came free. Yes – this bramble was cunningly hidden by autumnal foliage, a hidden hazard of rural walks. I seldom go on the further field pathways by myself, p’dad and I usually walk together, I never take my phone, I dislike being encumbered with it. He was a while coming to rescue me, he thought I was sitting in the mud to get an unusually angled photograph. Honestly…!

    13. Ooo… poor you! 🙁
      Hoi! Suddenly toppling over is (c) me, BTW. Where do I send the bill for breach of copyright…
      Seriously, hope youse just all shook up, nothing serious that a washing machine cannot handle.

    15. Sounds a bit like the spill I had coming down from Beachy Head t’other month.
      Got onto a footpath that contoured round the hill, narrowing considerably as it passed through a near overgrown bit of scrubland and my right foot slid off the path and I rolled into some brambles.
      Not seriously hurt, but my right arm & leg had superficial scratching from the thorns that bled somewhat and, thanks to the rain, I ended up looking as if my arm had been torn to shreads!

    16. Trailing brambles are a trip hazard par excellence. I’ve had many a near miss when out walking the dogs.

  44. 378929+ up ticks,

    PM: ‘You can trust me when I say that we can start to responsibly cut taxes’

    Of course we can, stopping the boats has proved that without a doubt.

  48. US defence secretary makes surprise trip to Kyiv. 20 November 2023.

    US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has made a surprise visit to Ukraine amid growing concern in Kyiv about continued Western support as war rages in the Middle East.

    “I’m here today to deliver an important message – the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine in their fight for freedom against Russia’s aggression, both now and into the future,” Mr Austin said.

    So they are toast then?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/11/20/ukraine-russia-war-news-live-putin-zelensky-latest/

  49. I knew it would happen. Been out for an hour – then the sun disappears….

    In for the rest of the day. The MR slaves outside.

  51. Funny how he can say this about Covid, but if he said the same about climate change he’d be cancelled.

    ‘There is no such thing as ‘the’ science’: Sir Patrick Vallance tells Covid Inquiry ministers were ‘completely wrong’ to hide behind the ‘following the science’ term during pandemic

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12770011/Hes-looking-Matt-Sir-Patrick-Vallance-says-no-intention-bombshell-pandemic-notes-seeing-light-day-world-books-reflections-peoples-thoughts-Covid.html

    1. To me the ‘science’ seemed like it was make it up as you go along and know everything in hind-sight

    2. We listened to the inquiry on BBC 5radio.. and we both came to the conclusion rightly or wrongly , that Sir Patrick Vallance thought that Boris and Dominic were mad as hatters and that they had no idea what an exponential curve was etc

      1. Even if that is the case, surely it is the role of the advisors to explain such things in a way that the decision makers can understand?
        The fault lies as much if not more with those advisors.

          1. The nudge unit that pushed out those “Look into her eyes” ads? That was sheer propaganda meant to scare people.

    3. We listened to the inquiry on BBC 5radio.. and we both came to the conclusion rightly or wrongly , that Sir Patrick Vallance thought that Boris and Dominic were mad as hatters and that they had no idea what an exponential curve was etc

    4. Bit rich coming from one of the main pushers of “The Science.” Why didn’t he say this at the time?

  52. Could be related but an article accusing khant of not telling the truth about his ULEZ scheme disappeared soon after it was posted on here earlier.

    Israel-Hamas conflict

    © PA Wire
    Police are seeking the public’s help to identify 15 people who took part in a pro-Palestinian convoy of as many as 80 cars.

    Officers became aware of a convoy of vehicles displaying Palestinian flags driving into central London at around 10.15pm on Saturday, the Metropolitan Police said.

    It is believed the cars had set off from a car park in Hancock Road, Tower Hamlets, east London.

    Road policing units, public order teams and a helicopter were deployed to intercept the convoy and the cars were held in Exhibition Road, South Kensington, the force said.

    A dispersal order was put in place and one vehicle was seized, with fixed penalty notices for various road traffic offences issued to 18 drivers.

    A further nine vehicles were served with prohibition notices after defects were found making them unfit for use.
    The Met said officers have since discovered the convoy stopped twice on major roads – the A13 and the Limehouse Link Tunnel – on its way into London, causing danger to other road users.

    Temporary Commander Karen Findlay, who led the weekend’s policing operation, said: “On some previous occasions, convoys of cars have passed through Jewish communities with occupants waving flags and shouting antisemitic abuse. They understandably caused significant concern, fear and upset.

    “As soon as the convoy was spotted, a plan was put in place quickly to ensure the convoy would not reach areas where its presence would inevitably cause alarm and intimidation.

    “Our inquiries have not only revealed the extent of their dangerous antics on major roads, they’ve also established the group had plans to move on from Exhibition Road to the Israeli Embassy off Kensington High Street.

    “Our intervention on Saturday night was effective in stopping this convoy in its tracks, but now we need to identify those we suspect of being involved in offences earlier on their route.

    “The public have been a great help in recent weeks when similar appeals have been made and I have no doubt they’ll continue to do the same.”

    Police have shared images of the people they want to identify, and have asked anyone who can help to call 101 and reference 4237915/23 and the number in the bottom corner of the images.
    I don’t expect the police to be working to hard on this one

  53. 367829+ up ticks,

    Frank Gent
    @FrankGent3
    “racing”…from the same clowns that said the Wu Flu was the worst “pandemic” ever!!! What a useless bunch of morons.

    UN report says world is racing to well past warming limit as carbon emissions rise instead of plunge.

    OG,
    If there is such an emergency then surely private jets should be deemed ” illegal” from the
    21/11/ 23.

    https://x.com/FrankGent3/status/1726625394097521031?s=20

    1. Now ogga, you know they need their private jets. How else would they be able to plan for no passenger jets by 2050?

  54. Ukraine sacks ‘corrupt’ cyber defence chiefs. 20 November 2023 • 3:09pm

    Ukraine has sacked two top cyber defence officials after they were charged with orchestrating a multi-million pound embezzlement scheme.

    Yurii Shchyhol and Viktor Zhora, the head and deputy of the Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine (SSSCIP), are accused of inflating the value of a software deal for personal gain by £1.4million ($1.7million).

    The National Anti-Corruption Bureau said four others had been charged in connection with the embezzlement scheme, which took place between 2020 and 2022.

    Lol. It’s a good thing that they censor all this because it makes Vietnam look like a shoplifting trip to Tesco’s..

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/11/20/ukraine-russia-war-news-live-putin-zelensky-latest/

  55. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/tv/i-m-a-celebrity-get-me-out-of-here-loses-two-million-viewers-from-last-year-as-nigel-farage-makes-his-debut/ar-AA1ke1cj?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=EDGEDB&cvid=b77973c2fe4844b78155972b19a978e2&ei=29

    How can they know that ? I never watch it, because I can’t stand the stupidity of it all. But it might also have been some of the extra loud rather gobby, self obsessed females that really put people off. And not so much quiet-ish respectable Nige.

  57. Wow beat that any one ……..

    Another sad loss, but what a productive life he had.

    Actor Joss Ackland has died at the age of 95, his family have said.

    The screen and stage actor, whose career spanned more than seven decades, died peacefully at home on Sunday surrounded by relatives, the statement given to the PA news agency said.

    He appeared in hundreds of films and television productions alongside his “rich and diverse” stage career, and was made a CBE for services to drama in 2001.

    The family statement said: “With his distinctive voice and commanding presence, Ackland brought a unique intensity and gravitas to his roles.

    “He will be remembered as one of Britain’s most talented and beloved actors.”

    The actor was also a “beloved father” and was married to wife Rosemary for 51 years before she died from motor neurone disease in 2002.
    Ackland had seven children, 34 grandchildren and 30 great-grandchildren.

    He lived in a lovely home at Clovelly in Devon as you look out to sea from the road above the village, top left.

  58. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/20/rishi-sunak-immigration-points-based-system-skills/
    Britain’s addiction to mass migration is becoming dangerous
    This is not the high wage, high skill economy we voted for in 2016
    As Rishi Sunak seeks desperately to prove he can get a grip on Britain’s sea border, it’s easy to forget the other border crisis. While less prominent than the small boats, the scale of legal net migration is a much bigger problem. And unlike asylum policy, it’s something our Government is entirely in control of. Yet, since 2019, net migration has almost tripled.

    The Conservative manifesto in that year said that Britain would welcome highly skilled workers, it’s true. But it also said that “there will be fewer low-skilled migrants and overall numbers will come down”. So why is net migration running at 606,000, the highest figure on record? What happened to the promised rigour of an “Australian-style points based system”? The answer is that Britain has, voluntarily, adopted an immigration regime far more liberal than anything it had before it left the EU.

    The most obvious, glaring problem is the salary threshold economic migrants must meet to qualify for a work visa. Astonishingly, this has been set at just £26,200 per year. The Government is expected to announce an increase in this floor to £30,000, but even this would be well below the median full-time salary (£34,963). And it would do nothing to close the back door built into the system: the shortage occupation list.

    Intended to provide a smoothed route of entry for workers offering skills not readily available in the local labour market, this list is far too broad, and growing broader, extending well beyond doctors and nurses. MakeUK, the manufacturers’ trade body, is lobbying for welders, lab technicians and sheet metal workers to be added. Workers entering under this scheme can earn even less than the main threshold if they are paid just 80 per cent of the “going rate” for their industry, even if this is far below the national average.

    Two-thirds of voters believe immigration is too high, yet Britain is stuck in a high migration system that the Whitehall machine is desperate to preserve. The Treasury is incentivised to preserve high numbers to keep GDP going up, no matter what it means for those already here. The Office for Budget Responsibility bakes high migration into its forecasts, making it impossible to lower numbers without falling foul of fiscal targets. Universities issue tens of thousands of student visas for low-grade courses to bring in cash.

    This is not the economy people voted for in 2016 or 2019. High immigration of low-skilled workers is unfair, puts pressure on housing and public services and compresses the salaries of lower-paid wage earners. To restore British workers’ economic status and dignity, we must raise the minimum salary, limit the shortage list and train more workers here. Globalisation of labour markets is one of the major threats to the dignity of workers across the developed world. We have the freedom to change it.

        1. I haven’t been either for a few years,

          We were in Bournemouth the other day, poor Bournemouth, it was so well mannered and civil .

          All changed when it became a University town .

          1. Last time I was in Bournemouth was 1966. My friend and I spent two weeks there and couldn’t wait to come home!

          2. The Pavilion Theatre used to put on some good shows. My parents enjoyed watching ballet and they took me to see La Fille Mal Gardée performed by the Royal Ballet when I was in my teens.

            I believe Jeremy Corbyn once had a liaison with the prima ballerina in this clip.

            the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gGZpGoHJV0

          3. It’s getting worse every where.
            Recent Herts Advertiser
            ‘Violence and sexual offences’ the most reported crimes in St Albans”.
            Robbery, burglary you name it.

    2. “We have the freedom to change it.”

      Oh yeah – How? Certainly not by voting for political parties that don’t give a toss about their promises, commitments and what their voters want.

      Pull the other one it’s, got bells on it!

      1. You really shouldn’t worry Rastus, that you are disenfranchised – we make no difference at all by having a vote once in five years.

    3. Reform talks of Net Zero immigration i.e. same number out as in, but that’s no longer enough. We need mass deportations. I’m hoping that some other countries in Europe will start to do this in the nearish future. It’ll put the policy on the table here and make it more difficult for the Establishment to resist it.

  60. Rishi Sunak argued against a second lockdown and, like Boris Johnson, thought it was OK if people died, according to a diary entry by Sir Patrick Vallance.

    In the entry for October 25, 2020 the then chief scientific officer noted that Dominic Cummings had relayed the view of then chancellor to people at a meeting. It read: “DC says ‘Rishi thinks just let people die and that’s OK.’ ”

    The Covid inquiry heard that the prime minister also wanted to avoid a second lockdown and argued that it did not matter that more elderly people were going to die because “they’ve had a good innings”.

    Johnson made the remarks at a meeting which was recorded by Vallance in his diary entry for the same day. Vallance told the inquiry the then prime minister was also prone to frequently changing his mind as to whether he should let the virus rip or impose lockdown restrictions.

    He also said Johnson was “bamboozled” by the graphs and data presented to him by scientists. “I think he’d be the first to admit it wasn’t his forte and that he struggled with the concepts and we did need to repeat them — often,” Sir Patrick told the inquiry.

    Johnson said ‘elderly have had a good innings’ on ‘shambolic day’
    Boris Johnson appeared to say it did not matter if more elderly people died during the pandemic because “they’ve had a good innings” (George Sandeman writes).

    He was quoted as making the remark during a meeting which was recorded in a diary entry written by Sir Patrick Vallance for October 25, 2020.

    It read: “PM meeting — begins to argue for letting it rip. Saying, ‘Yes there will be more casualties but so be it, they have had a good innings’.”

    In the diary Vallance recalls feeling as though there was a “complete lack of leadership”. Asked by the inquiry if that was still his view, he said it must have felt that way and reading the entry back it felt like “quite a shambolic day”.

    He also said that Johnson may well have changed his mind about letting the virus “rip” the next day as he was prone to changing his mind between imposing full lockdowns and no restrictions at all.

    Vallance said this view was also held by other officials including Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, who said: “On Sunday all PM wanted was a set of mutually incompatible outcomes … [He] owns something for a day and then changes.”

    1 hour ago
    3.35pm

    Hancock comments ‘lacked evidence’
    Matt Hancock had a habit of saying things without the evidence to back it up, Sir Patrick Vallance said (Seren Hughes writes).

    Asked for his view on whether Hancock was unreliable after Lord Sedwill complained that the then health secretary was “drowning in bullshit” and similar comments from others seen by the inquiry, Vallance said Hancock “definitely said things that surprised me because I knew the evidence base wasn’t there”.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/covid-inquiry-live-latest-news-uk-today-mndtfzt8r

      1. The lot of them were in the pay of Big Pharma and the BBC took money from Bill Gates.

        They should all be prosecuted for malfeasance in public office and put behind bars for a long time.

    2. Covid, covid jabs, net zero, climate change: all false – all simply implements of methods of manipulation.

    3. It’s clear that the virus was of very little risk to healthy, younger people. But the vast majority of the elderly victims were probably killed in the care homes by the chemical cosh.

      1. Wasn’t the average age of death 82?
        Uncomfortably close for many of us, but hardly a disease scything down millions of the young.

  61. A rant I stumbled across on Twitt…

    Brian O’Shea
    @BrianOSheaSPI
    And we all know why the “37”, Obama, and the Biden Admin are pushing a ceasefire through their NGO proxies (or what I like to call, “human artillery”: so the Israeli/Gaza conflict stretches into Spring (which is the perfect time for Xi Jinping and the CCP controlled PRC to move on Taiwan (due to maritime conditions in that area being optimal for large seaborne maneuvers only in the Spring or Fall). In addition to waiting for perfect natural conditions, CCP needs the USA tied up with 3 other wars: Ukraine, War of Terror (reboot), & internal unrest spearheaded by all of the “irregulars” pouring into the USA from the southern border or a possibly “pandemic” (which the WHO is telegraphing on the CCP’s behalf). As Israel is cleaning up Hamas et Al with amazing speed, the global “Useful Idiots” (neo-Marxists, RINO neo-cons, global tech & global Pharma [ie Fosun/Pfizer unholy alliances et al]) need to by the “Dragon” time to launch his attack as the Fall 2023 window has just passed. So us “Tigers” need to keep messing up that program🇺🇸⚔️👊🏻

    A spring invasion of Taiwan would coincide nicely with a financial crisis that would tie the hands of the US. But truth is that China could start one any time they want merely by playing the gold card.

  62. A rant I stumbled across on Twitt…

    Brian O’Shea
    @BrianOSheaSPI
    And we all know why the “37”, Obama, and the Biden Admin are pushing a ceasefire through their NGO proxies (or what I like to call, “human artillery”: so the Israeli/Gaza conflict stretches into Spring (which is the perfect time for Xi Jinping and the CCP controlled PRC to move on Taiwan (due to maritime conditions in that area being optimal for large seaborne maneuvers only in the Spring or Fall). In addition to waiting for perfect natural conditions, CCP needs the USA tied up with 3 other wars: Ukraine, War of Terror (reboot), & internal unrest spearheaded by all of the “irregulars” pouring into the USA from the southern border or a possibly “pandemic” (which the WHO is telegraphing on the CCP’s behalf). As Israel is cleaning up Hamas et Al with amazing speed, the global “Useful Idiots” (neo-Marxists, RINO neo-cons, global tech & global Pharma [ie Fosun/Pfizer unholy alliances et al]) need to by the “Dragon” time to launch his attack as the Fall 2023 window has just passed. So us “Tigers” need to keep messing up that program🇺🇸⚔️👊🏻

    A spring invasion of Taiwan would coincide nicely with a financial crisis that would tie the hands of the US. But truth is that China could start one any time they want merely by playing the gold card.

  63. Pity Sir Patrick Vallance. First the left-wing press attacked the chief scientific adviser for not being more like his opposite number in New Zealand — locking down early, keeping cases low. Then the right-wing press attacked him for not being more like Sweden — keeping schools open, relying on voluntary behaviour change.

    In both cases, the answer given by (sometimes exasperated) Sage scientists is the same. We did not copy those countries, because we are not those countries. We are not a small island in the Pacific, and we are not a small obedient nation in the Baltic.

    Is that fair?

    In the summer of 2020, I interviewed Stefan Lofven, then Swedish prime minister. I remember his clarity and bravery. I remember also his bemusement to find that he had become less the leader of a country than the leader of the world’s control group. “We have not chosen a totally different path, a totally different strategy,” he said.

    And yet, Sweden did do less. Schools, up until sixth form, stayed open. Only large gatherings were banned. People did stay home en masse; to a greater degree it was a voluntary decision. In January 2021 trips to workplaces, for instance, fell by 55 per cent in Sweden, compared with 65 per cent in the UK.

    Voluntary change, of course, is not cost-free: just ask the restaurants whose bookings were lost, without recourse to compensation, during the pre-Christmas omicron wave of 2021. Still, the question is not unreasonable. When all decisions were bad, what would have happened if we had seen Sweden’s response that summer and copied it?

    The answer, for those who want to stop reading now, is unknowable. The debate about Covid-19 remains bitter because everyone can have their own counterfactual, and it will be forever unfalsifiable. Sometimes, it feels too much like a parlour game: using perfect hindsight to perfectly tune a perfect response (by whatever ideological criteria you choose) to a virus that will never cause a pandemic again.

    And yet, there are still useful and less useful ways to think about it. Country comparisons are key information. They show that Sweden had fewer infections proportionately than us, and among the lowest excess deaths in Europe. The strategy clearly worked for them.

    But, as Sage scientists point out, countries are not the same. Population structures, movements, households all differ. Deciding to “do a Sweden” is not an abstract decision, taken in advance, that then produces Sweden-like outcomes. It is a decision that has to be followed through, amid uncertainty, at very specific moments.

    So let us go to one of those moments. Not the omicron wave, when we did not lock down, and that boldness did pay off. Instead, go to the one before. More specifically, because specificity matters, go to Downing Street on the weekend of January 2 and 3, 2021.

    Here you will find a prime minister, an instinctive libertarian, who has pledged to have a light touch. Now he is being tested. Over December, Johnson watched as in the UK cases rose. He watched as in Sweden they turned around.

    On December 29, Sweden’s daily deaths had hit nine per million people. By then, infections had dropped: they knew that was the peak. On December 29, the UK’s daily deaths hit nine per million, and we knew from the infections we already had they would at least double. We were nowhere near the peak. It is great that Sweden flattened its curve with lighter restrictions. Despite tiers and rules of six and whatever scotch-egg based pub policies we had in that fever dream of an autumn, we did not.

    So what do we do? We science journalists were never formally told the strategy during the pandemic. It turns out, from his statements on Monday, that neither was Vallance. The closest they got to understanding the government’s aims, he said, was “the NHS not being overrun”. If hospitals stopped coping, people would start dying not just of Covid but of all sorts of other things too. This was the catastrophe they most feared — what they had seen in Italy.

    No one ever told us (or, it turns out, Vallance) the definition of the NHS being overwhelmed, but we also came to infer that it was the level hit in March 2020: 1,000 deaths a day. That, many in the NHS will now say, was the “overwhelmed” point and then some.

    On January 2, 2021, Johnson knew that daily deaths were already going to comfortably exceed 1,000. Not because of modelling, of the equations predicting what might happen in the future. He knew because of the future that we had created, because of the epidemiological certainty of the consequences of the infections we already had. The full story of what happened in hospitals that winter has yet to come out.

    He would also, by then, have had a month of his advisers telling him that if he is going to lockdown, better to go early. The pain is the same, the benefits are far greater. But he had not. Some 60,000 people were already going to die that winter, after the arrival of a vaccine. It was like we had sent them over the top in November 1918.

    There was good news. Infections appeared to be flattening. There was bad news. In a sense, the nation was already locked down — celebrating Christmas. What happened on Monday, when they returned to work?

    So what does he do? Does he trust Britons to modify their behaviour, to collectively act to tune infections to the quirks of our health service? Does he think that even if there was, say, another doubling of cases, the NHS tail had wagged the dog of Britain too long and the cure is now worse than the disease?

    Ultimately, the decision was Johnson’s. But, when faced with those numbers, even with hindsight, would he really have done a Sweden? Would Sweden?

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/should-britain-have-adopted-the-swedish-approach-to-fighting-covid-krcr80lwh

    1. On the 2nd January 2021, my OH went into acute urinary retention. Eventually, he was in such pain that on the advice of a Dr on NHS 111, I rushed him into A&E in Gloucester. We arrived in a snowstorm, I explained to reception we had been told to come by 111, and he was seen and dealt with very quickly. He was drained by catheter of half a litre of urine. We went home the next morning after he’d been checked over. That was just the start of his medical problems.

        1. He recovered from that – had a TURP a few months later and the prostate cancer is controlled by a three monthly hormone jab. He now has hair growing on his bald pate where none grew for many years!

        2. He recovered from that – had a TURP a few months later and the prostate cancer is controlled by a three monthly hormone jab. He now has hair growing on his bald pate where none grew for many years!

        3. Covid has been the least of our worries over the last few years – we take VitD3 and have had no bugs or infections since January 2020, when we probably had covid – it left us with a dry cough for several weeks, but was otherwise nothing much, and I’ve had many worse bugs than that.

          1. All of our family had covid last August. As far as I’m concerned the jabs were a complete and illegal fraud.

          2. They clearly don’t work – and appear to make people more susceptible. They suppress the immune system and make the wong kind of anti bodies.

          3. “They suppress the immune system and make the wong kind of anti bodies.”

            Well, it was the Chinese flu.

    2. On the 2nd January 2021, my OH went into acute urinary retention. Eventually, he was in such pain that on the advice of a Dr on NHS 111, I rushed him into A&E in Gloucester. We arrived in a snowstorm, I explained to reception we had been told to come by 111, and he was seen and dealt with very quickly. He was drained by catheter of half a litre of urine. We went home the next morning after he’d been checked over. That was just the start of his medical problems.

    3. So now he’s trundled off to his sinecure reward Vallance wants to blame Johnson?
      He should offer him a percentage.
      I suspect Vallance should hang flanked by Johnson and Witty.
      But they won’t.

    4. Sloppy reporting. There are around 150 DGHs in the UK. There are at least around 6 deaths per day in every large DGH. 6x 150 = 900 deaths per day on average (and probably more during winter months) giving a total of 328,500. If that figures seems high the actual UK deaths recorded are 667,479 deaths in 2021, compared with 689,629 in 2020. The difference between 300k and 670k being deaths occurring outside of hospital. Johnson was had.

  64. Slipped up today

    Wordle 884 5/6

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

    1. Not alone.

      Wordle 884 5/6

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

      1. Glad it’s not just me.

        Wordle 884 5/6

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

    2. Standard par.

      Wordle 884 4/6

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

    4. They are not coppers in any sense of the word.

      They could have put an arm around his shoulder and told him the truth.
      “Listen, mate, it’s for your safety, and ours. We’re outnumbered.”

    1. As I commented the other day Richie is very appropriately holding a plank of balsa, which sucks up wetness, has no integral strength and crumbles under pressure.

      1. IIRC balsa was used to make plywood for aircraft construction during WWII. A variety found somewhere near British Honduras, or somewhere in the Caribbean.
        Edit: Ecuadorian balsa, for the Mosquito.

          1. The wooden wonder, which had the production advantage of being able to be produced by any factory with skilled woodworkers/cabinet makers. Sofa manufacturers were, apparently, to the fore!

      2. I think you’re being rather hard on this very useful hardwood tree.

        “Ochroma pyramidale, commonly known as the balsa tree, is a large, fast-growing tree native to the Americas. It is the sole member of the genus Ochroma. The tree is famous for its wide usage in woodworking, due to its softness and its high strength compared to its low density. The name balsa is the Spanish word for “raft”.

        A deciduous angiosperm, Ochroma pyramidale can grow up to 30 m tall, and is classified as a hardwood despite the wood itself being very soft; it is the softest commercial hardwood and is widely used because of its light weight.

        Balsa trees grow extremely fast, often up to 27 metres in 10-15 years, and do not usually live beyond 30 to 40 years. They are often cultivated in dense patches, with Ecuador supplying 95% or more of the commercial balsa. The wood from these trees is highly valuable due to its high strength-to-weight ratio, which is achieved through a kiln-drying process that leaves the wood’s cells hollow and empty.

        Balsa wood is popular for light, stiff structures in model bridge tests, model buildings, and construction of model aircraft. It is also used in the manufacturing of wooden crankbaits for fishing, makeshift pens for calligraphy, composites, surfboards, boats, “breakaway” props for theatre and television, and even in the floor pans of the Chevrolet Corvette. Balsa wood played a historical role in Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki expedition where it was used to build the raft. Balsa wood is also popular in arts such as whittling and surfing, and in the making of baroque-style picture frames due to its ease of shaping.“

        1. The amount of balsa wood strips, poles, pins, beams and bars here, carefully sorted is bonkers.

          Junior asked for tree house so we made it out of bamboo cane poles pinned to balsa.

  67. That’s me for today. Enjoyed a bit of garden work* – picking the last of the apples; admiring the winter salads growing in the greenhouse. Tomorrow, a lecture in the afternoon. On the “History of Monopoly”. The chap giving it seems to have cornered the market….

    * The new ladder is brilliant. If only I had had it six years go…..

    Have a delightful evening.

    A demain (in the rain).

    1. Yeah, yeah, and Santa delivers presents to every child in the world between 00:00 and 04:00 on 25 December.
      Lying piece of sh**

  69. Having just heard the news headlines and listened to the squirming and complaining by Vallance, I reiterate the gist of my earlier comment:

    No matter how scientifically illiterate the politicians might be, it is the role AND duty of the advisors to explain such things in a way that the decision makers can understand and make informed decisions on that information.

    Any fault of the decision making lies as much, if not more, with those advisors and they should be in the dock with the politicians, not sniping from the side-lines.

    I hate them all.

  70. Inadequate bloke decides to ruin local women’s football leagues.

    Transgender woman male footballer quits and threatens to sue for discrimination because rivals refuse to compete against her him/it after she he/it left opponents ‘terrified’ and broke knee of a player ‘blocking her his/its shot’

    Perhaps every woman on the opposing team should be allowed a free kick at his bollocks before every match.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12771191/Transgender-woman-footballer-left-opponents-terrified-broke-knee-player-blocking-shot-quits-team-threatens-sue-discrimination-rivals-refused-compete-against-her.html

    What is interesting is that now he/it is trying to play the victim card.

    Bastard.

    Edit for spacing

    1. Of ccourse he shouldn’t be in the same team as the women but if a bigger woman had bashed into another player then the same injury could have occurred.

      The number of volleyball injuries the warqueen has gathered is comical. Weirdly less well attended than the swimming events.

  71. Evening, all. I would be pretty sure that, like a woman after childbirth apparently forgets all the pains and is willing to have another, Con voters will forget all the pain and vote as they have always done 🙁

    1. They will vote Conservative for fear of the much greater pain caused by a Labour government under Starmer.

      1. Just a lot of bollocks, or not, excuse my Latin.
        An Italian Roman might have said “Elagabalus, ‘e lacka de ballus.”

        2. There was once an add in a national news paper.
          For Sale…Large round Metal container thought to roman in origin. Has the inscription. Itis apis potanda tinone.

    7. Do the same as you would with toddlers throwing a tantrum
      Ignore them.
      Lucky, lucky North Herts taxpayers.

    2. By accounts for friends and folk close to Pitt, they’ve said he’s a gentle and decent fellow.

      The preponderance for Jolie to travel the world and pick up children to suit is rather weird. It’s a bit like gays wanting a baby – it’s not about the child, but about the abults.

    3. By accounts for friends and folk close to Pitt, they’ve said he’s a gentle and decent fellow.

      The preponderance for Jolie to travel the world and pick up children to suit is rather weird. It’s a bit like gays wanting a baby – it’s not about the child, but about the abults.

    4. Jolie’s father Jon Voight, a great actor and Christian supporter of President Trump, was treated like shit by her so I suggest Brad Pitt is more likely the good guy and the adopted brat the ingrate.

  74. Heads up!

    Ten years ago, Michael Douglas, the Hollywood star, revealed in an interview that he suspected his diagnosis of throat cancer was linked to oral sex. “Without wanting to get too specific, this particular cancer is caused by HPV which actually comes about from cunnilingus,” he told The Guardian.

    While Douglas was correct – research suggests HPV is more likely to be spread through cunnilingus compared with fellatio – oral sex is not the only way in which HPV can be transmitted.
    In 2021, a study in the journal Cancer looked into the connection between different forms of sexual activity and HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancer. The researchers found that even kissing, and particularly deep kissing, is also linked to heightened risk, with individuals who had 10 or more deep kissing partners twice as likely to develop an HPV-related cancer compared to those who had just one.

    People in the study who either suspected or confirmed that their partners had extramarital affairs also faced a higher risk of HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancer.

    “HPV-positive head and neck cancer is associated with sexual behaviours, notably oral sex,” says Dr Marsh. “However, while oral sex is indeed a way the virus can be transmitted to the head and neck, it isn’t the only one.”

    How does HPV cause neck and head cancer?
    HPV infection in the mouth and throat is common. Cancer Research UK says around eight in ten of us will unknowingly become infected with the virus at some point in our lives, usually in our 20s. Research has shown that for the majority of people, the immune system clears the virus within two years, but for a small proportion of individuals, the infection lingers and in some of those cases will become cancerous, sometimes up to 30 or 40 years later.

    HPV-16, the strain of the virus associated with cervical cancer and OSCCs, could over time also interfere with the function of various proteins involved in suppressing tumours which could give rise to the onset of cancer, although Dr Marsh cautions that we still have much to learn.

    According to Dr Marsh, more than half of the cases of oropharyngeal cancer in the UK are caused by HPV. The rest are linked to other risk factors including smoking and drinking.

      2. I’m a bit concerned that drinking is a risk factor. Didn’t someone say that it was important to drink several glasses of water daily? Lo.

    2. Ah, but is this science or The Science? I think we should be told. Is this idea being promoted by globalist zealots wanting to take some of the fun out of sex in advance of banning sex entirely so as to de-populate the planet? It’s a straw in the wind, I tell you.

  75. I’ve reached perhaps an early conclusion, the anti semitic marches in London are very similar to those in Germany pre WW2.
    Our government needs to get a firm grip before it becomes too late, as it did previously.

    2. But how? The muslim is pandered to, spoiled, feted. It is the biggest by demographic, recipient of welfare. It costs the most in social security and physical security. Our prisons are running with them.

      The state, rather than reject this poisoning has enforced the pollution ever further. As the massive influx has destabilised society the Left have exacerbated any cause going solely because those they hate oppose it.

      1. Simply because they have based their whole objective on the basis of hidden hate.
        When challenged they deny it. And every one else is accused of a reversal of their own agitative processes. They see and have used kindness and generosity as a weakness to take advantage of.
        If British people behave in such a manner they are arrested of accused of being extreme right wing.
        But not as they probably are, just patriotic and extremely concerned about the future of our own country, as is usually the case.

  78. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/20/civil-servants-deleted-ban-political-indoctrination-schools/

    The civil service aside, the entire state handles education appallingly. There could have been a concerted effort to dismantle the entire department. Provide a single, simple curriculum to schools and give the money in voucher form to parents to spend as they want, with whichever school they choose.

    Good schools expand, bad schools close and are taken over by good. Fundamentally though, the money remains with the customer and leaves with the customer. Parents also has a direct say in the teaching and teachers. At the moment schools exist as clients for the DFE, not the child. Parents are an annoyance, not the paymaster.

  79. I get the feeling that 11 Chelsea Pensioners could do a better job against North Macedonia.

    3. Probably but the referee was rubbish and the North Macedonians a bunch of actors. I watched a bit of the game and the referee seemed always to position himself between England players and the opposition’s goal line both obstructing the play and getting in the way.

      I suspect the officials were threatened with harm if they failed to show bias in favour of North Macedonia. We are talking about Europe afterall. It is similar to the Eurovision Song Fest.

  81. That’s the last of the surplus woodwork dismantled from the replacement van. Unfortunately, as I’ve nowhere else to put it, it’s now cluttering up the back of the van and will need to be sorted.

    DT & Graduate Son arrived home just before 2ish to a rather tasty stew I’d done with assorted leftovers and I’m off to bed.
    G’night all.

      1. I’ve already cut up the smaller bits with my circular saw and burnt them!
        The bits I have left are ones that I could find uses for.

  82. This is the text of the speech given by Dr Jill Glasspool Malone in Romania on18th November. It’s enough to make your blood run cold.
    https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/pandemics-as-a-catalyst-for-a-new?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&action=restack-comment&utm_campaign=email-restack-comment&r=z2izz

    Each nation in the world has its own culture, governance structures,
    traditions, property, borders and peoples. We must preserve the
    diversity and sovereignty of nations and cultures.

    By globally
    synchronizing the public health response across the United Nations
    member states, new powers were granted to the UN and its organizations
    at the cost of national sovereignty. These universally applied
    regulations and multilateral agreements have given birth to an enlarged,
    globalized administrative state.

    Although this power grab has
    been percolating for many decades, the COVIDcrisis acted as an
    accelerant to synergize international agreements that advance the UN as a
    world government.

    The United Nations has morphed into a
    leviathan. Its various agreements and goals seek to centrally dictate
    the world’s economy, migration, “reproductive health”,
    monetary systems, digital IDs, environment, agriculture, wages, climate
    modifications, one world health, and other related globalist programs.

  83. COVID

    So whilst the CX was serving Indian in a restaurant to raise the curve of the GDP, the CSA was trying to flatten the COVID curve in the stats whilst the CMO was trying to lockdown the whole city of London leaving the PM telling us to ‘follow.the science’ without even understanding statistics and having only studied the arts beyond age of 15.

    Just the time for bonding the team with a celebratory party 🎂🍾🥃🍷🤔

  87. Dear me, a good evening at open mic. More talent than you could shake a stick at. Drunk as a Lord. Sleep well, all, and take care.

  88. Oh bugger.
    Woke to pump bilges at 01:30, still awake at 02:30 so have come down so I don’t disturb the DT.

  89. Hm. Before I head off back to bed:-

    South Africa rips up UN refugee treaties in order to curb immigration
    The government says it can no longer afford current asylum policies, although critics say foreigners are being scapegoated

    By
    Ben Farmer IN CAPE TOWN and Peta Thornycroft IN JOHANNESBURG
    20 November 2023 • 5:36pm

    South Africa is planning to temporarily withdraw from United Nations refugee conventions so it can restrict immigration.

    The country’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) government has said it needs to “press reset” on liberal asylum and immigration policies it can no longer afford.

    The proposed overhaul comes amid widespread public resentment at current levels of immigration, and as the ANC is expected to lose its overall majority in next year’s general election.

    Immigration is likely to be high on the electoral agenda and polling earlier this year found 89 per cent of voters thought the ANC was not tackling the issue well.

    A new government discussion paper proposes temporarily pulling out of the 1951 UN refugee convention and the 1967 refugee status protocol, so officials can tighten up restrictions.

    Aaron Motsoaledi, home affairs minister, said South Africa made a mistake signing up to the treaties in the mid-1990s without insisting on opt-outs to certain clauses.

    Under the proposed reforms, South Africa would rejoin the conventions after restricting the right for refugees to work, as well as the right to education and the right to claim citizenship.

    New laws would also be introduced to make it easier to send refugees back to countries no longer deemed dangerous.

    The current liberal laws were adopted in the 1990s when the ANC embraced a pan-African stance on immigration, in part to show thanks to countries that had supported its struggle against apartheid.

    Mr Motsoaledi said the policies were now outdated and needed a “radical overhaul”.

    He said: “On this continent, the winds of change have been blowing hard and fast. Almost every week there is a coup somewhere in Africa.”

    ‘Fertile ground for violent clashes’
    The ANC says the country’s outdated patchwork of immigration laws needs to be replaced because it has too many vulnerable gaps and loopholes. It argues these have been exploited by traffickers, criminals and economic migrants.

    “The policy and legislative gaps within the Department of Home Affairs have created a fertile ground for violent clashes between foreign nationals and citizens, including [the] emergence of belligerent groups, either siding [with] or against the current migration system,” its white paper said.

    South Africa’s middle income status, its relative wealth, job opportunities and its democratic institutions mean it attracts more migrants than any other country on the continent.

    The 2022 census recorded more than 2.4 million migrants in a population of 62 million, but officials admit they have struggled to accurately assess the numbers because many foreigners are undocumented and enter illegally.

    The census found 46 per cent came from neighbouring Zimbabwe, followed by Mozambique and Lesotho.

    Yet despite its relative wealth, South Africa is also in the economic doldrums and has an unemployment rate of around 33 per cent. Foreigners are widely blamed for taking jobs from locals, committing crime and overburdening public services.

    ‘Foreigners a scapegoat’
    The country has seen waves of anti-foreigner violence, most recently in 2019, when 12 people died and thousands of foreign nationals lost their homes. Many small foreign-owned businesses, particularly in the main black, densely populated townships around Johannesburg, were destroyed.

    Last year a vigilante group called Operation Dadula, meaning “force out” or “knock down” in the Zulu language, picketed public hospitals, turning away anyone who could not prove they were South African.

    Fikile Mbalula, the ANC’s secretary general, earlier this year described illegal immigrants as “a ticking time bomb for the country”, straining public finances and slowing efforts to improve services.

    Government critics say it is using immigration to deflect from its own mismanagement and its rhetoric risks further increasing anti-foreigner sentiment.

    Stephen Friedman, a political analyst, said foreigners in South Africa were a “scapegoat.”

    He told South Africa’s Financial Mail: “It is not true that the law just welcomes everyone.

    “There is simply no recognition by the government that the vast majority of foreigners in South Africa have skills, work hard and contribute to society.”

    The British Government has meanwhile hinted that it may be prepared to quit the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), to allow it implement its Rwanda scheme to stop migrants crossing the Channel.

    Last week the Supreme Court ruled that the Government’s asylum policy was unlawful, saying that it would break international and human rights laws.

    This prompted calls from some Conservative MPs for the UK to leave the ECHR.

    Heather Gulliver
    3 HRS AGO
    If Zanu didn’t keep on stealing elections Zimbabweans could prosper in their own country.

    REPLY
    2 REPLIES

    Blue eyed boy
    3 HRS AGO
    Reply to Heather Gulliver
    I doubt it, I don’t think it matters which party gets into power now, Zimbabwe is u likely to ever prosper again.

    R. Spowart
    3 MIN AGO
    Reply to Heather Gulliver – view message
    Message Actions
    I believe they did prosper once upon a time.
    When it was White ruled Rhodesia.

    2. ….and when it was a prosperous country Britain, amongst others, tried everything to ruin it.

      Congratulations!

      Britain was successful and ruined the lives of millions.

  91. Yo all

    Just checking if we can get Guinea Fowl for Chrimbo Dinner

    Tesco came offered us this

    Burgess Excel Guinea Pig Nuggets 1.5Kg

    We will pass

  92. Yo all

    Just checking if we can get Guinea Fowl for Chrimbo Dinner

    Tesco came offered us this

    Burgess Excel Guinea Pig Nuggets 1.5Kg

    We will pass

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