Monday 21 July: Britain’s failed water system won’t be fixed by penalising wealthier users

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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482 thoughts on “Monday 21 July: Britain’s failed water system won’t be fixed by penalising wealthier users”

      1. Lovely weather for the barbecue, but started to rain as I walked back to the hotel.
        Duller and cooler this morning, but still a bit "claggy".

    1. BTL:

      Basket of Deplorables
      2h
      What on earth is the point of scrapping the organisation and setting up another one? Either pull it back into government where there is proper accountability (which is what should happen – same logic as scrapping NHS England) or sack the leadership and replace them. Otherwise you're going to have to waste loads of money duplicating everything about the organisation, and for what?

      Notional Trust
      Basket of Deplorables
      2h
      ".. and for what?"
      Clean sweep to put their own placemen in.

      1. Notice that pubic health England is still there, just under a different name. Silently doing exactly the same work, in exactly the same way just using a different name, so all the failure, incompetence, ineptitude, waste and inefficiency will be ignored as 'oh, that was them. We're completely different'. It's a deceit. It's how the state continues to foul up – continually moving the pieces around while playing the game.

      2. Governments cannot run or regulate anything. the cause of our problems is governments.

    2. I seem to have been suspended from X for three days for some violation of their spam policy.
      I never post spam and seldom comment there so I don't know what's happened there.

    3. Coaching for what? £25K for 8 hours work on how to lie? That's £3000 an hour or a quid a second. Even one you take all the taxes and nonsense out, the cost is obscene.

  6. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe site. I only just made Wordle in 6, and had to resort to a couple of clues.

    Wordle 1,493 6/6

    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
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    ⬜🟩⬜🟨🟩
    🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
    🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
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  8. Good morning Geoff and all NoTTLer chums. Today’s Monday Chuckles are about the Irish – hope none of you take offence. Pity I can’t do my usual punch-line editing on my iPhone, hanging half out of the hotel window to get a WiFi signal!

    Mick and Paddy made a promise to their old Uncle Seamus that when he died they would bury him at sea. So when the old sea dog passed away, Mick and Paddy wrapped Uncle Seamus’s body in a burial bag and loaded him onto their rowing boat. 
    After rowing for a while, Mick said to Paddy: “Do you think this is far enough out yet?” Paddy jumped over the side, but the water only came up to his knees. “This will never do,” he said. “We need to row further out to sea.” 
    So they rowed some more, until Mick said: “Do you think this will be deep enough?” Paddy jumped over the side, but the water only came up to his chest. “No, Mick, we need deeper water than this,” he said. 
    So on and on they rowed until Mick asked wearily: “Do you reckon this will be deep enough?” Paddy jumped over the side and immediately disappeared from view. Mick was becoming really worried when finally, after about ten minutes underwater, Paddy broke the surface, gasping for breath. “Well, is it deep enough, Paddy?” asked Mick. “To be sure it is,” replied Paddy. “Will you hand me the shovel.”

    Paddy was appearing on the TV quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? The second question was for £1,000, and it was: “Which of the following was one of the Great Train Robbers – A. Ronnie Biggs; B. Ronnie Barker; C. Ronnie Reagan; or D. Ronnie Corbett?” 
    Paddy said: “I’ve had a lovely time and I’m going to take the money and leave.” Question master Chris Tarrant said: “Are you stupid? You’ve only answered one question and you’ve still got all three lifelines left!” Paddy said: “I may be stupid, but I’m not a grass.”

  9. A duller start here in Hameln after some heavy rain last night.
    It was the Reunion Barbecue held in a garden just outside the town and a good time was had by all with a decent sum being raised for a couple of local charities.
    The weather stayed fine and warm until after the event and the rain started as I was walking back to the hotel after I was dropped off beside the Badewanne Bar in the Altestadt. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c893c198647d90357ce85c89bcef24006a300b7336f16b6dd2c2804726b03c7b.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7fe0ab7a95795bf4bd47c308a4edab55654c2f3222813162b095434591255a3a.png

    1. What's this! No socks in the trainers?

      Someone tell me, why do folk cover themselves in this ghastly scarification of 'tattoos'?

      2. No idea. It’s worse in summer months because the men wear shorts and tee shirts so the body graffiti are more on display.

      1. The problem is obvious, the solution even simpler. We cannot just keep taking these criminals. They have to be stopped and deported.

        Until they are, the invasion will continue. The invasion must be stopped by enforcing our borders at gun point.

        1. I’m sorry to say it but you, and I, and everybody on this forum knows that’s never going to happen. Much as we would like it to.

  15. What an utter shit show.

    Afghan migrant brings 22 relatives to UK

    Security fears after family members rejected for asylum are allowed in after data breach
    3919
    People disembark from plane at RAF base
    Afghan families disembark from a flight at Brize Norton after being flown out of Kabul in 2021. Another man was allowed to bring 22 family members with him Credit: Jacob King/Getty Images
    Gordon Rayner Associate Editor. Robert Mendick Chief Reporter. Akhtar Makoii
    18 July 2025 8:45pm BST

    Afghan migrants have brought as many as 22 family members to the UK after relatives previously rejected for asylum were allowed in following a military data breach.

    The disclosure could raise fears that national security may have been compromised in the confusion that followed the most damaging data breach in British history..

    Government sources say Afghans who were flown to Britain brought an average of eight family members with them, leaving officials scrambling to find accommodation for them.

    Ministers were even forced to consider “knocking two houses into one” on military bases to accommodate individual families.

    But the public was kept in the dark because of a super-injunction that was extended at Sir Grant Shapps’s direction shortly before last year’s general election.

    Sir Grant has now been accused of “trying to rewrite history” after he claimed on Friday he was “surprised” that the super-injunction stayed in place for so long after it was granted in September 2023, when in truth he successfully appealed against a judge’s decision to lift it in May last year.

    The Conservative government took action in 2023 when it learnt that a list of nearly 19,000 Afghans who had applied to come to Britain was wrongly shared by a defence official in 2022.

    The Afghans, who included special forces soldiers, had applied through a scheme for those who had worked with or alongside the British Armed Forces during the war in Afghanistan, making them potential targets of the Taliban.

    In March last year, the Government set up an emergency scheme, called the Afghanistan Response Route, to airlift people named in the data breach to the UK.

    Whitehall sources have told The Telegraph that one person who came to the UK was allowed to bring 22 family members, while others were in the “high teens”.

    Defence ministers had wanted to restrict arrivals to married couples and their children, but UK courts repeatedly expanded the eligibility criteria, citing the European Convention on Human Rights.

    There was a dramatic change in the criteria last November, when High Court judge Mrs Justice Yip ruled, in a case brought against the Foreign Office by an Afghan already living in the UK, that family members did not have to have a blood or legal connection to the applicant.

    Her ruling stated: “The term ‘family member’ does not have any fixed meaning in law or in common usage. Indeed, the word ‘family’ may mean different things to different people and in different contexts. There may be cultural considerations … there is no requirement for a blood or legal connection.”

    Court documents previously kept secret by the super-injunction – which was finally lifted earlier this week – show that only 10 per cent of the extended family members that applicants wanted to bring to the UK had been deemed eligible under previously existing routes.

    The document states: “Given the increased risk to some AFM [additional family members] as a result of the data incident, officials expect the number of applications and success rate to increase…

    “Officials estimate that upwards of 55% of AFM will be eligible in light of the incident – up to approximately 12,500 AFM across all eligible cohorts.”

    Only 2,200 of those people were deemed eligible previously, meaning Sir Grant was prepared to accept more than 10,000 who had been deemed ineligible.

    Sources in Afghanistan have told The Telegraph that in the “chaos” that followed the data breach, criminals, including junior staff who had stolen from British bases and sold weapons to the Taliban, had come to the UK with large numbers of family members, while military commanders who served alongside the Army had been left behind.

    The resettlement of Afghans in the UK led to major rows in Government, it emerged this week, as Cabinet ministers expressed concerns about the number of bogus claimants who could end up coming to the UK and the implications for national security.

    1. "Cabinet ministers expressed concerns" – but none of them actually did anything about it, did they? Barstewards.

    2. Why are they brought here? Our culture is so far ahead of theirs it's akin to a cave man being brought to the ruddy Enterprise. They cannot be here. Why not distribute them to other countries that are muslim?

    3. Mrs Yip should be made to house the ones her ruling let in. It might concentrate her mind.

  18. Britain’s failed water system won’t be fixed by penalising wealthier users

    I seem to remember some time ago that I heard the simplest way to measure our true growth in population is by the increase in the amount of sewerage passing through the system.
    Interestingly now our water companies are coming under fire for the rapid increase in the amount of sewerage leaking out into our rivers and spoiling our beaches.
    I haven't yet heard anyone in the mainstream media link this to an increase in population.
    It's a bit unfair to blame the water companies if our government is flooding our country with mass immigration of unknown numbers, especially if these people are not paying for it.

    1. They should make the link – after all, the supermarkets say that the UK population is now about 80 million, based on the food purchased.
      What goes in must come out…

    2. Cause and effect is something any government shies away from when they get things wrong. And, looking at the current state of the UK, government gets things wrong much more frequently than when it gets things right. The outcome is twofold, the people suffer and the bullshit level from the government increases exponentially.

      1. High energy prices/the winter fuel allowance. Rather than solve the problem of high energy prices by admitting the tax scam hoax of 'climate change', the state slaps a plaster over the leaking pipe. Another bunch of idiots smash some more pipes to pieces, rip the plaster off, then see they're under political water, panic and put the plaster back – while the ceiling is turning grey and about to collapse.

    3. Same old story Bob3 every single thing our political idiots come into contact with they eff it up.

    4. The Left don't care. Their enemy is civil society. They were not interested in facts, science and engineering, economic problems. They wanted to force the pollution on us and did so.

    5. What about the incomers who often don't use Western lavatories and plumbing?

      If they did the sewage system might have been completely gridlocked before now.

    1. The dark side of Labour’s solar energy crusade

      Ed Miliband is staking a fortune on his ‘rooftop revolution’, but uncomfortable questions hang over almost every stage of the process

      21 July 2025 6:00am BST
      Rosa Silverman

      Stroll down the average residential street and you’re likely to see at least one or two houses with solar panels gleaming darkly on their roofs. Some 1.5 million UK homes now have them installed, according to government data, and the number is growing.

      As we move away from fossil fuels, as part of the Government’s net zero initiatives, solar is likely to play a key part in the transition. Under plans to be published this autumn, almost all new homes will be fitted with solar power, unleashing what Ed Miliband has called a “rooftop revolution”.

      One that could save householders hundreds of pounds off their energy bills, we are promised.

      “So many people just don’t understand why this doesn’t already happen,” the Energy Secretary said last month when announcing the proposed changes.

      Yet uncomfortable questions hang over almost every stage of the process of switching to solar, which currently receive relatively little attention.

      From the manufacture of a solar panel to the end of its operational life, ethical and – ironically – environmental considerations are often overlooked in the rush to do the right thing, some warn. Complications include everything from forced labour in the supply chain to a lack of recycling capacity, representing a dark side to solar that often goes unaddressed.

      The problems begin right from the point at which the materials for the panels are made. Polysilicon, a type of silicon produced from small silicon crystals extracted from quartzite rock, is a key component. Between a third and half of the world’s supply is estimated to come from the resource-rich Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China – where it is made using coal-based energy.

      “Polysilicon [and] solar panels are not produced sustainably in the Uyghur region,” says Yalkun Uluyol, the China researcher at Human Rights Watch.

      “That’s why [it’s] cheap and therefore creates unfair trade practice. For customers hoping to protect the environment, and aiming for a better transition [to green energy], it’s coming at the cost of the environment and human rights elsewhere.”

      The potentially unsustainable production behind our sustainable future isn’t the only problem with the world’s reliance on Xinjiang-sourced polysilicon. Reports that it is made using state-sponsored forced labour involving Xinjiang’s Uyghur Muslims have also posed a dilemma for countries trying to scale up their solar energy use.

      Many of the factories employing “supposedly free” citizens in the XUAR are “surrounded by razor-wire fences, iron gates and security cameras and are monitored by police or additional security”, according to 2021 research by Sheffield Hallam University.

      This applied to factories generally in the region (and therefore implicated various end products), the report suggested. But by 2020, four of the six highest-capacity polysilicon producers were companies with significant manufacturing bases in the north-western XUAR – and all “utilise state-sponsored labour transfers, the end products of which are sold into the international solar module market”, the authors of Sheffield Hallam’s In Broad Daylight report wrote.

      State-imposed labour transfer programmes involve “indoctrination and other forms of human rights abuses,” Uluyol says.

      The Chinese authorities have denied that such coercion is involved in obtaining polysilicon, saying they are tackling separatism and Islamist militancy in the XUAR.

      Although Western governments have been aware of the situation for some time, action has been slow. In March this year, ministers in Britain rejected an amendment to a bill that would have prevented Great British Energy from spending money on solar panels where there was “credible evidence of modern slavery” in the supply chains.

      By April, following a U-turn, the Government’s plans were changed, to prevent the publicly-owned clean energy company from using solar panels linked to alleged Chinese slave labour.

      In the US, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act was signed into law in 2021.

      “Some countries are implementing forced labour regulations but it’s not enough, as supply chains tainted with forced labour are shifting to the jurisdictions with no or weak regulation,” says Uluyol. “The green transition should not come at the cost of crimes against humanity. And it should be green not just for the UK but for the globe.”

      If legislation is slowly moving in the right direction on human rights, it still leaves a potentially enormous problem at the other end of a solar panel’s life: namely, what happens when it’s no longer in use.

      The panels don’t last forever – they last about 25 to 30 years. By the early 2030s, an estimated eight million worldwide will be reaching the end of their life, creating what has been called a tsunami of solar panel waste. Some of the earlier models are already reaching the end of their working lives now.

      “Manufacturers are responsible for making sure they’re recycled properly but it’s very difficult,” says Jane Richardson, head of sustainability at Waste Experts, a waste management firm.

      The solar panel recycling industry in Britain is extremely limited, with few places currently offering the service. The panels are classed as electronic waste, so can’t legally be dumped in landfill – but this is sometimes where they end up nonetheless.

      “There are some that just go to landfill as people try and save money,” says Richardson. “Landfill is the cheapest option.”

      A lot of e-waste is, alternatively, shipped abroad and “not processed correctly,” she says. “A lot ends up in Africa and Asia.”

      Britain isn’t ready to recycle the volume of solar panels it will need to in the near future, she believes, and major investment will be required to build the necessary facilities.

      While others point out that the amount of solar panel waste expected in the coming years is still dwarfed by the waste generated by fossil fuel energy, that doesn’t mean it isn’t an issue.

      “It’s a problem that’s going to appear [and] it’s going to be huge,” says Chris Sansom, prof of concentrating solar power at the University of Derby. “Clearly as the numbers [of solar panels reaching the end of their lives] increase, they are going to pile up and that’s going to be pretty visible.”

      And while most of the component materials can be reused – the glass, the metal, the silicon – the panels haven’t actually been designed for easy recycling, he says. “If you were to ask any of us scientists and engineers to redesign them for recycling, we could do that, but they’re [currently] built for low cost, not recycling.”

      Then there’s the question of where we put our solar farms. A train journey through Britain now quite often takes you past once-green fields entirely given over to them. Quite apart from the “nimby” arguments against them, questions remain over the carbon impact of these sites, Prof Sansom points out.

      “If you’ve got a green field, it’s absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and very often I don’t think that gets considered,” he says. “If you cover [fields] with panels, you’re virtually killing off the grass and the soil underneath and stopping it from absorbing CO2.”

      Pouring public money into solar farms has not always gone smoothly either. In Essex, bankrupt Thurrock Council sold off its last 53 solar farms last year, having been left with about £1.4bn of debt following a string of failed investments. Last month, the Serious Fraud Office announced it had launched an investigation into a company that sold a bond investment scheme linked to solar farms, into which the council had invested millions.

      None of this amounts to a conclusive argument against solar energy per se, but it does highlight the trade-offs involved and the possible pitfalls of rushing into this evolving market.

      The likelihood is that, as the solar energy industry matures, many of these issues will be resolved. Waste industry insiders are reasonably confident that recycling facilities can be scaled up to handle the tidal wave of e-waste soon to come crashing upon us..

      But it is argued that we should be clear-eyed about the true cost of the new rush for solar.

      “I think we fool ourselves sometimes,” says Prof Sansom. “If you ignore that the panels have a carbon footprint when they arrive in the UK, you can… appear very green. But that’s cheating because you’re not considering the embedded carbon that’s gone into making the panel in China in the first place.”

      At the same time, you could end up convincing yourself that you shouldn’t transition to renewables at all. “You have to make the investment somewhere to decarbonise the grid or you won’t get anywhere,” Sansom says. “But you have to be careful, when you’re moving things around the world, that someone is picking up the carbon footprint.”

      Otherwise, in 20 years’ time, our rooftops and fields may be covered in gleaming panels while the planet continues to warm.

          1. Miliband minor's "nature and climate" statement. Here's an example of nature that happened a couple of years ago and its impact has been experienced but apparently ignored as it doesn't fit the narrative.

            40 billion gallons of water vaporised and dumped into the atmosphere isn't an occurrence that should be ignored; water vapour is a 'warming gas' and much more so than demonised carbon dioxide.

            If global events like the Tonga eruption are not acknowledged by the "authorities" on climate change, how can the people take these "authorities" seriously?

            Here in Essex this morning we experienced a cloudburst at around 07:00, it lasted for about 10 minutes. Is this classed as an 'extreme event'? Essex being one of the UK's driest counties.

            https://x.com/_ClimateCraze/status/1946955203632042128

          2. Good heavens! Do you mean that it was a natural occurrence? Wel, who knew…🤦🏻‍♀️

          3. More people means more heat. The solution is to get rid of the people. Start with Lefties.

          5. He always looks more frantic and hysterical when questioned about his plans.
            He is of course, plain crackers.

        2. The only known thing that could be raising sea levels is the millions of tonnes and cubic metres of concrete holding all those wind turbines down on the sea bed.

        3. Another one akin is 'when Al Gore sells his beachfront mansion, then I'll consider it. Until then, it is just another socialist faith.

      1. It hasn't worked since the invention in the 70's.

        As for the cost – 1.4 trillion is an estimate. The real cost is going to be ten times that or more. The Left simply don't care. They have a weapon. It's is called 'climate change'. Neso simply aren't bothering to estimate at all because even if the numbers were calculable tthey would be so astronomically high that no one would countenance them.

        As it is, we're in recession. The desperate reliance on 'growth' to pay for all this waste when the economy hasn't grown significantly for 10 years precisely because of 'net zero' is an alien concept to the hard Left.

        With people put out of work, with our economy shrinking, ever higher demands for welfare, a massive client state of violent savages suggesting public money should be wasted on further destroying the economy is an act of malice.

    1. No new reservoirs, no new sewage plants, no new power stations, no new roads, rail and 20 million more useless eaters poured on us.

    2. The sewers in my local town were built by the Romans (local archaeologists have confirmed).

    1. A bit tough on those who didn’t vote for the refugees welcome MP who got elected anyway.

    1. No names no shame……
      Our political classes are too stupid to understand the mess they are creating for the British public. Or are they ?

      1. I can 'like' a post I see here, but liking a post on X brings up a strapline saying it looks like an automated response and may be spam. I've been able to repost posts too. But I don't appear to be suspended.
        My Hedgehog Hospital account seems ok.

    2. Well… go on. How? As it means renegotiating the Ireland peace process. It means abandoning the Windsor agreement (which would be a good thing). It means renegotiating with the EU – who desperately want us chained to the court.

      It then means revoking the equalities, communities, HRA and countless acts of parliament (all good stuff) but it will hamstring ay other government work because the state will do absolutely nothing the entire time unless watched while it does it.

      Then of course you have the endless lobby groups who'll roll wheelchairs along the Strand – for people who can walk. You'll get all the dindu and black groups shouting and screaming so they have to go first. The fake charities. The quangos.

      It's just not that simple. The state has ensured it isn't. It's like hunting a hydra. You don't face it off. You destroy it's habitat, it's feeding ground and then when it's starving, dying and suffering you kill it.

      1. 409729+ up ticks,

        Morning W,
        Surely suffering all that you post and gaining a positive endgame than to continue guaranteed suffering ongoing.

    3. She should join Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain rather than than Farage's Reform Party.

      I wonder why Farage has backtracked on deportation and admitted that a multitudinous number of Muslims are here to stay and cannot be removed.

      Could it be that he was seduced by Yusuf's money or is it even more sinister? What has Yusuf got on Farage that Farage cannot allow to come out into the open?

  26. Morning All 🙂😊
    Bright and breezy. Low 20s more rain on the way. Back to normal then.
    If our stupid political idiots dont stop the bloody boats, there will not be any tap water to moan about.

  27. Text for non-Tw@teratti readers:-

    NEW: Anti-Israel protester gets thrown over a fence after interrupting the Tour de France by running down the track.

    The incident took place just 25 yards from the finish line.

    The man was believed to be protesting the Israel Premier-Tech team, which ironically didn't have any Israeli bikers in the event, according to the New York Post.

    https://x.com/BeardedBob7282/status/1947201407485890733

    1. Nasty little brat determined ot ruin what others have worked for for her own aggrandisement.

      She's spoiled the day for all those other spectators, the police officers, the officials. Selfish, stupid bint. And it is mostly women, isn't it? It's usually young women whinging about these things. Oh, you get some socialist worker geriatric men wandering about but I imagine that's to appease their spoiled wives.

      1. These people must know that their protests change nothing. It's pure "look at me" virtue signalling.

      1. A horse weighs half a ton and is travelling at 35 mph. A cyclist near the winning post might not have quite the same impact.

        1. A complete peloton would be an almighty pile up.
          In the sprints of the Tour de France, riders can reach peak speeds of 70-75 km/h on the flat, particularly during mass finishes.
          Hit by that I suspect she/he would be killed

          2. You might be surprised how many cyclists are bunched together at a sprint finish, certainly over half a ton of men and machines.
            Well over 40 mph
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRVI-Xsk7KU

            This isn’t a very flat finish and being hit by this lot might well kill an idiot who ran into it, let alone the injury to riders

  28. OT – I noticed yesterday evening, after I had packed up for the day, a thread about belief in God etc.

    I was brought up as an old-fashioned Anglican. Prayer Book, King James Bible, Hymns A & M – knew the liturgy by heart. Enjoyed singing the psalms.

    Then, in 2014, my younger son was diagnosed with terminal cancer – and he died exactly 9 years ago today. He was 47. Throughout his illness I prayed for a recovery or a remission. I could not believe that a benevolent Creator would allow this to happen.

    Well, on the day Jim died, my faith was completely shattered – lost for ever. I go to church on Remembrance Sunday – because it is a day of remembrance. And, often, on Christmas Day because I enjoy the familiar lessons and carols. I chip in to the church funds because I believe that is what villagers should do to support. But other than that. Zero.

    Oh, and as dear old Plum Tart used to say, you don't get over it – one just gets used to it….

    2. My condolences, Bill. I also lost faith when it was clearly a talking shop, full of back biting, spite and envy. People who tried were let down by those who didn't.

      I look at the country, the world and think 'what sort of god allows this?' And no, free will doesn't cut it. It's an excuse to avoid the fact there's nothing there but us.

      1. The Church of England seems to be on a perverse crusade to turn all Anglicans into Roman Cathoilics or atheists.

        1. I said to one of my RC friends that I was tempted to convert. She said there’s no question of choice with her lot; you are told what’s what and you’re expected to follow it. No discussion.

    5. Good morning Bill,

      We remember your extreme sadness when you lost Jim , and we all tried to give you strength and support and our condolences .

      Significant dates in our hearts are painful , and that cloud of sadness and loss lingers long and hard ..

      So sorry about today , in particular , which will feel raw .

      Please feel comforted by the lovely memories you have of Jim in better times .

      (PS I still say my prayers , as I did when I was a child , and on my own at b/school )

      1. Most nights. "As I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take".

    6. We remember, Bill. I can't begin to imagine the pain you felt……..knowing your dear son was going to die before you. You've had to carry that pain for the rest of your life. Our children should outlive their parents, but sadly that's not always the case. My grandmother was a strange old woman – but maybe the loss of her son (my father) at the age of 39 might have had something to do with it.

      Your memories of Jim will always be with you. Maybe that's what "eternal life" means.

    7. I’m sympathise with you for the continuing pain you must feel. No one should be here for the funeral of their children, but as my sister in law has said, we don’t go in order of seniority (otherwise she would have gone two years ago and not her husband).

    8. Oh dear, Bill. I remember it was high summer but was it really that long ago?
      Thank goodness he left you a lovely granddaughter.

    10. Similar effect on my mother after a family tragedy.

      Changed from a full on Christian to an atheist.

    11. Sadly where there is life, there is death.
      Your younger son lives on in your heart, and your granddaughter is living proof of his goodness.

    1. I don't want to know anything about muslim. It's not part of my culture, is actively poisonous, shouldn't be here and has only ever caused this country problems.

      Get rid of it.

      1. I already know more about islam than I want – enough to know it has no place in a civilised Western Christian country.

        1. For centuries true Christians have been aware that Islam and Christianity cannot co-exist peacefully.

          One of the differences is that Christians do not want to live alongside Muslims and would rather they moved elsewhere while Muslims do not want to live alongside Christians and want to kill them!

          1. There is a world of difference between “turn the other cheek“ and “behead the kuffar”.

    2. Someone should remind him what happened to the first Charles. He’s supreme governor of the Church of England, someone should remind him of that, too.

      1. 409729+ up ticks,

        Morning C,

        Maybe sending him a spare clean shirt would do the trick ?

        2. I remember seeing King Charles 1's bloodstained shirt at Longleat when i was a child. I wonder if it's still on display. The bloodstains looked a bit like drips of wax.

          1. The Rizzio bloodstain in Holyrood Palace appears to be refreshed. Either that, or the floors haven't been washed for 450 years.

          2. I recall a similarly dubious mark on the floor in Canterbury Cathedral. Here is the spot where Becket…etc.

          5. Perhaps, like the Canterville ghost when his bloodstain is erased by an American wonder cleaning agent, he is forced to refresh it with whatever colour comes to hand?

    3. Calling this buffoon The Idiot King flatters him.

      He is outbuffooning Boris every day!

      1. He is almost becoming an absolute joke .

        I hope his gardeners abandon his multi homes and leave him knee deep in weeds .

        I wonder whether he kicks his dogs?

        1. A joke in extremely dubious taste.

          As I mentioned yesterday – when we ourselves were children many of our generation could instinctively see that he was a wrong'un. We could also see that Princess Anne was the best of the Queen's progeny.

    6. When was this excruciating fest?
      Where's Old Noll when we need him?
      What is it about the monarchs named Charles? It's become as blighted as John.

      1. France doesn't want them back. However, there's a nice stretch of land between us and France that has no tenants, no legal treaty and that we have rights to.

        As Baldrick called it 'big blue wobbly thing.'

    2. Then he also won't know that we castrate then hang pakistani muslim paedophiles, will he?

    3. Sharia Law should be outlawed in the UK all Sharia courts closed down and those who continue to live by Sharia Law should be deported to places where Sharia Law is legally accepted.

      Muslims should be given the simple instruction:

      If you insist in living by Sharia Law you will be deported?

    4. Ignorance of the law is no defence.
      Or so we were taught in my dim, distant youth.

      1. If ignorance of the law was a legitimate defence, it would be claimed in every case.

    5. Once the obvious bigoted phobia on display here is dealt with by Rayner & Grieve.. we can start on the holy grail of phobias.
      Cue: They'll be calling people paedophobic next.

  33. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/21/solar-energy-green-but-at-what-cost-labour/

    Pouring public money into solar farms has not always gone smoothly either. In Essex, bankrupt Thurrock Council sold off its last 53 solar farms last year, having been left with about £1.4bn of debt following a string of failed investments. Last month, the Serious Fraud Office announced it had launched an investigation into a company that sold a bond investment scheme linked to solar farms, into which the council had invested millions.

    Why are councils wasting money on boondoggle schemes like this? If, like Cambridgeshire they have so much to waste on a 4 day week trial (for two years) then they are grossly overpaid and their funding should be withdrawn until they concentrate on the absolute basics.

    1. Maybe it’s time to bring them in line with parish councils whose councillors are unpaid.

      1. My impression is that councillors actually have little or no authority over the council CEO and paid staff. Councillors set the priorities but staff seem to decide whether or not to adhere to them. Please, would any councillors on this forum care to clarify this?

        1. I am only a parish councillor so the situation is different. What I dislike about county is the cabinet system. It doesn’t make for transparency.

    2. Just Empty The Bloody Bins.
      Zap The Effing Weeds.
      Clear The Sodding Litter.
      Otherwise …… Get Out Of Our Lives.

      1. I would not be at all surprised if it works like this:
        40 hour week = five 8 hour days. Pay £800
        40 hour week = four 8 hour days plus 8 hours overtime at time and a half. Pay £ 880

  34. Morning all. I am waiting for a phone call in response to my e consult so I thought I’d while away the time on nottl. It could be any time before 18.30. Oh joy!
    Labour only has one “solution” to everything and that is “punish those who have made a success in life”. That it doesn’t work and has never worked never crosses what passes for a mind among them.

    1. Hello Anne ,

      No rain of any significance here,

      No puddles to leak into the Piddle nor the Frome

      Stop boasting , it isn't fair , thirsty hydrangeas, why on earth did we grow them ?

      1. I'm covered in shame.
        MB got some purple indoor plant that looks like a cross between an aster and an oleander.
        I thought a sprinkling of rain would help it (soft water, not the hard Colchester stuff).
        The mystery plant though otherwise and is now looking bedraggled and exceedingly miffed.
        To placate MB, I made him a bacon roll for breakfast.

        1. We've been checking: it is an aster bonita.
          MB got them from the corner shop that takes all the stuff the Dutch lorry off-loads on a Thursday before returning to Holland.

  36. Orgreave inquiry into miners’ strike clashes to begin in autumn
    Campaigners welcomed the move more than 40 years after violence at the South Yorkshire coking plant led to 95 arrests followed by collapsed prosecutions.

    A public inquiry into the violent confrontation at Orgreave during the 1984 miners’ strike will be established this year, the government has announced.

    The inquiry, set to begin work in the autumn, will investigate the events ­surrounding clashes at the coking plant in South Yorkshire on June 18, 1984, which resulted in 120 injuries.

    In total, 95 pickets were arrested and initially charged with riot and violent disorder, but all charges were dropped after evidence was discredited.

    Police on horseback charging a woman during the Orgreave miners' strike.
    A mounted police officer swings his baton at Lesley Boulton, a member of Women Against Pit Closures
    JOHN HARRIS
    The inquiry will be statutory with powers to compel people to provide ­information where necessary.

    The Rev Dr Pete Wilcox, the Bishop of Sheffield, has agreed to chair the inquiry, which the Home Office said was intended to “aid the public’s understanding of how the events on the day, and immediately after, came to pass”.

    Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said what happened at Orgreave “cast a shadow over communities in Yorkshire and other mining areas”.

    She added: “The violent scenes and subsequent prosecutions raised concerns that have been left unanswered for decades and we must now establish what happened.

    “I pay tribute to the campaigners who never stopped in their search for truth and justice, and I look forward to continuing to work with them as we build an inquiry that gets the answers they and their communities deserve.”

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/orgreave-inquiry-miners-strike-c5nsdffld

    We need an enquiry into the cruelty dispensed to the Tolpuddle Martyrs!

      1. As soon as I saw CoE bishop – let alone Sheffield – I'd written the report already.

      2. Apparently the "Bishop" is known as Pete! I liked this comment below the main text "The Guardian is today taking credit for getting the inquiry – whose costs will no doubt run into the tens then hundreds of millions. One hundred times harder to get a rape gangs inquiry out of Starmer than one into a 40-year old skirmish at a picket…"

          1. Alec (and all NoTTLers), I can assure you that Grizzly is not away from his house.

    3. I imagine many of the people involved will be dead or have little memory of events. What a waste of time.

      1. Typical Labour vote catching ..

        I suspect you are correct , and the anti Thatcher theme is now watered down with mining areas being dominated by blinking migrant communities ..

        What a load of codswallop .

      2. Most likely effect will be to reopen old wounds, with no benefit as, as you wrote, most participants will be dead or daft.

      3. They never forget…….. I was running a training course some years ago – and one of the participants was a former policeman and another was an ex-miner…….. they almost came to blows in the classroom. Not a happy day.

    4. Acksherley, I don't think William the B'stard was terribly nice to my Yorkshire forebears.

      2. Nor mine, that's probably why they all went south in the late 1800s. 😏🤗

    5. This country and the people involved in these historic events are stupid.
      Pointless is the predominant factor.

    6. "The violent scenes…"

      Secondary picketing involving the kind of people involved in every violent strike episode going back to the 70s, notably Saltley and Grunwick.

  37. From Conservative Home.

    https://conservativehome.com/2025/07/21/what-does-the-trivialisation-of-the-franchise-say-about-us/?

    What does the trivialisation of the franchise say about us?

    Henry HillJuly 21, 2025

    Our editor wrote yesterday about the cynicism of Labour’s proposals to extend the franchise to 16-year-olds. And it is undoubtedly cynical. A critic might similarly allege that Conservative opposition to the move is cynical too – and there would be no little truth to that, too.

    The charge that 16-year-olds are simply too immature to warrant the vote is weak. It might be true in many cases, but it is a weak argument because this is simply not how we otherwise assess the franchise; it invites the obvious point that many adult citizens, graded on that criteria, ‘deserve’ their vote less than many teenagers.

    Yet competence is actually a weak argument in both directions. The obvious challenge for someone advocating for votes at 16 is: why stop there? However allegedly illusory are the differences between a sixteen-year-old and an eighteen-year-old, they are surely greater than between an eighteen-year-old and a fifteen-year-old.

    Any intellectually-consistent argument rooted in competence (and I make no claim that most arguments deployed on either side are intellectually consistent) leads quite quickly into very thorny territory for somebody who purports to believe, in the uncomplicated modern fashion, in the universal franchise.

    Much more interesting, however, is the bizarre light that this move casts on politicians’ attitudes towards young people. Because many of those advocating to lower the voting age will also believe the pseudo-scientific idea that brains don’t fully develop until 25 (this latter-day Lysenkoism has actually been incorporated into Scottish sentencing policy). The previous government even consulted on proposals (backed by that modern scourge, the campaigning mum) to ban under-25s from carrying passengers in their cars.

    If anything, surely the case for votes at 16 is weaker now than it was in the Noughties, when mandatory schooling ended at 16? Today, we don’t trust sixteen-year-olds to govern their own lives: they cannot decide to leave education, to drink alcohol, to smoke tobacco, to watch Aliens (although Alien is fine), or – contra Angela Rayner – to get married. There seem few people in British politics, barring the odd libertarian, who object to any of this; so whence the urgent need to include sixteen-year-olds in governing everyone else?

    It could speak to a gradual but fundamental shift in how we view the franchise.

    The right to vote has been fought and died over, and for that reason often viewed either as a privilege or at least a weighty responsibility. A modern audience might reject many of the fruits of this reasoning, such as property qualifications. Likewise, the older voting ages of former times (such as 21) were no more or less arbitrary than 18 or 16, as a number.

    But withholding the right to vote until after the extension of other adult privileges suggests that participation in the political community is viewed as a serious responsibility – the culmination of a citizen’s journey to full maturity.

    Our modern inversion, likewise, suggests the opposite – that the franchise is a thing which can be given to children. In Scotland, remember, a sixteen-year-old is given the vote on the same terms as a 26-year-old, despite the fact that Scotland thinks that sixteen-year-old won’t be able to assume criminal responsibility on the same terms for another nine years.

    This is an odd shift, and this is not the only debate in which this is reflected. Consider also the idea – with which Labour has flirted also – of extending full voting rights to permanent residents. There is a progressive lobby for that, and for extending access to the welfare state (to aid integration, no less!). Yet both of those proposals strike at the foundations of the old conception of citizenship as membership of a defined community, one that comes with both privileges and obligations.

    Perhaps this is simply an inevitable development in an era when the legitimate ambit of democratic politics is bounded ever more tightly by the courts, government power exercised by quangos and regulators, and ministerial decision-making channeled through the gauntlet of vested interests that is ‘consulting the stakeholders’. A couple of years ago Gordon Brown proposed enshrining welfare entitlements in a codified constitution.

    The narrower you think the actual role of elected government is, the laxer you can be about who gets to participate in the political community – very Ruling the Void. (That the advocates of these changes borrow the high moral language and imperative tones of older franchise campaigns is thus somewhat ironic.)

    Or maybe – although these two positions are not mutually exclusive – our current, weird attitude towards the franchise is simply the product of no joined-up thinking at all.

    A politician or mandarin tells one meeting they want votes at 16, because that seems nice, and another that people can’t be held fully responsible for their actions until 25, because that too seems nice. Their trivial attitude towards the vote is revealed in the sum of their positions, but that doesn’t mean they’re cognisant of it. This would hardly be a surprise, not in a state which issues certificates of personhood to parents of stillborn children who it has just decided can be killed without legal penalty.

    The Conservatives should probably repeal votes at 16 if ever they return to office, and instituting a universal age of majority is probably the way to do it. Not only would it afford a face-saving way of ditching that absurd tobacco ban, but it might just force a serious debate about when we think people grow up, and what that means.

    A lot of MPs will hate that, but that’s all the more reason to do it.

    1. Call me an uneducated know-nothing but I've not come across, as far as I can recall, the word ambit before.

    2. A child learns to say No at the age of two, and your average two-year-old is not short of opinions, not all of them in agreement with his or her parents.

      The age of criminal responsibility is not linked to brain maturity, but rather the ability to distinguish right from wrong, which was set at the age of ten, and seems fair enough. Teenagers may well have an extremely well developed sense of right and wrong, and are not afraid to say so.

      Everyone develops at a different rate – I didn't go through puberty until I was nearly 16 and my life was made hell at school for being a late developer, although it did land me a job as a child actor when I was 14. I was quite right wing then, a very strong supporter of Enoch Powell (whom I still admire), but mellowed into voting Liberal on my 18th birthday (I voted Conservative when I was 23, and tend these days to vote for the best candidate regardless of party). I took my civic duties very seriously in the run-up to that election, perhaps more so than most adults, and feel that some 16-year-olds may well be a positive influence on the election process, as well as setting them up for a life of public duty. Maybe the best answer would be to make voting an automatic right at 18, but allow 16 and 17 year olds to make a special declaration that they are ready to vote, but without it, they would not be.

      The one activity I would suggest a lower age limit of 25 on the grounds of brain development is the use of cannabis as a recreational drug. Below this age, there are strong grounds to suspect that cannabis has a permanently ill effect on the growing brain, and is quite dangerous. My own brother took it as a teenager. He is now sixty and is in a hospice for the mentally incapacitated on the grounds of paranoid schizophrenia, one of the effects of taking cannabis too young. The refined version, known as Skunk, not only makes a young person mad, it makes them psychotic.

      1. I saw the results of cannabis use on young people when i was a "New Deal" adviser at the the JobCentre from 1998 to 2009. Some of my clients committed suicide, others were definitely psychotic and dangerous. Some were completely lacking in confidence, others had no concept of right and wrong. Drug use amongst those young people was rife and often led to harder drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
        I don't think most 16 year olds are mature enough to know what they are voting for at that age. 18 is a reasonable compromise – it was 21 when I was that age.

    3. There has been a continual shift away from rights and obligations to simply “rights “.

    4. I wonder if 16/17 years old dinghy divers landing on the coast will now be treated as adults? Answers on a postcard…

  38. Good morning. Has anyone seen my marbles? Yesterday evening I was listening to GBN while getting ready for bed and thought I'd taken off my earrings but saw I was only holding one. Assuming I'd dropped the other, a frantic search ensued. Upon conceding defeat, I glanced in the mirror. The dratted earring was still dangling from my ear.

    4. It's usually a sign of having a problem with the parietal lobe or the temporal lobe, but in your case it was the earlobe.

  39. Our electricity bill for the last 3 months has been £200. Or, £70 a month, £2 a day. I imagine much of that comes from the big things kicking off, like the immersion heater.

    With batteries our only bill would be the standing charge (which is due to go up, anyway).

    Still, even with that, the cost of electricity is far too high.

      1. Aye, we pay £140, but that's probably too much. I averaged it from our use last year – I accounted for 30p a KW/h and all use, so some of our night rate washing and immersion (when the tank is set to 65, not a top up 60) which is cheaper is still counted at the higher rate. We get through roughly 10KW a day – more in the Winter for the heat pump but that's not exactly an optional to turn off.

        Frankly, energy is too expensive. It should be a third what the current cost is.

        1. Fear not. Today’s paper reported that Dale Vince is doing very nicely on terms of subsidies received.

          1. Dale Vince has the same smug, superior eco-fraud look as Chris Packham. They might even be the same person!

          3. Dunno. Packman has $crewed a lot from the Beeb and his "partner" has a nice little earner in her animal re$cue "not-for-pro£it" whose entire net income would appear to constitute her generou$ $alary.

          5. There was a rumour ages ago that Kylie Minogue & Rick Astley's records were made by the same person, but played at different speeds – both SAW!

        2. And here I am paying 10cents/kwH, which means there's almost no way of any major investment in batteries, panels, etc., yielding a return on investment.

    2. That's if you ignore the cost of the batteries, I should think it would be ages before you recouped their cost which is why I don't have them. My lecky is £35 a month and the panels have already paid for themselves (they also heat the water before any lecky is exported to the grid)

      1. I looked at that – my only concern is that during the Summer we're using far less hot water (cooler showers) so need the 'hot water' a lot less but if it saves the immersion even coming on at all, that might be a good thing.

        For 10KW battery I've seen costs of £2500, +300 for fitting and bits, so probably 3-3500. I'm leaning toward the top end however yes, it all means return on investment and still leaves us with the damned standing charge.

        1. But you only top up the batteries when you have excess power (diverted from the grid), if they saved you £1 a day (half your current expenditure) it would take 10 years to get the cost back plus you'd lose the interest on that £3.5k (5%=£1.7k over 10 years) roughly

    3. The underlying problem is the excessive standing charge; PV panels are useless if there is no current to run the inverter(s).

      1. if the standing charge was lowered, it would only mean the price per unit of electricity was highered.

        If you think tinkering with the standing charge would make your electricity bill lower, please enquire about the bridge i have for sale.

        1. The reason the standing charge on gas and electricity doubled over the period of the gas price surge was to cover those who cannot or will not pay their bills. There is £4Bn outstanding I do believe. Around this time there was a great hoo ha about forcing meters on those who did not pay.

          3. Too many people who could budget to pay are riding on the backs of the genuinely vulnerable

          4. So it has always been in Britain. Since the 1950's at least. I well remember my grandfather, a classic small business owner, railing against the "council house crowd" as he called them, who got very subsidized houses and promptly trashed them.

          5. The are classed as ‘vulnerable’ as they will have screaming brats or disabled at home, so you cant touch them.

    1. No they wouldn’t. Not giving the invaders free everything and sending them back would, though.

    2. Go on then. Let's see Labour past present, and the Labour membership all entered into this data base.

    3. Best wishes. It will go well. The problem often as lay folk is that we don't know what to ask to be properly informed, or what needs putting in place prior. For example, if I knew I needed to buy gauze pads for wound cleaning and the prontosan cleaning fluid I'd have got that in advance, same for the dressings.

      As my kidney stone is a circular saw in my back I'd quite like them to get on with that as well!

    7. All the best and hope all will go well. When i went for a pre-op assessment some years ago I was swabbed for anything nasty……apparently these days they just give you something to do it yourself.

      Let's hope the surgery is successful and all heals well.

  42. The British Horseracing Authority contacted MPs with racecourses or training establishments in their constituency to find out their views on bringing taxes on racing in line with casino gambling. Only 6 Labour MPs bothered to respond and half of them were in favour and the others non-committal. No surprise there. All Labour knows is tax and waste and never mind the job losses or destruction of the economy. Betting on horses is not like gambling on the turn of a card or the spin of a wheel.

  43. For those still interested in the institution even if you believe our CEO is imaginary.

    Dear Sue,

    Our meeting of General Synod in York is over and I thought I would brief you on what happened. You may know that we were strongly supporting the motion from the Bishops of Hereford and Bath and Wells to call for a permanent transferral of funds from the annual income of the Church Commissioners’ endowment (to to the tune of about £100m a year, or 1% of the endowment itself) which would have boosted the money available to dioceses to fund clergy posts significantly and wiped out the deficits run by 83% of dioceses – which, of course, many use to justify the closure of churches and the reduction in clergy numbers.

    Sadly this did not win. Despite very good speeches from Hereford, Bath and Wells, and Chelmsford (along with a good few from us clergy and laity), a wrecking amendment from the Bishop of Sheffield was passed. This kicks the question into the long grass, committing to a debate in the next three years over how the Church Commissioners’ money is spent. The Central Church lined up a slate of speakers almost entirely from the Church Commissioners and the Archbishops’ Council to tell us that 1) of course they know better how to do mission than priests and bishops on the ground; 2) giving dioceses and parishes enough money to survive will take away their incentive to engage in mission; and 3) shaving £100m of the endowment each year (from income) would be so catastrophic that the Commissioners and Archbishops’ Council would use their influence in Parliament to block it, even if General Synod passed it. Sadly, their wrecking amendment passed, so the short answer to “how did Synod go” is “the vote went not necessarily to our advantage”.

    And yet… there are a number of very important straws in the wind to note. The first is that, when voting on the Sheffield Amendment, 9 bishops voted with an STP-aligned motion (and two abstained) – this is an increase from zero two years ago (even if 22 voted still lined up on the other side). More and more bishops are coming to see that the only way to revive the church is through the local, and that the best way for the national church to support the local is to make sure we are properly funded. There is a great weight of evidence, mostly from the national church itself, which shows that resourcing parish ministry is much more effective than prioritising grant funding for new projects and it is a very healthy development that an increasing number of bishops are recognising this.

    It is sad that 22 bishops are backing the central church model – where money left by our forebears to fund ministry is doled out in grants to shiny pet projects rather than maintaining boring old ministry in boring old parishes. But this is a campaign whose time has come and I expect an increasing number of people – bishops, clergy, and lay – to realise that this proposal is a life-saver for the local church. As Victor Hugo said, “there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

    For this to happen, we will need your support. The actual voting lists have not yet come out but when they do, you – as members of the Church of England – have the right to ask those bishops to change their mind. This is especially true if those bishops are running a deficit in their diocese, and most especially true if they have the brass neck to ask for a parish share increase over the next few years, an increase they know they could have avoided completely had they voted the other way.

    At some point in the next three years, this is going to be debated again – and by that point there will have been new General Synod elections. We need people to stand for Synod in the summer of 2026 order that next time we win the vote. Next year we will be putting out a call for candidates. If you could volunteer your time we need you to stand. Also, if you have experience running campaigns, we need a campaign manager. Please let us know if this could be you.

    With every blessing,

    The Reverend Marcus Walker

    Chair, Save the Parish

    1. How did Lichfield and Chester vote? They are my current and former bishops. My priest is a member of General Synod (I am only on the deanery and diocesan versions). I look forward to hearing a report.

    3. Ah, two mentions of the "Bishop" of Sheffield in one morning – neither to his credit, IMHO!

  44. 409729+up ticks,

    Deportation of ALL illegals = pension at an agreeable age
    Deportation of ALL illegals = seeing doctors within a reasonable time span.
    Deportation of ALL illegals = education,incarceration,
    medication, accommodation,ALL pressure / stress free.
    Deportation of ALL illegals= the arse will fall out of the
    odious crime, paedophilie rape & abuse numbers.

    Etc,etc,etc, when shortly this,after much pleading with the political overseers, is forcibly & justifiably put in place, these Isles will be seen to be on the mend and not, criminally insane and round the bend.

    1. As I was saying to one of my friends on Sunday, I remember the seventies so I knew what Labour would be like, the young lad behind me was listening. I told him I hoped he wasn’t going to report me for non P C views. He just buried his head in his phone. I hope he was looking up reports from the seventies (assuming they haven’t been rewritten).

  46. Good afternoon all,

    The warmer it gets then the more water that can be held in the air.
    That's not just science – it's a fact.
    What goes up must come down – that's gravity otherwise we'd be floating in space,
    When the water comes down as rain it floods the sewers.
    But when it stays up in the air water vapour remains as a significant greenhouse gas.

    This means that if the planet's water stays up in the air then global warming will just keep getting worse and worse and when it eventually comes down as rain to earth it will just leave us in the sh** – it's a lose lose situation.

    However, the more sh※※ we're in the lower global cooling will become – it's basically quite scientific.

    1. And as far as I know and understand none of the moisture can ever leave our atmosphere. So it's continuously recycled. Not good when we need to consider what our water companies and many others are dumping into our rivers and the sea.

      1. The argument in my comment alludes to a possible planetary regenerative self sustaining and amplifying process of global warming and flooding.

        If humankind really had a idea of why the planet is rapidly behaving the way it is and that it was actually anthropogenic then we should be seeing ameliorating results by now.

    2. Yes, but you're discussing science and engineering with Lefties. Zealot, lefties. They're don't understand science, they're just evil.

      1. I tried to tone down my reliance on scientic knowedge in favour of common sense in my comment. However I understand that common sense is now a shortcoming ln many parts of our community.

    2. The ruddy Mare would go to kick me. The only person she tolerated was the Warqueen.

    1. Nahh. My red line started somewhere near the top and went vertical. It's still climbing.

  50. From GB News.
    Keeping it in the family?

    DWP employees steal benefits from state pensioners and disabled Britons as staff 'ripping off the public'

    Benefit payment money for state pensioners, disabled Britons and carers has been stolen by employees of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), an investigation has found.

    During the 2024-25 tax year, more than £1.7million in cash ringfenced for Universal Credit and other payments was lost as a result of benefit fraud conducted by DWP workers.

    An investigation found that some staff members have redirected funds for their own benefit at the expense of vulnerable benefit claimants. Over the years, DWP employees have been given suspended sentences and jailed for stealing benefit money.

    3. Righty, let me guess what those stealing have in common. I'll bet it's muslim.

      As it is, the 'over the years' must mean 'now', with harsh action taken, including cutting off any of their benefits.

  51. It's hard to understand what the purpose of an inquiry into the miners strike over 40 years ago might be.
    One thing is for sure, there won't be any mention of the real facts, that Wilson and Calaghan closed more pits than Thatcher did. And therefore started the then ongoing reactions.

      2. Even when they don't have any reason to do so.
        More public money to be wasted on their silly ego trips.

    2. "It's hard to understand what the purpose of an inquiry into the miners strike over 40 years ago might be."

      It's to reinforce a particular political prejudice. Anyone who watched the first series of BBC's Sherwood will understand. It wasn't the worst detective drama ever produced but there were two particular plot lines worthy of note:
      i. the London coppers operating under cover who were ashamed of what they'd done;
      ii. the swanky London lawyer, played by Lindsay Duncan, who gave us all a lecture on how Thatcher 'had declared war on the miners'.

      You know whose side you were meant to take…

      1. I asked Chatgpt for some job loss numbers, by year. Here's the answer:
        Mining (deep & surface) Job Losses (Approximated):
        1950–1960: Decline of ~66 k (–6.6 k/year)
        1960–1971: Drop of ~344 k over 11 years (~31 k/year)
        1971–1978: Hard to isolate purely mining (quarrying included)
        1978–1984: From 383 k → 285 k, loss of 98 k (~16 k/year)
        1984–1993: 285 k → 88 k, loss of 197 k (~22 k/year)
        1993–2000: 88 k → 78 k, mild decline (~1.4 k/year)
        2000–2010: 78 k → 61 k (–17 k over 10 years)
        2010–2020: Stable around 61 k
        2020–2024: Down to ~50 k (–11 k over 4 years, ~3 k/year)

      2. It might just have been the last time our police force used any firm authority. But unfairly against our hard working miners.

  52. Good afternoon, NoTTLers.

    I have to thank my good friend, Spikey, for bringing this discussion on the coal miners’ strike of 1984–1985 to my attention; since I was involved, directly and indirectly, for the entire duration of the dispute. It was interesting to read a few of the comments, especially the ones regarding ‘secondary picketing’. I can add a little to that discussion.

    This dispute commenced as a direct result of an ongoing battle of political will between Arthur Scargill, and his National Union of Mineworkers on the Left; and Margaret Thatcher, and her Conservative government on the Right. This contretemps had been escalation ever since Scargill assumed the leadership of the NUM from Joe Gormley. Scargill’s tactics of utilising ‘flying pickets’ from other regions was directly countered by Mrs Thatcher’s use of the police mutual-aid scheme in the way of PSUs (Police Support Units) from other forces around the country. This became, in effect, a civil war being fought by two generals from opposing ideologies.

    When the so-called ‘Battle of Orgreave’ took place; massed ranks of flying pickets from other coalfields — predominantly Yorkshire but supplemented from others from around the country’s coalfields — descended upon that coking plant intent on causing serious disruption. The high number of PSUs deployed to prevent this happening were selected, in the main, from visiting forces. Local police officers were kept away since it was going to be their job. once the strike had folded, to attempt to return the area to normality. The only problem with having pickets and police officers from outside the area meant that few of them, on either side, cared much about the repercussions of any over-the-top tactics being used.

    I personally witnessed unprofessional behaviour by members of a visiting force (the Metropolitan Police) at a picket line at Shirebrook earlier in the dispute. They were an undisciplined ragtag mob led by thugs. I saw a superintendent from that force run at a picket line, kicking out at pickets and encouraging his officers to follow suit. On one off his kicks, this cretin missed and his shin struck a piece of fencing, instantly snapping his tibia! Those of us locals present complained about this loutish behaviour and stated we had no desire to work alongside members of this undisciplined rabble. This was in complete contrast to members of other forces — notably the City of London Police and the Devon and Cornwall Police — who were both professional and supportive.

    Before any governmental department embarks on a 40-year old witch-hunt, they should take into consideration the appalling behaviour of those flying pickets before they start to consider the somewhat questionable counter-measures taken by some of the police present. In any civil war-type situation those embarking upon a régime of violence need something a tad stronger than a ticking-off to counter their excesses.

      1. G'day, Rastus, and thanks.

        Do you mean Lennie Peters, friend and associate of the Kray twins and crooner of banal ballads?😉

    2. Nice to see you Mr Grizz. Will you be giving evidence?

      I see this as a Rayner tactic to mollify the Unions. Regardless of some bad behaviour i feel the police are going to be stitched up.

    3. The situation was dreadful on both sides. Why is there an inquiry now? It's past history. Are the unions just wanting more trough at the tax payers expense?

      1. This inquiry is a forerunner to further ones into the Norman Conquest, fighting the Armada and the Slave Trade.

        1. I guess the West Africa Squadron was a clever cover-up of increased slaving activity.

    4. Hi Grizz. It will be interesting to see to what extent Arthur Scargill gets involved in this, at the age of 87.

    5. At that time I would throw a pound coin into the miner’s bucket at Clapham Common Underground on my way into work.

      On one occasion the Resident Engineer on my site at Pimlico Underground remonstrated with me for doing so. He was from Middlesbrough and explained that the miners were the best paid and most well off people where he lived. He thought the pickets a violent rabble.

      Our building site was at the same time subjected to another branch of that rabble viz. the builder’s union known as UCATT. They had infiltrated the workforce and would constantly bring the works to a near halt, stealing tools and damaging the work in place.

      I have always thought unions in some sectors too powerful to be controlled.

      I agree that the Metropolitan Police were and remain a total disgrace and quite apart from forces outside of Westminster.

    6. At that time I would throw a pound coin into the miner’s bucket at Clapham Common Underground on my way into work.

      On one occasion the Resident Engineer on my site at Pimlico Underground remonstrated with me for doing so. He was from Middlesbrough and explained that the miners were the best paid and most well off people where he lived. He thought the pickets a violent rabble.

      Our building site was at the same time subjected to another branch of that rabble viz. the builder’s union known as UCATT. They had infiltrated the workforce and would constantly bring the works to a near halt, stealing tools and damaging the work in place.

      I have always thought unions in some sectors too powerful to be controlled.

      I agree that the Metropolitan Police were and remain a total disgrace and quite apart from forces outside of Westminster.

    8. One of my anti-Thatcher friends used to insist that the Army contributed people for the PSUs.

    10. Welcome back Grizz.
      I think we'll find that as usual the so called hierarchy will only consider their own adgenda.

  55. I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked.

    Why are they even on planes if they're not house trained.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14924047/Flight-attendant-toilet-offend-Australia.html

    He has dozens of horror stories about the messes passengers would leave behind, mostly due to them having never used a Western-style toilet before.

    'As cabin crew, you notice it happens on specific flights to specific destinations. We'll chat and find other crew picked up on the trend too,' Mr Daniels said.

    'On those flights, passengers will defecate on the floor and you just do your best to smile and not say anything.

    'You get used to it after a while and can start mentally preparing yourself for those flights.'

    In particular, Mr Daniels noted the affected routes were mainly those stopping in developing countries.

      1. We have has, for the last year, many temporary staff from India here in Norway.
        The toilets all sprouted these signs.
        My feeling was that they were insulting – many Indian engineers are very civilised and clever!

    2. I know of a long-retired flight engineer(also a brilliant engineer), who used to work for an airline carrying pilgrims to and from Mecca in the late 1960s' or early 1970s. Most of the seats were removed, to increase capacity and keep matters simple.
      One day the stewardess entered the cockpit ashen faced, to inform the Captain that a passenger had lit a fire (charcoal?) in order to do some cooking. To be fair, the passengers were probably rural Africans, who had scarcely been in a bus, let alone an aeroplane.

      1. I heard of the same / a similar incident, on the trip from Nigeria to Mecca.

        2. The Saudia Hajj flight in 1980 is the flight from which the rumours of cooking onboard originate. There was indeed an in flight fire, the plane was landed successfully but all were killed by smoke. There was a thought that the fire was due to someone cooking but it was discounted, this link discusses the accident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudia_Flight_163

    3. I know of a long-retired flight engineer(also a brilliant engineer), who used to work for an airline carrying pilgrims to and from Mecca in the late 1960s' or early 1970s. Most of the seats were removed, to increase capacity and keep matters simple.
      One day the stewardess entered the cockpit ashen faced, to inform the Captain that a passenger had lit a fire (charcoal?) in order to do some cooking. To be fair, the passengers were probably rural Africans, who had scarcely been in a bus, let alone an aeroplane.

    4. The story may be true and similar rumours abounded when my company took on a Hajj contract after bookings to the US fell after 9/11. There were few volunteers for a 10 week stint in Indonesia, crapping up the walls and cooking their own food in the aisles being the main talk. But having done 10 years of flying pilgrims to Jeddah, I must say I dreaded the thought of going back to Gatwick passengers. They were often offensive, drunk, caused diversions and generally a nuisance, whereas the Indonesian passengers boarded and didn't bother anyone for the 13 hours they were sat there. Once word got around that life wasn't so bad in Asia, staying at company expense and the odd beer funded by generous bonuses, the same old faces appeared each year. One colleague produced a letter to show to his wife, allegedly from the company, telling him he was conscripted to go. Im afraid that when Mrs Pea came on the scene I was banned from going out unaccompanied…

      1. One aspect of flying that I hate is the need to pee.
        At the best of times I’m every couple of hours and often more frequently.
        People fouling the lavatories so that they are closed should be shown the emergency exit.

    5. We’ve had it in the communal showers and toilets of the last two buildings i’ve worked at. We know exactly who is doing it, and why. I even caught a guy i work with in the communal showers recently. Let’s call him Mohammed, because that’s his name. He is not a peasant – he’s a qualified accountant. But i was getting ready to go into the showers, having been for a run, and i noticed he went into the shower in his suit. I waited to see what happened. After a while the shower in his cubicle was switched on.

  56. After several hours of steady, useful rain, the sun has come out. Just checked – all the rainwater butts are full. That's nearly 2,000 litres. Hooray!!

    2. I went for a walk yesterday afternoon in what was supposed to be a lull in the rain, according to the forecast. The clouds seemed to be clearing but about 2 minutes after I got back home they came back and we had a very impressive thunderstorm – very heavy rain too! Good timing!!

      1. You do not have to approve of – or like – a King or Queen to still be in favour of having a monarchy rather than a presidential system that might throw up a Blair, a Starmer, a Macron or a May and lumber you with him or her.

        But the Idiot King is pushing his luck and I suspect that more and more monarchists are becoming republicans. Cavaliers are becoming Roundheads.

        Which reminds me of dormitory pillow fights at prep school where one army consisted of boys who had been circumcised (Roundheads) and the others who had not been circumcised (Cavaliers).

  58. Good afternoon all
    Our contributions will be erratic for the next 5-6 weeks as work started today on renovation of our kitchen, utility room and shower room. Removal of one load bearing wall and another partition wall. We’ve also changed to a combination of boiler so that we can enlarge the shower room by removal of the airing cupboard and including that space into an enlarge shower room so that I can hive a proper shower in a cubicle that is more fitting for my 6’5” height and corresponding girth.

    1. Mess everywhere, for weeks…
      We're just closing up a complete bathroom rebuild, the kitchen ceiling & floor underneath the bathroom, and a small room we use for breakfast just outside the kitchen door, plus resurfacing the two flights of stairs and renewing the landing floor. Looking lovely, the trim to replace, and the wreckage to be collected…

      1. Ours is a bungalow we moved into 5 months ago today. Tomorrow the load bearing wall is coming down. They have built a temporary stud wall between the kitchen and living room and covered it with plastic sheeting to try to avoid too much dust circulating. Also covered all the furniture. Very pleased with what they’ve done so far. A long way to go.

        1. It'll be worth it.
          For us, some details to complete, then a whole-of-house clean and opportunity to throw away masses of stuff accumulated over 20+ years. Look forward to when it's over.
          The money has only vanished from the bank, it's now hidden as house value increase (I keep telling myself). But, we could have bought a reasonable car for that much.

    3. Plumbers came this afternoon – diagnosis – hot water cylinder in the loft above our bedroom has split and it's been leaking for some time judging by the limescale – so new cylinder ordered…….. fitting might be Friday or next Monday. So we'll be tripping over the buckets for a few more days yet.

        1. We have two hot water systems and this immersion heater is for the en suite and our bedroom in the newer part of the house. We have an oil-fired boiler for water for the kitchen and bathroom in the older part, which also heats the 14 radiators.

      2. How will they get the old one out & the new one in? Is the loft hatch big enough?

        1. I hope so! Could be a problem otherwise! But it got up there so ……… anyway they were surprised to hear it's over 30 years old.

        1. I posited to a Lefty chum (who knows nothing – never read a history book, never read a politics journal, anthrophology guide, gets his news from the BBC but thinks he knows everything) about gimmigrants as he said 'Reform' wanted to kill them all. Then it became deport them. I said 'isn't that a good idea?' And he said no, we should help those in need.

          And then I said 'Well, why don't you take say, 8? Two each could live in your rooms along with you. You could feed them, clothe them and so on.'

          And then he fell apart and began blubbering that we were a rich country and should take as many as we can to 'help them' .

          So again, I said 'why don't you then?'

          Lefties are so utterly hypocritical and lacking in logic that they don't think. Apparently the reason why the economy is in decline is because 'da wich' avoid taxes'. I said, well, send HMRC a cheque then.' No, not me, da wich. It is sad that he is so ignorant and every discussion has to bypass politics because he simply does not know anything.

          1. We are no longer a rich country, wibbles, grace a these kind of people (your friend) who always agitate to give away other people's money (OPIUM). We're done and are now third world.

    2. 'KEIR STARMER SAYS THERE'S LOTS OF HOUSING AVAILABLE FOR ILLEGAL MIGRANTS'

      That is true. They just need to evict the white indigenous first. As they are now doing.

    2. Perhaps Lucy Connelly was on to something; I wonder if the CPS was aware of the government's Afghan shenanigans before her trial. Was her solicitor put under pressure to persuade Ms Connelly to plead guilty?
      Certainly there is an error of fact in both published versions of Melbourne Inman's sentencing remarks.

    3. More, did plod really bus in the Lefty rentamob? How else did they get there? Why did Lefty plod social media not do something about that?

    4. Gives them an excuse for a "crack down".
      The oppression ratchet only ever works one way.

      1. There does seem to be a pattern to the 'afflicted'. Just a clear example of what's wrong with Britain. Deceitful, abusive welfare grifters living off other people's money have so much to attend an expensive concert, (taking advantage of the 'disability' card for special treatment') make a miraculous recovery.

        They're thieves. Taught to be so by the state.

  62. Wordle No. 1,493 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 21 Jul 2025

    A dither for Birdie Three?

    1. Well done. Nasty one today,

      Wordle 1,493 5/6

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

    2. Strange word – but with the letters I had I couldnt see any alternatives….. Just a four….

      Wordle 1,493 4/6

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

      1. Well done.
        Wordle 1,493 5/6

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

    3. Double bogey for me today!

      Wordle 1,493 6/6

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

      1. When do you go in for your procedure, Sue? Will you be able to Womble or might you be out of action for a while?

        1. I'm due to be admitted on 18 August for surgery on the 19th. I'll find out more at the pre-assessment but apparently five days in hospital are expected, with the first two in intensive care. Overall about 4-6 weeks healing time expected but there are no absolutes. I recall David Wainwright of this parish wrote that he was in hospital for longer after heart surgery due to slower healing.

          1. OH was in hospital for five weeks altogether, but most of that time was for diagnostic tests and waiting till he could be treated. Actual recovery time after the triple by-pass was only five days before they sent him home. The rest of the time was recovery at home – it all healed up pretty well, though the A-fib was not sorted for another year.

      1. You had the same 3 letters as me, Cor, I do believe (given the letters likely excluded) that there was no alternative!

    5. I was out gathering a few real birdies and pars

      Wordle 1,493 4/6

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

  63. I suppose if we exchanged all our illegal Muslim immigrants with just those from Afghanistan Bridget Phillipson might think this would be a saving as the Afghan girls would be stopped from going to school by their Taliban supporting fathers and male relatives and this would free up school places.

  64. Labour Appoints Anti-Tory, Anti-Brexit Bishop to Chair Thatcher-Bashing Battle of Orgreave Inquiry

    Over the weekend the government announced it will capitulate to the demands of left-wing campaigners and launch a national statutory inquiry into the Battle of Orgreave. Labour is bound to do so by its manifesto…

    Yvette Cooper said: “I think the miners’ strike still has deep scars across coalfield communities, and the decisions made at that time – the broadest decisions that were taken by the Thatcher government in the 1980s – the scars can still be felt across the coalfields.” A taxpayer-funded exercise in Thatcher-bashing…

    To that end Labour has appointed Bishop of Sheffield Pete Wilcox to chair the inquiry, which will be able to summon witnesses and which it intends to work the same as the Hillsborough Independent Panel. Wilcox previously attacked the Tories and was naturally one of the bishops to put his name to an open letter opposed to no-deal Brexit. Should get the intended results then…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ec1400d5a09f8a0a860d4d2a6bfad9147eff656ab0315a9b5b3c1d99ff2ac89.png
    The Guardian is today taking credit for getting the inquiry – whose costs will no doubt run into the tens then hundreds of millions. One hundred times harder to get a rape gangs inquiry out of Starmer than one into a 40-year old skirmish at a picket…

    July 21 2025 @ 09:28

    Fred West Quality Patios Ltd
    7h
    With all the problems this country has, they're launching an inquiry into a riot that occurred in June 1984?

    fred finger
    Fred West Quality Patios Ltd
    7h
    You need a cause celebre, to indoctrinate the younsters. 'Look we told you the right are levil, and down trod the workers'. Here is the proof.

    ToryDJ
    Fred West Quality Patios Ltd
    7h
    It's about sticking your enemy. As with Bloody Sunday, the SAS, and the false SA claims made against Lord McAlpine and others.

    RodPudney
    7h
    If the mines were still open today would Labour want to shut them to stop climate change or would the donations from the NUM be sufficient to ease their conscience?

    1. Bound by its manifesto? Since when did delivering on its manifesto promises ever trouble Labour? Remember Gordon Brown?

  65. They just haven't a clue.
    Of course people can't/won't save if you tax them into penury and disincentivise savings.

    Britain’s state pension age is to be reviewed sooner than expected. The Government assesses the retirement age, currently 66 but increasing to 67 in 2026, every six years – with the last review done in 2023. In a speech today, Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall said: "Put simply, unless we act, tomorrow's pensioners will be poorer than todays, because people who are saving aren't saving enough for their retirement.”

    CRETINS

    1. The taxes from pension companies collapsed when Brown stole from them. Thus he made having a pension compulsory.

      However, he also hiked the stealth tax burden, so people had less money, so put far less money into pensions.

      Thieves Reeves, the moronic woman has now hiked NI, which has companies either making redundancies or freezing pay. She has also frozen the tax thresholds, so again, people have less money now, in real terms than they did in 2002.

      This isn't difficult stuff to calculate but because the Treasury refuses to consider the destructive effect of taxation the result is people are poorer, worse off than they were 20 years ago.

      Hiking the pension age just means the low paid having to work longer, for ever less (as they cannot command the salary increases nor job changes and, simply are not worth paying more). What they will never be able to do is pay more money into a pension.

      I worked this out from simple logic. Why can't Thieves Reeves the moronic woman?

      1. Different mindset. They think all monies belong to the state and the state knows best how to use it.

          1. I've not seen that before, but I've thought something very similar.
            I'll steal that, if I may. I do management training now & again.

    2. The message that is sent is "don't bother to look after yourself, spend all your money, don't amass assets and you'll get everything provided".

  66. Well that was a lot of time wasted. Instead of ringing so I could discuss the e consult they just sent me an email to collect a blood test form (need ID or I won’t get it) and they have referred me for a water exercise programme which should help more than physio. Why it had to be me who requested these things I have no idea. I never completed my PhD.

    2. Sounds a bit like my experience of the Envy of the World. I am very deaf. Doesn't bother me – but drives the MR round the bend.

      In October 2024 I asked for an apptmt to see a GP for a referral. Five weeks later, the daft bint wrote a referral letter (took them two weeks) to (unknown to me) the ENT Department.

      Early this month, July 2025, the MR rang the Audiology Dept – to be told there was no trace of any referral. The MR is not one to be brushed off….she persevered. The referral letter WAS there but it was addressed to ENT NOT Audiology. ENT have a two year waiting list. No one could send the GP's letter to Audiology. However, the person had some sympathy and said that a way round was to go to Boots or Specsavers for a hearing test and THEY could make a direct referral to Audiology.

      I am going to Boots on Monday morning… Will report further.

      Must bang a saucepan – if only I could hear it.

      1. I had someone with a really strong foreign accent ring me up about changing my internet over. He also spoke very quickly. I had to keep asking him to repeat things and then get him to confirm what I thought he’d said. Hopefully the new appointment will be confirmed by email .

          1. No, it was genuine; I am changing my internet over and this was from my new provider; they gave me a date, but I warned them I wasn’t available on the morning of that day. It’s been rearranged for the 4th August in the afternoon, so I shall have to make sure I’m back from the RAFA meeting by the start of the window.

          3. No, it's Freedom Fibre via Zen. I initially contacted them when I knew when I would be out of contract with Talk Talk. They got in touch and I've decided to go with them. I see Freedom Fibre vans about a lot locally and the green cabinet isn't very far from the house. Even better, there's a pole with fibre (according to the notice) just a short distance down my back drive.

      2. Specsavers have done MB proud.
        I do have sympathy with MR. We try our hardest to be patient, but sometimes the constant repetition – particularly when you are in a hurry or busy – means you snap when you don't mean to do so.
        I'm also constantly on the look out (hear out?) for MB missing a remark and then either ignoring the speaker or catching up several sentences later as I don't want others to misjudge his actions.

    3. May your blood test be smoother than mine.

      Oh hang on we didn't collect one of the samples, we need to drill another hole.

      1. Aagghh!! The vampire at the hospital phlebotomy dept is normally very good and you don’t feel a think. If she’s on holiday, however …

          1. I've noticed if the reply is on a comment on a notification, there's no edit button as you normally have on the main comment page.

          3. It is very annoying….you have to go back to ‘in discussion’ to edit!

  67. That's me for today. I am most grateful to those of you who posted comments under my declaration of atheism this morning. I shall always remember just how supportive you were back in the grim days. I used pass on Spikey's awful groan jokes and Jim finally said could I ask my friend to stop!!

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. I have no particular thoughts on religion but the death of children is hard to bear.

  68. World Economic Forum ‘rigged data’ to make Brexit look like failure

    Davos conference founder allegedly intervened to lower UK productivity ranking

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/briefs/2025/07/21/TELEMMGLPICT000433085697_17530905776180_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqGE5TqMJRh4-y8A8auEsqviwRQc3qpjrac3x0FUJ5zZ8.jpeg?imwidth=960
    Mr Schwab gestures with one hand as he speaks

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/91fe51cb5e45e83b

    Salopian Sheep
    5 hrs ago
    Gosh. Dishonesty by Remoaners. Who would have thunk that?

    Kevin Richards
    just now
    Bloody globalist liars….and we are experiencing the consequences of their lies, with this immigration national emergency….which is what it is.

    Do not trust either main party as they are both affiliated to the WEF.

    I met Klaus Schwab in 1995, in Koblenz, Germany through family members and didn't find anything to like about his attitude to global politics.

    I suggest that readers check out his father's background and grab themselves a copy of the 'Great Reset' and be prepare to be outraged!

    His influence is/was far and wide he is known for favouring the Chinese social credit system….enough said.

    William Habershon
    5 hrs ago
    The WEF is quite simply ghastly. I particularly loved it when Trump come to power a second time, it sent shivers down their spine as they know their dirty little game is coming to an end. The expenses scandal should be the nail in the coffin, it sums up how the whole racket is run from the top

    1. My dog, plain sight….(can't uptick/reply as usual, connection out of whack, consider yourselves approved, everyone especially you Geoff x)

  71. Re-enacting the Battle of Orgreave is pointless

    Inquiries should not be public therapy sessions

    Charles Moore • 21st July 2025, 5:58pm BST

    Oh dear, an inquiry into Orgreave. The name refers to the Yorkshire coking depot where, in June 1984, Arthur Scargill's violent flying pickets failed to prevent delivery lorries leaving the plant with coke to fire the Scunthorpe steel furnaces.

    It was a turning point in the miners' strike. Scargill's mass picketing of the Saltley coke depot in 1972 had closed the plant, humiliating the Conservative government of Edward Heath. His defeat at Orgreave ensured that history did not repeat itself. The police came out on top. Fuel supplies never failed. Margaret Thatcher's government eventually won. After nearly eight more bitter months, the strike collapsed. Scargill had lost.

    Ever since, the Left has been obsessed with Orgreave, alleging police brutality and mendacity, and repeatedly called for an inquiry. Some hope to find documents implicating Mrs Thatcher, such as they alleged existed, but did not exist, in the case of the Hillsborough disaster. At Hillsborough, as at Orgreave, the South Yorkshire police were the objects of their anger.

    It is true that court cases against the pickets collapsed because the police evidence against them was discredited. The fact of that collapse, however, would suggest that justice was done. If police misconduct was not sufficiently arraigned, there is what is now called the Independent Office for Police Conduct to handle this. Why an inquiry, 40 years on?

    For some strange reason, Theresa May, after becoming prime minister in July 2016, briefed (indirectly) that there would be an Orgreave inquiry. Perhaps her poor relations with the police, when she was home secretary, had something do with it. Anyway, two months after making this suggestion, she wisely dropped it.

    But the Left kept on complaining and, in Labour's general election manifesto last year, the following promise was made: "Labour will also ensure, through an investigation or inquiry, that the truth about the events at Orgreave comes to light."

    The clear implication of that sentence is that the truth has, until now, been concealed. Labour's version of the truth is that the police, covertly directed by the evil Thatcher, behaved appallingly. Given this highly political background, it will be hard for any inquiry to look at the matter dispassionately.

    In terms of presentation, the Government seems to be hoping that this is a repeat of the Hillsborough Inquiry. The Hillsborough report, produced by James Jones, the former Bishop of Liverpool, was entitled The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power. It was widely admired for its account of what the families had been through.

    So the Orgreave report is also to be chaired by a bishop, the Right Reverend Dr Pete Wilcox, Bishop of Sheffield. Episcopal purple is supposed to ward off accusations of political bias, but Bishop Wilcox will be under enormous pressure. He says he looks forward to "engaging with stakeholders", but I wonder who will qualify for that description.

    Since the energy supplies of the entire country depended on Scargill's pickets failing wherever they tried to attack, all of us alive at that time are stakeholders. More directly, so were the steelworks, so was the government, so were the police, who had to enforce the law, and so were those miners, more than a quarter of the total workforce at the time of Orgreave, who went on working. They did not agree with the strike and resented Scargill denying his members a ballot on it. Many were victims of NUM violence.

    The announcement of the inquiry goes against the Government's own current work of looking to see whether inquiries are worthwhile. There are so many nowadays, few leading to recommendations that get implemented, but still costing literally hundreds of millions of pounds. Sir Keir Starmer privately acknowledges that they should be cut back.

    For an inquiry to begin, the Government now wants to require evidence of "a clear present public benefit". It does not want inquiries to be merely public therapy sessions. It wants them only if they can address an issue that needs addressing now. How can anyone say that this intensely political issue of more than 40 years ago fits that criterion?
    ________________________________________

    Politeness on all sides

    Guess what happened in our village last Saturday? Sir Keir and Lady Starmer came. The occasion was the lovely wedding in our parish church of the daughter of a long-standing legal colleague. And guess what happened? Nothing. I think this uneventfulness should be celebrated.

    First, it was a tribute to the security people, who were very low-key and courteous.

    Second, it reflected well on the parents of the bride, who had kept the information close.

    Third, it reflected well on those villagers who did know who was present but did not choose to vent any of their mainly unfriendly current feelings towards the Prime Minister.

    Finally, the Starmers behaved well, and everyone liked them for it. My wife and I were close witnesses as they sat in the pew behind us, and we can attest that they were unassuming, friendly and demanded no place of honour. They stayed for a flatteringly long time at the reception and seemed to be quietly enjoying themselves.

    Perhaps none of this needs saying, but I mention it because the age of social media tends to erode the concept of privacy which is so important in civilisation. This was, in all respects, a civilised occasion. Vice-president J D Vance is reported to be heading for a short holiday in the Cotswolds next month. I hope the Vance family will be treated with similar politeness.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/21/battle-orgreave-inquiry-pointless-miners-strike-labour

  72. TR advised to stay away from Epping to avoid the obvious catchy title in The Guardian.. also in the hope that this will spread across the country.

    Reminder:
    Boudica led a major revolt and is remembered as a powerful and influential figure, particularly in Essex where Colchester, the site of a Roman settlement and a target of her rebellion, is located.
    and..
    In the Second English Civil War (1648), Essex became a key location due to Royalist activity and the subsequent siege of Colchester. The siege ended with the Royalist surrender in late August.

    1. TR could surprise them all by turning up incognito as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

  76. Last post – interesting that the Orgrave bollox should be announced a day or so after "Parliament" went into (well-paid) recess.

    Pity.

    Could have given Mrs Very Badenough some ammo with which to attack Cur Ikea.

    1. 409729+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Sheep are often spoken of in a derogatory manner, "it knows just how far to go" lessons for the learning there.

        1. My daughter reckons they spend their time thinking up new and exciting ways to kill themselves!

          1. I thought horses spent all their time inventing ways to injure themselves in the field.

          2. I sometimes wonder if the same doesn't apply to dogs – or it could just be mine.

    2. Yes, butt.
      The sheep is on a lead so I assume the parent is ensuring the child doesn't get hurt.

  79. Beautiful evening – middle of the holiday season, so most are away. Warm, so sitting outside listening to the Three Tenors from early 1990s whilst quaffing an excellent ale called "Old Crafty Hen", a strong ale from Bury St Edmunds. Excellent, so it is, about 6%, but not sweet nor too heavily flavoured.
    Lovely colour, too…

  81. Well, thanks to a friend popping round with a gift of spuds from his garden and whom I dragooned into helping me, the gazebo is now up covering the seating area. Just as well as there was a sharp shower not long ago. It's noticeable that since I got my hammock operational, the weather has been too foul to enjoy it. At least now I can sit out in the dry even if it rains.

    You all know how culinarily challenged I am; I decided to make a beef casserole today; it tasted okay, but I managed to burn the bottom onto the casserole dish. To complete the set, I also managed to burn the saucepan in which I cooked the spuds. Shows willing but lacks competence would have been my school report! No wonder I don't cook very often!

    1. Low heat was my solution to similar things. And don't stir the burned layer into the rest of it.
      Or telephone for pizza…

      1. I thought I had it on low. It's gas. Perhaps the thermostat on the oven isn't quite right. I know, a bad workman blames his tools.

    2. Of all the kitchen gadgets invented over the years, the most important one is the timer.

      1. I have a timer and I used it. I followed the instructions re timing. It still burned.

  82. His gardeners got the big heave hoe,
    They didn't know a weed, from mistletoe,
    They had no idea,
    The plants had the Kings ear,
    So now off to the tower they go

    1. Yes, sadly. This is just another vile rentamob wanting to cause trouble and using an excuse to do it.

    2. I think it's worth remembering that none of this would be happening if all of our horrible useless political idiots hadn't allowed it to.

    1. Those old lyrics really did mean something.
      One of my memories of our first born was how long it all took. And when the nurse handed him to me so i could hold him, facing me he peed all over me.
      The cluster layshaft stopped working on my Land Rover gear box on the way home after. After many hours of labour. He was born in the evening at the Flinders medical center in Adelaide.
      His name is Matthew. As in Matthew Flinders. Initials are MBE.

      1. We had so many blood pressure and growth scares with Firstborn… eventually, a cæsarian. I still struggle not to become tearful at the memory of that tiny scream of rage…
        Music attaches itself to occasions of greal emotional significance.
        Louis does it for me, also Sinead O'Connor, Pavarotti and Vivaldi.

        1. Our number two was cesarean.
          He changed his name to Daniel he didn't like being called Julius…..only Joe King 😄😁😊

      2. I attended the birth of our eldest and he was literally pushed into my hands.
        That was the instant that we realised we had son, the sex wasn't normally "published" until they were born in those days.

        I missed the second as I was away from home in the North of England working, and he arrived early.

        I also missed the third, HG went into labour and he had popped out before I could get to the hospital.
        It was touch and go whether HG would get to the hospital in time too!

  86. The night draws in, the three rubbish bins are out for early collection in the morning. I feel tired so there's really only one thing to do.
    Good night all Nottlers sleep well.
    😴

  88. I've just listened to today's PM and Evan Davies interviewing a retired miner, Dave Smith, who was at Orgreave in 1984: "When we arrived, the police were very helpful, ushering us this way and that, where to park cars and so on. Then they marshalled us into a field where there was a mass of them. Riot shields, horses, dogs. We'd been set up."

    Evans wasn't tough enough in questioning him about the legality of picketing. Smith admitted that he and his fellow pickets wanted to close the coke works and the steel works that it supplied. He claimed his epilepsy was caused by a policeman's truncheon but admitted he couldn't prove it. He also claimed that a BBC report falsely showed the miners charging the police first. He wasn't optimistic about the outcome of the enquiry and didn't care much for it anyway.

    Perhaps Yvette Cooper thinks there's a hidden cabinet paper from 1984 written by Mrs T telling Norman: "Get the police to give 'em a kicking!"

    1. There's an ex-coalminer moved into the village a couple of years ago who was at open mic tonight (he and his wife are regulars). Hates and blames Scargill for the whole shebang.

      1. If Scargill lives to be questioned, I hope that he is asked: "How did you come by your flat in the Barbican?"

      2. If Scargill lives to be questioned, I hope that he is asked: "How did you come by your flat in the Barbican?"

    2. The accusation about BBC coverage has been going on since 1984. The idea that the BBC would do so in support of the Police and a Tory government is laughable.

    1. Good Night Conners – and the two award winning colleagues, Kadi and Winston.

  90. Excellent open mic, good newcomers too. A funeral group were there too, a lively bunch and everybody (almost) knew everybody.

  91. Well, chums, it's my bedtime now. So I wish you all a Good Night. Sleep well, and I hope to see you all bright and early tomorrow morning.

  92. Plenty to depress us in the Terriblegraph today.

    It’s as if our Great Leaders do not have a brain cell between them. Still, the one they have is furiously trying to find new ways of confiscating money via taxation. Not stopping wasting money. Not reforming unfunded public sector pensions. But tinkering with housing and private and state pensions.

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