Monday 22 June: Black Lives Matter says it wants to dismantle Britain’s capitalist state

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/06/21/letters-black-lives-matter-says-wants-dismantle-britains-capitalist/

716 thoughts on “Monday 22 June: Black Lives Matter says it wants to dismantle Britain’s capitalist state”

  1. Conservatives can’t win the culture wars while Blair and Brown’s legacy remains intact. Nick Timothy. 21 June 2020.

    Increasingly, many conservatives are scratching their heads and wondering why, in the words of Prof Matthew Goodwin, the Tories are “winning elections but losing the culture war.” Of course, some dispute that language: after all, unlike America, we do not suffer interminable political battles over issues like abortion rights and gun ownership. Mercifully, we have so far been spared the misery of Trump-style political debate, into which the US appears to be sinking ever deeper.

    Morning everyone. Timothy writes with the usual British condescension about abortion and gun rights; as if they were somehow only the concern of American Neanderthals. Both subjects are certainly off the Political Agenda in the UK but that does not mean that the Americans are wrong. Around 200,000 children are murdered in the UK every year. A paedoholocaust that passes without notice. Most of these are killed for trivial reasons that would see the perpetrators sentenced to life for infanticide where they other than they are. These crimes are only possible because of the prevalence of Cultural Marxism a Feminist Doctrine that exceeds the worship of the Moloch in its desire for innocent blood.

    Gun rights are an absolute anathema to the UK Elite establishment. The wish to possess a firearm reveals the applicant to be a nascent mass murderer and far-Right fascist who must be prevented at all costs from obtaining one. That they are ultimate representation of the mutual trust that should exist between the People and the State explains why this does not exist in the UK where Democracy has been extinguished and Government is in effect rule by fiat. A disarmed populace is the sine qua non of all tyrannies. They who do not possess the means of defending themselves against an oppressive State are slaves by definition.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/21/conservatives-cant-win-culture-wars-blair-browns-legacy-remains/

    1. Morning Minty

      BTL:

      bill hughes
      21 Jun 2020 8:16PM
      Well done Nick you’ve caught up at long last. A fundamental failing of all Conservative governments is not repealing wicked and harmful Labour legislation. Instead of cravenly accepting that the socialist settlement is about right, Tories should be ripping up Labour laws and laughing in their faces. And obviously the Human Rights Act and Equalities Act should be top of the list. Did I not have human rights before Tony gave them to me? Was I not equal before? But here’s the problem for Tories: they are so mind-numbingly stupid they cannot find an answer to the Left’s challenge: “Aha! So you Tories are against human rights eh?” So we have the spectacle of third worlders invading our country in dinghies and a Conservative government being unable to do anything about because of socialist legislation passed by the most mendacious government in living memory.

      1. I don’t remember feeling oppressed before Cherie’s Pin Money Law came in.
        I sure do now.

        1. Pin Money??? Matrix chambers made gazillions out of it…and Cherie oversees the Blair family finances, a not inconsiderable pile of loot.

    3. On abortion – it must be the family’s right to choose. However, here should be a limit at what point the foetus can be aborted.

      On gun control – let’ be honest: if I had a gun I’d have emptied five hundred rounds into the kiddie car that roars up our street.

      As for this nonsense over not having guns being a tyranny the state has missiles. It could flatten my house with me in it and be in a different county. hell, a different country. Guns do not keep you safe.

      However, as we have seen the police seem to enforce law by interest rather than blanket. The green protestors for example should have been moved on immediately. The black racists should have been kettled and dispersed *immediately*. Arrests should have been brutal and swift. Instead there was dithering and disinterest because the infiltrated statists agree with this sort of thing.

    4. The equalities act especially is egregious. Not only a huge hindrance to good government and efficiency (the state uses it to hold up policy no end) but it is ultimately a vehicle to devalue and destroy opportunity based on ability.

  3. Memorials to Navy sailors who fought slavery

    SIR – Admiral Lord West of Spithead (Letters, June 20) says he is unaware of any memorial to Royal Navy personnel who died suppressing the slave trade.

    In St Luke’s Church at the former Royal Naval Hospital at Haslar in Gosport is a memorial to Commodore William Jones who, as commander of the West Africa Squadron, was instrumental in the release of 6,738 slaves. Although his was but a small part in an exceptionally long campaign, we are immensely proud of him.

    Lt-Cdr Mark Trasler RN (rtd)
    Gosport, Hampshire

    And

    SIR – There is a memorial on Ascension Island to 23 members of the crew of HMS Bann and 50 marines stationed there who died of yellow fever in 1823.

    The Bann, which was part of the West Africa Squadron tasked with suppressing the Atlantic slave trade, picked up the fever in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and by the time it reached Ascension, the captain was delirious and 13 of the crew were dead, including the second-in-command, leaving my great grandfather, Lieutenant John Hudson, in charge. By the time he left to sail the Bann back to Freetown, the fever had spread to the island garrison.

    Before originally sailing from Freetown, 11 of the Bann’s officers and 62 men had left to serve in prize crews, so it was only thanks to the 29 West African seamen on board – Kroomen, as they were called – who were largely immune to “yellow Jack”, that there were enough hands to man the ship. Hudson had already survived six years in the Squadron, against the odds, and was invalided home in 1823.

    Roger Hudson
    London W8

    1. I wasn’t familiar with the term ‘Kroomen’ used by my big bruvver in the second letter above

      Wiki:

      The Kroomen were experienced fishermen from the Kroo or Kru tribe in Sotta Krou, in what is now Liberia in West Africa. Because of their knowledge of the west African coast they were sometimes employed as pilots.

      Horatio Bridge, a USN officer in the 1840s, described them as follows:

      The Kroomen are indispensable in carrying on the commerce and maritime business of the African coast. When a Kroo-boat comes alongside, you may buy the canoe, hire the men at a moment’s warning, and retain them in your service for months. They expend no time nor trouble in providing their equipment, since it consists merely of a straw hat and a piece of white or colored cotton girded about their loins.

      In their canoes, they deposit these girdles in the crowns of their hats; nor is it unusual, when a shower threatens them on shore, to see them place this sole garment in the same convenient receptacle, and then make for shelter. When rowing a boat, or paddling a canoe, it is their custom to sing; and, as the music goes on, they seem to become invigorated, applying their strength cheerfully, and with limbs as unwearied as their voices. One of their number leads in recitative, and the whole company respond in the chorus. The subject of the song is a recital of the exploits of the men, their employments, their intended movements, the news of the coast, and the character of their employers. It is usual, in these extemporary strains, for the Kroomen attached to a man-of-war to taunt, with good-humored satire, their friends who are more laboriously employed in merchant vessels, and not so well fed and paid.

      Their object in leaving home, and entering into the service of navigators, is generally to obtain the means of purchasing wives, the number of whom constitutes a man’s importance. The sons of “gentlemen” (for there is such a distinction of rank among them) never labour at home, but do not hesitate to go away, for a year or two, and earn something to take to their families. On the return of these wanderers—not like the prodigal son, but bringing wealth to their kindred—great rejoicings are instituted. A bullock is killed by the head of the family, guns are fired, and two or three days are spent in the performance of various plays and dances. The “boy” gives all his earnings to his father, and places himself again under the parental authority. The Krooman of maturer age, on his return from an expedition of this kind, buys a wife, or perhaps more than one, and distributes the rest of his accumulated gains among his relatives. In a week, he has nothing left but his wives and his house.”[1]

      Seedies and Kroomen normally served on three-year contracts. When released from their contract many of these people settled in various parts of the British Empire.

      George Bernard Shaw’s play Captain Brassbound’s Conversion includes extras playing “Krooboys” in a ship’s crew.

      1. Fascinating, little bruvver. As the saying goes, it’s amazing what you learn on these pages.

      2. They appear in Patrick O’Brian’s ‘The Commodore’, and are very well thought of.

        1. I was aware of the many West Africans who helped crew and pilot the West Africa Squadron; I didn’t know the origins of the term Kroomen.

  6. We now know the name of one of the murdered victims, a school teacher, are those white Leftie BLM supporters in the media and academia are just beginning to realise that they will be coming for them too, no matter how many statues they topple.

  7. SIR – Two insights I have of Charles de Gaulle (Letters, June 20) come from my father, Air Commodore James Coward. His friend, Group Captain Ken Gatward, flew to Paris after it had been taken by the Nazis and draped a tricolour on the Arc de Triomphe. In a newspaper, de Gaulle invited whoever had done this to the French embassy for a slap-up dinner, but, on arrival, Ken and the others were dismissed; de Gaulle had expected French heroes.

    After losing a leg when his Spitfire was shot down, my father was sent at weekends to stay with the Churchills to advise the rooftop lookouts on the overflying planes to prevent the prime minister being woken so frequently when the planes were British, not German.

    One night at dinner, the butler told Churchill that de Gaulle wished to speak on the telephone. Churchill replied: “Please inform him I am dining.” The butler came back, saying de Gaulle had very important news. Churchill rose, turning red with anger. On his return, he said: “That chap de Gaulle had the temerity to tell me the French looked upon him as the second Joan of Arc. I had to remind him what the English did with the first one.”

    Veronica Hartley
    Wakefield, West Yorkshire

    That’s the way to do it!

  8. SIR – Many congratulations to Marie Daouda (Comment, June 19) for her brave article on the Rhodes hysteria.

    As a fellow Bame citizen – an anonymous acronym that I find insultingly patronising – I too love my adopted country and am very proud of the vast majority of Britain’s history, a country that made an immense contribution to improving the health, safety, and infrastructure of its colonies. Most of all, I take immense pride in its commitment to the abolition of slavery, not just in the Act itself, but in the way it suppressed slave trading and slave markets for many years at considerable cost in lives and materiel.

    Mary Zao
    Grouville, Jersey

  9. SIR – I am an anthropologist and historian of Africa of an earlier generation than that of the academics who criticised the vice-chancellor of Oxford for accurately representing the views of Nelson Mandela in her concerns about the wilfully ignorant Rhodes Must Fall campaign.

    After many years of prohibition, I returned to South Africa in 1995 as the vice-chancellor of Cambridge’s representative to reopen relationships with South African universities.

    The Oxford academics accused the vice-chancellor of “ventriloquising”, which is a childish insult, and I am glad that Prof Richardson did not dignify this with a reply. The signatories should be ashamed.

    Gwythian Prins
    Emeritus Research Professor
    London School of Economics

  10. SIR – Fourteen Oxford academics (Letters, June 17) criticised the university’s vice-chancellor, Professor Louise Richardson, for claiming that Nelson Mandela would have opposed the Rhodes Must Fall campaign. They concluded their letter with a quotation from a speech by Mandela about the need to “recognise the injustices of our past” and to build a country that “belongs to all who live in it”. They said that Black Lives Matter demands nothing else for Britain.

    This last claim is not true. Black Lives Matter UK clearly states on its fundraising website its wish to dismantle capitalism and elsewhere has demanded the police be abolished.

    Chan Hin Ping
    Singapore

    1. And if I started a White Lives Matter drive in South Africa, as a country or a geographic region, I am sure that I would get lotsa support
      from the locals

    2. Nelson Mandela dedicated most of his life to handing power back to the indigenous majority, having it been usurped by the gated community values of alien settlers.

      Precisely the intentions of those currently opposing BLM’s endeavours to colonise and enslave the indigenous majority in Britain.

    3. …and still, amazingly, the police think it trendy to side with these scum. Will they ever wake up and realise that ‘de-funding’ includes them?

      ‘Morning, Citroen.

    4. But the black racists don’t want to live in this country. They want to undo it in their image. They want to re-write our history as it suits them.

      That’s the very epitome of intolerant racism.

  11. I demand the Egyptians take down the pyramids. They were built by slave labour.

  12. These people have no idea what they’re doing: Ex-Supreme Court judge LORD JONATHAN SUMPTION gives a devastating verdict on our political leaders’ handling of the crisis

    Does the Government have a policy for coronavirus? Indeed it does. In fact, it has several. One for each month of the year, all mutually inconsistent and none of them properly thought through. Sometimes, governments have to change tack. It shows that they are attending closely to a changing situation. But this crisis has exposed something different and more disturbing: a dysfunctional Government with a deep-seated incoherence at the heart of its decision-making processes.

    The root of the problem is the uncomfortable relationship between the Government and its scientific advisers. The Government has repeatedly claimed to be ‘guided by the science’. This has in practice been a shameless attempt to evade responsibility by passing the buck to scientists for what are ultimately political, and not scientific, decisions. Scientists can advise what measures are likely to reduce infections and deaths. Only politicians can decide whether those measures make sense in economic and social terms too.

    Sage, the committee of scientists advising the Government, has been very clear about this, as the minutes of its meetings show. They are not willing to become the Government’s human shield, or the fall-guys for its policy misjudgments.

    Ministers press them for the kind of unequivocal answers that will protect them from criticism. Scientists cover themselves by giving equivocal answers, which reflect the uncertainty of the science. The Government responds by avoiding any decision for which it would have to take political responsibility, until the pressure of events becomes irresistible, when it lurches off in a new direction.

    Plan A was published on March 3. It concentrated on ensuring the provision of medical and other essential services. It relied on advice and guidance to the public, not coercion. The Government stood out against the authoritarian and indiscriminate measures which were being applied in Italy, and later in other European countries.

    Plan B was an abrupt U-turn. On March 18, the Government announced the closure of schools. On March 20, pubs, cafes and restaurants were added. Finally, it announced the full lockdown on the evening of March 23.

    That was a last-minute decision made that afternoon, for which the Government had made no preparations at all. It had not included a lockdown power in the Coronavirus Bill which was then going through Parliament.

    Instead, it was forced to make legally questionable use of public health legislation designed to control the movements of infected people, not healthy ones. Even then, it took another three days to prepare the regulations, and meanwhile pretended that they were in force when they were not.

    Judging by its minutes, Sage was unenthusiastic about closing down the hospitality industry, forbidding large gatherings or closing schools. From an early stage, it had pointed out that the real threat was to people over 70 and those with serious underlying medical conditions. Since March 5 they had been advising the Government to ‘cocoon’ those people, and others who either had the disease or lived in the same household.

    Sage appears to have envisaged guidance rather than compulsion. ‘Citizens’, the behavioural scientists advised, ‘should be treated as rational actors, capable of taking decisions for themselves and managing personal risk.’ If this advice had been followed, it would have left almost all the economically active members of the population free to earn their livings and sustain the economy.

    Indiscriminate lockdown was a panic response to the now-notorious statistical model produced on March 16 by Professor Neil Ferguson’s team at Imperial College. Panic responses leave little room for reflection. No serious consideration appears to have been given to the potentially catastrophic side effects. In fact, the Imperial team did identify the main problem about a lockdown. In an earlier report to Sage, they had pointed out that once a disease had taken hold in a population, ‘measures which are too effective merely push all transmission to the period after they are lifted, giving a delay but no substantial reduction in either peak incidence or overall attack rate’.

    They repeated this view when they recommended a lockdown on March 16 and said that to be effective, it would need to be maintained until a vaccine was available, ‘potentially 18 months or more’. They pointed out that this would involve ‘enormous’ social and economic costs which might themselves have a significant impact on health and wellbeing.

    The Government justified its Plan B as a temporary measure designed only to delay the peak until the NHS’s intensive care capacity had caught up.

    But when it came to Plan C, which was unveiled on May 10, they forgot all about that. By then the NHS had caught up, mainly as a result of the Government’s one undoubted achievement, namely the rapid increase in the country’s critical care capacity. The Government dropped ‘Protect the NHS’ from its slogan. The NHS was saved.

    But instead of lifting the lockdown, it merely nibbled at its edges, announcing that its essential features would remain in place for weeks or months. No rational explanation was ever offered. But the logic of its position was that the lockdown would have to continue indefinitely.

    ‘Christ!’ the Prime Minister is reported to have said when Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Business Secretary Alok Sharma explained the economic consequences to him three weeks later on June 2. We were heading for an economic catastrophe: gross domestic product down by more than a fifth and falling; 3.5 million jobs set to be lost in the hospitality industry alone; unemployment already up to two million; several million businesses snuffed out; job openings for a generation of young people extinguished.

    Why was the PM so surprised? What did he expect to happen if he closed down the economy for several months and conducted a scorched-earth campaign against the rest of our national life? The only plausible explanation was that he had never properly thought about it.

    So we moved to Plan D, announced on June 10, which involved a general return to work. But in many areas the return was stymied by the Government’s two-metre physical distancing rule. The rule never had any rational basis. Very few other countries have it. The World Health Organisation recommends one metre.

    Experiments by the Department of Health (reviewed by Sage) indicate that the risk of airborne transmission is low outside a healthcare setting. It is being maintained because the Government wants scientific cover and Sage cannot rule out some risk that prolonged face-to-face contact at less than two metres might cause some infection. No one in government was grown-up enough to confront the real issue: does a low risk justify a huge economic cost?

    Finally, there is the ultimate absurdity of the quarantine recently imposed on incoming travellers, which the Government has admitted was not based on any scientific advice, but simply (it seems) on the mistaken belief that the public would applaud it.

    The Government is now trying to backtrack by negotiating ‘air bridges’ with other countries. But it does not need to negotiate anything. This is a problem of our creation. We can simply lift the restriction at our end. Like so many of the Government’s measures, it is being maintained simply in order to avoid admitting that it was a mistake.

    I have had no political allegiance for many years. I have observed the coming and going of governments of one party or another with equal indifference. But it is hard to be indifferent to what is happening now. You have to go back to the early 1930s to find a British Cabinet as devoid of talent as this one.

    The Prime Minister, who in practice makes most of the decisions, has low political cunning but no governmental skills whatever. He is incapable of studying a complex problem in depth. He thinks as he speaks – in slogans.

    These people have no idea what they are doing, because they are unable to think about more than one thing at a time or to look further ahead than the end of their noses. Yet they wield awesome power. They are destroying our economy, our cultural life and our children’s education in a fit of absent-mindedness.

    Jonathan Sumption is a former Supreme Court judge and last year’s BBC Reith Lecturer.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8443747/LORD-JONATHAN-SUMPTION-people-no-idea-theyre-doing.html

    1. I may not have ever been as Supreme Court judge but I am not surprised by the turn of events as Jonathan Sumption describes.
      His statement You have to go back to the early 1930s to find a British Cabinet as devoid of talent as this one. can in part be explained by a couple of reasons, 40 years of being yes men to the EU whilst being led by the nose by the snivel service and a Conservative Party having an inept candidate selection criteria imposed by CCHQ. The end result being fools in their own image imposing candidates on local constituencies for elections.

      1. Richard Feynman: “Better the question that cannot be answered than the answer that cannot be questioned”.

        1. I often wonder what he’d make of the green issue. He might support the scientific approach but not the solution.

          Hell, the whole scam is just a scare story to give the state an excuse to hike taxes.

    6. It’s a very interesting article. I can’t quite work him out though. He was a member of the Supreme Court that ruled in favour of Gina Miller and against the authority of the elected Government.

      Does this man talk with forked tongue?

      2. I agree on the forked tongue suggestion. ‘I have had no political allegiance for many years’, screams that the lady protests too much. He would not have been selected to the ‘Supreme’ Court by Blair and co if his politics were not of the ‘correct’ persuasion.

  13. Confirmation that Boris got this one right…

    Almost 200 charities accuse Government of turning their backs on the world’s poor by axing DfID
    *188 charities, NGOs and think-tanks have written to the PM to reconsider
    *They oppose merging Department for International Development and Foreign Office
    *Government said the merger will safeguard British interests and values overseas

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8445479/Almost-200-charities-accuse-Government-turning-backs-worlds-poor-axing-DfID.html

    1. But has he got it right? If the UK continues to borrow money to pay out foreign aid in the same amount as DfID has, then it is just a Johnson attempt at smoke and mirrors.
      As far as I am concerned, the jury is still out on this one.

        2. 320484+ up ticks,
          Morning Js,
          similar in voting as in, the best of the worst, like ?

        3. Sorry I disagree, an ineffective move is no better than staying where he was.

        4. You mean, do something, anything? I prefer ‘don’t just do something, stand there’; when it comes to government, less is more.

      2. 320484+ up ticks,
        Morning VVOF,
        I do believe that the Dover daily crossing is the measure of the man / party.

    2. The waste of money hasn’t ended, just the department.

      It’s a merger, no closure.

      1. Precisely, Anne. The abolition of DfID is just window-dressing. Now, where did we put those matches…

    4. It could be the start of the rest of the world putting their own houses in order. There was a very sensible African leader (i think he was from Ghana) suggesting that urgent changes should be made.
      100 years of catching up to do but with a lot of planning and hard work it could be possible.

    5. Beemers4U to help African Dictators

      Earth Today Mars Tomorrow Indian Space Agency

      Virgin West Indies For Branson

      Haiiti Girls School for comfort for Charity workers

      to name but a few

  14. 320484+ ticks,
    Morning Each,
    It must be pretty obvious by now that the use of submissive pcism & appeasement is a complete failure.
    Surely the next logical move has got to be a NO NONSENSE response
    as in re-instate Winston Spencer Churchill on his plinth with a detachment of Marines as company and a no holds barred carte blanche
    order of the day ( no comebacks).
    Start today special fast track courts ( Tommy Robinsons) with selected
    fit for purpose judges.
    The alternative is nationwide suffering progressively getting worse daily.

    1. I believe PCSOs are often thought of as ‘Plastic Police’ and, as such, may be ignored.

    3. ‘Morning, Oldie. Tough words from the perlice but no prospect of tough action I suspect – for that they have to be there and nip it in the bud, not spend hundreds of man-hours going boss-eyed staring at screens in the vague hope of identifying the perpetrators. And the yobs know this, of course, which is why they don’t feel constrained about smashing the place up…

  16. Morning All

    As Reading slides swiftly towards the memory hole greased by the usual “mental health issues” and “converted to Christianity” (Aye Right,excuse no,2 after homosexuality to avoid deportation) BLM and Windrush are standing by6 with shovels to fill in the hole.

    Meanwhile his brother calls for action against the vicious white supremacists who savagely attacked his knife……………..

    https://twitter.com/Loknayn/status/1274839414724853762

    1. I thought Britain was rejecting all the Christians, maybe it’s only the ones who are genuine who don’t make it through.

    2. I expect his brother will be well looked after at the police station In Letsbe Avenue.
      A choice of menu for his meals and drinks.
      Evenin’ all.

    3. Yes, grouping together for drink and a natter is just sooooooooo racist. Very provocative. Just asking for it.
      I hope none of those nasty men tried to defend themselves and upset little Khairi’s mental equilibrium still further.

    4. I laughed. It’s so blatantly desperately untrue that what else can you do but mock this bandwagoner.

    1. Gaddafi was a nasty bugger, but the results of him not being there are much, much worse.
      He was a short-arse, as well. Greasy curly hair. Always photographed from below, with his chin up, to look like he was taller, not standing on a step…

      1. It was a complete Euro-centric view of the culture which thought bringing democracy would solve all the problems, whereas in fact, it’s completely tribal and needs a strong man to keep the warring tribes in check. Epic fail through a complete lack of understanding and thinking all cultures are the same. Where have we seen this disastrous thinking cause problems before?

    4. Sadly, much of the strife in the west has been caused by the Americans’ purblind belief that all cultures and countries can be put right by a dose of good ole democracy.
      They can’t. Religious, historical and social reasons dictate that many parts of the globe can only function under a dictatorship.
      The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

      2. 320484+ up ticks,
        Morning Anne,
        Submissive pcism & appeasement tools hate democracy.

      3. Africa and the Middle East, Pakistan, India and many Far Eastern countries are riddled with, and governed by, tribalism, which cannot and will not be purged.

  18. SIR — The lyricist who wrote “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover” was Nat Burton, an American who was unaware that bluebirds were only indigenous there. I think of them as an allusion to friendly planes, their undersides camouflaged sky-blue.

    Peter Saunders
    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/afb7cceddeb5e9413cffccf8077c1cdd003f19c4784ef7222c7151b19084f917.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d2fcc5bf12925c034cbede385dc9896d5893fb101790c457217d60d186b3734b.jpg
    Please be advised, Pete, that only the remote Mountain Bluebird Sialia currucoides, which is confined to the west coast of North America, has any pale blue on its underside. The far more common Western Bluebird S. mexicana and its eastern counterpart S. sialis, which are much more likely to be blown off course during migration, have distinctive red undersides.

    1. There is also the story/play by Maeterlinck called ‘The Blue Bird’; also known as The Blue Bird of Happiness. The story is not generally known now, but would have been known by both adults and children in the 1940s.
      (Girlie NOTTLers will know vaguely about this story if they read ‘Ballet Shoes’ in their youth.)

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Bird_(play)

      1. I recall a birthday card that had a Bluebird on the front and inside the caption read:

        “May the Blue Bird of Happiness crap all over your birthday cake”

      1. Nearly. He’s talking about bluebirds being an allusion to planes, by comparing the “blue undersides” of both bird and plane.

        2. All the PRU aircraft were painted blue (although I think at one time they did experiment with a pink colour scheme).

          1. ‘Morning, Hugh.

            I think he was rescued and is now back in the safe arms of Campbell’s daughter, Gina.

  20. An open letter to Lewis Hamilton.

    I quite understand why you loathe white people; it must be infuriating for you that they have given you millions and millions of money, so much so that you are “forced” to live in Monaco to avoid paying the white people any tax.

    You should immediately resign from Mercedes. Today. It will cost you some money – but you have plenty of that.

    Then you must find a bame multi-millionaire. As you know, there are thousands of them. A man of color (sic) who is willing to start a new F1 racing team, get black designers to produce a car, black engineers to design an engine and a team of black mechanics to pay homage to you as you drive the car (in its black racing colours) home to yet another F1 victory.

    Then you will have achieved something useful for your fellow black men – at the expense of the loathsome whites.

    Your team name? Black Laps Matter.

    Until you do this – just shut the fluck up.

    2. Perhaps Lewis has never really considered that his mother is a fully fleged white lady.
      I believe his parents live separate lives.
      No clues as to who left the family home first.

    3. That still wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the mob. Can you imagine the uproar if thanks to some failure of the best African engineering, his chariot was black flagged?

      As for that chequered flag, surely it should be more black than white because of his dominance in the sport

      1. There have been a few famous faces who identify as being of one colour.
        Which seriously malignes one parent, usually the mother.

        1. Indeed – cf the half-caste Olusoga.

          His white, English mother must be sooooo proud of the way he slags off white, er, English people….

          2. Never forget that he accepted an OBE from the vile, imperialist, slave-dealing, far-right, racist, British….

          4. Ah – I think he took it, and then, later, they all sent them back for some reason.

      3. Morning, KP. I have just made a similar (though much later) point as you have … but not quite so elegantly as yours.

      4. Since there does not appear to be a definition of ‘blackness’ related to the number of generations since the person with darker skin was part of the family tree, I suggest that therefore any inclusion at any date in the past confers colour on present descendents.
        As we are all descended from Africans we are all, therefore, coloured and there cannot be colour prejudice.
        Will someone contact the Nobel prize committee for me? Ta.

      5. I don’t care if he’s fluorescent pink.

        He’s a racing driver. A good one. Beyond that I don’t know him. If he makes an issue out of his skin colour he’s a racist.

      6. Since there does not appear to be a definition of ‘blackness’ related to the number of generations since the person with darker skin was part of the family tree, I suggest that therefore any inclusion at any date in the past confers colour on present descendents.
        As we are all descended from Africans we are all, therefore, coloured and there cannot be colour prejudice.
        Will someone contact the Nobel prize committee for me? Ta.

        1. Hmmm,

          If you could see your ancestors all standing in a row,
          Would you be proud of them or not, or don’t you really know?
          Some strange discoveries are made when climbing family trees,
          And some of them you know do not particularly please.

          If you could see your ancestors all standing in a row,
          There might be some of them perhaps, you wouldn’t care to know.
          But here’s another question which requires a different view.
          If you could meet your ancestors, would they be proud of you?
          (from Edith Fletcher’s pedigree book)

        2. Funnily enough, a similar argument was put forward by an uppity black in Endeavour tonight. The debate at the Oxford Union had a “send ’em home’ theme. The black claimed there had been blacks here longer than Anglo-Saxons because Nubians guarded the wall for the Romans so the whites should go home. The “audience” clapped – nobody pointed out the Nubians would most likely have been slaves and a good many of us aren’t descended from Anglo-Saxons anyway; we go back further than that.

    5. Morning hall.
      I’m an admirer of Lewis Hamilton as a driver, although put off some what by the tattoos and earings stuff. However, I’m puzzled by his comment that Formula One is white dominated. Surely being six-times world champion is being pretty dominant?

    6. Thank you Bill

      I have borrowed it and sent to a couple of my friends with whom I share sage observations on life.

    7. It’s the endemic racist of those demanding that people be judged according to their skin colour that continues to bother me.

      Hire a gay person! Hire a black person! Hire a Chinese fellow! Change this white character to a black one! It’s deeply divisive. They think they’re helping but they’re just making the divisions deeper through their own racist attitudes.

      1. Yes. However this has been embedded in the UK employment processes for forty years. Preference shown to “differently abled*” and BAMES for this period of time. If these people have not got to the top it is partly because they were not good enough. It is, to be fair, also because many enterprises seek qualifications rather than ability.

        *I received complaints when I used the word “cripple”. If the business you telephone does not answer it may be because they employed a deaf receptionist.

        1. I’ve had the privilege to work with all sorts of people. One of them had lost his legs and used a wheelchair to get about. Another was blind.

          Aside from minor changes and assistance devices they were great workers, tremendous sense of humour and stoic fellows. Terry and I would race one another – him in his chair, me on my chair. The git would sabotage me to get a head start.

          1. The problem is institutional objectification. The categorisation and pigeon-holing, the calculation of percentages of BAMES employed and so forth, is inhuman.
            I try to treat people as people.

          2. They’re nothing else. Yet it is very classification, that very ‘Oh, you’re this or that’ which labels people. The Left like doing this. Think of how they attack anyone saying a man in a dress is not a woman. Instead of accepting that as my opinion, they demand I accept theirs.

            You’re an ‘*-ism’ they squeal. No, I’m pointing out a fact. ‘*-ist!’ they cry. That might be my opinion, but it doesn’t – and shouldn’t – stop the man from wearing a dress. That’s his choice. How I’ll treat him is a completely different matter.

          3. Can you imagine how limited the career chances of a heterosexual white Male are becoming?

    8. Why do individuals, such as Hamilton, who have a black father and a white mother, routinely disinherit the white part of their genetic make-up and declare themselves as “black”?

  21. Although Issyagain posted part of this a couple of days earlier, here is the full Monty:
    The 5 Questions Most Feared By Men Are:
    (This seems to pertain to married men but what the hell)

    1 What are you thinking about?
    2 Do you love me?
    3 Do I look fat?
    4 Do you think she is prettier than me?
    5 What would you do if I died?

    What makes these questions so difficult is that everyone is guaranteed to explode into a major argument if the man answers incorrectly (i.e., tells the truth).

    Therefore, as a public service, each question is analysed below, along with possible responses.

    Question # 1: What are you thinking about?
    The proper answer to this, of course, is, “I’m sorry if I’ve been pensive, dear. I was just reflecting on what a warm, wonderful, thoughtful, caring and intelligent woman you are, and how lucky I am to have met you.”
    This response bears no resemblance to the true answer, which is probably one of the following,
    a Sex
    b Football
    c How fat you are
    d How much prettier she is than you
    e How I would spend the insurance money if you died
    Perhaps the best response to this question was offered by Al Bundy, who once told Peg, “If I wanted you to know what I was thinking, I would be talking to you!” (My personal favourite!)

    Question # 2: Do you love me?
    The proper response is, “YES!” or, if you feel a more detailed answer is in order, “Yes, dear.”

    Inappropriate responses include,
    a Oh Yeah, shit-loads
    b Would it make you feel better if I said yes?
    c That depends on what you mean by love
    d Does it matter?
    e Who, me?

    Question # 3: Do I look fat?
    The correct answer is an emphatic, “Of course not!”

    Among the incorrect answers are,
    a Compared to what?
    b I wouldn’t call you fat, but you’re not exactly thin
    c A little extra weight looks good on you
    d I’ve seen fatter
    e Could you repeat the question? I was just thinking about how I would spend the insurance money if you died

    Question # 4: Do you think she’s prettier than me?
    Once again, the proper response is an emphatic, “Of course not!”

    Incorrect responses include,
    a Yes, but you have a better personality
    b Not prettier, but definitely thinner
    c Not as pretty as you when you were her age
    d Define pretty
    e Could you repeat the question? I was just thinking about how I would spend the insurance money if you died

    Question # 5: What would you do if I died?
    A definite no-win question. (The real answer, of course, is “Buy a Corvette and a Boat”).

    Here is what Issyagain put up on Saturday.
    No matter how you answer this, be prepared for at least an hour of follow-up questions, usually along these lines,
    WOMAN Would you get married again?
    MAN Definitely not!
    WOMAN Why not, don’t you like being married?
    MAN Of course I do.
    WOMAN Then why wouldn’t you remarry?
    MAN Okay, I’d get married again.
    WOMAN You would? (with a hurtful look on her face)
    MAN (makes audible groan)
    WOMAN Would you sleep with her in our bed?
    MAN Where else would we sleep?
    WOMAN Would you put away my pictures, and replace them
    with pictures of her?
    MAN That would seem like the proper thing to do.
    WOMAN And would you let her use my golf clubs?
    MAN She can’t use them; she’s left-handed.
    WOMAN – – – silence – – –
    MAN Shit.

    2. Either I have a strange wife or, more likely I am strange (which is more likely) as the war queen has never asked me any of those questions.

      However the lack of routine is causing some friction.

        1. She’s quite good at finishing my sentences. And starting them.One thing that was made very clear to he early on is that if she wants something, she should say so. No oblique references, just ‘hoover the lounge’.

          It’s a rare day when a word is exchanged before 10 am to be honest.

  22. Reading terror attack: minute’s silence to be held in memory of victims. Mon 22 Jun 2020

    A minute’s silence is taking place in Reading to remember the three people including a teacher killed in a terror attack on Saturday, as police officers continue to question the only suspect on suspicion of murder.

    I won’t be joining in this. It is simply pandering to the Elites hypocrisy about these deaths. They are responsible. They allow creatures like this to come to the UK.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/22/reading-terror-attack-minutes-silence-to-be-held-in-memory-of-victims

    1. No one asked us the people , to accommodate the Windrush generation , no one asked us to accommodate millions of migrants from South Asia / Middle East or elsewhere .

      I would love to know what skills the Windrush people had that were useful to the British people for rebuilding Britain after the war , what did they contribute..

      I mean , there were millions of white Brits who also found it difficult to get a job after the war had finished , many men and women were demobbed , and many Brits were encouraged to go to Australia , New Zealand and Canada where there were job oppportunities . So why in heavens name import people from the Carribean and Asia , I really just don’t get it . Why weren’t our own people given jobs and retrained , encouraged and given a good salary

      Brits were leaving Britain in droves , why .. Was it because they knew that a replacement culture was being brought in by a Labour government?

      The Americans were used to a multi culture of all nationalities, but to foist change in Britain so suddenly must have been one hell of a shock , and no wonder resentment was endemic . The cruellest thing ever to happen after the shock of 6 long years of a dreadful war , when people just wanted to try to get back to a sense of normality once more was probably like a kick in the guts for millions.

      Look at the state of Britain now , appeasement .. that river of blood is now almost a daily torrent , and our history is being trashed.

        1. Why rationing and shortages
          continued in Britain after WW2
          Anyone who did not live through the times of rationing and shortages of the Second World War would tend not to realise that the austerity in Britain continued in an even worse form for years after the war ended.

          In fact rationing did not end completely until 1954, nearly a decade after the end of the war, and the UK was the last country to end rationing. One reason was certainly that the USA withdrew its support for Britain when a Labour government was elected in 1945. This, though, was not the whole story, and is another credit to the generosity of Britain – see the box below.

          We diverted rations to the poor people starving Europe

          https://www.1900s.org.uk/1940s50s-rationing-shortages-post-war.htm#:~:text=Why%20rationing,continued%20in%20Britain%20after%20WW2&text=In%20fact%20rationing%20did%20not,Labour%20government%20was%20elected%20in

          1. “…the UK was the last country to end rationing.”
            Norway had rationing of meat, coffee & sugar up to 1952, and cars and telephones up to 1960.

    3. This man could not be sent back to his “failed state” home. He also conveniently changed his religion which would mean sending him back would be impossible as his safety could not be guaranteed. We can ask ourselves why the most prosperous nation in Africa became a “failed state” and perhaps, David Cameron, Hillary Clinton and others can explain why they made this decision?

        1. “Official figures show that the eight-month military intervention unleashed by David Cameron in support of rebels fighting Colonel Gadaffi’s regime cost £320 million. But efforts to stabilise the country following Gaddafi’s death and the collapse of his government have amounted to just £25m, which has failed to prevent Libya from sliding into chaos as feuding militias battle for control.”

          We can recall that Cameron and Osborne scrapped the Ark Royal and its Harrier force and the Nimrod airborne early warning fleet because it was said that defence cuts needed to be made to save money. Then they spend £320 million making Libya a failed state. There’s so much more to this than meets the eye.

  23. “Black Lives Matter says it wants to dismantle Britain’s capitalist state”

    What a surprise! The BLM people have been duped by the far left into believing that they are victims of oppression by white people. Based on interviews I have seen and the placards that are carried, I suggest that those who have been duped seem to be challenged in the IQ department and are ignorant of the many black people in the UK and around the world who, far from moaning and complaining, have made successes of their lives. The BLM people seem to know nothing about personal goals and hard work – they appear to have been told that success will be handed to them without any effort if they scream loudly enough!

    The other day, the DT asked a young BLM girl what she wants. She said “Equality, Justice and Opportunities”. Not only does the girl have all those in the UK but, given the various laws relating to human rights, etc., people like her seem to be dealt with more favourably than the indigenous population. Furthermore, as someone who has been to approximately half of all the 54 countries in Africa, these people have immeasurably more E, J and O in the UK than almost anywhere else.

    When will a leader emerge who will point out how many black people have succeeded in virtually all walks of life and publicly berate the BLM for what it is – a far-left/communist movement designed to destroy the heritage, culture and traditions that they so hate.

    If I had to blame one person for this mess it would be Tony Blair. His toxic meddling in all aspects of our lives has been allowed to fester without anyone having the courage to try to reverse it. In fact it has infiltrated people’s minds to such an extent that those who ought to know better, and who were previously proud to be British, are now supporting this malevolent idiocy.

      2. Yes. It was a Labour Government that destroyed all the records of the Windrush Generation.

      3. I can’t bring myself to listen to that excuse for a human but does he list all their positive achievements or are we supposed to accept his word that they made a contribution.

        1. Then folks, you’re welcome to personally house, feed and clothe them. Oh, and be responsible for their crimes.

        1. 320484+ up ticks,
          Morning W,
          There lies the problem “toad” should read remove ALL the verminous toads
          especially the political pin stripe clad ones.

    2. Tony Blair will certainly go down in history as one of the most disastrous Prime Ministers ever.

      2. I don’t know, to be honest.

        He was a good politician. He managed to fool people that he wanted to make changes while achieving nothing. He filled his boots with tax payer cash, covered his back (and destroying his expenses really should be a criminal offence) and surrounded himself with corrupt liars who he successfully hid from scrutiny.

        His regime of course was truly hideous. Every single bit of legislation that sewage introduced should be repealed of course, but as a blatant liar, crook, cheat and corrupt selfish charlatan he was very good.

        1. 320484+ up ticks,
          W,
          The lookalike tories were pretty sharp in
          supporting his bent policies when cameron the wretch pledged to reduce the incoming numbers then promptly raised them.

        2. I would query your assertion that he achieved nothing; he wrecked social cohesion, changed the demographics of the country, corrupted the voting system (postal votes on demand), introduced thought crime (along with thousands of other laws that were of questionable benefit), made potential criminals of people walking two dogs, introduced devolution to weaken the United Kingdom for a start. The Luftwaffe did less damage!

    2. I’m all in favour of it.

      When they examine what the Africans actually achieved, It might teach the younger generation that the contribution to world prosperity isn’t as great as many would have them believe.

      1. I can’t think of anything that was created or discovered by any black person apart from havoc.

        1. There are extremely talented and highly educated black people making a huge contribution to society, just not as many as the trouble makers would like you to believe.

          1. They have their own high-flyers club. Now have 23 members world wide…

    3. Harvard are apparently reviewing ther History of Art degree course, far too western for today. No thought of renaming it Western Art and bringing in an African Art gcse.

      In other news, a statue of Roosevelt is being taken down from the entrance to the Museum of Natural Histort in New York.

      I remember taking a course on the Social and Economic History of the UK in the nineteenth century, I wonder if that would be allowed now.

    4. We have had students from all of these schools over the years.

      De-colonise them – yes, get rid of the arseholes who are the headteachers and governors?

  25. IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR ALL NOTTLERS: I have been in touch with Korky the Kat, whose wife of 50 years sadly passed away on Saturday. He has has asked me to let everyone know that he is “bearing up” but that he is unlikely to post on here for some time. I suspect that his loss will hit him hard in the weeks to come. Both Anne Allan and I live nearby and will give him all the support we can over the coming weeks and months. [This was posted late last night and is repeated here for those who missed last night’s post.]

    1. Thanks Elsie. You’ll have seen the large response to your post of last night. Everyone on here wishes poor old Korky well.

    3. Thanks Elsie, I missed your post last night but would like him to know we are thinking of him at this difficult time.
      I’m certain he will appreciate the contact and support that you and Anne can provide, thank you both for that.

    4. Yo Elsie

      May I suggest the Boss moves your post to the top of the page, so it is read by everyone who opens Nottle

      1. ‘Morning, OLT, since disqus defaults to ‘Best’ when I open NTTL anew, Elsie’s generous post does currently appear as the first post.

    5. Well done Elsie and Anne,

      Should there be a need for any further support, I’m sure Best Beloved and I can be on hand to lend such support. Anne knows where we live and it’s not too far from Colchester.

      Meanwhile I award you both the NDM (Nottlers Defence Medal).

    7. That is very sad and very distressing to hear Elsie.
      Please send my best wishes to Korky. 😕

  26. I figured it out! The binmen emptied out bins this morning as they do every week. The binmen run backward and forward wheeling the bins to the lorry and return them to the roadside when emptied. The big lorry lifts bins at the back and empties them into it’s huge hold. The lorry driver drives slowly down the road stopping at each cluster of bins. I had wondered why there was a minibus accompanying the bin lorry on its rounds for the last couple of months. It struck me that the bin lorry cab has seats for three men. However that does not allow for social distancing. So the minibus carries two of the team between stops, leaving the lorry driver alone in the cab. It is a big minibus and has room for social distancing. It also has a driver, and the team on the road has now increased by one.
    I looked out and was able to see the lorry reach the end of its run through the village and confirm that this is exactly what happens.
    This process is in line with the pronouncements of the Government and logic. There comes a point where logic is carried too far and leads to reductio ad absurdum. This seems to be what this is. These men have worked together for years, and probably continue to eat their sandwiches together in the bothy at the cleansing department depot.
    I doubt that they have any real risk of catching anything from each other.

    1. Our binman works in a team of one, he drives and empties the bins into the back of the infernal machine. All of this at 7AM, far too much excitement for one day.

      He handles several hundred bins a day so his reckoning is that he is doing a great job of spreading cv around since the bug can apparently exist for days on plastic

      1. We have 3 in the cab – one driving and 2 getting out to empty the bins when they come across them

        1. Our lot might hav a crew of that size when working on a busy shopping street but they definitely keep the worker count low.
          The work is contracted out so there is a profit incentive.

    2. Their very job would build up immunity.
      Animal owners tend to avoid or quickly shake off lurgies for the same reason.

    3. We have two binmen in our team who use an open pick-up truck with wire compartments on the back. That’s because we live on a steep and narrow hill so we don’t have wheelie bins. One man picks up the bags and boxes and empties them into the pick-up and the other one drives slowly.

  27. Looters chant ‘Allahu Akbar’ during Stuttgart’s worst ever riots that turned the city into ‘a battlefield’ – as police reveal those involved were ‘mainly young people with a migration background’. 22 June 2020

    Of the 24 people arrested, 12 were foreign nationals while three of the other 12 were German nationals with a migrant background, police announced on Sunday.

    Hans-Jürgen Kirstein, the head of a police union, told Bild that ‘young people with a migration background were at the front of the riots’. German chancellor Angela Merkel today condemned the violence as ‘abhorrent’.

    I’m sorry this is just gloating. I posted earlier about my suspicions. There’s something about these cover ups in the MSM. Something in the text that tells you that it’s all lies!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8446441/Rioters-turned-Stuttgart-battlefield-chanted-Allahu-Akbar.html

    2. I didn’t realise that Germany gets lots of migrants arriving from Norway.

  28. I wonder how much people have been subconsciously influenced by the CofE and Catholic liturgy such as:

    We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep;
    Lord have mercy upon us, miserable sinners;
    There is no health in us.

    But it seems that though there are far fewer practising Christians in modern Britain and the people no longer kneel in front of Christ they cannot resist the urge to abase themselves and kneel before George Floyd’s corpse and support the BLM’s political agenda to destroy capitalism and scrap the police force.

    (Has anybody else noticed that there are strong echoes here of the mob demanding the freedom of the criminal Barabas from execution and the execution of Jesus instead?)

    It seems to me that the concepts of white guilt and white privilege have inadvertently been installed into people by the Church?

  29. Round at my cousin’s delivering her shopping and reminding her how to switch the TV on and off. ‘I must write that down’… And indeed she did for the nth time…

    But the TV was showing some TV programme from the BBC and reminding their viewers that it’s Windrush Anniversary Day. I assume this means that we should all weep and wear mourning clothes since the arrival of MV Windrush marked the beginning of the end of the UK.

    1. While it is in poor taste, it is not a legal matter. If I were the moderator, I’d still have taken the post down, since it hardly contributes to the debate.

  31. Good Moaning.

    From the DM.
    “Father who was charged over the death of his son, six, only had custody of him because boy’s mother was jailed for murdering her boyfriend”

    Now there’s a headline that makes you proud to be British.

      1. He really didn’t stand a chance, did he.
        Even if he’d been granted a few more years, that life doesn’t bear thinking about.

  32. The two metre social distancing rule is beginning to make good sense now, in the event of a random frenzied knife attack in a park or on the street on someone next to you, one is more likely to be able to get away to safety.

  33. Good morning, all. Great news in the Wail:

    “Elderly people could wear RIBBONS to show they are social distancing when lockdown measures are eased further, SAGE scientist says”

    Yellow star, anyone?

    1. Morning, Willum.
      I would suggest a yellow corona virus shaped badge.
      Presumably, the Gestapo could then scoop up the badge wearers and forcibly incarcerate them in an infected care home.

    2. Yo Bill

      I must say that most of us men are now ‘long enough in the locks’ to have the ribbons in our hair’, conversely,
      lockdown and no barbers will have made no difference to some Nottlers

      1. Surely one is allowed to identify at any age one feels like these days. I mean if it’s OK to change your sex it must be OK to change your age.

  34. Rioting in Struttgart spins ‘out of control’. 21 June 2020 • 7:29pm

    Rioting in Stuttgart spun “completely out of control” in the early hours of Sunday after police carrying out a routine drug were attacked by a mob of several hundred men.

    Up to 500 young men joined the violence, described by one local politician as being “resembling a civil war”.

    Authorities have said they do not believe Sunday’s violence had a political motive but that it emerged from the city’s party scene.

    Of course it did. They were just having a good time! lol!

    It is of course impossible to discover the truth through the outright censorship and the fog of disinformation that pervades the MSM but a small passage in the Guardian provides a clue as to what actually happened.

    Two dozen people, half of them German nationals, were provisionally arrested and police reported 19 officers hurt. “They were unbelievable scenes that have left me speechless. In my 46 years of police service, I have never experienced this,” said the Stuttgart police chief, Franz Lutz.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/21/rioting-struttgart-spins-control/

        1. PressTV is Iranian. We get more news on Europe from them than we do from European sites.

    2. 320484+ up ticks,
      Afternoon LD,
      Up for grabs none more so than the current london
      If still operating the Cray twins would have received Knighthoods.

    5. If it’s anything like South East DC, no-one was shooting “at” the toddler – he just got caught in crossfire.

      1. And for those of us who don’t understand the niceties here, can you explain why that should be important?

        Some irresponsible, murderous, thug opens fire into an area where there might be innocent bystanders and it’s only a matter of “he just got caught in crossfire”.

    2. All they have to do is get the blacks to work and support their system. Spose that’s called slavery.

  38. Morning all. Is anyone else concerned that “one-metre plus” is not a relaxation of the rules, but actually a way to bring in even more? Apparently one metre will only be allowed if other actions are applied, such as the wearing of face masks or sitting side-by-side not face-to-face. Can you imagine what a lovely first date a young couple will have? Exchanging furtive sideways glances at each other, lifting their mask to take every bite, still a metre apart.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/20/one-metre-plus-new-rule-will-reopen-uk/

    No thanks! Complete freedom for everyone is the only way. End the lockdown now!

    1. We’re in an odd situation where if the lockdown is lifted entirely it will become obvious it was never needed.

      What they’re doing is wangling these measures out a bit to give the impression that they’re carefully unwinding the lockdown but! That it’s still vitally important! To do otherwise risks losing face. Can’t have that.

      1. How many weeks now since mass gatherings at BLM protests?
        Any sign of a spike in cases, no!
        Any reason to think it was originally a genuine concern that has morphed into a con, yes!

        1. I’ve never believed the lockdown was necessary – and that’s from a tubby asthmatic. I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.

      2. I suspect you are right. Once the reality of what they have done to our economy begins to kick in there is going to be an almighty blame game. Johnson’s claim to have been ‘following the science’ basically means pointing at an egg-head and saying “he told me to do it!” The scientists are getting nervous about being used as cover and are reminding Johnson that they give advice but politicians ultimately make decisions.

        As you rightly say, this is either an enormous ars#-covering exercise which we will all pay for, or perhaps it is preparation for a ‘new normal’ where the government regulates every aspect of our lives and only rich people get to fly? We shall see.

        1. This splits in to two groups though: there’s those who want to blame the government simply out of spite. For them Boris is the cause of all ills.

          For the rest there’s this uncomfortable ‘well, why didn’t you take advice from 5 people rather than one? What was the consensus?’

          Either way, we are where we are. As regards statism – we’re practically there already. Those of us who want freedom find the ceiling lowered every day. Those who are eager for the state to run their lives complain it’s not falling quickly enough or doing enough for them. Government is massive. It’s expensive, inefficient, wasteful and overfunded. No that’s not true – the funds it receives are badly spent – because that suits the state machine.

        2. Thank you. Summed up my thoughts and fears.
          Beware that Orwellian concept – “New Normal”.

      3. This is the most expensive face saving measure ever inflicted on Blighty.
        And I am not just talking about financial cost.

        1. Oh, I agree. It’s not a good thing. However when was the last time government action was good?

    1. Rinaldo Nazzaro, founder of The Base, is a 47-year-old American. Earlier this year the BBC revealed he was directing the organisation from his upmarket flat in St. Petersburg, Russia.

      God. He has to be the menace to Western Civilisation!

      1. It is risible, except that it is a hook on which to hang restrictions, concrete blocks outside theatres, and anything else to allow ever tighter control.

      1. The Left can’t take responsibility for their actions. Down that road leads guilt, responsibility, shame and reflection.

        That means pain and growth. Empathy. The Left can’t cope with that.

  40. Arctic Temperatures Hit Record High in Russia Amid Heat Wave. 3 hours ago.

    Russia recorded an all-time heat record above the Arctic Circle on Saturday as Siberia continues to swelter under a historic heatwave, according to Russian weather data.

    The extreme weather in the town of Verkhoyansk comes as Siberia has seen a prolonged heatwave linked to wildfires, a massive oil spill thought to have been caused by melting permafrost, crop failures linked to drought and an infestation of tree-eating moths.

    That’s it then; tree eating moths, the Apocalypse is upon us.

    https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/06/22/arctic-temperatures-hit-record-high-in-russia-amid-heat-wave-a70647

    1. That would be a branch of the tree-eater species, commonly known as a moth Lem.

    2. Must be bloody big moths.

      No warning of a pending pandemic because some long buried pathogen is being released by the unperme permafrost?

      This hot dry weather is great, the grass has stopped growing so no need to cut it so often.

        1. The End of October, a novel by Lawrence Wright goes into that possibility.
          He manages to spin quite a twisted tale around a pandemic which results in all out warfare and the end of civilization as we know it.

      3. When you hold a mothball in your right hand & another one in your left hand, then you’ve got a bloody big moth.

  41. Interestingly, up to about a week ago, the Wikipedia entry for BLM listed Open Society as a sponsor.

    Now there’s nothing about sponsors at all.

      1. Previously also listed was the Ford Foundation.

        Of course Wikipedia isn’t a guarantee of truth and fact, but…

  42. Just heard “Andy” Burnham lying about why the police didn’t intervene in the recent mass gathering in Moss Side.

  46. 329484+ up ticks,,
    The verdict 48 / 52 on the 24.6.2016 gave us the right to call for change, we could very well be losing that right, the porous acceptable border farce at Dover being only one issue, but one that can be seen daily.
    The only time a kneeling position should be taken up by a protection force is to deter the rear ranks from shooting your bloody head off in the front ranks.
    Plus kneeling to receive a K from the Queen for services rendered.

    https://twitter.com/GerardBattenUK/status/1274979042417139713

    1. 320484+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Ere og, have you noticed the face fungi is getting more noticeable double that up with the kneeling position then add the pubs under lock & key also sort
      of makes a true Englishman think does it not?
      I am truly awaiting the new baggy trousers uniform
      and the compulsory mask incorporated within a blue serge burka.

  47. Did any one listen to the Radio 4 1pm news ..

    An expert on terrorism was talking.. over 43,000 sods on the MI5 radar, and 800 being investigated ..

    I think that is the general gist of things , I was driving the car , the only time i can listen to the radio properly , of course being aware of the lycra clad cyclist brigade and quite a few tractors ..

      1. Lycra clad cyclists .. and lots of tractors , the rural lanes are quite busy at the moment , it is all rather hair raising , and of course long distance runners.

        1. I went down to Morrisons yesterday around lunchtime and the road was busy, supermarket was busy – even a family picnicking in the car park!

          1. I doubt he’s too picky about who he gets them from, as long as it’s whitey.

    2. Seems he either isn’t studying history (real history!) or is quite content to ignore facts, or maybe both?

    3. I wonder if he even realises the connection between his scholarship and Cecil Rhodes.

  49. Sir Mark had earlier told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme ‘What you end up with operationally is about, I think, about 3,000 people under investigation at one stage.

    ‘But there is 40,000 people… whose names have touched the system.

    ‘And in that 40,000 are lots of volatile people who dip in and out of interests in extreme ideology, and to spot one of those who is going to go from a casual interest into a determined attacker, which can happen in a matter of days, is the most wicked problem that the services face.’

    Sir Mark Rowley, former assistant commissioner for specialist operations in the Metropolitan Police, said forces and security services face a ‘wicked problem’ deciding which of the 40,000 people known to them could launch a terror attack +6
    Sir Mark Rowley, former assistant commissioner for specialist operations in the Metropolitan Police, said forces and security services face a ‘wicked problem’ deciding which of the 40,000 people known to them could launch a terror attack

    1. The Bbc have a special report on far-right extremism recruitment tomorrow night. Can’t wait for the ones about Antifa and Islamic terrorists.

        1. How the great British pub encouraged far-right extremism when fascists were allowed to express their views without censorship …

        1. They won’t admit it but when the numbers get high enough…..the ‘elephant in the room’ will trample them all to death.

          1. All the Diversity and BLM rubbish has made normally tolerant people more intolerant.

          2. So true, J and yes, I am Islamophobic – the thought of the Caliphate scares me sh1tless!

          3. I am not at all islamophobic – a phobia is an irrational fear. There is absolutely nothing irrational about being terrified by the prospect of islamic rule!

    1. George Soros will explain. His Open Society not only donates generously to politicians, but supports BLM.

  51. Latest on the Reading attack.
    One of the victims was gay.
    So it might now have been a homophobic attack, so NTDWI.

    Until one recalls the treatment that Islam appears to dictate should be meted out to homosexuals.

        1. More than enough already. Hardly any programme now without “diversity” rammed down our throats.

          1. I don’t have a problem with Black or Asian people on the BBC or other channels. Trevor MacDonald..Moira Stuart. All fine.

            The problem arises when people are shovelled in to reach a target. Then we all lose. Think Lammy and Abbot.

          2. I met Moira Stuart in the queue for the tea bar, in the olden days. She was very chatty and very pleasant.

          4. The BBC started going downhill when the presenters stopped wearing evening dress.

            In the new and revamped BBC expect to hear ethnic-pidgin.

          5. BBC English as a standard went out the window a long time ago. On the World Service there is an anouncer whose accent I can’t place. She calls it the ‘BBC Worrld Service’. Most odd.

          6. I used to have difficulty understanding what Moira was saying.
            Then I had a hearing test and was fitted with a hearing aid.
            I still can’t understand what she’s saying.

          7. A friend who was hearing therapist told me that Moira doesn’t move her lips much when she’s speaking; people with defective hearing rely on lip reading more than they realise.

          8. She used to be on Radio 2 Sunday nights, but then I read she had left the BBC. Positively yummy voice.

          10. George Alegaia (spelling?) sadly probably not much longer with us. Rageh Oamar defected to Al Jazeera. I quite like Clive Myrie, but they seem to be pushing him to emphasise all the “woke” topics now.
            All this “diversity” and BLM rubbish has made me less tolerant now and more suspicious.

          13. I didn’t have a problem with Trevor or Moira (or Shirley Bassey, come to that). It’s the over-representation that gets up my nose. I have been watching repeats of things like Foyle’s War and the early Midsomer Murders. They represent the country I grew up in and the people I see around me most days (we’re not blessed with the bombs and murders, of course. We leave that to people in the big cities).

          14. Trevor McDonald and Moira Stewart got their jobs because they were good, not because they were black.

          15. Having said that, tonight’s Endeavour was all about racist behaviour (in 1968) and they warned before Foyle came on (I gave it a miss) that there was “racist language common at the time” – my reaction (apart from hitting the off button) was, “oh, not more coons, wogs and niggers!” I want to get away from that.

      2. Hard enough to watch their current turgid outpourings, after April it will become unwatchable.

          1. So everybody can be fooled that they are getting good value for the money.

          4. ‘Afternoon, J,

            That’s when the Black Broadcasting Corruption start spending £100 million on ‘diverse and inclusive content’.

            See Mags post earlier in response to Largely Fortescue.

      3. Surely pushing such is inherently racist? After all it matters that the best work is created, not the box ticking kind.

    2. As if they haven’t done that already !

      The BBC is unwatchable if you are white and over 50.

        1. I only watch Masterchef and similar.

          I used to enjoy HIGNFY but no longer. They are too on message for my liking.

          At least with Graham Norton he gets all that shit over with in the prologue.

          1. Ricky Gervase had a good rant about the “woke” at the awards………. not that I would watch any of that crap. We don’t watch much apart from wildlife programmes.

          3. Is that the celeb one where the half caste says he wakes up crying every morning because of a lifetime of racist abuse?

    3. Don’t pay, there is no reason to. You’ll find your TV will work, even without a licence.

    4. Don’t pay, there is no reason to. You’ll find your TV will work, even without a licence.

    6. Perhaps this is why everyone in BBC Public Service has been offered redundancy. I’ll let others speculate as to their replacements. I couldn’t possibly…

    7. There have been complaints that not enough black and Asian people are shown on BBC TV so they are now going to screen Crimewatch twice a week

      1. Talking about vermin , Phizzee.

        Moh and I saw the largest rat we have seen for ages , run across the road . It was huge . A big countryside rat .. a king rat I imagine .

        I was driving the car , and we both exclaimed surprise and shock at the same time .

        2. ‘Afternoon, Mags, “King Rat” not to be confused with a Rat King.

          A rat king is a collection of rats whose tails are intertwined and bound together by one of several possible mechanisms, such as entangling material like hair or sticky substances like sap or gum or getting tied together. Historically, this alleged phenomenon is particularly associated with Germany. There are several specimens preserved in museums but very few instances of rat kings have been observed in modern times.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1e63469ce8807b81ff56a67ae333aa1ff581ca31917d10cedc243857ed045ce4.jpg

    2. Should they be criticised for performing the public duty of checking each apple for maggots?

    3. My father had a wealthy Chinese client who used to stuff his face with grapes every time he went to a supermarket, while his wife & grown-up daughter watched him. They lived somewhere in Bournemouth.

  54. That’s me off to Derby to drop things off at t’Lad’s & try & check on my mentally ill stepson.

    Play nicely.

    1. As was a suspected coronavirus life more important than a cancer sufferer and cardiac patients whose treatment was suspended and, no doubt, many of those died. Appalling treatment of the sick by the NHS.

        1. Thank you for asking,
          He is still with us but really has big problems with his breathing. He is fairly sanguine about his future. His one great desire is to see his only grandchild -girl- in the flesh. She was born in April. We had a Zoom meeting last Wednesday with ex colleagues but he became breathless quite quickly.

          1. I hope he gets his wish and also has time to get his affairs in order.
            Some people are incredibly well-organised when they know they haven’t got long.

      1. Apropos the air ambulances, Kings Meadow is about the same distance from Forbury Park as the latter is from the hospital. The hospital also doesn’t have a helipad, so they usually land on the University’s sports field about 3/4 mile away. It would have been quicker and less hassle to transfer the patients via ambulance!

    1. Looking carefully, I think they are playing catch with a globe.
      There’s obviously a catch somewhere but who knows who’s holding the ball?

      1. ‘Morning, Angie, permit me a slight modification; “There’s obviously a catch somewhere but who knows who’s holding the(other’s) ball(s)?”

  57. “Impact on people around park literally scrubbing urine & faeces off their steps is immense,” they said.

    “They have spent ages in lockdown, only now to watch 1000s of people carousing outside, soiling outside their windows and getting abuse if they remonstrate.”

    The council said it is investigating further legal measures to tackle the issues, which it will announce this week, and said it will recruit additional enforcement officers for the borough’s parks and other areas over the summer.

    Public toilets in Hackney parks are open, the council said, and there are 11 toilets in London Fields.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-fields-hackney-warning-urinate-defecate-doorsteps-a4476176.html

    1. The price to pay, Mags, for the joy of living in Sad Dick’s ‘Diverse’ London.

    3. Just more proof that the DT is fast becoming The Guardian which can be read for free on the interwebby

  60. I visited Specsavers today to get an eye test and replacement spectacles. I was attended today by a young optician of Asian descent. He qualified a few years ago and was very professional and cheerful. He loves being in North Yorkshire. It was an enjoyable experience. He informed me that as I was diabetic I would get the reactolite lenses at no extra cost on prescription. Specsavers had not raised their prices. I was quite impressed.

      1. Yep, all those poor Yorkshiremen would make even a pauper feel welcome and well off.

        1. Someone once described a Yorkshireman as ‘a Scotsman with the generosity squeezed out’ !

          1. Obviously you have not dealt with many Dutch. Talk about careful with their money.

          2. Actually Jack, I have. We get a lot of Dutch holidaymakers in this part of the world, mostly on campsites, and they turn up here bringing everything with them to minimise how much they have to spend here. They are not popular with the local retailers for this reason. They will even bring potatoes and Heineken to save having to buy the same here. They are a tight lot, as you say.

            Having said that, one of my closest and oldest friends is Dutch (from Rotterdam but now living in San Diego) and he is the most generous person you could ever hope to meet.

  61. SIR — Our town is being throttled by our local council. Traders and businesses in Ross-on-wye are trying very hard to pick up the pieces of their fractured businesses, but Herefordshire Council has come up with a new scheme that will smash these efforts.

    Some – not all – traders have been informed by letter that the busiest part of the town (Broad Street) will be closed to traffic from Wednesday to Saturday between 10am and 3pm for an open-ended period. Many independent businesses in Broad Street rely on through traffic and the benefit of on-street parking and nearby car parks to attract customers. They are the ones who make the town interesting. When shoppers are prevented from driving and parking in or near the town centre, they simply go to the nearest supermarket.

    The council’s reason is “to encourage people to walk or cycle into the town to do their shopping”. This is the last thing the traders of Ross-on-wye want, but they have not been consulted. Why on earth is this council placing yet more obstacles, at great expense, in the way of bringing life back to the town centre?

    Andrew Meek
    Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire

    Here is a clear case of the council being damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If they ban cars from the town centre then local businesses will die.

    However, if they do permit cars access to the town centre then, in these days of heavy traffic, the town centre will soon become a huge traffic jam with no-one going anywhere. All available parking spaces will be taken up very soon; lots of illegal and dangerous parking (not to mention reckless driving) will occur; shoppers and pedestrians will be endangered by the excess of traffic; and delivery vehicles will not be able to get through to the shops to deliver their goods.

    This was precisely the case in Chesterfield town centre in the 1970s, anarchy reigned. Order and common sense was only restored when the council banned traffic at certain times of the day. Even during the times that traffic was permitted, the selfishness of motorists caused manifold problems for pedestrians in the area.

    The only sensible solution is more town centre car parks; failing that, more off-centre car parks with a decent park-and-ride scheme.

    1. I’ve not been in to the city centre for well over three years. It’s crowded, smelly, dirty, full of yobs, chavs and wasters. People don’t shop. They wander aimlessly about looking at things they want to buy.

      I take junior to the supermarket – well, used to, can’t these days as we all stand in a queue and that is horribly boring. We each grabbed a basket. He carried the light stuff, me everything else. Map of the store in the head. Full speed to the first thing. In basket, move on. A full weekly shop could easily be done in less than 20 minutes. 30 including getting there. Yes we get vegetables from the farm place down the way but we give them a list and a crate turns up. The only real delay is going to the butchers for Mongo where he is fussed over like a celebrity but a normal, every day shop should be as fast, efficient and purposeful as possible.

      Contrast that with shopping with my mother – two hours of utterly wasted time looking at every single possible thing. In the time she’s gone off I can have shopped, cooked, served and put the dinner things in the washer.

    2. Probably patting themselves on the back for a quick response to the crisis.

      Our lot are taking a less is more approach to get business going. Parking fees in many towns have been suspended, permit requirements for patio dining ignored and unbelievably in such a good fearing country, liquor licensing rules relaxed.

    3. There speaks a former parking warden with notebook and pen still at the ready !

      1. I was never one of those, muppet.

        However, you have always been a failed clown.

          1. We all love Grizzly here – but maybe it is because he has a sensitive soul beneath his grizzly exterior!

    4. Withhold the Business Rate until the council frees up the ability to attract custom.

      1. Business rates killed the High Street. I’ve talked to traders. One I spoke to had been in the family business all his life, a business over 100 years old. He gave up because the ever-increasing business rates became too much. I’ve seen wonderful pop-up shops that occupied empty premises temporarily (until let or sold) and thrived because they did not pay business rates.

      2. Business rates should be a %age of the profits / takings. Reduced takings because the customers have been diverted elsewhere – reduced rates.

    5. Or be like Tunbridge Wells Council.

      Take the multi story car park nearest the rate paying shops and permit Council employees to park there free of charge.

    6. Park-n-ride works for extended visits to town, but just popping in for some floor cleaner – forget it. Too involved.

          1. I am organised. I never pop out for one article. I know what I want and where to get the stuff I need.

    7. Without doubt these councils are following an agenda, residents in Bath reporting wider pavements at the cost of road and parking restrictions in various parts of the city, ignoring traders concerns.
      My own town council closing the town centre to through traffic for 11 weeks for improvements, at what cost to traders?

    1. I was never rich enough to own and maintain a Jaguar though I would have loved to have had an XK150 when I was a young man.

      However, when I was a student I spent some time as a roustabout on an oil rig in the North Sea during a summer vac to get enough money together to buy an 8 year old MGA for £210 and it was my pride and joy, gave me far too much swagger and made me feel like la moustache de chat.

      (I am fond of expressions which are incomprehensible nonsense when translated into another language!)

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e0884530060fc83532252fb37fdf417af25cee5da4fde295b40e61a28634e221.jpg

      1. I’ve had a 1946 MG TC, a Triumph Roadster, a Spitfire and an MGB GT, wish I’d kept them all especially the Roadster

        1. I had a blue 1948 Triumph Roadster 1800 which I bought when I was 19.

          Spectacular but not fast enough.

          1. Mine was black and suffered from chassis rot – loved the long bonnet in front of me and the back seats in the boot

          2. It was fun stopping for hitch hikers and then surprising them by putting them in the dickey.

          4. As a student, a mate had a tatty one of those, Tom.
            The standing order was, when he shouted “Horn!” above the din of mechanicals and rattles, we all had to scream “CU*T” as loudly as we could – the hooter didn’t work. Used to get some strange expressions, but it was effective!

          5. They were surprisingly quick for their time and lived up to the term vitesse.

          6. Very, Richard, I’ve seen off a few BMWs at the lights, the drivers obviously thought it was just a Triumph Herald!

        2. I’ve had an A35 and an Alfa GT junior. I wish that the Alfa had been as reliable as the Austin.

          1. I had an A30 for a short while but I don’t like to remember that – top speed about 40mph downhill

        3. I’ve had two MG Midgets. I’ve still got one of them (the rubber bumper, Triumph Spitfire-engined version).

      3. I love The Bee’s Knees. The Cat’s Pyjamas.
        Completely mad and absolutely untranslatable.

          2. Les couilles de chien!

            Our dear old Boxer was called Rumpole but he was mono-testicular (as many boxers are) so when he misbehaved we called him Hitler.

        2. My father came up with “un petit morceau de tout droit” to describe some newly discovered wine on a journey through France in the ’70s!

          2. He was indeed Phizee! I may have inherited some of his “titbits” brain! And his racehorse ankles, of course!

      4. I think old old cars are so much more interesting than new ones, and your MG looks beautiful.

          2. Yes, Richard, sometimes to have so much more guts, it causes so much more problems. I’ve already gone up 3 trouser sizes!

            But, all in all, the longer they survive the more they are appreciated and loved.

  63. ref the jihadist of Reading.

    I wonder whether it was a specially bought fighting knife and also whether he had had some sort of training in its use.

    To kill and injure so many people in such a short space of time suggests it was more than yer average kitchen knife and that he knew exactly where he was stabbing and slashing.

        1. Those are also the areas where a stabvest leaves one exposed. I don’t believe in coincidence.

          The fact that our senior police are prepared to cover up for people that wish to kill the ranks is disgusting.

          Same old.

    2. The eyewitness on telly last night said it was a “big knife” at least five inches! It was probably a bit longer than that.

      1. You might be surprised.
        The US Marine Corps standard knife “only” has a 7″ blade.

    3. Some “kitchen knives” are positively lethal. We have a set including what looks like a large stabbing knife and a large (and heavy) Santoku style knife. Both incredibly sharp. I understand the “Brit” street gangs have perfected the art of using a machete up the rear to ensure their victim gets to live with a colostomy bag.

      Lovely people, all.

      The US outfit that makes these excellent kitchen knives are the same people who make the KA-Bar combat knives.

      1. Most kitchen knives, even expensive Japanese blades, tend to be good for cutting, they are designed thus, not for stabbing.
        I have some experience of many types of knife, (working with chefs and in an abatoir), the typical kitchen knife, sold in shops, is too thin relative to its length to cause as much damage as quickly as this guy did, unless he’s had some serious training.

        1. Our larger knives are fairly thick bladed, broad toward the hilt and heavy, and with a very sharp point. A very distinct step up from Henckels and the like.

          1. Trust me, they might look impressive but they are not combat knives.

            Yes, they will do serious damage to a victim, but they are not designed to do much other than kitchen work.

  64. 320484+ up ticks,
    How about this johnson chap gets seriously real and takes a leaf out of Germany’s book 1939 / 45 not death but a seriously long sentence for
    listening to the Bbc.

          1. 320484+ up ticks,
            S,
            The real UKIP as Gerard Batten proved in one year
            was proving to be a much needed success that was not going to be tolerated, triggering the treacherous Nec.
            The lab/lib/con coalition party members / voters after decades of failure as currently witnessed
            could not afford having UKIP out of step with them.
            The new leader is a tall story merchant and well suited for the final meltdown, good material as with “nige” for a K.
            There ain’t no rejoicing when good political people are closed down to appease a treacherous lab/lib/con closed shop only fools would support that.

          2. Of course it’s been taken out of context, but Freddy is up to fighting his corner. He’s of Persian descent, which is a help with the “racist, xenophobic” crowd.

  65. Author’s postscript (via email to me) to this morning’s letter from Roger Hudson re Memorials to the men of the West Africa Squadron

    “As always the Telegraph have mucked it about a bit. “Tasked with” is theirs. It’s, I suspect, an Americanism, and I hate it. I called the Bann “she” which has been changed to it, no doubt because of some style ruling to comply with LGBT rubbish. A contemporary account had the captain “delirious in his cot”. This they shortened, leaving out in his cot, I suspect ignorant that this was the term for officers’ swing beds, as distinct from the crews’ hammocks. Just the sort of bit of colour people like, so of course they cut it!

    In fact Hudson was still strictly a midshipman (aged 28: promotion in the peacetime navy was desperately slow). He had been appointed an acting Lieutenant by the Squadron Commodore but that had to be confirmed by the Admiralty. Shortly before joining the Bann he had been put in charge of three slave vessels he had helped capture, to sail them back to Sierra Leone. The crews became infected with opthalmia (whatever that meant in those days) and 43 died of it. He got it badly himself. I’d like to know where the Bann was meant to be going before he had to take it into Ascension – possibly Rio de Janeiro where Squadron ships sometimes went for a bit of R&R away from the deadly Slave Coast. It wasn’t until 1826 that he went to sea again, after he had got back to Britain in 1823, recuperating no doubt.

    Beware and take heed of the Bight of Benin,
    Where few come out though many go in.    “

  66. Boris is presenting the daily virus update tomorrow so you can be sure that some good news will be announced, probably a reduction in 2m spacing and for pubs and restaurants to reopen on July 4th.

    He only gets involved if there are significant announcements to be made.

    1. Isn’t there a significance in the date for drug-fuelled homosexuals?

      I’m as corny as Kansas in August
      High as a fag on the Fourth of July!
      If you’ll excuse an expression I use
      I’m in love, I’m in love
      I’m in love, I’m in love
      I’m in love with a wonderful guy!

  67. I wonder how much people have been subconsciously influenced by the CofE and Catholic liturgy such as:

    We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep;
    Lord have mercy upon us, miserable sinners;
    There is no health in us.

    But it seems that though there are far fewer practising Christians in modern Britain and the people no longer kneel in front of Christ they cannot resist the urge to abase themselves and kneel before George Floyd’s corpse and support the BLM’s political agenda to destroy capitalism and scrap the police force.

    (Has anybody else noticed that there are strong echoes here of the mob demanding the freedom of the criminal Barabas from execution and the execution of Jesus instead?)

    It seems to me that the concepts of white guilt and white privilege have inadvertently been installed into people by the Church?

    1. I was brought up as a Cof E Christian, and it’s a long while since I stopped going to church. But Jesus’ message has always been a good one to follow, even if the Church itself has lost its way again, as it has done many times throughout history.

      I certainly don’t feel the need to apologise for Floyd or any other criminal, though the police were certainly heavy-handed in their arrest methods. Likewise the BLM movement – I think most of its followers are deluded people who have failed to see the anti-capitalist, Marxistt elements incharge, which would sweep away life as we know it.

      The attack in Reading the other night seems to heve been one failure of the prison system – this guy should never have been let out early and three men have paid the price for that mistake. He shouldm’t have been given asylum either.

      1. Morning Ndovu and all. I understood that he had been refused asylum. If that is so he should have been deported. Except that we then allow people to appeal the decision ad infinitum, with us picking up the legal bills, of course. I’d be interested to know how many of those refused asylum were deported and I suspect very few because of their “yooman rites” or “not safe to return from whence they came” or some such rubbish.

        1. There seem to be conflicting reports – I think it was the DT that said he arrived here in 2012 and was given asylum in 2017 – can’t be deported to an “unsafe country”. He was let out of jail early on “minor offences”.

          1. I think prisoners should serve their whole sentences with no parole. When the sentence is up let them out on parole then for whatever is the norm to (try to) ensure they don’t commit another crime. We seem to be busy letting them out whilst keeping us all in. No bl..dy common sense in this government. I’ve just re-read my 3rd sentence and will amend it. The authorities are busy …. not “we”.

    2. I meant also to say – I don’t feel any guilt for having been born white, and I don’t think my life has been any more priviileged than the next person. I’m glad to be an indigenous English person, with a family history going back beyond record keeping.

      Black people are privileged to be living here, in this tolerant country, where people can make the best of themselves, whoever they are, by hard work and their own intelligence. They can and have succeeded in all walks of life here.

      1. To feel guilt about things that are not your fault or responsiblity is clearly silly! Of course Monster Blair started the trend by apologising to the Irish for the Irish Potato Famine.

        But it is more than just silly: how can we feel sorry about what happened centuries ago and turn a blind eye to modern slavery? Lewis Hamilton’s hypocrisy is astounding – he condemns slavery in Britain – the country that stamped it out – and takes £millions from Mercedes, a company that profited from the slavery of Jews in living memory.

        1. Lewis Hamilton may be a good driver – but he’s brainless! He’s another example of how a black or mixed race person can realise their potential in this country. He’s a moron who knows nothing beyond his steering wheel.

      2. I’d like to know what “privilege” I have enjoyed; everything I own or am has been achieved by my own efforts – hard work, making the most of my opportunities, not squandering the money I earned and making sensible choices.

    3. The idea of White Guilt is identical to the Blood Libel foisted on Jews for the Death of Christ. The Jews at the time did kill him or were accomplices to his death. The Whites have undoubtedly committed heinous offences during their rule at the apex of their power but their offspring bear no responsibilities for them any more than modern Jews do for the Crucifixion.

      1. ‘Afternoon, Minty, the Black Lies Matter cohort seem to operate on the basis that ‘Might is Right’, quietly forgetting (or not knowing) that that is the system that operated before the ‘Enlightenment’, which was also instrumental in bringing them out of Western Slavery.

        Should they return (or be returned) to their native kraals, they will find that, being of all tribes or none, they will be subjected to the continuation of ‘Might is Right’ upon their own fuzzy heads.

    4. “When a man stops believing in God,” said GK Chesterton, “he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes anything.”

  68. Round at my cousin’s delivering her shopping and reminding her how to switch the TV on and off. ‘I must write that down’… And indeed she did for the nth time…

    But the TV was showing some TV programme from the BBC and reminding their viewers that it’s Windrush Anniversary Day. I assume this means that we should all weep and wear mourning clothes since the arrival of MV Windrush marked the beginning of the end of the UK.

    1. Windrush Anniversary Day? That reminds me, I must clean the downstairs toilet.

    1. Aw, that reminds me of the registers when I was at art school. A list was passed around the lecture theatre and some of us entered our own names but Leonardo and Michelangelo were regular attendees and God Himself joined us occasionally.

      2. When I was at QMW, there was one lecturer who was dire (she could surpass Mogadon in the knock out stakes), so attendance at her outings dropped off.
        A register was introduced and passed round the lecture hall before she kicked off. When I went to sign, I discovered that I’d signed in three times already with an impressive number of different pens and signatures.

  70. I would like to draw everyone’s attention to Elsie’s post.

    Nottlers lives matter.

      1. Although many of us have never met each other, yet we have a sense of family and even that much maligned word “community”.

  71. Had to laugh at the Bbc News item on the outbreak of COVID-19 at two Chinese ‘chicken manufacturing plants’.

      2. True. I recall a survey of primary school kids, of whom 60% didn’t know that chips come from potatoes.

        2. Milk comes in bottles (nothing to do with cows) and meat appears on plastic trays.

      3. True. I recall a survey of primary school kids, of whom 60% didn’t know that chips come from potatoes.

  72. Reading stabbings latest news: Government ‘will not hesitate’ to act to prevent future attacks. 22 JUNE 2020 • 1:24PM.

    “The Prime Minister has said that if there are any lessons to be learned or any changes to be made to stop such events from happening again, we will not hesitate to take that action as we have before.”

    It seems scarcely possible that anyone let alone a Prime Minister could utter such pitiful mewlings. He and the rest of those traitors in Parliament are responsible. Without their aid this creature would not be here and these three people would be alive. They are accomplices to their murders!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/22/reading-stabbings-attack-terror-park-news/

    1. And they are still coming ashore by the boat load.

      The media haven’t mentioned the others who were also attacked and stabbed , but survived .

      No WONDER we regard certain people with suspicion , and are very wary about intentions .. We are told by the rural police to be watchful over rural crime, lock our cars, sheds , close farm gates, don’t leave valuables in a car, guard your handbags , be watchful for pick pocketers, but do they TELL US TO be wary of suspicious fidgetty looking foreigners… do they hell !

    2. It was very revealing that the Bbc News yesterday, when they finally gave details about the killer, avoided saying he was a refugee or asylum seeker, just that he ‘originally came from Libya’, with the implication that he was a British citizen.

    3. What action might that be, then? Put a name on a list, then forget about it? That kind of action?

    4. So he’s going to stop the boats arriving, make sure sentences are a) fit for purpose and b) run full term and the scrotes are deported afterwards and never let back in, is he?

  73. Evening, all. Am I the only one who thinks that BLM should be starved of the oxygen of publicity?

          1. I should not be surprised if the monarchy went once HM is no longer with us. Long may she reign!

    3. ” The Prince, in a message to mark Windrush Day, said the first generation
      of Windrush immigrants had made an “immeasurable difference” to “so
      many aspects” of their new home. ”
      They certainly did – but not in the way he’s thinking.

    4. He would say that .. he has a caramel coloured daughter in law , and would he upset that viper , of course not, would he dare .. ?

  77. They found employment after industry or UK public service:

    Why is it wrong, some ask, for senior British businessmen, former civil servants etc to work for Huawei UK? After all, it is a major company which needs business experience and advice here. Even now, despite the government’s apparent U-turn, it is not certain it will be excluded from our 5G contracts. Surely the answer is that if a director were to explain frankly to the public how Huawei works, he would have to admit that — whatever its formal ownership structure — it is controlled by and furthers the aims of the Chinese Communist party regime. He would also have to concede that these aims have now become hostile to British and western interests. Ren Zhengfei, the boss, expresses himself in belligerent terms. Yet the chairman, Lord Browne, and directors such as Sir Andrew Cahn, the former head of UK Trade and Investment, and Sir Mike Rake, former president of the Confederation of British Industry, try to deflect all this. Sir Ken Olisa is another board member but, as Lord Lieutenant of London, he is also the representative of the Queen. Is he not conflicted? Sir Simon Fraser, as head of the Foreign Office, was the most senior civil servant in charge of British interests abroad. Retired, he is paid at Flint Global to advance Chinese ones (via Huawei) here. So is his business partner, Ed Richards. As chief executive of the communications regulator, Ofcom, Mr Richards had to uphold its code, which includes human rights (especially freedom of expression), fairness, ‘due impartiality and due accuracy’, privacy, religion etc. He must know that China fails on all these counts, yet he takes the Huawei money. The only cheering thought is that China, misled by its traditional respect for age, has appointed the wrong people. Almost every one of its grand names is an elderly Remainer, unlikely to open the right doors in post-Brexit Britain.

    If it seems priggish to condemn these distinguished representatives of our ancien regime as unethical, we can at least call them unwise. Not enough attention has been paid to the initials TSMC. They stand for the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, on which Huawei is dependent for the high-end chips it needs for its 5G work. Last month, TSMC was told by the United States that it could supply America or China, but not both. The company chose America. Huawei’s 5G path is blocked. In a few months’ time, Huawei may no longer see the point of paying six-figure sums to Lord B and his attendant knights.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-grand-names-on-Huaweis-payroll

  78. Merkel condemns ‘abhorrent’ Stuttgart violence after mob attacks police. 22 June 2020 • 2:27pm

    Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, who called for “swift and tough” punishment of those responsible, said there had been a broader rise in violence against officers and rescue workers for some time. He complained of “disparagement of the police through words, and disparagement can be just as hurtful as physical violence.”

    Seehofer also suggested he might file a criminal complaint against a left-wing newspaper columnist who had written disparagingly about police recently, but his spokesman later said officials were still examining the legal implications of such a move. Opposition lawmakers warned that government intervention over a newspaper column could be seen as interference in press freedom.

    You have to wonder at the spineless hypocrisy of the UK Elites but they seem to have surpassed it in Germany. Here we have the German Home Office minister more concerned about the rightful abuse he and his police are receiving than actually doing anything about the people responsible for the riot.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/22/merkel-condemns-abhorrent-stuttgart-violence-mob-attacks-police/

    1. The Germans still feel a collective guilt about the horrors of the war. But I think the law-abiding German people are probably regretting Merkel’s generosity in letting in so many “refugees”.

    2. Like Sad Khant he will soon say he is suffering mental health problems because of disparagement. . The wrong people are in the job. Poor lambs…..slaughter next. Hope they are first.

  79. So many posts here mention the BBC. WHY DO YOU WATCH IT, there are other channels you know. Or you could even switch it off and find something else to do.

    2. I’d rather push a pineapple up me arse, tufty-end first, than pay for or watch the BBC.

  80. Reading terror suspect had PTSD and other mental health issues. 23 June 2020

    The suspect in the Reading terror attack was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and an emotionally unstable personality disorder, the Guardian understands.

    Aghhh. Isn’t that sad? Does he have wooden leg as well? What about his Mum? Did she lock him in the coal cellar when he was little?

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/22/reading-terror-suspect-had-ptsd-other-mental-health-issues-khairi-saadallah

      1. This guy will end up like that piece of trash in America. Hero attacked by evil whiteys trying to steal his knife.

      1. This guy would have told them he had the Great Spotted Leprosy if it had kept him in the UK and on benefits!

    1. I would be very surprised if this was true, unless there are National Security implications or other trials would be prejudiced if it was public.

      If either of the latter two, it’s right that the trial should be in camera.

      1. They can always pull some excuse out of their…hats when they want to keep it from being reported.

      2. Nothing surprises me any more. I see a chaotic future where only the left can express a view and worthless politicians bend over backwards to please 3% of society.

    3. Last wisdom tooth I had pulled in the UK – beautifu Asian young dentist and her young assistant – one clamped my head into her left breast, the other into her right. Couldn’t hear a thing, but who cared? No idea how the extraction went, either, …

  84. We are quick to label the Reading attack terrorism – but there is little benefit in doing so. Mon 22 Jun 2020.

    At present we haven’t sifted through all the evidence in Saturday’s attack, but at the moment only one individual with a history of mental health problems has been arrested. Perhaps it may prove otherwise, but there is no virtue at this stage in using the heightened narratives of extremist terrorism.

    Wow the Propaganda Department are on Steroids. They are roping in every man and his dog!

    Islam is peace! Allah loves you.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/22/reading-attack-terrorism-tragedy

  85. Terror in Reading: look back in anger. 22 June 2020.

    Whether it’s the Manchester bombing, the London Bridge mass stabbing, the Westminster Bridge vehicle-and-stabbing attack, or this weekend’s terror in a park in Reading, the response is always the same: ‘Lay a flower. Shed a tear. Move on. Don’t think about it. And absolutely don’t get angry about it. What’s wrong with you – are you Islamophobic?’

    Brendan’s instincts are absolutely correct of course, witness this blog over the last hour. Mind you the last time he wrote something like this GCHQ dropped it down the memory hole!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/06/22/terror-in-reading-look-back-in-anger/

    1. “…let’s look back with intellectual and political rigour in order to uncover the climate in which this hateful, extremist violence has been able to grow.”

      That’s easy, Brendan. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. It’s our fault. We turned the peaceable into the hate-filled – from Buddhists with beards to murderous psychopaths in a couple of overseas adventures. We must take our punishment.

      “Bombs away!”

      1. While I take it that’s irony, these events have one common denominator – the Blair legacy.

  86. Tomorrow, the 4th anniversary of the EU Referendum vote. We did win, didn’t we?

      1. 320484+ up ticks,
        Evening TB,
        What with the treacherous political merchants in control and a multitude of following fools
        Re- entry would not surprise me.

      1. 320484+ up ticks,
        Evening C,
        Not them alone by a long chalk, I can still hear
        echoes of “job done no need of UKIP now leave it to the tories”
        Then unbloodybelievably, wait for it actually went back to supporting / voting lab/lib/con, talk about fraternising with the enema.
        Since the 24/6/2016 every so called brexiteer
        that had a say has been a winner without doubt
        that is a winner at losing credibility, and we ain’t there yet.

      1. And Mercedes Benz were using slave Labour within living memory and the BBC thinks Baisil Fawlty is offensive.

      2. German Empire, Johnny? You must be joking, even Germany will be subjected to the Trans-European Caliphate.

        On your knees boy, bums up in the air, 5 times a day.

    4. As the old cliche goes: Procrastination is the thief of time.

      We have been robbed.

    1. The rising threat that exists mainly in the tiny minds of the BBC, they mean.
      I wonder how much they spent on the drinks bill to try and persuade people to fabricate evidence for their programme?

  89. I understand that the city of Minneapolis is to have a day of looting in memory of the three white men slaughtered in Reading.

    1. To show solidarity Chicago was going to do that also. It slowed them down on the looting of jewelry shops so they just burnt down the town instead. They had foresight though…..they robbed the local Walmart of chickens to chuck in the flames.

      Just to show how stupid they are……………….no one brought the coleslaw….. Men !

  94. Burnley FC condemn offensive banner flown over Man City’s Etihad Stadium
    https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11708/12012843/burnley-condemn-offensive-banner-flown-over-man-citys-etihad-stadium

    Burnley ‘strongly condemns’ banner flown above Etihad Stadium before Man City game
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53145201

    This, apparently, is offensive:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/12ea0996d412fa7f2162e7abeb7a1c9a0d909433dc87edec6f5f69f16fb57cf6.jpg

    1. Football is a lost cause. I don’t follow it, but the extent it has become politicised is shocking. The sheer hypocrisy at this evening’s banner outrage is staggering. When I lived in Africa, it was always said they can lie freely, because the do not blush.

      1. BS, lacoste, part of the much-needed backlash against those who would threaten our way of life and impose their foreign ways upon us – by force it seems.

        1. I know he has no time for Gerard and I believe that’s a mistake, but his press releases have been fine.

          1. 320484+ up ticks,
            C,
            I see him as the nosecone of disaster no comparison can be made with Batten.
            Gerard Batten was receiving new members on a daily basis from the 13000 already signed up since
            he took the leadership.
            I now believe the membership is around 5000 the orchestrated take down of a very credible party was triggered.
            When Batten took over it was the only party on the road to success and NOT being steered.

            Ps, I knew a welder once he use to write his own
            CVs,Jacob Grimm MK2.

  96. 320484+ up ticks,
    breitbart,
    LONDON TO ERECT STATUES CELEBRATING MASS MIGRATION.

    Nearer the truth would be london erect statues celebrating the fall of a nation.

  97. That is me gone for the day. Nice and sunny, I grant you; but with a chilly breeze most of the day.

    Shopping tomorrow morning – for food and stuff – but then grass seed and beer.

    Have a jolly evening sharpening your Christian stabbing knives. And DO remember to remind your families to trot out the “mental isshoos” when the plod come round.

          1. A ‘glass half-full’ Scot would say, “We’ll no have much trouble with the midges, today” !

  98. PS I wanted to post these 10 minutes ago, but the Net was off at the MR’s end of the house:

    For your delectation

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7795f861574cf58db6e1947c7befd474359ff841176ed1184a736b9438ee55c0.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a710c32a64ad1a992017a883adb5f41109a5f7f7e4fba09386d0ed19def9e2d6.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e24f8afbdbc93625ec3b55e846fc50c7287849377fe2a184f09844d1a998fc3e.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/07d9cedb06de6c25f80015a9b20ede52a1fb35f3c915ca74ea3da387f6f0ad9f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f2fa4aff29bc8f994c0d6be2a71d8422699d421d198b7dc0b8cde12ed4493092.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/77f53df38a2180093037d45fa40e584f0c47e1b483bbcac833f2bbb820d4f482.jpg

    Just DON’T ask me the names. All I know is that (I think) the red one is Ena Harkness.

      1. Ours have been the best we can remember this year.

        The MR does cosset them.

        1. The Centifolia is a musk rose and sits next to William Lobb. My example took a battering but was partially shielded by our
          greenhouse. Centifolia lost much of its blooms in the recent rain and storms.

          Like the best French wines evaluated and classified in 1855, similarly the better French roses date from about this time.

          1. Charles de Mills looks a bit sad after the rain and winds but most of the Gallicas and Bourbons have performed well.
            The colours blend beautifully they have a certain charm not found in
            modern HT’s and floribundas….

        2. The Centifolia is a musk rose and sits next to William Lobb. My example took a battering but was partially shielded by our
          greenhouse. Centifolia lost much of its blooms in the recent rain and storms.

          Like the best French wines evaluated and classified in 1855, similarly the better French roses date from about this time.

    1. AFRICA FOR THE ETHNIC AFRICANS

      But in rather less bold uncapitalised letters

      Europe for the ethnic Europeans?

      Or is it racist to expect black and white people to have a different level of freedom to express their opinions?

      1. Infuriating isn’t it? Now we have black historians trying to rewrite our own history and picking over Churchill’s thoughts and deeds.

        The BLM and Antifa mobs are encouraging a serious backlash with their propaganda and hate speech against whites. These organisations are globally financed and causing havoc in our otherwise stable and tolerant society.

        If this goes much further we English will simply have to mobilise.

        1. ‘Morning (early) Cori, “…Serious backlash…” when, where and how is this to happen?

          We on here may piss and moan about the need for such (Vide Blackburn idiots) but we are (generally) too old to get out there and organise a backlash army, ‘cos that’s what’s needed.

          More than a few of the armed forces need to be encouraged to break through police farce lines (they couldn’t hold a concerted effort without scratching their nail polish and breaking their high heels) and the armed forces must surely posses the same body-armour and fancy shit as the Police Farce.

          Anyway, having broken the Police lines protecting the BLM and Antifa bum-boys, just get in there and give ’em such a bloody beating that they will wilt and quiver back into their filthy holes. It’s what’s needed – and NOW!

          1. I keep my Gunn and Moore cricket bat to hand. I stroked a few boundaries with it and could take the ears off an insurgent or wreck their undercarriage if required.

            I also have a Black Mamba. (Bow).

          2. 320484+ up ticks,
            Evening NTI,
            Mind, could always try starving the
            lab/lib/con coalition candidates of love
            ie no kisses X in the ballot booth jnstead of giving them support & succour as in the party first manner, that has been the root of out troubles from the outset.

          3. ‘Morning, Ogga, Pissing in the wind just means that you get your own back. We need a good STRONG party that will stand UP for Britain. Unfortunately that’s NOT UKIP.

          4. 320484+ up ticks,
            Morning NTI,
            NO, you surely mean NOW we need a a good strong party.
            We had a good strong party in the making with good strong leadership UKIP under Gerard Batten
            you couldn’t fault it, the man took over on the 17th Feb for a year he asked for £ 100000 to get us out of stook and received £300000 in reply.
            The membership gained 13000 + straight off with peoples joining daily, year up he stood down as he said he would then he entered the leadership election only to be told by the Nec he was not of good standing within the party, please read up on his run as a founder member of UKIP with 27 years unbroken service.
            The current UKIP via Nec treachery are down to about 5000 members.
            The farage put a word in to the UKIP Nec via a letter decrying Batten as leader.

        2. 320484+ up ticks,
          Evening C,
          This has not just happened the stable & tolerant society allowed it to happen right up to the point of having to mobilise is that not the truth of the matter ?

          1. Yup ogga 1. We gave all been sitting around and distantly watching this worsening and unfolding tragedy.

            Our politicians need to get a grip on this. If they will not protect us then it is up to us to protect our selves.

          2. 320484+ up ticks,
            C,
            The sad thing is being a real UKIP member not to be confused with the current UKIP and being castigated for showing loyalty to Country throughout, having to see it abused, totalled, given away by fools who will not admit even to themselves they had a hand in bringing about our present plight takes some baring.

  102. I Just saw this in the DT on my late night look at the MSM:

    Burnley promise lifetime bans to supporters responsible for ‘White Lives Matter’ plane banner

    So why are whiter lives less important than black lives and why is it acceptable for a football club to act in this appallingly racist manner?

    1. Second rate club and now for oblivion.

      Edit: I have a horrible thought that the Blair weasel Alastair Campbell supports Burnley. Some connection perhaps.

    2. 200? About a week’s worth of ‘boat-people’, I reckon.

      Eagle-eyed Nottls might recall the name of Councillor White when I posted an email sent to him concerning Havering’s ‘race relations review’ a week or so ago. Received a reply this morning and sent him further email as response not totally satisfactory. Will post further when (if?) reply received.

  105. Statue of a Catholic Saint pulled down in California. Not a slave trader. But that’s thousands of miles away. Not here. So who cares? They won’t do that here…

    1. Twenty percent would be an improvement wouldn’t it? That leaves eighty percent for the pink and sunburnt crowd.

      I don’t think that Canadian TV has white male presenters any more, it is all permatan and women.

      1. I care not whether the news presenters are black, white or Caramac in colouring. I just want them to be able to speak English and to avoid the bias and nasty political asides we see in so many of the current crop.

        I will cite Laura Kuenssberg and Emily Maitless as two of the worst current examples. Both deeply unattractive characters.

        Of course there is a deep infestation of similarly minded journalists in the BBC. The whole enterprise is riddled with stupid blinded people from the top down. They do not represent us, the licence payers, and quite frankly the BBC should be left to its own devices without the aid of the compulsory licence fee.

        Boris, get to it or else. Abolish the BBC tax or else.

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