Monday 28 June: Anything goes for government ministers while they enforce harsh rules on the rest of us

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/06/27/letters-anything-goes-government-ministers-enforce-harsh-rules/

615 thoughts on “Monday 28 June: Anything goes for government ministers while they enforce harsh rules on the rest of us”

  2. Good morning all.
    On Topic – we need to be careful not to be distracted by this. The problem is not that these people do not follow their own rules. The problem is that these rules are useless from a health perspective and that we do follow them.
    We know this because Florida and Texas opened up their economies in the middle of the bad season for this virus and their mortality figures were no worse than anywhere else.
    That our Beloved Leaders do not obey these rules is a sign that none of us should obey them.

    1. Morning LiM and all Nottlers.

      IMO nobody should have followed their rules about mask wearing in particular. The WHO said that they were not necessary or effective and admitted it was a political decision.

      Why is not the whole country completely rebelling and ignoring every stupid rule now it has been proved beyond all reasonable doubt that it’s one rule for them and one rule for us.

      1. More or less what I said to a fellow dog walker this morning. He brought up the subject of Handcock and what a hypocrite he was and wondered if we’d ever be free. “Only if we all rebel,” I told him.

        1. If people aren’t careful we will be in Autumn and … guess what? Flu epidemic – lockdown all over again. We have too many sheeple in this country. People won’t think for themselves.

          1. Yep. Exactly what I said. They have no intention of letting us go now they know how cowed and compliant we are willing to become. We need a mass rebellion.

  3. ‘Morning All

    Oi laffed,loudly,The Guardian at its very very best going around in circles to avoid saying WHO the violent mobsters were………

    “Brabin, who was the Labour MP for the constituency

    before winning the metro mayor job in May, said: “The group I was with

    included young people and the elderly. I witnessed them being egged,

    pushed and forced to the ground and kicked in the head.”

    West

    Yorkshire police confirmed on Sunday evening that they were

    investigating, and Brabin – who also holds the police and crime

    commissioner responsibility for the region – praised officers for their

    swift response.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/27/labour-activists-allegedly-egged-kicked-batley-and-spen-campaign-trail

    Hilariously they even drag Tommy into the fray…..

    “Stephen
    Yaxley-Lennon – also known as Tommy Robinson – was reported to be
    visiting the seat for a rally on Saturday, prompting
    counter-demonstrations.

    But Yaxley-Lennon did
    not turn up and West Yorkshire police said that despite about 400 people
    gathering, demonstrations passed mostly without incident.”
    Round and round in circles and they still can’t mention Moslems or Islam even though I suspect most here have already seen the videos….
    The Guardian,the epitome of Fake News

    2. Harry Webb – better known as Cliff Richard; Reginald Dwight – better known as Elton John; David Jones – better known as David Bowie; Archibald Leach – better known as Cary Grant; Richard Tracey better known as Rastus C. Tastey etc. etc. etc.

      The Guardian and other similar parts of the gutter press think they will discredit Tommy Robinson by using his birth name. Why don’t they include any of the above and add: Boris Johnson – better known as Bumbling Bonker?

      1. Indeed. When Boy George appears on the beeb, they should introduce him as “Boy George, real name George O’Dowd, who served a prison term for assault and false imprisonment”.

  4. #CovidClownWorld
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/451f504aeebd80110e887a65de3ed238f14e93ec889cd8eb9347072068db6e05.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/68f09132c60d2fe7bc50e61815489d4c85ff118da4e952b615a6434a1da6dae3.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/472ddead97cc0b5053b9d6d698ee3ac4646e8c115177665c069a66e1487689a0.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/faa0c29eaf7687715a5efad62159a982190b6cde59fbf349f24b84aa9dcdf3b1.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/363fc652de3dd9945c82c297bc744d0efe1f3bf4ce790bad36abb5c5a6692524.jpg

  5. Aye Right…………

    Priti Patel will

    introduce laws next week to enable the government to send asylum seekers

    abroad for processing as she opens talks with Denmark over sharing a

    centre in Africa.

    The Nationality and Borders Bill will include a provision to create an offshore immigration processing centre for asylum seekers for the first time.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/priti-patel-plans-migrants-held-offshore-africa-hub-processing-denmark-8ktj9q36p

    Years late and a Dollar short……………..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b27555df792f355d2e963ded15eaa01b7cc60c11eab76aa9e2b6c54e4c0a3b23.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b4a4103b006037499999249278d721287a6e64fb1be5b3f37cf1bad2bc1d94a0.jpg
    Until we withdraw from the UN Migration Pact the evil witch May signed us up to this is all just political posturing!!!!!!!!

  6. Boy, 11, referred to Prevent for wanting to give ‘alms to the oppressed’. 28 June 2021.

    The case has similarities to others that have hit the headlines including a nursery worker thinking a four-year-Muslim child had drawn a picture of his father with a cooker bomb when he was referring to a cucumber and a 10-year-old Muslim boy who misspelled the word “terraced” as “terrorist” to describe the kind of house he lived in.

    The boy’s father, an engineer and company manager, and his mother, a dentist, say they are distraught as a result of the Prevent referral.They are concerned that even though the case was swiftly closed by police in Warwickshire and West Mercia, the referral will stay on their son’s file and the information will be passed on to the grammar school the boy is due to attend in September.

    What a UK is revealed in these two paragraphs! A society where teachers spy on their pupils and report; however innocuously you name them, to what are in effect the Secret Police. Files are kept in perpetuity so your political reliability can be traced back to your very beginnings. Who knows what job or position you may apply for in the future and find yourself inexplicably refused? What concealed oppression might lead to the entire blighting of your life from one verbal error in childhood?

    This of course is the stuff of which all Police States dream, Surveillance from Birth to Death where all are Agents of the State and one which was largely brought to perfection in the old East Germany. How did we transform ourselves from what was once the freest country in the History of the World to what is now a Police State where a vast apparatus exists to control and suppress the population? It is a State that that the old Soviet Union would envy!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/27/boy-11-referred-to-prevent-for-wanting-to-give-alms-to-the-oppressed

    1. I remember being at a summer camp as a teenager where there was a Pakistani lad with an unfortunate name. It was ‘Monohar’, but if said correctly, had to be pronounced ‘manure’. We were instructed by the camp monitors to mispronounce his name “Mon-oh-har”.

      1. UK children learn basic french at school, so that they know the correct way to pronounce ‘Niger’.

    3. Simon Raven wrote a series of novels in a similar form to the Antony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time sequence.

      Raven’s principal character, Fielding Gray, was his alter ego. The series was called Alms for Oblivion – a phrase borrowed from Shakespeare. ‘Arms for Oblivion’ sounds like a sequence of novels about nuclear war!

      2. Only in the Daily Fail, Sos, the Tellygraf doesn’t mention him at all, focusing on Marine Le Pen.

        1. The real issue that should be worrying them is the extremely low voter turnout.

  10. Lie-detector tests for criminals under new probation rules. 28 June 2021.

    High-risk offenders face regular lie-detector tests under an overhaul of probation to be launched on Monday.

    Convicted sex offenders, domestic abusers and terrorists will face lie-detector tests at least every six months – and more regularly if they fail the tests or probation officers suspect they may be breaching their licence conditions.

    What about palm-reading and phrenology? In fact just cast the horoscopes of all offenders. It would save a fortune. We could also have ducking stools instead of trials. It would certainly improve the conviction rate in rape cases! There is no end to the improvements we might make. Perhaps even send people to gaol for the full term to which they are sentenced. Or is that too radical?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/27/lie-detector-tests-criminals-new-probation-rules/

    1. We should go back to loose tea. Then we could get an accurate reading of the malefactors’ intentions.

    2. We should go back to loose tea. Then we could get an accurate reading of the malefactors’ intentions.

    4. Convicted sex offenders, domestic abusers, government ministers and terrorists will face lie-detector tests at least every six months – and more regularly if
      they fail the tests or probation officers suspect they may be breaching
      their licence conditions.

  11. 334885+ up tcks,
    Morning Each,
    We ain’t never been, as a Country prepared for war judging by the last two major upsets, and the present one
    really IS the war to end ALL wars.

    Difference being this war is on the doorstep & the cause being ownership of said doorstep,the enema is,on a daily basis coming to us courtesy of the governance L/L/C coalition in their pursuit of reset.

    Why were the political odious overseers allowed to go this far ? “they” encouraged the close shop tactical VOTE IN / KEEP OUT no one, in reality lost a chair when the music stopped, just stood down for a while.

    The electorate did the rest even to the extent of putting down any building opposition that threatened the close
    shop.

    Monday 28 June: Anything goes for government ministers while they enforce harsh rules on the rest of us

  13. Morning all

    SIR – I am disappointed that our Parliament seems to be led by persons who firmly believe that anything goes for them but firm rules must be enforced against the rest of us.

    I remember such behaviour occurring regularly abroad and being dismissed as something that was done by others and happened to others, but not by us or to us.

    His Honour Lord Parmoor

    Wheeler End, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – Following Matt Hancock’s behaviour and subsequent resignation, I now find myself in a quandary.

    Having travelled to France to see my wife for the first time in six months, I understood I would have to isolate at home for 10 days on my return as well as undertake two PCR tests at my own expense, despite having had the second of my two vaccinations over a fortnight before I left Britain.

    Am I to understand that breaking any Covid laws no longer results in prosecution and the only thing I have to risk is my position in my company? (I am managing director of my own firm.)

    ADVERTISING

    John Clifton

    Ash, Surrey

    SIR – Insufficient attention has been paid to Matt Hancock having been the UK Anti-Corruption Champion.

    Jeremy Holt

    Swindon, Wiltshire

    SIR – Mr Hancock’s resignation is not the end of the matter. Boris Johnson and Grant Shapps tried to excuse his breaking the law by saying it was a private matter, when patently is wasn’t. The PM went further in his letter to Mr Hancock by praising him and hoping he would be back soon.

    We can tolerate no longer a corrupt Government that has been allowed by Parliament to take unprecedented control of the minutiae of daily lives and caused so much suffering. It is up to Parliament, led by Conservative MPs, to give the people back their freedom immediately by the quickest means possible.

    Otherwise there is no point in our having a Parliament.

    Brian Lee

    St Albans, Hertfordshire

    SIR – Matt Hancock is being criticised from almost every direction. But we should not lose sight of his having had an unbelievably stressful job for the past 18 months.

    Advertisement

    Inevitably, an experience of this kind would take a huge personal toll on anyone. If we are fair, we should acknowledge this, and thank him for his efforts in the public service at an exceptionally difficult time, even if we are unhappy about some of his decisions.

    Nigel Smith

    Stowmarket, Suffolk

    SIR – Matt Hancock didn’t do the “honourable thing” and resign. He resigned because he was doing a dishonourable act and got found out.

    Glendon Green

    Oadby, Leicestershire

    SIR – I can’t recall Mr Hancock warning us not to squeeze a loved one’s bottom.

    Val Lewis

    Shepperton, Middlesex

    SIR – Dominic Cummings’s behaviour should not be equated to Matt Hancock’s. He was protecting his family; Mr Hancock was betraying his.

    Vivien Coombs

    Hungerford, Berkshire

    SIR – What is even more important than Mr Hancock’s affair is that pictures were secretly taken inside a government building. What other, more important information, has been stolen through this method? Was sound recorded?

    Mr Hancock may be silly and human but spying is actually damaging to our nation.

    Advertisement

    Professor Colin Harrison

    Stebbing, Essex

    SIR – The leaking of the video footage is a hugely serious security breach. Clearly, Mr Hancock did not know of the presence of this camera. Every effort must be made to find out who was responsible for copying and distributing the images that it captured.

    On this occasion the result has been the distribution of images of salacious and career-ending behaviour. On the next occasion entirely proper interaction between ministers and officials on matters of national importance might be sold on to those who may benefit strategically from the possession of such sensitive information.

    Stephen Wallis

    Billericay. Essex

    SIR – How much was the whistleblower paid for the photos, and did they breach security or the Official Secrets Act?

    M B Knight

    Taunton, Somerset

    SIR – With apologies to Cluedo, I suspect the man in the woolly hat with the bitter pill.

    George Acheson

    Fakenham, Norfolk

    SIR – The new Health Secretary says he wants a return to normal “as soon as possible”. Right now would do nicely, but would still be very late in the day.

    Advertisement

    Rev Philip Foster

    Hemingford Abbots, Huntingdonshire

    SIR – I think we now know what that “poor man” Matt Hancock was full of …

    Fiona Wild

    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    LPG fuel famine

    SIR – Thank goodness that Sir Iain Duncan Smith points out the geopolitical dangers which pile on top of the ecological illiteracy of the push for battery-electric vehicles, now about 2 per cent of the national fleet.

    A halt is vital, although huge damage has already been done to Britain’s world-leading internal combustion engine design and manufacturing – to China’s advantage only.

    If reducing the environmental impact of traffic is really the objective, then increasing the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in internal combustion engines is the way to go.

    Yet we LPG drivers are suffering an extraordinary fuel famine. For weeks now, due to refinery servicing we are told, pumps have been dry. Shell has closed all its LPG stations permanently.

    Action this day is needed by Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary.

    Furthermore, if a fraction of the subsidy being wasted on battery-electric vehicles was given to support use of LPG and to expand the fuelling network, it would buy much cleaner air, superior energy return on energy invested and national resilience – without the horrendous pollution cycle of battery-electric vehicles.

    Advertisement

    Professor Gwythian Prins

    Widworthy, Devon

    The need for real cash

    SIR – Age UK is right to demand that cash is kept as a normal acceptable payment method.

    I had to find an ATM machine last week when the local fish and chip shop electronic payment machine had broken. It reminded me of that fascinating story by E M Forster, The Machine Stops, written 100 years ago.

    Jonathan Longstaff

    Buxted, East Sussex

    Prêt-à-chauffer

    SIR – From my own experience of living in a Grade II*-listed house (Letters, June 26), the most energy-efficient method of ensuring warmth is to wear more clothes.

    Paul Loxton Edwards

    Petham, Kent

    Stirring up trouble at sea

    SIR – Pity the next British merchant ship that tries to transit Russia’s territorial waters off Crimea. While the Royal Navy enjoys the right of “innocent passage” with comparative safety, armed as it is with enough firepower to start another war, this does not apply to Merchant Navy ships going about their lawful business.

    For several years now, the Royal Navy has caused deep resentment from unfriendly nations by provocative incursions into their territorial waters with disregard of the effect this has on our seafarers.

    Advertisement

    From the Straits of Hormuz to the South China Sea, our merchant ships have been detained and seafarers fined or imprisoned as a consequence of the Royal Navy’s policy of “testing innocent passage”.

    Captain Peter J Newton

    Chellaston, Derbyshire

    Better looking houses

    SIR – I would endorse what Roger White said about beauty in housing (Letters, June 24). Last year Dorset CPRE held a conference on better standards of design in new housing.

    Speakers demonstrated how it can be done by establishing a “virtuous circle” not just of architects and developers but also of the landowners who supply the land and the council officials who authorise schemes.

    Our audience was well stocked with leading Dorset landowners, elected local politicians and council planners. We very much hope they were absorbing the lessons, and that this will bear fruit before too long. Our Dorset example could be followed advantageously in other counties.

    Peter Neal

    Vice-president, Dorset CPRE

    Sherborne, Dorset

    Shelf expression

    SIR – Looking at the photograph of Sasha Swire, complete with bookshelf background, I wondered why anyone needs two copies of Down St Mary: A Parish and Its People on the same shelf.

    Advertisement

    Michael Denholm

    Dunbar, East Lothian

    Fleecier fortnight woven for Wimbledon

    A Jaeger sports fashion leaflet for 1936 offered a smart brown slipover for only a guinea

    A Jaeger sports fashion leaflet for 1936 offered a smart brown slipover for only a guinea CREDIT: Amoret Tanner / Alamy

    SIR – How very sensible of Andy Murray to wear tennis attire made from wool.

    It was the German, Gustav Jaeger, who in the 19th century believed that the elimination of water from tissue was conducive to good health and protection against disease. From these principles came his system of clothing the body day and night in porous pure wool.

    This maintained an equable temperature of the skin and allowed free evaporation of the moisture. By contrast hi-tech sports wear made from man-made fibres is unhealthy and causes one to sweat. Not only that, but 100 million tons of oil are used each year to produce them and fast-fashion clothes. That releases 
1.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

    It is good to see Sir Andy doing his bit to slow global warming. I hope it catches on .

    Richard Williams

    Valentia Island, Ireland

    SIR – I can’t wait to see tennis played in white clothing for the next fortnight instead of the funereal black which has become so trendy.

    Advertisement

    Hilda Ball

    Flackwell Heath, Buckinghamshire

    Pronounced hate for ‘ate’

    SIR – In 1960, at a small prep school in Buckinghamshire, Miss Devereaux, our Victorian pronunciation mistress, asked me if my parents said ate rather than et. As Scots they would never in a month of Sundays have said et, so I replied that they did, to her horror.

    Do people in England still say et?

    Andrew H N Gray

    Edinburgh

    SIR – Television chefs often call mascarpone cheese marscapone.

    Paul Machin

    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    SIR – I am annoyed by weather forecasts for Northern Island.

    Mary Mullineux

    Langport, Somerse

    SIR – The mix-up of bought and brought is common among broadcasters.

    Michael B Hatton

    Old Harlow, Essex

    SIR – I admire readers’ perseverance in getting their mispronunciations past the predictive text technology.

    Ann Orton

    Barningham, North Yorkshire

    1. Thanks for posting.

      Nigel Smith’s letter made me seethe, though. Hancock’s rules made my life hell at a time when he quite clearly didn’t believe they were necessary. No thanks from this quarter.

      1. Nigel Smith (if he even exists) suggests Matt Hancock was under incredible stress and had a very difficult job to do.

        Yes Nigel, That is what he was paid for !

        I understand how forgiveness works. The penitent needs to be truly sorry.

        When i see Matt Hancock trying to deliver an important message by putting on a serious mien and then 30 seconds later smirking, it tells me he is untrustworthy.

        This government is the sleaziest bunch of shits.

    3. “SIR – I can’t recall Mr Hancock warning us not to squeeze a loved one’s bottom.
      Val Lewis”

      He/She has a very valid point. At no time where we given guidance on when, where or whose bottom we could squeeze. Or even which cheek.
      Very remiss of Micromanager Handycock. He’s picked up his boss’s inattention to detail.

    4. Hancock served as a
      Junior Minister at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
      from September 2013 to May 2015 and was the United Kingdom
      Anti-Corruption Champion from 2014 to 2015.

      Ha bloody ha.

      The UK has had an Anti-Corruption Champion since 2004. There have been
      seven: Hilary Benn, John Hutton, Jack Straw, Ken Clarke, Matt Hancock,
      Sir Eric Pickles and – appointed in December 2017 – John Penrose.

      Ha bloody ha.

      John Penrose is married to Dido Harding.

    5. Nigel Smith, I worked in a stressful, high-pressure job for 25 years. I never felt the need to grope a colleague.

  14. Apparently it’s the start of the dreary and uber-boring annual two-week gathering of pseuds, the effete and the tantrumistas at something called Wimpledon today! YAWN!

    Thank heavens for the Wendyball and La Tour.

    1. Coarse fishing season opened on 16th June, proper sport (unless you eat worms while swimming).

      1. Lure fishing for pike, perch and chub on the Thames was my sport for 40 years when I lived in SW London.

          1. Air France seemed to always serve ‘brochet’ on their long haul flights. To be avoided. Perch on the other hand, as long as from good clean freshwater, is delicious.

          2. Not nice at all, George, I remember my brother ‘caught ‘a small pike in the River Waveney by hitting it with a spade – it tasted awful, even when split and grilled like a herring.

          3. I only ever eat sea fish, Tom. I wouldn’t give river fish … any river fish … to the cat! I don’t even like trout.

        3. Tell us all about perch and chub on the Thames, molamola, but don’t mention the third type of fish.

    2. It’s all a load of balls with an overdose of grunting; especially from the women.

      1. Now that laydees with an Adam’s Apple are allowed, at least the grunting will be lower key.

      1. Oi! I quite like tennis and SWMBO has managed to get two tickets for next Tuesday. 🙂

        1. Lawn tennis, as a sport or pastime, is reasonably OK. Especially when properly played on a lawn!

          When I can’t stand is all the dilettantes who play and follow the professional rubbish and they way they have invented their own idiotic terminology. Major championships are NOT ‘grand slams’. To win a grand slam you must win all four majors in one calendar year, a fact that is beyond the dilettantes. If golf can get it right, why can’t lawn tennis?

        2. Lawn tennis, as a sport or pastime, is reasonably OK. Especially when properly played on a lawn!

          When I can’t stand is all the dilettantes who play and follow the professional rubbish and they way they have invented their own idiotic terminology. Major championships are NOT ‘grand slams’. To win a grand slam you must win all four majors in one calendar year, a fact that is beyond the dilettantes. If golf can get it right, why can’t lawn tennis?

    4. It all went pear-shaped when Yvonne Goolagong got married and thus changed her surname, Grizzly. That’s when the fun ended. (Mind you, the recent fashion for grunting females put the tin lid on it.)

    1. Good morning. At least i think it is morning. Given the colour of the sky…i’m not sure.

    3. 334885+ up ticks,
      Morning KtK,
      Many of us knew that the lab/lib/con
      mass uncontrolled immigration coalition was riddled with wrong uns when we were in the process of successfully
      re-building UKIP
      under Gerard Batten leadership.

    4. Suzanne, you’re on my wavelength.

      The Daily Human Stupidity.

      “The biggest threat against the survival of humanity is not brutality and unkindness, it is stupidity and selfishness.”

      M. F. Moonzajer.

  17. Sunday’s emergence of “highly-classified” documents linked to a British warship’s incursion into Russian waters near Crimea, days after it occurred.
    Was it all a bit too convenient?

        1. And handed them to the Beeb.
          Personally, I’d have created the documents – any sort of MoD blether would work – and left them out in the rain overnight; followed by dropping them off at the Beeb to prove what a bunch of traitorous shiites they are.
          I doubt even the word “Dreadnought” would have alerted yer average Beeboid to the scam.

        2. A concerned member of the public of course.

          Get with the programme, Paul. You’re falling behind. Sheesh !

  18. Good morning all. 9°C on a dull grey Derbyshire morning. It seems we had a drop of rain over night and my aches from yesterdays exertions have receded!

    If the rain holds off to early evening as forecast I’ll get a get of tidying up done where I’ve been working.

    I see that A. Allan chap has been bumping their gums on the BTL comments:-

    A Allan 28 Jun 2021 7:35AM
    @Tom Archer

    On the plus side, the NHS needs someone to cast a cold, unemotional eye over it.

    During the past seventy years it has become a state religion which has led to it becoming an inefficient money gobbling juggernaut.

    I just hope SJ has learnt the lessons of this past 18 months and resists Johnson’s playing to the gallery.

    Robert Spowart 28 Jun 2021 8:06AM
    @A Allan @Tom Archer For far too long the entrenched vested interests within the NHS have responded to any suggestion of reform with the traditionally orchestrated, hysteric knee jerk response of “THEY WANT TO PRIVATISE THE NHS!! SAVE THE NHS!!” to scare off any potential reformers.

          3. Just flowery.
            Matthew 6 28 => 30

            Considerate lilia agri quomodo crescunt: non laborant, neque nent. 29 Dico autem vobis, quoniam nec Salomon in omni gloria
            sua coopertus est sicut unum ex istis. 30 Si autem foenum agri, quod
            hodie est, et cras in clibanum mittitur, Deus sic vestit, quanto magis
            vos modicae fidei?

      2. When our boys were little we were explaining the difference in meaning between omnipotent, omniscient, omnivorous and omnipresent and Christopher said: “Does that mean that God is all over the place and not very well organised?”

    2. If anyone believes for a moment that Savid will make a blind bit of difference they are deluded.

      The only people who could and would make a difference for the better are kept as far away from power/decision making as possible.

  19. “Bullish Sajid Javid is confident Covid restrictions will end on July 19” (The Grimes).

    That, presumably, is what the “scientists” have instructed/permitted him to say.

    If the spamhead slammer really WAS “bullish”, he stop all the bollox today. Same old, same old.

    1. Morning Bill. He appeared on the News yesterday and said, “I promise to do my very best for this great country of ours.” Which gives you some idea of his insincerity!

      1. “I promise to do my very best for this great country of ours YOURS” – might have been more appropriate…

      2. Trotting out the same old blather that nobody in particular takes seriously. For once it would be nice for a politician to say something original and more importantly, truthful. Praising the awful Hancock for his achievements is the most insincere nonsense that I can recall.

    2. Morning Bill. He appeared on the News yesterday and said, “I promise to do my very best for this great country of ours.” Which gives you some idea of his insincerity!

    4. They should stick to the plan. That allows businesses to get back up to speed before opening – or, in the case of 21st June, throw away all their perishables and take yet another financial hit. And lay their staff off again.

  20. Morning all.

    Apropos nothing, on TV progs when a couple splits and one partner leaves the house, or if the house is about to collapse/burn down etc, and they hurriedly pack a bag the are seen stuffing a few clothes into a suitcase.
    I’d go for important documents and things that can’t be replaced, like photos.
    Maybe we should all have a house burning downn bag ready to go, like a hospital bag that women about to give birth have.

    1. Wall safe… Check.
      Phone… Check.
      Clean undies… Check.
      Sunglasses… Check.

      Good morning, Stormy.

      1. I recall an advert a while ago for “Security pants” – Y-fronts for hiding your valuables in in your hotel room. They had a very realistic, large, skidmark printed on the back… and yellow stains printed on the front!

    2. Morning, Stormy.
      Yer Merkins call it a “bug-out bag” – to be grabbed when the zombies are coming, and full of survival gear, guns & ammo.
      If our place went on fire, we’d be too busy corralling cats so they didn’t get fried to worry about documents. Or pictures, for that matter.
      If you have stuff you couldn’t bear to lose, maybe you should keep it in a fire safe or a bank vault?

  21. It’s All About Nature

    There was a missionary in deepest Africa with a tribe that had never seen a white man before.

    One day a young native girl gave birth to an albino baby. Immediately this was noticed by the Chief and he was upset with the missionary.

    The missionary, realising the danger he was in, knew that he had to explain how nature sometimes created these oddities. He took the Chief alone into the jungle in an attempt to explain his innocence.

    While walking through the jungle, God gave him the perfect example he needed to clear up this mess. They had stumbled across a flock of sheep. All were white as could be except for one small sheep which was jet black.

    The missionary pointed this out to the chief and said “look at that little black sheep, you see what I am trying to get you to understand now?”

    The Chief hung his head and said, “Ok. I understand. So… you no tell on me and I no tell on you!“

  23. This Hancock business confirms the generally accepted view that corruption and scandal in the Conservative Party is usually about sex, in the Labour Party it is about money and in the Lib/Dems it is about kinky sex.

    1. The explanation being that Labour are trying to earn the money so they can afford the sex.

    2. If half the stories about contracts are true the Tories seem to have managed both sex and money this time – proof they are actually drifting even further to the Left?

          1. Be grateful it wasn’t an almond croissant; that would be a waste of good food.

      1. Is it?

        I found this bit comical: “… I have a lot of time for Sleepy Joe, a politician with brains, decency
        and the common touch. But let’s be honest: he should have been President
        at least a decade ago. …”

        A serial statist, who has existed solely with an expense account, who’s never made anything, never earned anything for himself.

      2. https://unherd.com/2021/06/is-joe-biden-too-old-to-be-president/

        Is Joe Biden too old to be President?

        Aged leaders fill the annals of history, and their record is rather mixed

        Dominic Sandbrook

        It’s 70 years this summer since the Festival of Britain, the strange semi-utopian, semi-bucolic jamboree organised to cheer everybody up after the rigours of the Second World War. That means it’s also seventy years since the occasion of one of my favourite Winston Churchill stories — the great man’s first encounter with an escalator.

        The escalator in question had been installed in the South Bank’s futuristic Dome of Discovery, allowing visitors to travel quickly up to the special gallery on the solar system.

        The story goes that when the saviour of the free world arrived at the Dome of Discovery that grey, drizzly day in May 1951, he rode up with the other dignitaries, looking around him in childlike delight, got off at the top, and then rode down to the bottom again. Then he went up again. Then he went down again. And again, and again.

        The point of this story — apart from proving that the national-hero-on-the-Tube scene in Darkest Hour is a total invention — is that it reminds you how ridiculously old Churchill was. He was 70 when the voters rejected him in 1945, and by any sensible standard ought to have retired then and there. When he returned to office six years later, he was about to celebrate his 77th birthday.

        He was a great man, of course, but as a dyed-in-the-wool Victorian, he was an absurd candidate to lead Britain into the new challenges of the atomic age. And not surprisingly, given his champagne-sodden lifestyle, he was not in the best of health. A severe stroke in May 1953 almost killed him, yet still he refused to step down. Only in April 1955 did he finally agree to go, ten years too late.

        Which brings me to poor Joe Biden, whose health has been somewhat under the spotlight this summer. I say “health”, but what I really mean is his age. As it happens, I have a lot of time for Sleepy Joe, a politician with brains, decency and the common touch. But let’s be honest: he should have been President at least a decade ago.

        The American media, especially on the Right, had a field day with Biden’s gaffes during his summer travels. He called Vladimir Putin “President Trump” – something of a Freudian slip — having previously called his own Vice President “President Harris”. At the G7 in Cornwall he got mixed up between Syria and Libya, confused Covid and Covax, the world vaccine programme, and got himself into a laughable mess when he jokingly reprimanded Boris Johnson for not introducing the President of South Africa. In fact, Boris had just done so seconds earlier. By the time Biden returned home, a group of Republican congressmen were even calling for him to undertake a “cognitive test”, having presumably booked him into a maximum-security retirement home beforehand.

        All this might seem very unfair. Politicians make so-called gaffes all the time, and Biden’s slips weren’t especially glaring. The problem, though, is that Biden is very old, and looks it. He’s 78, fully eight years older than the next oldest US president, Donald Trump, and almost a decade older than the bronze medallist, Ronald Reagan. This might be a dreadful thing to say, but when I watched him give his inaugural address in the January cold, I was half-expecting to see him keel over half-way through.

        When reporters ask Biden about his great antiquity, he often quotes the former baseball pitcher Satchel Paige, who played his last professional game two weeks before his sixtieth birthday. “Age is a question of mind over matter,” Paige supposedly said, though he almost certainly didn’t. “If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

        That’s a nice line, but it’s too glib. Age does matter. If a younger man had been in Downing Street in the early Fifties, a man who knew that escalators had been around in London for more than half a century, then he might also have known that Britain’s industrial economy badly needed radical modernisation.

        And there are other obvious examples. When William Gladstone took office for the fourth time as Prime Minister in 1892, he was a staggering 82, simply too old to lead effectively. In the words of his admiring biographer Roy Jenkins, he was half-deaf, half-blind and “over the hill”, the conduct of political business patently “beyond his capacity”.

        “I live in fog that never lifts,” Gladstone said. He too was a great man. But if he’d been able to see and hear, isn’t it possible that Britain would have entered the 1900s in a better condition?

        In politics, as in life, looks matter. The fact that Fifties Britain was led by a man who marvelled at the sight of an escalator spoke volumes about its obsession with its own past and inability to embrace the post-war world. And even if Mr Biden really is a dynamo of energy and master of detail, as his supporters insist, his appearance hardly proclaims the virtues of youth and vigour. Indeed, if the United States’s enemies wanted to paint it as a decadent, decaying, senescent society, unable to move on from its Cold War heyday, then no casting agency could have supplied better rivals than Biden and Trump, two ageing prize-fighters who made their names when Bill Gates was still at college.

        Why has the United States, so often the herald of modernity, become such a gerontocracy? There’s no easy answer, but an obvious place to start is a political system that rewards years of contacts, lobbying and fundraising, instead of promoting young blood and fresh ideas. To put it bluntly, its politicians are so elderly because its politics are so corrupt. In that respect, the obvious comparison is the Soviet Union when Biden and Trump were in their twenties — another self-consciously youthful society that had simply grown old.

        Under Leonid Brezhnev, who stayed in the Kremlin until his death at the age of 75 in 1982, people often joked that the USSR was being led by a dead man. There was a lot of truth in that. By his final years, Brezhnev had suffered several strokes and at least one near-fatal heart attack and was also afflicted with emphysema, memory loss, bronchitis and gout. Contemporary news footage shows his aides manoeuvring him about like a department-store dummy, not unlike the heroes of the film Weekend at Bernie’s. No doubt Brezhnev, too, would have insisted that he had the wisdom of experience, that age was just a number, and that you’re as young as you feel. Then he ordered the invasion of Afghanistan.

        There is, of course, an obvious rejoinder to all this. At the first US presidential debate in 1984, the 73-year-old Ronald Reagan put in a dreadful performance against the 56-year-old Walter Mondale, forgetting that he was in Kentucky rather than Washington and admitting that he sometimes felt “confused”. At the second debate a fortnight later, one of the interrogators asked him about it, and Reagan had the perfect comeback. “I will not make age an issue of this campaign,” he said, trying but not quite succeeding to hide a smile. “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Even Mondale roared with laughter, and that was that.

        Although it would be satisfying to end with some sweeping conclusion about youth always trumping experience — or vice versa — the truth is that there isn’t really an obvious pattern. Do younger politicians make rash mistakes? Yes, if they’re Tony Blair, reordering the world around him. No, if they’re Barack Obama, a case study in passivity.

        Should you weep and wail if your paramount leader looks like an extra from One Foot in the Grave? Maybe not. When Deng Xiaoping won an internal power struggle to become master of China at the end of 1978, he was 74. A chain smoker, he was very far from being one of life’s gym bunnies. He was, in other words, one of the last people you would pick to catapult his country into a new age of economic reform and breakneck change. But we know what happened next.

        And here’s an even better example. The most celebrated doge in Venice’s history, the enormously cynical Enrico Dandolo, was 85 when he took power in 1192, and ruled for another thirteen years. Dandolo might have lost his eyesight, but he had all the ruthless greed of a much younger man. He kicked out foreign residents, launched an attack on the Dalmatian coast and, most infamously, bankrolled and orchestrated the Fourth Crusade’s sack of Constantinople, one of the most appalling atrocities in medieval history. Among the looted treasures were the four Horses of St Mark, which stand in Venice to this day. So every tourist postcard is, in its way, a tribute to this malignant but undeniably vigorous old man.

        In any case, when it comes to politics and age, perhaps the venerable antiquity of our leaders is the wrong question. Who cares how old Biden is? It’s the age of his voters that’s the real problem. Surely now, after all we’ve been through, it’s time to wake up to the realities of the modern world, and to reform the age at which young people can vote. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: 18 is far, far too young. But I suppose that’s an argument for another day.

        1. Well might you ask.

          Why are the vast majority of incomers healthy young men of military age?

          Very few women and children

    2. Morning, Maggie.

      Is she going to round up all the other thousands who arrived illegally, without passports, and transfer them all out to ‘Africa’ for ‘processing’?

      Q. In which part of the massive continent of Africa will she ‘process’ them?

      3. I gather the Jarls Vikings are planning to set up a camp in Rwanda and PP is in discussions about sharing facilities.
        We know the Rwandans are good at disciplining anyone who crosses them.

        1. Yeah, don’t we know it. The Hutus ‘disciplined’ the Tutsis to great effect.

      5. Processing suggests the migrants have some legitimacy. They do not. They are illegally trying to enter the country and should be deported. Italy or Greece would be favourite.

        Good afternoon, Grizz.

    4. Asylum seekers have to apply in the first safe country.

      There also must be a reason why they want asylum – a house and bennies are not a good reason.

      Those arriving by boat are not asylum seekers. They are not economic migrants. They are simply illegal immigrants. Criminals.

  27. Maybe the video was leaked by Hancock. In one fell swoop he ends his marriage, binds his mistress to him, and gives up all responsibilities as Health Minister, including the potential repercussions. Of course, he keeps his job as MP.

    1. That had crossed my mind. People do reach the stage where competing pressures are too much for them and they self detonate.

      1. Possible – but I think it it was more likely to be someone from his office who had an axe to grind.

        1. What I’d like to know is who placed the camera there, who leaked it and why it was leaked now? Might it have had something to do with the Batley by-election this week?

          1. From yesterday’s story in the DM, showing a pic of the empty office, before the dept moved in, it was always there. It’s easy to not notice something which was always there.

            I think the leaker was pissed off with his boss not sticking to the rules he imposed on others.

          2. Spot on, Jules. And I expect Halfcock had been a very bossy person to work with.

          3. I would imagine that Westminster is festooned with CCTV – even worse than yer average supermarket.

    2. Many years ago, a man at my then place of work was caught siphoning off thousands of pounds to pay for his step-daughter’s drug addiction. The thing was, he left lots of evidence in almost plain sight. Subconsciously or otherwise, he wanted to be caught.

      1. At a club i once worked at i put my head round the door of the office of the treasurer to ask a question.

        He wasn’t there but on the desk was a tray with a great deal of cash.
        I wasn’t tempted though it would have been easy.

        Not long after, he was found to have been helping himself to the tune of around £20,000.

        The committee chose to take no action against him. They didn’t even involve the Police.

        It occurred to me at the time that that was the reason the money was left in plain sight with the door ajar. In the hope that someone would be tempted and then he would have successfully covered his tracks.

    3. He has gone from the Rt. Hon. Hands-on-Cock to the Rt. Dis-Hon Hands-off-Cock & needs to be de-selected by his constituency party ASAP

    1. Doesn’t she know that women are 2nd class citizens in the eyes of certain ethnic groups?

      1. 2nd Class, A_A? They have no class they are either slave wives or white trash to be raped by certain ethnic groups.

    2. Dear Rachel Reeves. Try walking the suburbs of Bradford as a lone white woman and report back, there’s a dear.

    3. Is the reply beneath the post or above it?

      Does this complete lack of rational UX not scream incompetence?

        1. He’s had to modify his game due to the shoulder injury, but he’s still enjoying it.

          2. My wife was diagnosed with that in September 2020. She is still attending physiotherapy sessions and is still in discomfort.

          3. Get her a TENS.

            TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) – NHS
            https://www.nhs.uk › conditions › transcutaneous-electr…

            A TENS machine is a small, battery-operated device that has leads connected to sticky pads called electrodes. Picture of TENS machine electrodes on skin. Credit​:.

            Much better than painkillers.

          4. I finally plumped for surgery after experiencing a lot of pain. Recovery took about a year…….not a happy bunny!

          5. No – he severed one of the tendons and had it put back together. He overdid it rather last summer when he was back playing again six months after surgery. But he’s lost a lot of muscle.

    2. It’s over here. Yesterday was like being in Singapore, mid thirties and humid.

      It was 46C in BC yesterday and supposed to be hotter over there later this week.

    3. The rain eased off to a light shower so I got another 45 minutes of tidying up the garden before it came down harder again.

  32. Yesterday night Maggiebelle brought up the fact that Michael Gove’s wife described Samantha Cameron as her ex-friend.

    The Camerons and the Goves fell out before the Brexit vote when Gove refused to take Cameron’s position which was to remain in the EU. To Cameron, Gove’s stance was a betrayal of friendship which was more important to Cameron than Gove following his conscience on this matter. This underlines the fact that Cameron thinks a person should forget his principles if a more important friend disagrees with them and Gove could only remain Cameron’s friend if he suppressed his own views and lied to the public about what he really thought.

    Some of my friends believed that Remain was the better solution and we agree to differ in our views on the subject and we are still friends. I certainly have never dropped a friend because he or she had different political views to mine. By contrast one or two former Remainer friends have dropped me because I am pro-Brexit.

    But another issue comes to mind. When Blair was prime minister there was a parliamentary vote on abortion. Blair, who was not a Catholic at the time though his wife was, said that he was morally and religiously opposed to abortion but he would vote for it if that was the Party line. So to Blair principles and God are subsidiary to politics! On this issue Jacob Rees-Mogg got round the problem pragmatically by saying that he would argue passionately against abortion and he would never vote in favour of it in Parliament but he would have to accept Parliament’s decision.

    1. One can tell, Richard, by those ‘friends’ who have dropped you, that that is a measure of their friendship’s worth.

    2. One can tell, Richard, by those ‘friends’ who have dropped you, that that is a measure of their friendship’s worth.

  34. Some ministerial colleague stated that Matt Hancock still has much to offer in public service. This was clearly a big hint that the idea is to bring back Hancock into the Cabinet in the future.

    NO! NO! NO! was my reaction.

    I was, therefore, much heartened to learn on the LBC Nick Ferrari programme this morning, from a reporter in Hancock’s constituency, that many of his constituents are calling for him to step down as their MP. Perhaps we will have a Recall Petition….

      1. Plum, your alluding to the Terminator in respect of Hancock sent a shiver down my spine.😎

  36. Britain’s election watchdog stands ‘ready’ to organise indyref2

    In his first interview since taking up the role, John Pullinger says he could agree to move even if it is opposed by Boris Johnson

    Britain’s elections regulator could agree to a future demand by the SNP to hold a non-binding referendum on Scottish independence, even if the move is opposed by Boris Johnson, the body’s new chairman has indicated.

    In his first interview since taking up the role, John Pullinger told The Telegraph that the Electoral Commission is not just “a body of the UK Parliament”, and would have an “independent discussion” with the Scottish Parliament if it wanted “something to be done that helps them with their democracy”.

    His remarks put the Commission on a collision course with Mr Johnson, who has said he would reject a request for an “irresponsible and reckless” second referendum.

    Mr Pullinger also issues an unprecedented apology to Darren Grimes, the pro-Brexit activist who was wrongly pursued by the Commission over alleged campaign offences, admitting the 27-year-old “had a horrible time” and “what happened to him should not have happened”.

    The Commission must “do better” and be “more human”, he added.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/26/exclusive-britains-election-watchdog-stands-ready-organise-indyref2/

    The apology to Grimes reeks of insincerity. It reminds me of something…

    Also in The Scotsman:
    https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/new-chairman-says-electoral-commission-could-agree-to-snp-demands-to-independence-referendum-without-boris-johnson-approval-3287980

      1. A master class in how to speak total deflection bollocks. Add in the fact that’s he’s been unmasked as a pathological liar and a philanderer, who would believe anything he has said or will say in the future?

    2. Dan’s not a fan, obviously. He’s rather akin to those Aussie SKY News reporters who do not pull their punches.

  39. Going on holiday? Once you are inside the Shengen area of free movement there are no further border checks. The Tour de France is one of the biggest sporting events on the planet. Spectators will be arriving there from all of the countries of Europe, including Belgium, Holland and Germany as well as other countries where competitive cycling is very popular. When it is over the spectators will return home. No checks, no tests, no quarantine?
    Yet here in the UK, we have restrictions within our countries. It does not make sense, does it?

    1. That’s not completely accurate – restrictions are only for law abiding British citizens & not for illegal migrants ! ( sarcasm but true )

      1. Of course, silly me. I forgot that there are three groups above the law; MPs, muslims, and illegal immigrants.

  40. A question posed by my brother this morning; Mr. Google was no help. Is there well-informed NOTTLer out there?

    “At a BBQ yesterday and we were trying to remember the bread which had the days of the week written large on the packet….

    Any ideas?”

          1. Oi, Pud! Real home-made mushy peas (i.e. not those from cans or frozen), like what I make, is the ambrosia of the gods.

          2. Wotcha Grizz, TBH its been several decades since I’ve had mushy peas & I had them at a Fish & Chips café along the sea front in Southend on Sea so I really can’t recall if they were out of a can or not but the cod & chips were very nice and yes they had Daddies sauce which I smothered on my chips!

          5. Yeah. They were scared to be force-fed that vile, disgusting dessert, that has the the consistency of a house brick, called “bread pudding”.

          7. Not the way I make bread pudding – crisp and crunchy on the outside but moist and tasty all the way through.

          8. I’d still much rather have a proper bread and butter pudding, baked in a bain marie.

          11. Here you go, George

            Bread Pudding.

            Ingredients
            450g (1 lb) Stale Bread
            220g (8oz) Currants, Raisins or Sultanas
            100g (4oz) Mixed Peel or glacé cherries (Optional)
            100g (4oz) Brown Sugar
            100g (4oz) Butter
            1 tsp Mixed Spices
            2 Eggs – large
            Milk – as required – see 6 below

            Method

            1. Break the bread into small pieces; soak in cold water for at least 1 hour.

            2. Pre-heat the oven to 170°C: 325°F: Gas 3.

            3. Strain the soaked bread and squeeze it out as dry as possible.

            4. Place the wet bread into a basin and mash it with a fork.

            5. Add the dried fruit, sugar, mixed peel and mixed spice, mixing well.

            6. Melt the butter and add it, together with the egg and enough milk to enable the mixture to drop easily from a spoon.

            7. Place it all into a large greased baking tin – 10.5” x 8.5” or 26 x 21cm works well.

            8. Bake for about an hour or until slightly firm to the touch.

            9. When done, turn it out on to a hot dish or allow it to cool – cut in the tin.

            10. If serving hot, dredge with sugar and serve with custard,

        2. What? Like pie ‘n’ mash; jellied eels; winkles; stargazy pie; and kippers with custard?

          All washed down with a warm shandy?

          4. I had Pie, mash & “liquor” once in the works canteen at Ilford Depot back in BR days. The “liquor” was not very nice. What the hell is it?

          4. I went to visit a grave yesterday and noticed one of the headstones (for a chap whose nickname was Sam) had “Sam, Sam, pick up thy musket” inscribed on the back of it.

    4. Wonderloaf is not exactly bread. It is a pseudo-bread-like substitute manufactured by the god-forsaken Chorleywood process. A concoction of ingredients, including flour and a witches-brew of chemicals, are whizzed at high speed in a machine that aerates and heats up the gloop. This is then injected into pans that are placed into a steam-oven and the gloop then inflates into the substance that is sliced and sold — to those who do not possess working taste buds — as “bread”.

      More fool them.

      1. Are you/were you in the industry?
        I used to build APV Baker (the old Baker Perkins) equipment.

        1. No, I’m just an enthusiastic amateur.

          My youngest brother, however, has been a head chef in many English country house hotels; executive chef in Sydney fine-dining restaurants; a personal chef for the Murdoch family; and first- and business-class food and beverage consultant for three major airlines.

    5. The only bread I remember which had the days on the wrapper were from RAOC bakeries in BAOR during the 70s. I was never sure if it was the day of production but the bread never seemed to go stale. It was not as soft, spongey or as pure white as loaves at home but it did the job.

  41. Y’know I reckon there are some things that a person with any decency and conscience would/should never be able to live with:

    Matt Hancock woke up his eight-year-old son to inform him that that he was leaving his mother as questions were being asked about how long his affair with a top aide was going on before they were caught out.

    The former Health Secretary’s now estranged wife Martha, 44, is said to have been poleaxed when her husband told her that their marriage was over and he was in love with his aide with Gina Coladangelo

    As friends said the pair were a ‘love match’ and possibly looking at moving in together, Westminster sources said rumours have abounded about their closeness for more than a year.

    Mr Hancock finally resigned from his position as Health Secretary on Saturday, more than a day after CCTV showed him in a passionate clinch with Miss Coladangelo, a twice married mother-of-three.

    It then emerged the 42-year-old had abandoned his wife as well as his job. And Miss Coladangelo, 43, has left her homeware tycoon husband, Oliver Tress.

    Mr Hancock’s demise began late on Thursday afternoon. He had been in the House of Commons, defending his department’s controversial plans to share data on tens of millions of National Health Service patients with outside organisations.

    After saying his piece and leaving, he received a call from The Sun newspaper at around 6pm, informing him that they had photos and video of him kissing his aide in his office, taken on May 6.

    After saying as little as possible to the journalist, he returned to the London residence he shares with wife Martha, when they are not at their home in his Suffolk constituency, and their three children.

    Mr Hancock is understood to have told her that the story was set to appear, about the photographs it contained and that their marriage was over. He then woke their youngest son, who is just eight-years-old, to tell him too that he was going.

    Family friends said yesterday it was a bombshell from nowhere for Martha. She had believed their marriage had been ‘happy and stable’, and reportedly had no suspicions over her Facebook friend, whom she had also met while at Oxford.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9732221/Matt-Hancock-Gina-Coladangelo-12-months-rumour.html

        1. 334885+ up ticks.
          Morning TB,
          Another enery bolton more like only we in the far right racist party
          real UKIP called an agm and promptly got shot of him before he could do damage.
          That is the difference between current tagged “far right racists party’s”
          and party’s on the right
          (ino) operating to their own agenda.

    2. The PTB are trying to keep the emphasis on Hancock being “a Love Rat”.

      However the really important fact of this matter pointed out by The Sunday Times is that he used his private email address to award contracts to

      friends, such as his publican who was awarded a contract worth £22million, and Roberto Coladangelo who was awarded a contract worth £28million.

      The Ministry has no record of the negotiations, so apart from the bills to be paid by taxpayers no one has any knowledge of these contracts.

      This seems to be an appropriate time to quote the Bribery Act:

      Bribery Act 2010:

      Broadly, the Act defines bribery as giving or receiving a
      financial or other advantage in connection with the “improper
      performance” of a position of trust, or a function that is expected to be performed
      impartially or in good faith.

      Bribery does not have to involve cash or an actual payment
      exchanging hands and can take many forms such as a gift, lavish treatment during a business trip
      or tickets to an event.

      1. If there are no copies of signed contracts, don’t pay the bills. It’s just a scam.

        1. ….and I can’t imagine a Minister being involved in a scam for financial gain, can you?

        2. I suspect that the Courts would uphold any contract signed by a minister of the Crown as a legally binding document.

    1. I loathe people who put their “honours” after their name. As with Jimmy SaVILE OBE

      3. Today’s lead letter in the DT was penned by His Honour Lord Parmoor. Do you loathe him too for that spot of pretentious one-upmanship?

      4. What used to amuse me was a former colleague who signed her cheques with her name AND BA (Hons)! For a while (until it suddenly disappeared and I never bothered to reinstate it) I used to have MPhil printed after my name (the only one of my qualifications that I acknowledged because I achieved it part-time and thus it was the most difficult with my working full-time in a demanding job).

  43. Apologies if mentioned previously, but a BBC Sport headline from yesterday to gloat over:

    ‘Hamilton swallows a big dose of reality as Verstappen wins again’.

    2. The DT has him demanding upgrades to his car.

      Poor spoilt brat, now he can feel like all of the other drivers who have been chasing faster cars for several seasons.

      1. The Pistorius approach.
        “Of course my blades don’t give me any advantage over non-disabled athletes”
        until someone who appeared to have had better blades beat him at a Paralympics and then he complained it’s so unfair and shouldn’t be allowed, boo hoo.

    3. Although not that interested in F1, I now actively wanted anyone other than the British driver to win.

  44. A bit annoying.
    Did some tidying up of the working area, shifted a dozen or so blocks for the next lot of wall building, dug out a barrowload of soil for the next lot of concreting, hopefully the last, tipping the barrow to begin filling in the uphill side of the new section of wall, and the bloody rain’s arrived 4h earlier that forecast!
    Looks like another mug of tea is called for.

    The Tw@ter comments on the Batley & Spen attacks are amusing! They are trying to blame anybody but their own policies!
    https://twitter.com/BeardedBob7282/status/1409465241742811140

    https://twitter.com/BeardedBob7282/status/1409469123105595392

      1. It was the producer of this record who was the only one prepared to take on the Beatles.

      1. I’d like to see Anne-Marie Waters get in.
        I realise she won’t, but I’ve made a couple of small donations to her cause to help her give a reasonable showing.

    3. 334885+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Bob,
      Any mention of the abuse the victims of rotherham and many other places
      must suffer for life, results of what the JAY report revealed, mainly due to lab input.
      Wanting the islamic followers vote is unbelievable, is DEVIL WORSHIPPING
      strong in that area ?

  46. Putin, Xi Officially Announce Extension of Chinese-Russian Friendship, Cooperation Deal

    BEIJING
    – The 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship consists of 25 articles, encompassing various domains in Russian-Chinese relations. In March, Moscow and Beijing agreed to automatically extend it for another five-year term.

    Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin on Monday officially announced the extension of a Chinese-Russian agreement on friendship and cooperation, China Central Television reported.

    The deal is a twenty-year strategic treaty that was signed in July 2001 in Moscow by Vladimir Putin and Jiang Zemin.
    In March, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the dynamic cooperation that has characterised Sino-Russian ties over the past 20 years proved that the treaty successfully passed the test of time and the obligations set forth in it are being fulfilled.

      1. Read the MSM Grizz..he never went away.
        I’ve even heard rumours they were responsible for the Hancock video.
        Trying to convince anyone that Russia is not Communist is a fools errand.
        They poll 4% in Russian elections BUT THEY’RE STILL IN POWER.!

  47. From ‘Soldiers of God’ to ‘Terrorists’: Story of Washington’s Broken Promise to Afghan Mujahideen

    The Taliban*, also known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), is continuing to make gains on the ground. According to some estimates, the IEA has taken from 50 to 90 districts since May 2021, with some of them being seized without a single shot fired. What’s behind the Taliban’s recent offensive?

    UN officials and American policy-makers are expressing concerns over the possibility of the Taliban taking over the country once American troops complete their withdrawal by 11 September 2021. US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who met with an Afghan delegation led by Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah earlier this week, expressed hope that the White House postpones the pull-out.

    “The Taliban, emboldened by our retreat, is rolling back years of progress, especially for the rights of Afghan women, on its way to taking Kabul”, said McConnell.

    On 24 June, the Associated Press quoted US officials as saying that roughly 650 US troops will remain in Afghanistan after the withdrawal.

    While Washington is raising the alarm over the potential Taliban takeover, the US willingly exploited Afghan Islamist fighters and ideology of Jihad bil Saif (“warfare”) in the past to reach its geostrategic objectives in Central Asia, In the 1970s and 1980s the US provided lethal military aid to Afghan Mujahideen (“those who wage jihad”) as part of its Operation Cyclone against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

    “We know of their deep belief in God”, stated then-National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski during a meeting with Afghan Mujahideen in 1979 in Pakistan. “And we are confident that their struggle will succeed. That land over there is yours, you’ll go back to it one day because your fight will prevail and you’ll have your homes, your Mosques back again because your cause is right and God is on your side”.

    Paradoxically, the very same “Afghan freedom fighters” or, as CNN called them, “soldiers of God”, which were armed and funded by the CIA as an unconventional war tool to gain strategic interests in the region are today denounced as terrorists by the US .

    1. 9/11? Now that rings a bell.
      Maybe the Yanks should have left AfGaff to the Russians and not armed a load of foam flecked nut jobs. At least AfGaff women were probably freer during that period.

      1. Ah..9/11.The great hoax set up to justify wars breaking out in the Middle East.

        1. 9/11 was carried out by Sunni Arab terrorists from nations allied with the USA, it would not have happened if Bill Clinton had taken out Bin Laden & his AQ terror group when they were holed up in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan,

  48. Apparently the Duchess of Windsor had several more affairs after the abdication and effective exile.

    This begs a question about the women who must have been attracted by a man’s wealth, power or social standing as these men had very little else to offer by way of looks, humour, charm and decency:

    How long is Carrie Symonds likely to stay with Boris Johnson after he is no longer prime minister?
    How long is the Duchess of Sussex likely to stay with Prince Harry when she loses all respect for the uxorious wimp?
    And How long will Gina Coladangelo stay with Hancock when he has no place in government, no power, is socially ostracised and loses his parliamentary seat at the next election?

    If I were a betting man I would put my money on Gina being the first to go but I do not imagine the others will be far behind.

    1. Being narcissistic and shallow doesn’t hold a marriage together. I have no time for such people.

    1. Day 10: “It is with great regret that I must tell you that variants lambada, mu and nu mean that all restrictions will continue until Christmas 2024. And ALL foreign travel is banned. If you happen to be abroad right now – tough. There you will have to stay.”

    1. It’s something that’s exercising my mind at the moment. A close relative, like me a man in his sixties, is very depressed after stopping work/losing his job and this government’s Covid actions have cut him off from his former workmates and usual social activities. He lost most of his long-term friends when his ex-wife manipulated them against him and he moved away for work. He sees little of his now-adult kids as his ex ruthlessly manipulates them.

      I’m starting by taking him to his local for a long session . . . .

      1. So often people go into a terminal decline after retirement (particularly if it is forced on them by circumstances) just because they no longer have their social contacts (or the raison d’être of going to work).

        1. It’s at least a decade ago now, but our old milkman retired, went on holiday to Italy and dropped dead on holiday.
          A total shock to the village.

    2. Something I noticed is when a woman fought to join my late Father’s cards and whisky club – the sort of truly old fashion, oak panelling, cigar filled, snoring men filled place, wherre the winchesters are worn by pin stripe trousers and farts – she was made welcome. There were outliers of course but in the main she found the chaps pleasant and warm, and soon realised that while she was a member, she would never be part of the club.

      She is, however, still welcome. I married her daughter, after all.

      When I went along to the wife’s squash group though; I wasn’t. It was very clearly a girls only club. There was no shuffling along the bench to accommodate the bloke as the wife had found. No offer of the Long Island Iced Tea.

    3. Well, yes. That’s not the stupidest thing. Everything is back to front. This is why the world is so completely potty.

    2. You’re not going to believe this, but this really happened to me!

      I was about eight at the time; we were living in Tehran. My mother was a dog fanatic and our house was regularly occupied by litters of growing – and naughty – puppies. One fateful evening, just before going to bed, I found that one of the puppies had found its way into my bedroom and had munched its way through my arithmetic homework, which had taken me ages as I’ve never been mathematically inspired.

      Tears and fears that night (my American, Iranian-espoused teacher was a callous cow and our hatred of each other was mutual) but I hoped it would all be all right as my mother wrote a note for her.

      She didn’t believe me and it wasn’t.

      Many years later, when I was doing my teaching practice in a rough part of Trowbridge, one of my pupils told me that she hadn’t been able to do her homework for me because her father had thrown the television out of the window and the family had had to seek refuge in the car for the evening.

      I believed her.

      1. If you think it’s rough in Trowbridge you’d better not visit Melksham or Devizes.

  54. 334885+ up ticks,
    This will keep the ball rolling among the governance overseers member / voters maybe even have top up non-return valves inserted into the cranium ( covid juice )
    same filling station as the car.

    Do not forget these very same type politico’s
    re-introduced, aided & abetted time & again by the electorate,TB, now they have found with correct handling
    & manipulation covid has a much greater controlled fear potential.

    https://twitter.com/Elanders_Voice/status/1409474344150093827

    1. 334885+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      So in the near future “they” will have to drop the NOT from ” I am not a robot”

    2. But it still means you ain’t immune, i.e., it’s a waste of time and effort but it does keep you compliant.

    3. Professor Sucharit Bhakti advises people to make their wills if they intend to take the booster jabs….

  55. Just saw a headline on Israel TV i24 News that there has been an explosion & a fire near the Elephant & Castle station , turned over to SKY News Int’l & all they are reporting that is the the fire brigade is attending a fire in the railway arches at the E & C . The Daily Fail has the story buried halfway down the page : Moment huge FIREBALL ‘explodes in garage’ under Elephant & Castle station sending onlookers dashing for cover – as giant smoke cloud towers over Londonhttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9733149/Elephant-Castle-station-engulfed-huge-plumes-smoke-explosion-fireball.html
    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/06/28/14/44773711-9733149-image-a-55_1624887207059.jpg

    1. Workshops under railway arches have a longstanding reputation for ignoring basic H&S requirements, especially regarding storage & use of propane & acetylene cylinders.

      1. In Santa’s workshop we are very strict on Elf & Safety ! I was wondering if the workshop was a chop shop for Caribbean brothers Erasmus, Shadrack, Akele & Adingo or their friends from Pakistan the brothers Mohammed, Mohammed & Mohammed & their cousin Mohammed?

      1. Mi li’le sister Millie,
        She’s an ‘ore in Piccadilly,
        Mi muvver is a strumpet dahn the strand.
        Mi farver flogs his arse’ole rahnd the Elephant & Castle,
        We’re a fucking family,
        Ain it grand?

      2. As a kid I used to visit the Elephant shopping centre , we used to call it the Eff-elent & R-sole . I read that its now being demolished, good riddance, even back then it was full of pick pockets , drunks & drug takers & increasingly Black gangs.

    3. Hope it’s not been one of those anti-vaxxers up to no good. We’ll NEVER hear the end of it (unlike the “Hancock resigns to spend more time with his family” spun by some of his Cabinet colleagues)

      1. But surely – Hancock will be spending less time with his family, seeing as how he has walked out on them.

  56. Now Boris Johnson says he FIRED Matt Hancock: PM suggests he sacked Health Secretary as soon as he saw story of his affair – despite backing him and saying ‘matter is closed’ hours later
    Daily Mail

    In this clip the singer is noisy, vulgar and over the top just like Boris Johnson and indeed this could well be his theme song How could you believe me ————— when you know I’ve been a Liar all my Life”.

    Lying to women is only a part of his bottomless septic tank of mendacity and, as he does not ‘hold a strict regard for the truth’, he is more than happy to lie to everybody.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeYb-BZoLcs

  57. German ministers warn Nord Stream 2 could be ‘turned off’ if Russia doesn’t obey rules. 28 June 2021.

    Armin Laschet, Germany’s CDU favorite candidate to succeed Angela Merkel at the September’s election, said that the construction of the almost-complete gas pipeline between the country and Russia could be halted at any moment if Moscow breaks the terms of the arrangement or uses it to put pressure on Ukraine.

    The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is currently 95 percent completed, but Laschet said in a televised foreign policy debate that “We can always discontinue this project, even after the pipeline is finished,” if the security of Ukraine was to be threatened.

    If you don’t behave we are going to turn off our gas! How does that work exactly?

    https://newseu.cgtn.com/news/2021-06-28/German-ministers-warn-Russia-Nord-Stream-2-could-be-turned-off–11rtfhtHXQA/index.html

    1. Perhaps they’ll build more ‘green’ coal burning power stations. They opened a lignite power station last year.

    2. Presumably Russia loses the profits from the sale of gas.
      Shame Germany’s gone green and will need it eventually.

        1. I’m talking about the owners of the project.
          Wintershall – 15.5%
          PEG Infrastruktur AG, a subsidiary of E.ON Beteiligungen – 15.5%
          N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie – 9%
          Engie – 9%
          Gazprom own the other 51%

  58. Took advantage of a shite day – grey, dismal chilly – + wind in right direction – to have a reasonable bonfire. Got rid of about half the massive pile.

    The rest will have to wait until it dries out – September, prolly. Very satisfying, though…!

    Now for a well-earned shower. An absolute shower.

  59. Home Office proposals due on sending asylum seekers abroad. 28 June 2021.

    The home secretary, Priti Patel, will publish proposed legislation next week that will open the door to sending asylum seekers overseas as they await the outcome of their application for protection in the UK.

    Ministers published the New Plan for Immigration in March, which included proposals to amend sections 77 and 78 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 so that it would be possible to move asylum seekers from the UK while their asylum claim or an appeal is pending.

    Home Office sources confirmed that the legislation was expected to be published next week, but sought to play down reports that the government was in talks with Denmark over sharing a centre in Africa.

    Is this a joke? They couldn’t get these people to move to the Isle of Wight!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/28/home-office-proposals-due-on-sending-asylum-seekers-abroad

    1. Remember her “promise” two years ago to stop illegal cross-Channel traffic at a stroke?

      All mouth and shalwar khameez, that daft bint.

    3. Do these foreign wallahs in government understand that Britain is an Island?

      From point to point, as the crow flies, the distance between Land’s End and John o’Groats is 603 miles (970km). But depending on whether people walk, cycle or drive, actual travel distances vary hugely. They also vary according to the route people decide to take, as there are (unsurprisingly) endless options for enjoying the adventure.

      https://travelmedium.com/uk/time-to-travel-across-great-britain

      If we hadn’t have had to remove ourselves and our help from African countries in the 1950’s and 1960’s and 1970’s and stood up to the despots who slaughtered millions of their own people, , Africa wouldn’t be in the bleeding mess it is today.

      1. Bob I posted Ichak a Dana sang by Nargis 2 days ago on the NTTL page – you must have missed it whilst you were building your garden wall!
        It was in the context of Sajid Javid being named Britain’s new health secretary.

        Elf & Safety 2 days ago
        The all new, all singing, all dancing Conservative Party, the party of Nehru, Gandhi & Ali Jinnah, will the last White Englishman in the party please turn out the lights after singing the parties new motivational song !
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ6QkAR0Jnw

          1. A very catchy tune Bob. I know of it from my IDF service days. I had an Indian Jew from the south western coastal town of Ashdod in my squad & one day when we had an evenings leave, we went to his parents home in Ashdod for supper ( curry of course ) & afterwards we went to his local cinema which showed Indian films a few times a week & it was the first ever Bollywood film I ever saw, never knew they even made films, I didn’t understand a word of the dialogue & there was no sub-titles but I always remember this tune especially as he started singing it around the barracks & we would all sort of join in.

  62. Having said that the Halfcock matter was closed, BPAPM now says that he sacked him.

    The fellow can’t even lie convincingly….

    3. …and the nasties who want Sharia Law and the complete subjugation of ALL women. A phrase I’ve often heard in respect to these bums up heretics, “Get to f**k.

    3. Congratulations on yer appointment as Senior Tennis journo at GB News, sweetie; it was a bit of a shoe-in ! … x

  65. I am off. Just reading that Spamhead Slammer suggests that Halfcock may be back in public wife life …. makes me need a drink.

    A demain

    2. They are trying to bury his ‘misdemeanours’ under a pile of bs, that’s all.

      1. Boris will ensure that Hancock is elevated to the Lords. There he will abide with several hundred like minded crooks.

        The £300 + daily allowance will be pin money as the bastard has doubtless already pocketed a few millions from Pharma and his globalist chums.

  66. Prevening, all. I have been through the emotional wringer this afternoon; I had to take Oscar to the vets for his check-up blood test after he’s been dosed with paracetamol for his pancreatitis. I went to my usual vets rather than travel to Hartford (in the same vet group). It was a very unhappy time to be waiting in the car park where I had to await the result of Charlie’s blood tests which proved a death sentence. I do miss him so much and reliving the moment was hell 🙁

    1. I understand the recurring memory, Connors, but the big question is, How is Oscar – all good we hope?

          1. I hadn’t heard anything so I rang the vets this afternoon. The receptionist said that she thought they couldn’t have come back yet, but she’d have a word with the vet and get her to ring me.

          2. Too right, Connors, I’d badger them to death until I got the result. I hope it’s positive.

    2. Good evening Conway

      You must clear all negatives from your mind re Charlie… why? Because Oscar will pick up on your mood , and he will know, Oscar is sensitive and wise and is just finding his position with you.

      Dogs know things . much more than we give them credit for .. so allow Oscar to be the whole focus of your attention , please.

        1. Charlie always knew if I felt depressed or unhappy and was supportive. I can’t say that Oscar has done the same (except inasmuch as he hasn’t taken my fingers off when I put his harness on and secured him in the car ). Even the vet asked if I needed reinforcements to put his harness on!

          2. I am sure he will. We had another step forward tonight; I took him for his second walk and it rained. He let me towel part of him (but then he got a bit agitated so I quit while I was ahead) and received a treat for it. Softly softly and all that.

    3. Bad memories – but your time with Charlie was good up to then…….

      I hope Oscar is ok.

        1. Funny you should say that, Conwy. I was just talking to the MR about my late hound, Robinson. He died in 1992……..I still see him in various spots in the garden – and on one of the walks round the village that he and I did at least twice a day for seven years…

          A fantastic dog. He lived to 15 years and 5 months – a good age for a Beagle. For most of that time he was adored (and I am NOT being anthropomorphic) by our black and white cat Pluto – who shared his bed, washed him every day and died of a broken heart two weeks after he did.

          So I share your pain.

          1. I think we all do if we’ve had beloved pets. We know they will die, they don’t live long enough – but they’re never forgotten. Never replaced. either, as the new one always has a different character.

            We lost our little Suzie two years ago – she was 17 and deaf, but fit and healthy – she just disappeared one evening, probably taken by a fox. Her brother, Sam, had to be pts at 15, as he had cancer.

            Now we have Lily, who may be about 14, but she’s gorgeous and a real lap-cat.

          4. Nah – they are either asleep – or away hunting. They refuse to stand still to be snapped. I think their agent has given them advice..!

          10. She has another twin next door here – the half- gold face is reversed, so they’re like bookends.

          11. Reaction number one: Lily? Looks more like Lavender to me.

            Reaction number two: Have I made a mistake? I thought I clicked on the NoTTLers site, but it seems that I have been re-directed to the Twitter site.

            :-))

          12. Lavender’s in the other pot – since that photo was taken, last summer, we’ve now got Primroses in the blue one.

            How long since you’ve been on Twitter? It’s mostly dog eat dog politics there, not nice pictures of pets…..

          13. I went on briefly following advice from Maggie, but left shortly afterwards since it was mainly pets. Or have I mixed up Twitter with another site?

          15. Lavender’s in the other pot – since that photo was taken, last summer, we’ve now got Primroses in the blue one.

            How long since you’ve been on Twitter? It’s mostly dog eat dog politics there, not nice pictures of pets…..

          22. They are with us for such a short time in the overall scheme of things (although Charlie made it to 17 years and 5 months). Before I got Oscar I used to imagine I heard Charlie snoring or turning round in his bed at night. He left such a hole in my life.

          23. The Power of the Dog

            Rudyard Kipling – 1865-1936

            There is sorrow enough in the natural way

            From men and women to fill our day;

            And when we are certain of sorrow in store,

            Why do we always arrange for more?

            Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware

            Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

            Buy a pup and your money will buy

            Love unflinching that cannot lie—

            Perfect passion and worship fed

            By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.

            Nevertheless it is hardly fair

            To risk your heart for a dog to tear.

            When the fourteen years which Nature permits

            Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,

            And the vet’s unspoken prescription runs

            To lethal chambers or loaded guns,

            Then you will find—it’s your own affair—

            But… you’ve given your heart to a dog to tear.

            When the body that lived at your single will,

            With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!).

            When the spirit that answered your every mood

            Is gone—wherever it goes—for good,

            You will discover how much you care,

            And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

            We’ve sorrow enough in the natural way,

            When it comes to burying Christian clay.

            Our loves are not given, but only lent,

            At compound interest of cent per cent.

            Though it is not always the case, I believe,

            That the longer we’ve kept ’em, the more do we grieve:

            For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,

            A short-time loan is as bad as a long—

            So why in—Heaven (before we are there)

            Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

          24. Thank you, Anne, that’s one of the few Kiplings that I have never heard. I have saved it to my commonplace book.

            It stands high in merit and truth.

          25. Dog or cat – they’re pets that are always in our minds and in our hearts. I still see Fizzy, our long-haired grey cat, out of the corner of my eye at all sorts of times of the day and in many different environments.

            These little buggers are such characters that we cannot/will not forget them.

          26. Dog or cat – they’re pets that are always in our minds and in our hearts. I still see Fizzy, our long-haired grey cat, out of the corner of my eye at all sorts of times of the day and in many different environments.

            These little buggers are such characters that we cannot/will not forget them.

      1. The good times to come with Oscar, you mean. This vet described him as “feisty” and “not impressed” with having his bloods taken!

    5. Just focus on Oscar. He needs you. I hope everything is all right.

      I always dread the results of Poppie’s frequent blood tests for Cushing’s. It’s the good news first, then the bad news – ‘her liver enzymes are up this time, bring her back in a month’s time and we’ll re-do to check’.

      1. One of my friends has a greyhound that has Cushing’s. The dog now has lumps on her liver so they have stopped the Cushing’s treatment.

        1. The thing is, her liver enzymes are frequently high, then they go back down, then up again…. it is a real roller coaster. She is 12 next month. She seems perky and lively – the bloods were taken two weeks ago and we haven’t heard from the vet, he is usually pretty quick off the mark. We have to order some more medication in a week’s time so we will check the result then. At the moment we are not unduly concerned, she is her usual lively self.

        1. Exactly so…. except last time for the full bloods it was £232. Plus the medication, another £75 for the month. We haven’t been phoned back about the results of these last blood tests which were two weeks ago, he is usually pretty quick off the mark, so we are assuming there was no money in it…. (cynical us) he was talking about scans, increasing her dosage. He does have a delightful bedside manner with the animals! – for the pet parents’ benefit I’m sure – and that he does care, but we also feel it is big business. Unfortunately because we were in France we don’t have pet insurance, insurances were not valid out of the UK and we accepted that we might have to bite the bullet and smile should it be necessary. Of course, we will do whatever it takes for our little darling but one does feel that this is taken advantage of and that it is a bit of a racket.

          1. Flossie’s (the dog’s) medicine cost £100 a month (Veterinol, would it be?) and that was with having a prescription and buying it in.

          2. It’s Vetoryl. The price depends on the size of the dosage, which depends on the size of the dog. Poppie is a Maltese cross, she is twice the size of at least of a Maltese but looks exactly like one. She weighs about 8 kgs and is on a daily dose of 20 mgms Vetoryl. We have to pay for the prescription (about £14) twice a year and then the vet price matches the online price. He did not tell us he would do this until we started looking online. We asked him for a prescription and he said he would do a price match if we wished….. almost half the price we had been charged in the first place.

            We have a friend with a Jack Russell with Cushing’s that lived to be 18 (on Vetoryl).

          3. Yes, that would be it – because I have never had to use it, I was a bit vague about the name – I knew it began with a V! I used to ride a horse with Cushing’s. Apart from having a curly coat, he was fine.

          4. Friend of mine had a horse with Cushings; she could never get over how one tiny pill had a such magical effect on a 16 hand animal.

          6. Hmm, Mum on my spam files, I often see adverts for French veterinary cover. Shall I forward the websites to you?

            I hope they’re ok but Google puts them in my spam folder.

          7. That’s very kind, thank you for the thought but we left France in Sept 2018. Doesn’t look like we will be returning even to visit any time soon – Poppie is almost 12 and we don’t want to subject her to long journeys any more.

      3. Is she on Vetoryl? Hamish, our rough coated Jack Russell, was on it for 3+ years.

    1. 334885+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Hearts of Oak / Gerard Batten
      8 o’clock vid been removed by the uploader.

      He, Batten was to comment / discuss the covid issue, Batten = true facts.

      Stop press it is NOW live, up and running

    1. Well we can all see it, but because we’re white and privileged, it’s all our fault.

    6. Yep , bit like all the blacks we are viewing on TV adverts/ BBC/ and other channels.

      Why don’t they put together some adverts aimed at giving the BAME bunch a sense of great shame ?

      Tell them there is a terrible lack of BAME blood donors .. that’ll soon make them sit up and think .

      1. “Look into her eyes………..and tell her she can’t have your blood” That’ll work.

    7. Yep , bit like all the blacks we are viewing on TV adverts/ BBC/ and other channels.

      Why don’t they put together some adverts aimed at giving the BAME bunch a sense of great shame ?

      Tell them there is a terrible lack of BAME blood donors .. that’ll soon make them sit up and think .

    8. Yes its all those wonderful people who wanted independence from the UK & the minute they got it they all came to the UK because they miss their old colonial masters !

  69. Quite an enjoyable game – once one got used to the Estuarine accent of the Wendyball co-commentator.

    3. Well done Spain and some first class play acting and diving along with the win.
      Who was the none male commentator ?
      Did you expect herim to be posh ?

        1. When I was at college we use to go to the local café for lunch and that was on the Duke box us youngsters use to bang our Tea mugs on the tables to the “and i’m feeling (bomp bomp) glad all over,………….

    3. His real name was Harry Lipman (no relation to the tea people) and he always seems to remind me of The Master, who seems to have disappeared but is now and then remembered by Uncle Bill. Harry Roy also composed “She had to go and lose it at the Astor”.

        1. That’s exactly who The Master is, Tom. Did you think I meant Roger Delgado from Dr Who?

          :-))

  71. Is any one aboard able to provide an email address of a Virgin media executive.
    It’s absolutely impossible to get a grain of sense from their none existent so misnamed ‘customer services’.

      1. Many thanks Obs and other peeps i have just emailed Rachel Barrass customer services director………I didn’t know they had any one directing customer services.

          1. Her middle name could Marion,…….. Rachel M Barrass
            We have had such a lot of problems with our services all they seem to have is ‘Bots’ to contact or people in the far east who read scripts and tick boxes and it is very difficult to understand what they are saying. Over two months of pixilating TV pictures, we have not had more than a day or two of improvements.

          2. BT (yes I know) but it works well for us and – think about it – every other service provider has to go through BT lines.

          3. If I remember correctly, we had one of the earliest underground cable to household supplies in the UK it was set up by NTL in the 90s.
            I actually had a phone call from VM about 15 minutes ago and at last they are sending an engineer to take a look at things this Friday.

          4. Just had a phone call from them Obs they are sending an engineer Friday.
            Thanks for the help. Strangely as often happens after i get mad with them, it seems ‘to right it self’. And the reception is perfect today as is our WiFi signal.

  72. Tour de France update. Geraint Evans was in a crash. He dislocated his shoulder and a doctor put it back in place while he was sitting on the road. Geraint got back on his bike and finished the stage. Lots of crashes and injuries today. We won’t know how bad they all were until we see who starts tomorrow and who does not.
    However, I take part in a “fantasy” Tour de France game. online One picks a team from the actual riders in the Tour, and one gets points for the positions that they finish in at each stage. I have taken part every year for the last 20 years*. In today’s stage I came second, my highest ever position. Whoopee!

    *I have been following professional cycling for over 60 years and have watched the Tour on TV for the last 37 years. I guess I am hooked.

        1. Thank you. I recently learned that Pendleton is also a place (thanks to the info that the owner of Pendleton named his horses after places in the local – Derbyshire, perhaps? – area).

  73. Who will now say that claims that the UK population was 70 million were simply racist propaganda?

    Brexit has proved there are far more EU migrants than officialdom dared admit

    The economy can wean itself off cheap labour eventually but it will not be a quick or easy process

    MATTHEW LYNN

    It was meant to be three million. It is already looking more like five. It could easily turn out to be seven or perhaps even eight million. From tomorrow, as the deadline for applications under the “settled status” scheme expires, we will finally have some clear statistics on just how many people from the European Union are living and working in the UK. One point is already clear, however. The rate of immigration was far higher than anyone realised. There were several million more people here than anyone knew.

    We can all debate whether that was a good or bad idea. There are arguments on both sides. And yet we will also have to accept the shock to the economy from winding that down will be considerably greater than we had planned for. The Government will need to ease up on visa rules; it will need to encourage companies to invest more in automation; and it will need to accelerate the transition to higher value industries. The UK economy will wean itself off cheap, migrant labour eventually – but given how much of it there was, we shouldn’t kid ourselves it will be a quick or easy process.

    In the aftermath of the referendum campaign, the Remain camp made a great deal of the “lies” and “fake news” peddled by Leavers. There was some truth in that: not every claim on the side of a bus stood up to scrutiny. And yet, they have also been reluctant to admit that not everything they claimed was accurate either.

    We were repeatedly told that under freedom of movement around three million EU citizens were living and working in Britain. For example, the Office For National Statistics estimated in 2016 there were 3.3 million non-UK nationals working in the country of whom 2.2 million came from other EU countries. The trouble is, it was just a guess. No one was actually counting.

    This week we will find out the real number. Under the “settled status” scheme put in place following our departure, anyone from the EU already living here can stay permanently. All they have to do is apply, with tomorrow as the final deadline. How’s it going? As of the last update, on May 30, 5,605,800 applications had been submitted. There are plenty of reports of a last-minute rush to apply, and calls for the deadline to be extended to cope.

    The final number? About seven million seems a reasonable estimate but it could be higher. On top of that, we have to keep in mind that lots of people may have decided to go home over the last year, either because of Covid-19 or because they can’t be bothered with the paperwork needed to stay.

    The net result? At the peak, eight or nine million EU citizens may have been working in the UK. My maths can be a little wobbly at times, but I can confidently say that is a lot more than the 2.2 million in the official figures. It was out by a factor of three or four, or perhaps five million people – the equivalent of seven or eight Manchesters with a couple of Liverpools thrown in.

    In truth, the scale of immigration over the past decade was far higher than anyone owned up to. The trouble is, winding that down too quickly is going to come as a huge shock to the economy. You can’t suddenly take workers out of the labour market on that scale without causing massive disruption.

    We are already seeing companies – understandably, as it turns out – complain about shortages of workers, especially in sectors such as hospitality, personal care, agriculture, logistics and food manufacturing that relied especially heavily on relatively low-paid migrant labour. Wages are soaring, but even that may not be enough to keep companies afloat. In reality, we need to work out how to deal with that. Like how? Here are three places we should start.

    First, ease up on visa requirements. It is a sticking plaster solution, but sometimes that is what you need. As we transition to a very different economy, we don’t want to inflict too much damage. Restricting work visas to higher paid workers may be completely right in the medium term, but for this year and perhaps next we may need a lot more people. We could easily introduce one- or two-year work permits for any EU citizen, especially if it was tied to jobs in specific sectors where shortages are emerging.

    Next, encourage companies to invest more in automation. The only real fix is to get machines to do more of the work. Fortunately, the technology is coming on stream – there are robot barmen available, and self-driving lorries will be here soon – but it all costs money upfront (which is one reason managers will just hire a Hungarian guy instead if they can). The Chancellor has already put generous capital allowances in place, but he could double them for labour-saving machinery.

    Finally, we need to accelerate the transition to higher-value industries. Whole sectors may simply not be viable without millions of cheap workers and others will have to slim down dramatically. That will be better in the medium term, but there is no point in denying it will be disruptive for the next few years.

    In truth, it was a mistake for the UK to allow uncontrolled immigration on the scale of the last decade. It shifted the economy into low-wage, low productivity sectors that could only survive so long as plentiful cheap labour was available. That was never a recipe for long-term prosperity. We can’t switch that off immediately. But over the next few weeks, as the settled status schemes closes, we will finally find out how many people are in the country – and once we know that we can start the long period of adjustment.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/06/28/brexit-has-proved-far-eu-migrants-officialdom-dared-admit

        1. And it was Angela Merkel who announced “Come one, come all!” and then, when she realised what a disastrous thing she had done, said “Everyone in the EU must take their fair share”.

    2. They are assuming all are working – not necessarily true; there could be family members (who also have to apply) who are in school, unemployed, child minding or just plain on benefits. As for making up the shortfall, just reduce benefits so people are better off working and if they turn down a job, their benefits stop immediately.

    3. For all that, I prefer the hard-working, mainly Christian Eastern Europeans to the other lot that we have in London and the Northern towns.

    4. The problem with being a low wage, low skill, low investment, low productivity economy built on mass immigration, private debt and

      extravagant government borrowing is that people increasingly don’t have purchasing power to buy things beyond the very essentials.

    5. The problem with being a low wage, low skill, low investment, low productivity economy built on mass immigration, private debt and

      extravagant government borrowing is that people increasingly don’t have purchasing power to buy things beyond the very essentials.

    3. The Bobby on the right looks as though he’s not short of cake. I fancy my chances against him in a 100yard dash.

    4. The Bobby on the right looks as though he’s not short of cake. I fancy my chances against him in a 100yard dash.

    5. The Bobby on the right looks as though he’s not short of cake. I fancy my chances against him in a 100yard dash.

    6. “Well now, sir, that’s your hotel sorted. What would you like for breakfast?~”

      1. Rosewood, Mahogany, Teak?

        What?

        Your breakfast tray, sir. What would you like it made from?

      2. My guess is that Mohammed who works for Mohammed, Mohammed & his other brother Mohammed, will not be wanting a full English Breakfast !

    7. Interviewed by lard-arse and incompetent.

      Par for the course with today’s Keystone Kops.

      1. The police on the beat take their cue from their top leadership & when your top leader is a totally incompetent Lesbian who is appropriately named Dick its only to be expected that standards are low.

    8. Interviewed by lard-arse and incompetent.

      Par for the course with today’s Keystone Kops.

  75. Something nice .

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-derbyshire-57600677

    I’m just an ordinary old chap who wanted to fly’

    A 106-year-old war veteran from Derbyshire has completed his bucket list dream of flying a plane by operating a flight simulator.

    Donald Rose, who served as a front-line soldier in World War Two, said: “I could just see the sky and I thought: ‘What a wonderful idea. How good that was’.”

      2. Good night, Oscar. You’d be surprised at how many are willing you on. Be a good dog – you’ll have a good life.

      2. And shouting at them: “Get a job! I bet you’re on benefits!” as he takes part in the illegal importation of benefit claimants…

        1. He is sponging off taxpayers while actively promoting illegal migration, so morally he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

  81. Good grief. The BBC are saying that youngsters are desperate for the ‘vaccines’.

    When did we stop educating people about the experimental gene therapies and the likely downsides.

    The ‘vaccinations’ are protecting no-one. They are deeply suspect and likely to cause all manner of adverse redactions down the line.

    Every sentient human being will know that the Lateral Flow Tests are a hoax and entirely useless. Likewise the allegedly ‘gold standard’ PCR tests are a total manufactured contrivance, the efficacy of which is presently subject to challenge by lawyers in Europe.

    1. “adverse redactions down the line” : Freudian – and prescient, our John?

    2. The corporate lawyers are discounting the much cheaper. much faster and more reliable method promoted by the Duchess of Cornwall – sniffer dogs.

Comments are closed.