Monday 3 August: If Covid-19 cases must be reduced to zero, there can be no escape from the trap of lockdown

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/08/02/letters-covid-19-cases-must-reduced-zero-can-no-escape-trap/

695 thoughts on “Monday 3 August: If Covid-19 cases must be reduced to zero, there can be no escape from the trap of lockdown”

  2. Chief Whip ‘failed to act in Tory MP rape case’. 2 August 2020 • 9:35pm

    The Government’s Chief Whip was on Sunday night accused of failing to act for four months on complaints against a former minister who was arrested for a suspected rape at the weekend.

    Mark Spencer was under mounting pressure to explain why he failed to launch an investigation into the alleged behaviour of the senior Conservative, who has not been suspended by the party despite the seriousness of the allegations.

    Morning everyone. This accusation is closely akin to the ones which I and I suspect most people have received during their working lives; that you have “allowed” someone to do something without telling you how you would have prevented it. The person in question has just silenced the MSM with what I presume is a series of injunctions preventing them publishing his name and details; no mean feat in itself. I’ve no doubt Geoff Graham and the NoTTLer’s were next on the list with a restraining order! A Government Chief Whip would be child’s play by comparison.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/02/chief-whip-failed-act-sex-abuse-tory-mp/

    1. Now that they have a barrister safely ensconced as Leader of the Opposition, parliamentary debate safely neutralised by social distancing, and the legal system securely nobbled by politicising the Supreme Court, MPs are clearly above the law and can do what they like with impunity.

      They hardly bothered with public campaigning at the last election. A bit on Corbyn’s “antisemitism” was all that was needed to get the right result. I spoilt my ballot paper because there was nobody on offer I felt fit to run the country, and this remains my judgement today. At least we don’t have it quite as bad as other places, such as the US or China, which we seem to be modelling our post-Brexit national democracy on. If BLM had their way, we’d be modelling our democracy on Zimbabwe.

      Like the new planning reforms, the law is only intended to be applied to innocent plebs, to keep them in order and to teach them to know their place.

      As for the alleged rape, the whole concept has been debased by feminist action, whereby it’s considered tantamount to rape if an unattractive privileged white male holds a door open for a woman or looks at her for more than a second. If they were less zealous with stamping out any indication of heterosexual male interest or courtship attempts, it would be a lot simpler to catch and deal with the real villains.

    2. What has a supermarket chain got to do with it? Surely it’s quite enough that the Government takes orders from multinationals to procures sinecures for MPs ? (Oh, there’s no ampersand?)

    1. ‘Morning, C1. I was going to make some comment about a certain King attempting to hold back the tide, but I didn’t trust myself to spell his name correctly…

    2. ‘Morning, C1. I was going to make some comment about a certain King attempting to hold back the tide, but I didn’t trust myself to spell his name correctly…

    3. A slur on Knut (Canute); he was demonstrating to court lickspittles that his powers were limited.

    1. Marx looks a bit too cuddly in the picture. Perhaps Stalin, with a brief reminder of the number of his own people he had killed or exiled, might have been better.

  7. 322046+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    If Covid-19 cases must be reduced to zero, there can be no escape from the trap of lock-down.

    Could one reasonable ask are these, so recent political ex rubber stampers
    still active in following a foreign agenda ?

  8. SIR – Emily Strasser’s grandfather (Features, August 1) may have appeased his personal demons by concluding that the West should abandon its nuclear weapons. Rational analysis, however, recognises the role of nuclear deterrence in preventing all-out war between the major powers since 1945.

    As on previous anniversaries, the BBC seems intent on denouncing the bombing of Hiroshima; yet the people responsible are not those who ended the Second World War, but those who chose to begin it.

    Dr Julian Lewis MP (Independent)
    Cadnam, Hampshire

    1. SIR – On August 1 1945, as a youngish boy, I was a prisoner of the Japanese, and we were not expected to survive for very much longer.

      The dropping of the two atom bombs was received with relief, with the hope that the end of the war was close, and that we would be free from our unpleasant guards.

      It is not for me to comment on the horrors of atomic warfare. But it should be remembered that we did not start this awful part of our recent history. We did no more than protect ourselves from an aggressive nation.

      Callum Macleod
      Cupar, Fife

      1. My father (RN) was due to be sent to the Far East after having taken part in the European landings (Sicily, D-Day, Walcheren). He had married in June 1945, so both he and my mother were mightily pleased the war came to an end before he had to go.

        1. I bet he was pleased! To have invaded and fought their way across Japan after six years of war would have been utterly horrific, the toll would have been enough that it would likely have had to be called off part-way through due to lack of manpower and/or lack of resources. Supply would have been a nightmare.

          1. Yes, every footstep would have cost a life. The only other argument would have been for a demonstration of the bomb. However, the Americans were hardly minded for that. The fighting in the islands had been horrific, relentless and costly in American lives.

    2. Strictly, the UK entered war with Germany, rather than the other way around.

      1. But, but, but, Sir…he started it, Sir…coz he wouldn’t leave Poland alone, Sir

        1. Indeed… but legally… which also means that the Norwegian and French resistance were, strictly, terrorists since they fought against the legal government of their country. However installed.

          4. Several communist groups allegedly received several drops of arms each and put them to one side ready for the Revolution after they’d got rid of the Germans.

          6. Everyone was in the French resistance – even those not yet born, as I understand it.

      2. The allusion was to Hiroshima, so perhaps Julian Lewis was referring specifically to Japan. With Germany, you are correct – Britain and France declared war after the invasion of Poland. With the war in the East, Japan attacked British and American targets on the same day as declaring war.

        2. Japan did not attack British targets at Pearl Harbor (although they went on to invade swathes of the British Empire in the region), and Japan did not actually get round to declaring war against the US until after the surprise attack.

          It was Hitler who declared war on the US, out of solidarity with Japan, not the other way round. That suited Churchill just fine.

        3. I never knew that, Aeneas, although I was aware of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Did Japan bomb Littlehampton Canal on the same day, then?

          EDIT: Just read your older post explaining that they attacked British targets in Malaya on the 7th of December 1941 – it’s amazing what you learn on this site.

    3. Hiroshima – damned if they did, damned if they didn’t.

      The whole point of it is never again to get into that situation, which is what makes Islamist suicide bombing so scary. At least the Russians would not willing sacrifice themselves for the glory of their god. As General Patton once said – don’t be willing to die for your country; far better to let the enemy die for their country. Even better though, is to find a way of doing the necessary cull of excess people without making too much of a mess.

      The Second World War began with the Treaty of Versailles. The moment vengeance controls the mentality of victors, the seeds of the next war are sown. The whole point of Christianity is to break that cycle – this is why Christ is the Messiah.

      2. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the answers to unilateral nuclear disarmament. Japan didn’t have nuclear weapons, and look what happened to them. If they did have nuclear weapons, would the US have risked a similar strike on San Francisco? I think not.

    1. But, but, but… The Glorious 12th of August isn’t until Wednesday of next week, Herr Oberst. (Please forgive my grousing.)

  10. SIR – I awoke on Saturday with joy in my heart that my period of shielding was finally over and I could start returning to a more normal lifestyle.

    The Today programme marked the change by interviewing two ladies who queried why it was happening, felt it was a mistake and explained why they intended to carry on as before.

    I accept that their reasons for shielding may have been more serious than mine, and that they have the right to react as they see fit. But there must be others who feel as I do. It should not have been beyond the wit of the BBC to find and interview one of them.

    Richard Piper
    Ickenham, Middlesex

    Nah. The Beeb sees it’s obligation as being to stir up whatever trouble it can and make everyone as miserable as possible.

    1. I watch the BBC Breakfast show most days. Up until a few years ago, the interviews were usually carried out with two people – one from each side of the argument. Now it is with just one person, who is more or less allowed to use the TV appearance as a platform to expound their views without being seriously challenged. There is an undeniably left-wing bias.

      1. Sometimes they don’t even bother with interviewees and just let Nougat Munchy spout her bile without interruption.

  11. ‘Morning All
    Just the one comment today,I need a break from the insanity
    Apparently if the schools are to open we need to close the pubs again…………….
    Can anyone,ANYONE explain either the logic or the causal connection here??
    ‘Cos I’m totally bewildered

    1. I imagine the logic is to make sure that the peasants know who’s boss, and close stuff that’s not Sharia compliant.

  12. SIR – Whatever data is being cited to alarm our nation, one fact is abundantly clear. No European country has resurgent deaths from the pandemic, despite relaxing lockdown.

    In fact, the numbers dying daily in Italy, Germany, France, and Spain are nearly zero.

    Dr Jai Chitnavis
    Fellow in Medicine, Trinity Hall
    Cambridge

    1. BTL:

      Lord Fauntleroy
      3 Aug 2020 6:53AM

      According to the freely available spreadsheet downloaded from the NHS, the total number of English deaths yesterday attributed to covid was 2

      For that we all have to live like this?

      Since the road death rate is higher than that should we now consider banning cars until Oxford University can come up with a guaranteed safe method of transport?

      1. Ban bicycles as well. Ban any electrically assisted traffic on pavements, except invalid carriages with permanent sirens.

    2. I thought I was going a bit mad last week, when headlines kept intoning the the Second Wave Is Upon Us, and the graphs remain flat.

    1. Pure as driven snow. We all know that; why waste the money on investigations that will come to the same conclusion?
      The report has already been written.
      Morning, BoB.

  14. Morning all

    SIR – It now seems that the Government and its “advisers” have decided that no level of risk is acceptable with Covid-19, and that the incidence of infection must be reduced to zero. In so doing they have placed themselves in a trap from which it is impossible to escape.

    Even if there were genuinely zero infections in the country, the nature of virus-testing means that a certain number of false positives will always be returned, especially as more and more testing takes place.

    Hence, with testing always apparently showing that the virus persists, even if absent, the supposed need for lockdown measures in some form will also persist, indefinitely.

    Keith Whittaker

    Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire

    SIR – Whatever data is being cited to alarm our nation, one fact is abundantly clear. No European country has resurgent deaths from the pandemic, despite relaxing lockdown.

    In fact, the numbers dying daily in Italy, Germany, France, and Spain are nearly zero.

    Dr Jai Chitnavis

    Fellow in Medicine, Trinity Hall

    Cambridge

    SIR – At last, it seems, Boris Johnson has arrived at a much better solution. Let the vulnerable stay at home and the young get back to normal.

    Elizabeth Shears

    Botley, Hampshire

    Advertisement

    SIR – If, as reported (August 2), the elderly may be asked to stay at home again, I hope I speak for many of us when I say that the response should be the emphatic age-old gesture to the Government.

    We have had enough. We want a real life in the years left to us and, yes, risk is part of life.

    Philip Hall

    Petersfield, Hampshire

    SIR – The assumption that the latest restrictions are in some way a punishment for misbehaviour on the part of the public is naive. For my Muslim friends to suggest that they have been singled out for special sanction over Eid is blinkered. I remember that Easter was curtailed – and that, for many Christians, is as big or bigger than Christmas.

    I am deeply sorry for all the disruption for everyone. However, none of us has been here before, and we are all finding our way in the dark. Some of the guidance has been confusing and annoying, but think of it as a forward patrol, scouting the road ahead, prone to the sudden opening of sinkholes. As they open, we are steered round them.

    People must stop taking personally this awful situation in which we all find ourselves.

    David Kaye

    Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex

    1. No, Mr Kaye (may I call you Danny?), we are not finding our way in the dark. There are processes that one can follow when faced with a potential crisis.
      These processes are well-known to people in the real world, to builders, engineers, sailors, and commercial businesses. Our Government did not follow them when they should have done. The process requires swift assessment of the potential for harm and swift and appropriate action. If it could be a big problem then action will be radical as well as fast. If the word “pandemic” pops up then all airports, and ports, are closed to civilian non-commercial traffic. No movement of people into or out of the country except as necessary to ensure food and other vital cargo movements. The movement of people inside the country also has to be restricted. This has been rehearsed for centuries.
      There may be two principal reasons that the UK government failed to act correctly. The first was fear. The second was a desire not to be out of line with the bosses in the EU. The UK government has not really been independently in charge of anything for thirty years.
      Oh, and I do take it personally, because this inept, bungled, dangerous shambles, that has seen normal governance kicked into touch does effect me personally…

    2. Yo Epi

      Let the vulnerable stay at home and the young get back to normal.

      Can we apply the above logic to everything

      Learner drivers to stay off the road, until they are experienced
      No soldiers to be trained until they have been
      Noone to open bank accounts until they are rich

      A good one would be ‘No person allowed to be an MP, unless they have had a proper job.

      I am 75 and certainly WILL NOT be locked away, unless it is for non payment of TV Tax

      The silly thing, is we oldies have more sense, (in most cases) than the Wokers

    3. The Norwegian association of funeral homes was on the news today, complaining (!) that not enough people were dying, and their members businesses were suffering… Gee, some peo0le are never happy.

      1. Just a thought.
        In Norway, if people die in hospital or care homes with Covid, does the state cut out the middleman and do the burial/cremation; to prevent spread of the disease?

        Presumably similar restrictions apply regarding the ceremony itself and the NAFH is losing out on all the extras that grieving families add for the day too.

    4. No, Elizabeth Shears, he is very far from finding “a better solution” by suggesting that the over-50s and the vulnerable should be under what would amount to indefinite house arrest. Leave that group to keep out of the way of others is what he should be thinking about.

    5. David, you don’t have any muslim “friends”. The koran tells them not to befriend the kuffar.

  15. I see Boris and his boys are busy again with more plans to screw the country.
    To rely on NHS records for the plan is the first and probably most serious flaw, just ask our legal beagle Bill how efficient the NHS is.
    The only upside would be if those in the HoC and HoL were caught up in the scheme and told to stay away from government.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/02/ministers-face-backlash-plans-extend-shielding-programme-over/

    Ministers face backlash over plans to extend the shielding programme to over-50s this winter
    Ministers faced a backlash on Sunday night over plans to extend the Government’s shielding programme to some over-50s this winter.
    Tory MPs and business leaders warned that telling over-50s to stay at home risks damaging the economy and runs contrary to Boris Johnson’s plea to get workers back to the office.
    The Prime Minister is expected to reintroduce shielding for those most at risk from coronavirus as long as the danger of a second wave remains, and will expand the list of people advised to take self-protection measures once the cold weather arrives.
    Anyone over 50 who is obese, overweight or in ill health is likely to receive an individually tailored letter in the autumn warning them they are at increased risk and advising them of steps to take to protect themselves.
    In the most serious cases this will include advice to stay at home, but under a grading system of different measures those with less serious risks could be told to reduce social contact, shop during “shielding hours” or avoid public transport.
    Lists of those at risk will be based on medical records held by the NHS.
    Mr Johnson himself could be drawn into the net, as he is in his mid-50s and has admitted to being overweight. The fact that he has survived coronavirus would not necessarily count in his favour, as evidence of immunity remains uncertain.
    Sarah Vine, the newspaper columnist and wife of Cabinet minister Michael Gove, said of the over-50s shielding plan: “We are the backbone of the nation, economically and socially. We look after the elderly and the young. We pay the most taxes. Lock us up and everything grinds to a halt. You can’t eliminate all risk. Not if we want to still have a country at the end of this…
    “We are all going to die sooner or later. I don’t expect the country to destroy itself to save my sorry ass.”
    Businesswoman Dame Helena Morrissey, who was nominated for a peerage by Boris Johnson last week, replied to Ms Vine on Twitter: “This is becoming insane Sarah. I can’t believe what is happening. REAL life is not ‘following the science’ and the science is actually a lot more nuanced and uncertain than the official approach/PR. Imagine allowing people to take actual responsibility (all of it) themselves!”
    Ministers proposing the scheme say it will apply to far more people than the 2.2 million who were told to shield from March onwards, but would be more “sophisticated” and tailored to individual circumstances.
    People in their 70s, for instance, may be told to carry on as normal if they are in good health, while even those in the existing shielding category will be allowed more freedom if their health conditions are at the less serious end of the scale.
    However, Matt Kilcoyne, Deputy Director of the Adam Smith Institute think tank, said: “The Government’s messaging on this is muddled and they risk creating the worst of both possible worlds.
    “For middle-aged and nearing-retirement individuals, they’ve built their experiences through the recession, the busts and booms, the dot com bubble, Thatcher and the seventies of stagnation.
    “These are people who have seen it all, who have as much experience of their company and much more experience than any politician will have experience running the country.
    “Their experience should not be forsaken just because of their age.”
    Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Treasurer of the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers, said: “You’ve got some of the most experienced part of the workforce, who tend to be in the more senior positions and therefore running businesses and organisations.
    “We’ve found that some people can work reasonably at home, but others have got a need to be at work supervising.
    “I think it would look very odd, and for some companies it would look very difficult. If you’re a manufacturing type company you want people on the ground seeing what’s going on, which is not the sort of thing you can do from home.”
    Civic leaders in Manchester declared a major incident on the weekend after coronavirus infection rates continued to climb.
    Greater Manchester was placed back into partial lockdown last Thursday night after infection rates in some areas more than doubled in a week.
    Declaring a major incident means the area can access extra national resources if needed

    1. Gosh, I find myself agreeing with Mrs Gove. I need to think carefully about this…

      ‘Morning, Oldie

      1. Morning Hugh, yes I worry as well about agreeing with Mrs Gove, but would like to make clear I have no plans to save her sorry ass under any circumstances.

    2. Any future Conservative fundraising events – if ever such things will be allowed again – will be thinly attended.

      1. Their fundraising numbers will match voter numbers supporting them at the ballot box the way things are going.
        I can see no change in Conservative Party policies until their polling numbers match the EU election low of below 9%.
        Morning Anne.

  16. Nicked – “Tolerance is like salt, you need some, but too much will kill you.”

  17. SIR – In April I visited my sister in hospital. She died the next day with Covid-19 and other serious illnesses.

    On the ward I was given personal protective equipment and told by the staff that after 30 minutes I would have to change my mask (Letters, August 1). The doctor explained that after this time exhaled water vapour partly saturates the fabric, causing it to become ineffective. Germs also build up inside the mask, presenting a possible danger to oneself and others; oxygen intake is reduced, and more carbon dioxide is inhaled.

    What of those encouraged to wear masks for long periods at work, in shopping malls and on long journeys?

    James O’Brien

    Ilkley, West Yorkshire

  22. No, Poland has not become a nation of wife-beaters. Spiked. 3 August 2020.

    What is making the Poles unhappy (and ought to give pause to any liberal administration) is the small print elsewhere in the convention. Take Article 12, for instance. Since 2015, this has required the Polish state to:

    ‘Take the necessary measures to promote changes in the social and cultural patterns of behaviour of women and men with a view to eradicating prejudices, customs, traditions and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority of women or on stereotyped roles for women and men.’

    Read that carefully again. What it amounts to is a demand for the state suppression of wrongthink: an insistence that whatever the electorate might think, the state must take administrative measures to eradicate its existing customs, traditions and practices in so far as they do not conform to an official left-liberal ideology.

    All these conventions and international agreements indeed the EU itself are vehicles for bypassing elections and enabling Cultural Marxism by diplomatic and legal chicanery rather than Democratic votes!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/03/no-poland-has-not-become-a-nation-of-wife-beaters/

    1. It is not the EU that is pushing this, but the Council of Europe, which the UK is a founder member of, and retains membership after Brexit.

      The UK Parliament is engaged with pushing this into law as I write, under cover of Covid, BLM, antisemitism, and any other dead cats they can throw at us through the compliant media. They did it with Single Gender Marriage back in 2014, which had no democratic mandate whatsoever, and so they can do what they like now. The main players in this Maria Miller (Conservative), Yvette Cooper (Labour) and Baroness Featherstone (Liberal Democrat) are still very much in Parliament.

      The public must like it or lump it – they have no recourse any longer under the law to make their legislators accountable.

      2. Didn’t Peter Sellers have a heart attack and nearly die of excitement on his wedding night with her?

      3. She was born Britt-Marie Eklund but changed the spelling of her surname to make it more Anglophone hoping it would give her more success in the UK.

      1. Good morning, Maggie.

        I haven’t heard that since the 1950s. It was on t’wireless all the time back then, but I never knew what it was called.

          1. Good morning, Rastus.

            If I stretch my mind back I can remember most of the output from The Light Programme in the 1950s. It takes me back to what seems to be a previous life in a different universe.

        2. Good morning, Grizzly. Just to let you know that I have received mail from you on the Gmail site. Unlike the Ntlworld site, it doesn’t seem to have a reply/reply to all button to click on, so I am posting here to let you know that your emails arrived. I’m in a better mood than I was last night (less heat and no frustration with computers) so I am back NoTTLing sooner than I thought.

          1. If you look at the bottom of the page of your email on Gmail, Else, you will see a “reply” button for sending your next text message. A “reply to all” button only appears if you have two or more buddies copied in to the messages in that thread.

          2. I always hear the “dada dada daa dadada” for Pearl & Dean…
            I’ll get me coat…

  24. Supermarket workers facing torrent of ‘mask rage’ as historic levels of abuse recorded. 3 August 2020.

    The retailer [Coop] said it had recorded 990 incidents of anti-social behaviour and verbal abuse between Monday, July 20, and Sunday, July 26 – two days after masks were made compulsory in shops.

    Almost all confrontations were related to the wearing of face masks with “flashpoints” occurring when people were asked to follow the guidance and when young consumers were asked to remove masks to check ID when buying alcohol.

    A Co-op spokesman told The Grocer magazine: “We’ve seen a marked rise in abuse, threats and even assaults on shop workers during the Covid crisis and believe this could be another flashpoint.

    I feel no sympathy. It is not the job of Supermarket employees to implement the Law. If I were so engaged I would simply ignore any infringement!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/02/supermarket-workers-facing-torrent-mask-rage-historical-levels/

    1. From my experience, the Co-op employs the most fervid jobsworths in retailing. It reflects the origins of the movement.
      All other supermarkets are far more relaxed.

      1. The thought that any profit in Co-op stores goes to yer Labour party is enough to keep me out of them wherever possible.

          1. What ‘divi’? I’ve never been asked for any reference number or whatever it does now.
            Mind you, nipping in for the occasional pack of semolina probably means it’s not worth the checker outerer asking the question.

          2. These days you get a kind of Loyalty Card which they swipe when you make a purchase. Instead of “divi(dend)” they send you vouchers in early December which they hope you’ll use for your Christmas shopping.

          3. You get a loyalty card and on certain co-op branded goods you get money back, £1.50 on their own brand scotch.

          4. Similar with Boots, where I no longer shop if I can avoid it.
            I was often asked for my customer’s card at the checkout, but when I said no, I was never offered one.

      2. I haven’t been in a Co-op for many years Anne though I can still remember my Mothers Check No. 38077!

        1. I can remember when it was CWS ( I called it CusWus) and mum’s number was 71991

          In 1863, independent co-op societies formed The Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS). They provided Co-op products to sell in hundreds of Co-op stores. Over the next century, CWS went through many changes and eventually became The Co-operative Group.

        2. I can also remember my Co-Op “divi” number, but I’m not telling you – it’s one of my computer passwords. (But not the one I need to access my emails.)

        4. After my last experience with a mini-Hilter nasally snapping at me to use a different door, anything that I can’t get from more customer orientated shops is ordered online.

      3. Except for the one on the promenade at St Mawes. Which caters for its cottage renting visitors.

    1. Instead, everything I’ve heard or read since last week – and particularly over the weekend – suggests the very opposite.

      Indeed, the incoherent messaging seems almost eerily designed to foster anew a pervasive sense of panic, fuelling fears that we are heading towards wide-scale partial lockdowns – or even back to a total national lockdown.

      The difficulty is in deciding whether this is intentional or a true response to the situation!

      1. I’ve not kept up. I don’t know what is permissible and what is not. so I’m just doing what I need to, or what I feel like. Thirty mile drive in the sunshine* to buy ice cream, forty miles to buy sausages.
        *Last Friday was first sunny day for two weeks. Rained on Saturday and rained yesterday. Forecast not very summery. Three nice days in the last five weeks – a normal Scottish summer…

    3. Like Carl Henegehan, mentioned here last night, Professor Sikora is a dangerous sceptic.

    4. Yo HK

      May I fiddle

      They could do with a large injection infection of common sense:

    1. Morning DB, it’s a fine day. Just watch out for someone trying to change that.

    1. I often find that my train of thought has left the station without me.

      {The poor old US Democrat candidate’s train is not ever likely to get to the station)

  28. Good morning!

    My morning started off so badly that I nearly had to pretend that it was 7.00 pm and get out a bottle of special medicine. Why? Because of this headline in the DT:

    “Black Lives Matter activists should become magistrates to help improve diversity and increase trust.”

    Well, I am a white man so if I was up before the magistrates do they think I would trust them if they had BLM activists judging me?

    As far as I am aware, white indigenous men and women are still in the majority. However, they are being treated as though they can safely be ignored.

    Rant over…

      1. Good morning Maggiebelle

        Why was it wrong for the white man to go to Africa and in most cases try to bring order and governance to barbaric lands while now it is considered right and proper for black barbarians to come to Europe and destroy everything?

        This seems to be logically incoherent and inconsistent – but coherence and logical consistency are now nasty racist things and only logical chaos must reign.

      2. Good morning Maggiebelle

        Why was it wrong for the white man to go to Africa and in most cases try to bring order and governance to barbaric lands while now it is considered right and proper for black barbarians to come to Europe and destroy everything?

        This seems to be logically incoherent and inconsistent – but coherence and logical consistency are now nasty racist things and only logical chaos must reign.

        2. I was wondering why nobody ever went to Downtown Lagos or Lower Mogadishu and exclaimed “How hideously Black the population is!”

  29. Good morning, my friends.

    Here is a link to the DT story about the Tory rape suspect:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/03/brexit-news-tory-mp-rape-lockdown-over-50s-shielding-uk/

    And here is a post underneath it with which I agree and I am glad to see that some of the other posts make the same point:

    Look at what happened to Lord Bramall and Leon Brittan as a result of the liar ‘Nick’s groundless accusations.

    We used to have a concept known as the ‘presumption of innocence’ .

    The slavering MSM dogs of war should not be let loose unless and until the accused man is charged, brought to court and found guilty

  30. John Lewis are planning to convert some of their huge buildings into rented flats.

    Presumably the most reliable tenant of all is HMG…….. and apparently HMG will pay to convert huge buildings to alternative use if it suits them.

    Change of use will just be a formality under Boros’ new plan.

    See where this might be going ?

    Calais to John Lewis !

          1. Let me guess………

            It was all about how we’ve got to give everything up and live in a cave ?

  31. Good Morning Folks

    I was amused by this numberplate on a Land Rover Defender

    18 MUD

    2. You know that promised vaccine?

      Well, every other dose will include a permanent contraceptive.

    3. Those who got 2.2s at universities used to call heir degrees Desmonds and those who got Thirds called them Douglases.

      Now far too large a percentage of students are awarded William Randolphs and Newuns

  34. Gandhi to become first non-white person on British currency

    Rishi Sunak has written to the Royal Mint, urging them to put BAME people on our coins

    he Telegraph can reveal.

    The Royal Mint Advisory Committee is working to create a coin featuring the anti-colonial campaigner, who led the protest against British rule in India.

    It comes as Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, on Saturday threw his support behind a campaign for BAME figures to feature on coins, saying their contribution to Britain should be recognised.

    In a letter to former Conservative candidate Zehra Zaidi, who is leading the We Too Built Britain campaign which has called for ethnic minority people to feature on currency, Mr Sunak said: “Black, Asian and other ethnic minority communities have made a profound contribution to the shared history of the United Kingdom.

    “For generations, ethnic minority groups have fought and died for this country we have built together; taught our children, nursed the sick, cared for the elderly; and through their enterprising spirit have started some of our most exciting and dynamic businesses, creating jobs and driving growth.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/01/gandhi-first-non-white-person-british-currency/

    1. Gandhi campaigned for the independence of India. Should we also have a banknote or coin with George Washington on it?
      Edit: added ‘coin’.

    2. Now you see why Euro notes have bridges on them. Much less fuss, no “Bridges of Colour” issues…

        1. I thought that some of the “fake bridges” were actually in France, including an aquaduct, and that somehow they were accepted as generic. Yer French pulled a fast one…

        2. Indeed. No architectural or engineering merit, looks like they are made up by a civil servant.

      2. From Quora via Google…

        The modern concept of citizenship had not yet evolved at the time of Gandhi. Instead, he was a British subject.

        Subjects of the British crown, including those within its colonies and dependencies, were (at the time) considered technically British (until Independence, of course).

        A while after Indian independence, UK law started to define such terms as British Subject, British National, or British Citizen with more clarity. In due course, such concepts as “Citizen of a British Dependent Territory” were dreamed up, and then narrowed even further at such moments in history as Hong Kong’s handing back to China, specifically to deny Hong Kong citizens the right to be considered British, rather cynically in order to prevent them migrating to Britain.

        In Gandhi’s early life, before Indian independence, if he was issued a passport, it would have been a British passport. After Indian independence, all Indians ceased to be British but retained British Commonwealth Citizen status for a while (this category no longer exists as an official status, but it retains its figurative meaning).

    4. If this atrocity goes ahead, I urge everyone who gets cash from a wall machine to take the offending notes into the bank and exchange them for notes featuring great Britons.

    6. Gandhi campaigned for the independence of India. Should we also have a banknote or coin with George Washington on it?
      Edit: added ‘coin’.

      1. This is the very point I was going to make. If former enemies of Britain can be honoured on our bank notes then why not have Hitler and Napoleon on our bank notes – not to mention Mugabe, Khrushchev and Idi Amin!

        And why not have a £100 note honouring the greatest enemy Britain has ever had: Tony Blair.

    7. But he was not British. In fact he hated us despite taking advantage of our education. Like so many others since… Tell Sunak where to get off.

    9. He should also be proud of other things they have brought to the UK.
      Grooming gangs.
      Cash for crash scams.
      Multiple ID benefit fraud.
      People trafficking for prostitution.
      People trafficking to work in their back street sweatshops.
      County lines drug gangs.
      etc

  36. This article, along with one on Marxist Hamilton, seems to imply that not agreeing with the “journalists” point of view means that we are in the wrong and the minority! Again, no comment allowed on Folau who has been lambasted for his religious beliefs for quite some time. Odd that he is a Christian!
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-league/2020/08/02/israel-folaus-refusal-take-knee-overshadows-super-leagues-restart/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget

    1. I’m sure there are other sportsmen and women who do not agree with this kneeling nonsense, but are too scared to show dissent. All credit to Israel Folau for refusing to conform.

      This would not be happening if the fans were allowed to attend matches – I’m sure there would be a storm of booing at ‘taking the knee’.

      1. I absolutely agree and can’t wait for crowds to return! I anticipate a very different reception to the one currently on offer from the pathetic commentators, who are so keen to tell us what a wonderful display of solidarity it is, and how inspiring it must be to participate! Ha! Virtue signalling at its very worst!

      2. 322046+ up ticks,
        Morning AS,
        “Storm of booing at taking the knee”
        precisely why they will be kept out, the fans should show their power by cutting the players wage by 4/5s and getting the entrance charge
        adjusted to suit the poorest pocket.
        Boycott when entrance is regained
        ( NOT “permitted / granted”) unless they are the morons some peoples make them out to be.

      3. Indeed. Fired for saying something entirely in accord with orthodox Christianity, and the blooming’ obvious. (Soon if you say something careless in Scotland about homosexuality being against nature and being the end of civilisation, you could go to jail.)

  37. SIR – The list of new peers (report, August 1) made interesting reading. Even more interesting would be a list of those leaving the House of Lords.

    We are regularly promised a slimmed-down Upper House – but when will it actually happen?

    Mary Bowman
    Shalford, Surrey

    No Bercow in the HoL was worth the equivalent of a good few reductions.

    1. …and no Witchfinder General, either. No doubt he would have announced the name of the alleged rapist MP under Parliamentary Priviledge given half a chance.

      The decision not to ‘promote’ these highly unpleasant people gives us a glimmer of hope, but a reduction to 2-300 peers would be even more welcome.

    2. …and no Witchfinder General, either. No doubt he would have announced the name of the alleged rapist MP under Parliamentary Priviledge, given half a chance.

      The decision not to ‘promote’ these highly unpleasant people gives us a glimmer of hope, but a reduction to 2-300 peers would be even more welcome.

      1. Better still might be limit payment of expenses to those invited to attend a debate, on account of their expertise on the matter in hand, and decided by a Royal Commission, which has no Party affiliation other than loyalty to the Queen. All other peers are free to attend and speak, but at their own expense.

  38. Here’s another disturbing problem.

    This is all starting to get out of hand and i’m not sure half of us believe the drivel that’s being spouted.

    Let’s try the facts instead…we now know Covid deaths have been deliberately falsified to enforce compliance along with removal of our ancient rights and freedoms, i think most of us guessed that right from the start. It’s such an unusual satiation, I have always been of the opinion something very dark is going on.

    Apparently one government minister has a financial interest in us wearing masks and having vaccines and two government advisors have a financial vested interest in masks and vaccinations that’s why they keep on insisting on masks and vaccinations, so clear conflicts of interest definitely exist.

    These three culprits are Whitty, Hancock and Valance…we should now demand an enquiry into them before we go any further. If found to be guilty of the above they should be removed forthwith.

    Falsifying the death total is as low as you can sink to be honest but they’ve been doing it since the beginning as some of us found out.

    I’m puzzled as to whether lying on a death certificate is a crime…it certainly should be.

    I will always do the right thing but i hate being lied to or taken for a fool.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1317733/Over-50s-coronavirus-lockdown-will-over-50s-stay-un-lockdown-shielding

    1. 322046+ up ticks,
      Morning RE,
      It is in my past post’s numerous times asking which politico has the button to the chin tunic franchise.

        1. One of my fellow expeditioners in Nepal had saddle sores after a long day’s cycling. He applied tiger balm to his gentleman’s area. Oh how we laughed 😄

        2. I new a student who invited a girl to supper & hoped she’d spend the night. He prepared chili-c0n-carne, which involved chopping chilis, went for a pee & spent the whole evening rushing to the bathroom to dip his throbbing member in cold water.

        1. I guess so.
          I once (once only!) had a wee break whilst part-way through chopping strong chillies when I wasn’t wearing gloves.
          By ‘eck as like, did that burn!
          Won’t do that again…

    3. Mask wearers are believing that healthy people are dangerous simply because they breath. Asymptomatic means no evidence required. Yes, it’s sinister.

      1. Good morning, Our Susan. I can’t post that sermon – it is a pdf – and I don’t have an offline contact for you.

        1. Morning Bill!

          Hertslass has my email addresses. For this and for the time being, the BBC one is probably best.

          3. I sent it to her at 12.00, asking if she would be kind enough to forward it to you.

      2. Well this morning we went to meet several people we don’t know – a couple of people who have swift boxes on their houses, and a builder who was putting up a scaffold tower to rebuild a chimney. We had a look round the gardens and then sat down for coffee – all quite close together, and nobody wore a mask.
        The reason was that the neighbours were worried the scaffold would impede the swifts entering and leaving the boxes – the builder was very receptive and interested in birds.

    4. The odd thing is it’s not just the UK – look at the “emergency” situation in Australia, and Belgium has now got another lockdown.

      1. That’s where the conspiracy theory comes adrift Ndovu. It has too wide a membership. Surely it would leak?

  39. OT – a curious fact. When we leave here for an exciting night in Wivno, we will have spent 139 consecutive nights in Fulmodeston. That is the longest continuous period since 1987/8 – when my father came here to spend his last months with us.

    Not many people know that.

    2. Yo Bill

      Make sure you set your home location on the StaNav, soes you can find your way back to Thomas Towers

      1. Funny you should say that. We spent 20 mins with the lad next door (who is a petrol head and has a VW with very similar systems to the Skoda) trying to see how the SatNav worked.

        There isn’t one! Not that I care because I have never used a SatNav and have no wish to do so now. We were just intrigued.

        1. Sat navs are very useful when you’re driving on your own in an unfamiliar area. Why the great objection?

          4. Difficult if you’re driving alone. Back in ‘the day’ it was easy to pull over and check the map but not so easy now on such permanentently busy roads.

          5. I can read a map, but as I travel alone (apart from the dog and he’s a useless navigator) I can’t do that and drive.

          6. I study the map(s) before I set out…

            I know what you mean about dogs and navigation.

          7. I am a bear of very little brain and quickly forget what I’ve studied on the maps without constant reference.

          8. I became hooked on maps at the age of 9. I have hundreds of them – and, at one time, a very good memory (now beginning to rust). I’d plan routes, act as navigator for my Father – and when I became a legal motorist (I learned to drive when I was 9) studied and memorised my own journeys.

            Bit of a nerd, really!

          9. I seldom use ours because it has a tendency to tell me to make turns into no entry streets and once suggested a U-turn on a very busy one way street.

            It also made the classic suggestion:

            “you will need to use a map”

            when it was in a warren of small roads near here. I need a new one, but the benefits do not seem to outweigh the costs.

          10. Indeed.
            Also unfamiliar cities, where there’s lots of traffic, signs and confusion.

    1. Very strange story! Manchester men, praying on the beach, sword and axe, clearing spaces and a tannoy system? Eid say it was a Methodist summer camp!

      1. You would think the owners’ suspicions would have been alerted with “They had asked what size the rooms were and had said when they booked that they would be praying, so you would think it would be calm.” Praying !! And the fact that it was booked out to seven men. The pursuit of profit trumps all, common sense a distant blob over the horizon. In reality 30-40 men turned up.

  42. And for further diversity and inclusivity, this weeks “Composer of the Week” is a bame. Whoda thunk it?

  44. David Lammy picks the best books about justice. Mon 3 Aug 2020 .

    Our system is creaking because its foundations have been weakened by a decade of underfunding. In The Secret Barrister, an anonymous criminal advocate exposes deep faults in our legal system. As a former barrister myself, I know that junior professionals working on legal aid cases come from a variety of backgrounds, and often work in impossible conditions. If we fail to support these people, we fail to support those who rely on them the most. In the wake of Black Lives Matter, no prizes will be awarded for guessing which defendants, victims and communities will end up paying the price.

    I was interested in this assertion from Lammy that he is a former barrister. When one attempts to trace this several difficulties arise. Lammy was born in 1972 and according to his Wikipedia profile was called to the bar in 1994 when he was twenty two. This did not however prevent him going to Harvard and graduating in 1997 with a Masters of Laws Degree, the minimum requirement for admission into legal practice. When exactly did he study, let alone practice, one wonders, particularly when his own CV reads: 1. Warehouse handler. 2. Server at KFC. 3. Retail assistant. 4. Security guard. 5. Barrister.

    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/aug/03/from-black-lives-matter-to-bleak-house-david-lammy-picks-the-best-books-about-justice

    2. Yo Minty

      Another Double Lammy

      What he was saying, in his Dislexikal way is that he was Barista

      1. Yo, Mr Effort.

        Lammy wouldn’t make a decent Bar-stool!

        He’s also a failed Bar-Steward!

        1. But he is at least the sort of stool that doctors might ask you to provide for analysis. .

      1. If Peddy had not trained as a dentist he could have trained as a chiropodist instead and patented a remedy for punions and called it a pedicure.

      1. The number of times I see “amount of” modifying (mutilating) a countable noun …

        2. Very annoying isn’t it. Our grandson put it simply. Fewer sugar cubes, less sugar using granulated.

          5. From our local Facebook group, a functioning adult as far as I can tell
            – QED

            “Can sum one please tell me y N.S.C take the B&M site and develop it to include a nuther old people’s home do thay no their was at lest 17 hotels in Clevedon now we have 1 🤔 dusnt it make sense to get a premier inn / travelogue we have a m5 junshon in r town”

      2. “Coronavirus virus”?

        Evidently the author of that meme has never heard of tautology.

    1. It’s clear even to someone as useless at maths as me, that more tests mean more cases will be found. To use this as a means to ramp up the fear factor – begs the question -Why?

      1. No end to Lockdown. Control continues. Eventually there will be minimal relaxations and we will be emotionally, deliriously grateful. (No need to wear masks in your own home. Kind of thing.)

        1. The Frankfurt School thought up the system (Cultural Marxism) way back in the 1920s. It’s only taken a hundred years for their acolytes to implement the scheme successfully.

          Big Brother is not watching you; he’s pulling your strings.

    2. As deaths become, almost, insignificant then the number of positive test result is being used to keep the pressure on the plebs.

  51. Good morning, my friends.

    Here is a link to the DT story about the Tory rape suspect:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/03/brexit-news-tory-mp-rape-lockdown-over-50s-shielding-uk/

    And here is a post underneath it with which I agree and I am glad to see that some of the other posts make the same point:

    Look at what happened to Lord Bramall and Leon Brittan as a result of the liar ‘Nick’s groundless accusations.

    We used to have a concept known as the ‘presumption of innocence’ .

    The slavering MSM dogs of war should not be let loose unless and until the accused man is charged, brought to court and found guilty

  54. Seven babies stillborn in one night at Zimbabwe hospital as health system crumbles. 3 August 2020.

    Eight pregnant women came into the Harare Central Hospital in the southern African nation’s capital on Monday, but only one went home with her child alive, say doctors.

    The other seven children and three of the mothers died. Medical staff at the hospital told The Telegraph that they could do nothing for them because of an enormous lack of staff, drugs and medical equipment. Instead, doctors say all they could do was weep as the babies and women died one by one.

    Black Lives Matter!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/29/seven-babies-stillborn-one-night-harare-hospital-health-system/

    1. Thought BLM had plenty of money in the bank. They seem not to want to use it for anything productive though. Can’t think why …

    2. And good Christian white people who made their lives in Africa as doctors, teachers, administrators and farmers – like the Tracey family – are now considered to be the villains. My Uncle Hugh went to Southern Africa and fell in love with the music but realised that the culture was dying and so he dedicated his life to keeping it alive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Tracey

      As I have said before – maybe the whites should never have gone to Africa but, by the same argument, the non-whites should never have gone to Europe. If they got rid of the whites in Africa maybe the whites should get rid of the non-whites in Europe – or is there a flaw in my logic?

    5. I suspect the poor dead mothers were very young girls , and probably the dead babies were also difficult births from VERY young girls . That is how things are in Africa and elsewhere in the third world , and probably becoming increasingly common in Britain as well.

      1. It has almost become like the chant in Animal Farm of : “Four legs good, two legs bad.” Our new chant must be “Black rule good; white rule bad”

        But even Orwell’s pigs decided to change the mantra when they had learnt to walk on their hind legs: “Four legs good; two legs better.“

      2. It has almost become like the chant in Animal Farm of : “Four legs good, two legs bad.” Our new chant must be “Black rule good; white rule bad”

        But even Orwell’s pigs decided to change the mantra when they had learnt to walk on their hind legs: “Four legs good; two legs better.“

  58. I saw a German car a few minutes ago, with a top box. Obviously tourists. Quarantine – I don’t think so! When we went for a drive on Friday last it was at least as busy as normal for this time of year. On our road we get tourists. Last week I noted a group of high-end 4x4s with UK number plates of the HK 99 variety. The local country House hotel appears to be open.

  59. A puzzled pensioner writes…..

    I can understand, though not approve, why the MSM took sides in the aftermath of the Referendum – and published one-sided information the whole time.

    What I don’t “get” – is why they assiduously publish endless doom and gloom stuff without any attempt at some sort of balance.

    On the Brexit debate, I can see that they all had a vested interest is the UK not leaving. But on the virus? What do they stand to gain by taking the line they do?

      1. Possibly Brexit is involved – doom and gloom perpetuated in order that we become so angry with Boris that the cons agitate for his removal a couple of months before 31 December, after the summer recess? Apart from the involvement of Big Pharma in this equation, I have an instinct that Brexit is also weaved in there as well, and possibly was from the beginning. There is absolutely no attempt at trying to quell the fears of the population, to take a brighter spin on the predicament in which we find ourselves.

        1. One is tempted to think regarding a brighter spin “well there wouldn’t be, would there?”

        2. I’ve always had a sneaking suspecion that May’s deal was agreed and that all the recent guff is a smokescreen until we see the final outcome is May lite, by which time it will be too late to object, on pain of lockdown.

          1. Mass rioting and burning of government buildings and MPs surgeries might prove interesting.

    2. Because the msm is owned, all of it, by one or several individuals in particular with an interest in making us fearful, leading to the mass uptake of vaccination under the banner of ‘Protect your Neighbour! You know it makes Sense! It’s for your own Good!’.

    3. Weaken the Tory Government so their common purpose chums in the Labour party get another crack at the whip.

      1. Not the common purpose twits in the Tories, then? I can’t imagine that they would let any cp potential cudos and/or revenue go to Labour, if they can keep it themselves.

    4. Financial interests in products connected with virus (masks, antidotes, vaccinations etc.), or in getting the sheeple compliant (bigger NWO stuff). IMO they have a Boolean connection.

      2. And an awful lot of self-importance, endless rolling news about the same fuck-all that occupies them all on tv.

    5. Perhaps when Bill Jackson shook the dust of these threads off his feet, he went straight into The Times CEO chair.

    1. UK data, tests vs confirmed cases is 9,42 million vs 302,301 = 3,2% of tests show infection.

  61. 322045+ up ticks,
    Face it as is happening they are dishing out lenient sentences, releasing
    dangerous rear exits back into society,already hundreds danger ous elements wandering the streets they the governance refuse to lock up or deport.
    Then we have Dover the illegal / immoral gateway to welfare.

    One would think these politico;s are holding some sort of grudge against the nation.
    Could it stem from the 24/6/2016 result ?

    https://twitter.com/GerardBattenUK/status/1290200616648634368

  67. Morning all.

    Not sure if you have seen this but……..https://youtu.be/G5XKksiSgac

    This is very serious indeed it’s blatant manoeuvre against our democracy, No body voted for any of this. It seems our political classes have taken leave of their collective senses.

      1. That was the Blair’s signature tune in 1997.
        That’s when everything started to go down hill.

  68. I have just skimmed the Grimes. Pages of scaremongering; pictures of uniformed blacks marching through London with no action being taken by the plod.

    Off to the crossword.

    2. Morning Bill, the Grimes seems to be in competition with the DT for fear monger of the day award.

    3. My favourite Grimes was the one-time teacher at Llannaba Castle , Captain Grimes, who lost a leg when he was run down by a bus when drunk. He used to tell the boys that he has lost his leg in the war.

      I wonder if your MR ever followed the guidance many of us loosely involved in education followed: We schoolmasters must temper discretion with deceit.

  69. Taking the Peewee. email from my bank:

    ” from 4 April 2020, the annual interest rate applied to all arranged or un-arranged overdrafts would be 35.9%”

    Interest paid on Smart Saver account: “0.09 % gross AER”

    5. NS&I are offering a better rate on Income Bonds than banks or other savings. I think the Government will change the rules shortly. Like a whore that can’t pay the rent.

  71. Is there a plot afoot against heavy-handed Covid schemes like shielding over-50s? 3 August 2020.

    What seems to have happened is that somewhere in Whitehall someone came up with the idea of creating tailored shielding plans for all vulnerable people in the event of a second Covid wave. Someone else then decided to narrow its scope by arguing there was no point in including the vulnerable under-50s because there were so few of them that they all already understood what to do.

    So the target group was then narrowed down to the fat over-50s, many of whom already suffer from conditions such as type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure – people not unlike the Prime Minister, whose own understandable mulling upon what Covid almost did to him may or may not be causing a fixation upon this demographic.

    I would like to think that NoTTL has a Mole or a fellow traveller in the Government but would probably wonder why they hadn’t suicide bombed the Cabinet by now!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/03/plot-afoot-against-heavy-handed-covid-schemes-like-shielding/

    1. Someone else then decided to narrow its scope by arguing there was no point in including the vulnerable under-50s because there were so few of them that they all already understood what to do.

      That’s not a logical conclusion.

    2. Depends what time you get here – sometimes it’s just “where are you all”.

  73. Man admits to having sex with chickens. 3 August 2020.

    A man has admitted he had sex with chickens, while his wife filmed it. Rehan Baig, 37, entered guilty pleas at Bradford Crown Court to a total of 11 charges including three of performing an act of penetration on chickens. His wife Haleema Baig has admitted three charges of aiding and abetting “intercourse with an animal”.

    Even the bloody chooks aren’t safe!

    https://www.theweek.co.uk/odd-news/107684/israeli-border-tension-a-sign-world-is-about-to-end

    1. Weird…….I won’t bore you with the old joke about the restaurant chickens, but at least those were already dead.

      1. Nah, he must have a teeny weeny tinky winky. Bet his wife was relieved (in the emotional sense). Better than grooming young girls, isn’t it?

    2. GB+Germany Vs France, 1815, 1-0
      GB+France Vs Germany 1918, 1945, 2-0
      GB + Italy Vs you’ve got to be kidding

        2. Are you sure?
          I’m assuming that you’re excluding occupied France.
          Italy swapped sides when they realised who was likely to win.

          1. Wasn’t Italy on our side in the Great War? Some horrendous campaigns in the Alps!

          2. Yes and yes.
            Originally they were part of the Germany Austro-Hungarian Alliance, declared neutrality and then changed sides to join the allies.

          3. 99% sure.
            Mussolini declared war on the Allies on 10th June 1940.
            On 13th October 1943 Italy declared war on Germany.
            1221 days allied with Nazi Germany during the war.

            France surrendered (via an armistice) effective from midnight 25th June 1940.
            Liberation of Paris was around 25 August 1944, although Strasbourg
            wasn’t free until 23rd November 1944.
            1523 days allied with or complicit with Nazi Germany.

          4. I don’t regard that as a fair comparison. There were still free French fighting under de Gaulle.

            By that token any country occupied by the Germans wasn’t an ally and wasn’t contuing to resist, that would include ourselves, as our channel island territories were occupied.

          5. Hi Sos,
            The wording is essential. France’s government is ‘France’, and the Free French Forces were not supported by the French govt which moved to Bordeaux in 1940. When they armisticed, the French army did not destroy its materiel, which was captured by the Wehrmacht and great quantities of French vehicles were employed in Operation Barbarossa. Stalin remembered that in 1945.
            Channel Islands are Crown Dependencies but are not part of the UK.

          6. De Gaulle ran a French Government in exile.
            As we would almost certainly have done in Canada had it become essential.

  75. Plus ça change and all that. A line from a novel written in 1942 referring to the medical arrangements for the expected “million casualties” from bombing:

    “(The house) is full of beds and nurses and doctors waiting for air raid victims and a woman in the village got appendicitis and she had to be taken forty miles to be operated on because she wasn’t an air-raid victim and she died on the way.”

  76. 322046+Up ticks,
    We in the real UKIP knew this as soon as we heard post 24/6/2016 ” Now leave it to the tories” then the leadership farce and the 9 month delay confirmed it, treachery in motion.
    Even “no need of UKIP now” one trick pony party anyway,was spoken of, this of the party that designed & won two classics one being the 2014
    eu elections,and the other designing & triggering the Brexitexit.

    No treachery towards either peoples or the United Kingdom ever shown, far from it.

    And still the vote and whinge brigade have made ALL the running refusing to break loose of the close shop.

    https://twitter.com/GerardBattenUK/status/1290301292716290049

    1. 322046+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Shades of yesterday, was that the three tier re-entry rocket you likened the tory types covert agenda to if unbelievably they lost the referendum Og ?
      Yep, the wretch cameron first stage take off, mayday the second stage until burn out, johnson the re-entry nose cone.
      All coming to pass successfully looks very much like..

    1. And unlike the Govt’s figures, these people give a disclaimer:

      Disclaimer: the article has not been peer-reviewed; it should not replace individual clinical judgement, and the sources cited should be checked. The views expressed in this commentary represent the views of the authors and not necessarily those of the host institution, the NHS, the NIHR, or the Department of Health and Social Care. The views are not a substitute for professional medical advice.,

    2. Not sure there are any politicians or snivel serpents who could understand something so simple. It’s also lacking the stomach churning fear factor.

      Coming from a scientific establishment it will be totally ignored.

      1. That assumes its not all being misrepresented deliberately.

        And things could be much worse. We could be in Victoria, Australia…

        https://lockdownsceptics.org

        After reading yesterday’s “Postcard From Melbourne” I didn’t think things could get any worse in the capital of Victoria. But yesterday the power-crazed Premier of the state – Daniel Andrews, known as Kim Jong Dan – announced tough new “Stage 4” restrictions in metropolitan Melbourne, including an 8pm curfew. This looks like another instance of what I’ll call the “collapsing skyscraper” rule of this unending catastrophe. Being in lockdown is like falling through a collapsing skyscraper. Every time you think you’ve come to the bottom and your feet have found solid ground, the floor gives way again.

        Here is a list of the “Stage 4” measures introduced from 6pm yesterday and due to last for six weeks:

        The “state of emergency” in Victoria has been upgraded to a “state of disaster”, meaning police can now enter your home to carry out spot checks even if you don’t give them permission and they don’t have a warrant.
        Between the hours of 8pm and 5am, you’re not allowed to leave your homes except for work, medical care and caregiving.
        Outside those hours, you may only leave your home for four reasons: shopping for food and essential items, care and caregiving, daily exercise and work. “We can no longer have people simply out and about for no good reason whatsoever,” said Kim Jong Dan.
        Daily exercise can only take place within a 5km radius of your home and cannot last longer than an hour.
        You cannot exercise in groups of more than two, even if they’re members of the same household.
        Apart from daily exercise, you are only allowed to leave your home once a day for essential supplies and food.
        In the whole of Victoria, you cannot buy more than two of certain essential items, including dairy, meat, vegetables, fish and toilet paper.
        Schools have closed again, with all Victoria school students returning to remote learning from Wednesday (except for vulnerable children and children of permitted workers). Childcare and kindergarten will be closed from Thursday.
        Golf and tennis venues, which were open, have now been closed.
        Weddings will no longer be allowed from Thursday, and funerals will be limited to 10 people.
        Face nappies anywhere outside your home have been mandatory for people in metropolitan Melbourne since July 22nd, but that rule has now been extended to the entire state of Victoria.
        You cannot have visitors or go to another person’s house unless it is for the purpose of giving or receiving care. However, you can leave your house to visit a person if you are in an “intimate personal relationship” with them, even during curfew hours. So no “bonk ban”.
        If you have a holiday home or were planning a holiday outside Melbourne, tough cheese. You must remain in the city for the next six weeks.
        The maximum fine for breaching a health order currently stands at $1,652, but Kim Jong Dan said he would have more to say about penalties later today, i.e. he’s going to increase them.
        These measures were prompted by 671 new cases of coronavirus on Sunday and seven more deaths. That’s up from 295 new cases last Wednesday, but down from 723 on Friday. It was that spike on Friday – the highest daily total in Victoria to date – that prompted Kim Jong Dan to unveil the new restrictions yesterday.

        But could the increase be due to a corresponding increase in testing? It certainly looks that way.

      1. I don’t have vaccines – I have considered the shingles vaccine and then I read the reviews, which I found very ……. interesting. Of course, as one of our sons said, if everything goes ok and no further problems it wouldn’t occur to one to seek out a page to write a review.

        1. I’m not an ant-vaxxer – my children had theirs (though they were not combined ones for measles etc then) and as we have travelled in Africa it makes sense to have the typhoid ones etc. But I have never bothered with the flu one.
          I thought about having the shingles jab when I turned 70, but didn’t, and then I had shingles last year. It was unpleasant but didn’t make me feel particularly ill or stop me doing anything. I rang the surgery, was booked an appointment to see a young dr and he agreed with my diagnosis and prescribed anti-virals. They seem to stop any longterm ill-effects. I haven’t seen any reviews of the shingles jab.
          I am wary of mass medications such as statins. I don’t take any medication now but I did take the post-cancer ones for several years.
          I think it will depend what conditions they impose for not having the covid one – if it means no travel without a certificate then I would probably comply and have one.

          1. My children had theirs, too. I have not had a flu jab. Yes, I am wary too of mass medications, it seems that there is little thought for the individual (socialised medicine) apart from blanket coverage regardless. I did try a low dose statin but felt truly awful 12-24 hours afterwards, never again. P’dad was really ill with shingles last autumn and I had just fractured my ankle – it was a difficult few weeks – and he is still feeling the effects from time to time. It was seeing him so unwell, and my mother and a relative who both had shingles badly, my aunt lost the sight in her right eye and found it difficult to talk forever afterwards, that made me think about the jab. Due to circumstances I have had to cancel an appt twice for Zostavax and the reviews made me nervous so I contacted the local private hospital about Shingrix (not available on the nhs) – there are fewer side effects with this and it is more reliably effective, but there is a shortage of this vaccine. I too am fortunate that I do not have to take any medication, there are not many of us around now.

          2. If you get shingles – the NHS website has some helpful photos of the rash patterns and mine was text-book typical. Provided you get the antivirals within 72 hours (I think) of the rash coming, they are effective and stop the long-term side effects from developing. My aunt suffered for years with dreadful nerve pains. I did get nerve pains but they were gone within 3 or 4 weeks. The only after-effect I had was fatigue, which lasted a few weeks longer. Paracetamols helped with the pain and I didn’t really feel ill at all.

  80. Oh dear……….

    Is this yet another Tony Blair – George Soros possible potential scandal ?

    Gordon Brown announced the sale of approx half the UK’s gold in May 1999, and the first auction took place on July 6.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sale_of_UK_gold_reserves,_1999%E2%80%932002

    By which time, the price of gold had fallen 10% and certain gold dealers were shorting in anticipation of buying back later at a lower price.

    So far nothing too amiss, other than it looks odd to announce the sale and thereby reduce the best price you want to achieve. Suspicious point this.

    But of course we know that was approximately the time Tony Blair sold 750 state buildings at a low price to his new best friend, George Soros, with whom he had had a private meeting at the New York Plaza Hotel in April 1996, on which George made a very substantial profit.

    So here’s a hypothesis about the gold………

    Given the very suspicious nature of the buildings deal, it looks an obvious possible move to tell Soros in advance about the upcoming gold auctions before anyone else knows… and let him short the market accordingly.

    I’m not saying it did happen…. but it just looks an obvious thing to do if the property deal is as bad as it looks.

    Of course, by announcing the sale in May 1999, the price would be driven down increasing Soros’ profit if he was told to get in early. Is that why Gordon Brown announced it early when he didn’t have to ?

    See how all this might have worked ? I don’t know if it did, but it doesn’t look impossible in the circumstances !

  82. That’s me for the day. Bottles to open; tables to lay (roast chicken).

    Have a jolly evening sticking needles* into effigies of the government’s “experts”.

    A demain

    * vaccination – guaranteed 120% safe.

    1. I’m only taking the vaccine if it comes with a large Dirty Martini. Dishi Rishi got that one right.

      1. I’ll bet you 6d two things you’ll be reading quite soon:

        First – “The vaccine is as safe as statins and just as reliable”

        Second: “Millions die after being vaccinated with 120% safe new miracle drug.”

        1. Yes Bill. It’s why i won’t be taking it unless my neck is kneeled on and i can’t breathe. Did i mention the snap ties to my wrists?

          2. No, they won’t. But in terrorising a large portion of the population on the planet they gain more control.

      2. I’m confused, Philip.

        Yesterday you told us that gin tastes disgusting yet today you want a gin cocktail? [Or do you want your mucky Martini shaken, not stirred, and made with bland vodka à la 007?

        1. I made a statement against Gin which i then said i was fishing for a response. Do keep up !

          Actually, i find Gin Martini unpalatable as a cocktail. A decent Vodka Martini requires the ice to be washed in soda water. The shaker to also be frozen. Some of the liquor from the olives of which there should be at least three. The glass to be as ice cold as the Bar man and served with nibbles.

          At the Phoenicia i don’t even have to tell them to make it ‘big and up’. They know me. 🙂

          1. Do keep up? My Pimm’s are the stuff of legend!

            My Pimp’s (home-made Pimm’s) is the stuff of myth!

      3. They should test it on all MPs and inhabitants of The Other Place first.

    2. Vaccine so safe, that the drug companies want complete indemnity from being sued in case it isn’t….

      1. Yerss… they can keep it. Rushed out, not properly tested, no liability… what could go wrong?

  83. From Takimag. OK American experience, but do I feel empathy towards the last part!

    Extreme Social Distancing
    Jim Goad

    August 03, 2020

    It’s a great time to be antisocial. It may be the greatest time in world history to be antisocial, with the possible exception of the Black Death. Unless it’s to sniff daisies, there’s absolutely no reason to wander outside your door these days. If you’re brave enough to stroll out into public without a mask, there’s always the possibility you’ll be mugged by a howling throng of 400 rioters, NONE of whom is wearing a mask.

    So I imagine that if you’re the sociable type who squirms with agony at your inability to attend movie theaters, baseball games, concerts, political rallies, it must really suck to be you right now.

    Me? I’m fine, thanks for asking.

    I’ve always been antisocial, and from my perspective, that’s society’s fault. When you see how people operate in groups, you’d realize that being antisocial is a virtue rather than a character flaw. Being antisocial merely means being wise to how people operate in groups. And it’s never pretty. That’s why I refuse to declare myself part of any movement, because it would involve being surrounded by people.

    This is why I never needed government agents or social-media scolds to tell me to keep my distance. I don’t go anywhere I’m not wanted and I avoid most of the places where I actually am wanted.

    Although I’ve lived in or near some unforgivably gigantic cities for almost my entire life, modern society is hand-delivering me several sound reasons for staying out of cities once and for all.

    I am the spawn of the nearly accidental mating—it started with a one-night stand at a USO dance before my dad flew off to Europe for WWII—between a city mouse and a country mouse. My mother grew up one of 11 Irish-Catholic kids in Philadelphia—and what a big, nasty, dirty, ugly, crass, smelly, angry, violent city it is. Filthadelphia. Killadelphia. It was the fourth-biggest city in the country when I was born but has shaved off a quarter of its population since, a huge share of the exodus undoubtedly due to the town’s aggressive diversification and a black population that is far and away the most hostile group of Africans I’ve ever encountered.

    “It’s a great time to be antisocial. It may be the greatest time in world history to be antisocial, with the possible exception of the Black Death.”
    My dad, who died in 1980, was born exactly 100 years ago in a tiny northern Vermont town that even now is barely cracking a thousand people. It is currently 96.81% white, which I will assume is far less white than it was 100 years ago.

    I spent the first twenty years of my life in the red-brick working-class Philly burbs before moving into the dirty-red-brick City of Brother Love itself to attend college. Back then in my wayward and semi-retarded youth, big stinking cities seemed exciting compared to the relative blandness of Clifton Heights, PA. But back then, cities had a purpose for oddballs such as myself. You couldn’t get rare British import records out in the burbs. None of the movie theaters played the obscure films I wanted to see. On a per-capita basis, if you didn’t count the blacks from North Philly who were always trying to stab or rob you, there were definitely more “interesting” people in Philly than out in the Delaware County, PA boondocks that birthed me.

    Back then I was convinced that the bigger and filthier and smellier a city was, the more sophisticated it was. That’s why I moved to the NYC area after college. It didn’t take long living in New York to realize that the average New Yorker is not an abstract painter with an IQ of 180 but rather a fat Mets fan who bets at off-track racing and gets stains on their sweatshirt when they eat at McDonald’s.

    The occasional weekends up in the Catskills were nice, though.

    Then I moved to LA for seven years, which was easily seven years too many. You can only be awakened by police-chopper spotlights illuminating your bedroom so many times because they’re chasing some 14-year-old cholo through Hollywood parking lots before you want to move somewhere quieter. Plus, enduring one major race riot was enough for one lifetime.

    Still, the occasional weekend 120 miles east in Desert Hot Springs soaking up the mineral waters kept us from completely losing our marbles. But even ten miles back toward home you’d start hitting that city traffic again, and we’d always feel like fleas on a baseball field once the LA skyline came into view again.

    So we packed a moving van and moved up to Portland, where there were fat people and lots of green things. When I moved there in 1994, I laughed at the very idea that Portland was a city. But being a safe and beautiful little mountain town apparently evokes white supremacy or something, so now Portland is where transgender heroin addicts burn things every night downtown forever and ever, amen.

    Then it was rural Pennsylvania for another two years—a sleepy little town called Schwenksville about 40 miles northwest of Philly. Except for the people I lived with, it was idyllic.

    And then, after a six-month stay in what is easily the worst state among all 50, I relocated to the Atlanta area, where I’ve been spinning my wheels in red clay for 13 years now.

    I’ve often stated that blacks in the South are the friendliest in the country. That was true until about two months ago, and we all know what happened two months ago. At the moment, it’s not the cities with huge quotients of blacks that are rioting the hardest. It’s complete mayo-on-whitebread burgs such as Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis.

    Of those, Minneapolis is by far the blackest, but they still don’t even account for one in five Minneapolites, or whatever they call them up there. Seattle is a piddling 8% black. Portland—the town the most extreme conniptions over the myth of systemic anti-black racism—is barely 6% Negroidal. And even riot-prone Los Angeles can ‘t even crack 10%.

    Atlanta is currently 51.4% black. The only city in America with more total blacks is New York City, where the percentage of blacks is less than half as high as it is in Atlanta. And we’ve already had a few mini-riots over George Floyd and local boys such as Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks.

    If the country continues on its currently insane racial trajectory, sooner or later a majority-black city is going to burn to the ground, and I’m not going to take my chances by staying around in the Atlanta area to find out if we draw that lucky number or not.

    I live 25 miles from Atlanta’s city center. It feels rural. It’s a block from a lake. The backyard is the size of a football field and hosts dozens of tall pine trees. Ducks come up from the lake and walk on the lawn. Birds chirp loudly enough to wake you up.

    Then again, even this little town is half-black. And the world has changed drastically over the past few months. Now, just as I found myself in Brooklyn a few years back wondering if I’d be charged with a hate crime merely for defending myself against the high-as-a-kite black gent who was tailing me, now every time I go to pump gas, I have to wonder whether some vengeful BLM clown will walk up to me, start recording on their smartphone, and accuse me of calling them a nigger.

    It occurs to me that the major technological change since I was young, dumb, and thought cities were cool is that you no longer need cities to get rare records or watch obscure movies or even find “interesting” people. The internet brings it all into your home. The internet brings so many things to your fingertips that you’d never want to touch with your hands.

    Technology has rendered cities obsolete. That, plus the alienating effects of diversity have forced our “social” lives to become increasingly remote. Think of most of your interactions with other people on any given day. How many of those people with whom you “socialized” were even in the same room as you, much less the same town?

    I’ve been working remotely in several capacities since the turn of the millennium, and it’s been ten years since I had a job that required me to leave the house. I can work from Antarctica, so there’s no need for me to be anywhere near Atlanta.

    Cities are no longer where culture is found. They’re where it’s destroyed. Automated wind-up pre-programmed zombie outrage machines are burning the cities to the ground. There’s no use even to set your toes in one.

    I’ve witnessed diversity. It only benefits the diverse. It holds no benefits for me, only penalties. So I’m turning my back and distancing myself. Being melanin-deficient and living in urban America at this point is roughly as stupid as staying in South Africa after apartheid ended.

    Let all the rats converge together on those sinking ships. Let the teeming rats fight over cheese crumbs.

    The “country mouse” side of my DNA isn’t merely calling me—it’s screaming at me. Get your pale ass out before it’s too late.

    I want to live where there are no skylines, only rivers and mountains and creeks and dells. I don’t even know what a “dell” is, but I can’t wait to learn. The fact that I know it’s a computer brand but that I don’t know what it signifies in a natural setting is part of the problem here.

    I want to live so far from the city that one day I forget the smell of human urine on a subwayp latform. I’d invite you to join me, but I don’t want it to get too crowded out there.

    2. Afternoon HL

      Nice to see you on here.

      You have been down this way to Dorset .. and I hope you both enjoyed it,

      Dorset is attracting more and more people who are relocating from the home counties, white flight they call it . Poundbury and all the villages west of Bournemouth and Poole are being repopulated by young and old who believe the quality of life is slightly better than where they were before.

      Having said that , other problems seem to accompany the white flight !

      Drug dealers and county lines supply those who require the ” kick ” and all areas are experiencing problems that were rare 20 years ago.

      Never mind , most of us are in a little cocoon, and scream and shout like garden birds , when the territory is breached , whether or not situations are justified .

      Rural people are nosier and seem to know what goes on .. and there is an old fashioned word called SHAME and REPUTATION which is a good leveller for modifying behaviour, and keeping bad behaviour at bay.

      City life breeds anonymity, no such thing in a village .. best thing is to always keep your head down .. and stay quiet!

      1. Thank you, Maggie,

        We had a lovely time with you both! Due to financial etc circumstances it is not so easy to go away any more. I can understand white flight. Watford (our nearest big town) is not too bad,but I imagine it getting worse in years to come (as with everywhere in England). At least you are getting white flight rather than something else…

    3. 1,600 words to say cities are turning into cess-pits.

      And the author makes the mistake of equating ‘anti-social’ and ‘unsociable’.

      1. And you said it in five words (one hyphenated). However I empathise with much of what the author writes. I like the company of people, but not too many at a time (i.e. more than eight, unless we all know each other).

        Except that I would love a Nottler-fest, if we ever got to one. I have met some Nottlers, and it has been lovely. There are obviously Nottlers who are already in their own social groups (especially the East Anglians), and that is rather nice.

        2. It was good to meet you, when we did – hard to believe it was over 2.1/2 years ago.

          1. Blimey! It was good to meet you and to experience both your love for the countryside, birds and hedgehogs.

            Hope the plate is still hanging up – I was so glad when I found it!

          2. It is indeed! And if you saw my masked-up selfie – it’s there on the wall behind me!

  84. Hello and good evening, everyone.
    I’ve not been haunting the Nottlers site for some days, as I’ve had my sister visit for the weekend, and have been lurking over at Lockdown Sceptics.
    Have I missed anything? Is everyone well and as feisty as ever?

      4. I can tell you it’s the Usual Suspects.

        Not a bad film actually if you pretend that Keyser Soze who murdered his wife and children in the film and in real life liked young boys.

        Seems to be the new normal.

          1. It is a good film, Minty. Kevin Spacey is a good actor and director of Theatre. Also, he was never accused by any young woman of being a sex pest.

          3. The young chap that got a position on the Star Trek franchise who made the statement said that he he didn’t hold it against him.

        1. Lottie deleted her account. Though a lovely lady i think it sticks in her craw we tend to side with Republicans and are prepared to forgive President Trump for anything if it means we don’t see more Anarchic Marxist nonsense. IMO.

          ****Hello Mr Biden how are you?

          What? Where am I?

          1. You may well be right! I too sometimes get fed-up with the adoration Mr Trump receives on these pages!!

          3. He’s right more often than he’s wrong, and if you look at what he actually says, as opposed to the hysterical headlines, it’s usually quite reasonable. His main crime is not talking like a lawyer.
            What I get fed up with, are the constant negative stories on MSM. You just know it will never be the truth, it will be some twisted version designed to make Trump look bad. I imagine the BBC is probably the same.

          4. Oh, dear. That’s a shame.

            Perhaps we should have sent her some #WalkAway videos to ponder…

          6. It’s former Democrat voters who have made videos to tell the world why they’ve walked away from the party.
            It was started by Brendon Straka, who’s gay, and was a Democrat voter, and voted for Hillary at the last election, but came to realise that he’d been lied to by the left-wing media and the politicians.
            https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5_hiS71ahR8

  85. Second wave hysteria is a smokescreen for No 10’s abysmal failures, Sherelle Jacobs.

    A Prime Minister slamming the brakes on lockdown easing. The highest number of daily cases in a month. Restrictions reimposed in the North of England. A ‘major incident’ declared in Manchester as cases surge. Scientists who previously advocated herd immunity now warning pubs may have to shut. You’d be forgiven for thinking the second wave was upon us.

    But probe a little further, and you realise the public is being bombarded with potentially meaningless – if not outright misleading – numbers. We are being routinely deprived of the one basic figure that would give us a much clearer picture of the state of play: the number of Covid cases being picked up, adjusted for the number of tests done over time. As such a figure takes into account the increase in the testing being conducted across the country (Leicester has ramped up testing dramatically in a short space of time for example), it would give us a much better idea of whether Covid transmission is indeed spiralling out of control.

    But as Prof Carl Heneghan wrote for Oxford University’s Centre for Evidence Based Medicine on Sunday, when you adjust the rise in people testing positive for changes in testing over time, it appears that the rate of cases in healthcare settings is dropping and the rate of cases in the community is flatlining rather than rising, as widely assumed. Even this may be an exaggerated picture, he claims, as false positives risk inflating case figures.

    Underlying this academic confusion is an outrageous scandal. Let’s pause and take it in for a moment: more than half a year into this crisis, No 10 (and the media) is still allowing incomplete, poorly interpreted and potentially inaccurate data to be widely circulated, fuelling public hysteria.

    A cynic might wonder whether premature panic suits Downing Street’s agenda on some perverse level. The public still overwhelmingly supports lockdowns as the best weapon against the virus. 49 per cent of Brits remain uncomfortable returning to a pub, according to Yougov. Polls by Opinium and Ipsos MORI show that more than half the public think the Government is relaxing the lockdown too fast, while just one in seven think lockdown is being eased too slowly.

    A Machiavellian politico might take the view that if the electorate is panicking about a second wave that is already here, then it isn’t scrutinising the Government for failing to prepare for the one potentially around the corner. Covid-19 may be subsiding but it could yet prove seasonal, striking again this winter. That is still some months away, which means No 10 has some time to get its ducks in a row. But voters aren’t really picking up on this time frame. The risk is that they then have accepted that the Government has little time or room to manoeuvre to avoid a second lockdown; this could yet prove No 10’s Get Out Of Jail Free card. Or perhaps this Government is genuinely just incompetent.

    Either way, the false narrative that No 10’s hands are tied needs to be challenged. With hospital rates dropping, and the evidence that infections are surging still uncertain, the Government does arguably in fact have time and space to get Britain’s chaotic Covid strategy in order.

    Although the roll-out of two new ‘game-changing’ 90-minute tests for whole cities and towns is welcome news, what Britain really needs is a flawless and focused testing regime to protect vulnerable groups. Instead, a pledge for routine testing in care homes this summer has been quietly abandoned. Nor has the Government explicitly committed to a timetable for routine weekly testing in the NHS. Last time, Covid ripped through hospitals with some of the country’s worst-performing NHS hospital trusts among the most badly hit; where are the emergency measures to get failing hospitals up to scratch?

    So is history doomed to repeat itself if coronavirus returns for a second winter? That rather depends on whether the public is whipped into such a state of panic that, once again, it gives politicians the benefit of the doubt over their failure to avoid lockdown.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/03/second-wave-hysteria-smokescreen-no-10s-abysmal-failures/

    1. The whole idea of government policy (sic) is to keep the public terrified and compliant. Now the death rate, the only meaningful figure, has plummeted and is no longer frightening it has to choose something else to instil fear.

      Of course if you test more you will find more infected but as the death rate and hospital admissions have fallen does that really tell us anything apart from the fact that the infection is having little effect in those infected.

      1. It tells me that the virus is gradually giving us herd immunity which is a good thing. It tells the government that they need to ramp up the fear factor and bring in more petty restrictions.

      1. Tilapia ae controversial. There was a discussion about them on here a couple of weeks ago.

        Why you should never eat tilapia?
        Since they are raised in crowded fish pens, tilapia are more prone to diseases. Farm owners give them antibiotics to prevent them from getting sick. They’re also given pesticides to treat sea lice, a common problem. These chemicals are effective but are nevertheless harmful to people’s health when ingested.7 days ago

        1. That is true of all farmed fish and seafood and why I limit the amount I eat. Its almost impossible to buy wild smoked salmon or it costs a fortune, i buy the best farmed i can but not too much. more and more species are being farmed.

        3. It is highly recommended by the Monterey Bay Aquarian Seafood Watch for it’s great taste, nutritional value and it’s sustainability. They are usually pretty good for accuracy on safe fish, and I have had no problem following their recommendations, so far!

  87. Well, folks, you’ll be pleased (or not) to hear that I have now solved my emails problem, and Grizzly was right – my inbox was full. I spent several hours attempting to find a Human Being to speak to, but the Ntl site just kept taking me round and round in circles. Then, miraculously and I don’t know how it happened, up popped an email site which showed me how many emails I had received/sent/saved etc. going back for around two decades. Some half a million in total (incredible isn’t it?). It took me another three hours to delete them all and no doubt I will have got rid of some I might have wanted to keep, but I would have needed about a century to sift through all of them, and I don’t think I have enough time. So I am back to NoTTLing much sooner than I thought. The Master (Mr LIme) on the other hand has found the experience totally exhausting and has retreated to the sewers of Vienna for a lengthy lie-down. See you all tomorrow.

    1. Holy Smoke, Elsie. I delete all adverts as they arrive and have a delete session – filing if needing to be kept, zapping if not – approximately every fortnight.

      2. Annie I am a life-long hoarder, currently working my way through 25 years of “stuff”. Most of it is paper, and I am amazed every time I come across a shopping list dated 1995 – which is often. However, progress is being made every day and my house is slowly changing into a home.

    2. So pleased to hear this! I have some 16,500+ in my inbox, oh how the family laugh at me, but you never know when you are going to need one of them….

    3. Glad to see you back up and running.

      I just dumped windows for Linux and lost my Email address book. !

      I’m not sure if that is good or good.

      1. Just remember what you told uncle Bill a few hours ago. Make sure that you set your home address in your satnav, that way you can get home even if your address book remains lost!

    4. I read emails daily. Delete the rubbish before reading (my willy is fine already), and delete those fater reading where no further action is required. Those where I need to do something then stay in the inbox until actioned, then deleted, or if important, filed in a suitable folder, as are those that hold information that will be useful in the future.
      Inbox currently at about 12 emails. Special actions to clear mails when the list is longer than one scren height.

  89. Never in all my years did I think my hands would consume more alcohol than my mouth…….

    2. We made the mistake of watching the strange Irish serial on C5. I don’t think we’ll be bothering with the rest.

    1. Pity the military can not cater for the incomers in barrack blocks and mess food. Aid to the civil power.

      1. Last week I read that an immigration detention centre ( Lincolnshire?) is to close. I assume the hotels will be fuller and there’ll now be none sent back. The replacement program is now in full flow.

        1. We did sign a treaty to enable the mass import of people. It makes no difference if they come from a zone of starvation or one of war. Or that their sexuality makes them at risk in their home country. It’s the same reasoning in allowing Shame Begum back into the U.K.

          Our culture and traditions are being erased for the new world order.

          1. WE didn’t, Treason bl**dy May did, without Parliamentary approval. I would like to hang her upside down over a WC filled with excrement…

    2. Hi T-B – Some hotels are contracted to take in the individuals who have been sleeping on the streets.

    3. 322046+ up ticks,
      Evening TB,
      It is not forever only until the johnson build,build, build,
      program goes into top gear to house them.

      Surely it must be great and that must mean there is NO MORE indigenous list awaiting accommodation.

      Maybe the lab/lib/con coalition are not the stinking , conniving treacherous, deceitful, lying political ,bastards I have thought for decades them to be, then maybe……….

  93. DT Article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/right-wing-academics-feel-forced-hide-views-universities/

    The ‘woke’ have won – it’s too late for our unis if academics need to hide their views
    ‘Problematic’ university professors are too afraid to share their views – how about we cancel overly-sensitive students instead?

    Celia Walden

    It started in the 60’s when I was a student.

    Professor Eysenck made some observations about the correlation between IQ and race.

    He was cancelled – if that is the right word – fifty years ago.

    1. Enoch Powell’s reference to ‘grinning piccaninnies’ did for his career. His remarks were perfect English. The man was a professor of Greek for godsake.

    2. It had all started by then. So many people fighting in the last war the left started to fill posts in all areas and are now controlling our lives. Education, law. Medicine,media,civil service, politics etc etc.

        1. Subway sandwiches in the USA are head and shoulders above the very poor offering produced by the UK franchises/shops.

          1. I buy “Sub-of-the-day” at the station for lunch, every day. Good bread, fresh ingredients, freshly made, tasty, and the SotD is £2 cheaper than the standard. What’s not to like?

          5. Have been known to have Subway, definitely better than McD’s, but never had one in the UK. so can’t make the comparison!

          7. I have no idea why Subway are/were so successful with their offerings. Not only was the ‘foot long’ not a foot but all of the fillings were fillings you could get in a mediochre supermarket.

            In my early years in the industry we had bread delivered fresh from the village bakery and made up rolls that had the contents of a good ploughmans lunch.

          8. Is that the UK version you’re referring to?

            My experience of “Subs” in the US was very good, the UK ones I tried were awful by comparison.

          9. It seems to be a common fault with international enterprises in the UK. For example, IKEA Sweden & Germany = excellent service, IKEA UK abysmal. Are Brits known for putting up with substandards?

          12. Our first Subway (Las Vegas) was twice as long as any of the Subs available here, and was probably close to a foot long.

          13. Our first Subway sandwich was in the U.S., which was very good.
            We’ve only bothered here once.

          5. That is why I choose fish or vegetarian in ethnic restaurants or any establishments that I’m unsure about their meat sources.

          6. I don’t think they are halal in the US. I have never seen halal advertised as being involved with any meat product here.

          8. Halal isn’t advertised here except in specialised large city butchers supplying a section of the population..
            Halal is used by many cheapo eateries and take aways because it’s cheap; wholesalers find it less hassle to push out halal rather than getting immersed in religious arguments.
            The hind quarters of animals are not used in kosher cooking so end up in ready meals.

          9. As far as I know, all meats and their products have to be labelled if they are acceptable for kosher cooking, but have not seen mention of halal. But there are very few of the ‘peaceful’ religion compared to what you have in the UK around here so I suppose there is no call for markets to provide it.

          10. In Blighty, we are not allowed to label halal etc…. It may be an EU thing, but we will see.

          11. I think perhaps the Muslim population is smaller and less influential in the States than here.

          12. I’ve been into a Subway twice (the second time just to confirm what I learnt on the first). Their bread is a lump of taste-free stodge, and ALL the fillings are flavour-free too. You get a (slightly nasty) mouth feel when you eat their shite but your taste buds remain untroubled.

            If ever there was a “why bother?” food vendor, then Subway is it.

          13. The Norwegian ones do severl kinds of bread, none of which I have eaten can be called “taste-free stodge”, and the fillings actually taste of something – and this is a man writing who is just re-discovering taste after about 6 years, thanks to a fabulously expensive nose spray. Maybe it’s just the Swedish versions that sell shite?

          14. I’ve only once eaten a subway meal – that was in Pembrokeshire in 2009 – the only place that was open. Not an experience I’d willingly do again. But as they are a Franchise, perhaps they are variable from place to place. Oberst seems to think they are good.

        3. A year ago I was walking in Market Square in Sudbury Suffolk. A car pulled up and a child wound down the window and asked for directions to Subry? I replied that this was Sudbury. After further conversation I realised the illiterate chimp was asking for directions to the nearest Subway.

          That says all you need to know about their clientele.

    5. Takeaways not included. Would you want to sit down with people who buy McDonalds?

      1. About twenty years ago I was sauntering down Leather Lane Market in Clerkenwell on route to the office in Warner Street and approached by three strapping lads who asked for directions to the nearest McDonalds.

        I replied that there was one on Holborn but they would obtain better food and value in an adjacent greasy spoon on Leather Lane. They ignored my advice and set off for the McDonalds.

        I reckon McDonalds put some addictive compound in their burgers. I can think of no other reason why anyone would eat their stuff. The comparison with Coca Cola is obvious.

        1. I was born and brought up in Clerkenwell. Mum & dad, eldest brother and eldest sister married in St. James’s church Clekenwell Green. Avery scales on the west side, Zetter’s Pool just around the corner in Ckerkenwell Road and Booth’s Gin in Turnmill Street.

          Used to clean cars on Saturday mornings in the Leather Lane area, Saffron Hill etc. the smell of Old Holborn tobacco from the Richard Lloyd factory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Holborn That area also known as Little Italy. Brings back happy childhood memories of Gamage’s at the end of Leather Lane facing on to High Holborn and close to the red brick Prudential building.

          1. The Prudential Assurance offices was designed by Alfred Waterhouse. His major buildings included Manchester Town Hall and the Geographical Museum in South Kensington.

            When I worked in Warner Street I generally went to a Greek run greasy spoon on Leather Lane or queued for a roll with a filling of my choice from one of two Italian delicatessens. The best one featured in Jamie Oliver’s early programme scooter trips where he buys his pasta and other ingredients and prepares meals for his supposed friends.

            I forget the names.

            The manager of the Greek run greasy spoon cherished the Coutts Bank cheques by which my boss, the late Sir William Whitfield, a regular, paid for his meals. I doubt any of them were actually cashed.

          2. The Prudential Assurance offices was designed by Alfred Waterhouse. His major buildings included Manchester Town Hall and the Geological Museum in South Kensington.

            When I worked in Warner Street I generally went to a Greek run greasy spoon on Leather Lane or queued for a roll with a filling of my choice from one of two Italian delicatessens. The best one featured in Jamie Oliver’s early programme scooter trips where he buys his pasta and other ingredients and prepares meals for his supposed friends.

            I forget the names.

            The manager of the Greek run greasy spoon cherished the Coutts Bank cheques by which my boss, the late Sir William Whitfield, a regular, paid for his meals. I doubt any of them were actually cashed.

            Edited: Geological Museum.

        2. The best hamburger I ever ate was in a small café at the Greyhound ‘bus station in Los Angeles. It was small and was made by a Japanese woman. It was so tasty and I was very hungry so I asked for another one, much to the lady’s delight.

          These days I make my own.

        3. Burger King has a better quality offering, but dearer. If you are travelling with young children, an out of town maccy dee generally has the following:
          i) a reasonably secure car park,
          ii) lavatories in working order
          iii) stuff that children will eat, plus free toys,
          iv) often a play area within the compound
          iv) wifi
          v) no maitre d’
          vi) they will (or used to) heat up the baby food without grumbling
          vii) touch screen menus in choice of several languages, at least on the continent, prices visible and no service charge.
          viii) often a few newspapers floating around.
          ix) teaches youngsters both a work ethic and also to study more at school, or they could end up shaking fries for ever
          x) ignoring the small detail of the franchise system, McD is supposed to be the largest private sector employer in France.
          xi) open early, open late, open 7 days a week.
          xii) same food everywhere, like branded cola.
          xiii) generally not packed with vegetarians
          xiv) affordable

          1. Agree, last time I ate at a McD or Burger King was probably when my two were still children. On holidays these places were very consistent in all your points.

          2. Additional marginal points: McD and BK (etc, you have more choice in the USA) are alcohol free.
            Also, relatively uncrowded with ethnic minorities because Hindus avoid beef and Mossies are too wealthy or too poor or too worried about haram/halal.
            The Rory Sutherland factor (a Spectator contributor) is that these establishments do not simply depend on food for their success.
            Finally, many children perceive the outing as a special treat.

          3. Additional marginal points: McD and BK (etc, you have more choice in the USA) are alcohol free.
            Also, relatively uncrowded with ethnic minorities because Hindus avoid beef and Mossies are too wealthy or too poor or too worried about haram/halal.
            The Rory Sutherland factor (a Spectator contributor) is that these establishments do not simply depend on food for their success.
            Finally, many children perceive the outing as a special treat.

      2. In Chile my favourite lunch was the seafood platter in the indoor market in Santiago washed down with local SB.

        My 2nd favourite was a “Big Mac”-type hamburger with chips on the sea terrace of an exclusive hotel (can’t remember the name) in Valparaiso after a pisco sour, with the waves crashing on the rocks below.

        1. Yes there are beef burgers and the McDonald’s. Our local pub does a great beef burger and if you don’t want the bun they’ll replace it with a couple of Portabello mushrooms.

    6. None of the above, sweetie !

      I’m having home-cooked lemon sole with broccoli cheese (washed down with a bottle of Lindeman’s vintage shiraz cabernet sauvignon 2019) … x

    7. On the 18.00 BBC News a few customers shown taking advantage of the subsidy. All stuffing themselves with Bigmacs* & chips.

      If the intention is to get the hospitality industry back on its feet on the one hand, & to fight obesity on the other, surely a better plan would be for the customer to pay full whack, & for the restaurant (or whatever) apply for a subsidy per meal.

      * A description of the burger choice, not a sleight on McDonalds.

    1. His name is in the public domain. Not that the Media wish to say it. It can’t be that diff for people to work out who she is.

  97. Do you remember when you were little and you were forced to let your
    sister join in your games because she would not stop whining and
    throwing tantrums until she got her way and ruined your fun?

    Well that’s now called society

  99. At a wedding in Glasgow I whispered to a guy next to me,
    “Isn’t the bride a right ugly dog”
    “Do you mind. That’s my daughter you’re talking about”
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were her father”…
    “I’m not . . . I’m her mother.

    🙁

  100. A free and independent Brexit Britain could do without rule by unelected judges

    Judicial reviews have become a tool for reversing decisions some judges dislike

    NORMAN TEBBIT

    For many years until quite recently, the requirement for achieving a judicial review was clear enough. The application would be granted on only one of three alternative grounds.

    The first was that the action by an official or a public authority was in fact contrary to law.

    Second that the person or authority purporting to take the decision did not in fact have the authority to do so.

    Thirdly that although it was correct in law, it was a decision so extraordinary that it could not have been taken by a rational person.

    Of late, however, judicial reviews have begun to be granted by judges who, having concluded that a different decision would have been better, overrule that and substitute what they consider to be the better decision.

    As we approach the moment that the United Kingdom finally frees itself from the jurisdiction of the European Union, it would seem right to undertake a review of the law of judicial review to ensure that it is appropriate for a free and independent nation.

    *********************************************

    Meanwhile in Scotland, the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is calling ever more loudly for Scotland to leave the United Kingdom, but seems unclear whether she envisages that Scotland would be an independent state or a member of the European Union.

    I find it hard to believe that any rational and informed person would propose that, following separation from the United Kingdom, of which Scotland forms a substantial and influential part, it should subject itself to the laws and policies of the European Union over which it would have far less influence.

    Indeed, no one could predict the conditions on which Scotland might be granted admission. Who could say whether it would be allowed its own currency and allowed to follow a divergent economic policy, or for that matter if it would have its own armed forces?

    What would be the nature of the boundary between Scotland and England ? Would Scots of an independent Scotland be subject to immigration rules should they wish to live or work in the United Kingdom? And what would happen to those who currently have jobs based in Scotland but within the British public sector? What about our UK public debt? How much would an independent Scotland take with her?

    Then if Scotland were to be part of the European Union, would those Scots presently resident in England, Wales or Northern Ireland be required to depart either to Scotland or another EU member state?

    Many of these questions could not be answered until it had been decided whether Scotland, having left the United Kingdom, remained independent or joined the European Union, on terms which no one could know in advance.

    Would that we could raise from the dead those two great 20th century statesmen, Harold Macmillan, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Iain MacLeod, who but for his premature death would have probably also done so, to ask them what advice they would give to Scotland today.

    *********************************************

    Far away from such conjecture, my mind turned last week to the death of Ian Gow, MP, on 30 July, 1990. Ian was a delightful companion, a shrewd politician and a Thatcher loyalist.

    For those very things he was murdered (as was Airey Neave a decade earlier) by a bomb planted under his car by terrorists of IRA/Sinn Fein.

    I did not share Ian’s fondness for “White Lady” cocktails (which I am surprised one can still order) but last Thursday I drank a glass of good English wine to his memory. What he, or Thatcher, would have said about the Honours Lists announced last week I cannot say.

    Personally, I agree with The Lord Speaker, Norman Fowler: despite a minority of good people, it is an absolute mess.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/03/free-independent-brexit-britain-could-do-without-rule-unelected/

  101. A free and independent Brexit Britain could do without rule by unelected judges

    Judicial reviews have become a tool for reversing decisions some judges dislike

    NORMAN TEBBIT

    For many years until quite recently, the requirement for achieving a judicial review was clear enough. The application would be granted on only one of three alternative grounds.

    The first was that the action by an official or a public authority was in fact contrary to law.

    Second that the person or authority purporting to take the decision did not in fact have the authority to do so.

    Thirdly that although it was correct in law, it was a decision so extraordinary that it could not have been taken by a rational person.

    Of late, however, judicial reviews have begun to be granted by judges who, having concluded that a different decision would have been better, overrule that and substitute what they consider to be the better decision.

    As we approach the moment that the United Kingdom finally frees itself from the jurisdiction of the European Union, it would seem right to undertake a review of the law of judicial review to ensure that it is appropriate for a free and independent nation.

    *********************************************

    Meanwhile in Scotland, the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is calling ever more loudly for Scotland to leave the United Kingdom, but seems unclear whether she envisages that Scotland would be an independent state or a member of the European Union.

    I find it hard to believe that any rational and informed person would propose that, following separation from the United Kingdom, of which Scotland forms a substantial and influential part, it should subject itself to the laws and policies of the European Union over which it would have far less influence.

    Indeed, no one could predict the conditions on which Scotland might be granted admission. Who could say whether it would be allowed its own currency and allowed to follow a divergent economic policy, or for that matter if it would have its own armed forces?

    What would be the nature of the boundary between Scotland and England ? Would Scots of an independent Scotland be subject to immigration rules should they wish to live or work in the United Kingdom? And what would happen to those who currently have jobs based in Scotland but within the British public sector? What about our UK public debt? How much would an independent Scotland take with her?

    Then if Scotland were to be part of the European Union, would those Scots presently resident in England, Wales or Northern Ireland be required to depart either to Scotland or another EU member state?

    Many of these questions could not be answered until it had been decided whether Scotland, having left the United Kingdom, remained independent or joined the European Union, on terms which no one could know in advance.

    Would that we could raise from the dead those two great 20th century statesmen, Harold Macmillan, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Iain MacLeod, who but for his premature death would have probably also done so, to ask them what advice they would give to Scotland today.

    *********************************************

    Far away from such conjecture, my mind turned last week to the death of Ian Gow, MP, on 30 July, 1990. Ian was a delightful companion, a shrewd politician and a Thatcher loyalist.

    For those very things he was murdered (as was Airey Neave a decade earlier) by a bomb planted under his car by terrorists of IRA/Sinn Fein.

    I did not share Ian’s fondness for “White Lady” cocktails (which I am surprised one can still order) but last Thursday I drank a glass of good English wine to his memory. What he, or Thatcher, would have said about the Honours Lists announced last week I cannot say.

    Personally, I agree with The Lord Speaker, Norman Fowler: despite a minority of good people, it is an absolute mess.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/03/free-independent-brexit-britain-could-do-without-rule-unelected/

  103. Back to the future; today I had a trip down memory lane.
    Our local builders’ merchant has resumed its slow, grudging ‘service’ that I remember so well.
    In the interests of being Covid secure, of course.
    I found the past decade or so of efficient service rather discombobulating.

    2. K&B? I use them for small items because they’re only a couple of hundred yards from my home but their service has been terrible for decades. I’ve found Silverton’s to be streets ahead of K&B on service, advice and price. If not K&B…

        1. Yes. Not the most attentive staff around, I’ve found. The Colchester branch of Silverton’s impressed me greatly when I used that firm last year and this.

      2. Yup. For years I used to deliberately turn up at 12.45 or 4.45 to make sure that a mere female customer got attention. It’s amazing how visible I became a quarter of an hour before lunch or closing time.
        For a few years, it did improve, but it has now gone back to its old ways.
        I only went there because I needed back ‘creosote’ for the garden fence. Everywhere else only sells degrees of brown and fancy shades.

    1. Opera house, Oslo.
      I like the design. “Cold” and white and angular on the outside (I guess like an iceberg), soft, warm, rounded and wooden on the inside. Quite neat, really, but you have to go in to appreciate it fully.
      Have you seen it (or pictures), @Corimmobile?

        1. It’s actually pretty hideous. They should demolish it or turn it into a Mosque!

      2. I enjoyed a production of La Bohème at the opera house that was designed by a Dane [Jørn Utzon] in Sydney Harbour. Wonderful building, inside and out.

        1. Indeed, that set the gold standard.
          The Oslo version is really good, but is an introverted way. It lacks the arm-waving exuberance of Sydney – so the two of them blend well into their national characteristics!

        2. Utzon was sacked and the engineers Ove Arup put the building together. Utzon expected his ‘sails’ to be engineered to match his drawings.

          Unfortunately the surfaces of the sails could only be calculated and clad with geometric tiles if those sail surfaces were segments of the surface of a globe. Utzon would not compromise, genius that he was.

          There may have been other issues but I am reporting advice given to me by the late Peter Rice, the engineer partner in charge.

        3. Indeed, that set the gold standard.
          The Oslo version is really good, but is an introverted way. It lacks the arm-waving exuberance of Sydney – so the two of them blend well into their national characteristics!

        4. I saw “Bliss” there. Not too far in time from the premiere.

          If ever there was an antonym of a title and the show, that was it.

          Dreadful.

        5. Utzon was sacked and the engineers Ove Arup put the building together. Utzon expected his ‘sails’ to be engineered to match his drawings.

          Unfortunately the surfaces of the sails could only be calculated and clad with geometric tiles if those sail surfaces were segments of the surface of a globe. Utzon would not compromise, genius that he was.

          There may have been other issues but I am reporting advice given to me by the late Peter Rice, the engineer partner in charge.

          1. Yes, Corim. It is indeed an interesting story that I have read up on. Coming up with the idea of using sections of a globe to make the “sails” was certainly an act of genius.

            Apparently Utzon’s sacking put the project back the good part of a decade.

  105. I am no fan of multi-occupancy buildings. I despise tower blocks, reliant as they are on lifts and lift maintenance, and most low rise balcony access examples of British architecture.

    Over many years I have worked on and promoted the development of homes where the residents have access from a front door at ground level and a front garden and lawn.

    I just wish that the idiots driving housing policy would take advice from the actual experts.

    2. That’s to do with the immigration policy (i.e. pack ’em in). If high-rises and balcony access hadn’t already been erected, the PTB would be introducing them. What if the alternative is to lose even more green belt? We are shafted, between a rock and a hard place….

    1. Everyone should take note. We need a proper tory government with a leader not a follower.

  107. Russia claims to be ahead of rivals in race to produce Covid vaccine. Mon 3 Aug 2020 .

    The Russian government claims to have stolen a march on dozens of global rivals – including the US and UK – in the race to produce a viable coronavirus vaccine, saying it would start production of a vaccine next month and begin mass immunisation by October.

    The announcement came amid controversy over how Russia has rushed its two vaccine candidates through safety testing, in which researchers dosed themselves as part of truncated human trials.

    Well I haven’t heard that Bill Gates has offered himself up as a guinea pig whereas this has been widely tested among the Russian medical profession and the political Elite. Such is my distrust that if I were forced to choose I would probably take Vlad’s shots!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/03/russia-claims-to-be-ahead-of-rivals-in-race-to-produce-covid-vaccine

    1. Vlad’s any day if given a choice, and out of necessity (life or death sort of choice).

  110. Somebody remind us what the booby-traps are that lurk in the Withdrawal Treaty. Longworth only hints at them.

    Once people realise what Boris’ Brexit deal means, they’ll want a cleaner break

    After swallowing the bitter pill of the Withdrawal Treaty to taste freedom, the country will want even more independence

    JOHN LONGWORTH

    We are now entering a fascinating period in the Brexit saga and there are many competing interests and factors that will determine the measurement of the outcome.

    The ultra-Leavers’ measure would be that of exiting the transition at the end of this year with no relations with EU whatsoever, other than those that an arm’s length country such as the USA might have. But this black and white measure might not be in our best interests. This ultra-position is driven not least by the bitter experience of the continued attempts by Remain ultras to undermine the outcome of three elections and a referendum.

    The true measure of sovereignty, of liberty and free choice for the UK must surely be our ability to choose what relationships we have with any other party, including the EU and not to be constrained in changing these should we wish to do so, except in so far as we have set up “contractual” arrangements as a consequence.

    The difficulty that the government currently faces is that the “contractual” arrangement of the Withdrawal Treaty was freely signed up to by the UK, unfortunately a legacy of an administration determined to stay as close to being in the EU as possible.

    There are still Remain ultras, not least a range of “has-been” senior politicians who are determined to keep us as close to the EU as possible, and apparently don’t mind if that results in the economic prospects of the UK being damaged. Perhaps they consider such an outcome will result in a desire to rejoin.

    Rejoining is highly unlikely, as it would require the agony of a reversal of leaving, membership of the Eurozone and the considerable costs of membership, not to mention being part of an increasingly federalised crypto-superstate. I would posit all this never to ever be appealing to the British people. I know many former Remainers who, having seen the behaviour of the EU, would now not countenance anything other than leaving.

    In between the ultra-positions; Remain and Leave, there are those who would like a comprehensive deal, even if that means enabling the EU to continue to interfere and control aspects of our nation and our lives, to usurp aspects of our sovereignty.

    It appears some politicians and advisors, generally those who voted for Mrs May’s deal in order to get Brexit done, maintain the view that once out of transition the overweening control of Brussels and the ECJ can be shaken off like a wet dog drying itself. That we can find “workarounds” and through the UK domestic law, which does and will declare our liberty, will win out. This may prove to be correct, but it is certainly a recipe for interesting times ahead.

    Parliament can certainly get its way with a good majority and four more years in office. But how this would play out in respect of international law and the withdrawal treaty we have signed up to, would make for increased sales of popcorn. On top of this is the effect of a hostile and politically active UK Supreme Court, acting in cahoots with the equally political ECJ and with Brussels.

    Perhaps it will lead to Parliament delimiting the powers of the Supreme Court and its obligation to have regard to the ECJ under the Withdrawal Treaty. Certainly, Parliament is once again sovereign on behalf of a sovereign people, notwithstanding that the British people are subjects of the crown rather than citizens. Throw into this mix the devolved nations and we have a heady cocktail, this toxic recipe largely created by the constitutional meddling of Tony Blair. It will certainly produce a political discourse stirred, if not shaken.

    Fortunately, the Withdrawal Treaty itself and international law present get out clauses, given the behaviour and disposition of the EU, provided this is pursued by the UK government before the end of the year.

    All of this defines the backcloth to the current negotiations. Despite concerns to the contrary, there is no doubt we have left the EU. If this were not the case we would be paying at least £55 billion into the EU Covid bailout fund. The UK would also have to pay around €170 billion gross and € 124 billion net over the next five years into the EU budget, money we can now deploy in our country instead.

    We can also vary our tariffs on imports at the end of the year, unilaterally or as a part of trade arrangements, not least because PM Johnson wrenched us out of the Customs a union trap, which was written into the May/Hammond Treaty. These are all a practical litmus test of our having left.

    There is also no doubt that through the bitter pill of the Withdrawal Treaty, that the government signed up to, the EU can attempt to control our economic policy; support for industry and regions, tax policy, public procurement and credit, via a circuitous route of Northern Ireland (NI) and State Aid rules. Citizens rights are distorted. NI is semi-detached and the ECJ continues to have its fingers in our judicial pie. To what extent this can be side-stepped, mitigated and resisted is a matter that it is crucial to understand. Will NI choose to remain a part if the UK in the long run? Will the Republic of Ireland, now reportedly paying €15 billion to the EU bailout fund and separated from its greatest trading partner in the UK, stay in the EU?

    In between all of these WA issues lies the Political Declaration (PD), with respect to which our negotiators have thus far been resisting the unreasonable demands of Michel Barnier; the level playing field, capitulating on fishing and giving up command and control of our armed forces to name but a few of its honeyed traps. Long may it continue to be so.

    But there also seems to be an underlying desire to have a deal rather than a determination to go it alone. It would be perverse if we were to agree to a deal in respect of German manufactures and French agriculture but not British services, after all, this is a new trade arrangement and not a continuation of the asymmetric relationship characterised by our membership of the EU.

    Whatever the outcome of this saga over the next few months, as with so many events in our history, those with vested interests will no doubt secure a slice of the new cake. But I am equally sure the consequences of the eventual deal will reveal themselves and this will drive a desire for ever more independence, come what may. Once a free people get a taste of deciding things for themselves, they tend to like it and want more.

    John Longworth is Chairman if the Foundation for Independence and of the Independent Business Network and a former Conservative MEP.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/03/people-realise-boris-brexit-deal-means-want-even-cleaner-break/

    1. I have said from the beginning we aren’t leaving. Even when the deadline falls there won’t be much difference. Boris said we had 60% of what we wanted.. sounds like shit to me.

  111. Universities are failing to protect academic freedom from the anti-free speech radicals

    Government legislation, while welcome, won’t be enough

    VERNON BOGDANOR

    Universities, Saul Bellow, the US novelist and Nobel prize-winner, once declared, were “anti-free-speech centres”. An absurd caricature surely. Yet in 2018, Christine Lagarde, former head of the IMF, and Condoleezza Rice, former secretary of state, were forced to withdraw from US university commencement addresses for being too “controversial”.

    Still, you might think, this could not happen in tolerant Britain. Sadly, a report published today by Policy Exchange, based on the largest poll of UK-based academics in recent years, warns that we are not exempt. It shows little support for dismissal campaigns against academics holding unpopular views, but “widespread support for discrimination on political grounds in publication, hiring and promotion”. The report finds no evidence that the “Left discriminates more than Right”. But there are many more academics on the Left in the social sciences and the humanities than on the Right, and around half of the Right-leaning minority have self-censored, reporting a “hostile climate” for their beliefs.

    There is, then, a “chilling effect” whereby minority views are kept under wraps. At Oxford, my old university, Nigel Biggar, regius professor of theology, leads an inquiry on the ethics of Empire. He has been excoriated by colleagues, entirely without justification, as “racist” and “imperialist”. A younger untenured colleague would have to be brave to take part in such an inquiry, yet its intellectual value could prove great.

    Among students, the “chilling effect” occurs through no platforming, whereby organisers of meetings are pressured to “disinvite” speakers with unpopular views. At Oxford, Amber Rudd was “disinvited” by the UN Women’s Society at 30 minutes’ notice; Prof Selina Todd was “disinvited” by an academic conference because of her views on transgender rights.

    The effects of the “heckler’s veto” can be devastating. Instead of being able to sharpen their wits through a robust exchange of views with those with whom they disagree, students find themselves cocooned at university, in a hermetically sealed intellectual environment which traffics only in pre-approved ideas, where they must think twice before speaking out.

    Biggar has rightly pointed to the discrepancy between what counts as common sense in a university and among the public; and indeed, one could get a more vigorous debate on Empire, or on Brexit for that matter, in a pub in Hartlepool, than in the average senior common room or student union.

    In his defence of free speech, John Stuart Mill pointed out that the greatest threat to it in a democracy came not from government but from “prevailing opinion and feeling”, which could give rise to “a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression”. It was, Mill suggested, legitimate to avoid contact with someone whose views one finds offensive. What was not legitimate was to use social pressure or boycott to deter the expression of unpopular views.

    When the 1988 Education Reform bill was debated in the House of Lords, liberals, led by Roy Jenkins, insisted on statutory protection of academic freedom. They feared that Margaret Thatcher would use the abolition of tenure to discriminate against radicals in the universities. Today, by contrast, we need government to prevent discrimination by radicals in the universities. The Conservatives, in their 2019 manifesto, promised legislation to strengthen it. But legislation is not enough.

    For the universities have been the great exception to that central trend of postwar politics, the decline of the state. They are almost as much of a public monopoly today as they were in the days of the Attlee government. Indeed, when, in the late Eighties, Thatcher’s education secretary, Kenneth Baker, visited the Soviet Union, he was congratulated on the degree of central control that he had achieved. A public monopoly is always in danger of encouraging conformity. Freedom is best defended not by the state, but by a healthy diversity of institutions. We have, at present, just two private universities – Buckingham and the New College of the Humanities. We need many more.

    Vernon Bogdanor is professor of government at King’s College, London. His book ‘Britain and Europe in a Troubled World’ is out in September

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/03/universities-failing-protect-academic-freedom-anti-free-speech/

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