Monday 3 February: Economic growth needs an environment where businesses can thrive

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

598 thoughts on “Monday 3 February: Economic growth needs an environment where businesses can thrive”

  1. Good morning Geoff and NoTTLer chums, it's Monday again and time for some Chuckles. Several 'shorts' this morning:

    Two friends, an Englishman and a Chinese man, were walking together through London.
    "Look at all these flags! They fill my heart with patriotic pride!"
    "But, Chan, you're Chinese, and those are British flags!"
    "Really? Look at the labels…"

    Question on the Radio:
    "Is it bad to be the second husband of a widow?"
    "No, it's bad to be the first."

    A renowned boxer needs to undergo an appendectomy.
    The anaesthetist walks out of the operating room looking upset:
    "I can't go on like this. I try to anaesthetize him, I count to 9, and he gets up on his feet every time."

  3. Clever Rats
    Good morning Geoff and NoTTL chums. I spotted the name of Alan Barstow, a well-known Sweden-based member of our esteemed association, among this morning’s DT Letters. He was commenting on the difference between Rattus norvegicus, the Brown Rat, and Arvicola amphibius, the Water Rat (or Water Vole, as it isn’t a rat at all).

    By an odd coincidence, while I was in the garden yesterday, enjoying the bright sunshine, a sudden movement caught my eye. It was a large rat running along the top of my fence. My trail camera captures many of them, in transit between the gardens, but usually only at night and accompanied by hedgehogs, cats and mice.

    Having worked for 12 years as an Experimental Pathologist in the Safety-in-Use of food additives and colourings, I have a lot of respect for the pure white albino laboratory rat.

    On a rota basis, we senior staff would take it in turns to come in at weekends to top up the food hoppers on the few rat ‘batteries’ that we had taken out of the large Animal House. These held 8-12 cages of about six rats each, suspended in 4 layers in a large mobile metal frame.

    One Saturday morning we discovered that there was no food at all in the top three layers of cages. We topped up those  food hoppers but then discovered that one of the cages at the bottom of the battery had a loose lid. Its occupants had escaped at night and raided all the other battery cages, carrying the food down to their own cage and lying on top of a large pile of cubed rat food.

    They are smart and resourceful animals, which is why they are so abundant in the wild.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c81a2b6586b4877a2aa38bd86c79f11223d7e6ab6200f8679b120b1575f92f4.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c925264389755cbe8f8703a57f7a6d8b008b7402439fad32cdf9f30c7ed34ed6.png

  4. Clever Rats
    Good morning Geoff and NoTTL chums. I spotted the name of Alan Barstow, a well-known Sweden-based member of our esteemed association, among this morning’s DT Letters. He was commenting on the difference between Rattus norvegicus, the Brown Rat, and Arvicola amphibius, the Water Rat (or Water Vole, as it isn’t a rat at all).

    By an odd coincidence, while I was in the garden yesterday, enjoying the bright sunshine, a sudden movement caught my eye. It was a large rat running along the top of my fence. My trail camera captures many of them, in transit between the gardens, but usually only at night and accompanied by hedgehogs, cats and mice.

    Having worked for 12 years as an Experimental Pathologist in the Safety-in-Use of food additives and colourings, I have a lot of respect for the pure white albino laboratory rat.

    On a rota basis, we senior staff would take it in turns to come in at weekends to top up the food hoppers on the few rat ‘batteries’ that we had taken out of the large Animal House. These held 8-12 cages of about six rats each, suspended in 4 layers in a large mobile metal frame.

    One Saturday morning we discovered that there was no food at all in the top three layers of cages. We topped up those  food hoppers but then discovered that one of the cages at the bottom of the battery had a loose lid. Its occupants had escaped at night and raided all the other battery cages, carrying the food down to their own cage and lying on top of a large pile of cubed rat food.

    They are smart and resourceful animals, which is why they are so abundant in the wild.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c81a2b6586b4877a2aa38bd86c79f11223d7e6ab6200f8679b120b1575f92f4.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c925264389755cbe8f8703a57f7a6d8b008b7402439fad32cdf9f30c7ed34ed6.png

  5. Clever Rats
    Good morning Geoff and NoTTL chums. I spotted the name of Alan Barstow, a well-known Sweden-based member of our esteemed association, among this morning’s DT Letters. He was commenting on the difference between Rattus norvegicus, the Brown Rat, and Arvicola amphibius, the Water Rat (or Water Vole, as it isn’t a rat at all).

    By an odd coincidence, while I was in the garden yesterday, enjoying the bright sunshine, a sudden movement caught my eye. It was a large rat running along the top of my fence. My trail camera captures many of them, in transit between the gardens, but usually only at night and accompanied by hedgehogs, cats and mice.

    Having worked for 12 years as an Experimental Pathologist in the Safety-in-Use of food additives and colourings, I have a lot of respect for the pure white albino laboratory rat.

    On a rota basis, we senior staff would take it in turns to come in at weekends to top up the food hoppers on the few rat ‘batteries’ that we had taken out of the large Animal House. These held 8-12 cages of about six rats each, suspended in 4 layers in a large mobile metal frame.

    One Saturday morning we discovered that there was no food at all in the top three layers of cages. We topped up those  food hoppers but then discovered that one of the cages at the bottom of the battery had a loose lid. Its occupants had escaped at night and raided all the other battery cages, carrying the food down to their own cage and lying on top of a large pile of cubed rat food.

    They are smart and resourceful animals, which is why they are so abundant in the wild.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c81a2b6586b4877a2aa38bd86c79f11223d7e6ab6200f8679b120b1575f92f4.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c925264389755cbe8f8703a57f7a6d8b008b7402439fad32cdf9f30c7ed34ed6.png

  8. I can already envision what Starmer will bring when conducting trade negotiations with the EU and America on behalf of the UK:

    From the EU, he will achieve:
    – All fish in British waters will be made available for unlimited exploitation by EU fishing fleets on condition that "difficult decisions" are made for UK's competing domestic fishing fleets, which must be scrapped.
    – Under the free movement of people policy, a quota will be set for all young migrants to be sent from the prisons and internment camps for offshore processing in Britain, and that their human rights must be upheld to standards demanded by their lawyers. The quote will be unlimited, and set by the EU Commission without any say from the UK.

    From America, he will achieve:
    – Relaxation of all food standard, including the unregulated use of chlorine washing of chicken products and American agricultural standards employed, such as the deregulated use of hormones in beef and the enlargement of zero-graze systems to comply with American practice.
    – Control over information by large American corporations from a list provided by Donald J Trump, and the sale of UK domestic IT and AI infrastructure to these corporations.
    – All trade disputes over standards and tariffs to be settled by American courts on the presumption of "America First".

    Starmer will crow about growth and that there is no alternative at least until 2029, so the British public can be safely ignored as the suckers they are. If there is any threat to this version of growth, then elections will be cancelled, because there is important legislations that must not be delayed by democratic process.

    What can we do about this?

    1. Good moaning all. The answer is …. Sod all! We need young people to rebel against all that’s going on, Nottlers are not young enough.

      1. Under their "always keep away from children" Safeguarding policy, as administered by Jess Phillips, we are not allowed anywhere near our young.

      1. A bit lame? They would add protected status, whereby they are above the law and must not be prosecuted or even dissed in any way that they take offence to. Now that is a policy!

  9. Europe is feeling the strain of mass immigration. 3 February 2025.

    Another building occupied in Paris is the Gaîté Lyrique, a theatre in the third arrondissement, which was taken over by 200 young migrants on December 10. Their numbers have now doubled and they are refusing to move until they are promised suitable accommodation.

    One of the minors, a 16-year-old from Guinea, expressed his anger this week that since arriving in France last year he has had to sleep rough. ‘The country of human rights has not kept its promises,’ he complained. Another youngster, from Senegal, demanded they be given ‘a right to health, to school and a need to be integrated.’

    It’s a mistake to assume that these people are all arriving half-starved, hopeless and naïve. Most of them know what to expect in the way of benefits and assistance. They have simply come to improve their prospects. The system at the moment is not much different to that of the au pairs of thirty years ago. If it doesn’t suit for some reason they can always go home.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/europe-is-feeling-the-strain-of-mass-immigration/

  10. Good morning, all, if it is a good morning, which it isn't here. Grey and heavy frost. Ugh.

  11. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for this morning's new NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,325 3/6

    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟨🟨⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Good morning Elsie. That was quick with Wordle! I'm still puzzling over it.
      edit: just got it!
      Wordle 1,325 4/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
      ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩
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  14. What are the odds on Starmer slivering back from Brussels brandishing a piece of paper, with a great deal saying,
    No Sovereignty In Our Time!
    But the jobs of all our establishment self entitled Liberal Lefties will be secure and safe in perpetuity, cheers all round at the BBC.
    The Remainers will be cheering, knowing that there will be no chance of ever getting our freedom of self determination like Trump has in the USA, back.
    Of course there will be no benefit to the economy because net zero and high taxation will be taking care of all that nonsense.
    So they can all get back to the 2030 agenda project safe in the knowledge that populism, also known as freedom is dead and so will be Western civilisation. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/98d516169f92b13e40cbf9570235db7bc71c3d231ac644424ea810135c5e0279.png

      1. No, he truly believed he was doing what was best both for Britain (which was unprepared to engage in war with a major force) and for Europe (which would face major destruction and upheaval) by containing Hitler's aspirations.

        His mistake was to presume that all world leaders were as decent and honourable as he was.

        The same scenario played out in 1980, when public information films were warning us to prepare for a nuclear engagement, wear identity tags and hide under the kitchen table when the four minute alarm sounded.

        The USA at the time had one of the most decent and honourable presidents it has ever had (and who lived to 100 continuing on with his good work long after he left the White House). Leonid Brezhnev sadly was not quite such a nice man.

        Fortunately for the world, America voted in a disreputable old rogue, who made his fortune playing cowboy in the Wild West and well used to dealing with Hollywood tycoon shysters, and Brezhnev met his match.

        1. 400956+ up ticks,

          Morning JM,
          No argument from me,
          Mr Chamberlin certainly also brought us time when it was most needed.

        2. "1980, when public information films were warning us to prepare for a nuclear engagement"
          Here, the Civil Defence folk are sweeping out the bomb shelters and reminding people what to take into the shelter – pack a small bag, keep it by the door, pack food, warm clothing phone charger, medications. Buy iodine tablets from the pharmacy. Articles in the newspapers.
          That kind of thing.

          1. In the 1980s I took a minibus-load of Sixth Formers to see George Melly perform at the Strode Theatre in Street, a small town in Somerset.

  15. 40098 up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Seemingly President Trump ( long may he reign) is doing us no favours

    Trump says EU tariffs coming ‘soon’ but ‘out of line’ UK might be spared
    The US President says tariffs ‘could happen’ but a deal with Keir Starmer’s government could be ‘worked out’

    Listen up pressy, spare the rod totally ruin the nation as in England , lessons will NOT be learnt, "lest we forget" is quickly forgotten as is a proven fact when the polling stations are active.

    Greatly endangered daily are the future assets of the country, our children, also our proven assets, the elderly.

    Having now suffered for forty years owing to a very
    macabre sense of loyalty to a nation via the ballot box
    and giving succour to these governing EVIL entities
    continuously surely the 52 state MUST be considered.

    True political evilness can only exist through aiding & abetting,consenting ,via the indigenous peoples.

    1. 400956+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      And we're off, the BEST of British is behind you i'm sure Trumpy.

      Live, Stocks fall as Trump launches trade war

  16. 40098 up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Seemingly President Trump ( long may he reign) is doing us no favours

    Trump says EU tariffs coming ‘soon’ but ‘out of line’ UK might be spared
    The US President says tariffs ‘could happen’ but a deal with Keir Starmer’s government could be ‘worked out’

    Listen up pressy, spare the rod totally ruin the nation as in England , lessons will NOT be learnt, "lest we forget" is quickly forgotten as is a proven fact when the polling stations are active.

    Greatly endangered daily are the future assets of the country, our children, also our proven assets, the elderly.

    Having now suffered for forty years owing to a very
    macabre sense of loyalty to a nation via the ballot box
    and giving succour to these governing EVIL entities
    continuously surely the 52 state MUST be considered.

    True political evilness can only exist through aiding & abetting,consenting ,via the indigenous peoples.

  20. He should be advised that Ratty was not a brown rat – Rattus norvegicus – but an altogether nicer (and protected) rodent, a water vole – Arvicola amphibius – that does none of the things listed above.

    Mr Barstow, you should know by now that the the DT does not allow little matters , like 'The Truth", get in the way of the content of it's articles and reportage.

    Yo Mr Grizz!

      1. He always was a rabble rouser.

        Poor Mr Sitwell.

        How anyone could expect the over privileged knob to know anything about anything.

        1. Mr Sitwell was encouraging people to attack and kill a protected species. Isn't that prison time these days?

  21. With the death of Tony Martin, I decided to publish one of Mark Steyn's Telegraph articles from 2004 which covers the same area after a man was stabbed in his own home in Chelsea by burglars. He discusses Britain's Keystone Kops- now a further 21 years on down the toilet.

    An Englishman's home is his dungeon
    By Mark Steyn
    07 December 2004
    One of the key measures of a society's health is how easily you can insulate yourself from its underclass. In America, unless one resides in a very small number of problematic inner-city quarters or wishes to make a career in the drug trade, one will live a life blessedly untouched by crime. In Britain, alas, it's the peculiar genius of Home Office policy to have turned the entire country into one big, rundown, inner-city, no-go slum estate, extending from prosperous suburbs to leafy villages, even unto Upper Cheyne Row.

    The murderers of John Monckton understood the logic of this policy better than the lethargic overpaid British constabulary. An Englishman's home is not his castle, but his dungeon and ever more so – window bars, window locks, dead bolts, laser security, and no doubt biometricrecognition garage doors, once the Blunkett national ID card goes into circulation.

    All this high-tech protection, urged on the householder by Pc Plod, may make your home more secure, but it makes you less so. From the burglar's point of view, the more advanced and impregnable the alarm systems become, the more it makes sense just to knock on the door and stab whoever answers.

    Mr Monckton's killers thus made an entirely rational choice. He was a wealthy man, living in a prestigious neighbourhood of £3 million homes, and he presumably had the best security system to go with it. But time it right, get him to the front door, and the state-enforced impotence of the homeowner makes him as vulnerable as any old loser in a decrepit urine-sodden block on Broadwater Farm.

    Various reassuring types, from police spokesmen to the Economist, described the stabbing of the Moncktons as a "burglary gone wrong". If only more burglaries could go right, they imply, this sort of thing wouldn't happen.

    But the trouble is that this kind of burglary – the kind most likely to go "wrong" – is now the norm in Britain. In America, it's called a "hot" burglary – a burglary that takes place when the homeowners are present – or a "home invasion", which is a much more accurate term. Just over 10 per cent of US burglaries are "hot" burglaries, and in my part of the world it's statistically insignificant: there is virtually zero chance of a New Hampshire home being broken into while the family are present. But in England and Wales it's more than 50 per cent and climbing. Which is hardly surprising given the police's petty, well-publicised pursuit of those citizens who have the impertinence to resist criminals.

    These days, even as he or she is being clobbered, the more thoughtful British subject is usually keeping an eye (the one that hasn't been poked out) on potential liability. Four years ago, Shirley Best, proprietor of the Rolander Fashion emporium, whose clients include Zara Phillips, was ironing some clothes when the proverbial two youths showed up. They pressed the hot iron into her flesh, burning her badly, and then stole her watch. "I was frightened to defend myself," said Miss Best. "I thought if I did anything I would be arrested." There speaks the modern British crime victim.

    Her Majesty's Constabulary has metaphorically put a huge neon sign on every suburban cul-de-sac advertising open season on property owners. If you have a crime policy that makes "hot" burglaries routine, it's a reasonable bet that more and more citizens will wind up beaten, stabbed or dead.

    I've been writing on this subject in The Telegraph for the best part of a decade now and, to be honest, I might as well recycle the 1996 or 1997 column and spend the week in the Virgin Islands.

    My argument never changes. All that changes is the increasing familiarity of Britons with violent crime. Mr Monckton was a cousin by marriage of The Sunday Telegraph's Dominic Lawson, who is leading a campaign to allow citizens to defend themselves in their own homes.

    That this most basic right should be something for which he has to organise a campaign is disgraceful. In New Hampshire, there are few burglaries because there's a high rate of gun ownership. Getting your head blown off for a $70 TV set isn't worth it. Conversely, thanks to the British police, burning the flesh of a London dressmaker to get her watch is definitely worth it. In Chelsea the morning after Mr Monckton's murder, Her Majesty's Keystone Konstabulary with all their state-of-the-art toys had sealed off the street in an almost comical illustration of their lavishly funded uselessness.

    But let's look at it from their point of view. Suppose, instead of more of these robberies going wrong, they went right. The homeowner cowered in the bathroom, while the lads helped themselves to the DVD player and the wife's jewellery, and then the coppers came round and took a statement and advised you to get another half-dozen door chains and keep the jewellery in a vault at the bank.

    Is it reasonable to live like that? After some crime column or other last year, I had a flurry of letters from American readers who'd been working in Britain and had been astonished at the rate of "garden theft" – that's to say, stuff the average American would never dream of lugging indoors back home, but which, during his sojourn across the pond, had been half-inched from the patio in the course of the night.

    The British establishment's current complacent approach accepts that ever greater and ever more violent crime is a fact of life, rather than a historical aberration encouraged by the unprecedented constraints placed on the law-abiding and the boundless licence extended to the criminal class. That policy leads remorselessly to more deaths, and to lives lived under small but ever more insidious and corrupting restrictions.

    The Tories' big mistake was their failure to understand that "freedom" isn't just about consumer choices or buying your council flat. It's also about being free to defend your home – after all, you're there on the scene and the West Midlands Police 24-Hour Crime Hotline answering machine isn't.

    And an assertive citizenry, confident in its freedoms and its responsibilities, is a better bet for long-term survival than the passive charges of the nanny state. If the Government declines to pay any heed to The Sunday Telegraph campaign, and if the police persist in victimising the victims of crime, then I hope we'll see widespread jury rebellion and a refusal to convict.

    The right to protect your family does not derive from any home secretary or chief constable.

    1. Way to go, Dean. You now know the true reason, Dude, why I quit the heat to become a railroad bum. No wan-faced college geeks were going to tell this hombre which collars I could feel … and when. I'd rather live in Desolation City, Bro, than suck up to the New World Order.

      1. Hey Beatnik, you joined the Big Sur Congregation and became a Desolation Angel. Far Out, Dude! Good news that you hit those rails and left those Keystone Kollidge Kop Kiddies way behind you, Hombre. You told that City Slicker countryside wannabe about rats and water voles over there at the Typograph, Hoss. That man don't know sh!t from Shinola, Pal.

      2. Goodness me , Morning Grizzly , er Bro?

        I liked your DT Ratty letter . Poor things are becoming scarcer.. wild mink food source I expect.

        Now your comment above sounds like the start of a song , have you some rapper instincts for a finger waving rapper beat?

        Call it Desolation city, eh?

  22. With the death of Tony Martin, I decided to publish one of Mark Steyn's Telegraph articles from 2004 which covers the same area after a man was stabbed in his own home in Chelsea by burglars. He discusses Britain's Keystone Kops- now a further 21 years on down the toilet.

    An Englishman's home is his dungeon
    By Mark Steyn
    07 December 2004
    One of the key measures of a society's health is how easily you can insulate yourself from its underclass. In America, unless one resides in a very small number of problematic inner-city quarters or wishes to make a career in the drug trade, one will live a life blessedly untouched by crime. In Britain, alas, it's the peculiar genius of Home Office policy to have turned the entire country into one big, rundown, inner-city, no-go slum estate, extending from prosperous suburbs to leafy villages, even unto Upper Cheyne Row.

    The murderers of John Monckton understood the logic of this policy better than the lethargic overpaid British constabulary. An Englishman's home is not his castle, but his dungeon and ever more so – window bars, window locks, dead bolts, laser security, and no doubt biometricrecognition garage doors, once the Blunkett national ID card goes into circulation.

    All this high-tech protection, urged on the householder by Pc Plod, may make your home more secure, but it makes you less so. From the burglar's point of view, the more advanced and impregnable the alarm systems become, the more it makes sense just to knock on the door and stab whoever answers.

    Mr Monckton's killers thus made an entirely rational choice. He was a wealthy man, living in a prestigious neighbourhood of £3 million homes, and he presumably had the best security system to go with it. But time it right, get him to the front door, and the state-enforced impotence of the homeowner makes him as vulnerable as any old loser in a decrepit urine-sodden block on Broadwater Farm.

    Various reassuring types, from police spokesmen to the Economist, described the stabbing of the Moncktons as a "burglary gone wrong". If only more burglaries could go right, they imply, this sort of thing wouldn't happen.

    But the trouble is that this kind of burglary – the kind most likely to go "wrong" – is now the norm in Britain. In America, it's called a "hot" burglary – a burglary that takes place when the homeowners are present – or a "home invasion", which is a much more accurate term. Just over 10 per cent of US burglaries are "hot" burglaries, and in my part of the world it's statistically insignificant: there is virtually zero chance of a New Hampshire home being broken into while the family are present. But in England and Wales it's more than 50 per cent and climbing. Which is hardly surprising given the police's petty, well-publicised pursuit of those citizens who have the impertinence to resist criminals.

    These days, even as he or she is being clobbered, the more thoughtful British subject is usually keeping an eye (the one that hasn't been poked out) on potential liability. Four years ago, Shirley Best, proprietor of the Rolander Fashion emporium, whose clients include Zara Phillips, was ironing some clothes when the proverbial two youths showed up. They pressed the hot iron into her flesh, burning her badly, and then stole her watch. "I was frightened to defend myself," said Miss Best. "I thought if I did anything I would be arrested." There speaks the modern British crime victim.

    Her Majesty's Constabulary has metaphorically put a huge neon sign on every suburban cul-de-sac advertising open season on property owners. If you have a crime policy that makes "hot" burglaries routine, it's a reasonable bet that more and more citizens will wind up beaten, stabbed or dead.

    I've been writing on this subject in The Telegraph for the best part of a decade now and, to be honest, I might as well recycle the 1996 or 1997 column and spend the week in the Virgin Islands.

    My argument never changes. All that changes is the increasing familiarity of Britons with violent crime. Mr Monckton was a cousin by marriage of The Sunday Telegraph's Dominic Lawson, who is leading a campaign to allow citizens to defend themselves in their own homes.

    That this most basic right should be something for which he has to organise a campaign is disgraceful. In New Hampshire, there are few burglaries because there's a high rate of gun ownership. Getting your head blown off for a $70 TV set isn't worth it. Conversely, thanks to the British police, burning the flesh of a London dressmaker to get her watch is definitely worth it. In Chelsea the morning after Mr Monckton's murder, Her Majesty's Keystone Konstabulary with all their state-of-the-art toys had sealed off the street in an almost comical illustration of their lavishly funded uselessness.

    But let's look at it from their point of view. Suppose, instead of more of these robberies going wrong, they went right. The homeowner cowered in the bathroom, while the lads helped themselves to the DVD player and the wife's jewellery, and then the coppers came round and took a statement and advised you to get another half-dozen door chains and keep the jewellery in a vault at the bank.

    Is it reasonable to live like that? After some crime column or other last year, I had a flurry of letters from American readers who'd been working in Britain and had been astonished at the rate of "garden theft" – that's to say, stuff the average American would never dream of lugging indoors back home, but which, during his sojourn across the pond, had been half-inched from the patio in the course of the night.

    The British establishment's current complacent approach accepts that ever greater and ever more violent crime is a fact of life, rather than a historical aberration encouraged by the unprecedented constraints placed on the law-abiding and the boundless licence extended to the criminal class. That policy leads remorselessly to more deaths, and to lives lived under small but ever more insidious and corrupting restrictions.

    The Tories' big mistake was their failure to understand that "freedom" isn't just about consumer choices or buying your council flat. It's also about being free to defend your home – after all, you're there on the scene and the West Midlands Police 24-Hour Crime Hotline answering machine isn't.

    And an assertive citizenry, confident in its freedoms and its responsibilities, is a better bet for long-term survival than the passive charges of the nanny state. If the Government declines to pay any heed to The Sunday Telegraph campaign, and if the police persist in victimising the victims of crime, then I hope we'll see widespread jury rebellion and a refusal to convict.

    The right to protect your family does not derive from any home secretary or chief constable.

  23. 400956+ up ticks,

    EU warns Trump it will retaliate over tariffs
    Threat comes as Sir Keir Starmer urged not to get too close to Europe as he prepares to head to Brussels

    The eu are taking President Trumps going forward agenda as a serious threat to their proven ongoing bullying title, we are currently suffering from a multitude of good news issues LONG MAY IT LAST.

  24. Good morning all.
    I'm afraid a rather disturbed night with a lot of lying awake. I feel as tired as I was when I went to bed!

    However, it's a much less cold start to the day with 7°C outside after a maximum yesterday of 7.7°C and minimum of 2.9°C.
    Still dry, the overnight rain does not appear to have materialised, but currently overcast and calm air.
    I wonder if the sun will get out as it did yesterday?

    1. Sympathies, Bob.
      I woke at 01:30 approx, and lay awake and worrying until about 04:30. Consequently, I'm well knackered.

      1. Strangely, I did too. It may have been the effect of yesterday's sunshine. I frequently have disturbed nights. It's back to porridgey skies today though, the sky trailers were working in closely laid parallel lines yesterday afternoon – the sunset does mask them to some extent though you can just make out the horizontal lines fading across the sky in the blue as well. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/41166114345086a72b3dc67789a17f34b0bac275d01a594f291197aa33d3e8af.jpg

  25. Strange how the Left are so against Canada becoming the 51st state of the USA, after all, the USA has a thriving democracy.
    They say that Canada would be much better off as a free independent country.
    Yet the Left want us back in the EU, for some reason, the EU doesn't have a thriving democracy, nothing like they have in the USA.
    Our freedom and independence doesn't count, for some reason.

  26. Stupid boy! I forget two letters in fourth attempt:
    Wordle 1,325 5/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
    ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
    🟨🟩🟨⬜🟩
    ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Telegraph View
      Net zero is a cost, not an opportunity

      The major conclusion from the last two days is that talk is cheap

      Telegraph View 30 January 2025 9:00pm GMT

      On Wednesday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered a major speech on the economy, vowing to get Britain growing again, and claiming that there “is no trade-off between economic growth and net zero”. A judge blocked production of oil and gas from the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields in the North Sea. Together, the two projects had seen £2.8 billion in investment.

      The economic case for developing these fields is almost unanswerable. Quite apart from the risk of frightening off future investment by demonstrating the arbitrary and unreliable nature of British governance in these matters, the Jackdaw gas field would have provided for 6-7 per cent of the UK’s gas demand, and Rosebank was expected to produce valuable exports alongside up to £30 billion in taxes for the Treasury over its lifetime.

      Yet these outcomes were ruled by a judge in Scotland to be insufficient to justify the exploitation of the field, with Lord Ericht stating that “the private interest of members of the public in climate change outweigh the private interest of the developers”.

      It is hard to think of a better illustration of the costs imposed on this country by the rigid ideological approach to net zero. Drilling at the Jackdaw gas field has advanced to a point where ending the project would involve huge costs to make the field safe.

      Moreover, the idea that global emissions will be reduced if these resources are not exploited seems flawed. It is widely understood and agreed that the UK will still use gas and oil to meet its energy needs after reaching net zero in 2050; the question is not whether the gas and oil is produced, but where it is produced, and who collects the profits.

      In similar vein, when Ms Reeves insists that “Net zero is the industrial opportunity of the 21st century”, it is fair to question whether it is an opportunity for Britain or Beijing. The supply chains for wind and solar power, and indeed battery components, run in large part through China, and it is at least debatable whether increasing our reliance on that country is wise, or indeed good for growth in the long run.

      The major conclusion from the last two days, however, is that talk is cheap. There are trade-offs in every field, and net zero is no different, with many measures that reduce emissions imposing real economic costs. Denying the existence of these trade-offs simply undermines the credibility of the Government and its commitment to growth.

      2. Is the judge, Scottish I presume, ruling to cut off Scotland's nose to spite England's face?

  29. Morning all 🙂😊
    Not quite as cold as yesterday but very chilly and of course grey. Nothing for the glow ball warmist band wagon nutters to boast about.
    And as far as I could make out the msm didn't let on about the mass march and peaceful demo in London at the weekend.
    I'm just passing time drinking the horrible liquid before my hospital visit this afternoon..

  30. Russia ‘hacked Starmer’s dangerously obvious email account’. 3 February 2025.

    Russia has been accused of hacking Sir Keir Starmer’s “dangerously obvious” personal email account.

    The Prime Minister was forced to abandon the account in 2022, after being advised by the security services that it might have been compromised.

    They were Billets-doux from Lord Waheed Ali?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/02/03/russia-hacked-starmers-dangerously-obvious-email-account/

    2. "Russia ‘hacked Starmer’s email account" I am looking forward to reading "Russia hacked Starmer’s face and bank account", and the video too.

  31. CORRUPTION? Ed Miliband Caught in Scandal Over Labour Donor’s Mega Solar Farm! 🚨
    Ed Miliband bypassed planning objections to rubber-stamp a 524-hectare solar farm linked to Dale Vince, a £5.4M Labour donor—and now he's facing calls for an ethics investigation!
    🤯 Did Miliband break the Ministerial Code? Tory MP Nick Timothy is demanding an inquiry, warning of a massive conflict of interest as Miliband personally approved a project benefiting one of Labour’s biggest financial backers!
    💰 Millions in Labour donations ➡️ Green light for a major energy project ➡️ Public trust shattered!
    Local officials are furious, accusing Miliband of "trashing the countryside" and questioning whether Labour’s green agenda is really just a pay-to-play racket for their wealthy donors.
    Labour claims Miliband "recused himself," but the damage is done. Who does he really serve—the British public or the donors pulling Labour’s strings?
    ⚠️ The people deserve answers. Is this the first scandal of many under Starmer’s Labour?

    (Grabbed from F/B)

    1. He certainly doesn't serve us, the public.
      Of course it's a huge scam, like everything else connected with Dale Vince and Ecotrickery.
      Milliband is as scandalous as the rest of them.
      Public trust shattered? Who in their right minds would trust any of these scoundrels?

      1. Who voted for Labour GE, Ndovu – no-one admits it, no-one can guess….the plot, like my gravy, thickens…….

        1. After having been robbed of my vote by Tony Blair in 2004 – because I do not live in the UK – I was given my vote back again last year.

          However I did not use my vote as I wanted neither the Cons or the Labs to win and I certainly did not want to support the Greens, Lib Dumbs or any others who were standing in the constituency in which I lived in 1989..

          If I am still alive at the time of the next election and if Starmer has not taken my vote away again I shall probably vote for Reform even if Farage is still the leader and I shall definitely vote for Reform if Rupert Lowe is the leader.

          1. My in-laws emigrated to Australia, they had similar experience – no vote, no pension update. I used to vote for the old Liberal party (I still consider myself an old-fashioned Liberal). Then I voted for Mrs T….now without a political home for a while, but agree if Lowe is Leader it will be Reform for me.

        2. Just think of the most popular boys Christian , oooops forename now in use in UK.

          There you have family of voters, well Im am anyway

  32. Morning Eddy,

    As I commented the other day .. to repeat

    This government are a rogue cruel brainless set of individuals ..

    The Hippocratic Oath (for doctors but should apply to everyone ) contains these principles and many others, such as gratitude, compassion, justice, honesty, humbleness, sanctity, integrity, confidentiality, fidelity to the bond, and respect for human life and dignity.

    “First, do no harm”

    This government is harming us all .

  33. Remainers & protectionist EU in meltdown over Trump reciprocating tariffs, however, applaud Starmer finding comfort within the Tariff walls of the moribund declining stagnating Franco-German racket aka Single Market.

    1. What was especially shacking was there was no mention of it on GB News.
      There was actually.. they proudly mentioned the seven arrests.
      (failing to mention the arrests were the Antifa lot letting off flares and attacking police people observers & safe space providers for the PLA).

    2. What was especially shacking was there was no mention of it on GB News.
      There was actually.. they proudly mentioned the seven arrests.
      (failing to mention the arrests were the Antifa lot letting off flares and attacking police people observers & safe space providers for the PLA).

      1. The counter-protest (against the pro-Robinson demonstration) has been backed by several trade unions, including Unison, the Public and Commercial Services Union, the RMT and the Fire Brigades Union. Torygaff

        The Trade Unions are a vipers nest of anti-British commie activists. They do not represent the average British worker.

    1. Maybe, Belle. As top of the food chain they do accumulate toxins that might have literally been first taken up by algae or plankton and never leaves the 'chain'.

      1. Yes, no longer the huge drifts of algae/plankton there were a while ago. Climate change dontchaknow.

        1. That’s good. Our charter boats who fish for sharks recreationally also do a good job. People pay to go out for catch and release shark fishing. The skippers are very good and all fish handled very gently, often not even coming aboard if too large. They are all tagged with NOAA shark tags for future identification in a worldwide scheme.
          This is in contrast to the illegal killing of some commercial ‘fishermen’ who catch, by longlining mainly, thousands of sharks, cut their fins off and allow the still living shark to sink to a slow death. That doesn’t happen here but I’ve seen it off West Africa and Brazil. The fins are shipped off to SE Asia mainly.

          1. So glad your charter boat bods tag them .

            Yep , the Africans do appalling things to everything .. and have been a real misery guts re everyone’s desire to travel to the Far East .. I cannot see the point , it was bad enough living in Africa, and you know what, my sister took me on a tour of one of the townships in SA .. we cruised through a market , it was worse than Nigeria , I am certain they were marketing meat that looked human .

  39. A wind turbine has burst into flames in Cambridgeshire.

    Emergency services were called to Coldham Windfarm in the Fens at around 10am on Sunday as black smoke was seen billowing from one of the eight turbines.

    A spokesman for Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service said: “At around 10am on Sunday crews from March and Stanground were called to a fire on March Road in Coldham.

    “Firefighters arrived to find a well-developed fire involving a wind turbine. Working with staff on site they made the area safe and allowed the fire to burn out safely.

    “The crews left the scene by around 1pm and made regular inspections throughout the day to make sure the area remained safe.

    “They will make further inspections this evening and will fully establish the cause of the fire.”

    Spate of recent turbine fires
    Wind turbine fires are believed to be rare, although accurate statistics are not widely available and there have been several incidents recorded in the UK over the past few years.

    The turbines contain some highly flammable materials – such as oil and plastics – that are close to electrical wires. If the machinery is faulty and a spark is ignited, flames can quickly take hold.

    A turbine in Chulmleigh, Devon, had its engine destroyed by flames in September 2024, while a turbine at Scroby Sands off the coast of Norfolk burnt until the fire self-extinguished in August 2023.

    In Hull, a fire scattered charred debris on the ground near a chemical plant with residents worried that the turbine might have collapsed.

    The turbines, which are designed to catch the wind, are exposed to the same flow of oxygen that fuels fire and there are more than 11,000 of them in the UK.

    A study by Imperial College London from 2014 described wind turbine fires as a “big problem” that was not being “fully reported”.

    Researchers estimated there to be a global average of 11.7 fires each year among the 200,000 wind turbines in existence at the time. That figure has now risen to 341,000, according to the Global Wind Energy Council.

    Coldham Windfarm was built in 2005 as a joint project between ScottishPower Renewables and the Co-Operative Group.

    According to energy analysts Ember, electricity from wind made up 29 per cent of the UK’s supply in 2024, overtaking gas at 30 per cent.

    However, near-zero wind at the end of January has caused a collapse in electricity production from turbines, forcing the UK to rely on neighbours France, Norway, Belgium and Denmark for some of its supply.

    Wind electricity production is thought to be at its lowest level since 2015, when there were significantly less turbines.

    Labour removed the de facto onshore wind farm ban after taking power last July in a bid to speed up their construction.

    Comments
    Owen Morgan
    1 min ago
    Any carbon in that smoke? This is going to happen more and more frequently, not only because they will be even more of these monstrosities to catch fire, but because they are made in China and Chinese design and manufacturing are rubbish (one reason why I am sceptical about Chinese claims of technological breakthroughs).

    Comment by Jill Davidson.

    JD

    Jill Davidson
    5 min ago
    "The turbines, which are designed to catch the wind, are exposed to the same flow of oxygen that fuels fire and there are more than 11,000 of them in the UK".

    Another school kid doing a bit of work experience at the DT?

    Comment by HECTOR MACPHAIL.

    HM

    HECTOR MACPHAIL
    10 min ago
    Well! that’s done a lot for the environment!

    Comment by charles crosland.

    cc

    charles crosland
    10 min ago
    A metaphor for the whole wretched policy

    Comment by Tyler Durden.

    TD

    Tyler Durden
    10 min ago
    Miliband buying all this carp from China while they use the profits to accelerate their nuclear fusion ambitions on steroids.

      1. Hoping next Storm breaks out in one of the forest of wind turbines and destroys each turbine.

        How else will the government learn that it is never going to be practical to rely on wind generated electrickery,

    2. There used to be five on the horizon, as viewed from one of our windows. Then three. Then one. Now none. Good, hope damaged beyond repair/cost – witness killing of birds, bats, insects.

  40. Good morning, all. Sunny.

    Early start on making marmalade with 5 jars of various sizes bottled. Tomorrow's Sevilles are cooking nicely and so another early start on the cards.

    Is Canada's threat to oil supplies in retaliation for Trump's tariffs a shot in the foot moment for Trudeau etc.? A quick search shows that the map below is accurate. Eastern Canada relies on a major pipeline that runs through the USA. Whoops?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a229fde0de4d18abb584bb90dcf0a12a7eb369435f10623e6845623c4012ddae.png

    1. He's none too chuffed about the supplies of Fentanyl crossing both north and south borders of the US.

  41. O.K. All male NOTTLERs. I know you are brave, noble men who soldier on despite suffering man flu or similar dire afflictions. Nary a moan, a groan or even a barely smothered sniffle can be heard. No feeble requests for honey and lemon or a hefty shot of whisky ever pass through your cracked lips. (Put down that Vick and box of tissues, Thomas). But, I could not resist a girlie snigger when I saw this quote:
    " …… if a man is ill, you don't know whether to call a doctor or a theatre critic."

    4. I have been wandering about for two or three years with a broken bone in my shoulder – a cold is a different matter though!

    1. BTL Comment:-

      Yes, the Teddy Bears, Flowers, Tea Lights and holding hands in a circle singing Kumbaya will making it alright.
      I'm afraid it is time for the Dutch People to get angry,

    1. "Paul Mason, the former BBC journalist, had been to Ukraine days before the invasion and had sent briefings to Mr Healey and to Sir Keir, via intermediaries"

      Look no further for the security breach..

    1. 400965+ up ticks,

      On second thoughts, Britain MUST abandon reeves and co, Pronto, net zero will then dei of lack of treachery.

  46. Some photos from the past week:

    Thursday, a coffee at Rowheath Pavilion

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/681f94b25b951a0395907653f41cf966bc19cc43769740da388bd1fce3736bff.jpg Friday, a rare visit from Bell-Boy

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/27a6305cd22038f68c155b6542d6ab9780efb1fec18f060952b5c32c6c265804.jpg Sunday at Bournville Boating Lake

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1d1eeb1b82e21db1823921d4dc3a866f3c56eece00aee37989136fefbd6266ec.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/db4944a9518cf5d77852a8ee30c07bab082847b3d123ebff26ee68a3a87d4bf7.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e7e528056fc782c8d220285c53c18a23d011a993b3e86e8672df212a93924aec.jpg

  47. I see that Candace Owens is upsetting the French by claiming that Brigitte Macron is not a woman and was born a man! And of course there have been other rumours claiming that Michelle O'Bama is not a woman as well.

    However the rumour which would out-shock both of these would be if it got about that Peter Mandelson's marital partner, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, is not a man but is actually a woman!

    1. Does Reinaldo look like a woman? However butch they try to look, their skeleton tends to betray them?

    2. Michelle O'Bama rumours have long been canned as fake. However, the Brigitte Macron rumours have a compelling set of tell tale signs. The mysterious deaths of journos that get too close to the truth. And of course not a single family photo of the two key figures in any life events.. like ever. Donald knows.

  48. SNP to consider banning cats
    Owners could be forced to keep pets indoors or, in some cases, prohibited from owning them, to protect wild animals. Torygaff

    Thousands of baby haggis's wiped out by voracious English cats.

    Nichola Sturgeon smiling cruelly as she strangles another vicious feline.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/02/02/TELEMMGLPICT000410593546_17385153310120_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqzXKx_8XufJhsOL8CICICO8DaxaCOQ2jw_l1luZQ0Cvk.jpeg?imwidth=680

    1. Think Swinney's already announced it.Sturgeon and SPCA have similar look, are they perhaps related?

        1. It really surprised me, when in Scotland, the support the SNP had ‘English Go Home’ signs at the border line, etc. They want the English to spend, but otherwise they can ‘do one’. Might want us to spend even more now the £600k funds supposedly missing….

    2. Was mentioned BTL on the letters page so I made a comment, then had to amend it!

      R. Spowart
      4 hrs ago
      Reply to Anastasias Revenge – view message
      Message Actions
      Yes and the article was accompanied by a picture of Mrs. Murrell stroking a cat.

      I was going to write the P word, but apparently it's banned! edited

      1. When applied to the taking of 10% of prime agricultural land for solar 'farms', apparently: 'Nucking Futs' is also prohibited ……

      1. Nope, Phiz, I made a big mistake when I had a glass-to-ground Conservatory built onto the south-facing rear wall of my house in 2002. In July-August it goes up to over 55 degrees C. Thank heavens I had some edge-sealed folding doors fitted between the Conservatory and the Dining room. I even had a solid roof fitted 5 years ago to reduce the insolation (that's not a spelling mistake, look it up).

        1. I did similar. I had sliding patio doors and then built a conservatory beyond them. Glad i didn't go open plan. Besides the heat in the conservatory the rain is also really noisy.

      2. Nope, Phiz, I made a big mistake when I had a glass-to-ground Conservatory built onto the south-facing rear wall of my house in 2002. In July-August it goes up to over 55 degrees C. Thank heavens I had some edge-sealed folding doors fitted between the Conservatory and the Dining room. I even had a solid roof fitted 5 years ago to reduce the insolation (that's not a spelling mistake, look it up).

      3. Nope, Phiz, I made a big mistake when I had a glass-to-ground Conservatory built onto the south-facing rear wall of my house in 2002. In July-August it goes up to over 55 degrees C. Thank heavens I had some edge-sealed folding doors fitted between the Conservatory and the Dining room. I even had a solid roof fitted 5 years ago to reduce the insolation (that's not a spelling mistake, look it up).

    4. Just 20 minutes later the strong sunshine has gone and the Solar Panels are exporting a mere 1 kiloWatt, as expected.

    1. Someone designed a fart-pack for them which is hooked to their derriere and links to a pack on their back, for the methane to be used in an eco manner or some such. Sshh, don't tell Milimaniac. He'll be wanting us to wear them too.

    2. Cow Farts and Tomatoes
      I'm not worried about cow farts. But in my local Morrison's last Friday it was impossible to find tomatoes grown in the UK. It happens that we have the second largest Tomato-producers in Europe: Thanet Earth, only 19 miles up the road near Margate.
      Link: https://www.thanetearth.com/about-us/our-story/ .
      On their website it says: These enormous glasshouses are estimated to produce around 400 million tomatoes, 30 million cucumbers and 24 million peppers each year.

      I tried the local large Sainsbury's and was able to buy some Thanet-grown Piccolo tomatoes, but all the others came from Spain, North Africa, etc… What are we doing wrong?

      Is it because they are spending too freely on GREEN projects, and that pushes the prices up? E.g. on their website
      In May we completed the installation of 2,630 solar panels on our packhouse and office roof covering an area of 4,997m2. With an estimated reduction of 195,316kg of CO2 per annum. I don't think they're doing that in Spain.

      2. I thought tomato growers pumped additional CO2 into their poly tunnels to aid ripening especially in winter.

        1. Yes, I believe they do that at ThanetEarth. I tried to organise a Rotary visit years ago but was told you can't visit inside the greenhouses (probably not without breathing apparatus anyway).

    3. Cow Farts and Tomatoes
      I'm not worried about cow farts. But in my local Morrison's last Friday it was impossible to find tomatoes grown in the UK. It happens that we have the second largest Tomato-producers in Europe: Thanet Earth, only 19 miles up the road near Margate.
      Link: https://www.thanetearth.com/about-us/our-story/ .
      On their website it says: These enormous glasshouses are estimated to produce around 400 million tomatoes, 30 million cucumbers and 24 million peppers each year.

      I tried the local large Sainsbury's and was able to buy some Thanet-grown Piccolo tomatoes, but all the others came from Spain, North Africa, etc… What are we doing wrong?

      Is it because they are spending too freely on GREEN projects, and that pushes the prices up? E.g. on their website
      In May we completed the installation of 2,630 solar panels on our packhouse and office roof covering an area of 4,997m2. With an estimated reduction of 195,316kg of CO2 per annum. I don't think they're doing that in Spain.

  51. I've absolutely no time for the EU or the ECHR, but it would seem that our problems are closer to home.
    Sent to us by Sonny Boy Snr.

    https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/62576/denmark-unprecedented-measures-to-signal-to-migrants-they-are-not-welcome

    Denmark: Unprecedented measures to signal to migrants they are not welcome
    By Sertan Sanderson Published on : 2025/01/31

    Denmark used to have a reputation throughout the world as a liberal haven known for welcoming foreigners. However, this image has changed drastically in the past few years, as a series of new policies have made the Nordic nation rather unattractive for migrants and even for many refugees.

    Since 2019, Denmark has been under the leadership of the Social Democrats under Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who has pushed her party — and the overall political landscape of the small Scandinavian kingdom — further to the right.

    Under her leadership, successive coalition governments have issued increasingly harsh measures and laws to limit irregular migration and make the country unattractive for those seeking a better life.

    Denmark still has over a year to go until its next parliamentary elections, but Frederiksen's uncompromising remains widely popular, in particular her so-called "zero vision" stance: a goal to reduce the number of asylum applicants in the country to zero.

    At the current rate, Frederiksen and the Social Democrats might well be on their way to succeeding with that plan.

    Draconian laws to deter migrants

    The initial changes that were introduced to Denmark's immigration system under the current government since 2019 reflect policies also observed elsewhere in Europe: Family reunification rules were tightened, deportation practices were increased, and social benefit payments for asylum seekers were lowered.

    However, many other immigration laws introduced in the country in due course are regarded as rather unprecedented: For example, guards along the country's fortified borders are allowed to confiscate all personal items of value from irregular migrants crossing the border to help fund the costs associated with asylum procedures as well as housing.

    Any item valued at more than 1,300 euros — including jewelry, watches and even wedding rings — can be taken away under the law.

    Another major shift introduced by the Social Democrats is a major downgrading of failed asylum seekers: If an asylum application is rejected, there are no more monetary benefits paid. Failed asylum seekers only receive food but no money at all after this change in legislation.

    In cases where the deportation of failed asylum seekers is feasible and practicable, another new law now specifies that they are to be transferred into prison-like detention facilities; the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) said that upon examining these centers, it had encountered inhumane living conditions in at least some of those facilities.

    The government still sees room for improvement when it comes to the issue of deportations and is meanwhile working on new bills to carry out further returns: A total of 235 individuals were successfully deported from Denmark in the past three years — which is about a third of all those who were scheduled for deportation during that period.

    Incentives to leave Denmark

    Other legal changes meanwhile address residency issues: Even those who do succeed with their asylum cases in Denmark will no longer receive general protection but limited leave to remain in the country, which is subject to renewal for as long as a return to their home country is deemed to be dangerous. The prospect of eventually gaining citizenship is also increasingly becoming elusive.

    People who, however, do decide to return home are now offered an incentive of up to 5,400 euros by the Danish government to set up their new lives, with no questions asked.

    All these measures put together have made the Nordic nation quite unattractive for people hoping to settle in Europe: In 2023, there were just over 2,100 asylum applications lodged in the country with a population just shy of six million.

    Honing an unwelcoming image abroad

    Denmark furthermore made sure that people in countries of origin knew about how undesirable it had become for migrants:

    According to the German weekly magazine Handelsblatt, the Danish government heavily invested in funding campaigns across Africa as well as in Arab nations, focusing in particular on social media, to communicate the image of an unwelcoming host country.

    Compared to other Nordic nations, it has also hit the headlines far more frequently with migration-related news. For a while, Denmark also pursued the now-abandoned UK policy of outsourcing its asylum procedures to Rwanda.

    Although that plan never came to fruition, it added to the negative reputation that the government under the Social Democrats wanted to achieve among would-be asylum seekers.

    Meanwhile, another divisive immigration law also made headlines in Denmark and beyond: The introduction of the so-called "Ghetto Law" allows authorities to intervene and forcibly remove foreigners from neighborhoods if the ratio of non-Western foreigners in those areas exceeds 30 percent.

    Several foreign governments have accused Denmark of racism and xenophobia in response to the law, which likely is the reaction the country had wanted to illicit with its overall campaign focusing on keeping migrants away.

    An outlier in EU terms

    However, Denmark also benefits from a unique legal situation: Though a member of the European Union, it is not subject to European Law in many instances.

    This is because, after a failed referendum in 1992 on the EU's Maastricht Treaty, the country was granted an opt-out clause from shared EU laws so that the treaty could still come into force.

    In the case of immigration law, this meant that the EU had to assure Denmark that it would not have to participate in the bloc's common asylum policy.

    Other EU nations — such as Germany — do not have an opt-out clause and would therefore be in breach of EU law if they pursued similar laws to deter migrants and refugees from reaching their shores.

    1. I've noticed a few countries now offering to give immigrants grants to return home.

      If it costs $X to get to the country and they offer $3X to leave I suspect that will become a draw, rather than a deterrent.

    2. As we are ‘no longer in the EU’, It just proves that flooding the U.K. with immigrants is a deliberate policy. If Denmark can eject them why can’t we. Because HMG has no intention of slowing down the influx.

      Added to which, of course, TTK FG NH FH Starmer has apparently relaxed the rules in this area anyway.

    7. They missed Pratt's Bottom and Old Sodbury.

      PS I know St Edmunds was apparently buried at Bury St Edmunds. But who was the Old Sod they buried?

          1. Ah yes – it’s 52 years since i was round there – there’s a story about a ghostly old woman on a bike/tricycle which has caused a few crashes at 6M bottom, must research it. I used to pass there every weekend on my way to Royston from Watton

          2. Ah yes – it’s 52 years since i was round there – there’s a story about a ghostly old woman on a bike/tricycle which has caused a few crashes at 6M bottom, must research it. I used to pass there every weekend on my way to Royston from Watton

  55. Phew!
    2½ Hours dropping a 12" diameter dead elm and bucking it into convenient sized logs and sorting out the branches!
    Half the resultant firewood for me and t'other half for the lad that owns the bit of land.
    There is an 18" fallen ash hung up between the bank it was growing on and the saplings at the bottom of the bank I plan having a go at if not today, then certainly tomorrow.
    However, I need a mug of tea!

    1. Well deserved, Bob..just about to have mine, post stacking. Dog came to look for me, I thought 'aw he misses me my little shadow'…nope, few sharp barks 'where's my dinner'….

          2. Very sorry I mis-remembered. I have to make notes post-vacc – I hadn’t updated yours, but I have now.

    4. Cut down and then cut up. A lot of work!
      (But you can't cut it up and then cut it down …)

  56. Wonder if all those greeniacs who love their winter salads would have a fit if they knew.

  57. Oh, the funds are definitely missing…there were only 3 signatories, and one of them has already been charged. The other two are the Murrells!

    1. oooo you are a bold one, Sue…I’ve been told not to mention the names..what do you reckon the odds are of them being charged – nil to zero?- wouldn’t they have been charged if there was sufficient evidence? Maybe the one charged hasn’t dobbed them in…..

  59. Really? Scotplod have been engaged in Operation Branchform since 2001 and have announced that they are nearly about to announce their findings…the nation is holding its collective breath….

  60. Had a zoom meet with my siblings yesterday evening. After the lecture on Digoxin being useless at best and harmful at worst (an argument trotted out for one of the oldest drugs on the market but dismissed as not applicable to Covid jabs) and how aortic valve repair causes dementia ("they cut off the blood supply to your brain!"), was out of the way, we got on to the inevitable Orange Man Bad diatribe. (Eldest lives in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.)

    Youngest and eldest are convinced that immigration is vital because immigrants do all the work. I pointed out that the vast majority of incomers to the UK don't work and the welfare bill far outweighs the benefits from those who do and they demanded detailed hard evidence, with sources. I asked for reciprocal data and got anecdotal evidence. Apparently the burden of proof is one-sided.

    It seems too that self sufficiency is undesirable. Each country should produce what it's best at producing and all should share because apparently that's the most efficient system and besides, interdependency promotes harmony and prevents wars. Neat in theory but you'd think they might have noticed by now that it doesn't work in practice.

    Also high taxation works and the Laffer Curve has been proven wrong. Has it?

    4. I can see that, as the US is ejecting Colombians, there may be a shortage of (illegal) labour willing to work for $1 per hour doing menial jobs such as street sweeping. Not an excuse to keep them, but instead up the productivity by getting little powered sweepy trucks and have a cheap person drive it around, sweeping the roads. The productivity rise will more than pay for a baseline wage for a legal to do the job.
      The same may occur in other jobs – loss of cheapest possible dross prompts a rethink.

      1. Whisper it quietly there was an interesting programme yesterday Beeb 4 on the folk that live in the Amazon Basin. The presenter wasn't the best but he did explore the economics of the production of the raw ingredients for Cocaine. Needless to say the farmers who produce the raw ingredient are paid a pittance. But apparently production is on an industrial scale. Watching the programme it occurred to me that the only way to kill demand and the trade itself is to follow the example of one or two asian countries where drug smuggling carries the death penalty.

          1. Nice idea but there's a tiny flaw – In Peru alone in 2023, 95,000 hectares where under Coca cultivation.

          2. 95,000?
            A drop in the ocean.
            Agent Orange has also caused enormous environmental damage in Vietnam. Over 3,100,000 ha (7,700,000 acres) or 31,000 km2 (12,000 sq mi) of forest were defoliated.

    5. Me digging around for info.

      A multi-millionaire Labour donor's three 'massive' dogs have been ordered to be destroyed after a wild rampage in which they mauled a terrified jogger and raided a neighbour's garden, killing their hens.

      Dr Anwar Ansari, 67, – who previously donated £20,000 to support London Mayor Sadiq Khan – had his Turkish Kangals seized after they escaped an enclosure in Croydon on July 23, 2023, attacking both humans and animals in their path.

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14354407/Millionaire-Labour-donors-Turkish-Kangals-destroyed-mauling-jogger-killing-hens.html

      https://eastdevonwatch.org/2019/07/05/millionaire-slum-landlords-times-harrowing-special-investigation-disgusting-flats-as-small-as-parking-spaces-for-800-per-month/

      A third developer, Anwar Ansari, a former eye surgeon, rents small studio, one and two-bed flats to tenants, including a former office block which has been cited for fire safety breaches.

      A change in permitted development rights introduced in 2013 means that developers do not have to adhere to normal planning standards when converting offices into residential housing.”

      A further article goes on to look at how much money these “developers” are raking in:

      AA Homes and Housing is owned by a Labour donor, Anwar Ansari, 59, and has property holdings worth more than £170 million. Dr Ansari trained in London as an eye surgeon but is now a full-time developer.

      AA Homes and Housing is behind at least five big office-to-residential conversions and rents mainly to private tenants. The flats are generally larger than those created by Caridon and Mr Weider but are often still below space guidelines set out by the government.

      The company owns a five-storey former NatWest office building in Croydon. A previous owner had sought permission to convert it into 34 flats but Dr Ansari squeezed in an extra 20. In 2017, the fire service issued an enforcement notice over safety concerns including a locked fire escape, poor ventilation and defective fire doors. The company was also fined £20,000 for failing to secure a landlord licence for 36 of the building’s privately rented flats. It is contesting all of these findings.

      Dr Ansari and his wife Hina live in a sprawling estate near Caterham, Surrey. …

  61. Look forward to the findings. I have a few SNP supporting friends, all badly let down, all about the money, money, money…can’t believe taken more than two decades to investigate…might see the judgement here from your good self, or possibly on Wings. I have read an influential third party involved…..

    1. Oops! 2021!
      Can’t believe anyone with half a brain still supports the SNP, but I also have a couple of deluded friends…🙄

      1. No worries, didn't notice it myself! Was watching Ben Maton/YouTube…was it you referred me to him, Sue?

  63. I had a shock today. Our Multi cover insurance renewal quote arrived. The premium has gone down £154 this year compared to last!

      1. When MoH wrote off her car a few years back the same company were very prompt in settling the claim paying out within a week. That sort of service earns loyalty.

    1. A couple BTLs – "Has anybody told this stupid woman that people have already paid income tax and national insurance on this money." and "There should be a sign in the HoC – It's not your money – feck off!"

    1. 400965+ up ticks

      Afternoon TB,

      They really have a valid point with the word "passengers" when, quite honestly, "victims" would be far more apt.

    2. A brilliant article but a long read. Every politician should be made to read it, alas, few of them would understand one tenth of it:

      Just a couple of paragraphs:

      The war on carbon is not to save the environment. The war is against humanity, and to destroy humanity you must first destroy its sustenance. To do that you must attack the ecosystems that sustain it and embrace the risk of collapsing the biosphere itself. Your life-science and technology will enable you — you hope — to bring it all back, to your own design and specifications. So enlist your enemy in its own destruction; have it worship your Satanic inversions.

      The enemies of carbon portray planet Earth as fragile and sick, humanity as its disease. But this planet, like the carbon atom at the heart of the web of life, is a system imbued with intelligence, and we are an important part of its homeostatic tendency. The planet doesn’t need us entombing the gas of life in the ground or erecting screens of toxic particles in the sky. This is madness, or mockery — a Satanic joke. What we need to do is plant trees and protect primary forest; clean the oceans and rivers; abandon oil-based plastics and switch to hemp; use fossil fuels to unleash Third World development; end poverty and hunger and watch the population stabilise.

      1. Yes. I have forwarded it to some intelligent friends who believe the climate scare, as I think it builds its arguments carefully and thoroughly.

      1. I have been saying this for some time.

        Many of those who are beginning to think it will soon be saying it.

        But what to do with Farage? Let him remain the nominal leader and stay in charge of drumming up support but let Lowe take the tough decisions that Farage would shy away from

        1. Farage has been exceedingly quite recently as if he’s willing for Lowe to take the lead. I hope there isn’t a parting of the ways in the future because of Farage’s ego.

  74. So Trump is using Tariffs to police the world, all those countries that are being hit by them just have to behave themselves, whether it be through not policing their countries properly, allowing drugs and immigrants to flow into the USA, etc, he is even having a go at South Africa now for their poor human rights that the Lefty West ignores.
    To be fair there are plenty of reasons to impose them on the UK, we are failing to protect young girls from grooming gangs, failing to protect our borders from those that wish us harm, failing to respect the vote to leave the EU, going completely mad with net zero and wokery, the best hope for our failing civilisation and getting our political classes to start working for us again would be for Trump to impose Tariffs on us too, our politicians need their heads knocked together to get us out of this globalist malaise.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/88bab41ee8c8e251f2b4527587409d5376c65403cf1f5296d028c1e93e613ec1.png

    3. Vlad is promoting love of his own country, sound fiscal policies and a desire to keep out the muslims. He's certainly targeting Two Tier's values.

  77. A reason to be moderately cheerful on a grey Monday.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/even-the-green-party-is-now-shunning-stonewall/#comments-container

    "Even the Green party is shunning Stonewall

    3 February 2025, 11:34am

    Not one major UK government department is still signed up to Stonewall’s Diversity Champions Programme. At long last, Stonewall’s toxic influence on free speech, equality law and government policy is coming to an end.

    But the final nail in the coffin has to be the exit of the Green party – which several senior members have been pushing for some time. Without any formal announcement, and decided at its annual conference, the party has disaffiliated from the scheme.

    Shahrar Ali recently won his legal case against the Green party for dismissing him as a spokesperson following allegations of transphobia against him. He announced on X that the Greens cite ‘lack of value for money, risk of Green party policy bias and overall consideration of reputational risk’ as the reasons for leaving the Stonewall scheme.

    Bearing in mind that the Green party is already as far down the trans rabbit hole as it is possible to go, they really don’t need to pay to be indoctrinated into gender ideology – they can do it perfectly well themselves. But if the Greens are jumping ship, things are as bad as can be.

    Stonewall’s latest accounts show a significant drop in income, due at least in part to the mass exodus of almost every government department from its diversity champions programme which sells training and guidance on how to be an ‘inclusive employer’. (Stonewall claims this revenue drop is from the pandemic and the UK’s economic slump). At its height, more than 950 organisations were signed up as diversity champions, paying sizeable amounts to be trained in the correct pronoun usage for ‘demisexuals’ on Tuesdays.

    Through the scheme, Stonewall has exerted undue influence over government departments, charities and large employers. These organisations have been paying to be lobbied about all things trans, then tested and graded on their compliance with ‘Stonewall Law’. This lucrative grift appears to be coming to an end. In recent years, the BBC, Channel 4, Ofsted, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission have all parted company with the charity. The reasons cited are that it no longer offers ‘value for money’ during lean times, and has been accused of misinterpreting the Equality Act in its guidance claiming, for example, that ‘gender identity’ is a protected characteristic. The diversity champions scheme has also been used to push employers towards adopting policies like allowing trans identified men to access women-only spaces.

    Even Stonewall itself has been quietly watering down its definition of transphobia. Whereas the ‘transphobe’ label used to apply to anyone denying or refusing to accept someone’s gender identity, it is now more ambiguous, applying only to someone who has ‘prejudice or negative attitudes’ towards trans people.

    It was Ruth Hunt, the former Stonewall CEO, who was responsible for adding the T to the LGB. In 2019, she claimed that children not given access to puberty blockers were more likely to attempt suicide, and that puberty blockers could have all kinds of positive effects. In an interview last year, Hunt blamed the ‘experts’ she had listened to on the transitioning of children: ‘I trusted the experts… I think we all did. I think that is something we regret’. But Stonewall had long painted themselves as the experts on all things trans. Under Hunt’s leadership, Stonewall attempted to suppress early warnings to schools about the potential harm in giving children puberty blockers, even offering to help teachers ‘create trans inclusive schools’ (for a fee, of course).

    As if that is not bad enough, Hunt always denied the existence of any clash between transgender rights and women’s rights.

    The Green party’s departure shows how even the most extreme trans activists recognise that Stonewall has lost its power and influence. But there must also be accountability. During its dreadful reign, the damage Stonewall has done to lesbians, gay men, and children has been immeasurable."

    1. It's good they've been ousted, but a lot more bricks like Stonewall need to be knocked down to rid us of this dangerous farce.

  78. Wordle No. 1,325 3/6

    🟨🟨⬜⬜🟩
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 3 Feb 2025

    A theatrical Birdie Three!

    1. Par for me.

      Wordle 1,325 4/6

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

    2. Birdie here too – huzzah!

      Wordle 1,325 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
      ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Well done. 3 here as well.

      Wordle 1,325 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
      ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. Just to make everyone else feel good
      Wordle 1,325 5/6

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

      I was embarrassed by yesterday's effort, it should have been an eagle but I transposed two of the green letters and ended up with a sulky birdie.

      2. I'll join you in the fives – club!
        Wordle 1,325 5/6

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

  80. How to mismanage a crisis.

    According to yer Donald, he had a conversation with the Mexican president this morning, she agreed to send 10,000 troops to manage the border and as a result tariffs are off for at least a month.

    Trump also had to sit through a phone call with Trudeau this morning, wonder child has announced counter tariffs but very little on border control and drugs. The end result, Trump is now decrying the lack of opportunity for US banks in Canada. We still get a Trudeau imposed 25% tariff on lettuce starting tomorrow.

    Well done Trudeau, you have handled that well.

  81. What I simply do not understand is that when people are arrested for doing something lawful that a slammer doesn't like – where on earth are the solicitors anxious to help?

    2. Black Belt Barrister had a vid on the case yesterday. Too many laws have been sneaked in under the radar that can be used to suppress our basic freedoms. His point was that if burning a quran was inflammatory, then burning a Union Jack or defacing a memorial is also inflammatory to many. However, it seems that unless slammers are the 'victims' a load of tooled up gestapo agents are unlikely to arrive in double quick time.

  82. Good news.
    Well, back home from my investigation at the hospital at Hemel Hempstead and all okay. Arrived on time checked in at the reception desk, service excellent, lovely ladies went through the paperwork etc. Afterward ops do and don'ts, straight into the nursing station gown on blood pressure and pulse rate checks etc's, ready to dress in the patients required surgical Huge green plastic pants with legs and a hole in the rear section onto the trolly and off to the surgery. All over in 40 minutes and back out for a cuppa tea a sandwich and a couple of biscuit's. Nurse rings the wife she's back in the waiting room from the shops with in half an hour as we walk past her to the office for the discharge details. All done and home before dark.
    Results of the Colonoscopy were good and no need to return in my life time. Interesting when you can actually see on the large screen where the camera is going…….

    5. Thank you all for your support and kind comments.
      And as I mentioned all the staff were excellent and very nice people.
      Thank you l also this part of the NHS.

    1. Depends which type of "Brits" were polled. It doesn't say indigenous Brits – no doubt more British passport-holders than indigenous British think that the country is going in the right direction.

  84. That's me for this (as I just said) dreary day. Hope the Wet Office guess for tomorrow comes true (mild and sunny). Bet it won't.

    Have a jolly evening

    A demain

    2. These days the wrong type of people are getting everything for nothing.
      It all stinks now.

  86. I see I have received an uptick from Steve-the -beard who last commented on here 2 years ago…..

  88. Mauritius sets date to sign Chagos deal after Starmer phone call
    Prime Minister reportedly discusses future of Diego Garcia military base during ‘cordial’ call with Mauritian leader
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/02/03/mauritius-sets-date-chagos-deal-starmer-phone-call/

    BTL

    Let us hope that Trump will be able to stop it.

    The trouble is that he can hardly threaten Starmer with destroying the UK economy because that is exactly what Starmer and Reeves want to do.

      1. Looks like water to me. But yes…wrong glass again. I expect with an insipid PM he is drinking non-alcohol wine

      1. Lobster is one of the most expensive dishes which is why you have to be a politician or employed by the state in order to be able to afford it.

  90. From 14.30 onwards the sun came out .. amazingly so ..

    The garden lit up , sunshine , my Strelitzia (Bird of paradise plant ) looks as if another shoot is erupting , small plant probably 18 inches high that I bought from Tesco a month ago , lost amongst the other plants . so pleased with it . Cost £10. The plant is on the dining room sideboard , not directly in the sunlight , but as the light moves around it seems to be flourishing .

    My blue hyacinths are over, and the Christmas Amaryllis has finished flowering , now dead , but two buds on plant on the kitchen windowsill will soon erupt, I think they will be pale coloured flowers.

    Moh came home from golf at about 1400hrs , he ate and enjoyed a bacon and egg sarni , thick bacon .

    I had been very good and practically ruined my bad back and hip washing the kitchen floor .. large kitchen , muddy old lino .. looks nice and clean now .

    Same with upstairs bathroom .. Opened most of the windows , but not for long ..

    Then fed and walked the spaniel with Moh , after which took the car to local hand wash blokes ( Parsi/ Persia) they don't mention Iran . One of them also northern Afghanistan .. so , yes , they are decent chaps , I hope , yes and they work hard , very hard .. it is a cold day .

    1. My OH sold his car today – so now we are both going to use mine…. we can't really justify running two cars. His has been sitting on the drive unused for the last couple of months – it's a hybrid but refused to start as the battery had gone dead. Anyway the chap got it going at the weekend, and found a replacement battery. The MOT is due this month. I think he already had a buyer lined up for it. Anyway, they did the deal this afternoon.

    2. Great that he remembers, and great that he still looks in, but given some of the detritus than now resides there, I'm not sure I'm too happy.

    3. Hello all, sorry to be a stranger, but life has been rather taxing over the last few years and I haven't had much time for social media. I do still remember you all rather fondly! 😉
      I've asked Grizzo the following question; "Do you still have the postcard?" 😀

    1. That would be his answer to Blair's challenge:

      "Is there anything my successors could do that will be worse than the actions of me and my wrecking crew?"

      "Yes Tony, and if i succeed it will ensure the UK will never recover.
      Ever"

    2. Standard ploy for Lefties.
      However, things don't always pan out as they hoped.

      Gen Z teens are twice as likely to identify as more conservative than their parents than millennials were 20 years ago..

  93. VoiceGate allegations.
    Conservative MP Richard Holden has called for an independent investigation into Sir Keir Starmer's conduct during the Covid lockdown.

    Remember (in nasal whine)?
    "You can't be a law maker.. and a law breaker."

    Unfortunately, dictators don't do resign.
    They are deposed.

    2. In the novel O-Zone by Paul Theroux There were subgroups of people. Two of them were Steamers, crowds mobbing and stripping shops of their goods and Starkies where men and women walked around naked with perhaps just a gold chain around the waist.

      The book was published in 1986.

    4. Given that I enjoy naturism and have done life modeling, I have few hang-ups about the human body.
      HOWEVER, it has to be in an appropriate setting and, leaving aside the impression I got of abuse, that was NOT an appropriate setting.

    5. They are both victims/beneficiaries of the Hollywood satanic cult. He broke away a few years ago, but they seem to have got him back.

  96. Are there any German women who aren't gonna vote for AfD on 23rd Feb?
    The place aint safe anymore.
    I suppose the usual Lefties with pink hair and face shrapnel.

  98. Just wondering if most of Europe politically goes to what they now call far right parties, normal people in other words, will the remainers be so eager to rejoin?

    1. Plus the Networks are liable to be sued by their advertisers. A flurry of lawsuits in the offing.

          1. Needs repeating
            Often
            She might well bring it on herself, but what kind of animal treats their wife that way?
            Yep, you can guess…

      1. Enjoy. You can set it for you own location – it is a brilliant piece of software for amateurs….

    4. I sincerely hope that you correctly pronounce Betelgeuse as "Bet-el-gurze" and not in that childishly pathetic American way.

  101. One for Grizz.

    Yorkshire pud was invented by the Nahavjo Indians. They were forced off their land by the government of the US and marched 300 miles at gun point. They were given flour, salt eggs and lard. Guess what they made?

          2. Obscure.

            I'm so ugly that if I was lucky I would be like Phizzee and see nothing when I look in mirrors.

          3. I have green eyes, Auburn hair and a sprinkling of cute freckles. Even naked I make Bianca Censori look like a slut. But then everyone does.

          4. Don't put yourself down so, Quasi. We still love ya. We would even have a drink with ya. As long as you brought a large brown paper bag.

          6. Of course. That's why i said a large paper bag so i can still drink my cocktails and eat my food without having to look at you.

          7. You'll be OK, but what about the rest of the poor people?

            Let me guess, you'll warn them and nobody else will be there!

          8. Nottler lunches are the epitomy of etiquette. Not one of them mentioned my outrageous body odour. I hadn't showered since the October Malta holiday.

      1. That's pretty close. But it should have been Sioux pastry if the joke was going to work.

        Go to the back of the class !

    4. I could never make them like my mum..she had a small metal pudding bowl..flour/salt/whole egg/water…stirred (ne'er beaten) for a couple of mins…tin with lard, hot oven….stand back in case oven door blows off…..

        1. That’s the style, Grizz….well risen and crisp edges, flat base slightly soft n gooey, if you’re feeling generous (you are Grizzly, after all)…sausage and onion gravy.

          1. I've not had a decent Toad-in-the-Hole for donkey's yonks, Katy. I shall have to put that right soon.

            Onion gravy is simply ambrosial.

          2. Mum used to serve it all separately, Grizz. But whichever is fine….absolutely fine…..except no fancy sausages, pork ‘uns all the way….

          5. I leave the batter for at least an hour before using it, to autolyse the flour and liquid. I then whisk it again to incorporate more air before pouring it into smoking-hot beef tallow.

  102. Sad news.
    Judy, No to Nanny's / Sir Jasper's / Tom Hunn's partner just called to say that Tom passed away on Saturday in the Dumfries & Galloway Royal Infirmary, from heart failure. She asked me to let you all know.
    I'm afraid Tom's joke book is now closed for good.
    RIP, old mate.

    1. I'm sorry to read that.
      Thank you.

      I suspect he may well have been happy to go.
      May he rest in peace.

          2. We are a close knit community – in the real sense of the word, not the woke "communities" that is bandied about. Not unlike the village of my youth.

    5. I don't have the hinterland with Sir J that you long-term Nottlers do, but enjoyed interaction with him and RIP to a dear man.

    6. I think Tom lasted longer than we expected him too. No more suffering for him any more. RIP.

    7. When Tom first started commenting on the old — long defunct — DT letters' forum, well over 15 years' back, he invariably used the avatar name Lord Rayne. I wonder how many long-term NoTTLers remember that.

      After a few years he became Sir Jasper instead and then, for quite a while, commented as No To Nanny. He reverted to Sir Jasper a couple of years back and remained as such until the end.

      1. Judy is left with the tidying-up and packing away what was left of his life, since Tom's daughter is in New Zealand and not immediately available to help.

    9. So sorry to hear that, Paul. When I ‘phoned him on Saturday and there was no reply I thought the worst. I left a message. Poor old chap, but the last time I spoke to him he sounded so weary. RIP pet.

    10. It was through some of Tom’s suffering/demons in May ‘23 that I finally registered and joined nottl land. He is at peace now.

    12. Tom arrives at the pearly gates and is asked:

      "What did you do?"

      "I made people smile."

      "Enter and be happy."

    13. Oh dear. I think most of us suspected that; he seemed to have been so ill and in and out of hospital so frequently these past months.
      He certainly seemed to be losing his will to live.
      Thank you letting us know.

    16. I read his first book: 'Not a Bad Life' a couple of years ago and have started his second one. I must get on and finish it in his memory.

      1. He had a very full life in his younger days…. he thought Judy was going to look after him but that didn't work out in the end and he was very lonely.

        1. Judy is looking after him now – until his last journey. She seems like a nice person.

          1. I think he got to be more than she could cope with. She helped him move to Moffat. Far enough away. But I remember he said that she was still his executor.

          4. She was keen to dispel the impression that she was a nasty person. I didn’t see her (in Tom’s eyes) as unpleasant in any way, but to be honest, after her announcement, I wasn’t in much of a state for discussion.

          5. I would think he just became too difficult to cope with – and she wanted her life and her house back. At least she agreed to stay as his executor and first contact.

    17. Sad but probably inevitable. I read his first e-book: 'Not a Bad Life'. I must get on and read the second one in his memory.

    19. Oh dear,
      Poor dear Tom .

      I do hope he left peacefully and God was good to him.

      Bless him , he struggled so much , and all he wanted was someone to cuddle him .

      RIP Tom , you will be missed.

    24. Oh dear it's so sad when this happens. Although I've never met or even seen what he looked like I feel he was a friend.
      Rest in peace Tom.

  107. Rumour has it that Starmer had to practice saying, The Rain In Spain Falls Mainly On The Plain, during his lockdown coaching lessons, while eating a piece of cake.

  108. 400965+ up ticks,

    This is no longer startling horrific news seemingly happening on a daily basis,

    Surely time to try mandatory sentences for whoever is carrying the knife, USED OR NOT, BORSTAL for juveniles no ifs or buts, ARMY GLASSHOUSE type
    incarceration for adults , knife offenders only serving a
    once only, never return,want to return sentence.

    https://x.com/LeilaniDowding/status/1886478640059195434

  113. 400965+ up ticks,

    This is no longer startling horrific news seemingly happening on a daily basis,
    Surely time to try mandatory sentences for whoever is carrying the knife, USED OR NOT, BORSTAL for juveniles no ifs or buts, ARMY GLASSHOUSE type
    incarceration for adults , knife offenders only serving once only, never want to return

    https://x.com/UnityNewsNet/status/1886483714525536490

    1. Notable that the victim has been named but not the killer. My guess is mohammed ala binbong or afuku alafrica.

  114. If I recall, the tradition was to serve the pudding first, before the meat, so one wouldn't eat so much meat.
    Or maybe just because the pudding is better!

  116. in mum’s case, it would be to have what Peta used to call ‘a ciggie’ and a read of her mag.

  117. Children should not be taking knives into schools – they should all be confiscated. Metal detectors should be used.

  118. Exactly, Paul. Money was ever tight when I was a kid, but could always be found for beer n fags. I remember the yorkies tho x

  121. It was Ndovu who said she hadn’t seen him about, so I rang. No reply but last time he went to Dumfries he left his phone behind. Anyway I think I knew then but I left him a message.

  124. We all know who will be inconvenienced by any knife carrying laws.
    It certainly won't be little scrotes – especially those of a swarthy complexion.
    This country is now in a state of Anarchy-Tyranny; a weak state bullies the law abiding because they are unlikely to retaliate.

    2. The importance of being seen to do something rather than actually admit the problem is a habit amongst the Left.

    3. We have had to have a new bank mandate for new councillors. The hoops we have to jump through have to be seen to be believed. The general consensus was that those who need to be watched for money laundering etc will sail through untouched. They are going after the wrong people as usual.

    4. 400965+ up ticks,

      Evening Anne,

      A weak state bullies the law abiding because they are unlikely
      to retaliate……. I believe retaliation is a coming shortly feature, on a grand scale.

        1. I have just found this, posted today, on X:

          "Statement from the Bibas Family:

          "Yarden has experienced significant weight loss and muscle depletion. He's come to realize that he's no longer anonymous, which is both emotional for him and difficult to process. He expresses sincere gratitude to everyone.

          As for Shiri and the children, Yarden inquires,

          "but I have no answers." 💔

          Credit: Naama Chen"

        2. I have just found this, posted today, on X:

          "Statement from the Bibas Family:

          "Yarden has experienced significant weight loss and muscle depletion. He's come to realize that he's no longer anonymous, which is both emotional for him and difficult to process. He expresses sincere gratitude to everyone.

          As for Shiri and the children, Yarden inquires,

          "but I have no answers." 💔

          Credit: Naama Chen"

      2. Some are saying his grandchild….but then some are also saying AI. You don’t like something you see or read, screech AI 😆

  127. And even more good news, Kanye West's $20M gigs cancelled in Japan – reported population outraged at treatment of his wife.

  128. President Donald Trump said on Feb. 2 that he would suspend future U.S. funding to South Africa in response to the country’s new controversial expropriation law, which allows land seizures by the state.

    In a Truth Social post, Trump accused South Africa of seizing land and “treating certain classes of people very badly.”
    “It is a bad situation that the Radical Left Media doesn’t want to so much as mention,” the president stated. “A massive Human Rights violation, at a minimum, is happening for all to see. The United States won’t stand for it, we will act.

    South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a bill into law on Jan. 23 that allows provincial and national authorities to “expropriate land in the public interest” for various reasons, “subject to just and equitable compensation being paid.”
    The expropriation law aims to address racial disparities in land ownership. Thirty years after the apartheid system was abandoned, most farmland remains owned by white people.

    Some members of the coalition government question the constitutionality of the law and have indicated they may challenge it in court.
    The government notes that special conditions have to be met before expropriating land such as that it have longtime informal occupants, is unused and held purely for speculation, or has been abandoned.

  130. From Coffee House, the Spectator,

    England ditched its blasphemy laws back in 2008. No longer would it be an offence to engage in ‘contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous’ speech concerning God. No longer would any poor soul be hauled off to jail, far less to the stocks, for the crime of profanity. So you can imagine my surprise when a man was arrested in Manchester on Saturday after desecrating a copy of the Quran. Was blasphemy snuck back on to the statute books without anyone noticing?

    Sadly, Manchester’s cops appear to take a different view

    Reading about Saturday’s arrest, I found myself wondering what century this is. The man allegedly live-streamed himself burning a Quran ‘page by page’. He executed his supposed sacrilege next to the Glade of Light memorial, which commemorates the victims of the Islamist suicide bombing at the Manchester Arena in 2017. Call me a free-speech fanatic, but is there really anything wrong with him doing that?

    Sadly, Manchester’s cops appear to take a different view. Scores of them swarmed the man, handcuffed him, and took him to the cells. He was interrogated over his fiery impiety. Are we free to say ‘contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous and ludicrous’ things about religion, or are we not?

    The man was arrested on suspicion of a ‘racially aggravated public order offence’. That’s a lot of words to say ‘blasphemy’.

    The Manchester police gave the game away when they said the burning of the Quran might cause ‘deep concern’ within ‘some of our diverse communities’. It might even ‘cause harm or distress’, they said. In short, they took action against the alleged Quran-burner to protect the feelings of those who consider the Quran a holy, unimpeachable text. They apprehended him on suspicion of causing ‘distress’ to those who believe the Quran is a revelation directly from God.
    It is a species of tyranny to elevate religious sensitivity over individual liberty, to accord greater moral worth to the feelings of believers than to the freedom of non-believers. The arrest of a man on suspicion of desecrating a Quran should outrage the liberal sensibility every bit as much as yesteryear’s Inquisatorial assaults on the ‘unchristian’. Freedom of speech absolutely must include the freedom to doubt all religious claims, to deny all gods and prophets, and even to destroy their books. To my mind, burning a Quran is as much an act of free expression as reading the Quran is – and people should be free to do both.

    The alleged Quran destruction in Manchester came just two days after Salwan Momika was shot dead in Stockholm. He was an Iraqi-born atheist and stinging critic of Islam who also had a penchant for putting a match to the Quran in public places. It is widely suspected that his killing was an act of Islamist vengeance, a religious execution for ‘blasphemy’. Europe’s response to that outrage should have been a loud and unapologetic reassertion of the liberty to speak, of that hard-won human right to mock all gods, prophets, books and beliefs. Instead, we’re arresting people for dissing Islam. It’s such a dangerous game.

    No one benefits from this neo-inquisition against ‘Islamophobic’ speech. Islam’s sceptics, including ex-Muslims keen to rebuke the religion they once followed, are silenced. And Islam’s followers are infantilised. The erection of a moral forcefield around all things Islamic treats our Muslim citizens like overgrown children who must be protected by officialdom from ‘distressing’ ideas. It’s racial paternalism masquerading as political correctness. Yes, the sight of a Quran on fire will offend some people, but you know what? Occasionally feeling offended is an infinitesimally small price to pay for living in a free society.

    Brendan O’Neill
    Written by
    Brendan O’Neill

    1. Burning any book is a heinous crime. The worst are representatives of our society as much as the best.

      Burning a religious text is no different.

      However, we should look at why someone would want to do this. Ignoring that – dismissing the views of the individual – would be the crime.

  131. Only just caught up with this sad news… not unexpected but still very sad. I think he'd lost the will to live in the last few weeks. He hated going into hospital but didn't enjoy life any more. I hope he's at peace now.

  134. Evening, all. Just back from the parish council meeting. Lots of talk about how the increase in the cost of employing people has made life difficult for SMEs.

    2. That's true I think but there are actions deemed to cause a breach of the peace if the intention is clearly to provoke or offend. Flag burning for example has often been illegal in different countries. In Spain for example it was illegal for some time. Later the law was changed and people stopped burning flags because no one paid any attention as it was no longer illegal.
      The intelligent attitude would probably be to ignore book burners on the same way.

      1. Your last sentence. It is not ignored if it is the Muslim book – as is clear now for all to see.

    3. That's true I think but there are actions deemed to cause a breach of the peace if the intention is clearly to provoke or offend. Flag burning for example has often been illegal in different countries. In Spain for example it was illegal for some time. Later the law was changed and people stopped burning flags because no one paid any attention as it was no longer illegal.
      The intelligent attitude would probably be to ignore book burners on the same way.

  137. We've put a freeze on for 5 years. With two folk looking to retire that's a big gap in our service offerings, but I'm simply not prepared to take the risk or cost.

  140. Tomorrow's DT letters are out

    Donald Trump should reconsider his destabilising trade threats

    Plus: Labour attacks on excellence; bad new-builds; Holocaust remembrance; uncontrollable cats; and a selective reading of Lady Chatterley

    1. I think cats assume they are inherently superior to all other species. Dogs like to know where they stand, pack wise. Thus cats and dogs get on famously, because the cats believe they're in charge.

    2. I think I have permanent squatters rather than pets. I certainly don't feel I own them. The only one who does as she's told is Lucy, and only then because she's small enough to physically move. Certainly asking Mongo to get off the sofa results in a whuff, two tail thumps and being ignored. If Junior does it though he sort of slides off and rolls back on again.

      Oscar only obeys the Warqueen. She only orders me around.

    1. Well done that man. I’m with him all the way. But it’s the young people we need to join him, olduns are not a lot of good. I hope lorpts of people were willing to givd him the time of day.

  148. Oh no, not another! RIP Tom.

    I’m just home from the Wigmore. London Handel Players performing the Bach B Minor Mass. 25 mins longer than advertised so I just missed a 94 bus and they’re few and far between at this time of night so splurged on a taxi. I’m in stomach palpitation mode but my pulse is in the 70s not 170s so all good.

    1. Well done, my walk back from open mic was chilly but safe at least.. As for the taxi, better safe than sorry.

    2. Well done, my walk back from open mic was chilly but safe at least.. As for the taxi, better safe than sorry.

  150. Effing Talk talk! Not only has my internet been on the blink again today, but they've emailed me to ask for the same details as I've already sent about my "missing payment". There is only a bot on duty at this time of night, so I shall have to go through the whole same rigmarole again tomorrow. I can't wait until I'm out of contract!

  151. Effing Talk talk! Not only has my internet been on the blink again today, but they've emailed me to ask for the same details as I've already sent about my "missing payment". There is only a bot on duty at this time of night, so I shall have to go through the whole same rigmarole again tomorrow. I can't wait until I'm out of contract!

  152. Well. chums, it's almost midnight, so I'm off to bed. Good Night, sleep well, and I'll see you all (minus Sir Jasper – RIP) tomorrow.

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