Monday 3 June: Donald Trump has demonstrated that he is unfit to hold office again

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.

712 thoughts on “Monday 3 June: Donald Trump has demonstrated that he is unfit to hold office again”

  2. GOOD MORROW, GENTLEFOLK. TODAY’S (RECYCLED) STORY

    <B>CONTRACEPTION</B>

    The largest condom factory in the States burned down. President Biden was awakened at 4 am by the telephone.

    "Sorry to bother you at this hour, Sir, but there is an emergency! I've just received word that the Durex factory in Washington has burned to the ground. It is estimated that the entire USA supply of condoms will be used up by the end of the week."

    Biden,” Oh damn! The economy will never be able to cope with all those unwanted babies. We'll be ruined. We'll have to ship some in from Mexico."

    Telephone voice says, "Bad idea… The Mexicans will have a field day with this one. We'll be a laughing stock. What about the UK?"

    Biden, "Okay, I'll call Boris and tell him we need five million condoms, ten inches long and three inches thick. That way, they'll continue to respect us as Americans."

    Three days later, a delighted President Biden ran out to open the first of the 10,000 boxes that had just arrived. He found it full of condoms, 10 inches long and 3 inches thick, exactly as requested…

    … each stamped with a Union Jack and written on each:

    Made in England. SIZE: Small.

  3. GOOD MORROW, GENTLEFOLK. TODAY’S (RECYCLED) STORY

    <B>CONTRACEPTION</B>

    The largest condom factory in the States burned down. President Biden was awakened at 4 am by the telephone.

    "Sorry to bother you at this hour, Sir, but there is an emergency! I've just received word that the Durex factory in Washington has burned to the ground. It is estimated that the entire USA supply of condoms will be used up by the end of the week."

    Biden,” Oh damn! The economy will never be able to cope with all those unwanted babies. We'll be ruined. We'll have to ship some in from Mexico."

    Telephone voice says, "Bad idea… The Mexicans will have a field day with this one. We'll be a laughing stock. What about the UK?"

    Biden, "Okay, I'll call Boris and tell him we need five million condoms, ten inches long and three inches thick. That way, they'll continue to respect us as Americans."

    Three days later, a delighted President Biden ran out to open the first of the 10,000 boxes that had just arrived. He found it full of condoms, 10 inches long and 3 inches thick, exactly as requested…

    … each stamped with a Union Jack and written on each:

    Made in England. SIZE: Small.

  4. Should non-Americans be allowed to express opinions about the forthcoming presidential election, and if so, should newspapers publish those opinions?

    2. They can't really stop us but they do their best to control the narrative.

  6. 378071+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,
    With this knowledge in mind who will YOU blame if, heaven forbids, your child dies ?

    Camus
    @newstart_2024
    A major new study has just confirmed that Covid mRNA shots are the sole cause of the soaring cases of heart failure among children.
    However, a new large-scale study from renowned scientists at the prestigious University of Oxford has just confirmed that myocarditis and pericarditis only appear in children and adolescents after Covid vaccination and not after infection from the virus.
    The new study looked at the official government data of more than 1 million English children and adolescents aged between five and 11 and 12 and 15.
    The study compared vaccinated and unvaccinated subjects.
    The researchers also took into account the number of doses of vaccine received.
    In detailing their findings, the researchers wrote:
    “All myocarditis and pericarditis events during the study period occurred in vaccinated individuals.”
    The study also noted that hospitalization related to COVID-19 was extremely rare among children and adolescents.
    The English data show that myocarditis and pericarditis were only recorded in vaccinated children and adolescents.
    The vast majority of myocarditis and pericarditis cases occurred after the first dose of the vaccine, the study found.

    Over half of the adolescents who suffered from the conditions visited the hospital as a result.

    This news follows another recent study, from some of America’s most well-respected researchers, that found that Covid shots were responsible for for soaring sudden deaths around the world.

    Covid shots are the sole cause of soaring heart failure
    top study confirms.

    2. The narrative, as they say, was that the (British) AZ shot was terrible, while the (American) mRNA varieties were fine and dandy.

    3. Suffering Ischæsmic heart disease, another good reason why I've refused all covid vaccinations.

      1. They said that Covid was like 'flu, and since I'd had a few years ago, a flu vaccination that made me sicker than a dog, I therefore declined all Covid vaccinations, caught Covid once, and it was like mild flu. Started with vitamin D3, and never even had a cold since.

        1. We all get flu from time to time; I seldom get it but the last time I did it it was called Covid and it was so mild that one day's sleep sorted it out. I put my speedy recovery down to the fact that I am Covid unvaxed.

          The last time I had a really nasty flu, 40 odd years ago, was the year that I had the flu jab

    4. …and not after infection from the virus.

      Although now having to admit there is a problem with the "vaccines"; how, with all the mounting evidence could they not do so, they are clinging to the "virus" theory.

  9. The published DT letters are getting to very selective.

    They obey the the needs of the Initialism Brigade, ie now, the MSN rules OK.

    Vary from that and you will be deleted, a lot like Mr Trump

    1. I used to have so many letter published in the DT that the Letters' Editor sent me a Christmas card. Now my letters are ignored! Either I have moved to the extreme right or the DT has moved to the left.

      On the other hand we do have a Nottler who still manages to get his letters regularly published – well done Grizzly!

      1. I used to get loads published too, nearly all of them, in both the DT and the Speccie. I have a whole file full :)) I don't bother to write in any more.

  10. The published DT letters are getting to very selective.

    They obey the the needs of the Initialism Brigade, ie now, the MSN rules OK.

    Vary from that and you will be deleted, a lot like Mr Trump

  11. Good morning, chums, and a big "Thank you" to Geoff for today's NoTTLe page.

    Wordle 1,080 5/6

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    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Remarkably similar here…
      Wordle 1,080 5/6

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  12. Labour could boost size of the army, Telegraph can reveal. 3 June 2024.

    Labour could boost the size of the Army following an official review of Britain’s defences.
    Sir Keir Starmer said his party would hold a strategic defence review in his first year of government if Labour wins the general election, which would focus on protecting Britain from Russian air strikes and cyber attacks.

    Could . Would. Should are all fictions. This particular one is a nonstarter. It is of course also blatant duplicity. Labour is not going to boost the size of the army regardless of any report and neither would the Tories were they to get in power. We have entered a new era where the promises of politicians are utterly worthless. They still have to go through the rigmarole of elections at the moment but they will ignore any that they make. This leaves us to guess what will really happen when they take office.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

    1. Labour could boost size of the army, Telegraph can reveal. 3

      Worrabout the RN and RAF?

        1. They are nominally under The RN.

          Too much information real information defeats the DT sub editors

    2. Labour could boost size of the army, Telegraph can reveal. 3

      Worrabout the RN and RAF?

    3. I think this is the one promise that they would like to make good on, as they are clearly panting for a war – with OUR children as cannon fodder, not their own, of course!

    4. Politicians' promises are not worth either the paper they're written on or the breath used to articulate them. Now, pledges…

  13. 'Morning All
    Oof
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1f16ba7cc365fc64bd7c49a8d881fc052a19062d2e1494829554353e4e1c1804.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1997d9abebd25a3a8e2906782b0af813e282ae86eea326e6619c8db35b03f58c.jpg
    Rest
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/55e69b292e619e02c1e3d20cf92919f8ae1e1a9469fa034db980e109355b97b0.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/024c3727039fbe79c79eb5e9f28dd9eb832892408838b9ce8a101114f40cf546.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/76ac1afc29b781ccc93f7a85f57d23c075af17ff2159babdea2c5759d8f77bcf.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11505eb6a1718688dc75fa66bb76d7f279aef2b7229c0732a5dd2dc23e05d4c1.jpg

    2. What has happened to ultra-processed foods since the beginning of 2021? We need an urgent investigation of the food manufacturing processes and if dodgy goings on are uncovered then heads must roll. 😎

    3. Some blame the mRNA covid vaccines – but shush, that's a taboo subject.

    4. When Starmer lets Miliband force his demented policies on the now socialist energy 'market' and the moronic baboon doubles the price of gas when Winter hits and people really start dying, when industry simply closes it's doors and says 'nope, can't afford the bills and unemployment starts to really, properly ratchet up in a way never seen before, when the 3 day week starts to become a forced reality as companies do anything to save costs – what will Labour do?

      They'll tax something else to further socialise energy. They won't stop. They will not admit the lie. They'll just hammer someone else. However this time it simply won't work.

      For example – elderly pensioners start dying from the cold. The state then blames, say a plastics manufacturing company. That company then gets hit with a massive hike in energy costs. It says 'sod this' and makes people redundant to operate a 4 day week, then 3 day until it closes completely, creating unemployment. Now Joe soap can't pay his bills so the state steps in again and hammers Peter Bloggs and his family. Peter's a software developer working from home so he can't escape bills, but his company is getting hit with ever higher corporation taxes and business rates so won't pay Peter any more – it can't. More of Peter's money goes solely on paying the bills. Thus Peter doesn't buy as much and the economy stagnates, heads into recession an the cretin Milioaf and the fool Reeves, who don't understand markets and hate them anyway look around for someone else to tax and the economy further collapses until, like any over stressed system it breaks entirely..

  14. 388071+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    What if Putin wins,

    With Ukraine’s resources, Putin would be unstoppable
    The impact of an engorged Russia would unfurl over decades, touching every corner of the earth, and wreaking havoc on the global economy

    Judging by the leadership the English nation has suffered under these past four decades one would not see a great deal of change then, if any, and then it could surely only be for the better
    producing stabilisation where currently chaos reigns supreme.

    2. 388971+ up ticks,

      YOU judge,

      O2O,
      Stef Anthony Coburn 🗣 reposted
      Russian Embassy, UK
      @RussianEmbassy
      Sergey #Lavrov:

      From our experience with the Americans, it is perfectly clear that #US statements are not to be trusted.

      We wanted to believe them for a long time; we tried to negotiate, and concluded agreements with them.

      However, it later turned out that Washington was never going to make good on its promises, including those they actually signed off on paper or those sealed in #UN Security Council resolutions.

      Find out more: https://t.me/RusEmbUK/892

      1. "Don't worry, Mt Gorbachev, Nato troops will never be deployed in the former GDR."

        1. It started even before that, when Reagan reneged on a promise to destroy nukes at the Reykjavík Summit between Reagan and Gobachev in 1986.

    3. The USSR once had all of Ukraine's resources (and a number of other nations else), but was stopped at the Iron Curtain. I was disappointed by Putin, since he was making steady progress winning over Western Europe before he invaded Ukraine.

      The danger of a Putin victory is more that it sets a precedent whereby other powerful nations feel they can get away with an aggressive annexation of a neighbour, for aspirational reasons.

      Xi is watching very carefully, and may well feel confident in taking over Taiwan and the South China Sea if things go well for Putin.

      Likewise, it gives a powerful endorsement of the zealots in the Knesset to press on with the extermination of the Palestinians in Gaza with a view to redeveloping this plum Mediterranean real estate as a New Florida for God's Chosen People.

      Then there are the tinpots, emboldened to try it on, confident they can get away with it. I cannot list all of these, but they could be drugs warlords in Latin America, islamists in Asia and Africa or even Kim Jung Un.

      1. I feel that the west generally and the US in particular pushed for this Ukraine/Russia war and Putin merely responded to the provocation. Seems to me US wants this war to continue and so does HMG.

        1. I don’t think so. America was drifting towards isolationism, and was becoming more interested in Latin America and the Pacific than with Europe. Trump, in particular, regards trouble in Europe as a drain on America’s wealth, which is better spent. As for King Charles, I am sure he’d prefer any spare money was spent planting trees rather than seeing off Russian artillery.

          As for provocation, then I ask – who actually crossed the border with tanks and a large army of brutes out for pillage? This sort of provocation far outweighs any political gesture towards NATO and EU membership that was opposed by a sizeable minority, and could have led to Ukraine partitioning. Sane heads would have discussed the issue, sure, but decided a more sensible option was strict neutrality, playing one side off against the other and profiting from trade on both sides. Ukraine has always traditionally been a buffer zone between East and West.

  15. Perhaps, before being given the President's job, the 'winner' of the election should undergo a competency check,
    ie climbing and descending a flight of stairs!

    1. I felt sorry for Biden then. He's an old man. Heck, if I ran up a flight of steep steps I'd bugger over. He was trying to demonstrate how young and fit he was and his body said 'feck off matey boy!'. He should have gone what every 80 year old – and clumsy 40 year old – would do and take them slowly at his own blasted pace and screw the world.

  16. Morning, all Y'all.
    Just starting to rain. Was hot & humid last night, so a sweaty time had in bed… if you see what I mean.

  18. Donald Trump has demonstrated that he is unfit to hold office again

    The more this farrago goes on the more it becomes obvious the under globalist rule that Prime Ministers, Governments and Presidents are only there for ceremonials purposes, Trump is obviously not signed up to it.

        1. Strange how the nurse who 'looked after him' in hospital during his play acting, has moved somewhere else. US I believe.

          1. Maybe they became fed up with being harassed by people trying to get confidential information from them.

          2. Or even part of the cover up when the press found out Johnson didn't really have Covid.

          3. I don't believe he didn't have Covid – he was/is exactly the part of the demographic who did get it. That really is a conspiracy theory too far.

  19. Good morning all!
    A dull start, but dry and actually warm! 10½°C on the Yard Thermometer just now!!!

    BTL Comment:-

    R. Spowart
    21 MIN AGO
    Message Actions
    Good God! Trump Derangement Syndrome is being given free reign this morning!

  20. Matt Goodwin begs him.. and other commentators reckon he may just change his mind and go for it..

    Nigel Farage 'has FIVE days to spark political REVOLUTION' with mighty COMEBACK..

    Others say Dianne Abbott must return. Tories desperately need her.

    1. Together with a whole raft of other Labour introduced (and Con rubber stamped) legislation.

  23. 388071+ up ticks,

    Labour could boost size of the army, Telegraph can reveal
    Sir Keir Starmer says his party would hold a strategic defence review in his first year of government if they win on July 4

    I just bet it could,next step in the stealth take over would be groups of bearded imams patrolling the streets in British uniforms and the woman army in khaki burkas.

      1. 388071 +up ticks,

        Morning TB,
        Unhygienic, I believe the litter bin/ toilet is downwind only 6′ away.

        1. And also sheep they steal from farms. There'll be a large pot hole in the road. Where are the police and the fire brigade?

    2. Starmer would do no such thing. What he likely means is he would reduce standards.

      1. 388071+ up ticks,

        Morning W,
        Maybe so ,maybe so,personally I believe he will get bigger ones with bloody great scimitars on them.

    3. They won't have to shave every day.
      And if this does happens, it will cost even more than we are paying to allow them all to stay here.

      1. 388071+ up ticks,

        Morning RE,
        Via the polling stations up until now the majority voter finds the expense to be of no concern.

    1. Excuse me while I laugh. My entire career, I've seen Engineering f'ked over by Finance in every UK company I've worked for.
      My son commissions programmers and factories in third world countries to build products for him because he has wisely concluded at a young age that there's more money in that than in being an engineer himself.

      1. Exactly BB2. I'm an engineer myself, and have been fighting battles with accountants all my life, and generally losing. And then getting the blame when the inevitable happens and the accontants can't be found.

      2. Our eldest is a global product manager, his US based company had a factory in the UK, but now all of the products they now make are produced overseas.
        You have to wonder why our government has been so insanely intent on increasing our population.

        1. ”You have to wonder why our government has been so insanely intent on increasing our population”. And why they’ve been so intent on shutting down our industry over many years.

          1. Because government is filled by people who think that food comes from the supermarket, and so farmers are irrelevant, that's why.

          2. These two actions do not bode well for the future of our grandchildren.
            And even more annoying they haven’t even got the guts to explain what they are trying to achieve.

    2. Excuse me while I laugh. My entire career, I've seen Engineering f'ked over by Finance in every UK company I've worked for.
      My son commissions programmers and factories in third world countries to build products for him because he has wisely concluded at a young age that there's more money in that than in being an engineer himself.

    3. Government is at fault though. I has done everything possible to run companies down with crushingly high taxes. The faux 'research' tax allowances don't go far enough. If a company is taxed at every single point in the supply chain then it is going to produce shoddy goods – heck, I'll hold my hand up and say we do as well. To make money you have to be cheap. Those organisations that are heavily regulated make their customers pay a premium because they all charge that high price.

      3. Taking as much from the customer as possible also leaves them with half of b-all to fund their business needs, including capital purchases. Doesn't help.

    4. That's only half of the story.
      Nowadays companies are required to follow dei rules when hiring staff.

      Never mind their expertise, what colour is their skin and is he/she/it a poofter.

        1. Try getting a government contract if your company cannot demonstrate a suitable mix of multicultiness.

      1. Probably unwanted politicians bagged up for disposal.
        You're gonna need more bags Steer clear slarmer.

      2. Former MPs being bagged up and sent to the House of Lords – to get them out of the way.

  27. Good morning all, and the 77th of course,

    Back again after a couple of day's of absence enforced by the presence in the household of a three-year-old exocet of a grand-daughter.

    I would have said it was a lovely morning here at McPhee Towers in the West Berks/North-West Hants borderlands but it is under a chem-trailed sky.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/625ca7f37abeeeb33cfd374394e5505b41317af7a1c5caa7a3f3770252baea83.jpg
    You can see the genuine contrails are clearly well above the chem-trails which are spreading out at medium level, somwhere between 10,000 and 15,000 feet.

    Anyway, it's clouded over now and after yesterday's glorious weather it going to be dull, wind still in the North, 14℃ rising to 18℃ later.

      1. Perfect, who knows what the 'THEY' have planned for us. The jabbing didn't really work as well as they expected.

    3. You can look up the flights using flightradar.com. Hover the pointer over the aircraft symbol and you get flight number and from/to.
      I assume the "seeding" flights will not be identified as such, but you might be able to tell something useful from them.

  28. Just heard Kemi Badenoch on the toady programme. She didn't come across well. Firstly discussing the fiddling of legislation to get elected and then this daft idiocy over a man in a dress having a 'certificate' that says he's a woman (when clearly he isn't, and never will be)

    She should have been unequivocal and couldn't be, as this law clearly ties the hands of ministers. A better presentation would have been to say they are scrapping the law entirely because trans are just mentally ill and leaving it at that rather than any pretence of justification.

    1. Decided to brave the Win7/Parallels compiler, but must clock off before the hackers find me out…

      I don't think most trans people are mentally ill, just deluded and persuaded by fashion. A tiny proportion have a genuine clinical disorder, a revulsion over their body equipment, and these are best handled with special consideration, rather than making it mainstream. Some take up a theatrical career and can do very well out of it. In a nation that delights in its eccentrics, most folk could take a "one in every village" approach, and accept them into the village for what they are and what they can contribute to society, without having to foist entitlement demands there.

      I agree that the Equality Act should be repealed, but for some reason this has been shown to be impossible to get through the Parliamentary Conservative Party. I understand the problem – an old friend of my late father has been a Tory MP for a while, and has stood down at this election. He was very much on the fashionable wing of the Party (he was one of the first to nominate Theresa May for the leadership), and would certainly have opposed any repealing of the Equality Act. Since he had a safe seat in Oxfordshire, I imagine there were enough like him to persuade Badenoch that out-and-out repeal was off the cards, and had to content herself with an amendment.

    2. I've never been as impressed with Kemi Badenoch as others have been. Remember she was a lock-down fanatic. She has some good conservative principles and certain ministerial roles would suit her well, but I don't see leadership qualities in her.

          2. I’m not entirely sure, but she does put a lot of people’s backs up and not always the “right” people, is one observation I would make. Overall though, just a feeling I have that there is an indefinable leadership quality that she lacks.

  29. National health emergency ?

    Don't panic ..

    Can we have some statistics for stabbings , drug misuse, sports injuries, (more common these days ) alcohol misuse, foreign diseases, std's, post covid aftermath, TB, sickle cell anaemia , inter family congenital diseases ( cousins marrying) childhood cancers , etc etc the list is endless.

    1. No chance TB there is an election coming and it will more than emphasis how incredibly and pathetically useless our political idiots are.

  30. They're back at it.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bef58e49c229922e65036839fc72235df04f8b9876a607273112e4b4cbb97574.png https://www.telegraph.co.uk…
    Marco Petagna, a forecaster at the Met Office, said: “It’s been a taste of summer for the first couple of days, but for the week ahead and much of June it’s looking more mixed again, but there are signs that towards the end of June we could see something more settled, warmer and drier.”He added: “For the three-month period as a whole [June, July and August], temperatures are likely to be above average overall so there’s a chance we’ll see some hot spells at times but the signals on rainfall are quite balanced, there’s equal chances of whether it will be wet or dry.
    “The temperature signal is pretty good, it’s expected to be warmer than average overall.”There is no indication of records being smashed though, as it would take something “exceptional” to beat the 40.3C heatwave that became Britain’s hottest ever day in July 2022.    A 40.3℃ heatwave?

    With meteorological summer officially beginning this weekend, the highest temperatures recorded on Sunday were 24.C at Pershore in Worcestershire and 23.9C in Usk and Cardiff in South Wales.The warmest of the year so far is 27.5C in Chertsey, Surrey, on May 12, during the previous sunny spell.

    I thought it was a 40.3℃ Typhoon-induced hotspot alongside the runway at RAF Coningsby while the surrounding countryside was at 34-35℃. These people really do take us for fools.

    So far, so normal then.

    1. They just will not give up. I expect more of the 'hot weather ahead' headlines. I just do not believe that we have just had the warmest May on record. As with all statistics, you use the ones that support your case.

      1. It's said to have been the warmest May on record for the planet overall. That doesn't mean all parts have had their warmest ever May.

        1. Depends upon how they measure the planetary temperature, of course. I would suggest that one thing is certain, and that is that the global temps being compared have been recorded by different techniques and may not be strictly comparable.

  31. They're back at it.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bef58e49c229922e65036839fc72235df04f8b9876a607273112e4b4cbb97574.png https://www.telegraph.co.uk…
    Marco Petagna, a forecaster at the Met Office, said: “It’s been a taste of summer for the first couple of days, but for the week ahead and much of June it’s looking more mixed again, but there are signs that towards the end of June we could see something more settled, warmer and drier.”He added: “For the three-month period as a whole [June, July and August], temperatures are likely to be above average overall so there’s a chance we’ll see some hot spells at times but the signals on rainfall are quite balanced, there’s equal chances of whether it will be wet or dry.
    “The temperature signal is pretty good, it’s expected to be warmer than average overall.”There is no indication of records being smashed though, as it would take something “exceptional” to beat the 40.3C heatwave that became Britain’s hottest ever day in July 2022.    A 40.3℃ heatwave?

    With meteorological summer officially beginning this weekend, the highest temperatures recorded on Sunday were 24.C at Pershore in Worcestershire and 23.9C in Usk and Cardiff in South Wales.The warmest of the year so far is 27.5C in Chertsey, Surrey, on May 12, during the previous sunny spell.

    I thought it was a 40.3℃ Typhoon-induced hotspot alongside the runway at RAF Coningsby while the surrounding countryside was at 34-35℃. These people really do take us for fools.

    So far, so normal then.

  32. They're back at it.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bef58e49c229922e65036839fc72235df04f8b9876a607273112e4b4cbb97574.png https://www.telegraph.co.uk…
    Marco Petagna, a forecaster at the Met Office, said: “It’s been a taste of summer for the first couple of days, but for the week ahead and much of June it’s looking more mixed again, but there are signs that towards the end of June we could see something more settled, warmer and drier.”He added: “For the three-month period as a whole [June, July and August], temperatures are likely to be above average overall so there’s a chance we’ll see some hot spells at times but the signals on rainfall are quite balanced, there’s equal chances of whether it will be wet or dry.
    “The temperature signal is pretty good, it’s expected to be warmer than average overall.”There is no indication of records being smashed though, as it would take something “exceptional” to beat the 40.3C heatwave that became Britain’s hottest ever day in July 2022.    A 40.3℃ heatwave?

    With meteorological summer officially beginning this weekend, the highest temperatures recorded on Sunday were 24.C at Pershore in Worcestershire and 23.9C in Usk and Cardiff in South Wales.The warmest of the year so far is 27.5C in Chertsey, Surrey, on May 12, during the previous sunny spell.

    I thought it was a 40.3℃ Typhoon-induced hotspot alongside the runway at RAF Coningsby while the surrounding countryside was at 34-35℃. These people really do take us for fools.

    So far, so normal then.

  33. Morning all 🙂😊
    I was expecting it to be just another dusty delta day but it's cloudy but quite bright and promising. My sister tells me I should be out bailin' hay.
    The world mafia has beaten Trump to the ground. He never really stood a chance.
    Not that it matters or makes the slightest difference to anything at all. I've never really liked him since he drove an old and long established Scottish crofter off of his land when building one of his golf courses.
    But let's face it US politics really does stink its worse than ours. They assassinated the best president they had in modern history.
    As they have done to DT.

  34. Good morning all. Had a bizarre dream this morning/last night. I was at work though of course everything looked different. Anyway, I wanted to go to the loo but every cubicle I went into had huge heaps of shit on the floor and smeared on the walls and doors and no one else was the least bit bothered. I can hazard a guess as to what was going through my mind but it was gross all the same! All attempts to report it failed too. Couldn’t for the life of me type accurately. In answer to the above, no, he hasn’t.

  36. Yep. Big fat state just lumps ever more taxes and hinderances on industry. To it, companies are just a cash machine they can keep taking ever higher amounts from. It's as if they know nothing about basic economics.

  37. https://x.com/moment_mirthful/status/1797504311628644585

    Poor old Iran , (Persia) 1979.

    I do hope historians are charting the decline of British life , because my nightmare , passed onto me by my father is that we could also be in a similar state to present day Iran in maybe 20 years .

    The march of the Mahdi is gathering speed , and wait until Labour get into power , the likes of Khan and his cronies , and most councils and cities in the UK will soon create hell on earth .

    Our protests are being stifled , and there is no turning back to calmer times .

  38. France-Soir (the paper in which Émile Zola published his "J'accuse", now branded a Right-wing conspiracy-theory-supporting website) has just published this insightful piece about corruption in high places in the EU. This article is an English translation.

    https://edition.francesoir.fr/politique-monde/ursulagate-von-der-leyens-resignation-all-europe-talking-about-it

    Macron is in trouble with the French equivalent of Ofcom because he is going to "talk to the nation" on Thursday evening, only 3 days before the European elections on Sunday. The tide is changing and even he, like King Canute, must be aware that he can't do anything about it.

    2. France-Soir is excellent, probably our closest equivalent is The Daily Sceptic only it is a much older publication.

    3. Nothing will be done, of course. These bastards protect each other.

      Touch of the "google translate" about the English, isn't there? !!

    1. Then let's start with the IPCC – you know, money where mouth is. Then she can volunteer, along with the Democrat party. And UN. And then let's move on to the illegal immigrants and green party. Then labour voters here.

      Then we can start on the quangocrats, welfarists, troughers and third world.

      What's that? You meant your political enemies? Oh. Pointing out that Hitler always wanted to exterminate vast numbers of people is probably not going to go down well. What is wrong with Lefties? Why do they always want to slaughter entire civilisations?

      I suppose it's ironic that a whole series of marvel films was made trying to stop a psychotic dictator from wiping out half of everyone alive.

  40. I like this letter .

    Labour’s hard Left
    SIR – On May 6 1981, a nice, sensible man called Andrew McIntosh won the Greater London Council (now the Greater London Authority) for Labour.

    The next day the Left-wingers called a meeting at which McIntosh was deposed and replaced by “Red Ken” Livingstone, with predictable results.

    Do the recent manoeuvres by Angela Rayner and others (“Abbott allowed to stand at election after Rayner forces about-turn”, report, June 1) indicate a similar fate for “nice” Sir Keir Starmer? Or will he, once elected, revert to type and become the Ken Livingstone he was just five years ago, when he was actively promoting Jeremy Corbyn’s far-Left agenda?

    Michael Tyce
    Waterstock, Oxfordshire

    1. He is not just a charm-free ugly-looking twerp – he is also extremely nasty and treacherous with it.

        1. Philip Hollowbone? Kate Hoey? Suella Braverman? The Itchen Labour chap who's name I forget but I actually quite liked in that he both replied to my email about the unfair cost of monthly insurance payments and that these were credit arrangements, not direct debits. He also did his own research into seeing that the government's pay monthly did the same thing – albeit at a fairer cost.

          I put him down as a confused Conservative.

          Admittedly I can't think of many. It annoys me that the decent people never get into office because they are 'decent'.

  41. We have had no enquiries about our courses since the general election was called.

    Looking at our records:

    Easter 2019 – 24 students (Fully Booked)
    Summer 2019 – 18 students (Fully Booked)
    October ½ Term 2019 — 6 students (Fully Booked)

    And then along came the Covid regulations and restrictions – we lost 70% of our course income in 2020 but in 2023 all the places we offered were taken and we had an excellent year.

    Covid tried and failed to finish us. It sticks in the craw that the characterless twerp of a nincompoop, Starmer, looks as if he will finish off our marvellous little enterprise which has flourished since we set it up in 1989.

    We keep our turnover under the VAT threshold so we do not charge VAT on our courses but the proposed imposition of VAT on independent schools – which are our our client base – will finish many of them off along with us.

      1. Except they don't. Or else there are some truly thick, spiteful, stupid people out there. Fact is, the Tories have done nothing to vote for. Taxes have soared, waste is up, services are barely stone age. Everything has got worse. We gave them the power to legislate as we needed and they've done the opposite.

        Yet still – STILL – there are bitter, nasty people who hate the Tories and vote Labour reflexively.

    2. I'm sorry to hear that Richard. We're in the same boat. Our AGM – a daft title for the 7 of us) voted to go another year with the wind it up/keep going at 3/4. We're all tired of the red tape, the legislation, the drudgery of pleasing big fat state.

      We sort of sat covid out as our main revenue stream is in support and maintenance contracts which roll monthly, but we did lose revenue to businesses that closed over that time as we gave them payment holidays to keep their custom.

      It just seems that whatever you do, the state kicks you ever harder in the nads.

  42. So Biden is fit to hold office. I would pick Trump every time over all the recent Democrat presidents.

  43. 388071+ up ticks,

    Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader CREDIT: Wattie Cheung
    KEY MOMENTS
    Chosen by us to get you up to speed at a glance

    8:56am
    Badenoch blasts Labour over failure to mirror Tory gender pledge
    8:43am
    Labour would not follow Tories and amend Equality Act
    8:19am
    Starmer would press nuclear button, says John Healey
    7:35am
    Badenoch: Trans athletes with ‘unfair advantages’ should not compete against biological women
    Sir Keir Starmer would be prepared to push the nuclear button if he becomes prime minister, the shadow defence secretary insisted this morning.

    John Healey said the Labour leader would “do what is required, if it is required”.

    Sir Keir will today seek to reaffirm his commitment to the nation’s Trident nuclear deterrent as he focuses on national security and defence at the start of the second full week of general election campaigning.

    That is very reassuring and i.m sure a vote winner among the braindead. majority voters supporting a political character who does not know how to define woman, and kneels at the slightest hint of gaining a vote.

    Good to know with a "safe" pair of mits like his we can ALL rest in peace FOREVER.

  44. 388071+ up ticks,

    Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader CREDIT: Wattie Cheung
    KEY MOMENTS
    Chosen by us to get you up to speed at a glance

    8:56am
    Badenoch blasts Labour over failure to mirror Tory gender pledge
    8:43am
    Labour would not follow Tories and amend Equality Act
    8:19am
    Starmer would press nuclear button, says John Healey
    7:35am
    Badenoch: Trans athletes with ‘unfair advantages’ should not compete against biological women
    Sir Keir Starmer would be prepared to push the nuclear button if he becomes prime minister, the shadow defence secretary insisted this morning.

    John Healey said the Labour leader would “do what is required, if it is required”.

    Sir Keir will today seek to reaffirm his commitment to the nation’s Trident nuclear deterrent as he focuses on national security and defence at the start of the second full week of general election campaigning.

    That is very reassuring and i.m sure a vote winner among the braindead. majority voters supporting a political character who does not know how to define woman, and kneels at the slightest hint of gaining a vote.

    Good to know with a "safe" pair of mits like his we can ALL rest in peace FOREVER.

    1. Thing is, Starmer's a lawyer (obs!) he doesn't believe in anything. He won't take a moral standing. He just follows the law. This is why I imagine he'll happily sign up to endless rafts of international law because that's his world view. He won't care about the intent or purpose because that's morality and there is no morality in law.

      Although I suspect once elected he'll swiftly be knifed by the Hard Left and that'll be it.

      1. "I won't believe in anything unless you want me to.
        I'll wreck the Act of Union – what's history to you?
        I'll seem so fair and reasonable on me you'll back your shirts
        And with New Labour, endlessly, you'll get your just deserts."

        (The words put in the mouth of Blair, the populist prime minister in a satirical song)

      2. You are too kind to him.
        He like all effective lawyers will follow the interpretations of the law that suits his client, carefully overlooking contradictory evidence.

  46. 388071+ up ticks,
    TB,
    “What am I seeing ”
    A patriotic feeling that at long last is gaining strength.

    2. I help……
      A typical POS. Take yourself and your incessant moaning back to wherever it was you came from.

      1. And the sooner the better, and take a load of your like minded mates with you.

    4. "Three months, no pocket money.. three months.. it's an outrage."

      Apparently, there's a tipping point or something.. somewhere.. a million miles down the road.

      keep calm, hold tight to your ankles.. in the safe knowledge your psychopathic leftie world leaders have everything under control, know what they are doing, and have your interests at heart.

    5. Yes, with a very hard kick in his rear end – hard enough to send him right back to where he came from.

  51. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Keir Starmer is treating the House of Lords with contempt
    Comments Share 3 June 2024, 6:24am
    We have different approaches to tidying up, my wife and I. It bothers her very much that the house we share with three chaotic children is so untidy. Over the years unsightly, useless, out-of-date items accumulate in every room: incomplete jigsaws, dried-out paints, barely-played boardgames, broken furniture, too-small and obscurely stained clothes, collections of shells and pebbles, or that vibration-sensitive fluffy penguin which flaps its stubby wings and blares out a tinny version of ‘Rock Around the Clock’ when a spider stamps its foot anywhere within a kilometre of it.

    My fantasy, when the clutter gets intolerable, is to have a clear-out in which everything that doesn’t spark joy goes into black bin bags and thence to the dump. She cannot quite bear to do that. She feels sentimental about that pirate outfit. She knows (for she is wise) that the children will never again play with Buzz Lightyear, but that there will be hell to pay if they spot his Astro-Boots peeking out of a skip. Rather, she purges with excellent thoroughness the living areas of the house and consigns all the junk to a series of giant plastic boxes in the spare room (which doubles – being the home of useless junk – as my study). This is the oubliette approach to cleaning house, the stuff-it-in-a-cupboard, out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach.

    The Lords is not supposed to be a dump-bin for harmless headbangers you want to get out of the way
    Sir Keir Starmer, it seems, has been speaking to my wife. In his pre-election clear out of MPs he is treating the House of Lords as a sort of giant spare room into which to stuff all that he and his party colleagues consider unsightly, useless and out-of-date – but about which the party can’t help but be a little sentimental. Left-wing MPs in safe seats, among them the Labour veteran Diane Abbott, have reportedly been promised peerages in exchange for vacating their seats to make way for Starmerite loyalists. ‘They offered me a seat in the House of Lords because some little boy wanted my seat,’ was what one Labour MP told the Sunday Times. Another: ‘Peerages started being offered after the general election was called and suddenly there was a flurry of people standing down who had previously said they had every intention of standing.’

    There are undoubted merits to this way of doing things when it comes to keeping the main living areas of a family house tidy. But I’m not at all sure that it’s quite the way to treat one half of our ancient legislature. The Lords, at least in theory, is supposed to be a collection of wise heads who will bring to bear on law-making the maturity of long experience in a wider range of fields than just party politics. It’s not supposed to be a dump-bin for harmless headbangers you want to get out of the way. Of course, stuffing the Lords has been a transactional, cynical, instrumental policy for both parties since long before Harold Wilson got out his lavender notepaper. You could say in his defence that at least Sir Keir looks to ennoble politicians with a proven interest in changing the world rather than party donors with a proven interest in improving their letterheads. But the principle holds.

    And there are some peculiar sort-of-paradoxes implied in treating it this way. For a start, it looks a bit like an elephant trap for the Corbynites. If you’ve spent your whole career inveighing against the Anti-Democratic, Antiquated, Unelected and Out of Touch second chamber, you’re going to look a bit of a plonker if you take a seat there as soon as you get a sniff of ermine. No doubt there are good Maoist arguments for including it in your march through the institutions, but it’s a hard case to make to a public less well versed in the theories of immanent critique and subversion from within.

    For Sir Keir, it’s a head-scratcher, too. Treating the Lords with contempt by filling it with people whose political instincts he doesn’t trust is, perhaps, of a piece with his stated intention to abolish it. But that reduces still further its attractiveness to the people with whom he’s offering it as a bribe to leave the Commons. And when Tony Blair and David Cameron stuffed the red benches with their cronies, they mostly hoped in so doing to produce a majority in the upper house that they could work with. Starmer is proposing to fill it with people who will vote against him most chances they get – except, I suppose, when it comes to the abolition of the chamber in which they sit.

    Using the Lords as an oubliette for the Diane Abbotts of this world sends two messages. The first is that it’s a part of the legislature that you have no great regard for, and that might as well be a spare room full of useless clutter. While it still exists, that shows what seems to me to be a high-handed and probably counterproductive contempt for something that, like it or not, remains a solemn part of our lawmaking process. And one, it should be said, that has proved itself handy over the last couple of years in putting a brake (if no more than that) on some of the wilder schemes hatched in the Commons.

    The second message it sends is that it’s a chamber so essentially toothless that you can stuff it with members of your own awkward squad without it being likely to cause you much bother – which may be true, though I hope it isn’t. But if it is true, it makes the case for spending political capital and parliamentary time on doing away with it rather a weak one. If the Lords is no more than a fancy daycare facility for Tory donors, cashiered Labour MPs and a handful of old toffs, it’s a minor drag on the public purse rather than an active stain on our democracy.

    The principled thing to do here, I think, is to gird the Starmer loins, face down the old lady, and reach under the sink for the bin bags. You may get a bit of a twinge early Wednesday morning, when as the refuse cart trundles off down the street you can hear a thin electronic voice, just very faintly, singing ‘Rock Around the Clock’, but in a couple of weeks you won’t even notice what’s missing.

    1. Labour stuffed the Lords full of cronies to get their appalling legislation through. Cameron did the same, with children getting Honours as they gurned to the camera.

      This politicisation has done immense harm to our democracy.

  52. Good Morning all 😊
    Actually, Donald Trump is not guilty of any crime which will become evident once the appeals process has run its course. No one in the history of the USA has been tried on the crime he is alleged to have committed because no crime exists. He was, in essence, charged with interfering with the electoral process and hiding it as a 'legal expense'. The problem with that is the election had taken place a year or two before the payment he is alleged to have made. Furthermore in giving directions to the Jury the judge said that Trump could be held guilty on three different interpretations of what he is alleged to have done. But the judge never directed the jury on the possibility of finding Trump 'not guilty'. This is obviously misleading and a form of jury interference because, in essence, he was directing the jury to find Trump guilty regardless. There is more to it beside all this but it isn't worth going into. Suffice to say that Trump is not guilty and will be found not guilty once this goes to the Federal appeals process. But I would point out that Trump was already investigated on the issues twice, by the Feds, that the New York trial supposedly investigated and was found to have no case to answer. In short this whole thing is a shame.

    Anyway. Having made the above observations. I asked the other day for a link to Tommy Robinsons new film and. coincidently it came into my You Tube feed yesterday. So here it is for other to watch. If someone has already posted it, my apologies because I haven't been able to keep track on what has been going on here for a few days.

    Tommy Robinson’s New Documentary #LawFare

    https://www.youtube.com/wat…

    1. The Left knew they couldn't win fairly so weaponised the legal system to get their own way.

      1. Watching a lot of American political commentators, quite a few think this is going to end in a civil war. God help us all if that happens.

        1. Hollyfarce did a film about that. Apparently they had Texas and California uniting. Many commentators pointed out that many of those leaving California are going TO Texas precisely because it is politically opposite to 'Commiefornia's policies'.

          1. The tragedy is though, that they take their Democrat ideologies with them.

        2. There is supposedly a right of sanity group Diagolon that is intent on splitting the US and Canada into East coast lefties, right coast weirdos and central good guys. A new country would be formed that stretches from Alberta down through the central US to Florida.

          Diagolon is said to be not much more than three or four guys shooting the breeze overer a few beers – no organisation, no manifesto, no membership, nada.

          The group has only become public knowledge because that little shit Trudeau is trying to link our conservative party to them.

  54. Books banned from libraries after just one complaint
    Fungus the Bogeyman and a Jules Verne tale are among titles censored, mostly for racist and sexualised content

    Books by authors including Raymond Briggs, David McKee and Jules Verne have been removed from public libraries after just a single customer complaint.

    More than a dozen books were removed from library shelves across the UK after members of the public complained about their content or because librarians deemed the books to be offensive.

    They include Briggs’s Fungus the Bogeyman, McKee’s Three Monsters, Verne’s Five Weeks in a Balloon, Chris Claremont’s The Uncanny X-Men and Victor Appleton’s Tom Swift series.

    Libraries also received dozens more complaints asking them to remove certain content in a wave of “book challenges” that one expert called just the “tip of the iceberg” of increasingly widespread censorship.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/books-banned-from-libraries-after-just-one-complaint-plb0n6z0h

    Dear heavens above … the uneducated always have the last say .

    2. I think I shall complain about, 'Wind in the Willows, it discriminates against policemen, weasels and fat toads.

    3. Increasingly we seem to live in a judicial state; where legal action or the threat of it suppresses the perfectly legitimate views of others.

      1. What's worse is that the action is taken seriously rather than the complainer being soundly kicked in the face repeatedly until they stop being a Lefty.

    4. There seems to be a growing group of people who seek to destroy everything they dislike. Mao did the same. Do these wretched, evil people realise where their demented dogma comes from?

    5. Even Swallows and Amazons is subject to 'Trigger' warnings.. What a world we live in!

      1. I fail to understand why so many trigger warnings are needed. Are children so dumb that they now need warnings about the violence in Tom and Jerry cartoons? Do they really need the don'tdo this at home warning?

        1. In an age where car batteries contain a notice saying: "Do not drink the contents" – anything goes, Richard.

      2. I watched on old episode of 'Only Fools and Horses' last night – that had a Trigger warning……

          1. Hahaha!

            Coincidentally I also happen to be reading Roy Rogers’ autobiography…… Ok Ok, I’ll get me coat…

      3. The name Titty, no doubt – retrospective condemnation for something totally innocuous at the time, as usual: the most hypocritical form of censorship.

    6. What if we complain about Woke children’s books? Probably we’ll just be arrested for being extreme far-right ultra fascists.

      1. That Hitler – he had the right idea about dodgy books…

        And he liked dogs.

      1. Navy Lookout
        @NavyLookout
        ·
        1h
        🇫🇷French, 🇳🇴Norwegian and 🇬🇧UK Maritime Patrol aircraft have been closely monitoring waters off Sligo and Donegal (west of Ireland) for the past week. Suspected 🇷🇺Russian submarine activity close to Corrib gas pipeline and subsea cables.

        George Woodward
        @georgedwoodward
        Yet again Ireland with no air nor maritime defence being bailed out by UK/neighbours. Maybe start spending some money on defence instead of tax cuts for huge corporations?
        @irishgov_rx
        👀
        10:10 AM · Jun 3, 2024

          1. 100% agree. It is idiotic that we are not fracking. In fact to my mind it is indefensible that we are burdened with monstrous bills for energy when we could be paying a lot less. My bill has almost doubled in the last few months and I cannot cut down anymore than I have.

          2. Not least because in order to compensate for the cap on unit energy prices the energy companies have made big increase to the standing charges, and there's no way that anyone can cut the costs by using less.

        3. Our govt doesn't spend on defence or low tax initiatives for corporations. And neither do some other major European powers. Trump was always chasing up NATO contributors.

          1. Some US senators have already had a go at Trudeau about the failure to increase defense spending to two percent. I can see he will need some fine weasel words at the upcoming nato meeting.

            Apologies to mustelids.

    2. Not sure what it's getting at. Low taxes are not 'tax cuts'. They're just low taxes. Lefties always seem to think not taking everything someone earns is somehow a tax cut. Usually the folk who think this don't work, have jobs or produce anything of value.

        1. What I don't understand is that instead of wanting to be better off, Lefties always want to make other people poorer.

          Why are they not clamouring for lower taxes on their employers so that money can filter down to them? Oh, they say, some manager will just pocket it. Yes, some will. Another will create a job paying more that you could apply for.

          Then they want more immigration but also higher wages…. I just don't understand their inability to match A to B and see the problems they are causing themselves.

    1. Frequent visitor to the White House.. Mini-Me Alex Soros orders MSN to refer to Trump as 'convicted felon' at every opportunity.
      Repetition is the key to a successful message, he says.

      He also said repetition is the key to a successful message in this campaign.

    2. That ahould not be his primary objective when he gets back to the white house, he is acting like a vindictive old fool.

      I make an exception for Trudeau though, Trump can go out of his way to upset the boy emporer.

      1. I agree with you, he should rise above it and concentrate on the concerns of the electorate which is what, if he is elected, people will elect him for.

        1. Trying to put a candidate in jail on trumped up charges is pretty important and urgent to fix

          1. I think everyone knows why he has been charged which is to stop him running for President so he has no need to labour the point. Rather let others say it and get on with campaigning for what does matter which, I might add, would include fixing the now almost totally corrupt judicial system. That is the proper context for what the Dems are trying to do to him.

          2. Playing softball with opponents who have guns? Didn’t work last time, and won’t work this time. All that happened is that the election was blatantly stolen. Democracy as we knew it (or thought we knew it) is already gone. There has to be some kind of rule of law, and in the last few years, the criminal cartel running the US has barely bothered to hide any more.
            Trump himself is probably compromised too.

  57. The more they go after Trump, the more I support him and the more I see how rotten the American judiciary and Democrats are. I won't be the only one. Most of those charges were admin charges. I suspect Obama and the Clintons were guilty of far worse. So why were they fixated on Trump? Because he doesn't kowtow to the trash that is the western ruling elites.

    1. Talking of the Clintons, did you know that most of the funds donated privately to help Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, which amounted to many millions, were channelled through the Clinton Foundation? I need hardly add that the people of Haiti saw very little of it – just look at the state of it today.

    2. They made it 34 charges by raising an indictment for each cheque that was written. The anti-Trumpers are bigging up the number of counts he was found guilty of.

  58. It's also because the energy companies are being forced into funding green initiatives.

  59. It has long been known that if you tell the same lie often enough it becomes the truth.

    1. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

      This is why they're clinging to the hoax of climate change so desperately.

      1. Indeed, it is also the whole purpose of the farcical Covid inquiry – to perpetuate the lie.

  61. We will take over Tory party post-election, says Nigel Farage
    –
    Reform's honorary president says his ambition is to 'reshape the centre-Right'
    –
    Genevieve Holl-Allen, POLITICAL REPORTER • 2 June 2024 • 5:50pm
    –
    Nigel Farage has said that he wants to stage a "takeover" of the Tory party after the general election. The honorary president of Reform UK said that he did not have "any love" for the Conservatives, and that his ambition was to "reshape the centre-Right".

    Mr Farage has sparked questions about his political future in Britain, after he chose not to stand for Reform. The party poses an electoral risk from the Right to the Conservatives, with policy focuses including cracking down on illegal migration and abandoning carbon emissions targets.

    Mr Farage told The Sunday Times: "Why do you think I called it Reform? Because of what happened in Canada – the 1992-93 precedent in Canada, where Reform comes from the outside, because the Canadian Conservatives had become social democrats like our mob here.

    "It took them time, it took them two elections, they became the biggest party on the centre-Right. They then absorbed what was left of the Conservative Party into them and rebranded."

    When asked whether this meant he wanted to see a merger of the two parties, he replied: "More like a takeover, dear boy."

    Mr Farage said of the Conservatives: "I certainly don't have any trust for them or any love for them," adding: "I want to reshape the centre-Right, whatever that means."

    The former MEP said that the six weeks given by Rishi Sunak calling the snap election "wasn't long enough" to fight a constituency seat. He said that he wanted to focus on supporting Richard Tice, the Reform leader, and later in the year Donald Trump in the US presidential election.

    He revealed that he had been asked to join a "small-c" conservative grassroots organisation in the US later in the year to help support the presumptive Republican nominee.

    Reform is aiming to stand candidates in every constituency in the country, in contrast to the 2019 election when Mr Farage stood down hundreds of Brexit Party candidates in Tory seats.

    Last week, Mr Farage appeared to hint at a possible election pact with the Tories this time round in The Sun, only for Mr Tice to later slap down the suggestion.

    The party leader said that Mr Farage's comments were "banter" and that "the reality is we are doing no deals with the Tories". Mr Farage himself later branded his remarks as "deeply sarcastic".

    Mr Tice added: "I'm the leader of the party, and I've been saying that very clearly for the last few years."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/02/we-will-take-over-tory-party-post-election-say-nigel-farage/

    400 words of nothing much. Farage merely being a little mischievous, although I think he should keep his distance from Trump for the time being.

  63. Almost got it in two. First attempt was name of a country:
    Wordle 1,080 3/6

    🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  64. P Farmer suggests that whoever sold their homes which emerged as holiday homes were locals is mistaken. yes maybe some of them but the majority up here were newbuilds – built in the modern fashion by builders from the cities. Maybe locals sold the land but without knowing what the use of the subsequent building would be

  65. The US ousted an elected President in 2014 IIRC and installed the clown. Russia wanted to protect the Russian speaking Ukrainians and I think are not actually interested in “conquering” the whole of Ukraine. NATO signed the Minsk agreements with Russia and then went and did the exact opposite of what they’d agreed.

    HMG has thrown much money at Ukraine for no good reason and to no effect except to further bankrupt the U.K. Boris Johnson sent to Ukraine and messed up an al ost done peace deal and also visited 3 times during a war. What the heck for.

  66. Meanwhile, over in Green Land…

    Does anyone take these people seriously?

    Three Green candidates withdraw in racist comments row
    –
    Small number more still being looked at, says party chief
    –
    Genevieve Holl-Allen, POLITICAL REPORTER • 2 June 2024 • 4:54pm
    –
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d1a6fb2cd05bec195cca1db137c89b5fef6e1f6f7f77d64e8e74d85f9221d92a.jpg –
    Maddison Wheeldon has been deselected

    Three candidates for the Greens are no longer standing at the election amid suggestions they made "inappropriate comments", the party's co-leader has said. Adrian Ramsey said that three of those selected ahead of July's poll were "no longer going forward".

    It comes after comments made by candidates on social media surrounding the Israel-Gaza conflict surfaced last month. Speaking to the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Ramsey said: "The Green Party takes any suggestions of anti-Semitism, or indeed any form of racism, very seriously. Any suggestions that have been made of inappropriate comments in recent weeks are being investigated by the relevant people.

    "In the last couple of weeks, there were three candidates who had been selected who are no longer going forward. I understand there's a small number more who are still being looked at."

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0098464d9b15a4e5853c716716ade657d7452ebc3058e7e62e20c46b749816ce.jpg –
    Elizabeth Waight 'decided to withdraw'

    It comes after Eilzabeth Waight, who was selected for the party in Bethnal Green and Stepney, on Saturday said that she had "decided to withdraw" her candidacy.

    Last month it emerged that she had posted an Instagram video on March 27 in which a woman said: "What's left for the Zionists [is] to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Palestinians… I think this will happen soon."

    Ms Waight said on Saturday: "Once I was made aware of connotations of anti-Semitism in some of the posts I shared from other accounts, I removed them immediately from my timeline and I apologise for the upset they have caused. I, and the Tower Hamlets Green Party, abhor racism in all its forms including anti-Semitism and work hard to identify and challenge it within society.

    "Although this was a genuine and regrettable misunderstanding, in the current political climate, the issue has become a distraction from both the call to build a lasting peace in the Middle East as well as the other important issues facing constituents in Bethnal Green and Stepney. As such I have decided to withdraw my candidacy."

    Maddison Wheeldon, who had been selected for Warrington North last month, claimed on Saturday that she had been deselected.

    It came after it emerged that she said that both Israel and Hamas were "culpable" for Oct 7, and also that ordinary Israelis "are akin to the Germans that supported the Nazis". Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Ms Wheeldon said: "Sadly I have to inform that I no longer have support of the Green Party, and am no longer allowed to be their MP candidate for Warrington North."

    Ms Wheeldon blamed "Right-wing media" for "painting me as an anti-Semite for my pro-Palestine and international law stance. Very sad day in all honesty, I have now left the party".

    It is unclear whether Mr Ramsey was referring to these two candidates in his remarks to the BBC.

    Ms Wheeldon is still listed on the Green Party's website for Warrington North, but Ms Waight's name does not appear on the list.

    The Green Party said: "The Green Party will publish a full list of candidates on June 7."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/02/three-green-candidates-withdraw-in-racist-comments-row/

    1. From Coffee House, the Spectator

      Sunak’s gender attack will hurt Labour

      Comments Share 3 June 2024, 10:56am

      If the country has not had enough sex by now, it may have by the election. Political sex, that is – Rishi Sunak has clearly spotted an opportunity for a fully frontal attack on one of Labour’s weak spots. This morning, the Prime Minister promised that if re-elected, his government would rewrite the Equality Act to make it clear that sex means biological sex. It would be a sensible move away from the current confusion where nobody is really certain what the law means. Perhaps in 2010 the outgoing Labour government never imagined that the definition of sex would be controversial? But the text of Labour’s Equality Act – ‘a reference to a person who has a particular protected characteristic [of sex] is a reference to a man or to a woman’ – has been wide open to interpretation.

      Sunak’s proposal would still leave us with difficult questions

      Sunak’s proposal would still leave us with difficult questions. Firstly, it is easier to characterise sex – in terms of chromosomes, gonads and external genitalia – than it is to define it. Where, for example, do Cais (complete androgen insensitivity syndrome) women fit into these proposals? They have an intersex condition that means they have XY chromosomes and testes that produce testosterone, but their phenotype is female. It would be absurd to define them as men.

      The underlying truth, of course, is that the perception of sex is an evolved instinct. We all know that a man is a man and a woman is a woman. That’s ‘just common sense’, according to what Sunak told the Tory party conference last year. It’s unlikely that service providers are going to start demanding proof of legal sex from everyone who turns up on their doorstep. But when instinct suggests that the transwoman standing there is male rather than female, Sunak’s proposal would give the provider confidence to ask for paperwork.

      That would be a good thing. For too long the system has been open to abuse by chancers and abusive males who perhaps see an opportunity to impose themselves on women. Of course, someone with a Gender Recognition Certificate would be able to produce all the paperwork to suggest that they are the opposite sex. At the moment, birth certificates altered under the Gender Recognition Act look just like any other birth certificate. No public record is made of the change of legal sex. If Sunak wants to change that, he will need to also open up the GRA.

      None of this is insurmountable but the legislative changes would be rather intricate – certainly for the new law to be fair, consistent and robust. That would however be for the next parliament. The focus now is the election, and how Labour might respond. The party manifestoes are yet to be published – so we cannot be sure what will be pledged – but LGBT Labour has been quick to point out what ‘the party of LGBT+ equality’ should deliver. This campaign group – with no fewer than 35 parliamentary patrons – is clear about what it expects from Keir Starmer: it calls on the Labour leader to ‘modernise the process of gender recognition’. That may well be self-ID in all but name.

      At the same time, the Tories have challenged the SNP by suggesting that gender recognition will be a reserved matter so there would be no repeat of Nicola Sturgeon’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill fiasco. Clawing back powers from the devolved authorities is a change in direction and in most contexts could be described as a ‘bold move’, perhaps even ‘courageous’. But this is an issue where the Tories feel that the public is on side so it’s an opportunity to be grabbed.

      For a party on the back foot like the Tories, why not exploit the opponents’ weaknesses? Sunak may be accused of weaponising gender and using trans people as a political football. But, frankly, that has been going on for the best part of a decade, now. What trans people need as much as everyone else is clear policy that is widely respected and upholds everybody’s rights. The Prime Minister might be scoring political points this week, but we all benefit if his words lead to better laws down the line. Then perhaps politics can move on and return sex to the biology textbooks.

      1. Too late Sunak, I'd say. If our politicians are so lightweight that they even allowed this to get onto the statute books, it's the knuckleheads who dreamed it up that need firing, not alterations to the legislation. The rest of us need no clarification thanks.

      2. Genuine intersex people are 0.018% of the population. It isn't morally defensible to force 99.982% of the population to live under rules made to accommodate such a tiny minority. Intersex problems can be dealt with as and when necessary and without disturbing anyone else.

  68. Sorry, your clue did not help
    Wordle 1,080 5/6

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

  71. Game on..

    "I will be making an Emergency General Election announcement at 4pm today."

    1. after announcement..

      REF: 41% (+30)
      LAB: 25% (-20)
      CON: 15% (-12)
      LDM: 8% (-2)
      GRN: 6% (-1)

        1. as always, Farage is in touch with the silenced majority of the UK. His three main ishoos for this election are;
          1. migrants (Islam).
          2. migrants (Islam).
          3. migrants (Islam).

          Sir Keir says.. "we don't have an issue.. stop talking about it."
          Rishi says.. "this election is about giving up smoking".

      1. Haven't you got the times the wrong way round? Zulu is GMT and thus an hour behind BST.

  72. "I am giving up politics."

    In case anyone else is wondering (as I was) it is Farage.

    1. On lifts……..An Amish family reluctantly have to go in to their nearest city for a meeting with some lawyers.
      When they arrive at the huge and strange type of building. His wife needs to go to the 'Bathroom'.
      The father and son sit down in ground floor the lobby of the huge modern building. Two elderly ladies walk by get into large cubicle opposite them with a sliding door. The door closes and they disappear. A few minutes later the door opens again and two very attractive young ladies come out. The old man says to his son, Aron go and get you mother ….right now.

      1. An entrepreneur from Australia
        Once painted his arse like a dahlia
        A penny a smell
        Was all very well
        But tuppence a lick was a failure.

  75. The United States could face “fatal consequences” if it ignores Moscow’s warnings not to let Ukraine use American-supplied weapons inside Russia, the Kremlin has said.

    “I would like to warn American leaders against miscalculations that could have fatal consequences. For unknown reasons, they underestimate the seriousness of the rebuff they may receive,” said Sergei Ryabkov, the Russian deputy foreign minister.

    Vladimir Putin last week said that the West would be directly involved in any Ukrainian long-range attack on Russia involving Western-supplied arms, as such strikes would require Western intelligence and military assistance.

    Referring to Putin’s comments, Mr Ryabkov said: “I urge these figures [in the US] … to spend some of their time, which they apparently spend on some kind of video games, judging by the lightness of their approach, on studying what was said in detail by Putin.”

    The US has given Kyiv permission to use its Western weapons against some targets inside Russia, so that Ukrainian troops can strike Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them.

    However, Washington has refused to allow Ukraine to use its long-range Atacms missiles in attacks on Russian territory.

    Follow the latest updates below https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/03/ukraine-russia-war-latest-news7/

  76. Good afternoon all
    What a traumatic few days it's been. Thursday was feeling pretty rotten and phoned 999. Paramedics came quickly, took BP 208/201 and 201/198, and invited me to take a ride with them. Lots of tests and linked to machines for heart, pulse etc. Couldn't find anything wrong but gave me extra meds to bring BP down. Discharged after 6 hours. I'm having an angiogram on Friday 7th that's been scheduled for a few weeks.
    Any way was feeling rotten again on Friday and phoned 999, again fast response lots of tests and machinery attached and kept in overnight and released Saturday with still no reason for shortness of breath although BP more under control. One of the new drugs has caused to involuntary muscle shakes which is scary but that one of the side affects.
    Hoping the angiogram will finally sort out the problem. This has been going for 4 years and have had numerous tests by Respiratory Consultant before being to referred to Cardiology about 40 weeks ago and their consultant identified with calcified left coronary artery from CT scans from a year ago.
    Thankfully vw has been a fantastic nurse and I've put her through a lot of worry. Those of you who know her will know what a lovely lady she is.

    1. Sounds rotten for both of you; I'm sorry. I hope things get sorted out properly soon.

    3. I wonder if you have Atrial fibrillation it sounds very similar to what I have been through.

      1. I had an atrial ablation 10 years ago but, according to the cardiologist, this is probably caused by the blocked artery but these symptoms have come on rapidly.

        1. Oh dear its all such a nuisance.
          I hope they put you right quickly Alf.
          And I really mean that.

          1. Thanks Eddy I’m sure they’ll do their damndest to get shot of me. 😂

            Edited – a g for a j.

          2. Be careful of some of the BP tablets.
            They can cause a few problems of their own. Read the leaflets inside the packets and do NHS online research if you find you have any problems. If you don’t have one already get a BP tester for home use.
            ‘Nil illegitimi carborundum’. Or words to that effect.
            Good luck.

          3. I have a BP machine and it’s looking OK today.
            Thanks for you good luck. We all need that element of luck.

    4. Goodness me , you have been having a very frightening few days , Alf .

      You haven't got a swollen leg, arm etc , and am just wondering whether you are experiencing blood clots /DVT, ? pulmonary embolisms..

      Thank goodness they are on the case , but they have been very slow .

      So sorry for both of you , when one or the other is worried .

      Take care Alf .

      1. Thank you Belle.
        I have been on blood thinners since 2010 when i had DVT and PE post op. Thanks for the thought.

        Edited. PE not PT.

    7. Sorry to hear that, I hope you get the treatment asap and it's successful

    9. Sorry to hear about all the problems. Just be thankful you don't live in Shropshire; here, "fast response" is anything under seven hours!

    10. I'm very sorry to hear of your frightening experience.
      Thank goodness paramedics arrived quickly.
      It must be so frustrating that the problems have been going on for so long. Fingers crossed that the upcoming appointments can diagnose the cause and get you appropriately medicated.

      1. Thank you. I have to be confident it will be solved, hopefully this coming Friday.

        2. Lots of warmest wishes to you both and looking forward to seeing you in the near future> Hugs to you and vw from D and me xx

  77. 388071+ up ticks,

    A major WEF / NWO davos asset softening up the brain-dead fodder who are aching to have their portrait encapsulated in a pavement slab.

    UNN
    @UnityNewsNet
    🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨

    Starmer, speaking about defence and national security, has said that “the postwar era is over” and a “new age of insecurity has begun”.

    He said he had never expected in his lifetime to see the “rumble of war” in Europe as 'Russian tanks rolled into a European country':

    “We must face down malign actors who tried to attack and weaken our nation. And not just through traditional warfare over air, land and sea but with hybrid threats to our energy supply, cybersecurity information warfare.”

    OMINOUS!

    Is there the slightest chance he is talking of the mass paedophile action in rotherham, rochdale,etc,etc, any town / city will have a PIE operator in residence, courtesy of the lab/lib/con paedophile umbrella coalition party did he mention that ?

    1. “We must face down malign actors who tried to attack and weaken our nation."

      I think that Starmer has no idea who the 'malign actors' are but many Nottlers could tell him but they would be accused of being racists if they did.

      1. 388071+ up ticks

        Afternoon R,

        Time racism was recognised currently in today's society, and peoples awarded
        accordingly.

    2. Sir Kneelalot, like a footballer always slightly late to the ball, trying to keep up, as ever with "THE MESSAGE". As usual we don't know what we'll do but whatever it is we'd do it harder, do it more statesmanlike in the way I've seen grown ups doing stuff and we'll criticise you for not doing it enough sooner.

      A drone, basically.

    3. The Age of Insecurity has been brought about by the deliberate actions of successive governments; first Blair and Brown and then their followers who were pretending to be Conservatives.

  78. Okay, cynical me saw this in one of the local newspapers .

    However, while those are the most popular names, others are at the risk of becoming extinct according to the latest data.

    For boys, Ollie, Harvey, Charles and Nathan all fell out of the top 100 list, while Blake dropped 15 places down to 89th.

    Beatrice, Anna, Holly, Heidi and Amber were the girls names that have disappeared from the top 100 list, while Edith was the biggest faller from 83rd to 95th.

    Top 10 boys' names England and Wales
    Noah
    Muhammad
    George
    Oliver
    Leo 
    Arthur
    Oscar  
    Theodore
    Theo
    Freddie
    Top 10 girls' names England and Wales
    Olivia
    Amelia
    Isla
    Ava
    Lily
    Ivy
    Freya
    Florence
    Isabella
    Mia
    James Tucker from the Office for National Statistics said: "Noah was the most popular name for boys in 2022, for the second year in a row, having replaced Oliver at the top in 2021. Oliver has now slipped to fourth most popular boys' name, behind Muhammad and George.    

    Now my point is , where are the Muslim names for girls, and are less Muslim daughters being born than Muslim sons .
    Selective breeding , don't you think ?

          2. An old Scotsman is sitting at a bar nursing a pint of bitter when suddenly a powerfully built black woman bursts into the room, leaps up onto the bar , squats over the Scotsman's pint and breaks wind loudly and copiously.
            Incensed the Scotsman bellows ' YOU FART IN MA WHITBREAD!!' and the woman replied 'No, I'm Tessa Sanderson….'

          3. Irishman goes into a pub and asks for a pint of bitter. Barman says 'Whitbread?'. Irishman says 'two slices'.

        2. When we went to stay with Caroline's parents in Southern Spain 25 years ago a little shop near them was run by a large Muslim woman called Fatima and her skinny daughter whom our boys decided to call Thinima.

      2. Aaliyah – High dignity
        Yasmin – Fragrant jasmine flower
        Zara – Radiant flower
        Leila – Beautiful night
        Nurul – Light
        Sofia – Wisdom
        Amina – Trustworthy
        Samira – Extraordinary woman
        Lina – Gentle
        Hannah – God's gift
        Maliha – Beautiful
        Rania – Serenity
        Azra – Pure
        Nayla – Radiant
        Salma – Safe
        Iman – Faith
        Adila – Just
        Dina – Faith
        Farida – Unique
        Jameela – Beautiful
        Muna – Wish
        Rasha – Joyful
        Yusra – Ease
        Zayna – Beautiful
        Latifa – Gentle
        Or
        Wife One
        Wife Two
        Wife Three
        Goat.

          1. Why aren't the goats draped in tents to stop other men lusting after them?

    2. Maggie, the 'official list' – ONS – is grossly misleading; Noah is not the leading boy's name.The ONS treats fourteen variants of Muhammad as one:

      Muhammad, Mohammed, Mohammad, Muhammed, Mohamed, Mohamad, Muhamad, Muhamed, Mohamud, Mohummad, Mohummed, Mouhamed, Mohammod and Mouhamad!

      This greatly distorts the percentage popularities and relegates 'Noah' et al way down the list of popularity.

      I wonder which Civil Servant came up with this wheeze – and which of his overlords and political masters allowed/ endorsed it?

      1. Crumbs , thanks for that Lacoste .

        Sounds as if you are spot on with the many Mo’s . All Engineered by a crafty Civil Servant .

    3. The list does not take into account the number of different spellings for Mo! If it did then Mo would come top!

    4. I know two Ollies and two Heidis (but they seem to be popular names among the racing fraternity).

  79. It feels like the social order is crumbling in Germany. 3 June 2024.

    I’ve been in and out of Germany a lot in recent months, and it’s hard not to gain the impression that its society is falling apart at the seams. Wherever you go, there seem to be angry political rallies and street protests. The news is full of violent attacks on politicians and activists. The fear is of a resurgence of far-right sentiments nearly eight decades after the fall of the Nazi regime. The concept of irrational German angst has become a bit of a cliche over the years, but this time the threats to social cohesion feel very real.

    Hmmm. Germany? I know that the rest is dropping to bits of course. The US. France. The UK. It never occurred to me that Gerrnany was so far gone. The rot of neo-liberalism has spread throughout the West like one of those pandemics they are always propagating. The irony. There’s no saving it. It was almost certainly the most humane and advanced civilisation that has graced the Earth. It will be no more within another twenty years.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/it-feels-like-the-social-order-is-crumbling-in-germany/

    1. It's been going on since Mutti Merkel opened the doors, stating in big clear words that Germany would love an extra one million immigrants, no questions asked. Rot, rust, all work similarly: it takes time but eventually it destroys the structure.

      1. Especially if, Germany having invited them in, the EU then tells the rest of the EU countries that they "must take their share". Germany never explained why their guilt-trip should be visited on other countries. Perhaps because there was more to it than a mere guilt-trip by Merkel's Germany – Merkel is no doubt very rich.

    2. It's been going on since Mutti Merkel opened the doors, stating in big clear words that Germany would love an extra one million immigrants, no questions asked. Rot, rust, all work similarly: it takes time but eventually it destroys the structure.

    3. The pretence again that it's those resisting the nazi regime who are the real nazis. Forcing evil on the people and condemning them for not embracing their own demise. As I expected (it being "Pride Month") there are the rectangular banners of an ideology, not the flags of a country, hanging lengthwise down draped around the central atrium of Television Centre. The colours have changed but the format and manner of display are identical to the banners of the Third Reich yet no-one seems to notice.

      1. I've noticed. The Progress Pride flags are like the swastikas of the Third Reich in that they let you know in no uncertain terms which dominant and domineering ideology is in charge, and to which all must do obeisance or face untold punishment.

    4. Of course we can always pose hypotheses – many of which are absurd! For example:

      What would have happened if Hitler had decided not to kill Jews but to set up a Jewish state in the Holy Land to which Jews could be deported if they did not want to go to countries which welcomed them?

      What would happen if traditionally Christian countries decided decided that Islam was destroying their values and legal systems and humanely sent them to Muslim countries?

      1. Small difficulty here – Muslim countries wouldn't take them, so not even a starter.

    5. I recall hoardes of stupid Germans holding placards reading ‘Refugees Welcome’ after Merkel admitted millions of immigrants into their country.

      We knew the UNHCR-EU policy would spell disaster and so it has proven, not only for Germany but for most other EU nations excepting Poland and Hungary who had more sense.

  80. STARMER is not a statesman , he is so stiff and blank eyed , the thought of becoming a PM must be terrifying him .

    Sunak is like a little Gandhi .

    Famous Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

    “The future depends on what we do in the present.”
    “It's easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone.”
    “Our greatest ability as humans is not to change the world, but to change ourselves.”
    “Service without humility is selfishness and egotism.

    1. Gandhi was quoted in Parliament Square on Saturday afternoon. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

      1. We're not winning. When does that start? Isn't 40 years of war long enough? Could we also stop funding their armaments?

    2. Ghandi was a highly intelligent little imp, who changed the world through some very clever tactics, helped by the religious nature (willing servitude) of his country and *perhaps* also by the smiling Gods. I so wish that Sunak were of similar ilk, spiritual charisma and conviction.

  81. Sunak: I’ll change law to keep trans women out of female lavatories
    Prime Minister to announce Tory manifesto will include pledge to make clear that sex means ‘biological sex’
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/02/rishi-suank-equality-act-protect-womens-spaces-tory/

    I tried to post this BTL but it was immediately removed. But I expect the vast majority of people and not just Nottlers – would agree with the sentiments I was not allowed to express! Willy/Nilly should be the yardstick. (Willy = Has a penis; Nilly – doesn't)

    If a 'transwoman' has gone through the process of having his/her penis and testicles removed then I would not object to him/her using Ladies' loos. He/she has to urinate somewhere and he/she would no longer be equipped to use a urinal in a Gents' loo.

    Those who have male genitalia should never be allowed to use women's such facilities no matter what sex they claim to be.

    2. I don't actually agree. If a bloke has gone that far then he must face the consequences of his choice. He is still a man biologically.

        1. I've just booked my tickets for a race meeting later in the year. For some reason they wanted to know my gender. There wasn't a box for "Mind Your Own Business" so I had to tick "Rather Not Say".

      1. Good name for a song! Sung to the tune of 'tiptoe through the tulips' !

    5. I don’t agree, I’m afraid. He is still a man no matter what bits he’s had lopped off.

    6. Another pronouncement that Rishi has no intention of putting into practice, even in the unlikely event that he scrapes back in.

  83. Himars strike destroys air defences inside Russia as Kremlin warns of ‘fatal consequences’ . 3 may 2024.

    Ukrainian troops used US-supplied Himars missiles to destroy an advanced air defence system inside Russia, as the Kremlin warned Washington it could suffer “fatal consequences” for backing the cross-border attacks.

    Several missiles are understood to have hit an air defence installation in Belgorod, Russia that was equipped with S-300/400 surface-to-air missiles.

    BELOW THE LINE.

    J Finnemore.

    "Fatal consequences", Mr. Putin? Don't threaten us, we're not scared by your empty words.

    Absolutely no different to what the USSR did during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, without suffering attack from the West.

    You've been told repeatedly by the United Nations to get out completely and immediately from Ukraine. Get out at once, bag and baggage.

    This is the sort of vainglorious, unhinged comment or worse from the Nudge Unit trolls that you can expect. I assume that it is approved by the Telegraph and thus its masters.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/03/ukraine-russia-war-latest-news7/

    1. Russia routinely blocks Himars and it is doubtful that any targets were hit.

      There have been contradictory messages from Cameron, Macron and various military personnel such as to escalate tensions. This makes for a dangerous escalation should any party panic.

      I agree the troll J Finnemore is an idiot with no understanding of the conflict and of its origins.

      1. Afternoon C. If I read the situation correctly. The trolls have been unleashed with no limitation to their posts. I also suspect that this applies to the new weaponry the US has suppled to the Ukies. They are in effect daring Putin to strike back because they think that he is bluffing. I don't need to tell you what will happen if they are wrong.

        1. The US and EU plus the UK have completely underestimated both the industrial capacity and resolve of the Russian government.

          Listening earlier to Alexander Mercouris of The Duran who comments daily on geopolitics and the war in Ukraine he states that by the measure PPP Russia is the fourth largest economy after China, the United States and India having surpassed Japan and Germany five or more years ago.

          We never read such news in western media. Instead we are fed a constant diet of barefaced lies.

  84. Good afternoon all.

    Today is a good day for me. Up coming lunch of bagels filled with smoked salmon and soft cheese – my favourite lunch,

    Please enjoy yours.

    P

    1. I went to the waitrose and found Alberts Victorian Chutney, so bought two jars of the stuff.

      1. Yes, good to see you, and lovely to hear that you are having a good day. Here's wishing you many more.

    1. I wouldn’t trust him with a goldfish! He’s a slimy, lying creep with not a scintilla of personality or charisma! He is really Max H h h headroom!

    2. I don't believe anything he says. He's a lawyer and a politician. That makes his the lowest of the lowest of the low.

  86. That's me off now to keep a dental appointment .. 12 miles away.. I do hate driving to the conurbation, hate the bypass.

    Water chaps fitted a new stop cock at the end of the drive way , pressure feels better.

    Moh snoozing .

    1. Weird how important water pressure is to a decent shower. A bit of a dribble just isn't enough.

      2. Not sure I’ve mentioned it for about a week, but my opinion on showers….
        Anyway i prefer a bath. You can’t drink a glass of wine or a cup of tea in the shower, let alone read a book.

        1. You can't lie back and luxuriate in the scented warmth of a shower. To me a shower feels like something you get into and then get out of as quickly as it takes you to get clean. A bit like taking a pill rather than sitting down to a nice meal…but thank goodness we are all different. As long as baths are not banned!

        2. You can't lie back and luxuriate in the scented warmth of a shower. To me a shower feels like something you get into and then get out of as quickly as it takes you to get clean. A bit like taking a pill rather than sitting down to a nice meal…but thank goodness we are all different. As long as baths are not banned!

        3. That's what I've always said; taking a shower dilutes the wine and makes the pages soggy!

      1. Thanks for the tip OLT.

        I will relay that info to Moh , (between you and I , he hasn’t got an engineering brain ) you know what aviators are like .. Flight of the Phoenix confused him!

        1. Get your plumber to do it.

          I know that in the last three houses we lived in, I could not get to the Stop Cock

  87. I wish I were more like the Warqueen. She doesn't bother voting. She also ensures she pays as little tax as possible, thus contributing almost nothing to the machine. No contribution, no interest in voting. She loses nothing.

    What she does get annoyed at is the things she pays for – such as trains being late. Increasingly though she's fed up with this trans lobby, as she has friends who have to hide from male aggressors. Heck, she has a fan club that venerates her modelling career and so do friends of hers still in the industry. Some of those chaps are overly enthusiastic, shall we say. Thus this man in a dress issue is a real problem.

    1. "Thus this man in a dress issue is a real problem." – Especially when hidden away in a Ladies changing room or toilet.

    2. "Thus this man in a dress issue is a real problem." – Especially when hidden away in a Ladies changing room or toilet.

  88. Afternoon all. I see it is Pride month, went round to our Tesco this morning and a big display at the entrance 'showing Pride' or something.
    Not sure I am in a minority, I suspect not, but as a Christian who has always been told that certain things are wrong I just cannot support this movement. Gone are the days when various things were done out of sight in bedrooms and woe and betide if word gets out, we are now not just normalising the whole thing but positively bragging about it. I have not been approached for my views at any of those things but I am not sure how I would respond, I might be pretty rude in my response. And now of course we have all the transgender rubbish, what on earth is the world coming to.

    1. There's a nice Jordan Petersen Youtube "short", asking why people feel the need to define themselves by what they do with parts of their body. This activity should be private, and kept that way.

      1. Agreed. It's the Age of the Pants. These people are obsessed with their private parts. Be what you want to be but I don't want to know what you do with your nethers.

    2. Apart from the moral question, I just find it boring that a certain group feels it necessary to broadcast their sexual preferences. I suppose its their way of rubbing our noses in diversity, enabled by the equality act. I'm surprised that peados dont complain of discrimination. Maybe with the introduction of Islam into our politics gays will be out and peados will be celebrated.

    4. Afternoon Dave. I caught the bus last Friday to go to the Supemarket. There was a gay couple there. I've seen them before. One of them is English and the other; a rather scruffy individual, is of foreign extraction, might be a Ukie. They indulged in some petting while we were waiting for the bus. it was transparently obvious that this was a show intended for public consumption.

      1. I was in the queue in a Countrywide Store some years ago (the chain is now defunct) and a couple of lesbians ahead of me started snogging. That was definitely for show and to be in your face. I don't care what you do in private, but in a public place sexual behaviour is inappropriate, whether it's two of a kind or two different.

        1. Heterosexuals tend not to do this. Or hold hands and yet you see plenty of younger gays holding hands. I think it is to be provocative to onlookers rather than a loving private gesture, in most if not all cases.

          3. How about a flag, a day of celebration and a forbid against hurty language for us introverts, us nerds, whatever…? More of us than bum bandits.

          4. My sister and her girlfriend used to canoodle in front of my parents, particularly to offend my father.

        2. Not that different to the militant breast-feeding mothers who get their boobs fully out and exposed when baby needs a feed, with no attempt to be discreet. I have no issue with mothers who choose to breast-feed in public, the majority of them doing so discreetly, but there is no need to fully expose their body parts.

          2. Every now and then, I come across a young woman enjoying the blatant, exhibitionist behaviour.

      2. I do so wish that people wouldn't do that. Sexual activity should be private, surely?

    6. Like you, I see it as a perversion and not to be encouraged. I think I'd be put in gaol if I were asked to comment.

    7. The wife of a relative has been posting all over her farcebook page about her weekend trip to York (where she used to live) to support pride events. Last year, she took her young children (aged 3,5 and 7), and they were 'dressed up' to fit the event. What sort of mind thinks it is a appropriate/acceptable to take their impressionable young children along to join in? They will grow up thinking being 'gay' is perfectly normal – it is not normal and, contrary to what the msm would have us believe, those people are only a small minority of the population.
      I wonder if this same woman supports the trans delusion as well, but what would her opinion be if, a few years down the line, her daughters were exposed to biological boys in secondary school changing rooms and toilets.

      1. Thanks for all the comments, seem to have started something and I can agree with all of you. The above posting must take the crown, pushing the Pride nonsense to your children is obscene in the extreme. In our days we were kept innocent from such things and nothing surfaced from the gooseberry bushes! I hope I never have to confront somebody like that.

  89. What an excellent video.
    Not only does Charlie Kirk demolish the Lefty's arguments, but he has the grace and good manners to thank him for the questions and congratulate him for having the courage to go to an openly Right Wing event to pose those questions.
    Now, imagine it being a Right Winger at a Left Wing event?
    https://youtu.be/ezYUu8vvYbA?si=TJIl9EvrGqtJuR4p

    1. Good grief they go on. Bring the blonde in the background into focus. Ignore the whining brat.

  90. Pakistan inflation lowest in two years

    Inflation in Pakistan fell in May to its lowest level in 29 months after the sharpest drop since an economic crisis sent food prices soaring, according to government data.

    The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics said that consumer prices rose 11.8pc, compared to a peak of 38pc in May 2023.

    In April, inflation fell to under 20pc year-on-year for the first time since the country’s economy began to spiral in early 2022 as a political crisis gripped the country.

    is that 'cus they mostly live here and send their wages back to there

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/06/03/ftse-100-latest-news-live-uk-shein-london-float/

    2. I had a bit of time to kill before the French were due to leave so I sat and waited. About every third schoolchild was tinted and one of them in school uniform looked about 27 – heavy dark beard. Then there were the non-indigenous adults wandering around. I wondered if I'd taken a wrong turn and ended up in Karachi or Mogadishu. I thought the bleks and effniks didn't like the countryside 'coz it's raacist.

        1. People watching while I was waiting for our French visitors to depart for l'Outre-Manche. Bearing in mind this is a rural area, the number of non-indigenous (as judged by the colour of their skins and facial features) was remarkable. Even a couple of years ago there would only have been two "foreign" families; one ran the take-away and the other ran a care home.

          2. Tous les francais etaient europeens. En plus, ils sont rentres chez eux. Apologies for lack of accents. I'm using the Win 10 laptop (spit!).

  91. Ave atque vale again, I'm afraid. Been at a RAFA meeting this morning and have a parish council meeting tonight. Trump hasn't demonstrated he's unfit to hold office at all; the PTB have shown that they are out to get him because he has the interests of the USA to the forefront.

  92. BBC under fire over D-Day mapping blunder on Antiques Roadshow
    –
    Sunday night's show marking the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy makes 'basic errors' on the embarkation point for Allied troops
    –
    Danielle Sheridan, DEFENCE EDITOR • 3 June 2024 • 1:43pm
    –
    The BBC has come under fire for a D-Day mapping blunder on the Antiques Roadshow.
    –
    On Sunday night's episode, a series of maps flashed on the screen that showed the south coast ports where thousands of Allied troops embarked for Operation Overlord.
    –
    Although it was in Weymouth, Dorset, where more than 100,000 men were staged ahead of the invasion of Normandy, the BBC confused the Georgian harbour town with Poole and placed it 30 miles to the east on its maps.
    –
    Also, Amsterdam was relocated 50 miles south to where Rotterdam should be.
    –
    The BBC has been approached for comment.
    – https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8afb319e633049621b312f9ef586596aa2b134ca43f9272a0edf7f3093fa230c.jpg – https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/346168023929a120a82445e670a7dd1c7a267a752c0746d49dd9492580ff6c0f.jpg –
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

    1. It wouldn't be a Ferrari. It'd be a gas main.

      £600k in this place. Our savings, two cars sold and we don't qualify for the grant for radiators.

      I hate this bloody country.

    3. The problem I see is the unthinking nature of the electorate generally.
      They do what they are told:
      Israel bad, Hamas good, crows the press, so that's what the electorate follow.
      Russia is about to invade the world, they are told, so that's what they believe.
      Farage is a frothing-at-the-mouth right-wing nazi, they are told, so that's what they believe.
      Trump is a frothing-at-the-mouth right-wing crooked nazi, they are told, so that's what they believe.
      And so on. I despair.

      1. Blair did it deliberately with his edjookashun x 3 mantra. He didn't want an educated, literate, thinking populace.

  96. This is Captain Rishi speaking: "Bail out, Bail out!!!"

    From the DT:

    "All the migrants in detention after being earmarked for deportation to Rwanda are set to be freed on bail amid election uncertainty over the flights, according to lawyers and charities.

    Dozens of asylum seekers have already successfully applied for bail on the basis that there is not the required “realistic” prospect of their imminent removal to Rwanda.

    Labour has pledged to scrap the scheme “on day one” if it wins the election, and flights have been delayed until the end of July.

    One legal firm told The Telegraph it had only a handful, out of 50 people, left in detention after all the asylum seekers who had applied to the court had been granted bail. It expected the remainder to be freed at court hearings this week.

    Care4Calais, a charity that works with asylum seekers, said the 100-plus detainees it was supporting were being released and it expected that this would be extended to all of them “soon”."

    1. "Bail out, Bail out!!!"

      "But you're the only one with a parachute, Prime Minister"

      "I knooooooowwwᵥᵥᵥᵥᵥᵥᵥᵥ …"

  97. My word.. The Farage masterfully handled the hostile infantile MSM journos at the Reform press conference.
    He's articulate, calm collected like a seasoned pro.. and swotted them like flies.
    Daily Mirror: Will you be resigning if if if…

    1. The BBC on the five o'clock news sounded like they were announcing a funeral.

      1. Let's hope it's for the Labour Party whose Headstone will read:
        Here lies the remains of the Labour Party
        Born 1900
        Died 4th July 2024
        from a surfeit of Islam.

      2. "We have a U-turn…what does it all mean for the election and the future of The Right."

        R4, PM.

    2. The BBC on the five o'clock news sounded like they were announcing a funeral.

  98. this is awkward for the climate/extreme weather brigade, from 100 years ago:

    “THAMES THREE FEET HIGHER.
    In the two days that have elapsed since its advent the “month of roses” has behaved in a way which entitles it to the less pleasant description – “drenching June.” It is true that in London the rainfall recorded was considerably less than that in the Midlands and some other places, but in the Metropolis it was the general opinion that the supply far exceeded the demand. At intervals on Sunday and yesterday the sun shone, but it was a case of flattering only to deceive – and there were frequent showers of rain during both days. Thus, the brief period of sunshine yesterday afternoon brought in its train a violent thunderstorm which began at about the time City workers were on their way home. Accompanied by the inevitable rain, it added another discomfort to the “rush hour.”
    During the storm lightning struck a chimney stack at Arlington House, West Ham-lane, adjoining the West Ham Police-station. Part of the stack fell and damaged the house. About 200 yards away a house at No. 27, Arthingworth-street, was also struck.
    The rain has had the effect of swelling the Thames greatly since Saturday, the rise in the districts of Chertsey, Laleham, Shepperton, and Sunbury having been about 21in in forty-eight hours. Although very high all last week, the water, owing to the efforts of the Conservancy officials, was being rapidly got away, and on Saturday morning at Chertsey the river was only 1ft 4in above summer level. Yesterday it was 3ft 1in. There was very little week-end boating, few small craft caring to venture out with a stream of five miles an hour flowing.
    From all parts of the country come reports of damage to property and risk to life owing to the floods which several days of almost continuous rain have caused. Farm stock has suffered severely, sheep and poultry having been drowned in many of the low-lying districts before the farmers and their helpers could reach them. In some districts the water has flooded the lower parts of houses, imprisoning the occupants in the bed-rooms, whence they were rescued by policemen in boats, while in Herefordshire, where several cloudbursts were experienced, the roads were made impassable by torrents of water.
    During a thunderstorm at Polesworth, near Tamworth, a horse attached to a trap driven by Edwin Collins, a farmer, took fright at the lightning and plunged into the deep part of a flooded river. A miner named Neasey, who was also in the trap, managed to get on a stone pillar of the bridge, and was saved, but the horse and trap were carried away by the strong current, and Collins was drowned.
    HOUSEHOLDERS TRAPPED.
    Considerable damage was caused by cloudbursts and floods in Leominster district of Herefordshire on Sunday. A heavy thunderstorm broke over the district on the Saturday night shortly after eight o’clock, and during the night the rain became more torrential, and within twelve hours 2¾in fell. Thousands of acres of land near the town were flooded so quickly that it was only with the greatest difficulty that livestock were rescued.
    On one farm at Risbury, a short distance from Steens Bridge, practically the whole of the sheep, pigs, and poultry were drowned and washed away. A man riding along the road was overtaken by the water, and his horse had great difficulty in swimming through the torrent. Another cloudburst occurred at Brimfield, between Leominster and Ludlow. A driver of a motor-lorry stated that in one place he found the stone wall of a bridge washed away. For miles he had great difficulty in getting through the water on the main road. He frequently collided with floating tar barrels, the roads being under repair, and other large objects. Mathew Powell, a shepherd of about 55 years of age, employed by Mr. Manford, of Buckton Park, Leintwardine, Herefordshire, went to his duties on Sunday morning and did not return. It is feared that he attempted to cross the River Teme in flood, and that his horse jibbed and threw Powell into the rapid current, which bore him away. The horse and a dog were found in a meadow near the river.”

    1. That's interesting. All Saints church which sits on the north bank of the Thames just by Putney Bridge was largely rebuilt in 1881 and the floor level was raised three feet to prevent it being flooded at high tide. There had been times when there were fish swiming in the aisle. The medieval tower was saved and still sits three feet lower than the body of the church.

      1. Interesting. My banns were read in the church on the south side. I will visit All Saints next time I am round there. Thank you.

    2. With an average temperature of only 12.9°C, it was the coldest August since records began in 1659. London enjoyed only one day over 21°C, and Birmingham never exceeded 19°C, frosts were recorded in Devon and Shropshire. However, it was the torrential rain that bought chaos to the region; there were many days when over one inch of rain fell. On the 26th a deepening depression bought severe weather to East Anglia when over six inches of rain fell in 24 hours in Norwich. The floods that followed were the worst ever seen in East Anglia, Norwich was cut off for two days, with 40 bridges destroyed and flooding 15 feet deep in places.

      The local newspapers reported that over a ten-day period, 5 inches of rain fell in Peterborough, over twice the normal monthly total. The Times of August 27th recorded that the floods at Peterborough Town Bridge were 7ft above normal, and there was considerable concern for the safety of the bridge. Extensive flooding was reported in the city.

      The year was 1912. This report was quoted in the DT in 2012, when we had a miserably wet summer with some severe flooding following a long drought with two years of well below average rainfall and a warm summer and autumn (2011). March 2012 saw temperatures in the 70s before the weather broke.

      Like 2012, the record-breaking summer of 1912 had followed a very hot summer in 1911, when the UK's previous highest temperature of 98.8°F had been recorded in Northamptonshire.

    3. With an average temperature of only 12.9°C, it was the coldest August since records began in 1659. London enjoyed only one day over 21°C, and Birmingham never exceeded 19°C, frosts were recorded in Devon and Shropshire. However, it was the torrential rain that bought chaos to the region; there were many days when over one inch of rain fell. On the 26th a deepening depression bought severe weather to East Anglia when over six inches of rain fell in 24 hours in Norwich. The floods that followed were the worst ever seen in East Anglia, Norwich was cut off for two days, with 40 bridges destroyed and flooding 15 feet deep in places.

      The local newspapers reported that over a ten-day period, 5 inches of rain fell in Peterborough, over twice the normal monthly total. The Times of August 27th recorded that the floods at Peterborough Town Bridge were 7ft above normal, and there was considerable concern for the safety of the bridge. Extensive flooding was reported in the city.

      The year was 1912. This report was quoted in the DT in 2012, when we had a miserably wet summer with some severe flooding following a long drought with two years of well below average rainfall and a warm summer and autumn (2011). March 2012 saw temperatures in the 70s before the weather broke.

      Like 2012, the record-breaking summer of 1912 had followed a very hot summer in 1911, when the UK's previous highest temperature of 98.8°F had been recorded in Northamptonshire.

  99. A perfect Par Four?

    Wordle 1,080 4/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟨🟨🟨⬜🟨
    🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. A poor 5 today.

      Wordle 1,080 5/6

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

    2. Finally, a bit of luck – a skanky birdie!

      Wordle 1,080 3/6

      🟨🟨🟨⬜🟨
      🟨⬜🟩🟨🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Five for me. Too many options.

      Wordle 1,080 5/6

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

      1. Options bad

        Wordle 1,080 5/6

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

    4. Me too.
      Wordle 1,080 4/6

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

  100. Electile Dysfunction
    The inability to be aroused by any of the parties standing in the forthcoming election.

    1. C'mon Nige.. 17,410,742 voters will say No to lefties, No to Islam.. on 4th July.

        1. I think they’re already in the post! Glad to see you back safely, Alf! KBO!

          2. I have two in the back of one of the sheds. No idea how they got there…

  101. Not sure if this has been mentioned Nigel Farage is allegedly taking over the leadership of Reform.
    I think he's well aware of public opinion, whereas none of the others have a clue.

    2. Tice could not take core votes off Labour or the Lib Dems because he presented as a Thatcherite – fine for splitting off disgruntled Tories, but missing a trick – the one that enabled Leave to prevail in 2016.

      First off, the Red Wall in the North and Midlands. They were traditional flat cap working class, always voted Labour in the past, but felt their old party was no longer capable of standing up for the indigenous working class, whereas the Boris era Tories were worth a punt. Farage only needs to sit in a pub and drink real ale to play the "man of the people" card.

      Next off, those disllusioned with politics and want a change. Starmer's cynical weaponising of this well-known buzz word promises as much real change as ChangeUK did, and from much the same place. The fed-up saw through ChangeUK straight away, and have no more enthusiasm for more of the same. Farage, the consummate outsider only needs to promise to shake things up, and unlike Starmer, I believe he might.

      Now we come to the Lib Dems. I have voted Liberal and Lib Dem more than for any other party, and was very active in the 1980s. What drew me to the party was that they were unafraid to discuss issues radically, without conformity to some set and accepted doctrine. At its best, it was thoughtful, parochial and pragmatic. These days though, all we see from the Lib Dems are cheesy publicity stunts and lots of orange diamonds "winning here". I don't want slogans or stunts; I want someone to run the country properly. Farage might find support in unusual places if he can show capability and open-mindedness to possibilities.

      This leaves the Greens, who are the kingmakers in Scotland right now, and making steady progress elsewhere. It was a big mistake for STV to deny the Scottish Greens a platform at the TV debate – the fortunes of both the SNP and the Labour Party might depend on what the Greens have to say, for good or for ill. The core Green vote has little interest in race or gender, and cannot see the logic of building over the countryside or relying on highly destructive Chinese industry to grandstand over Climate Change. Farage might find a sympathetic ear amid the Greens if he can talk about national heritage and measures that might actually enhance the environment and the quality of life, rather than push problems out of sight.

    3. From Coffee House, the Spectator

      Why Farage is back as Reform leader
      James Heale3 June 2024, 4:53pm
      He’s back. After all the teasing and all the rhetoric, Nigel Farage has finally announced his return as Reform leader. Having initially pledged that he would not stand at this election, he told a 100-strong room in Westminster: ‘I’ve changed my mind.’ He will now stand as Reform’s candidate in Clacton – the only seat Ukip ever won in a general election, back in 2015. ‘I cannot turn my back on the people’s army’ he said to the room. ‘I cannot turn my back on all those people who voted for us… I can’t let those people down, I won’t let those people down.’

      If this is to be a change election, then Farage wants to lead the radical charge
      If this is to be a change election, then Farage wants to lead the radical charge. ‘What I intend to lead is a political revolt’, he said. ‘Nothing in this country works anymore. The health service doesn’t work. The roads don’t work. None of our public services are up to scratch. We are in decline. This will only be turned around with boldness.’ It was his familiar narrative of betrayal and decline – but with an added emphasis on his self-regarding mantle as the people’s tribune. To those who ask whether Reform will do deals with individual MPs, Farage had two words to say: ‘2.4 million’. This is the number of legal migrants who have arrived here in the past two years.

      The hacks in the room only had one question: how well will Reform actually do? Farage, as usual, was bold in his claims. ‘Our aim in this election is to get many, many millions of votes. And I’m talking far more votes than we got back in 2015 when we got 4 million votes. We’re going to get many, many, many more votes than that.’ This is quite something for a party that has just a handful of councillors and has never hit 20 per cent in a by-election. Yet that didn’t stop Farage from telling journalists, ‘I genuinely believe we can get more votes than the Conservative party. And you can hold me to that.’

      Farage’s return as leader means that Richard Tice now becomes Reform chairman – an admission perhaps that the party’s campaign has not been going as well up to this point as the party might have wanted.

      Regardless, this certainly is a further blow to the Conservative party, which is already forecast to lose more than half its seats on 4 July. Tory strategists breathed a sigh of relief ten days ago when they thought it would be Richard Tice, not Farage, as the face of Reform. Now they will have to contend with Farage spearheading the party’s efforts in the election debates.

      Farage’s political hero is Enoch Powell who in February 1974 urged his followers to vote Labour to kick out Ted Heath’s Tory government. Fifty years later, Farage could now put the same party out of office for a generation.

      1. "I cannot turn my back on the People's Army?" That's exactly what he did when he stomped off from UKIP and he called us racists for good measure!

        1. From Coffee House, the Spectator

          George Galloway: Labour is the ‘number one enemy’
          Comments Share 3 June 2024, 3:05pm
          George Galloway would be happy if his Workers’ Party of Britain denied Labour the chance of an outright majority at the election because it would mean that whoever was in power would have to listen to the smaller parties. That was his message today when interviewed by Andrew Neil on Times Radio: the former Labour MP does not see a Labour government as being at all worthwhile over and above a Conservative one. He is standing in Rochdale, which he won in a by-election earlier this year after Labour messed up with its own candidate.

          ‘We are a threat to Labour in at least 100 places. We can either beat them or at least cause them to lose because the Labour party is, as you pointed out in your introduction, our number one enemy, for the reason that the Conservatives are the wolves, the Labour party are the foxes: they appear to be smiling but in fact their intentions are exactly the same as that of the wolf, which is to eat the living standards of the working people of this country and cheat the working people of this country with their fiendish schemes. So we want to replace the Labour party, we are the ghost of what Labour once was, we’re Tony Benn’s Labour.’

          Asked about cheating Labour of a majority, Galloway replied:

          I would treat that as a considerable triumph. Our goal here is a hung parliament and whomesoever is the biggest party would then have to negotiate with all the other forces in the House of Commons about a programme for government. It wouldn’t be a coalition but it will be a price list and the first item on that price list would be a reform of our electoral system so that seats in the House of Commons were allocated proportionally according to the vote that they have achieved.

          Galloway also seemed very relaxed about whether his candidates agreed with him on key events: one figure standing for the party is Craig Murray, who Neil pointed out believed the Salisbury poisonings had been orchestrated by the Israelis. Galloway said he was very proud of his two former ambassador candidates but that ‘doesn’t mean we agree on all issues and all interpretation of news events’.

          That he is happy for someone like Murray who holds these views to stand shows that he thinks they will appeal to target voters, rather than put them off. Similarly, he reiterated his personal ‘old-fashioned’ views on homosexuality when Neil asked whether that would put off younger voters who agreed with him on other topics such as Gaza. He said: ‘Some of the young people in my own family don’t agree with me. I’m old fashioned, Andrew, I’m a man of my age and class and I believe in mum, dad, and the kids.’

          Labour wouldn’t negotiate with Galloway if it did end up in a hung parliament situation. The party has long had a strategy of trying to pretend he doesn’t exist, which works in an air war and in parliament, but which has failed it when it has taken individual seats for granted or been slack about candidate vetting as it was in Rochdale. The party has now brought back one of the failed candidates from the by-election selection, Paul Waugh, who is trying to get Galloway out of the seat so that Keir Starmer doesn’t have to share a Commons chamber with him either. But the interview underlined why he keeps returning to politics in seats all over the country: he knows how to do a political interview in the way few others today do.

    1. I have never quite understood the issue. For personal reasons with which I shall not bore you, I always choose a lavatory for the handicapped (or, as I delight in reminding myself of the French, "mutilées"). These always have been unisex. Is not what is illustrated simply a unisex lavatory? Just asking.

        1. Nah – mutilés in general! Of course that word has long since been banned – "handicappé" is the modern usage.

          1. I've only ever seen mutile in the phrase I used. When I was going to France on a regular basis, the term was handicappe and that's what I use.

          2. I think you are right. Those little signs on the backs of seats in the Métro. C’était le bon temps!

          6. Reminds me of the old story:

            A gent gets on a bus, and the conductor shouts " 'oxton next stop".

            "I think you dropped your aitch, my man" says the gent.

            "No problem gov." says the conductor, "I'll pick it up at Hoxford Circus".

            I'll get me tin hat…

      3. Yerbut nobut you don't have to get yer todger out in full view of gels, do yer Bill? The Disabled bogs are PRIVATE, doesn't matter what sex you are.

      4. Yerbut nobut you don't have to get yer todger out in full view of gels, do yer Bill? The Disabled bogs are PRIVATE, doesn't matter what sex you are.

        1. I know – and you only discover that when you have walked/hopped/wheelchaired several hundred yards and realise that you are f*cked.

    2. I have never quite understood the issue. For personal reasons with which I shall not bore you, I always choose a lavatory for the handicapped (or, as I delight in reminding myself of the French, "mutilées"). These always have been unisex. Is not what is illustrated simply a unisex lavatory? Just asking.

    3. I'm aware of Sunak's announcement on female-only spaces, but I cannot hold him personally accountable for unisex lavatories. All I'd ask of him is why it took an election campaign to tackle this matter. I very much doubt that he'd have made his announcement without the July 4th election looming large.

      1. I don't know which you have in mind.

        If he keeps this up, Farage will soon be wearing Starmer's flip-flops.

  108. OT – last Monday, there was an article in The Grimes in which Lord Rees, the Astronomer Royal, is quoted as saying that in his 95 years, he has never, "Found God. I don't believe in any dogma, but I admire…the aesthetic accretions of the English church over the centuries: the architecture, the music, the liturgy etc. And I'd be sad if they died out. And I am happy to participate in services and, like George Orwell, to be buried according to the rites of the Church of England and all that."

    I was a believer until 2016 – born and brought up an Anglican; christened in Llandaff Cathedral, confirmed etc. Then my "faith" stopped dead. Nonetheless, I feel exactly as Lord Rees does – though I draw the line at a CofE funeral!

    His comment may strike a chord with other NoTTLers.

    1. I am still practising. My faith has had a wobble or two over the years, but I still feel there is something bigger out there. I enjoy the ritual, the colour, the lights and the smells (of traditional Anglo-Catholic worship). What really turns me off is the happy clappy, messy church that seems to have no connection with the spiritual.

      1. Our daughter and family were at Scottish Catholic first communion yesterday, and judging by what she said, the RC seem to be going the same way with handshakes and chat! I can’t imagine the very high Church ‘bells and smells’ vicar who put me through my Communion would have approved!

        1. I certainly don't approve, Sue. How I loathe it, and how I struggle with internal negativity whenever it is decreed.

          1. I didn’t like it when I was younger, and I disapprove even more now I’m old!

    2. What Daft Dickie Dawkins recently described as 'cultural Christianity'.

    3. What Daft Dickie Dawkins recently described as 'cultural Christianity'.

    4. What Daft Dickie Dawkins recently described as 'cultural Christianity'.

    5. As a confirmed sheep of colour I think the 'Lost Chord' would be most appropriate in my case!!

    6. I recall many years ago declaiming that I was no longer a Christian, faith was so much bollocks and all about power and control, and then a voice in my head asked me "Is that really how you feel?"
      I was absolutely astounded… and re-evaluated over some years.
      The result is that I do believe, but as the Christian faith tells us, God is our Father, and like all good Fathers, he gives you the opportunity to think for yourself, and make your own decisions. For which you have to stand up and be counted. And, if you're wrong, He will be very disappointed in you.
      So, as a father, that's how I live my life. I try to support others in what they do, as long as it's positive; I support those on the receiving end of shite; I try to guide folk in the way of gentleness and peace and thinking for yourself, just as I have my two lads. It seemed to work.
      So, I believe.
      Sorry.
      </pompous>

    7. I was a devout Catholic until 1994 when I lost my faith. I miss it. I sympathise with, and am envious of, those who remain faithful.

      In the last six months, I have been to Venice (St Mark's) and Florence (Duomo and St Lorenzo) and felt the loss.

  109. 388071+ up ticks,

    Puts paid to ALL "good men" should come to the aid of the party,
    the tory in name only party are pulling in their covert assets.

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021

    5h

    If Farage is running then its because his handlers have told him they need him to boost Reform’s vote so they can be the ‘managed opposition after the election. Even Reform doesn’t win a single seat they need are needed in the background.

    The Clacton voters need to remember how Farage pulled his Brexit Party candidates from Tory seats in 2019 & helped give the Tories their 80 seat majority.

    1. Has anybody ever estimated how many seats were won by the Conservatives as a consequence of the Brexit party not contesting those they already held and by how much other each of the parties would have benefited?

      1. I can only say that in the election where it happened I was involved helping a UKIP candidate (the only leaver among five remain candidates in a leave-voting constituency). She didn't pick up Brexit voters' votes and lost her deposit.

      2. I frequently make the point here that Farage , by not opposing Conservative held seats in 2019, enabled the Conservative Party to be stuffed with remainers who have done their best to thwart Brexit.

        As I said at the time, from my point of view the best result would have been a Conservative government dependent upon the Brexit Party. Had this happened we would not have lost Northern Ireland and UK fishing to the corrupt EU.

        Not in the UK MSM but Ursula Fonda Lyin is under investigation for corruption over the purchase of Covid Vaccines from Big Pharma.

        (See Caroline's post this morning)

        1. I do see your point, but it might also have meant a Labour/Remain victory by splitting the vote. We just don't know. i do think Nigel to be very good at gauging the public mood, at tactics.

        2. I strongly believe that, had the Brexit Party contested all seats being defended by the Conservatives, it would still not have won a single seat, but the distribution of seats amongst the other parties would have favoured Labour and the Liberal Democrats and seen a House of Commons with a smaller overall Conservative majority but even less enthused by Brexit than the one we ended up with.

    2. No. They need to get behind Reform, whatever your personal animus towards Farage. Now has suddenly become the time wherein we can effect change on our disgusting blob.

      1. 388071+ up ticks,

        Evening O,
        “whatever your personal animus towards Farage”

        Brought on by being stabbed in the back along with thousands of other true patriots.

        He is a Bengal lancer of the highest order.

        2. I don’t agree ogga. As I commented the other day, I think he was so utterly stabbed in the back by the disgusting Cons that he was taken aback.

        3. This probably means you won’t vote in the GE. Is that right.
          Is there anyone you would vote for that might eventually form a government.

          1. 388071+ up ticks,

            Evening AtG,
            As I posted before, NOTA is to me an empty gesture i’m going for Daisy the Cow, patriotic as is the whole herd, never intentionally done society harm, and farmer friendly, much more than I can say for the majority voter to date.
            supporting / voting these last four decades has resulted in reshuffling
            very dangerous treacherous shite I wont be part of that.
            To my mind this farage chap is a tory returning to the tory (ino) party, auxiliary branch.
            The political musical chairs will be played out once again on the 4th July, with once again, no chairs being deducted.

            Do hope you are on the mend.

      2. I am often in agreement with ogga but he must decide if he thinks Sunak or Starmer are a better option than Farage.

        Many of us are not very fond of Trump – but he is considerably better than the alternatives.

        2. They are all politicians, and shouldn't be touched, even with a long stick… some sticks need to be longer than others.

          1. I'll have you know I deployed my 12' barge pole last week in an effort to stem the flow of water in the gap between the bottom lock gates, preventing the lock from filling to enable the top gates to be opened. Last year it took the combined effort of three adults to push open one top lock gate against the water pressure. This year it took 4 and one half adults to achieve the same result. On the 6th June the Canal and River Trust are sending a diver down to explore and hopefully rrepair the damage!

          3. Thank you I've only popped in to collect the car and to go and buy a set of 4 x120Ah batteries to replace the boat's battery bank. I do hope ERNIE comes up trumps tomorrow!

          4. Thankfully ERNIE has delivered enough to buy 3 of the 4 batteries….Today I shall be re-volting!! 🙂

          5. Thankfully ERNIE has delivered enough to buy 3 of the 4 batteries….Today I shall be re-volting!! 🙂

          6. Thank you I've only popped in to collect the car and to go and buy a set of 4 x120Ah batteries to replace the boat's battery bank. I do hope ERNIE comes up trumps tomorrow!

          7. Sounds like one of my O Level arithmetic paper questions; if it takes three men to open a lock how long will it take four men and a boy to do the same?

          8. Agreed, Paul. But the levers of power rest with the so-called Civil Service – where the Long March Through The Institutions is now firmly parked. There seems to be no way to reverse this, democratically.

            Perhaps it doesn't matter – we've never been closer to open conflict with Russia / World War III.

            See Colonel McGregor, Tucker, Redacted and many more.

            I resolved to cancel my subscription to the ever-increasingly woke DT today. Not just because the subscription goes up by 25% tomorrow. I didn't, largely because – during an election – one needs to have news from somewhere. Despite the in-house biases.

          9. On this occasion, Geoff, I'm disinclined to agree. One needs less news during an election because it will be even more unreliable and untrustworthy than usual.

        5. Completely in agreement, Rastus. We absolutely must not cut of the nose to spite the face

      3. I'm no longer keen on Nigel after what he said about me and my fellow activists (who helped him in his campaigns) but I'll be voting Reform as we've got a candidate. Otherwise I would have been voting UKIP as our candidate would have stood, but didn't want to split the vote.

    3. If you're quick, you could always establish, stand for The Ogga Party.

      Perhaps we Nottlers could be persuaded to crowdfund for your deposit?

      Seriously, Ogga. You really need to move on. It's almost ten years since I stood for UKIP in the Guildford Borough Council election. I didn't expect to win, and I wasn't disappointed. Were it not for the Guildford Greenbelt Group (who rode roughshod over electoral regulations), I'd have come second after the Tory. Incidentally, I beat the Lib Dem, and I intend that that should appear on my gravestone when I shuffle off.

      Don't let perfection be the enemy of good. If – as is likely – you have a Reform candidate to vote for, them – please- forget old animosities, hold your nose and vote Reform.

    4. But who would have thought the Tories would move so far to the left.Do not blame Farage but the Conservatives

    5. Hi Ogga 1,

      They should not only remember this event in Clacton but keep Farage’s feet to the fire in remembrance of it.

      I do wholeheartedly agree with Geoff’s analysis beneath my comment. We all have to move on and put the Lab-Lib-Con mob into permanent exile and reclaim our country.

      1. 388099+ up ticks,

        Morning C,
        “to move on and put the Lab-Lib-Con mob into permanent exile”
        I do agree totally, but as I see it
        NOT replace.
        ALL of this eyes / ears in tight closed position just prior to any GE
        these past four decades has got the peoples cornered into consenting once again to accept future odious actions via casting a vote for the “best of the worst party”in this case IMHO the tory (ino) MK 2 party.

  110. Another factor to consider is that where the Brexit Party did stand, their candidates were undermined by the decision not to contest those seats the Conservatives were defending, therefore outcomes would have been different not only in seats the Brexit Party did not contest, but also those they did.

  111. Quote from a novel written in 1960:

    "Through dinner, Crawford, in good world-historical form, was inquiring of me, of Brown, of anyone at large, how China could avoid becoming the dominant power on earth? Not in the vague future, but in finite time: perhaps not in our time, but in our sons."

    There's prescient!

    2. Apparently the wealthy Chinese and other far Eastern tourist are those who have upset the residents of the Canary Islands. Far too many selfies.

    1. Can one sign on in support? If I'd remembered that June was PM, I'd have stocked up on food.

      I'll run down the freezer contents, and – for fresh stuff – Amazon Fresh are thus far uncontaminated by rainbows. As a Prime subscriber, an order over £20 (but below £60) incurs £4 delivery charge. Train to Guildford , Aldershot or Farnham is £3.10 return. So it costs £0.90 to have my heavy groceries delivered by a willing Third World immigrant, rather than going myself.

      1. For what it's worth Sainsbury's do a £1 saver slot for deliveries over £40 …ideal for their wine offers and bulk items…

  113. – Latest Breaking News
    Ten millions tons of raw sewage have been pumped into rivers today, all over the country after rare event.
    The water companies are saying it is not their fault blaming Labour and Conservative politicians and supporters.
    After Farage announced his leadership of Reform and that he was going to stand in Clacton.

    1. With this happening perhaps they have they finally admitted that there are now far too many people living in the British Isles. The infrastructure cannot cope. Please Wastemonster and Whitehall morons admit that you have once again effed everything up.

    3. A former client of ours, Roger Lord, a founder member of UKIP was persuaded to stand down in Clacton in favour of the ex Conservative with a twisty mouth who having won the seat promptly reverted to the Tory Party.

      Farage and the original UKIP members will not have forgotten the mistakes which gave the bumbling oaf Boris Johnson an 80 seat majority.

      In my view neither the Tories under Sunak nor the Labour Party under Starmer are remotely electable.

  114. That's me for this cold, cheerless day. Its only good point was the gale eased almost to nothing. Watered the greenhouse. Just going to light the stove to greet the MR when she returns from – yet another – pointless PCC meeting.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. Cold?? Sweaty as F here, waiting for rain in a couple of days, but until then, more deodorant needed!

      1. Why are you using deodorant? Scrape your armpits. Add it to your honey. If slebs like Gwennith Paltry can sell candles with the smell of vaginas i think you would be on to a winner !!!
        Cut me in for 10 %.

    4. In the same way that "PAT testing" has a superflous "T" – that standing for "Testing", "PCC" is another tautology, being an abbreviation of "Pointless Church Council"…

      (A former P Parochial C Church C Councillor writes…)

      1. I have come to the end of my PCC stint (thank the Lord!), but it was becoming quite pointless because the wrecktorette made it quite clear SHE was in charge and we'd better do as she said, no matter how disastrous we thought it.

  115. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Nigel Farage owes his return to Rishi Sunak
    Comments Share 3 June 2024, 6:53pm
    The one thing that had gone right for Rishi Sunak in the election campaign to date has now gone wrong.

    Nigel Farage has been so energised by the first ten days of the election that he has taken back the leadership of the Reform party and decided to stand for parliament in Clacton after all.

    Tory staffers who had expected to be running a ‘Stop Farage’ operation but were then stood down will now have to be stood back up again.

    Farage has discerned that this time round, the Tories are truly there for the taking. They have drifted so far from their base on immigration, taxation, crime and net zero as to ignite white hot hostility among parts of it. They are also so far behind Labour that the traditional squeeze message that voting for a Farage vehicle will risk putting socialists into power has lost its potency.

    Rishi Sunak’s catastrophic November reshuffle – in which he sacked Suella Braverman as Home Secretary and made David Cameron Foreign Secretary – was the moment he made everything possible for Farage.

    Rishi Sunak’s catastrophic November reshuffle was the moment he made everything possible for Farage
    Reform’s poll ratings increased, and Farage himself began to actively ponder and scope out a frontline political comeback. Perhaps the electorate would take against an ordinary political mortal who had messed it around about standing or not standing in this contest. But Farage is one of those figures who makes his own rules and U-turns are very much allowed.

    Sunak’s battered and demoralised inner circle must now find a way to de-fang Farage inside a month, having not made the usual preparations to fight him. They will know that the blanket media coverage of today’s gambit and the sheer excitement it brings to a drab contest is bound to create an initial Reform bounce too. Were there to be polls in the next ten days showing Reform very close to level-pegging with the Conservatives, it would come as no great surprise. Are there enough grizzled veterans left in the Tory machine to hold it together, were that to transpire? One has one’s doubts.

    Who does Sunak have that can compete with Farage for the parts of the right-wing electorate that the PM struggles to reach? Around the cabinet table, only Kemi Badenoch knows how to play any of the tunes and she does not yet have a wide following in the country. On the backbenches, the likes of Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick have made their disappointment with Sunak all too clear.

    Outside parliament, a certain blonde bombshell may be persuaded to interrupt his lucrative ventures on the international speaking circuit to make a couple of ‘ra-ra for Rishi’ contributions. But his price will be high and most of us will know he is joking. It’s all opening up for Nigel now.

  116. They thought it was just a mirage,
    When o'er the horizon, there came a visage.
    The election oh so boring,
    Even glum Starmer was soaring,
    Then up to the plate stepped a saintly Farage

  118. Pardon me for asking a silly question , but wasn't the term REFORM used in education and in particular private education , when a naughty pupil was sent down into the Reform class as punishment ?

    4. No. It was approved. My brother was sent to one when he was 8 years old. And then again at 14 after he had tried to show me what is required.

      1. I thought the schools were more modern institutions than stated, maybe the equivalent was the Borstal system.

        1. Ask Phizzee, he was a Borstal graduate, allegedly.

          Rumour has it, that Bill Thomas was the solicitor for the prosecution and that's why Phizzee teases him so much…

    4. Lordy, Lordy.
      Now why would that be?
      At least (s)he must be more at ease with the stockings and suspenders.
      (Might even wear a Liberty bodice.)

    5. When was this golden age for transsexuals and when did it end? I do recall how men in dresses used to be cheered to the rafters in our pubs but are now more likely to be punched in the face, when cocks in frocks were the height of fashion on our streets but now face derision from passing strangers, that's if they're not being pushed in front of passing cars. I blame Brexit.

  120. Now we are in an election period , has there been a clampdown on news about illegal channel people coming across from France.. seems very quiet , but the sea is calm .. yet no news / or even Twitter news , why?

  121. I've been watching the Springwatch snippet on orchids.
    It was good to see my guess confirmed regarding a symbiotic relationship with funghi.
    It amuses me to see them raving about what I think of as a small number of orchids.
    If my garden was in the UK I would make a fortune charging people to wander around it.
    I have literally thousands of orchids here, and numerous different types.

    1. Why not do it then? You have already cut grass paths for ease of access at your gite. Just big it up PR style bollocks. You on a golf cart with a loud speaker and the paying mugs trundling along behind.

        1. Brilliant. brings a tear to my eye – showing the mussies some culture too

  124. Nigel Farage is only offering shameless opportunism

    Reform UK's leader may have identified the problems afflicting this country, but had no serious solutions

    JANET DALEY

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…
    _________________________________

    Dullest election outside North Korea needed some Reform – thank Enoch for that!

    After Richard Tice spoke like a fellow who spent 24 hours tied to a chair being gently persuaded to resign, Farage skipped onstage

    TIM STANLEY

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…
    _________________________________

    Nigel Farage is a threat to Labour, too

    Keir Starmer risks underestimating the strength of feeling among many voters towards immigration

    TOM HARRIS

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…
    _________________________________

    Patriotic British voters now have a real alternative to this failed elite

    It is time for a change. Voters understand that Starmer’s Labour is just the different side of the same grubby coin to Sunak's Tories

    NIGEL FARAGE

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…
    _________________________________

    Janet Daley in sour mood, Tim Stanley attempting satire but failing miserably, Tom Harris being his usual dull but sensible self – and Nigel being Nigel.

  125. A quiet day.
    Repotted my 4 amaryllis with fresh compost, trimming the roots as I did so and separating out and potting the seedlings from 5 sprouted acorns and one pear seed as I did so, then did a small amount of tidying up.

    Took van into the garage on Saturday so hopefully it'll be back on the road by the end of the week.

    No word on Stepson since Police advised me he'd been judged "capable of making his own decisions" on Saturday just before I went for my walk. I see his bank account has not been touched over the weekend, not good.

    And with that maudlin note, I'm off to bed.
    Goodnight all.

    1. I am always tempted to agree but I came from a broken family and was able to advance in society by my own efforts and with the support, to be honest, of to put it frankly people like me, albeit from a previous generation or two.

      Never lose hope. We all have to retain a hope in the betterment of our society and the enhanced education of children. We all have to contribute.

  127. The public is about to discover just how dangerous Starmer's 'centrists' really are

    The fanatical neo-Blairites being handed safe seats are plotting class war on the elderly, and much more

    SHERELLE JACOBS • 3 June 2024 • 8:21pm

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c59c383f26bcb3d36cf8812c08234102835de70cc3093b1f0fb141951745c05.jpg
    The face of Labour's future: A new generation of alt-centrists, including Georgia Gould, look set to steer the next Labour government
    [CREDIT: David Mirzoeff/PA]
    _______________________________________________________________________

    Is it already over, as Nigel Farage said? Are the only two matters yet to be settled in British politics the scale of Labour's looming majority and the future of the imploded Right? If so, it is terrifying to ponder just how little robust scrutiny Sir Keir Starmer's party has faced over its real plans for Britain.

    The Diane Abbott row resulted in some speculation that a Labour government could usher in a Corbynite Trojan Horse, razing the economy and paralysing Starmer's agenda on everything from immigration to defence. But with many of the Corbynites purged, the country is in danger of overlooking a far more foundational threat.

    For all their claims to stand for "moderate" Labour politics, the alt-centrists who may soon be running the country are no less fanatical than the far-Left. It is not fringe calls for nuclear disarmament we should fear. It is a mainstream "radical centrist" bid to inflict generational retribution on the Boomers, empower the state, and turn magical thinking into Britain's guiding doctrine.

    There is something gratingly familiar about Labour's new "moderates", at least on the surface. Their political scent – sterile, bleachy, intermingled with a stale whiff of spreadsheet activism – is redolent of New Labour's. And yet the ne(po)-Blairite spads, think-tank chiefs and Harvard fellows being quietly parachuted into safe seats are emphatically different – and perhaps even more dangerous – than their predecessors.

    It is not so much that Blairism is back, rather than its shell has been exhumed to host a radically millennial new spirit. It is hubristic, confrontational, and twisted with guilt.

    While the far-Left has spent the last few years foaming over structural racism and the imminence of eco-collapse, a section of the centre-Left has been plotting a class war on the Boomers. One of the instigators has been Torsten Bell, head of the Resolution Foundation think tank, who has secured a safe Welsh seat.

    Bell appears to have taken up the cause with vim since working on Resolution's Intergenerational Commission, a policy project that in partnership with the CBI and trade unions churned out endless reports seemingly blaming boomers for all society's ills. In particular, he has been absorbed in the task of crafting concrete wealth tax policies that won't scare the horses, such as tightening up inheritance tax, slashing pensions relief and capping ISAs.

    The obsession with boomer wealth is telling. "Old, rich Brexiteers" have become a cathartic outlet for the Left's pent-up, bourgeois self-loathing, now that they must internalise their contempt for Red Wall "deplorables".

    The obsession with "rich pensioners" also smacks of a consolation target for a movement that remains too aligned with big business to wage an authentic war on rentier capitalism. A party truly keen to end stagnation might show more interest in Britain's transition towards risk-averse "blob capitalism", the corporations making more money from rents on assets like intellectual property than from production. But, apparently, it suits the reformed party of big business better to rage against middle-class people with second homes.

    Another striking aspect of neo-Blairism is its belief in the magical powers of the state. It regards New Labour's faith in extracting the manna of free market capitalism and redistributing it to the needy as a cataclysmic doctrinal error that brought about not just the financial crash but an upswell of populist derangement, not to mention the twin Tory disasters of austerity and Brexit. They think that, in order for social democratic centrism to reclaim its hegemony, it must return to its core tenets of robust state intervention in the economy and aggressively pro-equality policymaking.

    Perhaps no figure embodies this paradigm shift better than the up-and-coming Labour candidate, who is even now being tipped to succeed Starmer as leader, Georgia Gould.

    The daughter of New Labour architect, the late Lord Gould, and leader of Camden Council, she seems to share her late father's enthusiasm for forging "inclusive" new coalitions. And yet, while he understood from his suburban upbringing that, in a world in which people want to "advance themselves with better houses, better holidays, better lives", government should respect the imperatives of the market, Georgia Gould has gravitated to the teachings of the celebrity Left-wing economist Mariana Mazzucato.

    The latter argues that today's challenges demand the creation of a muscular, mission-driven state, inspired by John F Kennedy's Apollo Program which put a man on the moon. Georgia Gould's Camden Council has been a testing ground for Mazzucato's mission-driven vision, and it is expected that Starmer will scale it up on a national scale.

    At a time when Labour should be making tough choices about cutting back the state, Mazzucato-ism is a recipe for grotesque spending on white elephants. Its demands for "mechanisms of accountability" and "cross-departmental collaboration" invite an explosion of state managerialism on a scale unseen for decades.

    It is not just the rising stars but the bruisers at the helm of the Neo-Blairist revival that give cause for alarm. Starmer's chief of staff, Sue Gray, might well turn out to be one of the most underestimated ideologues in politics. People dismiss her as a mere backroom operator, but she has already shown her hand.

    Having become practised at bashing the heads of rival factions within Whitehall, and perhaps also moved by the reconciliation politics that followed the Troubles, she recently suggested rolling out citizens' assemblies to tackle difficult issues.

    Other aides are fixated with Bidenomics. This despite the fact that Britain is flat broke and lacks the scale, currency strength, infrastructure and sheer resources to waste on green industrial ventures.

    The magical thinking of the neo-Blairites bleeds into every aspect of their politics. They appear convinced it is possible to negotiate a new deal with the EU without having to make painful concessions. They seem to think that a modest reduction can stem the backlash against mass migration, and that it is possible to diplomatically solve the small boats crisis without confronting the flaws in international law.

    Blairism rested on an superstitious faith in the alchemical mixing of forces: capitalism and socialism, private and public power. Neo-Blairism is cruder, nastier, more absurd – cakeism mixed with a dash of war against the old.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

  128. The public is about to discover just how dangerous Starmer's 'centrists' really are

    The fanatical neo-Blairites being handed safe seats are plotting class war on the elderly, and much more

    SHERELLE JACOBS • 3 June 2024 • 8:21pm

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c59c383f26bcb3d36cf8812c08234102835de70cc3093b1f0fb141951745c05.jpg
    The face of Labour's future: A new generation of alt-centrists, including Georgia Gould, look set to steer the next Labour government
    [CREDIT: David Mirzoeff/PA]
    _______________________________________________________________________

    Is it already over, as Nigel Farage said? Are the only two matters yet to be settled in British politics the scale of Labour's looming majority and the future of the imploded Right? If so, it is terrifying to ponder just how little robust scrutiny Sir Keir Starmer's party has faced over its real plans for Britain.

    The Diane Abbott row resulted in some speculation that a Labour government could usher in a Corbynite Trojan Horse, razing the economy and paralysing Starmer's agenda on everything from immigration to defence. But with many of the Corbynites purged, the country is in danger of overlooking a far more foundational threat.

    For all their claims to stand for "moderate" Labour politics, the alt-centrists who may soon be running the country are no less fanatical than the far-Left. It is not fringe calls for nuclear disarmament we should fear. It is a mainstream "radical centrist" bid to inflict generational retribution on the Boomers, empower the state, and turn magical thinking into Britain's guiding doctrine.

    There is something gratingly familiar about Labour's new "moderates", at least on the surface. Their political scent – sterile, bleachy, intermingled with a stale whiff of spreadsheet activism – is redolent of New Labour's. And yet the ne(po)-Blairite spads, think-tank chiefs and Harvard fellows being quietly parachuted into safe seats are emphatically different – and perhaps even more dangerous – than their predecessors.

    It is not so much that Blairism is back, rather than its shell has been exhumed to host a radically millennial new spirit. It is hubristic, confrontational, and twisted with guilt.

    While the far-Left has spent the last few years foaming over structural racism and the imminence of eco-collapse, a section of the centre-Left has been plotting a class war on the Boomers. One of the instigators has been Torsten Bell, head of the Resolution Foundation think tank, who has secured a safe Welsh seat.

    Bell appears to have taken up the cause with vim since working on Resolution's Intergenerational Commission, a policy project that in partnership with the CBI and trade unions churned out endless reports seemingly blaming boomers for all society's ills. In particular, he has been absorbed in the task of crafting concrete wealth tax policies that won't scare the horses, such as tightening up inheritance tax, slashing pensions relief and capping ISAs.

    The obsession with boomer wealth is telling. "Old, rich Brexiteers" have become a cathartic outlet for the Left's pent-up, bourgeois self-loathing, now that they must internalise their contempt for Red Wall "deplorables".

    The obsession with "rich pensioners" also smacks of a consolation target for a movement that remains too aligned with big business to wage an authentic war on rentier capitalism. A party truly keen to end stagnation might show more interest in Britain's transition towards risk-averse "blob capitalism", the corporations making more money from rents on assets like intellectual property than from production. But, apparently, it suits the reformed party of big business better to rage against middle-class people with second homes.

    Another striking aspect of neo-Blairism is its belief in the magical powers of the state. It regards New Labour's faith in extracting the manna of free market capitalism and redistributing it to the needy as a cataclysmic doctrinal error that brought about not just the financial crash but an upswell of populist derangement, not to mention the twin Tory disasters of austerity and Brexit. They think that, in order for social democratic centrism to reclaim its hegemony, it must return to its core tenets of robust state intervention in the economy and aggressively pro-equality policymaking.

    Perhaps no figure embodies this paradigm shift better than the up-and-coming Labour candidate, who is even now being tipped to succeed Starmer as leader, Georgia Gould.

    The daughter of New Labour architect, the late Lord Gould, and leader of Camden Council, she seems to share her late father's enthusiasm for forging "inclusive" new coalitions. And yet, while he understood from his suburban upbringing that, in a world in which people want to "advance themselves with better houses, better holidays, better lives", government should respect the imperatives of the market, Georgia Gould has gravitated to the teachings of the celebrity Left-wing economist Mariana Mazzucato.

    The latter argues that today's challenges demand the creation of a muscular, mission-driven state, inspired by John F Kennedy's Apollo Program which put a man on the moon. Georgia Gould's Camden Council has been a testing ground for Mazzucato's mission-driven vision, and it is expected that Starmer will scale it up on a national scale.

    At a time when Labour should be making tough choices about cutting back the state, Mazzucato-ism is a recipe for grotesque spending on white elephants. Its demands for "mechanisms of accountability" and "cross-departmental collaboration" invite an explosion of state managerialism on a scale unseen for decades.

    It is not just the rising stars but the bruisers at the helm of the Neo-Blairist revival that give cause for alarm. Starmer's chief of staff, Sue Gray, might well turn out to be one of the most underestimated ideologues in politics. People dismiss her as a mere backroom operator, but she has already shown her hand.

    Having become practised at bashing the heads of rival factions within Whitehall, and perhaps also moved by the reconciliation politics that followed the Troubles, she recently suggested rolling out citizens' assemblies to tackle difficult issues.

    Other aides are fixated with Bidenomics. This despite the fact that Britain is flat broke and lacks the scale, currency strength, infrastructure and sheer resources to waste on green industrial ventures.

    The magical thinking of the neo-Blairites bleeds into every aspect of their politics. They appear convinced it is possible to negotiate a new deal with the EU without having to make painful concessions. They seem to think that a modest reduction can stem the backlash against mass migration, and that it is possible to diplomatically solve the small boats crisis without confronting the flaws in international law.

    Blairism rested on an superstitious faith in the alchemical mixing of forces: capitalism and socialism, private and public power. Neo-Blairism is cruder, nastier, more absurd – cakeism mixed with a dash of war against the old.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

  129. The public is about to discover just how dangerous Starmer's 'centrists' really are

    The fanatical neo-Blairites being handed safe seats are plotting class war on the elderly, and much more

    SHERELLE JACOBS • 3 June 2024 • 8:21pm

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c59c383f26bcb3d36cf8812c08234102835de70cc3093b1f0fb141951745c05.jpg
    The face of Labour's future: A new generation of alt-centrists, including Georgia Gould, look set to steer the next Labour government
    [CREDIT: David Mirzoeff/PA]
    _______________________________________________________________________

    Is it already over, as Nigel Farage said? Are the only two matters yet to be settled in British politics the scale of Labour's looming majority and the future of the imploded Right? If so, it is terrifying to ponder just how little robust scrutiny Sir Keir Starmer's party has faced over its real plans for Britain.

    The Diane Abbott row resulted in some speculation that a Labour government could usher in a Corbynite Trojan Horse, razing the economy and paralysing Starmer's agenda on everything from immigration to defence. But with many of the Corbynites purged, the country is in danger of overlooking a far more foundational threat.

    For all their claims to stand for "moderate" Labour politics, the alt-centrists who may soon be running the country are no less fanatical than the far-Left. It is not fringe calls for nuclear disarmament we should fear. It is a mainstream "radical centrist" bid to inflict generational retribution on the Boomers, empower the state, and turn magical thinking into Britain's guiding doctrine.

    There is something gratingly familiar about Labour's new "moderates", at least on the surface. Their political scent – sterile, bleachy, intermingled with a stale whiff of spreadsheet activism – is redolent of New Labour's. And yet the ne(po)-Blairite spads, think-tank chiefs and Harvard fellows being quietly parachuted into safe seats are emphatically different – and perhaps even more dangerous – than their predecessors.

    It is not so much that Blairism is back, rather than its shell has been exhumed to host a radically millennial new spirit. It is hubristic, confrontational, and twisted with guilt.

    While the far-Left has spent the last few years foaming over structural racism and the imminence of eco-collapse, a section of the centre-Left has been plotting a class war on the Boomers. One of the instigators has been Torsten Bell, head of the Resolution Foundation think tank, who has secured a safe Welsh seat.

    Bell appears to have taken up the cause with vim since working on Resolution's Intergenerational Commission, a policy project that in partnership with the CBI and trade unions churned out endless reports seemingly blaming boomers for all society's ills. In particular, he has been absorbed in the task of crafting concrete wealth tax policies that won't scare the horses, such as tightening up inheritance tax, slashing pensions relief and capping ISAs.

    The obsession with boomer wealth is telling. "Old, rich Brexiteers" have become a cathartic outlet for the Left's pent-up, bourgeois self-loathing, now that they must internalise their contempt for Red Wall "deplorables".

    The obsession with "rich pensioners" also smacks of a consolation target for a movement that remains too aligned with big business to wage an authentic war on rentier capitalism. A party truly keen to end stagnation might show more interest in Britain's transition towards risk-averse "blob capitalism", the corporations making more money from rents on assets like intellectual property than from production. But, apparently, it suits the reformed party of big business better to rage against middle-class people with second homes.

    Another striking aspect of neo-Blairism is its belief in the magical powers of the state. It regards New Labour's faith in extracting the manna of free market capitalism and redistributing it to the needy as a cataclysmic doctrinal error that brought about not just the financial crash but an upswell of populist derangement, not to mention the twin Tory disasters of austerity and Brexit. They think that, in order for social democratic centrism to reclaim its hegemony, it must return to its core tenets of robust state intervention in the economy and aggressively pro-equality policymaking.

    Perhaps no figure embodies this paradigm shift better than the up-and-coming Labour candidate, who is even now being tipped to succeed Starmer as leader, Georgia Gould.

    The daughter of New Labour architect, the late Lord Gould, and leader of Camden Council, she seems to share her late father's enthusiasm for forging "inclusive" new coalitions. And yet, while he understood from his suburban upbringing that, in a world in which people want to "advance themselves with better houses, better holidays, better lives", government should respect the imperatives of the market, Georgia Gould has gravitated to the teachings of the celebrity Left-wing economist Mariana Mazzucato.

    The latter argues that today's challenges demand the creation of a muscular, mission-driven state, inspired by John F Kennedy's Apollo Program which put a man on the moon. Georgia Gould's Camden Council has been a testing ground for Mazzucato's mission-driven vision, and it is expected that Starmer will scale it up on a national scale.

    At a time when Labour should be making tough choices about cutting back the state, Mazzucato-ism is a recipe for grotesque spending on white elephants. Its demands for "mechanisms of accountability" and "cross-departmental collaboration" invite an explosion of state managerialism on a scale unseen for decades.

    It is not just the rising stars but the bruisers at the helm of the Neo-Blairist revival that give cause for alarm. Starmer's chief of staff, Sue Gray, might well turn out to be one of the most underestimated ideologues in politics. People dismiss her as a mere backroom operator, but she has already shown her hand.

    Having become practised at bashing the heads of rival factions within Whitehall, and perhaps also moved by the reconciliation politics that followed the Troubles, she recently suggested rolling out citizens' assemblies to tackle difficult issues.

    Other aides are fixated with Bidenomics. This despite the fact that Britain is flat broke and lacks the scale, currency strength, infrastructure and sheer resources to waste on green industrial ventures.

    The magical thinking of the neo-Blairites bleeds into every aspect of their politics. They appear convinced it is possible to negotiate a new deal with the EU without having to make painful concessions. They seem to think that a modest reduction can stem the backlash against mass migration, and that it is possible to diplomatically solve the small boats crisis without confronting the flaws in international law.

    Blairism rested on an superstitious faith in the alchemical mixing of forces: capitalism and socialism, private and public power. Neo-Blairism is cruder, nastier, more absurd – cakeism mixed with a dash of war against the old.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

  130. The public is about to discover just how dangerous Starmer's 'centrists' really are

    The fanatical neo-Blairites being handed safe seats are plotting class war on the elderly, and much more

    SHERELLE JACOBS • 3 June 2024 • 8:21pm

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c59c383f26bcb3d36cf8812c08234102835de70cc3093b1f0fb141951745c05.jpg
    The face of Labour's future: A new generation of alt-centrists, including Georgia Gould, look set to steer the next Labour government
    [CREDIT: David Mirzoeff/PA]
    _______________________________________________________________________

    Is it already over, as Nigel Farage said? Are the only two matters yet to be settled in British politics the scale of Labour's looming majority and the future of the imploded Right? If so, it is terrifying to ponder just how little robust scrutiny Sir Keir Starmer's party has faced over its real plans for Britain.

    The Diane Abbott row resulted in some speculation that a Labour government could usher in a Corbynite Trojan Horse, razing the economy and paralysing Starmer's agenda on everything from immigration to defence. But with many of the Corbynites purged, the country is in danger of overlooking a far more foundational threat.

    For all their claims to stand for "moderate" Labour politics, the alt-centrists who may soon be running the country are no less fanatical than the far-Left. It is not fringe calls for nuclear disarmament we should fear. It is a mainstream "radical centrist" bid to inflict generational retribution on the Boomers, empower the state, and turn magical thinking into Britain's guiding doctrine.

    There is something gratingly familiar about Labour's new "moderates", at least on the surface. Their political scent – sterile, bleachy, intermingled with a stale whiff of spreadsheet activism – is redolent of New Labour's. And yet the ne(po)-Blairite spads, think-tank chiefs and Harvard fellows being quietly parachuted into safe seats are emphatically different – and perhaps even more dangerous – than their predecessors.

    It is not so much that Blairism is back, rather than its shell has been exhumed to host a radically millennial new spirit. It is hubristic, confrontational, and twisted with guilt.

    While the far-Left has spent the last few years foaming over structural racism and the imminence of eco-collapse, a section of the centre-Left has been plotting a class war on the Boomers. One of the instigators has been Torsten Bell, head of the Resolution Foundation think tank, who has secured a safe Welsh seat.

    Bell appears to have taken up the cause with vim since working on Resolution's Intergenerational Commission, a policy project that in partnership with the CBI and trade unions churned out endless reports seemingly blaming boomers for all society's ills. In particular, he has been absorbed in the task of crafting concrete wealth tax policies that won't scare the horses, such as tightening up inheritance tax, slashing pensions relief and capping ISAs.

    The obsession with boomer wealth is telling. "Old, rich Brexiteers" have become a cathartic outlet for the Left's pent-up, bourgeois self-loathing, now that they must internalise their contempt for Red Wall "deplorables".

    The obsession with "rich pensioners" also smacks of a consolation target for a movement that remains too aligned with big business to wage an authentic war on rentier capitalism. A party truly keen to end stagnation might show more interest in Britain's transition towards risk-averse "blob capitalism", the corporations making more money from rents on assets like intellectual property than from production. But, apparently, it suits the reformed party of big business better to rage against middle-class people with second homes.

    Another striking aspect of neo-Blairism is its belief in the magical powers of the state. It regards New Labour's faith in extracting the manna of free market capitalism and redistributing it to the needy as a cataclysmic doctrinal error that brought about not just the financial crash but an upswell of populist derangement, not to mention the twin Tory disasters of austerity and Brexit. They think that, in order for social democratic centrism to reclaim its hegemony, it must return to its core tenets of robust state intervention in the economy and aggressively pro-equality policymaking.

    Perhaps no figure embodies this paradigm shift better than the up-and-coming Labour candidate, who is even now being tipped to succeed Starmer as leader, Georgia Gould.

    The daughter of New Labour architect, the late Lord Gould, and leader of Camden Council, she seems to share her late father's enthusiasm for forging "inclusive" new coalitions. And yet, while he understood from his suburban upbringing that, in a world in which people want to "advance themselves with better houses, better holidays, better lives", government should respect the imperatives of the market, Georgia Gould has gravitated to the teachings of the celebrity Left-wing economist Mariana Mazzucato.

    The latter argues that today's challenges demand the creation of a muscular, mission-driven state, inspired by John F Kennedy's Apollo Program which put a man on the moon. Georgia Gould's Camden Council has been a testing ground for Mazzucato's mission-driven vision, and it is expected that Starmer will scale it up on a national scale.

    At a time when Labour should be making tough choices about cutting back the state, Mazzucato-ism is a recipe for grotesque spending on white elephants. Its demands for "mechanisms of accountability" and "cross-departmental collaboration" invite an explosion of state managerialism on a scale unseen for decades.

    It is not just the rising stars but the bruisers at the helm of the Neo-Blairist revival that give cause for alarm. Starmer's chief of staff, Sue Gray, might well turn out to be one of the most underestimated ideologues in politics. People dismiss her as a mere backroom operator, but she has already shown her hand.

    Having become practised at bashing the heads of rival factions within Whitehall, and perhaps also moved by the reconciliation politics that followed the Troubles, she recently suggested rolling out citizens' assemblies to tackle difficult issues.

    Other aides are fixated with Bidenomics. This despite the fact that Britain is flat broke and lacks the scale, currency strength, infrastructure and sheer resources to waste on green industrial ventures.

    The magical thinking of the neo-Blairites bleeds into every aspect of their politics. They appear convinced it is possible to negotiate a new deal with the EU without having to make painful concessions. They seem to think that a modest reduction can stem the backlash against mass migration, and that it is possible to diplomatically solve the small boats crisis without confronting the flaws in international law.

    Blairism rested on an superstitious faith in the alchemical mixing of forces: capitalism and socialism, private and public power. Neo-Blairism is cruder, nastier, more absurd – cakeism mixed with a dash of war against the old.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

  132. I am back from the meeting (we nearly had to suspend standing orders because it went on so long) and having a restorative glass of red. I left my Barbour hat in the parish rooms and will have to go back tomorrow to retrieve it. I ordered a tricycle (because I keep falling off my bike) and it arrived while I was away, but they put it where I asked them to. After I'd struggled to get it into the house and opened the box I found a kit of parts! I have fallen at the first hurdle because I can't work out how to fit the derailler. Unless I can suss that, I'm literally not going anywhere because I shan't have any motive power. I hope that tomorrow I'll be able to get my head around the diagram. Que la vie est dure!

      1. I have no idea what make it is. I have a fantastically complicated gear system on the bike; two levers and lord knows how many combinations. I barely used any of them.

    1. A cock horse is a horse that's kept at the bottom of a hill to be hitched to a wagon to give a bit more horse power to be able to haul the load up.

          1. I knew that bit, just always assumed they were talking about a stallion! 🤣

          1. On the Pilgrims' Way. The cock horse was used to pull carriages up Detling Hill.

        2. I haven’t been to Detling, but I have been to Headcorn, which is not far away.

  137. The Nazi Party had little or no regard for anything let alone the fabulous cast bells from European mediaeval history. Some of their cohort valued certain European Art and sought to steal it from its rightful owners but they were an exception. Most were heathen swine.

    All warmongers show an equal disregard for our great artefacts and all for making a few billions on the side, billions that they cannot possibly enjoy in their own lifetimes and which, left to the likes of Alex Soros will simply perpetuate endless wars and chaos.

    1. It seems that the Nazis spared mediaeval bells.

      The Nazis graded or categorized bells into four groups, A through D, based on their historical or cultural value. “A” bells were cast within the preceding ninety years and therefore generally considered without merit. They were the first to be destroyed. Similarly, “B” bells and then “C” bells were sent for smelting. “D” bells, or those cast before 1740, were treated more like art than commodity and preserved for their noble virtues, which the Nazis relied upon to build a façade of legitimacy. Often, the Nazis would allow one bell of insignificant size to remain in a tower, for the village or community to ring in emergency. The rest were transformed into weapons of war.

      https://www.bells.org/blog/when-nazis-took-all-bells

  138. Good night, chums. I've just stayed up to wish my older sister (who lives in New Zealand) a Happy 90th Birthday (born on the 4th of June 1934). So Now I am off to bed. I hope we all sleep well and awaken refreshed in the morning.

  140. Another day is done so, I wish you a goodnight and may God bless you all, Gentlefolk. Bis morgen früh. If we are spared!

  141. Son woke me up , then the dog fussed to be let out in the garden , all this at 04.30 hrs .

    Son is running a half marathon before work . It is a lovely mild early morning , blackbird has spoken like the first bird .

    I coughed and coughed all night , am glad to be wide awake and sitting up , window is open . 12c just now at 05.30.

    2. ' Morning, Geoff and thank you for all the sterling work you have lavished on us, on our behalf.

Comments are closed.