Monday 31 January: Why vote for ‘tax-cutting’ Tories if they then raise National Insurance?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but 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.

728 thoughts on “Monday 31 January: Why vote for ‘tax-cutting’ Tories if they then raise National Insurance?”

  4. U-turn on mandatory Covid vaccinations for NHS and social care workers. 31 january 2022.

    Multiple government sources said ministers are expected to end the requirement because the omicron Covid variant, now dominant in the UK, is milder than previous strains.

    The move comes after warnings that almost 80,000 healthcare workers would be forced out of their jobs because they had declined to take two doses of a Covid vaccine.

    What is it about these jabs that those who would know most about them find them unacceptable? Even here it is not explained. One does not give up one’s livelihood on a whim!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/01/30/front-line-health-staff-no-longer-need-covid-vaccines/

        1. I’ve tried to inform some people of the risks these serums present but all I received in return were raised eyes, blank looks, protestations that the “experts” i.e. GPs know best etc. These people are family and close friends and my greatest hope is that there is nothing lurking in the background, however, stories emanating from the USA point otherwise. Offering these unproven jabs has, at best, been criminally reckless and at worst…

    2. Perhaps close to 2,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of other adverse effects in the UK (>20,000 deaths and goodness knows how many adverse effects in USA) including paralysis, myocarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, Bell’s Palsy, blood clotting, the list goes on. Many of these illnesses were listed as possible side-effects but the PTB still went ahead. The full impact of these serums’ early deployment will never be known and both the medium term and long term effects are not known.

      In addition, it is believed (Harvard study, if my memory serves) that the adverse effect reporting is a very low percentage (between 1% – 10%) of what has really happened.

      It’s possible that many of these people have either seen or heard from colleagues of the effects and are not willing to risk their health at the behest of lying politicians.

      1. Morning Korky. Yes that would be my reading of it but the MSM are reluctant to say the least to explain it!

    3. Good Morning A.S. – The NHS as we know employs upwards of 1.3 million staff, it would be interesting to know if the 80k are spread evenly or are part of the 600,000 clinically qualified staff, the two dozen or so I know are all very pro-mask and pro-vaccine ( not necessarily mandatory though ). Is it possible perhaps that the union(s) ,as with the schools, are making things difficult to further their agenda?

      1. Morning Datz. There are many things I would like to know about it but answers there are none!

      2. I should think that is highly likely. They are flexing their muscles and can see that long awaited goal of complete communism on the horizon.

      3. I was thinking also there might be some demographic in common among NHS employees that causes the vaccine refusal.

        1. ‘Morning, Mola, “I was thinking also there might be some demographic in common among NHS employees that causes the vaccine refusal.”

          I’m sure there is – it’s called “knowledge“.

    4. Yo All

      It appears that the NHS has made Giant Steps forwards in solving one of the worlds most crippling diseases

      TUNNEL VISION

    5. Yo All

      It appears that the NHS has made Giant Steps forwards in solving one of the worlds most crippling diseases

      TUNNEL VISION

  7. Mystery for the day/week.
    Started the process to sell Mother’s house last week. Got a copy of the deeds as part of the sale package yesterday, and there are 2 outfits with a charge on the property! Never heard of either of them… I’m worrying that it’s an equity release scheme, but if so, where did the money go? What are the conditions? No trace of capital sums, neither any regular income that’s not explained by pensions company names (University Superannuation Scheme). So, this should be exciting! Unfortunately… :-((

    2. Are they debt collection agencies? One of my dear ex’s favourite habits was running up large bills and not paying them. I discovered a charge on a house that I owned as Mrs (his name). (not in Britain). That was the first I knew about it! Fortunately, it ran out after ten years, so I simply waited.

  9. Good morning all from a still dark & windy Derbyshire. Looks like a bit of rain overnight, but a dry 0°C in the yard at the moment.

  10. Covid fatality rate set to resemble flu figures as reinfections are added to daily statistics. 31 January 2022.

    Readers with a delicate constitution may want to avoid the government website at around 4pm on Monday afternoon.

    For the first time since the start of the pandemic, coronavirus reinfections in England will be included on the daily Covid dashboard, in a revision that is likely to add hundreds of thousands of new cases to Britain’s cumulative total.

    The wince-inducing rise will undoubtedly lead to hand-wringing from the usual quarters, and it will be remarkable if we get through this update without renewed calls to mask up and lock down.

    But it is actually fairly good news. It means that we have significantly underestimated the mildness of omicron.

    The biggest upside to the change is that the percentage of people dying from each positive test – the case fatality rate (CFR) – will fall.

    Currently, the number of people dying after testing positive for coronavirus is hovering at around 0.95 per cent, after peaking at 10 per cent in April 2020 when testing was minimal.

    But adding hundreds of thousands of cases to the figures will send the CFR towards something approaching flu fatalities.

    Data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest that around 0.1 to 0.2 per cent of symptomatic flu cases result in death. Adding such a large number of new cases will certainly take coronavirus towards that figure in Britain.

    This change in the lethality of Covid can already be seen in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) infection data, which is based on a random sample of people who test positive, and so scoops up those who do not have symptoms and would not ordinarily have been tested.

    Latest ONS data suggests that the infection fatality rate (IFR) has fallen to about 0.1 per cent from around one per cent last January, meaning the death rate is now a tenth of what it was.

    The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that flu also has an IFR of 0.1 per cent or lower, while New Zealand has put it at 0.039 per cent – a little less than half.

    This suggests we are very close to seeing an endemic disease which has a similar severity as flu.

    Reinfections are being added now because they are much more prevalent than in previous waves, when people were only counted once to avoid recording the same infection twice in the data.

    Findings published last week by the ONS suggest the risk of reinfection was 16 times higher in the omicron-dominant period in December and January compared to the delta-dominant period.

    Now, if someone tests positive 90 days or more after a first infection it will count as a new infection.

    Estimates of how many reinfections have been missed out of the data since omicron emerged are currently ranging between 10 and 64 per cent depending on which study you use.

    There have been around six million positive cases reported in Britain since omicron got a foothold at the start of December, so we can expect hundreds of thousands of missed cases to be added, although only the English data will be updated on Monday.

    There is a chance that the new case additions could be in the millions. Data from Imperial College London’s React-1 survey suggest that two thirds of the people infected with omicron have previously already had Covid.

    More than 3,500 people who tested positive between January 5 and January 20 were asked if they had previously tested positive for the virus, and almost two-thirds (64.5 per cent) said they had.

    A further 7.5 per cent said they suspected they had caught the virus previously, but had not received a positive test.

    In contrast, UK Health Security Agency figures show 11 per cent of all cases were reinfections, however experts said they are poised for “dramatic increases”.

    As well as a large rise in the cumulative total, daily figures will also be noticeably higher.

    Prevalence of Covid reached an all-time high in January, peaking at more than four per cent of the population, equivalent to around one infected person per 23 people. About one quarter of the population has tested positive at least once.

    As well as a fall in death rates, the change will also bring a fall in the ratio of cases to hospital admissions.

    At the peak of the 2021 winter wave, the number of cases ending up in hospital rose to 12 per cent, but it has since fallen to 1.95 per cent and will come down again with new cases added.
    We can be thankful that these figures are only coming to light now when we already know that this wave was mild and did not overwhelm the NHS.

    Had we been given this data before Christmas, the Government would have found it tricky to resist calls for more restrictions. It is the one time in this pandemic when knowing too little may have been a blessing..

    I find most of this incomprehensible which I suspect is intentional. The measures themselves (at least to me) look more like an attempt to muddy the waters and conceal the fact that the statistics were always fake. The new mortality rate of 0.95% given here is still greater than that forecast at the beginning of this charade but one assumes that further “adjustments” will be made. These new numbers will more accurately approximate to the reality of a minor disease.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/30/covid-fatality-rate-set-resemble-flu-figures-reinfections-added/

    1. Some pertinent questions might be answered. eg
      How many unvaccinated have caught it more than once.
      How many double and triple vaccinated have caught it more than once.
      More difficult to ascertain, how many unvaccinated have never caught it.
      How many vaccinated have never caught it.
      How many caught it in hospital when being treated for something else.
      I’m sure there are many more.

      1. Covid has been the ultimate exemplar of “Lies,Damned Lies and Statistics”
        It should also be the absolute death of any reliance on “Computer Modelling” leading public policy given the dismal accuracy of Ferguson et al
        (Cough Climate Change Cough)
        Frankly an African Witch Doctor casting bones would have been just as accurate

        1. The problem one always hits up against with these modellers is the:
          “Ah but, had you not done as we recommended we would have been correct” defence.
          Very difficult to contradict without a control group elsewhere.
          And how many politicians are willing to take the millions dead and it will be your fault guilt trip.

          My fear is that the vaccinations will turn out to have been a colossal mistake. And then there will be a we told you, so and I hope a huge day of reckoning.

          1. Hmm a control group like the Diamond Princess??
            Which seems to have vanished from public memory??

          4. Like the fall of Communist countries is always blamed on their not being socialist enough.

        2. Disagree.
          That many cannot understand a number, let alone a statistic, is no reason to ditch them.
          Likewise, the modelling. Norway’s FHI model was pretty well spot on up to the start of lockdown, ten not surprisingly the predictions and actual diverged. I use mathematical models in engineering (including for predicting materials behaviour in cracked nuclear reactors) and reviewed Ferguson’s model description and posted my thoughts here as to why I thought it was not fit for purpose – too many unexplained stuff, and there was no validation presented – either in the scientific papers, or in the UK press (as we had here for FHI model) showing the accuracy.

    2. Just playing with numbers.
      The high initial death rate after testing was because there were few tests available, so only the sickest were tested. Now we all have test kits in our pocket, everybody tests several times a day and the number of deaths, likey reducing but not dramatically, reduces as a fraction of test rate

  11. ‘Morning, Peeps. A couple of letters to be going on with:

    SIR – Mike Keatinge (Letters, January 29) castigates staunch Conservatives who have resigned their party membership, or are considering doing so, “in disgust at the current situation”. He suggests they ought to stay on “and try to change things for the better”.

    As a former (very) active member of my local Conservative Association for more than 40 years, I can assure him that any prospect of such influence is a fantasy, and has been so since at least the era of David Cameron.

    In truth, I suspect that it was always so, but it mattered far less when those at the top of the party actually believed in Conservative principles. In particular, active members between 1975 and 1990 were spoilt by having a leader who did so much to promote Conservative values and push back the cause of socialism, even in the face of strong opposition from the so-called “Tory grandees”. Sadly, once she was deposed, there was no heir with a sufficient power base to take up the baton and ensure that the party carried on in the same direction.

    There are still many grass-roots members who are true Conservatives, but the social democrats who have gerrymandered their way to power within the party will never willingly cede any of it to the little people upon whose hard work (and hard-earned cash) they rely. For all practical purposes, Conservatives in Britain have no democratic representation in Parliament. Our only consolation is that things would be worse under Labour.

    John Waine
    Nuneaton, Warwickshire

    SIR – I am not angry about lockdown parties. Number 10 is an office more than a home. I am angry that the Tories are letting a huge majority slip through their fingers. That really is criminal.

    Mick Ferrie
    Mawnan Smith, Cornwall

    PS At the top of the Letters column is a the usual photo. Today’s is Johnson and his Chancellor togged up in high-viz and standing on a building site pointing at things. Pathetic.

  12. UK food bills will soar if Russia invades Ukraine, experts warn. 31 january 2022.

    A Russian invasion of Ukraine threatens to cause UK grocery bills to rocket further as experts warn conflict and sanctions would severely disrupt the supply of grains from the “breadbasket of Europe”.

    Analysts at Rabobank warned that an invasion could cause wheat prices to double and impact half of Ukrainian grains production, putting more pressure on UK food prices as they soar at their fastest pace in almost a decade.

    The UK and US are almost begging the Russians to invade Ukraine so that they can implement these sanctions. A kerfuffle in central Europe would go a long way to explaining the upcoming Cost of Living crisis and divert attention from domestic political issues. .

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/01/30/uk-food-bills-will-soar-russia-invades-ukraine-experts-warn/

    1. Bills are already soaring. If you work it out, on your average food shop over half is tax – tax all the way back through the chain, on salaries, on buildings, on import duties on materials, on fuel duty to get it there, on road tax, VAT, you name it. The state taxes it.

  13. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9919b24cdd3f440f7d0398de07ce21d61420385a3c70c2c2c25d1a66b48a720a.png Why do city people think there is anything remotely pulchritudinous about a dreary expanse of concrete and tarmac? They need to get out (of the city) more.

    The finest views are found in the Peak District, Exmoor, North York Moors, Isles of Scilly, Lake District, Cairngorms, Snowdonia, Northumberland, Pembrokeshire Coast, Wester Ross (just ask Spikey), Norfolk Broads, Brecon Beacons, Dartmoor, Yorkshire Dales, South Downs, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire Wolds, Cotswolds, and many more remote and beautiful places on this sceptred isle.

    1. Morning, Grizz!
      SWMBO likes to watch these housebuilding programmes on’t telly. Universally, the architect comes up with a design that, when finished, is a rectangular concrete box with a (sliding) glass wall that most resembles a small provincial airport building. This is then hailed as being wonderful, yet it has no interesting shapes, no softness, cosiness, or emotional warmth. It’s a concrete box with a window, sometimes even with a poliched concrete floor, and polished concrete kitchen worksurfaces.
      Just occasionally, the Aussie programme turns up something different, and yesterday she was watching a couple build a traditional laftet log cabin north of Inverness. That had style, comfort, homeliness all over it, and the only concrete was the foundation.

        2. Firstborn’s house is a log cabin with more modern exterior cladding to reduce draughts and make it look newer than it is – it dates from about 1750…

      2. Always wanted to build a Keble college in miniature. Aside from seeing it across the quad it is a beautiful building.

      3. Morning Paul, it’s very rare that the Highland Council permits the building of anything like a concrete box unless it’s their own council building

    2. ‘Morning, George, “The finest views...”

      Until they are spoiled by the so-called farms for wind and sun, plus huge housing developments for the Caliphate Army.

    3. Beautiful views ruined here by miles of caravan sites on the coast , acres and acres of solar farms , glamping sites , tents everywhere , and hordes of tourists RUINING the countryside wirh discarded litter and dog poo bags .

      Geddit?

      Morning Grizzly.

    4. I have holidayed and cruised the Norfolk Broads. Beautiful solitude and silence. Not sure about the Lincolnshire countryside though. If cabbages were king.

      1. Lincolnshire is a vast county divided into three regions: Lindsey, Kesteven and Holland. Holland and most of Kesteven are flat agricultural plains, Lindsey is not so; the Lincoln ridge cuts across it. The Lincs Wolds is a beautiful rolling area of woodland and open areas. Lincoln, the county town, has one of the steepest city hills in the country.

  15. A touching story from a bygone age:

    SIR – In the 1940s and 1950s, my grandfather and father delivered milk (Letters, January 29) from their farm on a float pulled by a horse called Megan. She was so well trained that she knew every stop on the round, and would stop and start without prompting.

    She would come into her own at Christmastime, when the customers would be overgenerous with their offerings of sherry and whisky. At the end of the round, the milkman would fall asleep on the float and Megan would make her own way back to the farm (a distance of a few miles).

    Once there, she would whinny and stamp a shod hoof on the cobbles to let my grandmother know that she had arrived home with a contented milkman and empty churns.

    Howard Davies
    Penclawdd, Glamorgan

    1. I have seen much the same, only it was the greengrocers cart. Service has of course declined precipitately in the last seventy years!

    2. Good morning Hugh and everyone.
      I vaguely wonder whether the delivery horse really was called Megan, or if the letter was a barbed allegory. Read it again, that bit about the mare’s whinnying, and stamping her feet to let her ‘grandmother’ know that she was in charge of a man asleep at the reins.

    3. Good morning Hugh and everyone.
      I vaguely wonder whether the delivery horse really was called Megan, or if the letter was a barbed allegory. Read it again, that bit about the mare’s whinnying, and stamping her feet to let her ‘grandmother’ know that she was in charge of a man asleep at the reins.

    4. Our milkman’s horse knew the way and where to stop as well. Not sure if Charlie fell into a drunken stupor though.

    5. Our milkman’s horse knew the way and where to stop as well. Not sure if Charlie fell into a drunken stupor though.

    6. MOH’s grandfather’s horse knew the route (and to stop at all the pubs), too. Nobody realised the driver was a toper until one night the horse put the gig in a ditch!

  17. ‘Morning again. Another BTL that will find favour with Rik but still without any explanation by the DT for hiding away the Canadian convoy. It did, in fairness, warrant a further brief mention on the World Service in the early hours this morning but the item was very short and the tone less than favourable:

    Wadia Hiddon
    6 HRS AGO
    I am curious to know why the DT has hidden in distant pages the GIGANTIC convoy in Canada that has sent it’s President into hiding? He called them a fringe minority with unacceptable views. Over CAN$9 million has been raised in a Go Fund me, for 60k+ drivers in under 10 days. However, this is not the only Truckers Against Mandates convoy, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgian, even the UK starting from Glasgow to Edinburgh, all have their own trucking movements.
    That is what we have come to, governments calling the electorate who disagree with them unacceptable views.

    * * *

    I don’t think Canada has a President -yet!

      3. Western Governments are the enemies of their own people!

        It’s amazing that more people do not realise the truth of that fact, especially in this recent time-frame. The exploited “pandemic”, the continuing invasion from France and elsewhere; the corruption and money lost, wasted and given away; Green nonsense etc. Very little, and in truth, very close to nothing, is done to improve the lot of the people.

      4. Surely enemy would imply competence, whereas this lot are like a spoiled child, given everything they still throw a tantrum about wanting yet another toy.

    3. There’s a headliner on the US pages of the Mail?

      As for the BBC – Trudeau is one of their own. Big state, high tax, Left wing socialist. The idea that the BBC would promote the libertarian, free will choice side is unthinkable.

    4. To be fair, a la Blair, Trudeau does behave like he’s president not prime minister.

      Good morning!

    5. Anything government dislikes it deems unacceptable and sets to deny a voice. It’s like children squeezing their eyes shut and covering their ears. Adults would engage and understand and reach a negotiation but the Left are not adults and not prepared to negotiate.

        1. The Canada convoy is a great human interest story, but it doesn’t fit the (wokeness trigger warning) ‘narrative’.
          Ditto the demonstrations in Kazakhstan in early January, where the MSM report 225 fatalities, and the locals estimate the figure to be several thousand. That silence may be deliberate, in order to protect those who have been incarcerated.

  18. A cracking good BTL…and when the eco-lunacy is scrapped we might finally be making some progress. I’m not holding my breath, however:

    Isabella Maeer
    7 HRS AGO
    Boris hails his bonfire of some EU rules, why did it take this long to do…….. There are, I’m sure, many more instances.
    However, this is typical of the government in particular, smoke , mirrors and Carrie by stealth.
    He hails this as our freedoms but surely a proper Brexit would have provided that.
    Slowly Boris is denying us our right to get what he promised us, especially low taxes, but he and Rishi went on a fatuous spending spree, giving away our hard earned money without any scrutiny whatsoever, and ‘lost’ a mere 4.3 billion. And Cressida is investigating cakes and cases of booze. I am not happy.
    Since Boris took over we have been ruled by Carrie’s whims and the mad green and woke agenda.
    And there is absolutely nothing we can do to reverse this situation. And if Boris goes, we have no say in his successor.
    We should be focussing our minds and comments on exactly this because this is a nonsense.
    Our voting system is absolutely meaningless and we need to waken up to this truth.
    You can all see where this is going, FGS let’s try and find a way of fighting back, otherwise we are all complicit.

  19. Police officers shot dead on patrol in western Germany. 31 january 2022.

    Two police officers have been shot dead while on a routine patrol in western Germany.

    The shooting happened during a traffic check near Kusel at about 4.20am, police in Kaiserslautern said in a statement.

    They said the perpetrators fled but police had no description of them, the car they used or in which direction they fled.

    Police called on drivers in the Kusel area not to pick up hitchhikers and warned that at least one suspect was armed.

    Much obfuscation follows!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/31/police-officers-shot-dead-on-patrol-in-western-germany

    1. Yo minty

      Two police officers have been shot dead and the police have deduced that that at least one suspect was armed.

      If Dickhead of the Yard were involved, for at least one of them to have a gun would not be a requirement, especially if travelling by Tube

  20. Rear-Admiral Tom Bradbury, officer who as a midshipman saw action at sea and on land in the war – obituary

    On his way to open the harbour at Sfax, Tunisia, he was stopped by an Army general who said: ‘Go away, I haven’t taken the bloody town yet!’

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    30 January 2022 • 5:13pm

    Rear-Admiral Tom Bradbury, who has died aged 99, saw action ashore while still a midshipman and rose to the top of his profession.

    After just one term at Dartmouth, Paymaster-Cadet Bradbury was appointed to the light cruiser Liverpool in the Mediterranean, where the war was brisk and bloody. At dusk on October 23 1940 Liverpool was attacked at dusk by Italian torpedo bombers off Crete, and hit in the bows. She and her sister-ships were strongly built, but the explosion caused 8,000 gallons of aviation fuel to “cook off” and 20 minutes later Bradbury saw giant tongues of flame shooting hundreds of feet into the night sky.

    The order “Abandon ship!” had been given and life floats launched, when after half-an-hour the fire was brought under control and the order was rescinded. Later that night Liverpool was towed stern-first towards Alexandria, and, although the bows broke off and sank, she reached harbour after two days. Three officers and 27 sailors lost their lives: for Bradbury it was the moment when the war suddenly become very real.

    Next he embarked in the former Yangtze river gunboat Gnat for passage to join a “port party”, first at Tobruk and then at Benghazi, travelling the 350-odd miles along shell-cratered roads in the back of a 3-ton Army truck carrying four-gallon drums of petrol up to the front line.

    When Rommel’s Afrika Korps advanced, Bradbury escaped in the monitor Terror to Alexandria, just in time to collect his kit from Liverpool before she sailed, with a false bow, for repairs in the United States.

    Bradbury’s next ship was the battleship Warspite. On May 22, 1941 when the fleet suffered severe losses from German air attacks, a 500 lb bomb hit Warspite, ripping open her side and killing 38 men. Bradbury’s training now continued in the battleship Queen Elizabeth which had been sunk in shallow water by Italian “human torpedoes” in Alexandria and was still operational above the waterline, but he was left behind when she sailed to the US for repairs.

    The end of his formal training came on September 1 1942, when he was promoted to sub-lieutenant and joined a port party. Closely following the Desert Rats’ advance after the Battle of Alamein, on November 12 Bradbury returned by road to Tobruk, where he set to work readying the port to receive ships.

    One morning in April 1943, outside Sfax, Bradbury was woken by the bagpipes of the 51st Division and began his own advance, only to be stopped by a kilted general, demanding to know where he was going. “To open up the harbour at Sfax, Sir,” he said, only to be told: “Go away, boy, I haven’t taken the bloody town yet!”

    That day he spent under cover in a tank trap, repeatedly attacked by German bombers, recalling that this was the one time that he was terrified, but by morning he and his mixed party of Australian, New Zealand and Danish salvage experts were busy opening the port.

    The next month Bradbury’s thoughts had turned to preparing port parties for the landings in Italy. Instead he was summoned home, where he arrived still in his desert uniform; his baby sister called out: “There’s a soldier coming in!”

    Thomas Henry Bradbury was born on December 4 1922 and brought up in his grandparents’ house in Walworth, south London, where his grandfather had been a horse-tram driver, his father a labourer and his mother a pickled-onion salter. There he began his education at Boundary Lane School, Southwark, where a teacher, recognising his potential, helped him to win a London County Council scholarship to Christ’s Hospital at Horsham.

    In 1938 the school sponsored Bradbury to attend a Boy Scout Jamboree in Australia, and on the return voyage in the SS Jervis Bay, Bradbury witnessed the awe-inspiring sight of lines of battleships, cruisers, aircraft carriers and destroyers of the combined Home and Mediterranean fleets off Gibraltar.

    Christ’s Hospital also arranged for him to sit the Civil Service Exam (which he took in an upstairs room at the Ship Inn, Brighton) and he opted for the Navy: most of Bradbury’s needs had been paid for by charity and as a final act of generosity Christ’s Hospital paid for his uniform.

    After his sojourn in Africa, Bradbury’s career resumed a more normal character. He served in the light cruiser Scylla on D-Day until she was damaged by a mine off Sword beach; in the aircraft carrier Theseus (1945-48); was training officer at the RN supply school at Wetherby; flag lieutenant to the head of the British Naval Mission to Greece; and then a divisional officer at Dartmouth.

    In August 1953 he drove to Germany to join the staff of Flag Officer, Germany, in the town of Lübbeke, tasked with planning, should the Soviets advance, to blow the Rhine bridges and close the Kiel Canal.

    He returned to sea (1956-57) in the Malta-based destroyers Chaplet and Chevron, took part in the Suez Crisis, and in 1957-59 served in the fleet carrier Victorious, which, to his delight, spent much of her first commission in the US demonstrating her new radar to the US Navy.

    Promoted to commander in 1960, Bradbury commanded HMS Jufair, the British naval base in Bahrain. It was typical of his adventurous spirit that he drove home via Tehran and Istanbul, by ferry through the Peloponnese to Brindisi, up Italy, across Austria, Germany and Belgium to Calais, covering 5,500 miles in three weeks.

    He was called home to be Secretary to the Naval Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty (first Lord Carrington, then Lord Jellicoe). After further service at sea, in the cruisers Tiger and Lion, and the carrier Hermes, Bradbury became secretary to the Controller of the Navy, then Admiral Sir Horace Law, responsible for the provision of ships and weapons equipment to the whole Navy.

    His last foreign appointment was in command of the Singapore naval base HMS Terror (1970-71), from which he returned home by shipping his car from Singapore to Mombasa then, armed with an AA route map, driving 5,595 miles though Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Rhodesia and South Africa to catch a ship in Simonstown.

    Bradbury finished his naval career as the Chief Naval Supply and Secretariat Officer, was appointed CB, and retired having served almost 40 years. He was in senior management at Inchcape (1979-86) and Davy Corporation (1987-91).

    Bradbury married first, in 1945, Beryl Evans. The marriage was dissolved and in 1979 he married, secondly, Sarah Hillier, who predeceased him. A daughter also predeceased him and he is survived by a son.

    Rear-Admiral Tom Bradbury, born December 4 1922, died December 29 2021

    * * *

    This touching BTL caught my eye:

    davy clam
    10 HRS AGO
    We’re running out of WW2 obituaries. I was born just after the war and grew up with many family stories, from every theatre of the 2nd WW. Each story is as a pane of glass in a vast rose window, and as we read them, a ray of sunshine illuminates our own lives. Sadly these heroes are much reduced in numbers, tempus fugit, I treasure every one.
    Bless ’em all indeed.

  22. Ukraine: west’s fears of imminent attack not shared in Kyiv. 31 january 2022.

    Britain’s politicians and intelligence chiefs have stepped up warnings about the likelihood of a Russian invasion of Ukraine over the past week, yet it is not clear, despite a drumbeat of activity, that a military attack is any more certain.

    That drumbeat has been matched in Washington, but, significantly, the concern is not shared in Kyiv. As Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Friday, high tensions with Russia are not new “We have been in the situation for eight years,” he said.

    The pressure for this invasion is all coming from the West’s Politicians and MSM. The Russians have flatly denied that they have any such intentions. This all has shades of Iraq and Libya only this time they will be going up against peer opposition!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/30/analysis-ukraine-russia-vladimir-putin-uk-us-intelligence

      3. Jerry F on Going Postal has put up a series of articles written by his uncle for the Manchester Evening News for the Centenary of Crimea.
        It makes for very grim reading as men are sent to their slaughter by a combination of mismanagement by their officers and long screwdrivers from Westminster.

    2. As per an article I read on here or GP last week; The Ukranians and Russians, with N4 involvement, agreed to continue to uphold their current peace agreement. They have agreed to meet in Paris next week for further talks.

      As you suggest, the only warmongering is coming from the Western politicians and media…not that they can, or will, report that…as they seek to divert from the incoming tsunami of legal cases and protests at their communist-lite mishandling of the Kung Flu scamdemic.

  24. 334842+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Monday 31 January: Why vote for ‘tax-cutting’ Tories if they then raise National Insurance?

    Surely it is patently obvious that lab must in no way get the credit for the final demise of the United Kingdom after the tory (ino) party supporter / voters have put so much into it over the last three plus decades.

    Instead of asking “why vote for a tax cutting tory’s if they raise NI”
    when in all decency the question should be “why continue to vote for paedophile importing tory’s (ino) at all”

    So the BIG question that many of the electorate will NOT face is
    “why support & vote for a lab/lib/con mass controlled intake of illegal immigrants,mass foreign paedophilia, mass killings, mass political lies,
    deceit & treachery etc,etc, WHY”

    1. When all political parties are the same, when they all have the same agenda; there is no point voting.

      1. 334828+ up ticks,

        W,
        Many especially over the last three plus decades have been financially supporting / voting for the lab/lib/con mass illegal, party controlled invasion campaign coalition then there is EVERY point in financially backing & building on a credible fringe party ( a party WITHOUT INO attached )

        As in an OPPOSITION Party to combat the lab/lib/con coalition.

  26. Morning all. 🤗
    Typically the government turn on the hard working masses and ram more nails into their hands and feet of their lives, instead of resolving the huge differences between the rich and less well off in the UK. The prior of course are always comfortable and are of their own kind and always get away with their sins. With the government and all involved in politics lying again and dipping into the expenses kitty and of course blaming everyone else for their ongoing and monumental mistakes.
    I expected council tax to be raised again soon as well to try to cover the still and further rising costs of the extra thousands who arrive unchecked on a daily basis and are allowed to live here for nothing.
    Let’s try and remind the government and ask them, who voted for this.

    1. That’s how socialism always works. They bleed the productive working class dry to enrich themselves and buy their client underclass. Ayn Rand was wrong about some things but she got that right.

      1. I read a couple of Ayn Rand books back in the 70s With out looking them up, I Think one was called the Fountain Head and the other Atlas Shrugs ?
        Along with the Rebellion of Yale Marriot By Robert H Rimmer and another interesting book called Your Erroneous Zones by Dr Wayne W Dyer. Isn’t it strange how these things suddenly come to mind.
        Not that I can remember much about them now. And they might be buried under lost of other miscellaneous items in our loft.

    2. These days, government exists for itself, regardless of their purpose of public services. That’s the fundamental problem: they take money for them, with delivery a secondary issue. It is no longer what do we need to provide services, it is what do we want to do and how much can we take.

  27. I have a theory – well, two.

    First, the BPAPM was stitched up by the woke,eco-freak lefties running the Spectator who used Carrion to seduce him. Better still, get pregnant by him.

    Secondly “Sofawinegate”. The evening when a friendly Guardian reading neighbour called the police because of a “disturbance” in Carrion’s flat.

    I think that BPAPM had called round (with a bottle) to break it to Carrion that he thought their affair had run its course.

    Carrion went berserk – smashing the bottle, making threats, screaming her head off. BPAPM decided to carry on with Carrion – with the results we have all seen.

    I may be mad – but not that mad.

    1. I find the second more believable than the first.
      Was she pregnant at the time of Sofawinegate?
      Perhaps your theory is correct and that’s when she informed him about being up the duff.

      1. If Johnson is the father, it will be the first time ever that he has followed a Hard Line(?) in doing anything

      2. The row took place on 21 June 2019. The sprog was born on 29 April 2020.

        So she was’t pregnant at the time the wine was spilt…

        1. She might have been, imagine if she miscarried and quickly got pregnant again, having discovered that being pregnant gave her a hold over him.

    2. I remember that massive row that was reported between Johnson and the woman, apparently overheard by the people living next door. I have often, as you suggest, wondered whether it was the moment she told Johnson that she hadn’t, as she had promised him, been on the pill and was now pregnant…

      1. Close but no coconut. Wilf would have been conceived at the end of July, as he was born in late April. But the incident occurred in June.

    3. Men who allow their dicks to make decisions are easily manipulated by a certain type of woman. It’s why Cummings had to go. He saw straight through her.

  28. 334828+ up ticks,

    “Leave it to the tory’s” still echos down the valleys of insanity,

    The johnson was the continuation of treacherous treasa, the “deal” was the umbilical cord to brussels, ALL given peoples majority consent via the polling booth

    https://gettr.com/post/prlms6fab2

  29. ‘Morning All

    Convoy!!

    https://twitter.com/MattsBanjo/status/1487598838248611841?cxt=HHwWgoC9oeDQgaUpAAAA

    https://twitter.com/ElectionWiz/status/1487895449847701508?s=20&t=aEQawBk-OzpmapBd40MPKg

    https://twitter.com/TheRealKeean/status/1487876770158235653?s=20&t=zRreHiCEKPPu5zyrXfnQPg

    https://twitter.com/PrairieFreedom/status/1487882631878377475?s=20&t=aEQawBk-OzpmapBd40MPKg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cd989a36822f12dbbfe5d33a6211bc5963ac328fa77b614dd771b1dc3e03a9d8.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eb587c8ac1fd260c9edfd8f29107e6cce55235d5ec6a6dd3406e256574c40fc0.jpg

    1. As to the last threat.
      If stores run out of stock the general public might turn on the truckers, because the politicians and MSM will certainly be blaming them 24/7.

  30. Majority of voters oppose Biden pledge to limit choice of new Supreme Court judge to a black woman

    More than three-quarters of respondents say the president should consider all potential candidates to succeed Stephen Breyer

    Stop Press

    All Whitey wimmin to be steralised

    All Whitey men to be castrated

    Will that satisfy the BLM lot, or will they print out a “BAME acceptable skin colour chart”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/01/31/majority-voters-oppose-biden-pledge-limit-choice-new-supreme/

  31. Some Laffs

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f62aaf7d219ca7daa2f0cbfdf684ff24bb52a8cd1bfeb820848b6a242f0fb981.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/06ae07ffc80d2039e5bddaa6510c7e865e07e6c16de96f88f1136281addccf97.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dc733e3f488306916b2dc5a3fb7e7efb2a6a234af338baf8fc1bf4fc888a8a64.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9ace1fcb9b7575d55370c848798605442b3081ca2586c00de9457084c8fa528e.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/25e8d8b3641c2110f49818000e7711429164e516f3c3662ffd869d3fcb1d3b1d.jpg

  32. Modern Life…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7b42944ad33bbb51b52ae726eb1fa78dc894899ef91925adce59b84b30f4ded1.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/980024e1460eaa4e3b5b0040f7e771b141cc3761153ec78b45a7b4413176293a.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/791e4cca18e13d367a6f0b12332462d6b74ed28263e31d09ced39d36b6f8c2be.jpg

    Young Capitalist…….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ba87c8f1d6eaf49b94dc9fbcabecf971595e6237ac0c6fc1eca60c863f0c90ba.jpg

      1. When I was in our old house up here about 15 years ago we had a wind of 129mph and we only lost a couple of slates

    3. Storm Carrie? At least they didn’t fall on the house, and you’ll be able to saw them up for logs.

    4. Holy Smoke. Hunker down for the day.
      p.s. I think NOTTL has an expert tree demolisher amongst its numbers.

  35. Conwoman,scary stuff

    “THREE American military whistle-blowers have revealed data that show a

    dramatic decline in soldiers’ health during the 2021 Covid vaccine

    rollout. Many young men and women have dropped out of training

    programmes with suddenly spreading tumours, autoimmune diseases, and

    heart and circulatory disorders.

    The data support and strengthen concerns that the vaccines can injure

    the heart and nervous system, cause miscarriages and even trigger

    cancer.”

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/i-am-seeing-cancers-take-off-like-wildfires-after-the-vaccine-says-us-doctor/

  38. Bit cold on the golf course early this morning with the wind chill, packed up after two holes.

    2. Also very windy i hope you didn’t run out of balls in such a short time.
      I’m saving my next visit to the hallowed fairways until the weather is better but of course the rough will be longer.
      We are all as a four ball hoping to play St Enodoc in August, when i have been seen and been fixed up by a cardiologist.
      Two of our sons had a knock last Friday with two other friends. The youngest who hits the ball for miles, he told me he started with three balls and ended up with three my immediate reaction was you must have found at least a dozen then 😂🤗

  39. It was Christmas Eve.

    A woman came home to her husband after a day of busy shopping.

    Later on that night when she was getting undressed for bed, he noticed a mark on the inside of her leg.
    “What is that?” he asked.

    She said, “I visited the tattoo parlor today.
    On the inside of one leg I had them tattoo ‘Merry Christmas,’ and on the inside of the other one they tattooed ‘Happy New Year.'”
    Perplexed, he asked, “Why did you do that?”

    “Well,” she replied, “now you can’tcomplain that there’s never anything to eat between Christmas and New Years!”

    1. Tax cuts are always self-financing, so keep cutting taxes until you get to zero. Lest we forget, the Thatcher regime started by raising taxes.

      PS. My grandson, not one of life’s academics, has gone into business with a friend. He has an app that takes care of VAT.

      1. Some tax is necessary. Such a tax should be flat, transparent and controlled by the people.

        Yes, tax cuts are self financing. If you cut taxes you increase the amount of money people have to spend and they do, on things they want, which is the basis of wealth creation.

        The problem we have at the moment is government takes so much, returns so little that to provide the same (or worse) services requires ever more money. Inflation and fiscal drag in the cost of services just makes it more and more expensive to stay the same.

        1. Laffer has been much misrepresented. He said that there was a sweet spot where tax rates produce the most revenue. To assert that all tax cuts are self-financing is to fly in the face of history and logic.

          1. The vast majority are. A tax rate of 15% would be a fair start. At the moment the tax take is close to 70p in the pound earned.

            Laffer was right.

        2. I find I am not going out to spend now (my tax take went up when I lost the married person’s allowance) because I have less disposable income (same or increased bills and only my pension now to pay them). Whereas before I would have had a short excursion to look round the shops and buy a few items, I now rarely even go in the shops, even when I go into the local town. The economy suffers from that.

    2. Tax cuts are always self-financing, so keep cutting taxes until you get to zero. Lest we forget, the Thatcher regime started by raising taxes.

      PS. My grandson, not one of life’s academics, has gone into business with a friend. He has an app that takes care of VAT.

  41. Good Moaning.
    Bit of a hooley working up in these ‘ere parts.
    Housework day sans cleaner, so MB is firing up the hoover. (Very sensible precaution, my one cleaning talent is to blow them up.)

      2. 6’c outside. It fell to 16 inside and I admit I was blasted cold, to the point that typing was difficult.

        Gas smart meter not reading anymore. Stupid fools can’t run a brewery.

    4. I had one of those ‘rips as it shreds as it tears’ old style upright vacuums. They were damned heavy and noisy. I ended up losing my patience and hurled it down the stairs. It smashed the window in the front door. Had to go next door and borrow theirs to hoover up the glass. :@(

      1. Ooh! I did that years ago with a truly awful Electrolux so-called vacuum cleaner! I got great satisfaction from watching the nasty cheap plastic housing shatter into a thousand bits – which I then had to sweep up with a dustpan and brush!

        2. You people will all be using a dustpan and brush when the Prime Minister or her husband makes electricity illegal anytime soon. 🧹

        1. Just shout the orders to the war queen, no cables needed for you as accountable manager. You might need some succour to dress wounds later though.

    5. I had a second vacuum cleaner which I kept as a spare. I never used it, so eventually I got rid of it, as it was only gathering dust.

    6. I had a second vacuum cleaner which I kept as a spare. I never used it, so eventually I got rid of it, as it was only gathering dust.

    7. Hoover?
      When we moved here 30y ago, we bought Henry’s big brother, Edward and he’s still going strong!

      1. Our cleaner swears by her Henry; she takes it to houses that have the dreaded cordless cleaners as the darn things die half way through her session.
        Ours is a reconditioned Hoover Dyson-style copy. It has (fingers crossed) already done several years.

    1. Good Morning, Bill

      Are you up-to-date with the rumour that Toyboy Trudeau has been interfering with underage girls and has had to pay hush money?

      2. Apparently it was in his days as a part time teacher. There are photos of his black face fancy dress but the rest is just rumours. The behaviour does match how he groped a reporter several years later.

        Oh but it is OK for him.

      1. Not till the big bad truckers have been moved away.

        National rail system shut by protests for weeks, road outside parliament shut for two days before the law moves in.

      1. 334828+ up ticks,

        Morning RE,
        If you have any trust in farage I have a link you must see, the biggest mass back knifing EVER.

    2. I think as soon as the challenge was mooted the government faced a choice between vaccine efficacy being challenged and their misinformation over the entire statistical models.

      Faced with being exposed as idiots at best and charlatans at worse, they gave up.

    1. Can you imagine a BBC reporter giving a Conservative politician that long to speak without interrupting them?

      1. “True North is a Canadian digital media platform with a conservative editorial position. ”
        So not quite the BBC’s political stance.

      2. None of the Canadian media would be that generous.

        The media here are intent on destroying the protest –

        Attacking one of the protest leaders, who is involved with an Alberta separatist movement (much like Fargage was treated).

        Focusing on the desecration of the Terry Fox statue when a flag was draped over the shoulders.

        Highlighting the actions of some yahoo who climbed up on the tomb of the unknown soldier.

        There’s better coverage in the Daily Mail.

        1. The answer is in the hands of Canadians, withdraw any financial support, do not buy any newspapers whose editorial stance you do not agree with, do not view any TV news broadcasts or watch TV channels from organisations which works for the likes of the WEF. In UK terms I will not buy for example the rag known as The Guardian or watch BBC programs whenever possible. Easy to say, more difficult to do I know but if they are starved of finance perhaps they will start to give a more balanced view of things.

  46. Another respected expert who has been cancelled for not telling the state’s version of the truth. Worth a read – and a watch of the video: https://www.francesoir.fr/videos-videos-english/peter-mccullough-all-vaccines-worldwide-should-be-taken-market but not for those who have implicit and untainted faith in the PTB!.

    Peter McCullough: “all the vaccines worldwide should be taken off the market”

    From today’s France Soir (in English) Publié le 31/01/2022 à 11:59

    Peter McCullough : new debriefing

    PARTAGER CET ARTICLE :
    FacebookMessengerTwitterTelegramWhatsAppPlus d’options…
    Auteur(s): FranceSoir
    Cet espace d’opinion permet la libre expression des idées et d’engendrer le débat. Les articles et vidéos publiés dans cette rubrique peuvent parfois ne pas faire consensus, en savoir plus →

    -A+A
    In this, his latest interview for France Soir, Peter McCullough recalls how physicians’attempts to provide early treatments have been systematically stymied and caregivers censored, and how the current unsafe vaccines are leading to death and injury. As serious clinical events continue to be played down by regulators and public health agencies, the American public, which in ever-greater numbers rejects President Biden’s vaccine mandates, has taken to demonstrating its disagreement in the streets.

    On 23rd January 2022, as the historic march from the Washington Monument reached the steps of the Lincoln Memorial steps, Professor McCullough addressed the huge crowd, to recall the pandemic’s outset: entirely-preventable hospitalisation and deaths occurred due to lack of early treatment. He blamed official agencies for failing to support doctors who wished to deploy all their clinical efforts, skills, and all available drugs. Now, as successive mutant strains emerge, the virus is well on its way to defeating these vaccines. Besides being ineffective, these vaccines cause both fatalities and serious adverse events. They should therefore be pulled from the market now, and their safety reviewed, he said. In concluding, he spoke of freedom, and more especially medical freedom.

    On 24th January, a meeting was held in the Senate chaired by Senator Ron Johnson and co- moderated by Prof. McCullough, to discuss the ongoing censorship and harassment of health professionals.

    In this interview with France Soir, Peter McCullough describes the anarchic medical situation in the United States. Not only do laws differ from State to State – some health professionals disregard the law. For example, it is not uncommon for a pharmacist to refuse to honour a doctor’s prescription. What is more, there are shortages of drugs, such as monoclonal antibodies used to treat severe forms of the disease.

    To confront such disorder, Prof. McCullough has developed his own protocol, which includes both known and new molecules, to be administered in the light of the variant, the disease’s stage and its severity.

    Prof. McCullough ends with a review of the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event reporting System) database. According to VAERS, “only” 20,000 + Americans have died as a result of vaccination. That figure is vastly underestimated, if we are to go by a Columbia University study which refers to 187,000 deaths and over one million side effects.

    An implacable judgment from an expert who considers that every official decision has been wrong, and that it is long past time to abandon a vaccine henceforth unwanted by Americans.

    France Soir and BonSens.org have partnered to present this interview.

    Professor Peter McCullough is an internal medicine specialist, cardiologist and epidemiologist. He practices both internal medicine, which also includes the management of common infectious diseases, and cardiovascular complications related to both viral infection and injuries that develop as a result of the COVID-19 vaccine in Dallas TX, USA. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Professor McCullough has become a leader in the medical response to the COVID-19 disaster. He published “Pathophysiological Basis and Rationale for
    Early Outpatient Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Infection”, the first synthesis of the different treatments available and responding to the different phases of the disease for outpatients infected with SARS-CoV-2.

      1. The verminous foreigner really needs to be moved back to gimmigrantistan – along with the other parasites.

  50. 334828+ up ticks,

    How about these political overseers give EVERY indigenous person in the old peoples home as a sign of future good intent a BACON BUTTIE / ROLL, along with a pension rise and respect.

    Let us make it MANDATORY, any overseers if non compliant MUST QUIT.

    Remember people power works, Lest we forget it worked to get us, as a nation into our deep shite condition, make it work in reverse.

    1. Started at 8, been in meetings all day. One where I was so completely whacked out on coffee that I could barely manage what i was saying – but it was good to actually practise.

    1. We knew perfectly well what we were leaving and we didn’t want the Treaty back then. We wanted WTO rules but have been stitched up by the establishment. As usual.

      1. 334828+ up ticks,

        Afternoon VW,
        What has bothered me for a long time is ” as usual” why has the situation
        ever got to being “as usual” one could very well ask ?

        Many of us in real UKIP ( not to be confused with current uKiP) wanted
        totally severance, but the “leave it to the tory’s (ino ) brigade” had their way, as usual.

    3. The Frogs never learned any lessons taught by them by any Brit. After all, according to de Gaulle the French resistance won WWII.

      They really have collective small man syndrome. Perhaps they can’t bear to live with the idea that as a country, they are cowards.

  53. One for the blood pressure. Just received this email from younger son. His daughter is in her third year at university and has rarely had a direct lecture or seminar.

    “I thought you might like to know that Lucy has just told us universities are going on strike again for another 10 days, not that they’re selfish of course after all the interruptions over the last two years …… bless em!!! Accordingly she’s got to delay her dissertation presentation.”

    3. May I suggest that Lucy removes an amount from the Uni fee, proportional to the amount of real-time lectures and/or seminars stolen?

  54. Well, well. I mentioned the other day that the MR has a lesion that needs removing. NHS waiting time is “at least a year”.

    So – as predicated – she went private. Rang consultant for appt. First available = JUNE……

    Apparently, as NHS is clapped out (geddit?) everyone is going private….

    Welcome to the Third World….

    1. Is the NHS overwhelmed because all the doctors are taking private patients because the NHS is overwhelmed?

        1. Getting the perks of being with the NHS (I know that some charge the NHS initial NHS fee for certain work, only to top it up as private work. Sometimes patient pays the difference, sometime patient pays the full whack while the dentist still claims from the NHS, as well).

      1. Yes, but even coughing up is not enough to get seen – the private medics are mostly on the NHS as well (best of both worlds for them, worst of both worlds for us). So delay in either case.

  55. The 50 shades of Grey report will be debated at 3.30pm. However it is NOT the full version, so probably isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. As always, someone has something to hide.

    2. It’s amazing that something to be used as evidence by the Met,. in making its enquiries, has to be redacted. Isn’t tampering with evidence unlawful?

    3. It’ll be a complete whitewash. The original doc was going to be nonsense. This will be as well.

      1. When those debating it have large chunks of their thinking brains missing, it should be straightforward.

      2. 334828+ up ticks,

        Afternoon AS,

        Easy if you stick to the same voting pattern you vote in the same type debaters,en masse.

  56. 334828+ up ticks,

    breitbart,
    Average British Families Will Now Pay over £1 Million in Taxes During Lifetime,

    Many decent peoples would kill for that, don’t get me wrong I do mean a political party demise, to pay through the nose ( the nose many are gripping) for the privilege of suffering for the “party” comes across as somewhat strange to me.

    1. Direct taxation, or does that include the indirect taxes like insurance taxes, VAT, council taxes, fuel duty, business rates?

      Now remember that your average adult starts work at about 20, not earning a lot. They work for 10 years to get a decent wage, now they’re 30. They’re 30 years of effective earning. If you’re paying tax for 18 years, more than half your income is robbed by the state.

      Is it any wonder a 2 child, 2 parent family that could survive on £50K now has to have both parents earning to raise one child? Services are worse than ever. The statist solution? More tax.

      It’s a treadmill of ever more tax for ever less, because everytime taxes go up, it’s more expensive to achieve the same level of outcome.

      1. Nowadays, to have more than two children, any couple needs to be extremely wealthy or extremely poor.

        1. Thus the wrong people are breeding. Welfare addicts produce sprogs when one gets too old to claim benefits.

          1. Of course the wrong people are breeding – how about the one-parent several-child families where the father traditionally just b*££ers off? Encourage by the State and paid for by us.

  57. Hip Hip Hooray !

    Finally got the appointment for my operation.

    I have to go to the drive thru covid swab test two days before and then isolate until the morning of the Op.

    8am on February 11th. My birthday. :@(

          2. One of the vampire nurses mistook me for another patient. To save her any embarrassment i made a joke.

            I said to her it must be because of my filmstar good looks.

            On another occasion for a different condition as they were wiring me up in A & E I told the nurse she looked like she was dressing the Christmas tree.

            She said she wished all her patients were in such good humour.

          4. Hours and hours. They admitted me to the Acute Medical ward at three in the morning. I had been in there since six pm. They did keep monitoring me though.

        2. How long since you joined the queue to speak to the receptionist, to see the nurse, before joining the queue to contact the GP, to get the eventual referral to see the consultant?

          1. February last year. I called my GP. Described the symptoms and The GP said to come to the surgery immediately. She got a second opinion from the nurse to confirm then immediately phoned the Consultant on a direct line. He say me the following morning. Had the scans. Then the Hospital closed.

          3. It almost killed me walking to the three different departments. Every visit after of which there were at least two a month for phlebotomies was in a wheelchair.

            Being in a chair got me excellent service. Everyone opening doors for me and when the porter dropped me to where i needed to be he always placed me at the front of the queue.

            The nurses and other staff were very kind and caring. They even brought me quite nice packed lunches.

          4. When I tore the meniscus in my knee, I had to have a wheelchair to make the transfer at CDG when I flew to Marseille. I saw parts of the airport I never even knew existed!

          5. I sprained my ankle shortly before a trip to South Africa and there was no way I could hobble round Heathrow to the gate for the flight. The only assistance available was a wheelchair – I hated it! Most uncomfortable flight as I couldn’t elevate my foot, and when I tried to rest it on the armrest of the seat in front the bloke stting there whacked it with his elbow.

  58. Armed counter-terrorism officers to be deployed on British cross-Channel ferries. 31 January 2022.

    Armed counter-terrorism officers will be deployed on British cross-Channel ferries for the first time this summer, though government sources said there was no specific threat to passenger vessels.

    Firearms police from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) are to be posted on ferries out of Dover, as well as on passenger ships between Newcastle and the Netherlands.

    The move will tighten security on British ferries, which are unguarded and seen as vulnerable, with passengers not individually searched or given body scans when boarding, unlike those on planes or Eurostar trains.

    Yes all those people sneaking across the English Channel by ferry! Its time they put a stop to it! I’ll bet that they were waving to their relatives in the dinghies. Lol!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/31/armed-counter-terrorism-officers-british-cross-channel-ferries-security

    1. Fear of someone driving a van full of explosives onto the ferry, I think. Not sure what armed guards could do about that though.
      I always take our own life jackets on board with us in a Longchamp bag. The armed guards will probably be there to stop me from taking my bag upstairs, I expect.
      I was on one of those ferries last year, and there was a dinghy full of migrants also making the dawn crossing. One of the European lorry drivers standing on the deck below us mimed a machine gun.

      1. He was probably signalling that he’d got their machine guns on board and that they could pick them up when they are released from processing.

    2. Me being totally and utterly stoopid

      Armed counter-terrorism officers to be deployed on Boarder Farce Patrol Boats to prevent influx of unarmed (at that time) terrorists, from France.

      Refugees will be housed in a Prison Hulk, mid Channel, until that is full.

      The Hulk will then sail sail to Calais, unload the ‘refugees and the French will take over reponsibility for the Doveristas

      Airborne Porcine Squadron Incoming

      1. “Anyone being less than welcoming to Refugees will be housed in a Prison Hulk, mid Channel”
        FIFY

  60. Read in full: Sue Gray’s partygate report. 31 January 2022.

    As a result of the Metropolitan Police’s investigations, and so as not to prejudice the police investigative process, they have told me that it would only be appropriate to make minimal reference to the gatherings on the dates they are investigating. Unfortunately, this necessarily means that I am extremely limited in what I can say about those events and it is not possible at present to provide a meaningful report setting out and analysing the extensive factual information I have been able to gather.

    So it’s not really a report at all! Boris lives to lie another day!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/read-in-full-sue-gray-s-partygate-report

      1. I must say Oberst whoever thought up bringing in the Police has played a blinder. The report is now as dead as the proverbial Dodo!

    2. The report may be bland and bureaucratic, but within the limitations set by the Met it’s hard to imagine it being any less critical of Johnson, his organisation and civil servants.

      1. All she’s done is set out what she was going to look into, and make a few observations about hardworking civil servants and cramped accommodation.

    3. How does redaction help the police and what consequence could full disclosure possibly have upon the police investigative process. It’s all complete cobblers.

    4. How does redaction help the police and what consequence could full disclosure possibly have upon the police investigative process. It’s all complete cobblers.

  61. A Groaner

    Q: What starts with E, ends with E, and has only 1 letter in it?

    A: Envelope.

          1. Wotcher, Plum!

            I thought the Cakewalk was reserved for people of colour…

            Edit: a la Scott Joplin (mind you, he was in western clothing when he played).

    3. Sheer exhibitionism – the body “shape” – the dreadful outfit – the smirk.

      What a shit the man is.

      1. He really isn’t a sh*t, but he has certainly done some sh*tty things. IIRC the invisible first ex-wife was one of the most good looking gals at Oxford, and he had to have her, but that’s teenage competitiveness. Whether they should have married is another matter.

  63. How many of the fraudulent furlough scams were by/for immigrants? I know of one Romanian, who was paid furlough while living in Romania throughout lockdowns. While I know and like his wife (who was working over here) it still makes me spit!

    1. The landlord of our local let slip that Rumanian couple who managed it for 2 years went back to Rumania temporarily on furlough throughout, some 18 months, then resigned and stayed there when furlough stopped.

          1. 99% of modern commentators would have NO idea what pack drill is, Dale.

            Discipline ain’t us.

  65. BTL comment:

    Mafi Mushkila
    18 HRS AGO
    Time to get rid of green Bunter — he will surely be happy for any excuse to go and earn his green millions like Al Gore.
    We will be poor, jobless and cold in Johnson’s new carbon zero world with the freedoms and economy of North Korea.
    Johnson has turned the UK into a centrally controlled green economy with billion in subsidies for 11000 unreliable windmills sometimes producing 2% of our unaffordable electricity. Johnson lies about cheap green windmill power where it costs billions in subsidies — the madness of toxic battery cars, hydrogen and banning gas heating and fracking. We rely on Europe for 20% of our power and our industry is being destroyed by carbon taxes, banning petrol cars and unaffordable electricity costs. The Saudi Arabia of wind, the Qatar of hydrogen – he is mad. Bunter lies about cheap wind power.
    Green eco loon Johnson has a fake saviour complex — he has promised us his green New Jerusalem and those well paid green jobs — where Jesus promised a New Jerusalem when he returns.

    REPLY
    5 REPLIES
    218

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/01/30/tory-mps-allow-boris-johnson-ride-crisis-will-inviting-defeat/

  66. Typical Boris. Started off quite well by being suitably contrite but then quickly switched into his default arrogant ‘I fully understand’, lessons will be learned’, blah, blah, blah, nonsense before switching the subject.

      1. Darling, we can make mad passionate love all night tonight. I will even put on the dominatrix outfit and whip your bot bots.

        Okay.

        Providing you sack Cummings.

      3. Mitsubishi Pajero

        For those not familiar with Spanish, Pajero basically means self-gratification, in the most physical sense

        The Mitsubishi Pajero, first launched almost 32 years ago, was named after a cat native to a region of southern Argentina.
        But in Spanish it’s a vulgar word, meaning something which sounds like banker. Awkward. Unsurprisingly, the vehicle is
        known as the Montero (mountain hunter) in Spain, the Americas and India.

      4. That’s cheap for a set of six wooden chairs and a table, especially if the parasol is included! Shame about the occupiers.

  69. I find BPAPM’s “apologies” as distasteful as his endless lies.

    Both are completely insincere.

      1. I seem to remember Yasmin A-B threatening to leave if either of 2 particular things happened. In the event both did occur but she’s still here!

          1. Emma Thompson actually did go to Venice, but came back 4 days after she’d got Italian residency! Just after convid hit Italy! Oh how we larfed!

  71. A hot heated debate in Parliament . BBC news

    The fat SNP git was slung out .

    Bernard Jenkin is being kind to Boris .

    Lots of nastiness from Theresa and and others .. anti Brexit bods I think .

    But Boris is , well , slippery … he has created a new Office of the Prime Minister , to keep an eye on things .

    2. How many people in the House of Commons are as nasty, spiteful and evil as that harpy Traita May?

    5. Bernard J was showing his anger as much as he ever does in public..
      His question – boiled down to its essentials – was Boris actually going to do something this time or was he merely bloviating to buy time.
      I know Bernard well enough to know when he is seriously cross; he was seriously cross.

  72. 334828+ up ticks,

    ‘HUGE MOMENT FOR FREEDOM’ UK MANDATORY VAX FOR HEALTH WORKERS SET TO BE SCRAPPED

    in reality reads,
    HUGH MOMENT OF DEFEAT FOR POLITICAL OVERSEERS REGARDING THE MANDATORY VAX FOR HEALTH WORKERS TO BE SCRAPPED.

    1. So, can those who were forced to be vaccinated against their will, by the threat of unemployment,
      now sue the government or at least have a valid claim against them, if in years to come, “The Vaxx” is proven to be harmful to them?

      1. It will be hard to prove direct correlation – that’s the trouble. I’ve had the same thoughts about a bad anaesthetist at my caesarian and my daughter’s susequent autism after I had to be given oxygen (her twin brother was fine). Proof is d*mned hard so incompetents get away with it.

      2. I’m pretty sure that letters will have been phrased with the avoidance of liability in mind.

      3. 334828+ up ticks,

        Evening OLT,
        When that comes about heavens forbid, you will find there were only a couple dozen who had it voluntary, as with lab/ lib/ con voters when the shite hits the fan ,BIG TIME they will be as plentiful as rocking horse poo.

  73. One for stephenroi.
    Call for people to renovate old canal lock houses
    A project has been launched in Brittany to find people willing to revitalise old lock houses, buildings that traditionally served as accommodation for those in charge of canals or ricker locks.
    The region of Brittany has, since 2008, been responsible for its 440km of public waterways, including the 156 lock houses and outbuildings that line the banks.
    Some of these lock houses have fallen into disrepair due to them being used less often.
    The region is hoping its new initiative can attract investors to do up the traditional buildings and turn them into viable tourism projects.
    Applicants can be individuals, associations, companies, or even communities.
    The selected candidates will only have to pay a small fee of around €2,000 per year, depending on its size, and will be allowed to live in the house, as long as they seek to create a tourism project with it.
    This could be a B&B, a café, a bicycle shop, etc.
    The region will remain the owners of the houses but investors will be charged with renovating the interior and keeping it in good shape.
    The contracts on the houses, which will be temporary occupation agreements, can range from five years to 20 years, depending on the size of the investment.
    The project to search for investors in these buildings is being run by the region of Brittany, the Redon Agglomération and the commune of Avessac, in partnership with the department of Loire-Atlantique.
    Véronique Véron, who is in charge of public waterways for the region of Brittany, said the idea is not to attract people looking for cheap housing, but for those interested in developing the houses into viable tourism projects.
    “Dreamers looking for cheap accommodation should not apply,” she said.
    “The region is looking for solid economic projects with people who are willing to invest and even create jobs.
    Those interested have until Monday, August 29,12:00 to submit an application.
    This is the third time a call for investments into lock houses has been made, after similar initiatives in 2013 and 2015.

    2. Thank you. The French inland waterways are a real treasure and the last time I navigated on them completely unappreciated by the natives. I’ve visited Brittany and the canals there are also spectacular. If I recall my history correctly the reason the French inland waterway exists and is so extensive is due to the Royal Navy blockading France during the Napoleonic wars.

      1. We usually head through the WW1 battlefields in the autumn down to Beaune and often drive back here initially following the one from Beaune, it’s a lovely route and they’ve been restoring it gradually over the years.

        1. In the 1990’s we had a trip on the River Yonne – Auxerre to Vermenton – wonderful especially the Caves where there are over 1 million bottles of Cremont de Bougogne fermenting!

          1. We started our trip in Auxerre and didn’t go very far…….. but we met some interesting people along the way, including a lady travelling from Perigeux to Metz.
            She was reluctant to chat until she found we were not German but English…… we shared our lunch and she told us of her time in the Maquis and was proud of walking down the Champs Elysee with de Gaulle. She suggested we visit Vezelay before we went home and we did.

  74. Afternoon all, there is an article in the DT which discusses the need for electricity supply upgrades to cope with the expected demand.
    Below is a BTL comment,

    Why not use a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators to power homes. The MMRTG converts heat from the natural radioactive decay of plutonium into electricity. NASA uses these to provide power to its space craft where sunlight is too weak to power solar arrays. They can last for decades and the power they produce is basically free. Build a lead/concrete box under your house to put it in and then enjoy free electricity for 30 or 40 years.

    What could possibly go wrong FFS!!!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/environment/2022/01/31/thousands-homes-will-need-electricity-boost-heat-pumps-work/

      1. I suppose everyone knows which is their grave, it’s the one that glows in the dark😂

    3. We’ve got natural radon percolating under us and coming from our granite walls in Cornwall. Keeps us snug and we even glow enough not to switch on the lights

  75. Fancy that, my glorious leader has now announced that he tested positive for covid and will continue isolating. Oh dear!

    Coincidentally, the truckers are still in Ottawa

    3. I thought he’d already tried that ploy earlier in the week – or was that time just that he’s been in contact with the plague? “Run away”.

      2. I think this is his second time round, I forget what he was hiding from last year.

        I would bet that the Ukrainian leaders are reassured when Trudeau says that he supports them

    4. I thought he’d already tried that ploy earlier in the week – or was that time just that he’s been in contact with the plague? “Run away”.

    5. But shouldn’t he have stayed at home and isolated himself rather than travelling somewhere completely different?
      I ask as someone who may have had a headache recently, and sneezed a lot, but who simply doesn’t understand why the British govt hasn’t given me millions of pounds to test myself.

    1. Something funny in the air in Canada then. Everywhere else has found that the vaccines make little difference to catching Covid, their effect being in reducing the severity of subsequent symptoms.

    3. Fewer than!!
      And as one of that 1% who have contracted it, that makes him special.

      Special needs.

    1. But they won’t be spontaneous parties planned by the street – they’ll be insured, subsidised by government, suitably diverse, permitted gathering. Next panic scheduled to kick off 2 weeks later and culminate in mandatory digital ids for all. Gawd bless Her Majesty!

    2. Sod any more lockdowns, Plum.

      Be sure that there will be plenty of like-minded souls who will join you in a great knees-up.

  86. Prevening, all. What the Cons will discover, should we ever again get a chance to put our X in the box , is people will begin to wonder what is the point in getting a high tax, wasteful spend, big state, greeniac government that ought to be fiscally competent, low tax and small state inclined, when they can vote for the real thing in Labour and get what they knew was coming in the first place. We may as well swap one fat, incompetent, spendthrift for a slightly slimmer variety; in the long run, it’ll make eff all difference to the mess we’re in and the economy will be beggared either way.

    1. What I would like to see would be a few smug Tories in safe seats losing at the next election. I come from one of these ultra safe seats, the MP is useless and is never seen from one year to the next, and they never even bother to campaign any more.

      1. Johnson has a majority of only 7,210 (2019), up from 5,034 in 2017. He should be toast at the next election, but if he hangs on that long then there will be many losses for the Conservatives.

    3. 334828+ up ticks,

      Evening C,

      Seeing as they ARE a coalition joined at the political hip by mass ongoing party controlled immigration, which
      by the by is importing foreign paedophilia do the peoples not consider that to be of a more serious nature.

      Surely the welfare of children OUTRANKS all else.

    4. People like me would probably be better off with Sir Cur in No10. History tells us that at least short to medium term OAP’s are not unduly penalised, not that he would ever get my vote.

  88. Strangeways Prison football matches will be on Sky Sports if any more Premiership footballers get remanded in custody.

  89. What’s the difference between most chief constables and a certain Man United star?…

    One won’t be a freemason for very much longer

  91. That’s me for today. A day of leisure at resort as far as I (and G & P) was concerned. Spent the morning scanning photographs of my late brother for his daughters (all pushing 60, for heavens’ sake!!). And setting down my memories of him. Several times I was stuck and thought, “Peter will know”…. duh..!

    The MR was slaving preparing a range of curries for lunch tomorrow when chums are coming over.

    Nice sunset – despite (or because of) the gales. Milder and cloudy (a Grey day) tomorrow.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

      1. Scrapbook for mementos, photos and oddments, notes and letters. Also invitations.. Don’t forget to date each item and write on the back of the pics who is in them.

        1. You may laugh, but we have family portraits in pastels (sadly fading) from the early and mid 19th Century where someone has done exactly that, and probably for similar reasons.

          3. We have the photos.
            When I first saw them for what they were, I must have been about 7 or 8. I didn’t know who, what or when. What I did know was they were disturbing, because the eyes really did follow me around the room.
            They were almost certainly painted by a member of the family.
            Unfortunately that talent passed my generation entirely. My eldest is a good cartoonist, but my eldest grandchild has inherited the skill to a fabulous degree. She is constantly sketching and the quality of her work staggers me. I hope she continues with it.

          4. When my father came here for his last few months, I had the brilliant idea of giving him the storage box (I kid you not) full of family photographs and asked him to go through and say – wherever possible – who was in each snap and roughly a date.

            It has been a life saver in the last 34 year.

          1. My parents would buy, and have engraved with dates and address, a pewter mug for each house they lived in, the size of the mug approximating to the time lived there. They are still at Mother’s.

      2. That was one of the shock points when my Mother was diagnosed with dementia… all the family history is locked in her head, and now might as well be deleted, as it can’t get out. Big loss there, even to who are these people in the picture, what stories are there, why did that happen, and so on.
        Quite a while ago I saw an advertisement for a lady who would come round and interview your relatives, then write it up as a family history. I deeply regret not taking that opportunity, as it’s too late now.

          1. Nope. All her old friends are late. A very few photos is all.
            It’s a bugger for me, but also for my lads, who will never know anything about my side of the family, as I don’t know it.

          2. I never met or even knew the names of any of my father’s side of the family. He barely spoke of them.

          4. Never met my maternal grandfather but met my maternal grandmother twice. I’ve found out much more online about them since my mother died than I knew before. She used to tell us lots of fabulous and exotic stories about growing up on a rubber planation in Borneo.

          5. The one person, uncle, who could have shed some more light on the Scots side, died last year. There is no-one left on the English side , except me. I have tried and will continue to do so, to inform my son, my niece and nephew about their antecedents.
            Trouble is, I can gold medal in procrastination so I could have done a lot of this in all the lockdowns…..but I haven’t:-(

          6. My dad was half Scottish that’s all I know. My 2 kids didn’t meet either of my parents but both got to meet their mum’s parents.

          7. Max, MH’s dad died a few years ago now , but I suggested that he could get his father to record his memories on tape. His dad refused.
            Luckily, we also have a big box of photos of MH’s youth and his dad’s RAF career. Some of them are very interesting….photos taken from a plane after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

          8. My dad was an RAF pilot, but invalided out just pre-war, maybe luckily for me. I have a couple of piccies of him but none of my mother. There was a whole load of my mother’s side going back to WWI but my sister was their caretaker and after she died neither my brother nor I have had any luck finding them.

          9. Families are weird. Jane Austen’s sister, Cassandra, burned all of Jane’s letters. What a loss.

          10. All my grandfathers died before I was born (my mother’s father and stepfather and my father’s father).

          11. I only met my maternal grandfather. All other grandrelatives died before on when I was born.

          12. I never met either grandfather. The maternal one was pushing up daisies when I was born. I eventually learned that the paternal one had been violently abusive to my grandmother, and was ultimately thrown out of the family home by my Dad, who in those days was a scaffolder, and a bit good at boxing. No idea what happened to him.

          13. My paternal Gfather died of TB in 1931, and my mother’s father in 1950, so a bit early for me to get to know him.

          14. My Scots grandpa died when I was 6 months old so, although I went to his funeral, I never knew him. He worked for John Brown’s on the Clyde and lost an eye there in an industrial accident.

          16. Same here.
            There was occasional talk of a mysterious “Cathy” who lived in West Hartlepool and owed my parents money, but that was it.

          18. Same here.
            There was occasional talk of a mysterious “Cathy” who lived in West Hartlepool and owed my parents money, but that was it.

          19. I knew aunts, uncles and cousins on my father’s side of the family, but they evaporated soon after he was wiped out in a car crash in 1963 (he was a passenger). Only one cousin is still in touch, around Christmas, and she’s clearly suffering from dementia. Such is life.

          20. As I’ve said earlier, Geoff, genealogy is one study that opens up all sorts of avenues for exploration.

            I can trace my Father back through solid English stock from 1580 in Lincolnshire and my Mother’s side through 50 generations to the year 530 in Uppsala, Sweden. Very interesting reading and I’m now writing their lives (or as much as I may research.)

            Keeps me off the streets – and exercises the brain.

          21. Look for your father in the 1939 register or the census and take it from there. You might find siblings and then other relatives.

          24. Maybe, but the only story about his brother was a falling out over money. And as for his parents, who I don’t know even their names, they packed him off to a farm in Ontario for failing his exams at 16. He said it was a great 2 years and wished he had stayed.
            Right. off to pub.

          26. Genealogy is useful in this respect, Mola. it encourages you to a sort of ‘Who Do You Think You Are‘ into unknown and unexplored branches of the family:

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

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

          27. It’s surprising what you can find out about your family history, when you come to look into it. When you are able to travel – you could try her with some memory joggers.

            My father died when I was four, and my mother over 30 years ago – but I have found out a great deal, just from research, although I was in contact with a second cousin and a third cousin over the years. I gathered up a lot of photos from them. I found my father’s cousin living in Devon – she was a mine of information, though now she is nearly 96 and getting a bit past it.

            You can order wills – they are quite revealing, and also birth and death certificates as pdf copies, also census records and the 1939 register. The 1921 census has just been released. There are many records available on Ancestry and other sites.

          28. I found out that an ancestor of mine had done time in Marylebone Prison. As he was only eleven, I can only assume he was a pickpocket;-)

          30. It was my ex who was into it…I have long suspected that I come from a long line of charlatans…;-))

          34. I did this a few years ago on Ancestry. Mum’s side of the family was relatively easy (not least because my cousin had already done the research). On my Dad’s side, I discovered that my great great grandfather was a publican in Carlisle. That’ll do nicely.

        2. Showing people with dementia old photos might well trigger their memories. Often it’s modern memories which won’t stay, but long-term memory persists.

        3. Which is why, as you know, Paul, I wrote my autobiography from birth to age 70.

          I’ve now continued it from 70 to 77 (78 in May if we’re spared) but I’ve not much more to add.

    3. Had similar moments when my Father died, Bill.
      I’ll just ask Pa his advice… ah! Brings you up short, so it does.

        1. Takes a while to get past those moments. Father died in 1997, so 25 years ago, and I still would like to share a joke with him.
          And a beer.

          1. 26 years this month since Dad died and I still get those “most tell Dad that”. A week after he died I went past the local theatre who had singers that Dad would have loved to see, my first thought, “I must tell Dad they are on”.

          2. This is daft, especially as I am not a believer, but do you know what sometimes comforts me….My dad, my brother and my uncle all having a pint together in some celestial pub. With all our late pets hanging around waiting for snacks.

        2. MeToo, Richard and she died in 1980.

          Same thing with my brother who died recently in 2019.

      2. My sister in law brought me a couple of boxes of old family photos….I have had a quick look through but can’t quite face it yet and it will be 40 years this December since my parents died. It’s also, that when I left the US, I couldn’t bring a ton of stuff.
        I do have a small photo of my dad in the pub, framed and on the wall , on his way to the table with three pints in his hands- lovely photo and a big smile on his face.

    4. Back in the ‘Nineties, I created a family tree online, using ‘Genesreunited‘; it has 758 entries and hundreds of data and photos.

      2. The trick is to hook into an “aristocratic line”, we’re all 6 degrees apart and everyone is descended from Charlemagne, allegedly..

        Mine goes back to 843! Ha ha.
        BUT…
        The silly thing is that whoever put it together has a very good line from the late 1500’s to today and it turns out that the family name only survived because a man was prepared to change his surname to be able to marry the wealthy heiress. Where did that all go? Not my side of the family and that’s for sure.
        The earlier lines are accurate, but not extended “sideways”, one just sees the most direct descendants. It’s available in any good history.

        It’s fun to show, but essentially it’s little different from what most people could do if they really wanted to. The difference is they don’t bother.

          1. Dig a bit further.
            Obviously it fails if you can’t hook into a line, but given that the fact that you are here suggests that your line has survived.

            The absolute numbers in the population of 4/500 years ago were so small, compared with today that we are almost inevitably inter-related. One should recall that illegitimacy didn’t carry quiet the stigma then that it did in the early 20th century and thus being part of a line was accepted. Look at all the “Fitz’s”.

        2. I came across a cracking family tree online covering the Gellibrand family. My mother’s mother was a Gellibrand and she and us were on it. I could piggy back on it an awfully long way back to the 14th century. The guy who ran and updated it just pulled it down apparently and it’s gone.

          2. There is a US Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand… wonder if she could be a connection? Very similar name and names do get misspelled or changed.

        3. It is said that just about everyone in England can trace their ancestry to Edward III. Not all, of course…

          1. Nice try.
            In France the rules on succession are very strict.
            When you get the “deeds” here, you see what are called bornes (?sp) which show where land has been split. We have several bits and pieces of land belonging to other families coming up to our boundaries, some are only a few feet wide, because of succession laws.
            As parcels they are worse than useless, you would be lucky to get a line of raspberry canes along some of them.
            Even our property has half a dozen or so different parcels identified that have been bought and amalgamated over the years.
            If we died and they were split amongst our sons, some would be too small to create a bowling green.

        1. ” Spent the morning scanning photographs of my late brother for his daughters (all pushing 60, for heavens’ sake!!). And setting down my memories of him.”

          That sounds as if your family research has yet to begin …

    5. Interesting. When my mother died 22 years ago, my aunts on her side wrote to me asking for the family photos. It transpired that my mother avidly collected family photos and never returned them.

      I subsequently produced scanned copie of said photographs, printed on photographic paper and sent the lot to them. I heard no more.

      Later I received a request from the adoptive father of my elder sister’s son asking me to identify family members from the photographic copies I had given my sister.

      I complied and the adoptive father of my eldest sister’s son provided a family tree of sorts, prepared for his adopted son.

      This revealed several facts of which I was entirely unawares. Firstly, my father was the third child and first son out of a family of fourteen. He had two brothers but the rest were all sisters.

      On my mother’s side she was the second sister to Grace, and elder sister to Frances and Sylvia. Her brothers were Frederick, Raymond and Claude. Another brother, Cedric, was reported to have died age nought.

      I have the records going back into the late C18.

  93. Had a brief listen to Parliament a few minutes ago. We are in serious bother. Truss and her stooges Fox and Elwood are talking about “our allies” in the Balkans, and our “allies” in the Ukraine. This woman had no clue in her last role* and is delusional in this one.
    Sanctions on Russia may include the cutting of Nordstream 2. Oh, brilliant! This will put the energy bill of every UK household to even higher record levels.
    Maybe there will be a note on your bill, like green energy tax? “You have been charged a 50% surcharge to annoy Russia…”

    *Edit typo. “role” not “roll”…

    1. Squalid couldn’t back down earlier without losing Face. That is all that matters to them.

      I bet the majority of refuseniks were bames.

    1. Good Lord! they have admitted that lockdowns, masks and vaxxing didn’t work!
      Of course, they are next door to Sweden, where the flu has already come back, and to Germany, where it hasn’t.

    1. Clear cache and cookies and reboot router. Hopefully you have saved your passwords and logins separately.

      1. It only affects me on this site.
        Once the post count gets up over 500, trying to upvote or reply to a comment will often have the same effect.

    1. The Danes managed it perfectly well.
      A bonus would be an immediate improvement in this country’s demographics.

      1. 334828+ up ticks,

        Evening Anne,
        Seemingly making halal illegal at the same time ban the burka could very well trigger an exodus , starting with the parliamentary canteen menu.

      1. 334878+ up ticks

        Afternoon W,

        But think of the lab/lib/con political islamic appeasers, and you could very well damage the party name.

    1. Looks like some of the police have decided to be on the side of the man who runs away. Hope they feel good about defending him and his vaccine mandates.

  102. I watched the performance in Parliament earlier. Have we as a nation really been reduced to government by that bunch of self interested ignoramuses. Lots of fake emotion in the questions of desperate Boris and not a single killer blow. The goal was open and they all either shot over it or else past it.

    What a dreadful bunch of ineffectual incompetents on all sides.

    2. 334828+ up ticks,

      Evening C,

      These lot are a step down from the last lot, who were a step down from their last lot, who were a step down……
      Tis the “party” name (fake INO) that carries the vote,NOT the inmates.

      1. Andrew Mitchel snot nosed cyclist. Hopefully under the confusion with the new and improved highway code he will be run over by a forty tonne lorry.

        1. Like the AH Vine, he’ll have at least two cameras recording all in front of and behind him.

      3. Didn’t he call a policeman a pleb or a prole!

        I would have had far more respect for him if he had not lied and had said: “He was a bloody prole and that is why I said he was!”

    4. It’s long beyond the time now, the swamp needs draining.
      If they had a Lie Box similar to a swear box in there, it would need a forklift truck to remove it every week.

    1. Every where they are and every where they go they set about creating and causing trouble.
      I read the other day that where they are now working in care homes they are refusing to handle pork or bacon.
      Seemingly insignificant but part of the overall adgenda.
      And remember that it took many centuries to get them out of Spain.
      Now they are creeping back slowly.

      1. 334828+ up ticks,
        Evening RE,

        ogga1

        334828+ up ticks,
        10 hours ago,
        How about these political overseers give EVERY indigenous person in the old peoples home as a sign of future good intent a BACON BUTTIE / ROLL, along with a pension rise and respect.

        Let us make it MANDATORY, any overseers if non compliant MUST QUIT.

        Remember people power works, Lest we forget it worked to get us, as a nation into our deep shite condition, make it work in reverse.

      3. Not “back” they were never here in the first place. Plus they shouldn’t be here in the first place either – they see this country as “theirs” in the same way that they requisition everywhere.

  106. Good evening again.

    My doubts and strange feelings about Boris are related to this article I read about him .

    Boris Johnson’s ex wife Marina Wheeler has described the dying days of their marriage as ‘impossible’ – revealing for the first time that it was her that ended the union.

    The 56-year-old author and lawyer said the breakdown of their relationship happened as she was battling cervical cancer.

    Ms Wheeler said ‘The divine plan, it seemed, had gone awry’ as she spoke of the 25-year marriage for the first time, ‘My four children and I already had tough stuff to handle.

    ‘My 25-year marriage had become impossible, so I ended it, but the whole business was grim, so why was I being doled out more?

    ‘Of course, that’s not how cancer worked. Two years on, I can see I was lucky.’

    To my mind he selfishly persued other women and put wife Marina health at risk by his promiscous behaviour ..

    He must have been an absolute nightmare to live with .

    1. Never forget that he and Marina got together while he was still married to his first wife.

  107. 334828+ up ticks,

    johnson knows his supporting / voting lemmings only to well ” you gotta vote tory (ino) keep out labour”

    ‘I’m Sorry’: Boris Contrite in Face of ‘Partygate’ Report, But Comes Out Swinging for Starmer

  108. That’s me done, after an afternoon playing with our 2 year old grandson. He loves two wooden spoons an upturned saucepan and a lid.
    One of his uncles has a drum kit. 🥁
    I can’t wait 😆.
    Silent night all.

    1. I posted this some time ago- the first thing a small boy learns when he gets a drum….he will never, ever get another one!

  110. BTL Comment under an article about the repulsive Mrs May’s attack on Boris Johnson in Parliament today.

    Mrs May criticising Johnson is like a skunk complaining of the stink of a polecat. “Brexit means Brexit” she lied as she tried to scupper it. “No deal is better than a bad deal” she said as she produced a surrender withdrawal agreement which has very badly damaged Brexit because it was the withdrawal agreement, virtually unchanged by the lazy oaf Johnson who described it as both ‘oven-ready’ and ‘fantastic’. In my opinion she is not just mendacious – she is the personification of evil.

  111. Goodnight and God bless to all my NoTTLer friends. That of course doe NOT include the mis-shapen Traitoress May.

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