Monday 31 July: Plans to penalise second-home owners will prove counterproductive

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.

656 thoughts on “Monday 31 July: Plans to penalise second-home owners will prove counterproductive”

  2. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s little list

    Women’s revenge for all those sexist jokes:

    Q. What’s the fastest way to a man’s heart?
    A. Through his chest with a sharp knife

    Q. How can you tell if a man is happy?
    A. Who cares

    Q. Why is it so hard for women to find men that are sensitive, caring and giving?
    A. Because those men already have boyfriends.

    Q. When would you care for a man’s company?
    A. When he owns it.

    Q. How many men does it take to wallpaper a bathroom?
    A. Three, if you slice them very thinly

    Q. Why do men get married?
    A. So they don’t have to hold their stomachs in any more.

    Q. What are a woman’s four favourite animals?
    A. Mink in the closet, a Jaguar in the garage, a tiger in the bedroom, and a Jackass to pay for it all.

    Q. How do you get a man to do sit-ups?
    A. Put the remote control between his toes

    Q. Why do men buy electric lawn mowers?
    A. So they can find their way back to the house.

    Q: Why are hurricanes usually named after women?
    A. Because when they come, they’re wet and wild, but when they go, they usually take your house and car.

  3. Morning all 🙂😊
    Grey wet start to the week.
    I hope it improves next month.

      1. 18 here according to the forecasts rain all week.
        Had a chat with Bruce in Upper Ferntree Gully yesterday. It’s been cold and chucking it down with rain localised flooding.
        Relations on South Island tour NZ have had snow and freezing temperatures.

  5. One thing is for sure, political classes owning
    second homes won’t suffer from any financial losses, they will all claim it back on ‘expenses’.
    And we all know who forks out for that.

  6. How the Army’s latest Watchkeeper drone crash shows Ukraine is right to DIY. 31 July 2023.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5dea94c652122b540f178d2a0c04824e48048250918627bde1dcb41e9907bfa5.jpg

    Suitably impressed by Watchkeeper, the Americans treated their British guests to a helicopter tour of the local area. Official photos show grinning Royal Artillery soldiers sitting in the back of a Black Hawk.

    Yet disaster struck on November 10, 2022 when WK036 crashed. The loss of that drone is being publicly revealed for the first time today.

    Though the military are not being blamed for the failure of Watchkeeper, the photograph still tells us a great deal about why it is so. The internal Positive Discrimination policies of successive UK governments over the past twenty five years has discouraged the recruitment of the truly able in favour of the acceptably politically correct. This has led to the Ministry of Defence becoming, like its civilian counterparts, utterly useless for the tasks entrusted to them. The UK once a source (Radar, Asdic etc.) of unceasing innovation and imagination in almost every military field is now a failure in pretty well all of them. In essence the search for diversity has undermined that for excellence. Worse of course is that none of these shortcomings are being, or can be addressed, since it would bring up unpalatable political and philosophical truths that the Elites dare not face. We are thus wedded to Failure and Decline for the foreseeable future.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/31/army-watchkeeper-drone-crash-ukraine-diy-uavs/

    1. Drones are too advanced for our armed forces to cope with. Jointly they can’t even cope with the slow but sure, ongoing invasion from rubber boats.

        1. In the beginning it would have been effective. And the French government/hierarchy, who still hate us, might have had their memories jogged.

    2. Knowing nothing about military goings-on, I’m surprised that the Royal Artillery has so many waif like girls.

      I should have thought that dealing with big guns and heavy ammunition would require big burly strong soldiers?

      Any ex Artillery care to comment?

    4. I really don’t think any of those ‘warriors’ would make me quake in my boots.

  7. SIR – I agree with almost everything Malcolm Allen (Letters, July 29) says about how to eat a soft-boiled egg – but never use a knife to open it.

    Take a teaspoon and deftly tap the top of the egg’s shell, then cut it off using the edge of the teaspoon and eat the white from the cap before eating the main part of the egg. Never allow the yolk to spill over. I’m not too sure about all the accompanying soldiers that Mr Allen recommends, either.

    Finally, after eating the main body of the egg, scoop up the top from the plate and pop it into the now hollow shell.

    Helen Cann
    Poundbury, Dorset

    Correct in every aspect, Helen. 👍🏻

    1. Who knew it was so complicated to eat a boiled egg? So many traps for the unwary.
      Morning, Grizz!

    3. These are things one learned at your Mother’s knee and/or the breakfast table.

      Why do we need so many letters and comments on such a mundane topic?

      What’s the MSM and the woke lefties hiding?

      1. They allow letters on soldiers to make the public think that the army does not have a recruitment problem, Sir Jasper. (Plenty of soldiers at the breakfast table, folks.)

      2. Morning, Nanners.
        I think it’s a relief that people think about and appreciate such mundane matters. Whether it be listening to birdsong or choosing preferred marmalade, these details are life enhancing.
        There comes a stage where your brain just needs a rest from the madness of the world and the feeling of helplessness that it engenders.
        I doubt your average suicide bomber takes a break from his monomania to work out the best way to enjoy a boiled egg. Or enjoy anything other than maiming and slaughtering his fellow human beings.

        1. At 79, Anne, my brain is already over-loaded with trivia, I don’t need anymore or my head might explode. More Tea may be the answer.

      3. ‘These are things you learned at your Mother’s knee ………..’

        and other low joints!

    4. Almost every aspect Grizz? Don’t forget us sailors!

      ‘Oh, never leave your egg-shells unbroken in the cup;
      Think of us poor sailor-men and always smash them up,
      For witches come and find them and sail away to sea,
      And make a lot of misery for mariners like me.

      They take them to the sea-shore and set them on the tide –
      A broom-stick for a paddle is all they have to guide
      And off they go to China or round the ports of Spain,
      To try and keep our sailing ships from coming home again.

      They call up all the tempests from Davy Jones’s store,
      And blow us into waters where we haven’t been before;
      And when the masts are falling in splinters on the wrecks,
      The witches climb the rigging and dance upon the decks.

      So never leave your egg-shells unbroken in the cup;
      Think of us poor sailor-men and always smash them up;
      For witches come and find them and sail away to sea,
      And make a lot of misery for mariners like me.’

      Elizabeth Fleming

      1. I can remember being told about the witches.
        Although you know it’s a superstition, once implanted in your brain, it’s impossible to remove.

      2. I had never read that poem, but as a child, I was told to smash the bottom of the egg shell to stop the witches using it as a boat.

    5. Our nearly eight years old grandson eats his boiled eggs like this. Taps to remove the shell, eats half of it turns it over in the egg cup, taps to remove the shell. Pushes the rest of the egg down into the egg cup removes the shell, eats the egg from the egg cup.

  9. Plans to penalise second-home owners will prove counterproductive

    Taxes are always counter productive especially oppressive ones that are imposed to change peoples behaviour.
    Another thought, when the 15 minute neighbourhoods arrive and are enforced how will people get to their second homes assuming they can afford them?

    1. How can 15 minute neighbourhoods be applied to those of us who live in sparsely inhabited parts of the country – it would take me twice that long to walk to the nearest shop

        1. Rounded up. Just one small suitcase, don’t bother with a change of clothes. But you will get a very neat haircut.

    2. By the time 15 minute cities are up and running second homes will have already been confiscated.

      1. And spare bedroom, downstairs loo, garden shed. Absolutely rammed with those poor dispossessed doctors and engineers.

  12. 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai eruption and tsunami.

    Large volcanic eruptions can inject large amounts of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, causing the formation of aerosol layers that reflect sunlight and can cause a cooling of the climate. In contrast, during the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai eruption this sulfur was accompanied by large amounts of water vapour, which by acting as a greenhouse gas overrode the aerosol effect and caused a net warming of the climate system. One study estimated a 7% increase in the probability that global warming will exceed 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) in at least one of the next five years, although greenhouse gas emissions and climate policy to mitigate them remain the major determinant of this risk. WIKIPEDIA.

    Ashesthandust posted a link to this event yesterday and I’ve been reading up on it. It takes no great scientific knowledge to know that a one and a half degree Centigrade increase in average Global Temperatures will have a marked effect in certain areas. We usually see the reverse of this with colder winters after volcanic eruptions. This time it’s going to be a Heat Wave. The question is; is the one last week, which was global in effect, a result and will it be alone? The suspicion must be that the really bad one is to come. This will of course be a boon to the NetZero loons.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Hunga_Tonga%E2%80%93Hunga_Ha%CA%BBapai_eruption_and_tsunami

      2. Excellent piece. thanks for the link.
        Unfortunately, it seems his book (Kindle) is only available in Japanese.

    2. It now seems to have been proven already that over the last few million years or so global warming has been happening. But these self invented ‘experts’ were obviously not here to have known or recognised it. And they really want to be noticed.
      It really is that simple.

      1. They want to be mega rich.
        It really is that simple.

        If they have to impoverish everyone else they will and are doing so.

    4. If both water vapour and sulphur dioxide in huge quantities are injected simultaneously into the atmosphere wouldn’t that cause an acid rain effect as the SO2 is soluble in water and along with other effects eventually sulphuric acid is created?

      Underground volcanic action around the western coast of Antarctica is thought to be responsible for the ice sheet reducing there but the climate loons don’t mention that. At the same time the eastern ice sheet has expanded to a greater extent than that lost in the western area. In addition, Antarctica has just experienced a low point temperature last recorded in 2017.

      The climate loons depend of people’s ignorance of the impact of the Sun and the Earth’s molten core on the climate. The volumes of ‘stuff’ ejected in this one eruption are mind boggling and this is a continuous process that has been happening for billions of years. The hubris of the likes of Kerry et al. in their ‘belief’ in being able to control the climate when in fact they ignore the Sun’s and the Earth’s actions, is literally off the scale.

    5. Indeed. I saw Ashesthandust’s post and had a look at the NASA website and then started hunting around for other “official” sources, plenty to read!

    6. Hmmm. There is so much wrong with that piece I’m not sure where to begin.

      Let’s start with the current Grand Solar Minimum. There’s no mention of that. It’s likely to last for at least another 30 years and it will be a counter balance to any claim of long-term temperature rise due to this eruption. Or anything else.

      Water vapour ejected into the atmosphere will not go into the stratosphere but will remain in the troposphere. The tropopause, roughly 6-7 miles above the surface, is the level at which the reduction in air temperature with altitude ceases and temperature remains constant with increasing altitude for a while before it goes into reverse and starts to warm with increasing altitude before falling again from the stratopause (roughly 30 miles up) into the ionosphere and out of the atmosphere altogether. This temperature ‘pause’ removes the uplift mechanism (convection) so water vapour stays below the tropopause. This is why the characteristic cumulonimbus thundercloud has a flat anvil-shaped head.

      Water vapour in the troposphere, however hot at initial ejection from the ocean, will cool rapidly and condense. Condensation of vast quantities of water vapour means more cloud and more precipitation. Water vapour and temperature gradients are what causes weather. More cloud increases the Earth’s albedo reflecting more solar radiation back into space, keeping the Earth cooler, and we have been having a wet summer.

      It’s my semi-educated, retired professional pilot guess that all this extra water vapour will be condensed out of the atmosphere and back in the oceans as liquid water fairly soon if it isn’t already.

      The ocean heating is another matter and it is very interesting as it speaks to a counter thesis which denies the greenhouse gas hypothesis altogether. It says that the extra 33℃ of heating which the Earth experiences above the expected black-body average global temperature, keeping the globe at an average of +15℃ instead of -18℃ which is what it would be on the basis of the diurnal solar radiation balance, is due entirely to heat from the molten core.

      The ocean heating also means colossal off-gassing of CO2. That will send the climate-loons nuts and seriously green the planet and without making it one fraction of a degree warmer because all the solar IR energy in the frequency bands that CO2 absorbs has already been absorbed.

      Do I get a Ph.D in climate science?

  13. ‘Morning All

    Monday Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8f2fdc9c20a5bec3f68cb027eda579647f8220d07e0b2a999796861dd23bb998.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2a48a6a37e41f85b4acad17472f5321e56a91de1e40c80994f22c7929bf26327.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8e84f70627c867364f7636937c2ac0bd1b5dd5666b14514beacf31aa335a09c2.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7460d1d16edffbd0dd1f713dfe2f7b9594430389af6569e09b78c7eab899514c.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/894b9951b317ee113b4aed8105c80ba64b54e5118aa863c3753905c1affff418.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a9645cede0b2d62d1ab95f7cc467434337fae71c186f04f7d57fbac780ca6279.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e5f4c75bf649a261471514db922a6008cee0c60b19746f20f73fb4b9a1f83612.png

    2. If the vast majority are unable to defy an order no matter how illegitimate it may be then why did we execute all those concentration camp guards?

  14. Britain is a world leader in net zero fantasies and delusions. 31 July 2023.

    The elites are asking British voters to become poorer to make barely any difference at all, except to play the role of a moral beacon, that others might learn from our example of recycling bottles and eating insects. This has been the consistent policy direction under the allegedly nationalist Conservatives, even that arch-populist Boris Johnson.

    The great thing about net zero and its associated fantasies is that it allows the Elites to virtue signal to their hearts content and pretend that they are achieving some worthwhile object in their increasingly irrelevant existence. They are getting themselves off on the splashing of taxpayers cash and the issuing of ever more draconian controls. The truly frightening thing here is that these people are incapable of doing good but can still do great harm!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/30/britain-is-a-world-leader-in-net-zero-fantasies/

    1. The net zero elite’s love martyrdom, as long as it doesn’t involve any of them.

    2. I thought it was going to be a good article but towards the end he goes and spoils it with this garbage:

      As with atomic war, the solutions are more macro than micro. We need to help developing nations transition to cleaner fuels and to withstand the effects of climate-change processes that are now beyond prevention and will get worse. Politicians must be upfront. To maintain our way of life, our very civilisation, we need to transfer a significant amount of wealth from the rich nations to the poor.

      Still, given that DT is the Gatesograph ( for how much longer?) I suppose he had to.

      1. We have already transferred a significant amount of wealth to poorer nations year on year and what bloody difference has it made? What he actually means is we should give it all away.

  15. Good morning, all. Took some time to open NoTTL this morning. GCHQ working earlier than usual, I expect.

    Rain in the night – now grey and damp but no more rain expected until lunch.

    Can’t wait to read the newspaper……(yawns).

  16. Good morning all,

    Raining at the McPhee estate again. According to the Met Office’s forecast it’s not supposed to be; the probability of precipitation is 10% according to them. And they expect us to believe they can forecast the temperature in 2060? Wind still in the Sou’-West, 17℃ and getting no warmer than 19℃ today. July finishes as it started, cool and wet, but you won’t hear that from any organs of the corrupt, lying establishment.

    A few hours ago, James Patrick of the Big Picture and Planet Lockdown put out this interview with Martin Armstrong, a renowned hedge-fund manager and financial adviser on How the World Really Works. You guessed it, all governments are corrupt liars, Klaus Schwab doesn’t know what he is doing and the bankers/financiers/billionaires planned the whole COVID scam to see how well they could control us so they can do it again in order to protect themselves and their wealth.

    It’s an hour and a half long but it’s a ‘must-listen’. Oh, and for those who like Bitcoin and other cryptos, they’re a scam too, invented by governments, and you’re going to get burned.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbtZW_lIWaI&t=3224s

    1. I do hope that there’s an honest suggestion that, ‘Today’s expert, might be tomorrow’s fool’.

      1. All I can say is listen with an open mind and research anything you’re doubtful about.

    2. Thanks for the precis but I think I’ll give it a miss. Life’s short enough as it is.

      1. A pity. It’s fascinating with some breath-taking economic insights which a quick precis doesn’t do justice to.

    4. Blackrock likes Bitcoin. And someone was supporting it in 2022, otherwise it would have fallen below 10K.

    5. Well, that was interesting. I listened to it all while painting – thank you for the link.
      Martin Armstrong seems to have a pretty good understanding.
      He sees CBDCs etc as a reaction to the coming financial reset. They won’t be able to pay pensions, so their best bet is to stick everyone on an Universal Basic Income via CBDC, and then they can retain control.

      This is pretty believable, especially as a lot of this nonsense started around 1971, i.e. when they put the world on fiat currencies. WEF etc founded. They’ve had half a century of knowing that we would arrive at the point of collapse.

      This theory doesn’t take into account other factors
      – that the technocracy movement has been going at least since before the War
      – social changes in the West like promoting feminism, promiscuity, trans, breakdown of the family etc
      – Malthusian concerns about population

      I’m getting the feeling that everyone (corporate fascists who think they should be running the world, marxists, technocrats, malthusians, foreign powers) is piling in on the “useless eaters” in the West because for the first time in around six hundred years, we are vulnerable. The CBDCs will leave us wide open to be exploited/jabbed/starved etc – if we accept them.

      There is an alternative though, and that’s simply everyone working until they drop. Personally I’d rather stay in work than retire onto a UBI that will be cut off if I don’t get the latest jab that decimates the over 60s.

  17. Good morning all,

    Raining at the McPhee estate again. According to the Met Office’s forecast it’s not supposed to be; the probability of precipitation is 10% according to them. And they expect us to believe they can forecast the temperature in 2060? Wind still in the Sou’-West, 17℃ and getting no warmer than 19℃ today. July finishes as it started, cool and wet, but you won’t hear that from any organs of the corrupt, lying establishment.

    A few hours ago, James Patrick of the Big Picture and Planet Lockdown put out this interview with Martin Armstrong, a renowned hedge-fund manager and financial adviser on How the World Really Works. You guessed it, all governments are corrupt liars, Klaus Schwab doesn’t know what he is doing and the bankers/financiers/billionaires planned the whole COVID scam to see how well they could control us so they can do it again in order to protect themselves and their wealth.

    It’s an hour and a half long but it’s a ‘must-listen’. Oh, and for those who like Bitcoin and other cryptos, they’re a scam too, invented by governments, and you’re going to get burned.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbtZW_lIWaI&t=3224s

  19. ‘Morning, Peeps. A wet and windy night (and the weather was pretty unpleasant too. Ho ho.) The forecast for this week would seem to suggest that Autumn has arrived early. May we hope for an Indian Summer? Will global warming have a change of heart and do the decent thing??

    With some rather weak letters today – including how to eat a boiled egg – I turned to the BTL posters for something a little more meaty. I wasn’t disappointed:

    Trevor Anderson
    1 HR AGO
    Elsewhere: As has been mentioned by many, Tim Stanley’s article on the insanity of enforced Net Zero is powerful up to the last few paragraphs, where he demonstrates his acceptance of his indoctrination by deeply flawed science, such as issued daily by BBC brainwashing; as well as calls upon Christianity to be more generous in educating backward nations on climate change. He obviously believes the Christian god knows best.
    When he states “Ulez, which imposes a charge on older cars and thus forces owners to buy a new one, is simply the first concrete example of the state directly ordering voters to impoverish themselves to hit a target,” he isn’t exactly right, Net Zero soviet-isation began in 2008.
    and……..
    “As laws and targets gradually push net zero from lifestyle choice to mandate.” This is pretty accurate as the 2030 deadline will be on us before we know it – to our detriment – along with punitive taxation and impossible to achieve, life changing demands on almost every aspect of our existence.
    All this without a single plan to create reliable, viable self- sufficiency in renewable energy – or anyone in government who has the faintest notion of the vast range of practicalities and costs that must be met to even begin to get anywhere near Net Zero. Such as: Rewiring every home, building, street and sub-station to accept an absolutely necessary uprate of power when fully electrified – and, bringing millions of older homes up to required insulation and emissions standards.
    And this a country that can’t even repair our roads – but we can boast about leading the world in our efforts to defeat so-called climate change.
    Can the latter be described as hot air?

    * * *

    Well said, Mr A. Keep plugging away, Sir; one day a minister who can read might finally see the light!

    Kevin Bell
    7 HRS AGO
    The accumulation of wealth through your own hard work and the freedom to invest it in whatever you wanted used to be something that people aspired to. When did the Conservatives decide that you should be taxed more for using services less? What business does a council have in asking people how many homes they own and how many nights they spend in them?
    Its as bad as Labour’s desire to tax private school fees. Parents have to pay tax to educate other people’s children and then taxed again just because they choose a private school.

    * * *

    I’ll say it again, Mr Bell – we haven’t seen a conservative government for quite some time. The ragbag of incompetents currently masquerading as such almost put Liebour and the Limp Dumbs to shame with their idiotic policies and their keeness to tax and control everything in sight. If this continues we are witnessing the acceleration of our slide into poverty, mediocrity and obscurity. “The 5th wealthiest country on the planet”? For how much longer??

  20. Good morning, all. Overcast and breezy with a hint of brightening here.

    Here, one very dangerous climate zealot (who, by the way, has flown around the World in his wife’s jet plane to spread his fear porn) making the case that agriculture is a disastrous past-time for the World.

    Reading between the lines = depopulation, simply because destroying the agricultural system will lead to famine and death of billions. Kerry is attempting to scare people over a ‘claimed’ future rise in temperature when the people should really be very scared about the famine this man and others of his ilk want to inflict on the World. No famine for the elites, of course.

    His statement, along the line that what scientists have predicted over the last 30 years has come true, is… a perfect example of the adage, telling a big lie and repeating it continually will eventually make people come to believe it.

    https://twitter.com/wideawake_media/status/1685590211059679237

        1. Shame Caesar isn’t still about. Anyone wearing imperial purple would have had their head lopped off.

    2. The comments suggest people are not taken in by his rubbish. They’ve already tried population reduction via the jabs now they want to starve people.

    3. Just another one of many political knobs who just can’t stop themselves spreading their own BS around the world.

  21. The rain has stopped here but it’s grey and still windy. I think autumn arrived about a month ago. Still waiting for summer.

    4. Flanders and Swan dealt with that 60+ years ago.
      “I missed it; I was in the bathroom at the time.”

      1. If that was 60 years ago, Anne, I was just 19, Brought up on The Goons, Flanders & Swan, Tom Lehrer, etc.

    1. Get real Alex you must have noticed by now that politicians habitual eff up every single thing they come into contact with. Except of course their claimed expenses statements.

      1. Looks deep in thought though, I wouldn’t want to be her husband when he gets home

    2. Apart from the posh frock, that could be me.
      Except that this afternoon, we’ll have Dynamite Dawn organising us, so my chances of an afternoon nap are somewhere between zero and zilch. Plus entertaining us with the latest in her family saga. (East Enders, eat your heart out.)

  25. https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/dame-alison-rose-portrait-of-a-climate-and-diversity-fanatic/

    An interesting article in The Conservative Woman on that repulsive woman Alison Rose, smelling as sweet as any sewer who, as Bill has already pointed out, dyes the roots of her hair!

    Apparently she is an agent of Common Purpose and is well in with Schwab and Soros. She is a climate change fanatic and I bet she is a keen advocate of Covid jabs and has never had any herself!

    Jeremy Clarkson, who is loathed by the Left, was criticised for showing a cartoon of an electric car being powered by a toxic power station. I pinched this update from the BTL comments under the Rose article.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/db582f3a1ff4930a99c5e71e35b6aa0a62f051afeee76cd5bee606c826c42df3.png

  26. Good morning all.
    A damp 12°C here with the overnight rain subsiding to a heavy drizzle.

    1. Will anyone believe this apparent U-Turn is serious or that it has some other despicable motive

      1. They have just realised they are going to lose the next election.

        Nottlers have known this for months.
        Politicians really are slow on the uptake.

        1. The HOC is full of oily sycophants desperate to get ahead by telling MPs what they’d like to hear.

          Is it any wonder that MPs are so poorly informed?

          Or misinformed?

  27. Article in today’s DT:

    COMMENT
    Britain is a world leader in net zero fantasies and delusions

    While we obsess over heat pumps and old cars, other countries are polluting like there’s no tomorrow

    TIM STANLEY
    30 July 2023 • 8:49pm

    Uxbridge now looks like one of the most significant by-elections in history. (Oh, how Boris must wish he had stood!) By voting against the Ultra Low Emissions Zone, residents didn’t outwardly reject net zero – Ulez is ostensibly about air quality, not global warming – but the election hung on an environmental question and the eco side lost, forcing Government and Opposition to rethink their agenda.

    It’s not inconceivable that Britain, having long boasted of being a world leader in going green, will be the first nation to look nervously at the bill and give serious consideration to running away before the waiter returns.

    For years, politicians treated environmentalism as a no-brainer, peddling the myth that it pays for itself. In reality, the cost was hidden in taxes, utility charges and energy-supply problems. Ulez, which imposes a charge on older cars and thus forces owners to buy a new one, is simply the first concrete example of the state directly ordering voters to impoverish themselves to hit a target – and it’s the difference between being discreetly defrauded and brazenly robbed.

    The standard Westminster response is that, OK, green stuff requires an initial investment, but it pays for itself in the long run via lower bills. This is a classic example of Middle Class Maths; it assumes we all have the cash for the down payment (call it a “woke deposit”).

    Say tomorrow I decided to do everything I’m advised to do to be a Good Person. If I buy an electric car, the cheapest family-size model that can go reasonable distances and climb a hill begins at around £27,000. Solar panels are about £7,000; an air-source heat pump, £2,000-£9,000 (adjusted for government grant, which ends in 2025); insulation to make the pump worthwhile, roughly £1,000, plus labour. All during a cost of living squeeze. As laws and targets gradually push net zero from lifestyle choice to mandate, so it shifts from the realm of “nice idea” to “you must be joking”.

    The day after Uxbridge, wet Tory types hit Twitter to point out that polls show net zero is super-popular, so Rishi would be a fool to drop it. But people lie to pollsters. If they didn’t, Neil Kinnock and Ed Miliband would be two of our greatest postwar prime ministers. When surveyed about net zero, voters are bound to endorse action because it conjures images of melting icebergs and creeping deserts.

    Privately, though, there is growing cynicism. This is to be expected in the age of social media, rife with instantly shareable scepticism (as demonstrated by the online mockery of TV weather reports that were coloured to give the impression that not only is Europe on fire, but the map itself). A pattern is developing. Some extinction-level event is predicted, such as the claim that the Gulf Stream system of warm ocean currents will collapse by 2025 – only for it to be discovered, to quote the BBC, that “leading scientists have reservations” and say “it is not established science”.

    People’s response to the ambiguities of climate research, relying as it does on modelling and prediction, will be further complicated by Covid. Mass compliance during lockdown suggests that fear and nudging can work – but it’s also possible that many of us are now “one bitten, twice shy”: less likely to assume public officials understand their brief; more critical of data; more inclined to trust our gut over media imagery. It’s especially difficult to persuade us that Britain is a Grecian tinderbox when we’ve had such a dreadful summer.

    And yet, even as we sit in the rain on the beach, pretending we’re glad we went to Clacton this year, we’re still told that Useless Britain Must Fix Everything. The Left calls our country poor and irrelevant; it also says we are rich and powerful enough to save the planet by going green faster and harder than anyone else. As Tony Blair has pointed out, however, the difference our island would make via net zero is almost comically outweighed by the impact of China, India and the developing world continuing to develop.

    The elite are asking British voters to become poorer to make barely any difference at all, except to play the role of a moral beacon, that others might learn from our example of recycling bottles and eating insects. This has been the consistent policy direction under the allegedly nationalist Conservatives, even that arch-populist Boris Johnson.

    Had our blond Caesar run in Uxbridge, he would have had to pull off one of the sharpest U-turns in history in order to win. Who, as mayor, invented Ulez? Boris Johnson.

    Someone in No 10 has cottoned on to the idea that the Tories might yet beat Labour by now transforming themselves into a pro-consumer party – anti-inflation, pro-drivers. Sunak stands to out-triangulate Starmer, who cannot entirely shed the green agenda because without it the post-socialist centre-left has no vision to hawk at all.

    But the Tories cannot escape the need to have some kind of environmental strategy to address the fact that the climate is changing and man is to blame. Even if it’s a vote loser at home, we have a Christian obligation to help foreign populations vulnerable to extreme weather.

    So enormous is this challenge, so great the global potential for human disaster, that fiddling about with heat pumps and suburban driving charges feels suspiciously like an attempt to make this crisis about us, to reduce it to a personal level at which we can find it comprehensible – and, by going vegan or showering for a few minutes less, maybe recover a scrap of our individual agency. “At least I’m doing something!” It’s akin to a man, upon being told Russia is launching nuclear missiles at Britain, running out to buy an umbrella.

    As with atomic war, the solutions are more macro than micro. We need to help developing nations transition to cleaner fuels and to withstand the effects of climate-change processes that are now beyond prevention and will get worse. Politicians must be upfront. To maintain our way of life, our very civilisation, we need to transfer a significant amount of wealth from the rich nations to the poor.

    To pull that off, you’re going to have to appeal honestly and intelligently to the voter’s brain, not spin us the fantasy that we can save Bangladesh with one more Whitehall target.

    * * *

    Yesterday Bliar Mk2 told us that he ‘is on the side of the motorist’. In that case I dread to think how much worse things could be if he was against us! Once again it is fifficult to keep up with the speed at which the BTL posts are arriving:

    JC MA
    11 HRS AGO
    I’m very happy to consider changing my gas boiler for new technology on the basis that what replaces it works every bit as well , costs the same or less and can be installed with the same amount or less of hassle. That rules out heat pumps so tell me what’s next and I’ll listen.

    Aran Maddocks
    11 HRS AGO
    Just heard on the radio that Sunak won’t push back the petrol / diesel car ban, despite the rest of Europe having a deadline five years or so past the one we are looking at. He’s just lost my vote for sure. You only need to look at countries like Germany where they actually put money into infrastructure – we are woefully ill-equipped for charging electric cars. In addition, other European countries are already thinking their deadline is unrealistic. Why are we trying to prove ourselves to be some kind of environmental saviours, its a farce.

    Bill Ma
    11 HRS AGO
    The Telegraph has done its bit to promote Net Zero over the last few years in defiance of its readers who saw through the lies and deceit of our politicians from the start. We knew it wasn’t free, we knew big bills where on the way, we knew electric cars were a sideshow, gas boilers couldn’t be replaced easily or cheaply, we knew heat pumps would bankrupt all but the wealthiest and impoverish even the middle class. Now the cost is becoming obvious and the bills are mounting, maybe at last your journalists will gets their fingers out and do their job. Uncover the true cost of this madness. Net Zero. Illegals. Woke in all its hateful forms. BBC. Education. Police. Public spending. Tax. They are are all sitting there waiting to be picked up and sorted by a real Conservative Party. If it has the vision and guts to take on the liberal onslaught and beat it.

    Nigel Mills
    11 HRS AGO
    For the vaguely intelligent there are a few basic problems with the premise i.e. that we must reduce our CO2 output in the UK to prevent a ‘climate catastrophe’.
    1. Accurate weather forecasting is an unreliable business at the best of times but trying to do so for 2050 looks to be taking us for fools;
    2. UK reducing it’s CO2 output will make minimal difference anyway unless China etc follow suit;
    3. The key to this is of course population. no-one dares talk about that. The population of Nigeria has gone from being 45M in 1960 to 218M now and is projected to overtake the US. I guess Nigeria is not too bothered about net zero!
    4. Doing so, whilst commendable, is likely to make us poorer when our energy is already horribly expensive compared to competitors.
    5. The government preference for wind looks to be stupid in the absence of adequate storage; even if there is the economics do not look good. It is like the government in the 1990’s betting on Betamax as the future of video.
    6. We are wholy unprepared for the transition to electric vehicles in almost every way.
    7. 90% of Brtitish households are fuelled by gas and we have natural reserves of gas easily accessible. Doh.
    8. The natural world is incredibly complex and even the best models are going to be hopelessly inaccurate.
    9. You do not have to be a conspiracy theorist to see that there is an agenda. You pay climatologists to warn of anthropomorthic climate change and ……
    10. Making us all poorer will of course reduce our CO2 emissions. The hypocrisy of the rich parading their electirc vehicles and heat pumps is clear to many of us – the main cause of this crisis we are repeatedly told is the high levels of consumption by rich countries of whom the wealthiest are the biggest consumers.

    * * *
    And there’s plenty more along the same lines.

    1. “we have a Christian obligation to help foreign populations vulnerable to extreme weather.”

      Good to see he still has a sense of humour…

      1. 2021 Census – “For the first time in a census of England and Wales, less than half of the population (46.2%, 27.5 million people) described themselves as “Christian”, a 13.1 percentage point decrease from 59.3% (33.3 million) in 2011;”

        Ergo, the UK is not a Christian country, so it has no “Christian obligation to help foreign populations vulnerable to extreme weather.”

      2. Ah yes. Until recently the papes were against contraception. Presumably the missionaries followed their pope’s infallible guidance?
        Moslem missionaries probably hold the same views.

      3. I thought we were all supposed to be post-Christian now. I see little evidence we are still a Christian country

    2. Tim Stanley is right until he gets to the bit where he he says we have an obligation to protect poorer countries from man -made climate change 🙄 No we don’t!
      Nor do we have any obligation to take in the dregs of the world.

    3. Quick calculation based on data from 2022 and via Google:
      Volume of gas consumed in the UK was 77 billion cubic metres. At 10.55 kWh / cubic metre, that’s 812 terawatt hours that needs replaced by electricity.
      The UK currently has a generating capacity of 325 terawatt hours of electricity, so it would need to be built put by a factor of about three time the existing to take on the switchover from gas. Then the national grid needs expanded by about three times, the wires to the house similarly, and so on. You get the point. I’m buying futures in copper…

      1. How much of that gas is used for electricity generation? That has to be subtracted from total annual consumption when calculating the extra electricity generation required in homes and businesses that use gas.

          1. I’m certainly not questioning the need to upgrade the grid (something hardly ever mentioned by the mad warmists). There is a trap here, namely the %ages for provision and consumption of energy where one form is used to generate another. This is why care should always be taken with quoting figures from any source.

  28. I’ve bought a new Kindle online (my old one has collapsed) from Amazon. I am now sitting waiting for the track package to register that it is “out for delivery” What I want to know is why am I always at the end of the delivery list?

    1. To give them many more opportunities to lose/misdeliver/steal your package.

    3. UPS won’t come down this hill – they leave it at the local shop. The normal route to the shop is closed at the moment so collecting a large item involves a round trip of about 6 miles.
      I suppose that’s better than Evri – they just lose the package for ever.
      The Post Office isn’t much better – I’m waiting for something which was posted 1st class last Wednesday.

  29. Right, that’s me off to Altrincham to pick up my auction purchase.
    TTFN all.

    1. Would I be right in assuming you’ve not bought a Sevres vase or Victorian love seat?

  30. I wonder how many global warming zealots are completely cognisant of the fact that it is not true and a complete manipulative scam?

    I know that the Idiot King is spectacularly stupid – but I still wonder if even he sincerely believes in the drivel he utters.

    2. Morning Richard. As I understand it, the World at present is built on a mountain of Lies and Misconceptions. We laugh at our ancestors but they had a better grasp of reality than exists now.

      1. Not only in Britain Alf:

        A few weeks ago friends near Kimberley in South Africa had snow.

        And recently Cape Town had a maximum of 12C

        This Hunga Bunga volcano which the experts claimed would heat the world by 1.5C hasn’t done its job.

          1. You’re quite right Ndovu.

            But they’ve never seen snow before in that region.

    4. He doubtless believes sincerely that reducing the world population to 500,000,000 would be a good thing but it’s a strange mentality that sees no wrong in mass slaughter. His much touted Christian faith would seem to be insincere.

      1. Maybe he doesn’t see the implication of reducing the population. Over a few hundred years, that would work by only having 1 or 2 children, but in the next 20 or so years, that means an awful lot of killing.

        1. We are all to starve to death, given the “requirement” to reduce the amount of agricultural land in use because, you know, the planet

        2. He supported the injections, so I am guessing he probably isn’t too squeamish about how the population is reduced.

          1. They work not only by the direct killing via heart disease and cancers, but by the indirect means of damaging reproductive organs and still births and spontaneous abortions. That’s why they forced them on young people.

          3. I wonder if he really did have them all himself.

            On the one hand he is devious enough to have pretended to have had them but not have actually had them; on the other hand he is stupid enough to have actually had them!

      2. The late Queen is reputed to have once said, “there are only two Christians in the family – me and my mother”.

    5. Did Our Dave not put the kibosh on a carbon capture scheme when he was PM?

    6. I think he genuinely believes that every lie is justified by the goal of returning Britain to the Middle Ages.

  31. O.K. I woz wrong. The sound of birds twittering is getting to me.
    Look, Sparrows …. could you stop bloody breeding so I can replace the fence panel. Either that or discipline your gobby brat.
    It’s all self, self, self.

        1. My Mama would have told you that “Wot?” is impolite.

          If you must use that word, the correct form is, “What did you say?”

          4. As in..: ‘If you were a gentleman you wouldn’t make me do this’
            ‘If you were a lady you wouldn’t talk with your mouth full..            ..’?

      3. My godmother’s husband used to say that. Dear old Aunt Cis could talk for England and her old man coped by just switching off his hearing aid. Even if she knew, it didn’t stop her!

  32. Peter Froggatt thinks he has an answer to owning a second home and getting away with an increase in council tax for the second home by having one home registered in his name and the other in his partners name therefore each getting a 25% reduction in their council tax for each home. He forgets that to get the 25% reduction you have to be the sole occupant.
    I’m all for second home owners getting clobbered because up here the local kids can’t get/afford housing because they’re snapped up by those who can afford to have a second home for holidays, occupying it for only a few weeks per year

    1. Second home owners could rent their property out for 10 months of the year and with rent received put the tenants up in a holiday camp/park for the time they wish to holiday there themselves.

      1. The ‘home owner’ could just go to the holiday camp/park instead – save the hassle of owning the home and paying out for council tax, repairs etc and have the freedom to go to different places every year

        1. Some friends of mine have a farm house overlooking Salcombe estuary. For many years they moved onto their boat in July and August and let their house and made a very healthy income by so doing.

        2. The reason they don’t is because they see it as an investment. I was trying to find some middle ground.

          1. I’m sure they do Phil but my main concern with these homes is that locals are priced out although at first glance your suggestion appeared sensible.

          2. People, even in villages will still want to get the best price they can. Workable solutions are what is needed.

          3. There is always the Jersey option – incomers can only buy property above a certain price level which would be set way above anything young locals would be likely to want (and be able) to buy.

          4. When we visited St Ives a couple of years ago, it was hard to find any house that wasn’t a holiday let!

    2. Also something to take up with home owners who sell their properties to absent landlords.
      It’s not new though. When we got married in 1968 we couldn’t afford to live where we were brought up. Me in Clerkenwell and vw in Canonbury, both targets for the Champagne socialists. We moved 40 miles away to Maidstone.

      1. When SWMBO and I were looking for our first house, we based the selection on where we could afford, not on convenience for shops, work, family, etc. Then the interest rates spiked up to 15%…

          2. It was not all bad. The wonderful market they had. You could buy the finest meat, veg, fruit . fish, game etc. Sadly all gone . They has 7 fish monger shops in a row all different family run.

      2. I almost daily pass the house that MB and I couldn’t afford in1968.
        We just could not get a mortgage for the extra £500.

        1. That was a lot of money then. Our first property, 1968, was a 3 bed detached bungalow in Maidstone for £4,500.

        2. In 1978, my recently married brother was gazumped by £250 in a potential house purchase.

      2. If each had a separate house then the 25% rebate would apply as long as they weren’t living in the same house

    5. So the Cornwall blight has reached Ullapool? I would have thought those seeking holiday homes would, for the most part, find the North West of Scotland a bit too cool and wet for their liking.

      1. It’s a fallacy – we have brilliant weather up here. Of course that could be down to climate change :o)

        1. A spent 10 days on Skye. It rained on the first morning then clear blue skies for the rest of my stay.

  33. All forces will offer direct entry in as a detective, Labour pledges

    ‘For some serious crimes, like rape and robbery, the charge rate is now so low it is a national scandal’

    ALL police forces will have to offer a direct route into becoming a detective to boost “abysmal” crime charging rates if Labour wins power, Yvette Cooper has said.

    Ms Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said a Labour Government would make it a legal responsibility on forces to offer direct recruitment routes so that people with the relevant expertise could join without having to spend two years training on the beat.

    The party said only about half the forces in England and Wales offered such schemes which could enable older recruits to enter the police service if they had experience in business fraud investigations and child protection.

    It comes amid a slump in the proportion of crimes being solved, to just 5.7 per cent, down from 15.5 per cent in 2014-15.

    There are also an estimated 7,000 vacancies for detectives who are often expected to work longer anti-social hour compared to bobbies on the beat, without any overtime pay available.

    Andy Cooke, chief inspector of constabulary, has also expressed concern about the shortage of experienced detectives and poor supervision of those on the front line, which has contributed to low charging rates. Home Office data, covering a 12-month period from April 2022 onwards, showed that 2.3 million crimes were dropped without a suspect being found.

    The charge rate for sexual offences was 3.6 per cent, down from 13.9 per cent, with rape at 2.1 per cent, down from 10.9 per cent. Only 6.5 per cent of robbery offences ended with someone being charged, down from 18.9 per cent. Ms Cooper said the figures were a “national scandal” as Labour pledged to boost the numbers of crimes solved if the party wins the next election.

    Ms Cooper said: “After 13 years of Tory government, over 90 per cent of crimes are going unsolved.

    “That is the abysmal Conservative record on law and order – more criminals being let off and more victims being let down.

    “For some serious crimes, like rape and robbery, the charge rate is now so low it constitutes a national scandal.

    “For far too long in this country, too many crimes have been committed without any consequences. Victims increasingly feel like no one comes and nothing is done. Labour is determined this has to change. “

    Labour has also pledged to put 13,000 more police and PCSOS on the streets including 3,000 officers ring-fenced from the remaining Government planned uplift.

    Will someone please provide me with some guidance as to how I may respond, in a letter to these people, without littering that missive with Anglo-Saxon vernacular?

    If it wasn’t bad enough recruiting the top ranks of the police from social studies graduates who (still) have no clue about interacting with the public, then how do you expect recruits — no doubt from the same source — to learn the necessary and vital advanced interview and detection techniques if they have never spent time on the streets among the public and criminals?

    The parlous state of law and order in the UK is directly attributable to decades of interference by politicians who simply haven’t got a clue!

    1. …chief inspector of constabulary, has also expressed concern about the shortage of experienced detectives and poor supervision of those on the front line, which has contributed to low charging rates. – so, adding more inexperienced detectives will improve matters, will it? Or, will they just go round charging folk at random?
      You couldn’t make it up!
      Here’s one in the same vein: Direct entry for surgeons and airline pilots. No training nor experience needed, just apply and fly!

      1. And don’t forget the need to be equal opportunity employers – blindness no obstacle to becoming an airline pilot.

        1. About 15 years ago, a teacher was being interviewed at a local primary school. The job was for a full time teacher in a class of over 30.
          The candidate was wheelchair bound, and it was impossible for her to move between the tables. Totally ridiculous to even consider such an applicant but no doubt there was a large element of box ticking.
          How on earth did she manage on her placement while training?
          Whether she ever found a job, we never heard.
          Maybe she found a private school with small classes and spacious rooms.

    2. The Police have nevr been in a worse state and this will only make it worse. When they changed their name from Ploice Force to Police Service you just knew they werte on the wrong track.

    3. And it is not just in the police.

      When I was young some of my friends left school at 15 after taking their “O” levels and joined solicitors’ or accountants’ offices and served five years in articles studying in the evening with correspondence courses and taking their exams along the way. As a result they were qualified chartered accountants or solicitors at the age of 20 or 21.

    4. Correction: The parlous state of law and order in the UK is directly attributable to decades of interference by politicians who simply haven’t got a clue!

    6. It’s not 13 years of Tory government, it’s 25 years of Lefty socialism, running down the family, crushing aspiration, massive unwanted criminal invasion – enforced by the state, crippling taxes, debt and waste.

      The problems this country has are down to big government.

      1. “it’s 25 years of Lefty socialism”,

        What other kind is there, Wibble, and it’s 78 years, since the Attlee government, punctuated by a brief interlude of relief under the Blessed Margaret.

        1. I am no great fan of Liz Truss but at least she would have tried to implement more Conservative policies.

    7. …politicians who simply haven’t got a clue!

      The above is true in just about anything that is of benefit to the people of the UK e.g. education, health, science etc. What they do have a clue about, and are excelling at irrespective of party, is dumbing down everything that is of value to the Country and its legitimate citizens.

      The ‘Plandemic’ is an exercise in the cluelessness of so many politicians. Following the major players almost without question should not be in an MP’s job description. Question everything should be a requirement. Sadly, following the narrative was, and probably remains, the order of the day for the carefully selected temporary incumbents of the HoC.

      I wonder what answer would tumble from MPs’ lips/keyboard when questioned re the “vaccine”? ‘Safe and Effective’ in some form or another would be my bet: I know, that’s what my MP told me despite all the evidence to the contrary.

      Dumbing down was started within the political class by smart operators with an agenda.

    8. My thoughts exactly! No beat experience but parachuted in to detect and solve crime. What could possibly go wrong?

  34. All forces will offer direct entry in as a detective, Labour pledges

    ‘For some serious crimes, like rape and robbery, the charge rate is now so low it is a national scandal’

    ALL police forces will have to offer a direct route into becoming a detective to boost “abysmal” crime charging rates if Labour wins power, Yvette Cooper has said.

    Ms Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said a Labour Government would make it a legal responsibility on forces to offer direct recruitment routes so that people with the relevant expertise could join without having to spend two years training on the beat.

    The party said only about half the forces in England and Wales offered such schemes which could enable older recruits to enter the police service if they had experience in business fraud investigations and child protection.

    It comes amid a slump in the proportion of crimes being solved, to just 5.7 per cent, down from 15.5 per cent in 2014-15.

    There are also an estimated 7,000 vacancies for detectives who are often expected to work longer anti-social hour compared to bobbies on the beat, without any overtime pay available.

    Andy Cooke, chief inspector of constabulary, has also expressed concern about the shortage of experienced detectives and poor supervision of those on the front line, which has contributed to low charging rates. Home Office data, covering a 12-month period from April 2022 onwards, showed that 2.3 million crimes were dropped without a suspect being found.

    The charge rate for sexual offences was 3.6 per cent, down from 13.9 per cent, with rape at 2.1 per cent, down from 10.9 per cent. Only 6.5 per cent of robbery offences ended with someone being charged, down from 18.9 per cent. Ms Cooper said the figures were a “national scandal” as Labour pledged to boost the numbers of crimes solved if the party wins the next election.

    Ms Cooper said: “After 13 years of Tory government, over 90 per cent of crimes are going unsolved.

    “That is the abysmal Conservative record on law and order – more criminals being let off and more victims being let down.

    “For some serious crimes, like rape and robbery, the charge rate is now so low it constitutes a national scandal.

    “For far too long in this country, too many crimes have been committed without any consequences. Victims increasingly feel like no one comes and nothing is done. Labour is determined this has to change. “

    Labour has also pledged to put 13,000 more police and PCSOS on the streets including 3,000 officers ring-fenced from the remaining Government planned uplift.

    Will someone please provide me with some guidance as to how I may respond, in a letter to these people, without littering that missive with Anglo-Saxon vernacular?

    If it wasn’t bad enough recruiting the top ranks of the police from social studies graduates who (still) have no clue about interacting with the public, then how do you expect recruits — no doubt from the same source — to learn the necessary and vital advanced interview and detection techniques if they have never spent time on the streets among the public and criminals?

    The parlous state of law and order in the UK is directly attributable to decades of interference by politicians who simply haven’t got a clue!

  35. As both Labour and Conservative Party leaders are trying to give the impression that they are distancing themselves from environmental despotism this will become known as The Uxbridge Effect. But as soon as there is not a general election in sight they will go back to where they were – if they can remember where that was!

    1. The lies will continue streaming out and as soon as the election is over they’ll revert to type. Nothing will change, they won’t do anything but the usual tired spin and lies to grub for votes will be trotted out and swiftly abandoned.

    2. Should the so-called leaders’ memories falter their mentors will quickly remind both Sunack and Smarmer of where their loyalties lie.

  36. The Rev Hoskins has drunk the Koolaid and not questioned the veracity of the propaganda pushed out by our friend the Mayor of London. In fact, the air quality in London is very high. Still, never let the truth stand in the way of a letter to the Terriblegraph!

    “Sir – Sir – The Prime Minister says he is on the side of motorists (report, July 30). I am on the side of the many vulnerable children and adults admitted to hospital because they live in highly polluted areas.
    Rev David Hoskins Harrogate, North Yorkshire“

    1. Eee – that Harrogate – unimaginable pollution – from the “waters”…..

      1. It’s well known that a miasma of toxic substances permanently blights Harrogate.
        Can’t see your hand in front of your face. And as for breathing – forget it.

  37. This global boiling malarkey.

    We may go to the French Atlantic coast later this “summer” – there is a webcam on the beach. For the last fortnight there has been a constant strong westerly wind, rain, and more rain – air temp about 18ºC – sea cold enough to discourage swimmers. Fascinating to watch hardy, determined people trying to pretend that it is the high summer! Today there is one dinghy in the sea and a boy flying a kite. Everyone in rainwear!!

    1. Shhh! Bill! Reality WILL NOT intrude on the narrative. You WILL believe the world is on fire because if you are allowed to experience otherwise the state will lose it’s power to scare you.

  38. Second home owners should do the decent thing and make them available to the fantastic young people who daily cross the Channel in rubber boats.

      1. Yes, that Green MP Caroline Lucas owns six houses in Brighton.

        I’m sure that she’ll be happy to let them out to asylum seekers at a nominal rent

  39. Good moaning all. Hope all is as well as it can be for you.

    Alf and I wrote jointly to our MP recently about not signing the U.K. up to the International Health Regulations which I can’t describe the utter incredulity it caused in me – and rage.

    As I’ve posted before there is to be no debate in Parliament over this and now I read, via TCW, the U.K. has only until 1st December this year to voice objections to the proposals. The power this will give to just one person is utterly unbelievable. The Director General of the WHO will be that one person.

    Our government seems eager to pass an enormous amount of responsibility over to some unelected person without any debate either in Parliament or, God forbid, with you and me. I attach the link below.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/beware-the-tyranny-of-the-who-my-plea-to-every-mp/

    1. Don’t forget the person who has the largest share of funding of the WHO – one Mr Bill Gates. He’s the one pulling Tedros’ strings.

  41. Well, four more barrow loads completed.

    Of course, that’s but nothing compared to what Our Robert would have done in 45 minutes. Felled three trees, logged and stacked. Built 12 foot of three foot high wall…..

    Time for a rewarding beer, I think.

    1. I remember a holiday like that with the children in Anglesey (don’t ask me why it’s a mystery!). Alf and I sat on the beach wrapped up in anoraks while the kids played. Actually I also remember many holidays in Northern Wales, when I was a child, staying in a caravan with aunt and uncle in the middle of a field. It always rained. 😂😂😂

      1. Same here – except South Wales, by Tenby.
        I was happy to sit in a sandy puddle and play, parents froze under anoraks in the wind and rain…

        1. As a child I used to stay in Weston -s -M with my aunt and uncle during the holidays. Much the same. So the myth of global warming has been around for a while.

          1. We had a wonderful week in Weston S Mare with the children, staying at the Churchill Inn, in Churchill. One day it had rained so much that the water just cascaded down the slope in the park into the road but the Inn had some very tasty pies for the evening meal. We had a family room, double bed with 2 bunk beds. Really good fun. 😂😂😂

          2. My uncle used to take me to the water polo at the Knightstone Baths by the pier. We also went for walks up to the old Roman remains. They had no children at that time but my aunt’s niece, Jane (a few years older than me) also used to stay so we had company. Later on, my cousin Sue was born – sadly, she died a few years ago, aged only 57.

      2. It ALWAYS rains in Anglesey! I spent a week there on an art course and every time I applied water colour (all I’d brought with me for ease of carriage) the *!& rain washed it off the page! Same when MOH and I took the motorhome there on a nostalgic (although not for me) trip. We sat in the ‘van, buffeted by the wind, wearing lots of layers and listening to the rain beat down while we played Scrabble. Pretty much simultaneously we said, “we could be doing this at home in comfort!”

  44. More on Global Boiling….from The Grimes today:

    “Weather reports en français
    And this weather? I give up. I’m not even going to try any more. I tried on Thursday though. Was so depressed by the rain that I went online, booked the cheapest flight to the sun available, and arrived, that night, into the harbour town of La Rochelle, France. Where it rained, almost solidly, for my entire 48-hour sojourn.

    I didn’t bring waterproofs. I was expecting a heatwave. And yes, the forecast had predicted summer thundershowers. But summer thundershowers are blasts of precipitation in between blistering sunshine. This was miserable grey English rain, imported directly, just to torment me. And it did. I brought two plain white cotton shirts, both of which were soaked through on night one. And so I spent the trip getting battered by the rain or, in a handful of breaks between downpours, shivering madly as the Atlantic wind whipped against my sodden form.

    So, what did I learn? Don’t fight the weather. Just embrace it. Like wearing a wet cotton shirt around a French harbour town. For two solid days.

    1. When the weather is hot it because of Global warming; when the weather is cold it is still because of global warming. And when it is neither hot nor cold the weather has nothing to do with global warming.

    3. I’m sure pacamacks were for sale. He clearly wanted to be soaked. So he could write about it.

    1. Plod will go for him. What’s odd is that he hasn’t broken the law. He has paid, using legal tender for a good they offer. He just hasn’t done it the way they want to.

      Given that the police don’t even bother with shoplifting any more what’s the point?

      1. I tried topping up an EE payg SIM card I had already purchsed from EE that was peviously topped up from the SIM even when there was no credit on it.
        I entered the telephone number and my card details on an EE payment website but as the SIM has not been linked to a default credit card the transaction failed.

        It is clear that EE don’t want payment for their services by this method and are willimg to refrain from accepting any such payments

      2. Police recruitment aims at entrants to the force having an IQ of 95.

        (This is a maximum not a minimum!)

    2. Let’s all start doing that. “Here’s my cash. Take it or leave it”.

      or

      “You don’t want my cash? So this is free, then.”

    4. Dump a few thousand arsonists on a very expensive barge and give them ciggies and lighters then feign surprise when the inevitable happens. Mind, the same goes for putting them up in four and five star hotels.

    6. “Due to fire safety concerns” – how come these were never a concern when it was being used by oil workers?

    3. I time my Sunday breakfast egg by the time it takes to eat my cornflakes, always seems about right. But yesterday the egg became somewhat hard boiled. Chopped the top off with my knife, as I always have done, and instead of cleanly slicing off it just dented the surface so then struggled to get the spoon in. Quite enjoyed it anyway and all the various bits of shell popped back in afterwards to go in my food recycling.
      Not sure what prompted this series of Telegraph letters, must be a quiet week on the DT letters front.

    3. These ‘climate experts’ are really trying to ramp up fear, aren’t they? Have they never heard the story about the shepherd boy who cried wolf?

      1. Like “paddock expert” Ken Pitterson who picked out the short-priced favourite as his choice. Said odds on chance finished stone last!

  49. Right my new Kindle has arrived! I just need a few weeks to master its intricacies.

      1. I’m still waiting for my calendar proof posted first class by the printer last Wednesday.

  50. It’s raining again in N W Hampshire. The Met Office REALLY messed up today.

    3. Nottlers will know I’ve stuck up a lot for the Met Office in the past – their daily forecasts have been much improved in recent years – but they’ve got today badly wrong.

      On TMS this morning at 10.30, BBC weather presenter Louise Lear informed the commentators and listeners that there might be a light shower or two in the afternoon even as thousands up and down country were looking at the MO rainfall radar and watching a wide band of heavy rain moving steadily up from the south-west. When told by the TMS crew that the Oval ground staff had predicted rain at about 2pm, she dismissed it. That’s really embarrassing professionally.

      2. Raining here too and the forecast was cloudy but dry. White City is a delicate shade of grey.

    4. Just back from my second walk of the day (well third, I went to Tesco first thing), something I have done without fail every single day since the start of lockdown (you can’t keep me in). Raining when went to Tesco, dry for the later morning walk, miserable now with moderate drizzle. What summer….

      1. It was blisteringly hot for most of June – I had to water the garden every day (as did our resident Legal Beagle….)

        1. Fortunately, no longer. Though, even with the rain, the various water butts are slow to refill completely.

        2. It was very dry, but I wouldn’t say blistering hot – most of June there was a cold north east wind.

          1. You are correct about the wind perhaps the high temperatures were in the latter half of May & early June?

          3. Nor me apparently. However, I do have some residual sun tan gained locally earlier in the summer and I do recall it was very hot… 28oC in my study during the late afternoon for many days on the trot…

  51. Book review time:

    We’ve all received these ‘Stop World Control’ emails for months now.

    Hugely well organised, pin sharp, media savvy, internet savvy, they get no problems with blockers or bans. Isn’t that strange????

    I THOUGHT IT WAS ALL TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.

    I had some correspondence with them recently and their swift, ridiculous answer confirmed exactly what I suspected – they are shills for China.

    THIS IS A VERY CLEVER ‘LOOK OVER THERE’ OPERATION – cleverly using half truths to suck us in.

    Who’d like a bet on whether I’m right or wrong?

    China is waging a massive war on the West with pysops from climate change crap to gender nonsense. Their tentacles are everywhere.

    Royals and Bank Chiefs are just the Common Purpose Useful Idiots, all our trouble go back to the UN, WEF and WHO.

    This is a very serious book by serious people who have studied what China is really doing, read the reviews.

    The best £10 you’ll ever spend, you won’t get past Chapter 1 without feeling nauseous…

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hidden-Hand-Exposing-Communist-Reshaping-of-the-world

    2. I have long argued that the real enemies are Islam and China, certainly not Russia.
      Had the West embraced Russia when the USSR broke apart the balance of power would not have favoured China now.

      1. Absolutely agree. A golden opportunity was missed. The US deep state has a lot to answer for.

        As to our enemies, they are threefold: Islam, China – and the enemy within which we MUST defeat first.

        1. The Americans were too fixated on trying to stop Germany and Russia from getting too close.
          Also, there is a faction in the US that wants to destroy Russia at all costs.

          1. Also in the City of London, I believe, and it’s a sentiment which goes back to Tsarist times because the Tsar wouldn’t play the international finance game. It is thought that’s why the revolution was financed by Wall Street.

          2. Very infrequently.
            It may have been fat finger. I sometimes get downs from people who have written that they agree with the comment.
            I’ve done it myself and unless you notice it can easily remain.

      2. Spot on. History will report the greatest missed opportunity of the late 20th century.

    5. Oxford is as crazy as Brighton. Twenty thousand students get the vote and never have to suffer the consequences of what they vote for…

  54. Has ‘like’ become the most commonly spoken word in everyday English? I ask because it’s as if it has, like, replaced ‘um’ and ‘ah’ as the noise of verbal hesitation, uncertainty and, like, punctuation. It’s especially true of, like, young people but even some, like, older people are now using it in, like, nearly every sentence.

    While on the subject of irritating changes in English usage, why has ‘number’ become almost redundant when talking about countable quantities? ‘Amount’ was once confined to uncountable quantities but has almost entirely replaced ‘number’. Amount of people, amount of goals, amount of times: it’s everywhere.

    2. The use of ‘amount’ for ‘number’ has gone in synch with the usage of ‘less’ when they mean ‘fewer’.

      As for ‘like’ – I don’t like it.

    4. Yeah, like toadally, innit, like? Just sort that real quick, hope you doing good, like, yeah?

      The yoof get it from ‘soshul meedya’ and are not able to spell, write, punctuate or use grammar. It is an abomination how lazy, ignorant and illiterate kids are. They write how they speak and when you tell them to improve their writing they become very angry because you’ve made them feel shame, and shame shall not be felt ™.

      Of all the emotions children are encouraged to express, guilt and shame are the only ones never taught.

      1. I don’t think that grammar has been on the curriculum for some time, judging by the difficulty my pupils had with concepts like tenses and that was nearly a quarter of a century ago!

    6. Are we up for a language and grammar whinge and rant?

      Amount and number –
      Less and fewer.

    8. “Like” as a conversation filler has been around for, like, ages. And “number” now seems, like, redundant as you say. It’s become similar to “fewer” and “less”.

    11. Yet silly people try to defend it saying, “Well, language evolves.”

      Not if it becomes meaningless mumbo-jumbo.

      1. “Bifel that in that seson on a day,

        In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay

        Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage

        To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,

        At nyght was come into that hostelrye

        Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye

        Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle

        In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,

        That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde.”

        Like.

        1. When I was using London (Peckham) a.s my stamping ground, Anne, the ‘Tabard’ was still a pub at the junction of the New and Old Kent Roads

  56. That wasn’t a bad run!
    Less than two hours to get there via Buxton, Macclesfield and Knutsford and a stop in Knutsford on the way back.
    A bit miffed. One of the 0.5l bottles of vodka had been pinched apparently buy a temporary agency worker so I’m waiting for a refund on that. Still got the other 5 bottles though plus the 5 bottles of Chilean wine and rather a large number of cans of “hard seltzer” which is, apparently a fortified fruit flavoured mineral water! 4% abv! The only reason I put a bid on them was because no one else had bothered bidding on them!!

          3. MacMillan phoned this morning and are coming to see us next Monday to discuss what financial and other help they can give us. Thank you anyway- kind of you.

  57. Danish police officer hands Koran to protesters to set it alight

    Freedom of expression laws make government’s plan to ban public burnings of the holy book controversial amongst politicians

    By James Jackson IN BERLIN • 31 July 2023 • 2:41pm

    A police officer was filmed handing a copy of the Koran to protesters to set alight as Denmark’s government moves to ban public burnings of the holy text.

    Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Denmark’s foreign minister, said public burnings of holy scriptures “only serves the purpose of creating division in a world that actually needs unity”.

    “That is why we have decided in the government that we will look at how, in very special situations, we can put an end to mockery of other countries, which is in direct conflict with Danish interests and the safety of the Danes,” he told national broadcaster DR.

    Denmark and neighbouring Sweden have seen several protests in recent weeks where copies of the Koran have been burned, or otherwise damaged.

    The demonstrations have been met with outrage in Muslim countries, which have demanded the Nordic governments put a stop to them. While Danish and Swedish officials have deplored the protests, they have been unable to prevent them under laws protecting freedom of speech.

    At a protest last week in Copenhagen, a policeman was filmed handing a copy of the Koran to a demonstrator after it had been snatched away by a woman attempting to stop it being burnt.

    In dramatic scenes outside of the Iraqi Embassy, the woman wrestled the text away from two far-Right protesters from the hard-Right Danish Patriots group.

    Shortly after she was tackled by one of the pair, a police officer grabbed the Koran from her and gave it back to one of the protesters, who was wearing a hoodie with “f–k Islam” written on the back.

    The pair then stamped on the holy book and set it alight next to an Iraqi flag on the ground.

    On Monday, protesters from the same group burned another copy of the Koran outside of the Danish capital’s Saudi Embassy. A further six book-burnings have also been planned.

    A Koran burning also took place in Sweden on Monday, with an Iraqi refugee behind several protests in recent weeks torching a copy of the holy text outside the Swedish parliament.

    Denmark abolished its anti-blasphemy laws in 2017 and burning holy texts is generally considered to be constitutionally protected by freedom of expression laws.

    The move to pursue legal changes that would allow authorities to prevent further burnings in special situations was criticised by an array of politicians.

    Søren Pape Poulsen, the leader of the Conservative Party told DR: “We are compromising on things that I’m concerned about where they’ll end.”

    A spokesman for the far-Left Unity List party also hit out at the move, saying it was against “the government’s new ambitions in that direction” and warning Denmark “must not curtail freedom of expression”.

    The furore over the protests has seen diplomatic tensions between the small Scandinavian country and Muslim-majority countries soar in recent weeks.

    Foreign ministers attending a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation were set to discuss the burnings at an extraordinary meeting of the body called for Monday.

    The developments came as Sweden also weighed a similar move on banning the burning of holy scriptures.

    Recent protests in the country, which came at a crucial time for its diplomatic relations as it seeks to join NATO, have seen both the Torah and Koran torched.

    Iraq expelled Sweden’s ambassador to the country earlier this month after Iraqi protesters angered by the burning of copies of the Koran stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad and set it on fire.

    Ulf Kristersson, the Swedish prime minister, said on Sunday that he was “in close contact” with his Danish counterpart, Mette Frederiksen, over taking measures to prohibit further burnings of the Islamic text.

    “We are in the middle of the most serious security policy situation since the Second World War, and here at home, we know that both states, state-like actors and individuals can take advantage of the situation,” Mr Kristersson said.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/31/denmark-police-officer-hands-koran-protesters-set-alight/

    I don’t give a stuff for Muslim outrage from afar. Islam is the world’s most successful imperialist movement and it’s lost very little of what it has seized in almost 1,400 years of violent conquest. Even if the West were to express ‘outrage’ at the treatment of minorities in Islamic countries, it would be treated with contempt.

    1. “only serves the purpose of creating division in a world that actually needs unity” – as good an excuse as any for imposing islamic blasphemy laws.

      1. I remember them trying to get islam included in the blasphemy laws years ago (when we were a much more Christian country than now after so many years of destruction). I thought it a very bad idea at the time and I haven’t changed my opinion.

    2. This brings to mind those pictures of ISIS caging Yazidi women and burning them alive.

    4. Knowing what a bunch of nutters Muslims are when someone offends their ‘religion’, is it wise to go out of one’s way to provoke them under the guise of freedom of speech? There will inevitably be consequences for Danish and Swedish citizens.

      3. I’m afraid I think that approach is the main part of the problem. Appeasement NEVER works. They should have been confronted from the very beginning.

        1. As Churchill (?) said: Appeasement is like persuading the crocodile to eat you last.

          1. The slammers see everything as provocation, frankly. The very existence of kuffars is a provocation.

    5. Knowing what a bunch of nutters Muslims are when someone offends their ‘religion’, is it wise to go out of one’s way to provoke them under the guise of freedom of speech? There will inevitably be consequences for Danish and Swedish citizens.

    6. By their mere presence in Europe, the slammers create division.,

      Ship ALL of ’em OUT, now!

      1. Bearing in mind how much trouble Christendom has had with that creed all through recorded history it just beggars belief that we have let so many of its adherents into Europe. Literally incredible until you consider just how ignorant people are of history.
        Poitiers, the Reconquista, Lepanto, the Gates of Vienna. Where’s going to be next? Birmingham?

          1. Isn’t their recovery included in Ferdinand and Isabella’s Reconquista?

          2. Maybe, I only lived in Spain for five years and didn’t read the whole history . I certainly know the names.

          3. Yes and a very well planned campaign it was. The inquisition is regrettable but also routinely misrepresented.

          5. Well, the death toll was much lower than the revisionists claim and it was targeted at people who were seen as having collaborated with the Moorish regime. Violent revenge of that sort isn’t good but it’s understandable.

        2. When someone posted a podcast of Orthodox chants pretending to be from the Hagia Sopia a couple of weeks ago I took a look at the comments section. There was an awful lot of a “One day, it will be ours once more” sentiment.

        3. When someone posted a podcast of Orthodox chants pretending to be from the Hagia Sopia a couple of weeks ago I took a look at the comments section. There was an awful lot of a “One day, it will be ours once more” sentiment.

    7. The Danes burn a book, the slammers will be burning churches (with or without worshippers inside).

  58. Down town it’s cool and raining and yet so many are dressed as if for the beach – t-shirts, shorts, sandals. Idiotic.

    1. Saves on the washing. Or maybe they are holiday makers who left their sensible clothes at home.

      1. Holiday makers in Newbury? 😂🤣😅

        I’ve just been back out to the petrol station to fill up. Woman drives in, on her own in her EV (going to the shop, not the pumps. I think), wearing a full face-mask. Until recent times I had no idea how stupid many of our fellow human beings really are.

        1. Perhaps they are left over from a race meeting – some racegoers seem to have very strange ideas about suitable attire?

  59. Down town it’s cool and raining and yet so many are dressed as if for the beach – t-shirts, shorts, sandals. Idiotic.

  60. Weird day here chez Macfarlane! Twin 2 has had to go to hospital, as his stool sample taken on Friday shows he has ecoli in his system! Twin 1 and mad Harry are with us for the foreseeable and I’ve just spent 45 mins on the ‘phone to Public Health Scotland, as I’ve not been too well! Trying to recall the past 2 weeks in detail was a nightmare!

      1. Thank you bb2! He doesn’t quite know how to be by himself! He’s being quite loud, poor little soul!

      1. They were in Egypt for a week. Why? I have no idea!!🙄
        Apparently he drank quite a lot of pool water

          4. I lived there for 2½ years aged 8 to 10. Gut rot (and much worse) was just part of life.

          5. I lived there for 2½ years aged 8 to 10. Gut rot (and much worse) was just part of life.

    4. Disinfect all surfaces, door knobs and handles. Don’t forget kitchenware. Front and back door. Chain or button on the wc.

        1. E coli comes from poo. Easy to catch. Especially if drinking water from a swimming pool. Then easily spread to others when young children stick their fingers in and on everything.
          That’s why whenever nieces and nephews visit me i always give them 5 minutes in the microwave.

          Hope you are doing okay.

          3. Not really- both of us have had a tough weekend and today also but enough.

          6. I know- I did teach in elementary schools in the US. Little germ spreaders.

    8. Public Health Scotland. That has such a dystopian, totalitarian ring to it. Much as I dearly love my ancestral homeland, the land of my birth, up-bringing and education, I’m really glad I don’t live there.

      The latest madness about banning the sale of houses with gas boilers leaves me speechless. Got a gas boiler? – can’t sell your house. Got a heat-pump system? (in a country to cold for them to work) – no-one wants to buy it. Result? Trapped and house worthless. As someone has already pointed out, that solves an inheritance tax problem.

      1. Air-to-air heat pumps work in Norway. Just saying.
        The authoritarian crap Scots could well do without (says he, with roots In Kyle of Lochalsh).

        1. I have seen much support for heat pumps from Scandi land and much failure in UK. I can only assume its the insulation and design of the building. As someone with a science background, I still find it hard to fathom how an air heat pump can function if its -15 by day and -30 by night as it is in yr part of the world in winter. There can not be too much warmth to squeeze out of the air. But I guess Ive missed something!

          1. They do struggle when it’s properly cold outside – then you support with the wood burner. We don’t have a heat pump, BTW, rented a place 3 tears ago with one whilst our drains were fixed, and it worked a treat.
            Beginning to plan a trip to see Mother this autumn – might you be available to be bought a beer or 2?

          2. I just have one week away sailing in Turkey during the second week of Sept this year. Looking at some more warmth later in the winter. No sure where to go yet.

          3. We’re planning Sicily for the beginning of October. Siracusa. No money has changed hands yet…
            If you make it over here, you’re welcome to stay a while – just as long as you like gigantic cats… who drop hair everywhere!

          4. We are cat people and have a 7 yo semi long hair from a rescue centre. No plans for a Norway trip as Mrs Pea would need a Schengen visa. We got one previously but its a lot of aggravation and they give only 90 days now whereas we got a year previously and did 3 trips. But never say never!

          5. Air heat pumps have to heat up the pump when the temp falls below 4 Deg – they use electricity to do this!!!

  63. A Birdie Three today.

    Wordle 772 3/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
    🟨⬜⬜🟨🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Well done. Bogey five for me but I got there. After a fashion.

      Wordle 772 5/6

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

      1. Par four again

        Wordle 772 4/6

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

    3. You’re not using the “High Contrast Mode” colours, I see, that are so useful to those of us not blessed with perfect colour vision.

      Personally I always aim for a perfect five; I enter my four magic words (from that older and much superior game Crazy Fives) and then aim to bang the answer in after that.

        1. Hi Bill. Things are settling down now after a difficult few years, in which I felt it wiser to withdraw from social media (whose wise example was I following in this?).
          Covid coincided with our beloved Son-in-Law’s brain tumour returning, leaving #2 Daughter a widow with two small children, and at the same time things with the very old in-laws became very difficult. My wife has been wonderful throughout but clearly under immense stress. However, the next six months should see us breaking through to calmer waters, not least because I’ve felt able to (rather belatedly) retire. 😉

          2. Oh, man, Steve. The both of you have been through the wringer. Hope the future looks a good deal brighter.

          3. Gosh. My condolences – wives are amazing. Keep us sane.

            DO keep on posting here. It is different, wacky (weird) but agreeable.

            Still biking??

          5. I apologise for my earlier post.
            I hadn’t read down the blog.
            I was just delighted to see you back again.

          6. Not met you before, but hi Steve, it sounds like you’ve been through the mincer of life.
            There’s a lot of it about. 😊

          7. Hello Steve. I’m sorry to see that you, your daughter and your family as a whole have been having a tough time in such sad circumstances. Bereavement is difficult at the best of times but even more so when nature delivers the cruel blow of death at your son-in-law’s young age, depriving his wife and little children of the many years together they would have been looking forward to.

          8. Ayup, Steve.

            Sorry to hear about your family travails; I hope things start getting better for you from now on. I’m still soldiering on, here in Sweden, and enjoying life to the full.

            Good to see you on here.👍🏻

          9. Sorry to hear that; it’s very hard to lose a family member like that. Please accept my condolences. Here’s hoping the only way is up.

          1. Welcoming the prodigal… 😉
            Tight-knit community. We miss the regulars. Life becomes less interesting when they’re away.

      4. I do use the “High Contrast Mode” colours while playing, s-t-b; I convert back to publish my result.

      5. Whey hey, long time no see.
        I trust all is well in the world of the bearded biker.

      6. Gosh steve! Great to see you! Sorry to hear about all the troubles. Thinking of you and hope things are getting better. Gotta love families!!🤦🏻‍♀️

  64. More on the faux Conservative politicians and their antics.

    IMHO these people and their Labour and LibDem lookalikes are a clear and present danger to the UK and especially to the people. They despise us. Why? Who can tell? They won’t, other than saying that there are too many humans on the Planet: is that reason enough for these arrogant people to attempt to corral us in 15 minute areas that will turn out to be open air prisons where we will be held to await our fate. Their arrogance is chilling.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/171d4a24bf302db83b08128de1848410fb42e2d405c693214f5551e2425e71ce.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bc58d6bdfe5943fca2f8b79aa4e811cfc89d955a03921a85531ec1b88ad49291.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ff80eac90778072da7b9cb4fa4b977fde816f61f37195979fb100e41ea5bc0cb.png

    1. Much of what HIN say is good, but they have to have a yellow card for slandering weasels!

    2. Billy Connolly was funny and outrageous in the ‘Seventies; given a free ticket, I wouldn’t bother to see any of the others.

      Dara Ó Briain is an interesting character but I don’t regard him as a comedian – rather as an intelligent presenter of ‘Mock the Week’.

      Aged 11, I was privileged to meet Laurel and Hardy – close up and personal – at a Dublin railway station in 1953!
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/df34e00d426651d854507173a25ed1db2f1773f6996a9db741d1b382821cdbaa.jpg

      1. The Oirish bloke is an Oirish git who thinks he is a genius. Bit like the wanqueur Geldof.

        Just saying – you don’t have to agree.

    3. I perused the list and discovered I recognise few of the names. For that reason, I cannot pass anything like an informed judgment. I rarely watch stand-up performances on tv and never venture out to watch them elsewhere. When coarseness and politics became the norm, I lost interest.

  66. Good grief!
    After rain & mist virtually all the way to Altrincham and back, it’s just turned gloriously sunny!

      1. I’ll believe it when he authorises fracking, scraps the ICE car, gas boiler and wood burner bans, and approves the roll-out of the RR SMRs.

        2. “… when he authorises fracking, scraps the ICE car, gas boiler and wood burner bans, and approves the roll-out of the RR SMRs.”

          He’ll never do that; today’s initiative is his pre-GE ploy.

      2. The Road to Uxbridge?

        The added irony is that the seat was abandoned by a man whose latest squeeze is a Greeniac.

        1. “Beware my Lord, the Greeniac eyed monster, it doth mock the meat it feeds on’?

          (With apols to the Late W Shakespeare Esq.)

        2. I suspect that Carrie will not long be happy being outside of the Westminster Bubble . . .

  68. That’s me for this grey, cheerless day. August tomorrow – who’d have thought it?

    Have a jolly evening not watching Uni Chal.

    A demain. One hopes.

      1. Why would any commercial organisation produce goods specifically for less than .1% of the population? Business is business.

        1. They produce enough rainbow flags etc. And I wouldn’t be seen dead in the above tee shirt.

          Who wears that kind of thing?

    4. From Alice in Genderland:

      “No womb, No womb!’ they cried out when they saw Alice coming. `I’ve plenty of womb!’ said Alice indignantly…

  71. A businessman cheated a council out of tens of millions of pounds and went on a spending spree with the cash, an investigation has discovered.
    Leaked documents reveal how Liam Kavanagh used Thurrock Council’s money to buy luxury goods, including a yacht and a private jet.
    The council has been made effectively bankrupt after investing £655m in Mr Kavanagh’s solar farm business.
    Mr Kavanagh’s lawyers say all the payments were permissible.
    They say they were approved by his company’s finance team and auditor.
    Thurrock is one of a number of councils that have got into financial difficulties since the coalition government gave local authorities more freedom to raise funds and invest in 2011.
    Woking, Slough and Croydon have all been forced to stop all non-essential spending after losing public money on risky investments.

    The Audit Commission – a spending watchdog that stopped councils taking too many risks – was abolished in 2015.(by the Conservative Government….)

  73. We’ve had our two young grandsons with us today. My word it’s hard work. But enjoyable all the same. I feel like turning in now but I’ll be awake before day break.
    Amazing how nature actually works. No further products aftef a certain age. It’s easy to send them back home. I couldn’t imagine ending the day as we did when our three sons were that age. 35 plus years ago.

    2. My mother used to say it was lovely to see her grandsons but great to hand them over again.

      1. My mother never engaged with her grandsons, just seeing them as sources of trouble and irritation. Sadly. And totally opposite to SWMBOs mother, who loves her grandsons enormously.

        1. Perhaps her dementia was already developing. And maybe it was because they lived so far away and she didn’t see them much. My mother found young boys and their friends very tiring..

        2. Perhaps this was because she was the mother to a son and sons tend not to draw the their mothers into the family in the same way as their wives draw their mothers in, the opportunities are not there because in the early years it is the husband who brings home the bacon, he is out at work, whilst the children’s mother is at home, and so the pattern is set, especially if the wife’s mother lives at a distance and comes to visit. This is my problem, I live only twenty miles away and my dil’s mother lives 160 miles away, but she sees the grandchildren far more often than I do, she comes to stay for several days mid-week, and dil visits her at the weekend from time to time, her mother is part of the family in a way that we are not and never will be now. We have scarcely seen our younger grandson this year because he is at nursery three days a week. On the occasion we have seen him he looks at us as if he doesn’t know who we are. It breaks my heart but what can we do. So it may not be completely your mother’s fault, she may not have had the same opportunities to develop a relationship with her grandsons.

  74. Evening, all. I’ve spent most of the afternoon and early evening attending obsequies of an old (94!) friend. There was an extraordinary parish council meeting this evening, but I’d already sent my apologies because I knew I’d struggle to get back in time. First there was the travel to and from (it wasn’t local), then there was the church funeral followed by the committal at the crematorium and finally the wake. I barely got home in time to have left again to go to the meeting, so I wouldn’t have wanted to leave the dogs again immediately. We aren’t supposed to meet in August, after all.

    As for Wales’ intention to charge 150% on second homes, they must be crazy. Anybody with any sense (and that rules out Welsh Labour!) would know that people will think it not worth the bother, sell up and so cause a glut of property on the market with the consequent depression of prices and also cease to put money into the local economy as they spend their cash elsewhere. Lose-lose – but as long as they stick it to the “rich” and particularly Saesneg, who cares?

    1. Makes a change from them wanting to burn all the homes owned by the English – ‘come home to a nice warm fire’ – buy a cottage in Wales

      1. That was Plaid Cymru – Party Wales. They have since learned that there’s more money in taxing people than in arson 🙂

  75. Good evening, we are seeing the subversive effort of the narrative pushers to rehabilitate the Tory Party, and the revolting Sunak WEF acolyte in particular. Watching Rees Mogg flanneling this on GB News is an emetic experience.

    In any world where the rule of law applied impartially to criminal acts it would be necessary to have the vast majority of our MPs, including most of the Starmer shower, investigated for possible prosecution for very serious offences. In the case of Mr Sunak and all those of cabinet rank since 2020 that process should be a given. That necessity will not go away.

  76. Good evening, we are seeing the subversive effort of the narrative pushers to rehabilitate the Tory Party, and the revolting Sunak WEF acolyte in particular. Watching Rees Mogg flanneling this on GB News is an emetic experience.

    In any world where the rule of law applied impartially to criminal acts it would be necessary to have the vast majority of our MPs, including most of the Starmer shower, investigated for possible prosecution for very serious offences. In the case of Mr Sunak and all those of cabinet rank since 2020 that process should be a given. That necessity will not go away.

  77. Going to bed very soon. Husband unwell and I feel like a piece of wet spaghetti.
    Sleep well.

    3. I think you both have hospital appointments tomorrow, so I hope you both get some sleep. Thinking of you tomorrow, and maybe you will be able to finally get some progress with pain management and treatment.
      Goodnight Ann.

  79. I’ve recently started to explore bands that cover the original artists’ songs.
    Last year I saw a local band, ELO Encounter, at the Bures Music Festival and more recently The Illegal Eagles at Clacton-on-Sea and The Temptations Show in London. The quality of all three presentations was amazing and those acts prompted me to see what is out there.
    Here are two covers of successful Foreigner songs:

    1. I Want To Know What Love Is – performed by an Australian band, The Hindley Street Country Club
    and
    2. Waiting For A Girl Like You – The Lexington Lab Band from errr, Lexington Kentucky

    Both bands draw on a number of talented musicians and singers from their local areas.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlBzM9Uczpw

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgiIFBgJ-lM&list=PLsAj-U3MWBEJdiFCKdTQl2t_w0crdtFfg

  81. Good night, chums. I’m off to bed now. See you all tomorrow. Sleep well.

    1. I hope he’ll be able to pop in tomorrow. I guess he has good days and bad one. Let’s hope tomorrow is a good one.

    4. Morning, Geoff.
      It doesn’t show when you just log in to Nttl – the only access for the moment is your link.
      Weird, that.

Comments are closed.