Monday 7 July: Boris Johnson fails to understand his role in the rise of Reform UK

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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528 thoughts on “Monday 7 July: Boris Johnson fails to understand his role in the rise of Reform UK”

  1. Good morning Geoff and all you happy NoTTLers. A fresh couple of Monday Chuckles awaits, about crime:

    An elderly lady living alone surprised a burglar in her kitchen. He was weighed down with all the items he was planning to steal. With no weapon in reach, all she could think of doing was to quote scripture at him and so she held up her hand and shouted out: “Acts 2:38!” The burglar instantly froze in fear, allowing the lady to get to the phone and dial 999.
    When the police arrived ten minutes later, [clearly not in the UK] the burglar was still quaking with terror. After arresting him, the officers were puzzled as to how an elderly woman with no weapon had managed to strike such fear into him. She replied: “I simply quoted scripture at him. He must be a God-fearing boy.” While interviewing the burglar at the station, the officer asked him: “What was it about the scripture that had such an effect on you?” “Scripture? What scripture?” demanded the burglar. “I thought she said she had an axe and two .38s!”   

    The other day I read in the paper, “A woman has been murdered in Los Angeles by a thirty-six-year-old man who has not been named.” I thought: “Thirty-six years old and he still hasn’t been named? What’s everyone been calling him all these years?”

  2. Good morning, all. Cloudy. Very breezy. Up early as the MR has to go to Narridge very soon. I shall be baking a loaf.

    1. Morning William. I too bake my own bread once a week. The aroma is incomparable.

      1. I am sure you are right – but, sadly, my sense of smell departed this life at the start of the Plague.

  3. Good morning, chums, and thanks to you Geoff for today's new NoTTLe site. Wordle in 5 today (a Bogie).

    Wordle 1,479 5/6

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    1. I thought it helped relieve a pain, roughcommon. (Good morning, btw.)

  9. Good Morning!

    Something different today, with Graham Bedford offering advice and information on those two things we all love to hate, the Twin Evils of Council Tax and Smart Meters . If you have more information or an opinion on one or both, we would really like to hear it for further study.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's electric power was sourced from Gas, 20.8%; Solar, 7%: Wind 26.1%; Imports, 21.8%; Biomass, 5.1%; Nuclear 15.7% and Miscellaneous, 3.5%.

    freespeechbacklash.com

    1. Good morning Tom and everyone.
      Some properties in rural areas have poor or intermittent cellphone signal reception. That can convince the smart meter kapos to grant the possibility of a replacement normal meter. In any case, householders are entitled to a traditional (digital not analogue) electricity meter if they pay an installation fee, typically about £150.
      Edit: it is completely wrong and extremely naughty to deceive Edward-Sammy Miliband's acolytes about the strength of one's mobile signal.

    2. Good morning Tom and everyone.
      Some properties in rural areas have poor or intermittent cellphone signal reception. That can convince the smart meter kapos to grant the possibility of a replacement normal meter. In any case, householders are entitled to a traditional (digital not analogue) electricity meter if they pay an installation fee, typically about £150.
      Edit: it is completely wrong and extremely naughty to deceive Edward-Sammy Miliband's acolytes about the strength of one's mobile signal.

    3. Good morning Tom and everyone.
      Some properties in rural areas have poor or intermittent cellphone signal reception. That can convince the smart meter kapos to grant the possibility of a replacement normal meter. In any case, householders are entitled to a traditional (digital not analogue) electricity meter if they pay an installation fee, typically about £150.
      Edit: it is completely wrong and extremely naughty to deceive Edward-Sammy Miliband's acolytes about the strength of one's mobile signal.

  13. BBC News
    FAFO
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6521f628d5072faf21e68b2428644f842b87e9996febfac783a084fac1ea3db4.png
    Hamas security officer says group has lost control over most of Gaza

    Rushdi Abualouf Gaza correspondent
    Reporting from Cairo

    6 July 2025
    A senior officer in Hamas's security forces has told the BBC the Palestinian armed group has lost about 80% of its control over the Gaza Strip and that armed clans are filling the void.

    The lieutenant colonel said Hamas's command and control system had collapsed due to months of Israeli strikes that have devastated the group's political, military and security leadership.

    The officer was wounded in the first week of the war, which began after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, and has since stepped away from his duties for health reasons.

    He shared several voice messages with the BBC on condition of anonymity.

      1. Still has the same definition as it had awhen I posted it a couple of days ago. F* Around, Find Out

        1. Did you post the definition when you posted FAFO a couple of days ago, Citroen1? If so, I must have missed it, hence why I asked you today. NBOALMA.

    2. "… which began after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023"… Oh, dear, what a shame, too bad, never mind.
      Bastards. Hope they rot in hell.

      1. Odd that they can't seem to bring themselves to say 'muslim assault, kidnapping, rape and murder of innocents'.

  14. Since most asset wealth these days is on paper only due to house price inflation then if you start wealth taxing that then people will be forced to sell as assets rarely generate any disposable money to pay that tax with.
    Obviously then house prices will drop, people will sell up and might even leave the country.
    Meanwhile government and councils can buy up all this housing cheap and convert them into multi occupancy properties and hey presto they have accommodation for all our new arrivals, thus turning whole areas into slums.
    A win win for the Socialists, another Kalergi plan box ticked.

    1. "house prices will drop" and the tax, based on house values, will follow it. Not such a good outcome for anyone.

    2. But people can't simply sell up. Where would folk live? Let's say the morons levy this tax at half a million (as they will, the very rich never pay it – rightly so). hat's us on the hook for about a quarter of a million quid.

      If Labour say right, we'll be having 3% of that that's a months wages – both of ours – destroyed. We can't afford that, nor can we afford to move due to stamp duty. It is enforced socialism.

      There's already a wealth tax. It's call income tax.

      1. Norway has wealth tax at 1.1% of your gross assets (shares, savings, house, car etc etc) less personal allowance that can be shared with your partner. In practice, ordinary folk are under the allowance limit, so nothing to pay – and that includes SWMBO & I.

        1. Yet that reduces the impetus to hold assets and invest to create wealth, surely?

          1. Indeed – but there are a lot of deductions (eg depreciation, maintenance, interest on the loan used to buy it) that it’s a)complex, and b)not as bad as it looks.

  15. Morning, all Y'all.
    Autumnal – except the trees are still properly green.
    Weather promises 30C at the weekend – I'll believe that when I see/feel it.
    Full-on summer vacation here – except for me. So far, the only idiot in the office, and just when I needed a double espresso to get me going, the coffee shop is closed for summer :-((

    1. The fundamental problem is they all believed that socialism would work and that previous efforts were 'not real socialism'.

      I'm tired of morons wrecking this country.

      Stop paying immigrants welfare. Make them contribute toward NHS costs. I'll amke an exception for those working in the NHS.

      No work, no money. Child benefit revoked and replaced with a tax allowance.
      Housing benefit scrapped
      DLA and PIP scrapped. All claimants reassessed in person. Those promoting how to cheat the system arrested for terrorism.

      Radical and significant tax cuts. Scrap all taxes on business. Replace with one single digital tax on business profit. This funds local government. LG now forced to be efficient by competing against other LG.

      All green hoax scrapped. Miliband hanged from a tree and beaten. Fracking started. All subsidy cancelled for future rounds. High taxes applied to windmils and solar arrays to wipe out subsidy grifting. Gas taxes removed and base line cost restored. You buy energy from whoever is cheapest, a personal mix or from green. Don't care, but no tax payer subsidy.

      Energy companies offered loans to build new power stations. Loan repaid from profits and zero tax.

      Multiple government departments shutdown, permanently. No reassigning, mass redundancy. A new CS HR group set up with 10 staff. Promotion based on merit and achievement. No annual pay increases by default. Poor performing staff sacked – or promoted to run the departments. Abolition of the defined benefit scheme for new entrants. CS pay freeze for 10 years to encourage further reduction in staff.

      Abolish over 1000 quangos. Remove acres of legislation. Cut. Taxes. If officialdom complains about the lack of money, sack them as incompetent.

      1. When we moved to Norway, to get residency you had to have paid employment, and paid at a sufficiently high rate that you could afford to live and not be a burden on society – even back in 1998, one of the world's richest.

        1. It seems for anyone not muslim or a criminal, much the same rules apply to the UK.

          If you're a criminal or muslim – or more usually, muslim criminal – you get anything you want and the law doesn't apply.

      2. Socialism is what the Socialist says it is.
        And Socialism is the perfect system which, if implemented properly, will NEVER fail.
        Ergo, should a system calling its self "Socialist" fail, then it could never have been Socialist in the first place.

  17. Guido Fawkes still pushing the conspiracy theory that the Department for Work and Pensions is spaffing £600million per year and rising on subsidising cars for 589,000 benefits claimants.
    Aliments include; Tennis elbow, Alcohol misuse, Failure to thrive.

    3. When does a conspiracy theory become truth? Is it after the fact is exposed or when the state denies it (which is the same, only in reverse)?

  18. Good morning, all. Overcast with light drizzle.

    Not surprised but nevertheless a disturbing revelation. Centralising allows takeover to be more easily accomplished and independence destroyed. For those reasons we should all be wary of the current call for reducing the number of police 'services' nationally.

    https://x.com/profsked/status/1942002593221238931

    2. Not sure. I think the rot set in when local parties were circumvented in favour of the party itself selecting candidates. Cameron did that. It was to ensure the appropriate 'diversity'.

      Since then MPs have considered themselves special, above such annoyances as accountability.

      This is why I find Reform so pointless. If they won't stand up and push back, what's the point? It's just another finger of the uniparty. We need referism, recall and direct democracy. For example, Reeves stands up and announces 50bn in tax hikes by putting 2p on income tax, or freezing the allowances. We say no, and command she cut welfare. Labour MPs squawk and squeal and argue and we simply sack them.

      They're servants. The hired help. Not our rulers. They are hired to govern. When they enact bad policy, we stop it and get rid of them. Hell, we wouldn't let a cleaner go around smashing all the glassware and stealing the nice cutlery. Why are we forced to tolerate it with these fools, who are even less valuable?

    3. See Police Scotland (Police Central Belt) for example. The Chief Constable lives over the border in northern England allowing her to avoid paying the higher rate of income tax in Scotland brought about by Holyrood's machinations…as do a number of high-level civil servants based in the Central Belt. Don't worry if you live beyond the Central Belt, just email your 'local' police station and grow a beard.

  19. Neil Kinnock: Labour Should Introduce Annual Wealth Tax on Assets Over £10 Million..
    That should tell everyone that each of the Kinnock clan.. Glenys.. Stephen..and grandkids each have £9.99 million apeice.

    1. Or that Kinnochio Jr banks locally in Switzerland…or that his Danish wife (she of the Obama selfies at Mandela's funeral infamy) holds the purse strings well away from HM Treasury's grasp.

    1. If that's true, that’s a real “wow, just wow” moment

      1. 408960+ up ticks,

        Morning LIR,

        The frogs do it on a daily basis, difference being they are paid for it,and that’s fact.

  21. 'Morning All
    20 years ago today I was sat on a sofa trying to comfort my frantic sobbing sister,both her children were on the tube system that hateful day after the bombs went off she was unable to contact either of them it was two hours later when with blessed relief she finally heard they were both alive and well
    All too many parents weren't that lucky
    20 years of importing ever more of the rabid scum
    20 years of ever more appeasment
    Today's final insult a narrative that somehow(as always) it's the muzzscum that are somehow the victims in all this
    Don't look back in anger??Fuck that
    https://x.com/Free_ByTheSea/status/1941764393462542478

    1. We were called to invacuate but I got on my motorbike and went straight home. I know my mum used to worry about me going into work on my motorbike, but on that day it was a godsend,

      I remember the day VERY well. Ditto “9/11”. Ditto august 7th 1998 (my brother was living in Dar at the time).

    2. And Prevent has… pretty much failed ever since. Why do we pander to this death cult by giving them 'opportunities'? Why do we not say 'You're a dangerous muslim savage. You're spending your life hanging from a ceiling by your wrists, will be fed a bacon sandwich once a day.'

        1. I'm afraid so.
          I just wondered what they do when they've donned the explosive vest, checked to fuse, and then are about to leave the house… shake hands, say "Bye" and "See you in Hell?" or what? Is there a weeping and gnashing of teeth by those left behind? And what emotion goes through the bomber's mind just as they start to press the button?

          2. There is exultation on the part of both the bomber and his friends and relatives. You would think that way if you thought your act would send you directly to heaven and eternal pleasure.

    4. The comment below that : "I’ve just read the Guardian lead article on this & the entire focus is on how Muslims feel increasingly threatened & alienated by rising Islamophobia."
      If the murderous savages didn't behave the way they do, they wouldn't be facing so much understandable and even justified hatred and suspicion in the first place. If they were to look at how and why other groups who have arrived here over many decades are accepted.
      But of course, these sub-humans have no intention of ever integrating, as their end game is total domination and replacement through both breeding and the never-ending flood of them turning up uninvited and unwanted.

  22. Good morning all.
    A bright start has dulled down with a grey overcast and a cooler tad under 15°C. Damp after overnight rain.

  24. Good morning, BoB. We had some overnight rain here in Colchester as well. But the next couple of days promise to be dry.

    1. Looks dramatic. Very fine vertical scale.
      Wonder why they chose 1991-2001 as baseline? Surely there would be more drama if they chose 1981-1991, then we'd definitely ba a lot warmer.

      1. Amazing how when the modelling was changed it suddenly started to show precisely what the alarmists wanted it to.

        Since the 70's they've been squealing about the end of the world. First it was global freezing, then melting – the lies weren't working and everyone ignored them so the marketing was changed. That's all it is. Marketing to enforce a tax scam.

  26. UK Legislation
    7h
    Kinnock calling corbyns party the Farage Assistance Group
    surprised the luvvies have not piled on?

    Craig Miller-George
    UK Legislation
    6h
    I prefer National Anti-Zionist Independence Group.

    1. Funny how Kinnock doesn’t “be the change he wants to see”. He could male a voluntary donation to HMRC. But no. He just “calls” for other people to be forced to pay it.

      Another “do as I say, not as I do” Leftard utter cockwomble twonk.

  27. UK Legislation
    7h
    Kinnock calling corbyns party the Farage Assistance Group
    surprised the luvvies have not piled on?

    Craig Miller-George
    UK Legislation
    6h
    I prefer National Anti-Zionist Independence Group.

  29. JWK cocks it up – again:

    The King said that the 20th anniversary was a chance “to reaffirm our commitment to building a society where people of all faiths and backgrounds can live together with mutual respect and understanding, always standing firm against those who would seek to divide us.”

    Yeah, right. And WHO is seeking to divide us?

        3. Everyone on here talks in riddles, Bill. (What is black and white, and re(a)d all over? Answer: a newspaper.) Good morning, btw.

        4. Everyone on here talks in riddles, Bill. (What is black and white, and re(a)d all over? Answer: a newspaper.) Good morning, btw.

    3. 'Morning Bill
      You know what much as I hate the jihadis and their vile death cult they are just doing what they have for 1400 years spreading their filth by murder rape fire and the sword
      They are like rabid dogs they can't help biting and should be treated the same way
      My real hate is reserved for the gutless appeasers the vote farmers and twats like the idiot king!!

      1. You would have thought that, with a 1 400 year track record, some folk might have clued-up as to what they are about.
        Clearly not.

    4. Yet muslim has proved again and again that it is unwilling to live with other societies.

      Heck, there shouldn't be other societies. There's one. Ours, which is – because the effluent of the world want to come here to sponge off it – is clearly superior to any other.

      2. Not necessarily. The Line of Succession is pretty sound when it comes to Nos. 1 to 4.

        It depends on the well being of a single nuclear family. Without them though, they are in trouble. No.6 Archie Harrison has no memory of being British, speaks in a thick California accent and has been brought up with Los Angeles values.

        1. Until Prince George flies the nest, there remains this problem, which only a flurry of Letters Patent over the Succession could remedy.

          Harry could be removed from the Line of Succession, but this may also knock out Archie and Lilibet. If it does so, the next problem is what to do about Andrew. Removing him on the same grounds as Harry would also knock out Beatrice and Eugenie and their descendants.

          So we come to Edward, who is the next one to be reasonable regal, and James and Louise are ok too.

          The alternative is to do what very many people are clamouring for and backdate the repeal of male primogeniture back to all surviving female royals. Anne would be a fine Queen, but we know very little about Peter Philips (intentionally) and whilst Zara and Mike would be very popular, I am not sure they want the job. We got away with "Prince Philip" because he did have royal blood in his own right, whereas a potato-headed rugby player may be much liked by everyone, but he is hardly a prince!

          Edit – they say Americans cannot do irony, but I once heard around the time of Prince Harry's wedding that Archie Harrison may be more directly descended from the Plantagenet King Edward III through Thomas Markle than he is through the Windsors!

          1. I used to think that Letters Patent were to do with registering inventions…

        2. William may make it but he has Spencer in him so he would be the last

    7. What a daft thing to say.
      At least one of his faith's has absolutely no respect at all for any other people who have to live on the same planet.

    8. I see it as a matter of definitions. What is the difference between a king, a prophet, a messiah and a warlord?

      Might Mohammed claim to be one of a long line of prophets, such as Moses and Elijah? Or a long line of warlords, such as Joshua or Judith? Or the Messiah that the Jews claimed was not Jesus of Nazareth? Or the Antichrist written about by the Gospel Writer John?

      And how have definitions changed over the centuries, or are they much as they have ever been?

      King Charles III finds himself, thanks to his Tudor ancestor, as the Head of the Church of England, previously the realm of the Pope. This role sat uneasily with a number of his predecessors, who have had to choose abdication or death over the headship of the Church of England. Charles I lost his head; James II abdicated rather than renounce his Catholicism. Edward VIII was forced to abdicate because of his refusal to condemn divorce (ironically the very issue upon which the Church was founded), but actually he was passing State secrets to the Nazis and had to go. Elizabeth II was assiduously faithful to her religious vocation, and bore it stoically when others around her fell short of her high standards.

      Times have changed since Elizabeth II was crowned, and Charles III finds himself king of a very different nation. Key to this was the huge influx of immigrants from Pakistan and India during his mother's reign, to the extent that Christianity is very much in the minority in a large number of British cities. The King's primary responsibility, even more than being the Head of a Church, is to unite his kingdom. His own head is under threat if there were a civil war, and his privilege depends on there being peace among all his subjects, not just his favourites. He must bring into the fold therefore those Pakistanis and Indians who have established themselves in the UK, or have to deal with a civil war in his kingdom. This is why he talks of being "Defender of Faiths". He is having to confront reality.

    9. I wonder if having a large number of foreigners as his relatives, it effects the way he thinks of the UK?

      1. Mother descended from Hanoverians, father from German/Danish royal roots.

        1. That’s my point. And they all visit each other in their various countries. It would, I would think, make you an internationalist by familiarity and thus by temperament.

  30. That sounds serious! I hope she gets the reset required.
    I just read the Google article on it, and even though I don't know her, it leaves me feeling tense and anxious! So, all my best wishes sent in her direction, Delboy. Try to leave the anxiety with me… 😉

  31. My fav.
    Pykeys Bernard and Ann McDonagh used a vehicle provided by Motability to escape after committing 'dine and dash' offences. LOL

    (Tax funded Motability Operations, the company behind the Motability charity, is sitting on a surplus of £4billion and is ready to spaff the cash on brand new cars for anyone with a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) or the Disability Living Allowance (DLA). Basically anyone that says they have anxiety).

    1. I'm actually angry at this. I don't see why someone should have something for nothing.

      They're disabled, can't walk. OK. have a vehicle adapted. Can't afford it, they say. Well, why should I pay for it? This has, as with all welfare, been severely abused because the state is so awash with money it simply can't be bothered to track where it's going.

      If someone has a very geniune physical disabililty I might consider it, but those are incredibly rare. Mental 'elf' is not cause for a free car. If you're that sick you shouldn't be driving in the first place.

      But then, this is why Labour refused to cut welfare: they've constituencies where there are more people on bennies than voted for them.

        1. They already have. They steal more. Borrow more. Print more. If it leads to the £1m loaf of bread and provokes a backlash, they’ll be ever so surprised.

      2. One of my neighbours is inordinately fat, beached whale fat. He has been given by Welfare, a brand new electric SUV with all sorts of modifications to lift him and his wheelchair into the vehicle. They also installed his very own recharging station outside his house. What is galling about this is not only could he diet but he shops at Waitrose for gods sake. Retiring after selling two businesses. In other words he could afford the damn car himself. But, as you all know, that is not how things are done in England

        1. My neighbour, a man of Bangladeshi origin, had a lot of noisy work going on. I asked what the source of the noise was. It was under-floor heating, paid for naturally, by the tax-payer.

      3. Motability should never have changed from being Reliant Robins – soon see how many people are genuinely disabled when they get a Robin!

  34. Labour Councillor Claire Douglas ‘bans’ military equipment from its annual Armed Forces Day celebrations.
    ..due to “residents’ concerns” amid planned protests by the pacifist Peace Pledge Union (PPU) and ForcesWatch, which says it is committed to “demilitarising the future”..

    1. Wasn't that kind of sentiment rife in the run-up to the war in 1939?

    1. This is how whole and long established societies crash through the safety barrier. One stupid single minded decision.

      1. I don't think sending to the frontline would be a stupid decision. I think it's necessary to remind her that she lives and breathes only on the sacrifice of better MEN than her.

        She lives a life of sheltered luxury where the next pay packet is obscene and utterly unearned. She is a parasite, a waste of money, the archetype of everything wrong with the state. A ungrateful, wretched, useless, pampered, obnoxious harridian.

    2. To me, the real disappointment was that the military did not raise two khaki fingers and bring all their kit with them.

      2. Even more of a shame she's not facing some bearded rag head blithering in dindu.

        She'd want an armed military then.

  36. Expose of Hope-Not-Hate.

    Hope Not Hate (real name: Searchlight Information Services).

    abuse of NGO status and criminal activity..

    abusing the law under a false belief evil is justified in the pursuit of good, and criminality is justified in the service of justice..

    an increasing stack of appalling legislation, notably Boris Johnson's Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021, which allows intelligence officers and their informants to murder, torture, bug, propagandise, and engage in injustice, if it's all in the interests of justice and the greater good.

    Attorney General, Richard Hermer (KC), the man assigned to investigating abuse of NGO status and criminal activity: a former volunteer and patron of Searchlight described as an "active and dedicated antifascist."

    https://restorationist.org.uk/how-long-can-the-cps-ignore-hope-not-hates-criminality/

    1. Explains the recent abrupt U-turns by Nigel Farage..
      some reckon he's been successfully neutered/threatened by Searchlight Information Services.

      1. Hope Not Hate gatekeep all Reform candidates.
        NB. You do not pass vetting if your disqus posts suggest supporting anything right of Pol Pot.

    3. Why does someone state they are an 'antifascist'? Clearly he is.

      What's sad is that when in office the Left create this horrific rules and rather than using them for actual good, they protect their chums and attack those they hate.

      Hate no hope are an appalling, bitter, bigoted organisation.

    1. Trying to understand the Left wing mind is like standing on a mobius strip that's constantly revolving and turning upside down, twisting and turning to avoid the reality it has to deny.

    2. "The good news is…that all this is going to end soon."

      If only…

      1. 408960+ up ticks,

        Afternoon WS,

        We are at the point of having only two options
        left, justified mass aggression, or unjustified mass submission.

    2. If church bells can be stopped for noise "pollution", why not the slammers noise?

      1. It's against their 'human' rights.
        Did you see Pat Condel Bill.
        Just below.

  41. Morning all 🙂😊
    I didn't hear it but it seems that we have had quite a lot of rain overnight.👍
    And i'm so glad the people just a few yards along the road had their concrete delivered for the footings of their new extension at 7:30 this morning…..
    Boris Johnson isn't worth a mention.
    And from what I have seen in the news around our country, the 'government' are now flat out in the process of wrecking our green belt land.
    They stink.

  43. I seem to remember a reggae hit with his name in it. "Uptown Joke Woke King"?

    1. And leeching off the eu, and every other state funded gravy train he could get his snout in!! Let's not mention the rest of his (there's no f in kin) kin.

  45. Brilliant PC.
    He is absolutely spot on, every single word he says cannot be argued with.
    Unless of course you are some sort of no good repulsive leftie.

    1. The sentiments perhaps, but they're still here aren't they, and still pouring in too.

    2. Unfortunately he was wrong about how Europe had cottoned on and 'deal with them'. Sadly, if anything, it has become far worse.

      1. Apparently that was ten years ago.
        I wouldn’t say that he was wrong, but as usual our stupid and useless political idiots have effed up again and because they never listen to ongoing experiences or public opinion. Which from the obvious outcome is predominantly correct.

    1. 408960+ up ticks,

      Morning S,

      For nigh on 40 years the common sense brigade have been waging war against the
      lab/lib/con coalition party via the polling stations.

      It is on par with trying to run through treacle,
      mastering Japanese knot weed, beheading the Hydra, etc,etc.

  47. OT – Well, a very interesting experiment. While in Brittany, we bought some T65 flour – what yer French use to make baguettes. I prepared my standard recipe this morning – 400 grams of flour – no seeds or wholemeal addition. It rose in a very short time – 40 minutes. I knocked it back, and it rose again (from the dead) in 20 minutes. Then the usual baking time of 25 minutes twice (turning the tin through 180º to keep heat even – an AGA varies…) And a jolly looking loaf is waiting to be eaten at lunchtime. Took just over half the time my standard wholemeal loaf needs.

      1. It will be interesting to see whether that is the case! My normal wholemeal loaf lasts a week!

        2. We've run out of bread today, I'm going bake two Bloomers and two wholemeal later.

          2. I was once offered money by my elder sister to bake bread for her and Bil. I didn’t do it ‘cos I didn’t need the dough.

  48. Good Morning all! Cold and rainy day here in West Sussex. Certainly not complaining after the heat. That you can keep.

    Is it me or is todays Telegraph almost identical to yesterdays? I seem to have read all the articles before.

    This was in my YouTube feed this morning. I thought that others would like (using the word very loosely) to read it, to keep informed about what the government of evil, in Westminster, is up to with new laws.

    10 UK Laws Just Passed

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

    1. Why on earth do makers of these videos think that adding sound effects, whooshes and clicks etc, will enhance the content? Sometimes, stuff I would like to watch becomes unbearable and I just switch off.

  49. Reeves pours millions into Peak District carbon capture scheme
    Chancellor’s National Wealth Fund backs plan to store cement and lime factory emissions underground
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/07/reeves-pours-millions-peak-district-carbon-capture/

    BTL

    Without carbon the world will die.

    Now the monkey comes out of the sleeve. The Labour party is showing its hand. The cat is out of the bag.

    Starmer and his cohorts are working on their total extinction project.

    1. Morning Rastus 😊

      What the idiots don't realize is that we are dangerously close to not having enough carbon in the atmosphere for sustaining life. I have read some suggestions that we might have to start crushing and burning such things as coral in order to boost the gas. That will charm the genocidal Greens if we get to that point. Didn't someone post, yesterday, on here an article about Jeremy Corbin's brother, the professor, saying that the whole CO2 furore is nonsense?

      1. How have the zealots managed to convince the Lumpen Proletariat that carbon produces global warming? And why on earth does the Lumpen Proletariat believe in the absurd myths that man-made global warming exists at all, that multiculturalism is a good thing, that Islam is a religion of peace and that some woman have penises.

        As G.K. Chesterton observed : when people stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing – they believe in anything.

      2. People of our age know from their ordinary school days the importance of C02 in the cycle of life. Another reason why 'they' are eager to dispose of the elderly – we know too much.

    2. Listening to the latest Delingpod:

      “Brian Stein is living proof that your cellphone, 5G, even the electrics in your car are bad for you. A former high level company director, he suffers from electrosensitivity: the increasingly common condition in which exposure to even low levels of almost-ubiquitous EMF makes you very ill. Stein spills the beans on the stuff They don’t want you to know.”

      there is a mass of evident apparently that wifi and microwaves are causing cancer. Worrrying yet here i am still using wifi

      1. Lots of testing has been done. Conclusion? Not harmful even with artificially high radiation levels. A single X ray does more harm than years of low power radiation.

        1. It depends what kind of harm you are looking for. I worked for years in the mobile industry and was always keeping an eye out for this research, as I didn't want to be working on stuff that harmed people.
          A lot of the research that purports to show harm is bunkum, however a mobile phone is a regular transmitter of energy at the carrier wave frequency and I wouldn't sleep with it under my pillow or keep it in my pocket as many people do.
          I read one interesting study on electrosensitivity. They got a bunch of people who claimed to suffer from it,. and blind tests showed that the overwhelming majority couldn't tell when the source of energy was switched on. But a small number were genuinely electrosensitive and these people were so sensitive that they could detect even a very weak signal at particular frequencies.

      2. Lots of testing has been done. Conclusion? Not harmful even with artificially high radiation levels. A single X ray does more harm than years of low power radiation.

  50. 408960+up ticks,

    When shortly the BIG TIME radical change is triggered these evil bastards regardless of human / animal species must be treated as murderers and sentenced
    accordingly'

    They have ,the perps, taken out of society a potential future life saver.

    Italy’s hero dog killed with nail-filled sausages
    Bloodhound Bruno was previously honoured by PM Giorgia Meloni for finding missing Alzheimer’s patients

    Dt,

    Bruno the bloodhound
    Bruno died at an animal training centre near the city of Taranto in Italy
    Andrea Vogt
    in Bologna
    06 July 2025 5:38pm BST
    Giorgia Meloni has condemned the “vile” killing of a sniffer dog that died after sausages filled with nails were thrown into its kennel overnight…

    1. Let them kill each other – hell, I'll send a few of my knives as a starter.

        1. Don’t quite get the connection, Rastus – but these were my dad’s favourite ‘spogs’ as he used to call them:-)

    1. As many of the comments in that thread point out, back when we boomers were kids playing outside, the streets were safe.

      1. I walked to school and back along the busy (even then) A38. I do remember one time with my friend when we crossed the road without looking and narrowly escaped an accident. I was more careful after that. My mum worked full time so I didn't have to go straight home – I could please myself where I went. In the winter I had a good friend next door, Mrs Bayliss.

        1. We had two rooms ground floor, both with fireplaces, rooms linked by a hallway. I would come home (no-one in) from school, light a fire in the kitchen with paper/wood/coal, putting a shovel over the front with a piece of newspaper to draw the fire up the chimney. As if that wasn't bad enough, when the fire was really 'on fire' I would use the same shovel to carry burning coals down the hallway and light the fire in the other room. My age around 7 years. And after tea I would go and 'play out' until around 9pm. No-one thought anything odd about any of this – but no way would I have let my offspring do similar, and they don't either with theirs.

          1. I remember transferring* burning coal from one room to another with a shovel to light a fire in the second room. I also recall the lamplighter walking down our road ('avenue') with his ladder over his shoulder to light the gas street lamp opposite, and then disappearing into the winter gloaming to the next street lamp.

            *I remember burning my hand and fingers on the red hot shovel because I forgot (! familiarity breeds contempt) said implement had moments ago carried burning coals – it turned the flesh black and deadly white. I got no sympathy from my mother who was in the middle of a temper tantrum (these used to last some time).

          2. Good to know I wasn’t alone 🙂 Never saw the lamplighter, possibly a more country area? – there were no gas lights, although we had a gas poker in the house to light the one coal fire. No bathroom , WC end of the street, in a long row – ours the one at the end, no street lights there either. Your burn sounds horrific – that’s what children sometimes do though – minds elsewhere, hope your hand and fingers made a full recovery. Temper tantrums were more my father’s style when he’d had a few or more – broke into the house next door and got in bed with the neighbour – she was old enough to be my grandmother but still managed to throw him out…:-D He and your mum sound a pair..

    2. In Japan, it's common for school kids to walk to and from school independently, often covering distances of 2-4 kilometers.
      Children are also encouraged to develop a taste for healthy foods like broccoli and rice, with some even stating these as their favourite foods.

      Then, one day.. Hermer funded Hope-Not-Hate set up offices across Japan.

    2. So I've read, Ndovu…the ones they have are usually on short-term contracts to help out tourist season, quite often from SK. And they definitely leave when the season's over.

  56. Unusual word:
    Wordle 1,479 5/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  57. Sigh.. swoon.. if only.

    New York Times reporting that the US leader is thinking of adding 36 more countries to the travel ban, the majority of which are in Africa.

  58. Deep breaths please

    A government-appointed planning inspector has caused outrage by approving the construction of a housing estate in the grounds of “one of the most remarkable original rectories” in England.

    The decision to allow 49 new homes on land that, for 600 years was part of a parsonage in East Sussex, has raised fears that Britain’s historic buildings are being put at risk by Angela Rayner’s new planning guidance.

    Protections for built heritage are set out in the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, which requires planners to have “special regard to the desirability of preserving the building or its setting”.

    However, a little-noticed change in December to the National Planning Policy Framework, the guidance issued to councils and planning inspectors, recommends that in areas where there is no local housing plan, heritage concerns must now be considered “strong” before they can be taken into account.

    Campaigners have said that this gives too much power to decision-makers and opens up sites for development that could never have been considered before.

    The Grade II* listed parsonage in Buxted was built in 1694 on the site of a much earlier rectory thought to have been visited by King Edward I. In the immediate aftermath of the Bill of Rights and the removal of Catholics from the line of succession, it was rebuilt as a high-status house by Dr Anthony Saunders — who was simultaneously responsible for the rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral.

    The design closely resembles the nearby Groombridge Place, which is also thought to have been influenced by Sir Christopher Wren.

    In April last year, Wealden council’s planning committee unanimously rejected an application by Brookworth Homes to develop the site alongside the parsonage after advice from its conservation team and Historic England.

    Portrait of Henry VIII.
    The parsonage is believed to be the place where the first cannon for Henry VIII’s army was cast
    The planning inspector, on appeal, agreed the parsonage was “a particularly important building of more than special interest” with a “strong historic relationship” with the development site, and described it as “one of the most remarkable original rectories in the country”. Yet he ruled that this was not a strong enough reason to invoke the protections of the planning framework.

    “I have nothing against the builders,” said Richard Murray, a local historian, “but I do worry about accountability. This is the site on which William Levett invented the blast furnace and cast the first cannon for Henry VIII’s navy. Wealden’s planning committee has been forced to wave through many of these developments, wrecking villages and straining local services, but with this site they saw the heritage significance and drew a strong line.

    “How is a single inspector appointed by Angela Rayner with no local knowledge empowered to overturn their democratic local decision and go against the listed buildings act? The law says any harm to a historic asset is automatically a strong reason to refuse permission but for him it was not strong enough. The government has moved the goal posts.”

    The decision has also concerned the Rectory Society. Lord Moore of Etchingham, the chairman of the society, said: “We set up the society because rectories are of great interest in many ways: cultural, horticultural, literary, ecclesiastical, architectural and social but they aren’t widely appreciated because very few are open to the public.

    “Yet they are, in fact, great treasure houses of architecture and historical interest. It seems the importance and rarity of these special buildings is not necessarily on the minds of planning inspectors.”

    Barley field with trees and houses in the background.
    The field on which 49 houses are to be built
    RICHARD MURRAY
    Graham Shaw, a local councillor, added: “This is the planning system we face, which means that local decisions can be overturned in favour of the developer. Unfortunately, many of us feel that the government’s recent changes to the planning system will only make these instances more likely.”

    The Times understands that a group of local residents has now written to the council, urging it to seek a judicial review to challenge the planning inspector’s decision.

    Advertisement

    Wealden council said: “This decision does not signal a departure from policy, nor does it undermine local democracy. It reflects a different professional judgment made through the recognised appeals process, within a consistent and transparent national planning framework.”

    Brookworth Homes did not respond to the request to comment.

    The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “We have not changed any planning rules on protecting listed buildings or heritage assets and planning policy continues to make it clear that heritage assets are an irreplaceable resource which should be conserved.” https://www.thetimes.com/uk/history/article/housing-estate-approved-heritage-sites-risk-7s8gz9fhc

    Comments(316)
    Comments are subject to our community standards and participation guidelines policy, which can be viewed here. By joining the conversation you are accepting our community rules and terms. Update your commenting notification settings here. Our policy is for readers to use their real names when commenting, find out more here.
    Maggie Snook

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    D Willard
    12 hours ago

    How large are the grounds? What is the distance between the rectory and the nearest proposed house? A plan of the proposed development would have been very useful if readers are to have a meaningful understanding of the issue.

    Reply

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    Share
    John Caldi
    11 hours ago

    The real issue is the destructive precedent this sly Labour alteration sets and the general favouritism for all greedy developers wanting to build what they like in the countryside, however inappropriate or harmful. And the disregard it carries for local voices and local politics.

    Reply

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    PHILLIP HODSON
    10 hours ago

    Labour just doesn’t ‘get’ rural Britain; holds no allegiance to Britain’s historical traditions and thinks the notion of aesthetics contemptible. Crass vulgarians with minds of mammon. This is the most oikish government the country’s ever had.

    Reply

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    Helen Adams
    4 hours ago

    Much better to build on infill and upwards in hollowed out towns than outwards in the countryside. But that might not be so easy or profitable for builders who love a clear, flat plot.

    Reply

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    Robyn Williams
    11 hours ago

    Maybe the real problem facing England is over population.

    Reply

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    Robin Davidson
    6 hours ago

    and the over population is caused by folk living longer so the bulge of the population 'excess' is those pesky pensioners living too long. How do you suggest we curb people living 'longer than they used to", it's younger people and more children the country needs not more oldies clogging up the NHS….

    See more

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    Peter Healey
    12 hours ago

    How does building houses on the land damage the parsonage house itself? How near could a New-build be before people get up in arms – 500 yards, a mile, two miles?

    Reply

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    D Willard
    12 hours ago

    Agreed. Why has The Times not included a copy of the proposed plan, which must be in the public domain?

    Reply

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    J B Good
    10 hours ago

    Appeal ref is APP/C1435/W/24/3353821

    You can go and read the planning inspectors report and decision if you google planning appeals.

    The development does not appear to be in the grounds of this particular listed building at all.

    Reply

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    David Charnley
    10 hours ago

    Facts. Who's interested in them?

    Reply

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    John Caldi
    11 hours ago

    This sort of thing is happening all over the country. Planning appeals just being waved through, countryside being concreted over etc.

    There is no local or political accountability for this favouritism to build, let alone debate about how many people the country can or should sustainably house.

    Reply

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    Nick Millyard
    9 hours ago

    Sustainability has ceased to matter to this government, only money talks. Let in as many people as you like, from anywhere we’ll all integrate perfectly in a fortnight! We will survive. Farage and Reform will be in office soon. They have policies that can fix everything no matter how bad Trump and …

    See more

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    John Draker
    12 hours ago

    What type of houses will be built here? Who is the target clients? How many of the houses will go to people who will not pay council tax? What services will be part of the development?

    All questions that need answers before making a decision on whether or not this is acceptable.

    Reply

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    Adam Freeman
    12 hours ago

    You are not in charge.

    Reply

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    Mr N Bell
    12 hours ago

    Seems like there will be soon be a concrete line straight up north of Eastbourne, past Hailsham, and eventually up to Crowborough, with less and less green space.

    Reply

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    Robert Fairbairn
    12 hours ago

    A bit like the emerging "Gatwick City" taking in the triangle from Crawley to Horsham to East Grinstead. Bit by bit, it's all going under brick and tarmac.

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    Adam Freeman
    12 hours ago

    Just build houses and in the volumes we need. The last the decades have been a disaster for the next generation(s).

    Reply

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    T Moody
    12 hours ago

    Yes, pave paradise and put up a parking lot

    2. "...and the over population is caused by folk living longer" I hope he was being sarcastic as the over population is because we have far too many immigrants, a good percentage making no contribution and many of whom are here illegally!

      1. 'folk living longer', not if the witch Leadbetter gets her way. How is Ratzen these days? #KeirmerRouge

      2. That has been trotted out as the reason for the “housing crisis “ for decades. No mention of the importing of the equivalent of a city the size of Derby.

    3. Hi Belle
      That's a very long thread, filled with useless space such as the below, pasted in italics. Can you delete those useless lines, so it becomes more compact and more readable?

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  61. I reckon we could be entering wrecking-ball time. Was that the last low of the DXY/US$?

    First of the red lights flashing. ECB sends out warning to commercial banks.
    Dollar swap lines or privileged access to dollar liquidity is over for EU..

    The Trump administration—together with the Federal Reserve—has frozen existing dollar swap lines with the Eurozone. These swaps are liquidity arrangements between central banks in U.S. dollars.

    European Central Bank publicly warned European commercial banks of a looming dollar shortage—a scenario with serious consequences. Roughly 17 to 20 percent of all loans in the euro area are denominated in U.S. dollars.
    Much of the EU’s foreign trade depends on access to the reserve currency. If this tap runs dry, supply chains could rupture, and transatlantic trade may partially grind to a halt.

    1. I read, a few months ago, about the Saudis mooting whether to stay with the US petrodollar or move to the BRICS gold-backed system of finance. The other option of the Euro/ECB was rejected as it has no financial support/base.

      1. Ha. I'm sorry but I always larf when anyone mentions BRICS currency & gold..
        For the hard of hearing.. we have floating exchanges since March 1971. All the rules changed overnight. When you exchange your debt instrument for another debt instrument.. beware you can only do two things.. spend it in that country, or dig a hole and bury it.
        Now let's see how your shiny new BRICs currency deals with your property rights. Even the Chinese don't want Renminbi. Buy a mall in India.. let me know how you get on.

        1. Whilst you’re chuckling, the BRICS set up is looking at member countries only being able to ‘produce’ currency if it is backed with reality such as holdings of gold. In an attempt to move away from the ruinous efforts of Nixon when he left the gold standard and consigned the value of the dollar to the bin. The western world is long overdue a financial reset that will make 2008 look like an extended bar tab.

      2. Ha. I'm sorry but I always larf when anyone mentions BRICS currency & gold..
        For the hard of hearing.. we have floating exchanges since March 1971. All the rules changed overnight. When you exchange your debt instrument for another debt instrument.. beware you can only do two things.. spend it in that country, or dig a hole and bury it.
        Now let's see how your shiny new BRICs currency deals with your property rights. Even the Chinese don't want Renminbi. Buy a mall in India.. let me know how you get on.

  62. Just called the Department for Work and Pensions and the first message was in Urdu.

    Followed by if you would like this message in English please press 1.

  63. I've just had a message from my oldest long time friend. He is 80 at the end of the month. He's had a letter from DWP telling him that he's going to be 25pence a week richer. He's absolutely over the moon…….

    1. If he puts the increase aside for three years, he could almost buy a postage stamp…..

      Looxury

    3. "Pensioners aged 80 and over receive an addition of 25 pence to their state pension. The age addition was introduced in 1971, in recognition of “the special claims of very elderly people who on the whole need help rather more than others”.

      In 1971 5/- would have bought you two of three pints.

      1. I mentioned that last year that I drew out some extra dosh to cover the cost of our possible increase in winter expenses.
        They stole 256 quid from me.
        I complained very strongly and eventually this year I was refunded.

  64. I see the BBC has a good deal of coverage for the 7/7 bombings anniversary. Naturally TTK was there and spoke [droned] " "Today the whole country will unite to remember the lives lost in the 7/7 attacks, and all those whose lives were changed forever," he says. "We honour the courage shown that day- the bravery of the emergency services, the strength of survivors, and the unity of Londoners in the face of terror. Those who tried to divide us failed. We stood together then, and we stand together now- against hate and for the values that define us of freedom, democracy and the rule of law." [from BBC news] Rank hypocrisy!

    1. He then went on to light a candle, place a bouquet of flowers (still in the plastic wrapper with the price ticket affixed) together with a teddy bear, then sang 'Kumbaya'.

    3. I remember it was a muzzie atrocity. One of many contributions they have made to our country.

  65. He then went on to light a candle, place a bouquet of flowers (still in the plastic wrapper with the price ticket affixed) together with a teddy bear, then sang 'Kumbaya'.

  66. Last night I joined Rupert Lowe's 'Restore Britain', it is not a political party. Here is part of the blurb of the introduction on the web site. I would encourage everyone who can to join. Only £20.00 annual fee.

    "We are launching Restore Britain – a movement for those who believe that we need to fundamentally change the way Britain is governed.

    We will build a policy platform, together. A movement will be created, together. A path will be forged, together. This is not a political party, but a fundamentally different way of doing things.

    Members from political parties are very welcome to join us on this journey, if they share our values and want to be part of a bottom-up movement that has the potential to transform Britain."

    https://www.restorebritain.org.uk/

    1. 408960+ up ticks,

      Afternoon JR,

      I joined a week or so ago and would like to see these groups / parties unite under the Farmer s Food and Freedom Party.

  67. It's Brighton.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/brighton-council-leader-reports-rod-to-the-police/#comments-container

    Brighton council leader reports Rod Liddle to the police

    7 July 2025, 9:06am

    It seems that some people really can’t take a joke… In the magazine this week, Rod Liddle wistfully contemplated the idea of nuking Glastonbury, pointing out that a small-yield nuclear weapon dropped on the festival ‘would immediately remove from our country almost everybody who is hugely annoying.’ Rod added, for good measure:

    I am not saying that we should do this, of course – it would be a horrible, psychopathic thing to do. I am merely hypothesising, in a slightly wistful kinda way. One on Glasto, one on Brighton, and the UK would soon begin its recovery, with only a few chunks of gently glowing cobalt 60 left to remind us of what we are missing.

    Mr S is willing to bet that most people reading this did not actually think that Rod or The Spectator were endorsing the use of weapons of mass destruction. Even so, it appears some of our local politicians are taking Rod’s bomb ‘threat’ quite seriously.

    This weekend, the Labour leader of Brighton and Hove county council, Bella Sankey (who clearly has far too much time on her hands) tweeted that she was reporting both Rod and The Spectator’s editor, Michael Gove, to Sussex Police for ‘incitement to terrorism’:

    Mr S can understand why Sankey is taking the risk of a nuclear attack so seriously. After all, here at The Spectator we have in fact been enriching vast amounts of uranium in the basement of 22 Old Queen Street, as well as putting on the occasional wine lunch. But given our current lack of a working missile programme, the good city of Brighton is safe – for now.

    Still, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that the leader of such a large council seems to struggle so much with the concept of satire, never mind basic reading comprehension.

    Unfortunately, it seems there isn’t yet a non-proliferation treaty for nuclear-grade stupidity…

    1. Surely just a few well placed conventional bombs would be sufficient, the most annoying a list cpslbs would be clustered in a fairly small self preening area.

    2. I saw Michael Gove in church yesterday evening. He didn't look troubled – though the two women sitting between him and me were very annoying and chatted through both the eucharistic prayer and the choir's lovely rendition of Panis Angelicus.

        1. I am reminded of an occasion where I was sitting through one of Wagner’s Ring cycle which was performed without a break for three hours.

          In the row in front there were two old biddies trying to assuage the rumbling pangs of hunger unwrapping chocolates, the type of wrapping that inevitably makes a noise. Someone behind me shouted “Shuuuusssshhh” so loudly that the whole audience must have heard.

          For my part I had to hold my bladder for the duration having sunk a few pints of Young’s Special before the performance. I rushed out at the end and found relief in the gents in the pub opposite the Opera House in Covent Garden.

          I vowed never again to attend a Wagner opera performance. Apart from the initial thematic music the rest is mere repetition with absurd staging rendering the whole thing as boredom.

          The only other occasion was I left stuck listening to “nothing much” for hours on end was an performance in the Royal Albert Hall given by Ravi Shankar who was introduced to the audience by George Harrison. I can today liken the whining and twanging to a two hour speech by Sir Keir Starmer.

    1. I always buy the best butter i can even though it is costly. Normally Welsh as it tastes so good.
      I can no longer stomach full fat milk. Makes me queasy. Full fat yogurt is still lighter than cream so i normally use that. Except when i'm making a humongous trifle for a party, then it's double cream all the way.

  69. Sometimes you wonder how low the BBC can sink. This is a 2,500-word piece on the London bombings – how they might have been avoided, what followed in the UK and across Europe. So far, so good. However, Islam is only mentioned by referring to 'the rise of the self-styled Islamic State'. The word 'Muslim' doesn't appear anywhere. Why? Because it then goes on to talk about terrorism in the broadest sense, as though the 2005 bombings were just part of life. True, the 2017 pavement raiders get a mention – but then:

    The rapidity of these attacks – and the regularity of them, disrupted or acted out, had an extraordinary consequence that further complicated the picture. Far-right extremists watched and learned and, seeking a form of "revenge", became determined to respond in kind.

    In 2015, a 25-year-old member of National Action, a now banned extreme right-wing group, carried out a racist attack on a Sikh-heritage dentist in a supermarket. The attacker acted alone. The man who murdered Jo Cox MP a year later, during the Brexit referendum, planned and acted in a similar manner.

    This DIY rapid violence did not rely on personal connections to puppet-masters. It was increasingly linked to how extremists found and absorbed extremist material all over the internet.

    Is the UK really any safer 20 years on from 7/7?
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c14e77je72mo

    1. Yes, I read that disgusting piece of bolleau – mind you, what else would you expect from the BBC? Note the inclusion of Jo Cox and the mention of Brexit in the same sentence.

      1. The BBC was desperate to conflate the two issues. It wanted so urgently to say that those voting for Brexit were evil Nazis and they, remoaners were heroic.

        Of course, the Nazis were Left wing – but Al Beeb can't acknowledge that fact. The awareness that they're on the same side as all human evil would likely do them in.

    3. It almost makes you want to pay the jizya tax and look on while our new Mohammedan rulers kill the communists who gave them power. Almost.

    4. how low the BBC can sink?
      Pah.. try these.

      Is it really that bad to marry my cousin? by Mona Chalabi

      'Paedophiles need help, not condemnation – I should know'

    5. Al Beeb is desperately biased. It is a hard Left institution. The really, truly sad thing is that amongst all it's evil it still thinks it is righteous. Such is the hubris and arrogance of the Left.

    6. As far as I can see there is no comment whatsoever about the huge number of military aged men crossing the channel illegally and about whom we know nothing whatsoever.

          2. That makes them even more moronic, because they will be the first on the cranes and the chopping blocks

    2. Genghis
      39m
      'Murdered' is the correct word he cannot bring himself to say

      Rough Diamond
      33m
      Starmer and Hermer lost 4 potential clients that day…

  71. The EU’s Frontex border agency in action over the weekend. LOL

    Crisis in Greece as 'over 753 migrants' rescued in just hours
    Local reports say 840 migrants were rescued within 24 hours near Crete
    400 migrants landed on Gavdos.

    At a conference in Athens on Tuesday last week, the EU’s commissioner for migration said Europe will take a “firm” approach.. Even bigger LOL

  72. D'you wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang, D'you wanna be in my gang, Oh yeah!

  73. The loaf was excellent – good texture, fabulous taste. If it dries out – will slice 'n freeze.

    1. I don't know if he is actually antisemitic, but Corbyn is certainly a complete pillock. His ideology is absolutely moronic. He is a student activist, a spoiled, desperately Left wing chump.

      1. ..and there is a long line of them who predate Starmer, while preaching the same idiocy. All basically naive and alll impervious to facts.

      1. Somebody remarked that it would be quite difficult to give an affirmative and truthful answer to any of the questions Blake poses.

        And did those feet in ancient time
        Walk upon Englands mountains green:
        And was the holy Lamb of God,
        On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

        And did the Countenance Divine,
        Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
        And was Jerusalem builded here,
        Among these dark Satanic Mills?

        Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
        Bring me my arrows of desire:
        Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
        Bring me my Chariot of fire!

        I will not cease from Mental Fight,
        Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
        Till we have built Jerusalem,
        In Englands green & pleasant Land.

        1. When Parry set these words, the first verse containing the rhetorical questions starts in the middle of the bar, whereas the aspirations in verse two are on the beat. The composer pointed to ‘O clouds unfold!” with particular satisfaction.

          It has particular relevance today, as Jerusalem is not the ideological model it might have been in the last century, when the UN created the nation of Israel out of the wreckage of the Holocaust. In fact, for all its tensions and modern disillusion about multiculturalism, if the world wants a model for the meeting of cultures in peace and harmony, as far as divinely possible, it should look not to Jerusalem, but to Birmingham.

    1. Letters to the Editor
      Boris Johnson fails to understand his role in the rise of Reform UK
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4cb8d30ae6e99de5e6a6d832f969365e919785ff221cfd11ca3cd5f5b85648ff.png The former PM addressing Conservative Party supporters at the National Army Museum in 2024 Credit: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP
      Letters to the Editor 07 July 2025 12:03am BST

      SIR – Boris Johnson argues that his former colleagues in the Conservative Party should ignore Nigel Farage and Reform UK (report, July 5).

      Mr Johnson appears to be unaware that the rise of Reform is almost entirely his fault. He squandered a massive parliamentary majority by ignoring the wishes of the Conservative electorate: opening our borders to mass low-skilled migration; allowing damaging wokery to subvert women’s rights; pursuing economically illiterate net zero policies; and failing to keep reasonable control of the behaviour of his Downing Street staff during Covid.

      In its growing support for Reform, the public is signalling that it has had enough of tone-deaf politicians who wilfully ignore the wishes of voters and break promises in their manifestos. The fact that Mr Johnson is unable to see this only confirms the diagnosis.

      Will Curtis
      Raydon, Suffolk

      1. And what did we get as a result of Boris ignoring Nigel?

        A bungled Brexit which betrayed the British fishermen (who have just been betrayed yet again for another twelve years) and a surrender to the EU of Northern Ireland – a part of the UK.

        Johnson was a disaster as prime minister – worse than Truss and not much better than Starmer.

    2. Pincushion
      3h
      Common Purpose, lefty blob. They have infested our institutions. There will be a lot of work to do after Reform's victory, and it wont' be easy or painless.

      Lord Farquard
      3h
      By the same logic Anil Kanti Basu (real name, not his 5th columnist moniker) must believe that 9/11 could be justified by America's support for 15r*#l.
      He does however clearly illustrate that diversity is a major security issue.

      Hoi Polloi
      3h
      The reason for 7/7 ji had attack is the same as attacks on Manchester arena, Bataclan, Nova, Niece, CharlieHebdo, Mumbai, Samuel Petty, Theo Van Gogh and countless more.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4ff74c346a7c3dee871e4ee278b7e67cadc94fdd150ee0c4aa9e5ed7039c18d6.png

      1. ''There will be a lot of work to do after Reform's victory, ….''

        But Farage has said that Muslims are here to stay because there are so many of them here that it would be impractical to even try to get rid of them.

        1. I think this might just apply to Farage:

          Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not *******, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
          And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not *******, I am nothing.

          You know the rest.

          Replace 'charity' with a word of your choice e.g. loyalty selflessness, common sense, and so on.

    1. The wealth tax in France for 2025, varies based on the net value of your taxable real estate assets worldwide. It follows a progressive tax rate ranging from 0% to 1.5%, depending on your total net taxable wealth.

      1. Am I right in believing that the top rate of income tax is fairly low in France?

    1. Why aren't the women wearing burkhas and the men growing those horrible beards? Oh yes they're after votes

    2. Why aren't the women wearing burkhas and the men growing those horrible beards? Oh yes they're after votes

  79. "Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide and had no client list, FBI concludes
    Joint investigation with Department of Justice debunks conspiracy theories and finds no evidence paedophile kept a list of prominent figures to blackmail"

    Gosh – that's a stroke of luck…..

    3. If there was co no client list then why has Ghislaine Maxwell been prosecuted for procuring under aged girls and put in jail for twenty years?

      1. Epstein was the only ab/user and they were all procured for him and Prince Andrew, of course.?
        If you believe that….

      2. She was the one they could easily nab, and with Epstein's death, she became the "fall guy" for everything.

    4. But, but, we already know the frequent flyers. Were all those men entertained on Epstein Island without any guest list. Must have been difficult for housekeeping and catering. Are there no victim testimonies?

          1. i think that the giraffe woman was played from horrible beginning to horrible end.

    6. But….but….but…the list was sitting on Pam Bondi's desk for weeks!

    7. A stroke of luck that a camera was operating but when 'The body' was removed from the jail was covered with a flimsy sheet. Which moved aside and revealed the face. It looked absolutely nothing like JE. Therefore my conclusion was that he'd used a probably drugged stooge and since he bribe his way out, he's been living in luxury on his "Private No Entry" island.

  80. OK you Hamas and Palestinian apologists, justify this.
    And even now there are still people in denial.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14881371/hamas-gang-rape-victims-october-7-attacks.html

    Victims of the Hamas-led massacre in Israel were said to have been found partially or fully naked with their hands tied, with evidence of gang rapes followed by execution, and genital mutilation, according to a new report.

    The Dinah Project's report, commissioned to 'counter denial, misinformation and global silence', will be published on Tuesday and illustrate how 'Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war' during its October 7, 2023 incursion, according to The Times, which reviewed the report.

    The project, part-funded by the British government, brings together all available evidence in finding 'clear patterns emerged' in how sexual violence was perpetrated. The report concludes violence was 'widespread and systematic' during the attacks.

    1. Same behavior seen in many other backward societies, e.g. a good percentage of Africa, for starters

      1. True, but one seldom sees people protesting in favour of those perpetrators as they do for Hamas and "the poor peoples of Gaza"

          1. 'A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.'

            [Paul Simon : The Boxer]

            This is especially true for The Left

  81. At the request of a GP I have to make an appointment to see her to discuss my medication. I tried to be good and do it on line but was told to phone the surgery. Phoned the surgery a few minutes ago and told that I couldn’t make an appointment as it’s after 1pm on Monday. Advised I couldn’t make an make one on line tomorrow between tye hours of 8am and 4pm.
    Will write to Practice Manager and remind him that they are there to serve us and not the other way around.

    1. In my call to the DWP i waited 40 minutes and then got a live one. She went all through through how i would be prosecuted for lies. Then went all through the specifics. Then we we began to discuss my details after my name and national insurance number the line went dead.

      I was only asking for a form.

      1. Can't see it, Richard, but I love this song. "No-one could make that ram scram; he kept punching that dam."

  83. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0c880074f8a06c558788b012e145729fa63003a7/0_0_4800_3586/master/4800.jpg?width=880&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=27e7c0730d196995f9f7f730f6ace142 https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/29f50d10eeb66a0a18aee6257d807fce6b2738e2/0_0_812_1158/master/812.jpg?width=880&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=3a428f63c80e3a8e1e4d23c61edf56b7
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/80b4107c530fe4c0941e473c06e752d83d7e1696/0_0_2653_1769/master/2653.jpg?width=880&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=ac65af7c6ae8adb593dbfb06330fb728
    Gallery available at
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2025/jul/04/week-in-wildlife-a-lucky-osprey-a-miraculous-hare-and-a-political-fox

      1. The second one is a Puffin' who has settled for fish when he wanted Gruntin'.

    2. This Labour lot are disgusting aren't they? Hate is a strong word for me. I hate this government for what they are doing to my country.

      1. 408960+ up ticks,

        W,
        Then it is time we stopped, “is it alright to” ?
        will we “be in trouble if we don’t do as asked”
        “will they let us”etc.etc.

        People power via a decent patriotic party NOT
        a so called populist party, that has got us to where we are today.

  86. Well, a load of sorting out of the assorted alcoholic drinks I've bought at various auctions done in one of the containers and I've just sharpened the chainsaw and checked it cuts straight.
    Now in for a mug of tea as the sun is full on at the moment and it's making it a bit warm out there.

    1. Can i assume the bottles you buy are unopened? I would be dubious of the contents otherwise.

  87. Just come back from Poole after a trip to the dentist , to check up on the pain I have in my jaw after my post molar extraction in May.

    Sun was shining , loads of people out and about including fully covered clothed Muslim women .

    Will the NHS have statistics for those foreigners who are deprived of sunshine , will there be an outbreak of rickets in young females , vit D is important , so what are the health risks for those who come from hot countries to our cloudy sometimes dark weather ?

    1. I always liked Poole I've been there a few times on golf tours.
      I remember a very nice restaurant on the harbour.

    2. Judging by the patients today – 4 muslim, 2 Ghanans – I don't care. The country is overrun with foreigners all consuming vast resources.

  88. I missed the news on tv at lunchtime but heard on the radio there has been a remembrance/memorial service at St Paul's cathedral for the victim's 20 years ago. Of the morning rush hour London 7/7 bombings in the four separate underground locations.
    I wondered if there were any members of the islamic sector in there, kneeling in apology for what they did ?

    1. Pretty sure he lives in the equivalent of an ivory tower, this likely put out by advisers and he signed as requested.

          2. Every second, Rastus – thanks so much for the cheer up. The wonderful Ivie Anderson, I think? Compare to today’s BLM negativity and hatred. Kate xx

    2. Rally communities? What is this 'community'? muslim set out to kill people because it wanted to.

      Sod community. They hate us. No one rallied around. 52 people were killed by some slammer bastard and there are millions more of them here.

      I don't want them here. No one does. They're a pollution, a stain on this nation that simply has no damned place here. Get rid of them. There is no damned respect. If there was they wouldn't keep trying to kill us you useless dolt.

    4. What is the point of spouting these pointless platitudes on such occasions?

        1. Far too kind, Belle! He is a cloth-eared stupid dolt. His poor mother must be burling in her grave.

    5. He’s deluded if he thinks islam will work together with anybody to build a multi faith society.

  90. From: https://order-order.com/2025/07/07/labour-budget-inheritance-tax-architect-is-uks-primary-wealth-tax-campaigner/#comments

    The case for a one-off wealth tax is simple. If it were unexpected and credibly one-off this would be an efficient way to raise revenue and could be used to address existing wealth inequality

    Err, why should wealth be equal? Why should I pay for other people to have what I have worked for? Have they done my job? Do they run a company? Why should others have whatever they want, without earning it? If they want what I've got, they cn get off their backsides and work for it.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7f3566640133dd951666209c6c1e4b03469ca5daabbbf6ddbe7ef724315ad9b7.jpg

  91. I wonder how many slammers are secretly (or openly) celebrating the success that their "brothers" had in killing so many people 20 years ago.

    1. As none of them have approached me to apologise for their atrocities I imagine many of them are.

      They simply should not be here.

    2. I see the king made a statement. It should have been pointed out to him that this was done by the very people he invited to Windsor and whom he praises so much.

  92. Wordle No. 1,479 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 7 Jul 2025

    A stick for Birdie Three!

    1. Another iffy word – yesterday was a plural word which is more generally seen as a single, today is a singular word which is more generally seen as a plural! Boring par….

      Wordle 1,479 4/6

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

    2. Well done. Par for me.

      Wordle 1,479 4/6

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

    3. Well done, par today.

      Wordle 1,479 4/6

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

    4. I should have taken the Eagle but thought to eliminate a couple of letters to be sure. Birdie.

      Wordle 1,479 3/6

      🟩🟨⬜⬜🟩
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    5. Boring old par

      Wordle 1,479 4/6

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

      1. #metoo.
        Wordle 1,479 4/6

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

  94. Afternoon all. More garden work after the RAFA meeting.

    All politicians fail to recognise that the public are not stupid and they have got to the stage where enough is enough.

  96. I have been drinking a nice cup of tea, watched some tennis , Jockovitch win, and marvelled at his strength of character and length of arm ..

    Then the cat came in the patio door yowling with a hedge sparrow in her mouth .. yep alive , and now I am catching up on a few note for this evenings short meeting .

    I have a nasty taste in mouth when I read anything about Boris .. what a cad .. and he let us all down , because he listened to has greenie wife and randy father .

    I cannot imagine why any woman would want to roll around with Boris .. he is the sort of chap who would bluster and wink and say " If I give you half a crown , will you pull your knickers down " SLAP SLAP SLAP.

    His Turkish heritage has actually muddled his loyalties.

    There was a young fellow from Ankara,

    Who was a terrific wankerer.

    Till he sowed his wild oats,

    With the help of a goat,

    But he didn’t even stop to thankera

    To make sense of this limerick, and why Boris Johnson wrote it, and the various reasons that it won a £1,000 prize, we have to poke around the politics of a few years ago. It started when a German video mildly mocked the authoritarian and repressive President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Turkish government summoned the German ambassador to “explain and justify” the video. As Turkey had become extremely repressive to journalists, German TV comedian Jan Böhmermann then decided to show Erdoğan what free speech meant, by broadcasting a deliberately offensive poem.

    1. I published reproduced a 'Letter to the Editor' re Boris, on here about four hours ago, Maggie!

        1. It is on here about 5 hours ago – its not mine; its from today's Telegraph, Maggie. x

          1. I misread your comment Lacoste , I assumed you were referring to a letter from 4 years ago.

            I have read todays letters already , and agree with a few of them .

    2. I wrote these lines at the time:

      Bohmermann Bohmermann, what have you done?
      "I've been oh so rude about Attaturk's son"
      Bohmermann Bohmermann, why be so harsh?
      "I wanted to kick the fat Kanzlerin's Arsch
      Bohmermann Bohmermann, what's to do now?
      "I'll pen some more lines 'bout this treacherous Frau"
      Bohmermann Bohmermann, better take care
      "We’ll all shall be Spartacus, daring to dare!"

      And this one:

      Erdogan, who thought delicious
      Sex with quadrupeds capricious
      Frequently from night 'til morn
      'neath the sign of Capricorn
      Bearded, horny oh so gruff
      Soon he cried "Enough! Enough!"
      Sadly, though, it was too late
      They shoved it up his Caliphate

  97. We had a decent amount of rain (half an inch) yesterday and overnight here in the arid midlands but there's no more in the forecast for a week or more and the sun's out, the wind's up, the ground is drying fast and the propaganda machine is spinning.

    You'd have thought Pluvius would have stirred himself for Wimbledon fortnight…

    1. Lucky you. We had about 2 mm yesterday. 1 mm over night and the chance of 2 mm this coming night – though the radar suggests zero.

      1. First time we've had that amount in a 24-hour period since the last week of April.

  98. Russia’s transport minister killed himself hours after he was sacked by Vladimir Putin, according to state media.

    Roman Starovoit, the former governor of the Kursk region that was invaded by Ukrainian forces last year, was found dead in his car from a gunshot wound.

    Svetlana Petrenko, a spokeswoman for the Russian investigative committee, said “suicide is the primary version”, and added that investigators were working at the scene.

    Starovoit, 53, was dismissed from his position as minister of transport for unspecified reasons on Monday. Over the weekend, Ukrainian drone attacks sparked turmoil at Russian airports, with hundreds of passengers left stranded by flight cancellations.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/07/07/russian-minister-found-dead-after-being-sacked-by-putin/

  99. There's a previously unheard-of victim of the 7/7 bombing named Dan Biddle who has written a book called Back from the Dead. He's just been interviewed on channel 5 news.
    He's been trying in vain to force our political idiots to institute a public enquiry. Which as usual with anything to do with islam has been virtually impossible to instigate.
    He needs public assistance, a nation wide petition would help tremendously.
    Let's face face it our politicians are only really interested in protecting their positions (not jobs) and their gold plated expenses.
    Check him out Nottlers.

    1. Why are we asking the state to do what we want? They're our damned staff, for goodness sake!

      1. Indeed Why ?
        Without Prejudice.
        One of the other disasters he mentioned for a public enquiry was Grenfell Tower. It was a well known fact that where the fire was supposed to have started (flat16, 6th floor) was the flat used by the Egyptian taxi driver and his family. His family were fortunately out for the night. And it was also rumoured that he kept spare fuel in his kitchen. There had been photos of him in a pub enjoying a pint. Which suggests he wasn't a Muslim. As were many of the other residents. Some of The rubbish chutes were blocked and other residents from the upper floors had been dumping their leftovers on the landings.
        So seemingly in ignorance of this or a deliberate cover up. They blamed the insulation. Yes it is flammable, but it was almost impossible for that to have occurred accidentally.
        And what actually happened to the Taxi driver ? Perhaps he's left the country.

        1. i think we all know how (but not why) the GT fire started. I think we all know that it spread because of the cladding, which was uniquely designed to funnel combustion. I think we all know that the difficulty in finding out who actually lived there is because much of the occupation was illegal I think we all know, also, that Westminster council has long had a policy of favouring the non-indigenous over the indigenous.

          None of this helps, does it?

  100. Reform-led Kent council under fire over removal of transgender library books
    The new Reform UK leadership at Kent County Council is under fire for removing transgender books from a library’s children’s section
    https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/reform-led-kent-council-under-10320407?utm_source=kent_live_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=afternoon_daily_newsletter&utm_content=&utm_term=&ruid=0bf3394b-7622-4b09-bd2f-c98d7ea3aba3&hx=6f176a594307cdbcc0bd45e22dd8692c0215b26083ab357c7f74f11ac19cb933

    Restriction of free speech or removing propaganda directed at children? The latter, in my opinion.

  101. Reform-led Kent council under fire over removal of transgender library books
    The new Reform UK leadership at Kent County Council is under fire for removing transgender books from a library’s children’s section
    https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/reform-led-kent-council-under-10320407?utm_source=kent_live_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=afternoon_daily_newsletter&utm_content=&utm_term=&ruid=0bf3394b-7622-4b09-bd2f-c98d7ea3aba3&hx=6f176a594307cdbcc0bd45e22dd8692c0215b26083ab357c7f74f11ac19cb933

    Restriction of free speech or removing propaganda directed at children? The latter, in my opinion.

  103. That's me for today. Did a bit of gardening. Then sat in the sun and read.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain. I hope.

  104. Reform insiders say Sunday Times 'old news expose' on James McMurdock MP was driven by Farage for his support of Lowe's rape inquiry & possibly joining Restore. Lee Anderson thinks it will trigger a by-election. Chance for Zia Yusuf?

    1. As long as Yusuf has any influence in the party Reform will never even pretend to deal with the problems caused by Islam.

      2. They will not acknowledge that such a problem exists. it's galling. At present Reform is our only viable hope to get rid of Labour. Let's see.

  105. LOL of the day from the little fella Owen Jones.

    And given @jk_rowling decided to amplify false claims I take cocaine before going on TV:
    I wasn’t on cocaine, no. I was on amphetamines. Specifically Elvanse

  106. I have 9lbs of apricots from a neighbour whose tree is groaning with them. aside from jam, what do you all suggest?

    1. Crumble.
      Tarts.
      Fruit flan.
      Then freeze these.
      Chutney.
      Just eat them at breakfast. SWMBO suggests they should be warmed a bit first.

        2. Very good in a terrine. Sausage meat, bacon, pistachios. Bodge together in bain marie (hope the spelling is right) and makes for a great snack food.

    3. Stew them with a sweet white wine. When the apricots are cooked, remove from the liquid. Add sugar to liquid to your own taste. Reduce liquid until syrupy. Pour over the apricots. Delicious especially with homemade vanilla ice-cream.

      1. Oooh thank you. The tree is groaning with apricots so i will get more; and I would love to try this.

      1. Lol yes! I thought i had plenty- turns out husband “helpfully” took them to the recycling last week. I have used two small kilner jars. And blanched and frozen a lot for future use. Thank goodness for electricity.

    9. Raw:

      Snacking: Enjoy them fresh as a healthy and sweet snack.
      Salads: Add sliced apricots to salads for a burst of flavor and sweetness, according to Taste of Home.
      Fruit platters: Include them in a fruit platter alongside other seasonal fruits.
      Smoothies: Blend them into smoothies for a nutritious and delicious boost, according to the BBC.

      Baked Goods:

      Tarts and pies: Use them in tarts, pies, or galettes.
      Cakes: Add them to cakes, muffins, or scones.
      Crumbles and crisps: They make a delicious topping for crumbles and crisps, according to VJ Cooks.

      Cooked:

      Poached: Poach them in a light syrup with vanilla or rosewater for a delicate dessert.
      Roasted: Roast them with meats or poultry for a sweet and savory flavor.
      Stewed: Stew them with spices for a warm and comforting dessert.
      Sauces: Use them to create sauces for meat or poultry, suggests Delicious Magazine.

      Preserves:

      Jams and preserves: Make your own jams and preserves to enjoy throughout the year.
      Butters: Create apricot butter for spreading on toast or adding to yogurt.
      Compotes: Cook them down into a compote to top desserts or serve with yogurt.

      Other ideas:

      Grilled: Grill halved apricots and serve with ice cream or yogurt.
      Syrup: Make an apricot syrup for cocktails or drizzling over pancakes.
      Brandied apricots: Preserve them in brandy for a boozy treat.

    10. I use them in a lamb and apricot balti, stoned and quartered they cut through the fat tines of the lamb.

    1. Should have been hanged, that bastard rapist.
      I'd be happy to hold the rope.

    2. Should have been hanged, that bastard rapist.
      I'd be happy to hold the rope.

    4. same as when you watch the CCTV if the muslim scum kicking police officers. They pled not guilty. They should have been hanged long ago.

    1. Mr Davies
      Alfred T Mahan
      3h
      I'm still waiting for the temporary income tax to be repealed as Napoleon was defeated quite some time ago.

  112. Sorry, I've had a fair load of beers this eveing, with Second Son. Been working too much, the brain (such as it is) has been fried, and as always, that brings forth something I absolutely cannot – the making of music. Fortunately, YouTube can present choirs that otherwise I'd never get to hear.
    Like this wonderful one from Russia.
    https://youtu.be/_zUxGSM5H9U?si=5m7sWiWe79UsIF53

  114. https://order-order.com/2025/07/07/more-than-22-million-brits-to-rely-on-state-by-2040/#comments

    Now imagine if 20 million foreigners hadn't been imported and the populated allowed to age out naturally into the high tech, high health country it would have been had Blair not polluted us.

    I saw on the gym TV what looked like Somalia – blacks everywhere, muslim strutting about, a few white folk. Apparently it was the West Midlands. It was about blacks having modified electric bikes to go much faster and still the vermin were kicking off. After cuffing them plod let them go.

  116. Phew!
    With the chainsaw fuelled up and sharpened I shook off my feeling of lethargy and did a couple of hours of cutting up the trees still lying up the hill. More than enough wood up there to last into Winter of '27/'28!!!

  117. Captured from different angles by CCTV cameras the dramatic moment when two brothers allegedly assaulted police officers..

    What an absolute DEI Keystone Cops farce from start to finish.
    One of the brothers, the one with huge muscles, actually keeps his head, tries to calm things down.
    Meanwhile the Turquoise nutter flattens the Teletubbie police.

    A while back a Police security specialist on YT basically questioned their training.. and blamed the police for the escalation. Or rather.. said it could have been easily avoided.

    Matty Taylor aka The Angry Bootneck has also said in the USA more often than not the DEI hires are a liability.. as the wise old timers have to cover their mistakes, constantly remind them to get out of line of fire and sometimes even dodge their reckless shooting.

  118. Sigh.. swoon.

    In a surprise news conference at White House's Oval Office, U.S. President Donald Trump warned that those who will be protesting Saturday's military parade to honor the 250th birthday of the Army "will be met with very big force."

  119. Apropos nothing, I received a mail just now from Linkedin (I used the site a lot when I was working) asking me if I'd like to 'follow' Keir Starmer….

    When I'd finished laughing I saw that he had 605,000 followers already, scrolling down it also showed that Rupert Lowe had just 26,000 – I think that underlines the problem we have challenging the status quo…..

    1. For some reason, LinkedIn seems to think i would also be interested in following him. Just goes to show, the algorithms aren’t that smart…

      1. I keep getting messages form Linkedin. I have never been a member, nor posted a profile. Apparently, though, numerous people of whom I have never heard are extremely interested in me and my non-presence on their site. Why do they not just FOAD?

        1. I told them all about you – they are keen to expand their representation in Wales (God knows why) and view you as a potential leading light…

      2. Hmmm…. it must be part of a social media blitz from his increasingly embattled digital Marketing team… ho hum…

    2. Happily,the world doesn't exist on Linked In )nor Twitter, Farcebook or any other social media platform. Worringly, much of the world listens to / views the BBC, and accepts the propaganda, unquestioningly.

      I like Rupert. I like Nigel. But too many egos are in play. Heads need to be knocked together. Sorry, Officer, what was that? OK – I'll come quietly…

      1. Agree, Geoff…too many cooks. A shame, a lot of young people pinning their hopes on Reform.

  120. I agree, the fragmentation on the right is a real concern.

    However, with the wonderful Zarah Sultana- Scone and Jezbollah Corbyn we are seeing a similar break-up on the left.

    There needs to be a major calming influence (on both sides if I'm honest!) to get back to some sort of 'normality'….

  121. That's better!
    I've a haircut planned for tomorrow so have just had my usual cold bath and washed my hair and am now listening to Mahler's 1st symphony, The Titan on R3 and drinking a mug of OXO!

    1. Another classic example of how absolutely ignorant our useless political classes are.

    1. That's very similar to what we saw on our travels in the 70s. Ciaro and filthy Djibouti.

    1. It will affect those on the "new" state pension from 2016. I'm on the "old " one.

  126. Well I'm orff, we had a lovely afternoon with our nearly two years old beautiful granddaughter.
    She has started speaking, asking simple questions and understanding a lot of what we are saying. And very feminine like her lovely mother.
    Good night all Nottlers sleep well. 😴

  127. Utterly off topic.
    Just back from a "marché gourmand". These are evenings with good food and drink, lots of different stalls selling many types of food.
    Great food, wonderful setting next to a lake by a chateau; good music, lots of dancing across probably four (yes four) generations.
    The French certainly make the most of their evenings/culture/joie de vivre

    2. We used to enjoy "les marchés gourmands" but some of the music was dire.

  128. No=one will. Any information that reaches BigEars is pre-sanitised to tell him what to think.

    1. Gaols used to be very unpleasant places. Did it work as a deterrent? There were fewer people in them but then there were fewer people, period.

      1. Society did at least have a generally accepted list of rules for desirable behaviour – ten of them, as it happens.

          1. When I went to the quiet day I had a wander around the graveyard. Not only am I interested in the social history on display, I enjoy the different architectural styles of the tombs. Almost without exception the Victorian tombs had a cross incorporated somewhere. Of the modern ones, I only saw one with a small cross engraved in a corner and gilded. The rest had none. One had a depiction of a cow (must have been a dairy farmer).

  130. Back now after the parish council meeting. I have a physio appointment tomorrow morning. I'm not holding out much hope it will do any good.

  132. European democracy is in peril: failing, sclerotic elites are to blame

    Not since the 1930s have young voters been so angry with their leaders. That is why populists are on the rise

    Daniel Johnson • 5th July 2025, 3:18pm BST

    Is European youth giving up on democracy? The latest YouGov poll of Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) suggests that only 57 per cent now support democratic forms of government, while one in five would prefer authoritarian rule.

    In France, Spain and Poland, only about half of young people choose democracy. And criticism of the European Union is rising too: 39 per cent say that the EU is not very democratic. They see Europe as less influential than the authoritarian powers Russia and China.

    This is the first generation to have lived their entire lives in the post-Cold War era. Yet they are deeply disillusioned with the freedoms their parents embraced when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

    Young men, in particular, are not just pessimistic: they are angry. Among those who see themselves as disadvantaged, just one in three supports democracy.

    Why has the Europe that promised so much proved to be such a disappointment for a generation that has enjoyed the fruits of democracy?

    The answer seems to be that they feel let down by complacent and incompetent elites who have been leading the Continent to perdition. Panicked by the pandemic, humiliated by Trump and menaced by Putin, Europe has never felt weaker or more irrelevant. No wonder the siren song of dictatorship is resonating once more.

    It was assumed that the Nazis had inoculated Germans against autocrats. Yet many are now voting for the extremes of Left and Right. Nearly two thirds of young Germans see their democracy as endangered.

    The blame for this lies with the governments of Angela Merkel and Olaf Scholz, who have governed Germany for more than 20 years. Gen Z Germans have never known any other leaders.

    Friedrich Merz, the new conservative Chancellor, has an uphill struggle to convince them that his government really will be different. His pledge to create Europe's biggest army to maintain Nato's credibility has been received with dismay by the young Germans who may have to fight for their country.

    In Italy, a quarter of the young say they are sick of the unstable democracy which has allowed mass migration and stolen their prospects. Only Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy are authoritarian enough to stave off a re-emergence of Mussolini's fascism.

    France is caught between the far-Left demagogue Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the faux-patriotism of Marine Le Pen and her musketeer Jordan Bardella. After seven years of Emmanuel Macron's posturing, the centre-ground of French politics is deserted, with Socialists, liberals and Gaullists almost extinct.

    Half of French youth yearn for a strongman: a latter-day Napoleon or De Gaulle. To them, democracy appears as at best the preserve of self-serving technocrats, at worst a mug's game.

    Europe's intellectual elites have done nothing to inspire a new generation with the glories of Western civilisation. Instead, their masochistic obsessions with decolonisation, race and gender have instilled what the American historian of Germany Fritz Stern called the politics of cultural despair.

    The cause most promoted among students and other young Europeans has not been Ukraine, but Gaza. Instead of campaigning for an embattled democracy in the heart of Europe, struggling to survive against the naked aggression of an imperial war machine, Gen Z has embraced the death cult of Hamas and the theocracy of Iran.

    Israel, sole beacon of freedom and democracy in the Middle East, has been demonised to the point where outrage aimed at a confected "genocide" morphs into open anti-Semitism and protest marches escalate into terrorism. The Palestine Action attack on Brize Norton is only the latest of numerous incidents across Europe in which violence against individuals and the state has been normalised in the pursuit of "justice" for Gaza.

    Once deep disenchantment with democracy and the rule of law are combined with the justification of violence for political aims, it is a short step to dictatorship. Only a cult of the authoritarian personality is lacking – and the burgeoning of social media offers the means to create such cults.

    Europe resembles a volcano, ready to erupt at any time. The radicalisation of Gen Zers leaves them prey to manipulation. Last weekend's scenes at Glastonbury, with chants of "Death to the IDF", evoke the Two Minutes Hate described in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: "A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic."

    The novelist and Nobel laureate Elias Canetti, a Jewish refugee from Nazism, devoted much of his life to his 1960 treatise, Crowds and Power. People do not even need to be in the same place, like the Nuremberg rallies, he thought, to merge into a hate-filled mob. In fact, Canetti had anticipated social media.

    Responding to Canetti's prophetic work, the poet Geoffrey Hill wrote: "But hear this: that which is difficult preserves democracy; you pay respect to the intelligence of the citizen." A dumbed-down generation is easy meat for those who emulate Trump and, like him, openly despise our political system.

    After decades of condescension from the elites, the young are tempted by the Pied Pipers of populism, from Alice Weidel to Nigel Farage. Yet they may turn out to be enablers of Putin. For too long, the political class used democracy for their own benefit. Is the posterity of Europe, the youthful demos, now turning to the despots?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/05/european-democracy-in-peril-failing-elites-blame

    It's hard to know where the writer is going with this. We know that 'fascism' came from the left but the references to Weidel and Farage imply nationalism which, at least for those who have been educated [sic] in the last 15-20 years, is of the right. I don't think there's much evidence of the young in the UK embracing national identity if we are to believe what is reported daily by the media. Perhaps it's different on the continent. Here, the idea of Britishness or Englishness is apparently despised by the young. If Glastonbury represents the nation's under-30s, then it's going to become very uncomfortable soon. Perhaps there's a silent majority of the young just waiting to make their mark in the correct way.

    I see neither left nor right but disruption, possibly leading to anarchy. JSO, XR, the rainbow people, Free Palestine – none of them appear to have any idea about how our once settled society provided opportunity.

    Meanwhile in Manchester…

    1. 'Ang on.
      Populism in Politics?
      You mean the parties and politicians who campaign for policies the public support are "Populist" and a bad thing??
      But surely that is the very essence of Democracy?

  134. Well, chums, it's past my bedtime, so I'll wish you all Good Night. Sleep well and see you all tomorrow.

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