Monday 8 April: The Conservatives will pay a heavy price for spurning their true blues

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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781 thoughts on “Monday 8 April: The Conservatives will pay a heavy price for spurning their true blues”

  2. Morning All

    I want to kick this smirking buffoon right in the plums

    https://twitter.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1776918459835637817

    Katie

    https://twitter.com/KTHopkins/status/1777070221691359521

    Rest

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    2. Well said, that taxi driver.
      As for that un-British SNP ‘leader’, having him as a neighbour must seriously devalue property prices.

  3. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) Story
    NAMING DRUGS

    All drugs have two names, a trade name and generic name.

    Example, the trade name is Tylenol and its generic name is Acetaminophen…
    Aleve is also called Naproxen.
    Amoxil is also called Amoxicillin and Advil is also called Ibuprofen.

    The FDA had been looking for a generic name for Viagra.
    After careful consideration by a team of government experts, it recently
    announced that it has settled on the generic name of Mycoxafloppin.

    Also considered were Mycoxafailin, Mydixadrupin, Mydixarizin, Dixafix, and of course, Ibepokin.

    Pfizer Corp. announced today that Viagra will soon be available in liquid form, and will be marketed by Pepsi Cola as a power beverage suitable for use as a mixer.

    It will now be possible for a man to literally pour himself a stiff one.

    Obviously, we can no longer call this a soft drink, and it gives new meaning to the names of ‘cocktails’, ‘highballs’ and just a good old-fashioned ‘stiff drink’.

    Pepsi will market the new concoction by the name of: MOUNT & DO.

    Thought for the day: There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra today than on Alzheimer’s research.

    This means that by 2030, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with either or both of them.

  4. Morning, all Y’all.
    Grey, overcast, rain later apparently.
    Seems another Boeing 737 is in the news… nobody hurt, thank goodness.

    1. Yo Ol

      The headline in a local newspaper

      “Boeing 737, takes off, flies to destination without incident and safely lands on time”

      Guiness Book of Records informed

  5. Putin miscalculated on Finland’s border. 8 April 2024

    If Russia wants to intimidate Finland by announcing it’ll avenge the country’s NATO accession with troops on the border, it needs to have plenty of troops at its disposal. And Russia simply doesn’t.

    It is almost certainly correct; as we can see from Ukraine, that Russia simply does not have the resources, men or equipment, for such a venture. The problem is that it flies in the face of the rest of NATO propaganda which depicts a menacing Russia waiting to attack Europe; although the Baltic regions are almost always chosen for this scenario. Why is something of a mystery since it would be a strategic military cul-de-sac. One would have thought that if Vlad had any hostile intentions it would have been against the Industrial and Economic heartlands of the EU. This misdirection just shows how fake this whole policy is.

    https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-russia-miscalculated-on-finland-border/

    1. Indeed, Minty. And the scary scenario of Russia taking Ukraine and continuing through Germany is equally bollox – they can barely take a lollipop from a toddler now.

      1. And why would the Ruskies bother?
        The west – particularly Blighty – is doing an excellent job of destroying itself. Why would Russia want to take on such a can of worms?

    2. With 11% of the World’s landmass and an abundance of natural resources Russia is set to be a dominant force without conquest and all the horrors that go with that idea.

      Putin doesn’t appear to be impressed by the WEF/Globalist cabal and the latter are the likely promoters of the ongoing war with Ukraine because of Putin’s stance. World dominance without the largest country in that World under their baleful control doesn’t seem quite enough for these megalomaniacs.

        1. Putin recognised the dangers of the WEF long before the Ukraine Crisis began and his rejection of it may have been the trigger for the USA’s interference in that benighted country.

          1. Like all leaders he used it as part of advancing his agendas. He was still a member until the invasion.

    3. I am married to a Latvian, and she and her family are convinced Putin is going to invade!
      When I ask why? the response pretty much is “that’s what Russians do, they have always done it”

      I dispair and no longer broach that topic. I note the TikTok videos from her son of Ukrainian soldiers dancing around as missiles get launched have dried up.

  6. Good morning all.
    A currently dry start, but dull and overcast with still air and a still not warm 6½°C on the Yard Thermometer.

  8. The Conservatives will pay a heavy price for spurning their true blues

    Not as heavy a price as the whole country will pay

  9. Good morning.

    Scottish football fans face hate crime complaints from members of the public who hear chants on TV at home, a senior lawyer has warned.

    Police Scotland, which has already received 8,000 reports since the new laws came into force last week, is facing warnings that as many as 2,000 further complaints will be made on Sunday due to the Rangers vs Celtic clash at Ibrox.

    Sectarian songs are often heard at Old Firm matches, raising fears that partisan supporters watching the game live on TV could swamp the force with new hate crime reports.

    The warning came as a new poll, released on Sunday, showed that just 21 per cent of Scots want the hate crime law to be retained, with more than twice as many, 45 per cent, backing its repeal.

    When undecided Scots were removed from the figures, 68 per cent want the new law to be scrapped just days after its introduction.

    1. More worrying is that one fifth of Scots could happily live in the old GDR.
      (As the scamdemic revealed, could a possibly higher percentage of the English.)

    2. Anyone would think this law was nothing more than a political weapon to silence people angry at government policy rather than a benefit to society.

        1. The underlying purpose of the act is Yousless stopping all comments about Muslims

          1. A blasphemy law brought in via the back door. Meanwhile, the UK is intent on importing a sectarian problem that will make the Old Firm look like Ant & Dec.

      2. There is a precedent for this – the redefinition of “antisemitism” gained international approval, not least from one Keir Starmer, primarily when used to silence people angry at government policy rather than hating Jews.

  10. Black women in England suffer more serious birth complications, analysis finds. 8 April 2024.

    Black women are up to six times more likely to experience some of the most serious birth complications during hospital delivery across England than their white counterparts, with the figures being described as “stark” and disheartening”, according to analysis.

    Black women made up 26% of women who experienced the birth complication pre-eclampsia superimposed on chronic hypertension during delivery, despite making up just 5% of all deliveries across England, according to a Guardian analysis of NHS figures for 2022-23.

    The obvious solution is for them to have their children elsewhere.

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/08/black-women-in-england-suffer-more-serious-birth-complications-analysis-finds

      1. No. It’s related to inverted racism. It show how deeply the narrative has penetrated.

        1. I am struck by the obesity of many child bearing age women, especially black ones, and a quick search online lists high BMI as a high risk factor for the condition.

          3. Why do you think the average length of an African member is at least nine inches? Little orientals can get by with three.

    2. They are trying to blame it on racism, strange though, you would be hard pushed to find a white doctor at a NHS hospital

    3. I wonder what causes the high blood pressure?
      Diet? “Lifestyle”? Deciding who is the father?

    5. Probably because they have huge butts and are very fat mamas, eat too much chicken and maize , and are being looked after by their own descendants , who have a reputation for being rather rough and impatient.

  11. Wordle 1,024 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Good morning chums. Another day, another dollar. Enjoy your day.

    1. Good Morning, Elsie

      Another draw

      Wordle 1,024 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟨
      🟩⬜🟨🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  12. BBC Radio 3 News just stated that the suspect being sought in connection with the Bradford stabbing was known to the victim.
    Looks like my speculation that is was an “honour” killing may have been right.

    1. Good moaning, Axeman Extraordinaire.
      (Quiet at the back!)
      Since comment is being allowed about the Tottenham stabbing, I assume the perp didn’t sport a healthy tan.

    3. That lot are a cancer in society, their hate and intolerance are everywhere. Their ‘culture and customs’ are incompatible with ant decent, civilised country.
      (Yes, like many here and elsewhere, I have become intolerant of them in recent years. Only a minority believe that hamas actually raped, tortured and killed Israelis last October and since – that’s all you need to know about their impartiality)

  13. Good Moaning.
    I’m feeling puerile, so let’s start the week with a snigger. Tim Stanley in the Tellygraff.

    “I’m embarrassed to admit that I have fallen victim to a honeytrap, a sophisticated sting to gain personal information in order to commit blackmail. Two weeks ago, I received a WhatsApp message from a woman called Svetlana Boobka claiming to know me and that she finds me “super sexy, big boy”. Within an hour, I had sent her dozens of naked photos, my bank details and a copy of my birth certificate.

    Then came the demands: “Do exactly as I say, or the pics go online.”

    “Tell me what you want,” I replied.

    “OK: my real name is Gareth Snedley and I work for No 10. We want you to run as a Tory candidate at the next election…”

    This is presumably to replace the outgoing William Wragg, another victim of a honeytrap so transparent, it could have been sent from a Nigerian prince. Silly Willy received a flirty message and shared some saucy pics. He was then asked to pass on contact details for fellow MPs, which he did.

    The photo swap is understandable (men do the stupidest things for sex). The betrayal of colleagues, less so. Some have called his apology “courageous”, but Dame Andrea Jenkyns, who also received a soliciting message, labelled the affair “unforgivable”. I’m afraid I find it all very funny.

    What was the point? To turn the backbenchers into Chinese spies? Well, if Britain had any secrets, which it doesn’t, these people wouldn’t know them. Indeed, it’s possible that the real victim is the honeytrapper – of Wragg’s pretence to be a man with insider knowledge. He is witty and independent-minded; pro-Brexit and a lockdown sceptic.

    But Wragg also embodies the weird world of Tory make-believe. You’d imagine, from his elder-statesman air and face of a snooty cherub perpetually dissatisfied with the service, that he was the latest Duke of Devonshire – not a former primary-school teacher who entered Parliament at the absurdly early age of 27 and is now “retiring” at 36.

    Wragg pilloried Boris Johnson for eating that cake; told Sir Lindsay Hoyle to resign over the infamous Gaza vote. A pre-scandal profile in The Guardian photographed him with his head bowed, as if a saint in prayer. Living by the sword this confidently, it was inevitable that Wragg would trip and fall on it soon.

    But we cannot judge him, say friends, for he is a depressed gay man – as if sexuality and mental health are cards that get you out of jail for free (“I’m an anxious transvestite late for a bra fitting,” I say when pulled over for speeding). But what are we suggesting here? We live, supposedly, in an age of equality and total acceptance, so why is being gay still treated as a synonym for vulnerability?

    As for his struggles with the black dog, this is thoroughly sympathetic – though wouldn’t absolve you from serious error in any other job – and there’s a virtue in politics reflecting the fragilities of the public.

    But MPs are in danger of making Parliament sound like a 19th-century asylum for nervous gentlefolk. They never stop complaining about the hours, pay, stress, threats of assassination or dangers of espionage, giving the impression that anyone who runs for office takes their life in their hands. This hysteria reinforces the Ukip Syndrome: the madder politics is seen to be, the more it will only attract mad people (like filings to a magnet).

    Given the negative publicity surrounding Parliament – the arrests, the breakdowns, the surprise gender reveals – who would want to be an MP in 2024? Only narcissists and masochists. The kind of people who receive a romantic message from a boy with a photo cut from an underwear catalogue and think: “I’m in there!”

    Parliament needs to take a chill pill, to make peace with its insignificance and stop treating every silly scandal as some complex plot by a “foreign actor” (whenever I hear that idiotic phrase, I imagine all these obscene texts are sent by Gérard Depardieu).

    As for any male MPs of a certain age who might be reading, let me tell you that the first hint that someone flirting with you is a fake is that they are flirting with you. Men lose all their sexual appeal at 40. Thereafter, we only attract frauds or perverts of the very worst kind.”

    1. Morning Ma’am. When Sunak’s Shower has turned into a object of ridicule for even decent if wet conservatives like Mr Stanley you know it’s over.
      Mr Wragg looks eerily like a younger David Cameron.

      1. He does!
        …… “face of a snooty cherub perpetually dissatisfied with the service” ….. A description to treasure.

  14. Good morning everyone, a rather cold morning and somewhat grey outside .

      1. Good Morning Tom, it’s always more chilly upt North but beautiful landscapes.

  16. We watched a very good documentary about Oskar Schindler (on PBS America). As the horror stories quietly narrated by actual survivors unfolded – I thought of the wealthy 26 year old woman (whom I described yesterday) who was “terrified” of the climate scam. I’d like to force the daft bint to watch the programme so that she could see with her own eyes people who had every right to be terrified – for years on end.

    1. She will also likely have only one source of information, never have read a book, not understand the basics of science, be not especially bright and easily convinced.

      If confronted with the alternative view she will swiftly adopt that. Then after another BBC episode will flop the other way causing massive cognitive dissonance as she doesn’t know what to think until…. a reassuring man in a nice shirt, a calm voice and stately air will tell her what to think and then she will never think again.

      1. She has wealthy parents; went to a public school. Now, she says:

        “I am now assistant culture and books editor for both The Times and The Sunday Times so do please pitch me stuff for both titles

        Also I am in charge of Culture Fix in Review and am always open for ideas !!!”

        (Also proudly describes herself as a “champagne socialist”)

        1. During the (19)70s I vaguely knew a London garage firm whose business was limousine hire; the drivers had plenty of tales of union leader clients who boasted of cigars and booze, etc. Nothing but the best for the Workers.

  17. My infinitely better and more clever half has been doing some digging into our ex vicar who is now squatting in the Rectory, claiming still to be vicar while refusing to do any work, yet stirring up church against church, villages against churches etc.

    Quite unbelievably she found online from his former Diocese some PCC minutes widely circulated in it where it describes him as having left behind his parishes divided, angry, dissatisfied and requiring ‘healing and rehabilitation’. No wonder only one couple from his former parish came to his induction – they clearly all hated him. It’s almost wholly exceptional that official minutes circulated widely among clergy etc of a large chunk of a Diocese would make such personal comments about a vicar. It confirms our contention that he is a narcissistic wrecker and bully unfit for the clergy and I cannot wait to meet our Bishop and to kick the legs out from under her by handing them over. They are in such trouble for publicly exonerating him without investigating our complaints.

    The minutes are also fascinating because all these clergy waffle on in incomprehensible management jargon about constant reorganisation and never once talk about God, faith or developing congregations. A bit like NHS management never once talking about illness, patients or treatment outcomes.

    1. Good lord ! Is there no end to this Vicars shame . Reminds me of Shakespeare who loathed the clergy and friars ‘ no pure religion by their lips profaned , unsavory and corrupt ( Henry VI ). I’m sorry you’re still having to put up with him and I hope you can deal with him . The Church and rectory belong to the parish. The rectory comes with the time as parish priest but doesn’t belong to him – it belongs to the parish.

      1. Unfortunately the hierarchy took over management of all parish non church assets in the 1970s, and their legal ownership is now unclear. We know we own the old church hall which is leased to the school, a lease near expiry so that will be fun when we reclaim it.
        And yes – he is shameless but then narcissists are.

        1. I realise the diocese allows whatever vicar to live in whatever rectory attached to a particular church but I assumed once leaving the parish or retiring they have to leave the rectories, the legal ownership might need investigating. Medieval times the church owned villiages and halls . It does sound very complicated.

      2. Unfortunately the hierarchy took over management of all parish non church assets in the 1970s, and their legal ownership is now unclear. We know we own the old church hall which is leased to the school, a lease near expiry so that will be fun when we reclaim it.
        And yes – he is shameless but then narcissists are.

    1. The MoD is busily preparing for war in the middle east – to fight the Afghans. It’s wondering where to buy pith helmets and who could supply Enfield rifles.

    2. Nice to see the fellow praying in the proper manner. Might save his life.

  19. Could Putin target the Paris Olympics? 8 April 2024.

    One thing the French seem to be learning (or, given their history, re-learning) is that the Russians are always up for a scrap. A ministerial phone call between the two countries has led to a diplomatic spat such that a stung Emmanuel Macron is now claiming that Moscow plans to target this summer’s Paris Olympics — and he’s probably right.

    This is by Galeotti who checks under his bed every night for the FSB. What exactly does he suspect Vlad will do one wonders? Take his shirt off and gallop down the Champs-Élysées? Topple the Eiffel Tower? Shut down the Folies Bergère?

    https://thespectator.com/topic/vladimir-putin-russia-paris-olympics/

    1. When the bombs go off at the Olympics it won’t be Russians. It will be muslims.

  20. Could Putin target the Paris Olympics? 8 April 2024.

    One thing the French seem to be learning (or, given their history, re-learning) is that the Russians are always up for a scrap. A ministerial phone call between the two countries has led to a diplomatic spat such that a stung Emmanuel Macron is now claiming that Moscow plans to target this summer’s Paris Olympics — and he’s probably right.

    This is by Galeotti who checks under his bed every night for the FSB. What exactly does he suspect Vlad will do one wonders? Take his shirt off and gallop down the Champs-Élysées? Topple the Eiffel Tower? Shut down the Folies Bergère?

    https://thespectator.com/topic/vladimir-putin-russia-paris-olympics/

  21. ” The Conservatives will pay a heavy price for spurning their true blues ”
    They are a disgrace and full of wet Liberal Democrats, the 1922 Committee are beneath contempt for removing a democratically elected Prime Minister and anointing Sunak who cannot be questioned .
    A respected Conservative journalist said in a newspaper yesterday said Starner Is far left and dangerous but the electorate don’t care they will vote Labour as all the polls suggest. Labour will have a tighter hold over our institutions, they’ll change our laws
    We will have Muslim Labour Mps in the HoC – Muslims always vote for Muslims .
    Immigration of those who vote for Labour because it benefits them .
    Islamphobia will become illigal – Antisemitism will increase – as with the hate we see on our streets- Christianity will be eradicated . It’s the electorate who’ll pay the ultimate price ( MPs don’t care – they’ll have their nice pensions etc ) it’s the electorate who will pay the price when Starmer, Rayner and Lammy are the government.

    1. The one consolation is that the money will soon run out and there will be a government funding crisis as Labour lose financial control and money moves abroad. That could change everything very quickly.

      1. Labour don’t understand that. They just assume, like the rest of the state; that money is there’s for the taking to do with as they want because they are ‘righteous’ in their cause.

        The irony is that swivel eyed Lefties then scream at those who’ve rightly avoided the theft of their property. It never occurs to them that if taxes were lower and flat they wouldn’t have bothered, and more money would be created and spent.

        It is the socialist mindset to assume nothing will change by your actions. Stalin thought the same. So does the EU. Historical fact proves them wrong. Big government is bad government. Small government is efficient government. Government controlled is better government.

    3. Good morning AK

      We are paying a TV licence that has cast aside traditional entertaining humorous programmes, good music , Christian services , prayer for the day , decent drama , suitable intelligent quiz shows etc, except now we are confronted with woke facetious diversity , dominated by YUK BLM stuff .. Standards have vanished.

      I am fed up with cookery programmes, and the so called social work stuff the BBC have included in their early news programmes. Why have they dropped popular programmes.

      Moh likes the afternoon soap called Doctors , it is amusing , informative and is very entertaining re the characters involved . It is nice .

      The BBC squandered £ millions on building a set for the that revolting Eastenders , which we haven’t watched for decades ..

      My list is endless, so no wonder we look at utube stuff , travel and art programmes , sport etc but we HAVE to pay for a licence no matter what .

      T V seems to be aimed at black youths and the Eastender type of sink estate dweller.

      BBC TV is taking on the persona of an evil eye , corrupting all minds with leftie mantra .

      1. I would gladly dump the licence as I hardly watch any telly now. But my OH watches sport- snooker, rugby, women’s footie and soon it’ll be tennis time. It keeps him happy.

        1. Similar here. I don’t mind the financial outlay – I mind the cost. Of supporting the disgusting, corrupt, treasonous BB|C.

      2. It is a government department in all but name. They desperately want to be funded by general taxation and the state is eager to promote this – after all, their aims are aligned and it’s – as you say – just a propaganda wing of big state, high tax, Left wing government.

      3. We have II ITV and ITV X which allows you to find lots of old TV programmes ( comedies, police dramas, documentaries etc ) from before the 90s ( it has modern stuff too ) we’ve old comedies such as The Good Life, Rumpole of the Bailey and many others. I’m watching the old Morse programmes and Dr Who from the beginning . I’ve got the Father Brown series, the Pretenders, Ealing Comedies and various other things . It also enables you to tape current things from the discovery channel etc there is a lot on art and travel, and history . I love old 50s films which I can find – such as Audrey Hepburn. Don’t watch TV during the week much and rarely any live TV but when I do its the above .

      5. My question is why. Just don’t pay it. Ignore the threatening letters, if the enforcement officers’ come to your property just say “No thanks” and close the door. Do NOT engage in conversation with them. They have to then go away, they have no powers of entry they are purely salesmen employed by Crapita to sell you a licence and get their commission. Yes people are taken to court but only as a result of them engaging with these goons and confessing. Warrants are rarely issued because they have to come from a judge who has been convinced that a criminal act has been done. Just because you have a TV doesn’t mean you need a licence – you can watch most programs on catch-up now for which you don’t need a licence. I’ve been licence free for years

        1. Good advice, Alec. I have a folder full of threatening letters. One day a chap from Crapita arrived and asked politely why I didn’t have a licence so I told him!
          The conversation immediately turned to international rugby and shortly afterwards he left.

          1. Could have gone horribly wrong Del, these guys are trained in how to interrogate innocently to glean info from which you could be prosecuted

        2. An even better solution is to write to TV Licensing notifying them of your Withdrawal of Implied Right of Access (WIROA) to your property. This means that they or any of their agents will be trespassing if they cross the boundary of your property to walk to your front door and can be asked to leave your property immediately with no further explanation. (Unfortunately this will have no effect if the front door is on the property boundary, as is the case for some terraced houses.) More information can be found here:
          https://sites.google.com/view/removalofimpliedrightsofaccess/home
          https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/withdrawal_of_implied_rights_of_2/response/1506736/attach/5/RFI20192062%20Disclosure%20document.pdf

        3. Don’t pay the licence fee, Belle, we don’t. You can officially opt out if you don’t watch live broadcast beeb. Catch-up is the name of the game. I think there is paragraph about opting out and how to officially go about it in the small print on the back of the licence request form. If you can’t find it, google it. At one time one had to pay for the licence by virtue of the fact that you owned a television set, now that is no longer the case. You have to pay for a licence to watch the bbc offerings as other providers have entered the field of television.

          1. It applies to all channels PM not just the Beeb. Paying a fee to the BBC to watch other channels is like paying Tescos to shop at Asda

          2. Ah yes, you are right. As we don’t watch any tv now my memory had started playing ticks on me as we have lost touch with the process.

    4. Notice how the hubub over MP safety has now vanished? I imagine someone saw where that was going and jammed a sock in it. After all, it opens one hell of a can of worms of massive uncontrolled gimmigration, a lack of policing, a complete disinterest in law enforcement, the pandering of muslim, the tolerance of foreign thugs on the streets… you name it, the state has failed at it – and MPs were told to stop whining and get stabbed for diversity.

        1. What she forgot was that diversity is not worth doing anything “for the sake of”. If it wasn’t for diversity we wouldn’t have sh^t like her around. How about her offering her body for cash for the sake of public finances – a far more worthwhile cause.

    5. I don’t want the Conservatives to lose the general election – I want them to be completely annihilated.

      I don’t just want Labour, the SNP or the Greens to flourish either and I am not fully convinced that Richard Tice is the answer so I suppose I could be described as a bourgeois anarchist. I don’t believe in any of our politicians’ ability to govern but I do believe in traditional British vales!

    2. Are we lost forever or will a leader emerge to free us from Islamic oppression?

      I fear the former is the case and it is too late. We have only had two benign leaders since WW2 but even a Churchill or a Thatcher would be hard pressed to sort out the mess we are in now.

      1. One man or woman will not do it. It needs to be a movement. Ten per cent of the population. That’s the scale of the task.

  23. 385567+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Monday 8 April: The Conservatives will pay a heavy price for spurning their true blues

    That would have been of some importance early post Mrs Thatcher time, but the post Mrs Thatcher political gang had other more lucrative fields to plough,scams to be nurtured, brown envelopes to be fondled WEF / NWO / pharmaceutical drivers pay well one way or another.

    In truth many of them can afford to pay a heavy price leaving those, that since the Mrs Thatcher era, had been supportive in voting for a CON (ino) party viewing a treacherous looking
    blot on the landscape in the shape of one kneel starmer.

    We have had a preview of Countrywide troubles via what is considered to be the nice political lads & lassies of the westminster village this past decade plus, as in some highly suss corporate killing, mass importation of felons / troops resulting in more killings, etc,etc.

    That was from the nice segment of the coalition, we are about to sample what the nasty side offers I personally believe that the best we can expect is that allah is merciful.

      1. The force arm of the state is not their to protect the citizen by enforcing the law, they are being used to enforce the state line. That’s the fundamental difference between law and control.

        1. Interesting fact – physical gold held by you goes ‘dark’ after seven years of ownership so never mention it to anyone.

          The current gold price run is very alarming. Inflation is falling which should mean a falling gold price but it did not spike up either during the years of QE or rising inflation when it should have. We also know that countries like China have been stockpiling it but don’t disclose their real reserves. It’s all wrong. The only thing that explains it to me is that investors are fearing that the current financial system is in danger of collapse which when one sees the evel of debt in economies around the world must be a material risk.

          It’s always been my view that gold is insurance, not an investment.

          1. I bought it so i had something to pay for a boat ride out when the civil war starts.

          6. I agree about eh $ but it’s all fiat currencies, albeit the $ is the corner stone of the international financial system.

          7. Indeed. a few gold sovereigns do not go amiss when getting out of trouble. I gave one once to my first girlfriend, a free-spirited and very beautiful French girl, when she went hitch-hiking around India, with the instruction only to spend it if she needed it to save herself from peril. In the end she spent it on an air ticket from Sri Lanka.

            I am the world’s most reluctant gambler. I hate it when I win because I wish I had staked more, and I hate it when I lose for obvious reasons. My rule is never to gamble what I cannot afford to lose, with the proviso that it would do more good perhaps in the charity collection, even if this is primarily for the executive remuneration fund. How much gold does £3 buy anyway? Or would it be money better spent on a cup of coffee?

          8. I don’t think the bullion dealers sell gold in such small amounts. Buy a coffee.

  25. I never get tired of listening to James Lindsay’s analysis of what afflicts us. As we all know, it’s Marxism 2.0, 3.0 or neo-Marxism, call it what you will. It comes from the so-called ‘intellectuals’ in the universities (doesn’t it always?). Here he is explaining how communism has come to the West from the roots of the ideas through the Long March, CRT, Intersectionality, wokery, DEI, ESG, Climate etc etc. He explains clearly why we are in for a difficult few years but he has hope for the USA, Canada and some European countries; UK and Germany not so much. Houston, we have a problem.

    Well worth an hour of your time.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d-eNmwQI5c

      2. I know. Socialism is just a stage en-route to communism. That’s what socialists will never tell you.

  26. If there is ever an opportunity to overhaul politics in this country we have to devise a better way of selecting MPs. This lot really are bad. The selection procedures must be tightened up as must the ones doing the selecting. No more MPs selected from crazy Oxford and they must have to pass training and exam procedures. And maybe I am wrong but I can’t ever remember our press and government being so close. And they all seem to have gone to crazy Oxford together.

    1. The problem is that the current crop are good at passing exams. Far better to block MPS under 40 and to insist they’ve had ten years in private business.

    2. “and they must have to pass training and exam procedures.” Respectfully I don’t think you have thought this through. Do you recall the idea of coppers having to gain a degree? I shudder at that tactic. It’s often overlooked that the rot in journalism and the media is the now required degree route into the job. A case of Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchers?

  27. The world is safer for a renewed Entente
    The British Foreign Secretary and French Foreign Minister celebrate 120 years of cooperation between our two countries
    DAVID CAMERON STEPHANE SEJOURNE : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/07/world-is-safer-for-a-renewed-entente/

    BTL

    The world would be a far better and safer place if the proven incompetent Cameron had absolutely no position of power or responsibility in it.

    He might just be up to cleaning military latrines if he had an efficient supervisor to watch over him to make sure he wielded the mop, the slop-bucket and the bleach properly.

    1. When Leave won and cameron quit because he ‘couldn’t do something he didn’t believe in’ it was clear government wasn’t working. They are there to serve, regardless of their personal feelings.

      1. ‘Call me Dave’ gambled and lost – he’s a chancer. It was entirely predictable that he would head for the hills (alright, shepherd’s hut) if Leave won.

        1. Predictable, yes, but did he have the right to just clear off? No. He was elected to serve. Only now, when the machine is undoing Brexit is he back to continue that plan.

          The bit I found odd about Cameron’s visiting the EU is he went to national leaders. Why? The EU is designed specifically to erase the nation state.

          1. No, he didn’t have the right to resign especially after saying that he would implement the referendum decision whatever it was. But what do you expect from a creature who claims that the steamrollering through of the same-sex marriage abomination is ‘his proudest achievement’?

          2. He needs to be brutally buggered by the ugliest and most pox-ridden poofter in Parliament. That might ginger him up a bit and straighten him out!.

          3. Keeping in touch and in agreement with his old buddy and ex president in the US.
            Who also seems to have taken on a new lease of political life.
            Sorros and Schwab and the other Unelected members of ‘Spectre’ are keeping their bank accounts topped up.

          4. Ah, but he didn’t say he would implement the decision whatever it was. He left that to be inferred. In truth he only ever meant to implement it if we voted to remain (which is what he was pretty sure would be the result).

          1. That Sunak brought him back into government is clear evidence that the current PM is working for the WEF in order to hasten the demise of the UK.

          2. He put the pledge that “this is your decision, the government will implement what you decide” in writing in his multi-million pound propaganda leaflet.

        3. He was seriously insulted and scorned by the EU when he went to try and get better terms for the UK.

          And yet his fawning adoration of the EU was not even slightly diminished. It strikes me that the pathetic man suffers from a form of Stockhom Syndrome.

    2. He’s a “Right Dishonourable Member”. He’s trying to isolate Israel currently while making out he’s on their side, which in my book makes him treacherous, too. The quicker Lord Cameroon of Greensill goes the better all round.

  28. Morning all, ref the headline – I honestly don’t think the cabinet give a damn. They’ve obeyed the instructions set down for them and have ensured the decline of this country. That was their mandate, to punish the public for Brexit.

    Rank and file MPs are mostly out fo themselves to trouser as much of other people’s money as possible, pick up the directorships and consulting jobs to continue the corruption after office. The few who remain and actually believe in public service are sidelined and refused access, unable to effect any positive change at all.

    And so the gravy train rolls onward.

      2. 385567+ up ticks,

        Morning R SK,

        I believe it is the fall out from that “unfortunate accident” when he criticised the cleaning lady on her fire cleaning duties.

  30. Good morning, all. Light overcast, calm and dry at the moment. Rain forecast for this evening.

    Bread pudding, made from the remains of a friend’s eleven year old granddaughter’s first effort at making a wholemeal loaf – and an excellent first effort it was – put together and is happily soaking in the fridge until being cooked tomorrow.

    Stirrings in the Shires.

    The lady fronting this video, Rachel Mathews, has been stirring up the Council in Colchester for a year and her, and her supporters’, efforts are spreading the word and similar groups are popping up around the Country.

    Here, Rachel reports excellent news on what is happening in Gloucester and she also explains just how difficult it is to do what she is doing without a background in public speaking and training in media techniques. The comment from the Babergh District Council leader is telling: they do not like to be criticised nor taken to task.

    Worth 7 minutes of your time.

    Rachel has a couple of other videos that show how inadequate some councils, councillors and council officers can be. I’ll put these up over the next few days.

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

    1. I find it comical that councils seem to think they can call the police when their employers, masters and rulers – the public – sit in on a meeting.

      These people are staff, for goodness sake. They’re not special, they’ve no right to privacy. If they’re so terrified of being exposed they shouldn’t be in post.

      2. Councils are made up of elected councillors and staff. I agree that elected councillors should be subject to public oversight but I think that staff are entitled to work in privacy, otherwise they could be influenced/threatened/intimidated by all sorts of pressure and special interest groups and have no way of defending themselves.

      3. I’m an elected councillor; some of the treatment that members of the public have thought appropriate for us when we’ve been trying to do our best for the people we represent has to be experienced to be believed. Do you think we have no right to be treated courteously?

    2. I believe The Pushy Nurse comes from Colchester – I wonder what she makes of this?

    3. 2:45 “Councillors feeling in fear”. Of this guy? So there we have it, play the fear card control others.

      1. The fear of some of them being exposed as being useless and an unnecessary burden on the taxpayer?

        A later video exposes a ‘Green’ councillor…

        It is worrying.

        1. I take your point. However I am aiming at the tactical shift in Leftist political intimidation. Marx, Lenin, Stalin etc were all up for explicit summary violence. What we have here is a Westernised version, far more subtle. The long march continues.

    5. Brilliant Rachel. I think people realise how useless some of our councils are and due to the usual council brickwall attitude have given up trying to achieve alternatives.
      After years of experience and practice and with the right ‘contacts’ they stay in office as planned whilst they effect the lives of everyone around them.
      They are like moss on your lawn, damage only visible on close inspection. But let’s get the rakes out.

    1. Good morning OLT

      Please have a peep at the video I posted yesterday ,, a Youtube on route to Portland .. We visited the Bill yesterday , it was packed out , and we wondered why so many Chinese were visiting ?

      1. Not old Bill. 😄😉
        I’ve always loved Dorset.
        Since my sister and BiL use to rent a farm house near Charmouth early 70s. We use to go somewhere every single day.
        We had a friend with a mobile home at Portland. But it was blown over during a storm years ago.

  34. Morning all 🙂😊
    Weather today not worthy of a mention. But the wind has dropped.
    My word how many times do our political classes break into a (rehearsed) panic when they’ve spent years doing absolutely nothing at all, except of course filling out their expenses claims.
    And they actually think that people who have suffered from their indifference, ineptitude and total incompetence will vote them back in for more of the same.
    Mine can’t even be bothered to reply to an email I sent over a month ago.

  36. 385567+ up ticks,

    This is what you get with mass overbooking a flight.

    Watch: Boeing engine cover falls off in mid-air with 135 passengers on board

    1. The plane was built in 2017 so wouldn’t it be more of a maintenance issue than boeings?

      1. 385567+ up ticks,

        Afternoon R,
        Agreed but, it does not alter the fact that, what were those people doing on the exterior of the aircraft.

    1. I suggest you change that to ‘DIE’ because that is more like what it means.

    2. That’s obviously the problem. There’s just too many errors after lowering the standards to let the diversity in.

    3. I’m a trustee of a charity. One of my trustee responsibilities is to ensure DIE compliance. Hmm. We’d have to import people in the rural part of Cheshire that the charity supports.

  39. I’ve my dental appointment this morning Root canal treatment back molar
    £ 450. 00 ( private and before the filling – I’ve only one other small filling ) no NHS dentists around here and besides I stayed with the practice even after my nice Irish dentist Dominic left to sail his boat across the seas . This new dentist is an Indian Sikh – he’s gentle which Is good. I hope it doesn’t hurt and I don’t like injections.

    2. The injections are the worst part. The rest is just tedious. I hope it all goes well.

      1. If you show me a ‘needle and syringa’ and you do not need to inject me: I normally just ‘pass out’

        1. Our elder son was like that until he joined the RAF. He’d pass out at the merest sight of blood. I was surprised the RAF accepted him.

    3. Hope it goes well. I always find the worst part is the aching jaw! Once the nerve is gone from the tooth, all other discomfort is gone?

      2. Until the tooth becomes infected…? It can take years though. I think once the nerve has been removed the body sees the tooth as a foreign body and attempts its removal by infection.

      1. The original dentist I grew up with never offered injections. His son took over the practice later and said “My father’s patients were very brave”……..he went private so I’ve not had NHS dentistry since then. Sadly he died in an accident more than 20 years ago and the couple who bought the practice have since retired. It’s now owned by BUPA, and my current dentist is a young woman of Indian extraction. (No pun intended).

    5. Over the past few weeks I’ve shelled out £600.00 for dental work. Nothing elaborate, just sorting out old fillings and generally keeping things tickety boo.
      I’ve noticed that our practice is now part of the ‘Smile’ organisation (franchise?). I wonder if, like vets, links to these big companies means a dramatic increase in prices.
      I only go once a year – I refuse the 6 monthly option as it’s just too expensive – so I will be doing some research before 2025.

      1. I pay over £30 a month now to BUPA. That covers me for two appointments with the dentist and two with the hygenist, and xrays and other small treatment if I need it. For anything major I would probably have to pay through the nose.

    1. It should be obvious to all by now. Tice is controlled opposition. If Reform are to go anywhere they have to ditch him and all others closely associated with him.

      1. He’s like a pace maker in a 5000 metre race who sets the pace at the beginning and then drops out half-way.

    2. Tice is seriously flawed but I hope Reform will flourish and soon find a principled, strong and electable leader to replace him

      The existing parties, especially Labour and Conservative, have abandoned their traditional supporters and deserve to toil in adamantine chains and penal fire.

    1. Morning Sos ,

      We haven’t had a drink for over 20 years , we hardly drank anything alcoholic before but we just don’t touch the stuff now. Must be our B/P tablets and Moh’s diabetes .

      I have collection of nice wine which is gathering dust on the bottles .

      We had some bottles of gin and vodka and whisky , barely used , just in case guests wanted a drink . The bottles were pre lockdown , so I emptied them down the sink and loo , and oh my goodness , what brilliant cleaning elements are in alcohol , the sink and loo sparkled !

      We don’t even visit a pub.

      We have witnessed too much rowdy behaviour in pubs and on aircraft .

      We have also seen too much damage caused by drink to friends who are no longer alive , and heard too many stories about dependence on drink .. One can be jolly with out even a sip of alcohol !

      1. What suits you may not suit others, and vice versa.
        We enjoy a drink together at home and a visit to a bar or pub.
        Each to their own.

      2. My loo needs a good clean. I hadn’t though of tossing a bottle of whisky down the pan!

        3. Drink it first – it will let you know when it is ready to be used. It doesn’t even change its colour much.

      4. It’s true that alcohol doesn’t, suit or agree, with everyone. When I worked offshore for 6-8 week periods it was on ‘dry’ ships. After 5 or 6 days, and all traces of alcohol had left my body, I really did think much more clearly with improved memory too. I drink daily (in the evenings) now and function pretty well ,and I know if I did stop I’d think better, but I enjoy drinking wine and beer so I won’t stop.

      2. Many years ago I had an Irish flatmate who used to get all her boyfriends blind drunk and then drag them into bed and complain that they were all impotent. She was good looking so I’m sure they’d have had her sober if given the chance but getting drunk was her way of being sociable. I moved out as soon as possible.

        1. As the song lyric goes ….

          I used to wear the trousers in our happy little home
          I used to rule the roost in kingly style
          But Women’s Lib’s destroying my libido
          And I find it hard to even raise a smile.

    2. Do you know why elephants have grey trunks? They all belong to the same swimming club

    1. They really seem to want to provoke a civil war, don’t they? Yet we know the Establishment is not on our side.

  45. That first video. Run the metrics the other way. A load of Gammons angry at something or whatever, there’s plenty to go round. Now imagine the media coverage that would get.

  46. Elon Musk Says X Will Defy Order From Brazil’s Supreme Court After Twitter Files
    Tyler Durden’s Photo
    BY TYLER DURDEN
    SUNDAY, APR 07, 2024 – 08:10 PM
    Authored by Melanie Sun via The Epoch Times,

    Owner of X Corp. Elon Musk said on the platform Saturday evening that the company had decided to lift all restrictions on Brazilian accounts targeted by an order from the nation’s Supreme Court.

    “We are lifting all restrictions. This judge has applied massive fines, threatened to arrest our employees and cut off access to 𝕏 in Brazil. As a result, we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there. But principles matter more than profit,” Mr. Musk posted, notifying of X’s decision.

  48. Lord Call-me-Dave of Chipping Norton’s piece takes some beating.

    The headline boasts: The world is safer for a renewed Entente
    The British Foreign Secretary and French Foreign Minister celebrate 120 years of cooperation between our two countries

    Who are they trying to kid?

    Fundamentally, France cannot be relied upon as an ally. The reason France was excluded from AUKUS is the same reason that France was not invited to share Five Eyes intel either. They’re proven to be untrustworthy allies – and certainly not to be trusted with such sensitive information.

    Look back over Macron’s time in office and see how often he has, quite deliberately, tried to undermine the UK. Over Northern Ireland, over Galileo, over fishing rights, threatening energy supplies to the Channel Islands, over trade, over migrants, – even over sausages for heavens sake.

    Needlessly petty and antagonistic, and for no other perceived benefit than to “get one over” on the British.

    The Entente has been far from Cordiale for some time now.

    As Foreign Sec, it’s a wonder Dave hadn’t noticed.

    4. They’re proven to be untrustworthy allies – and certainly not to be trusted with such sensitive information.

      To save on words, as they have never been our allies, let alone Allies

      They’re proven to be untrustworthy

      1. Cameron has repeatedly proved himself completely untrustworthy so it is not surprising that he feels a certain affinity with French politicians.

    5. Two good maxims to get by in life:
      1. Never trust the French.
      2. Never turn your back on the Irish.

      I’d add a third about Islam but Scotplod would be after me.

        2. And, only slightly less serious – never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!!

      1. 385567+ up ticks,

        Afternoon AS,
        There was far,far, superior but it was rejected by those supporting the treacherous trio, and as it turns out for the benefit of the
        WEF / NWO and the pro islamic campaign.

  53. “Poor mobile phone coverage stops drivers charging electric cars.”
    It seems just about every project the Government is involved in suffers from defects in one way or another, across all departments – health, defence, transport, education and the rest. A clear reflection on both the Civil Service and Ministers. The conclusion can only be that irrespective of whichever party is in the majority nothing will change for the better.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/08/poor-mobile-signal-stops-drivers-charging-electric-cars-ev/

    2. I charge my EV at home with VAT at 5%. With electricity at 11p/kWh (Economy 7) and with an average range of 4 miles/kWh I still get local motoring at under 3p/mile.

      Smart phones seem to be an essential part of everyday life nowadays but there are plenty of rural locations where they don’t work and leccy can be as much as 75p/kWh so I am reluctant to go a distance grearer than than that which I am prepared to walk home.

      Whilst I could get a bus back home there is still the chance of travelling back in an electric bus and these are just as likely to spontaneuosly combust as the Government’s preferred way of Net zero domestic personal transport – the EV.

      Here’s a good overview of the increasing risk of conflagrating electrically powered public transport by a fire fighter with first hand knowledge of tackling a range of spontaneous fires in buses:

      https://youtu.be/I1Ez54n27Gw?si=j9o5VMxxzlYzBJb6

    3. Oh, I’m with you. For the credit card payments. Half of them want you to sign up to their silly locked in cards and don’t take normal debit cards. When they do they’re horribly expensive – £1+ per kw.

  54. Will Iran attack Israel? 6 April 2024.

    The Middle East is bracing for an attack whose exact source, targets, method, timing and scope are unknown. On Monday, a suspected Israeli air strike targeted a group of Iranian officials in Damascus, Syria, and citizens of the region are now waiting to see how Iran’s regime will respond. Israel has scrambled GPS signals across the Middle East to confuse Iranian weapons – people living in places as far away from Israel as southeastern Turkey couldn’t use Google Maps on their phones this week. The GPS placed everybody in Beirut.

    Ironically the Telegraph was blaming Russia for doing exactly the same thing last week at Kaliningrad!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/will-iran-attack-israel/

    1. Given what the US and its allies did to Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan, what earthly right do any of its generals and politicians have to criticise Israel, or anyone else for that matter?

    2. FFS! The likelihood that Iranian weapons depend on GPS will be precisely zero! They will probably be able to receive and use not just GPS but also GLONASS and the Chinese system.

      1. Many politicians have similar features, a reflection on soft taxpayer subsidised living?

      3. Thin lipped, weak chin, receding hairline and a ski slope nose to look down on the plebs.

          1. Upper class?
            He’s nothing but a middle class oik with delusions of grandeur, who was fortunate to have parents who could afford send him to Eton.

          4. But he is a fraud. He is an oik and a yob and a classless nouveau-riche twerp.

          5. Beg to differ. Although not a particularly successful Prime Minister, David Cameron and his wife Sam devotedly cared for their tragically disabled son throughout his short life; DC’s own father Ian had a congenital defect in his legs, but he never, ever was known to complain and as a young man participated in all sorts of sporting activities. He worked as a stockbroker, and against stiff competition he courted and married Mary Mount, a noted beauty who will hopefully celebrate her 90th birthday later this year. As for “classless”, DC is directly descended from the Camerons of Lochiel, Clan chieftains from at least the 15th century. So there.

          6. Are you sure it was weakness in the legs that was a family trait? Not weakness in the head?

        2. He’s getting a bit jowley, too; he’s going to end up looking like Ken Clarke (he of the cigar and suede shoes) in a few years when he will put more weight on.

    1. It’s not me – I am plump but not as plump as this. Grizzly is now fighting fit and trim of figure but before going on his meat regime and fasting he was not as slim as he is now.

  57. Eventually . . .
    Wordle 1,024 4/6

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    1. Just finished planting Aubergines, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, chillis and every herb i could lay my hands on.

          1. Not frost I was talking about – just low temperatures. Still – it’s up to you.

          2. The ‘decking’ i installed on the embankment is also a sun trap. It will be fine.

          3. Spanish Flea – not to be confused with Spanish Fly even if both might give you a raise!

            I also enjoyed Bert Kaempfert and have this old LP in my collection which I bought when I was at boarding school over 60 years ago:

            https://www.google.com/search?q=A+Swinging+Safari&oq=A+Swinging+Safari&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQLhgKGIAEMgkIAhAAGAoYgAQyCQgDEAAYChiABDIJCAQQLhgKGIAEMgkIBRAAGAoYgAQyCQgGEAAYChiABDIKCAcQABgKGBYYHjIICAgQABgWGB4yBggJEEUYQNIBCTEwMTUzajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:686bb296,vid:ii-hwSgQwno,st:0

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/970a83ba9655a86ac54e5eddaf6a52777a3fc2ca3e1cf92b74796524924551a5.png

          4. The distinction between the left and right speakers is very clear if you listen to this with good head phones.

          5. I learned to type (on a manual typerwriter) to the sound of Tijuana Brass. Our typing instructor used to write for Mills and Boon under a female pen name!

          7. I was advised to take typing and book-keeping (possibly with a view to becoming a Company Secretary) after I graduated and it put off the evil moment when I had to start work, so I thought, ‘why not?’ The moment I started the accounting, I knew that was NOT for me! I do touch type and I’ve found that quite useful. Not, obviously, if I’ve a non-QWERTY keyboard (e.g. when I’m in France or when I was in Prague). Results from that can be quite interesting!

      3. When you buy garlic and have some cloves are sprouting plant them and they will return the favour.

  59. Tories are sinking while Reform UK gain momentum, says Richard Tice
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/08/rishi-sunak-latest-news-stride-streeting-reform-uk-starmer/

    Many of us here have our misgivings about Tice and the Reform Party. However in my view it is important that the Conservative Party is totally annihilated and voting Reform now is probably the best way of achieving this end. Is the any other way? What point is there is putting a corpse on a life-support machine?

    BTL

    Once reform is ahead of the Conservative Party in the polls the floodgates will open.

    At the moment desperate Conservative are bleating and pleading that a vote for Reform will help Labour defeat the Conservatives but once Reform is ahead in the polls it will be the other way round – it will be clear that a vote for the Conservatives will take away votes for the Reform Party and help Labour.

    Any credible Conservative must realise that The Party’s over. Come on JRM and David Frost – it’s time to join the Reform Party.

    2. The ONS (who should know) stated the Conservatives have 200,000 members

      whilst Reform has 1,200,000 members.

      Any vote for Conservative is just a wasted vote.

    3. The Canadian conservatives split into middle of the road and right wing parties many years ago.
      It took many years in the wilderness before common sense prevailed and they merged back into a right of centre party.

      1. The Conservatives have bungled it and fluffed their conservative lines.

        It is now the turn of another Right of Centre party to take their place.

    1. Good stuff! boring bogey for me…..

      Wordle 1,024 5/6

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      1. Childishly pleased with self for managing to post it! Thanks for the instructions and ner-ner-ner-ner-ner to the Nottler who said I wasn’t doing the “real” one ; )

    2. Boring par for me. I should have skipped the second guess

      Wordle 1,024 4/6

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    1. I didn’t know you could download iplayer on a laptop so it makes no difference to us.

    2. Not compulsory – if you don’t watch anything broadcast live on any channel inc BBC iPlayer, you don’t need one. You can watch most programs on catch-up TV , no licence needed.

      1. They also seemed to have stopped people from recording programs which makes it almost impossible to avoid live viewing.

          3. I use a VPN on my computer to watch iPlayer. I also have BritBox and I can also get Sky on the cheap.

          5. Not really. I was inundated with messages to that effect, for over four weeks, on my BBC iPlayer downloads computer app.

          6. Well i also use the app when i’m at the gym, and i go at least 3 times a week – and i have had no notification at all. Curious.

    1. I use to read the Australian when we lived in Adelaide.
      Speaking to my good old mate Bruce last week I asked him if he still had the two First edition of Australian Playboy Mags I brought when we lived there. They were left behind in their garage in a box, one sealed and never been opened. possibly valued at around 200 dollars each. Karen Pini was paid 5 thousand dollars to be centre fold.
      Bruce says they are still in there somewhere.

  64. We have just said goodbye to our youngest son who is flying to Dubai this evening. Staying with SiL and Hubby. He starts his new job later this month. I made him a bacon and egg sandwich, in home made white bread as it will be the last one he has for some time.
    As he has said it will be interesting to live in a country where it’s run properly and as a business. 30 day visa, no job …..out.
    But it all looks very clean well organised and tidy. Who can blame younger people like him and his Fiancée (joining him later) for getting out of this dump that has been wrecked by our idiots.

  65. Erin will be disappointed she use to watch Dead Enders on her Lap top.
    Oh hang on that might mean she will want to watch it live………….

  66. Well, well. Quelle bloody surprise.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/08/bradford-fatal-stabbing-mum-pram-student-visa-habibur-masum/

    Suspect in pram-pushing mother’s fatal stabbing entered UK on student visa

    A nationwide manhunt is under way for Habibur Masum after a 27-year-old woman was attacked in Bradford on Saturday

    8 April 2024 • 11:10am

    Masum is understood to have entered the UK two years ago and was studying at the University of Bedfordshire

    A Bangladeshi man suspected of the fatal stabbing of a mother who was pushing her baby in a pram along a high street entered the UK on a student visa, it has emerged.

    A nationwide manhunt is under way for Habibur Masum, 25, after a 27-year-old woman was attacked in the Westgate area of Bradford on Saturday.

    West Yorkshire Police said Masum may still be armed and warned members of the public not to approach him.

    Masum is understood to have entered the UK two years ago and was studying for a masters in digital marketing at the University of Bedfordshire.

    The student, who is believed to be married, has a YouTube account and just days before the attack he uploaded a video showing a recent trip to Barcelona.

    He also shared clips to his followers on Facebook showing them how to prepare a hospital bag for “your newborn baby”. Another showed him setting up a child’s cot.

    A man who works at a company that helped Masum get a Schengen visa to travel across Europe said he was “shocked” to hear of his alleged crime.

    The man, who did not wish to be named, confirmed Masum was in the country on a student visa.

    He told The Telegraph: “I was shocked when I heard the news.

    “He is a familiar face in Manchester. He came here on a student visa. I have had no communication with him for the last two months.”

    He described Masum as a “normal, friendly student” who enjoyed travelling and liked playing football and cricket.

    The business, Samin’s UK Visa Support Centre, shared a photo of Masum’s Shengen visa in January.

    A photo of Masum’s visa to Portugal read: “Happy to help you. Schengen Visa from UK. Good idea, better application visa.”

    Police were called to Westgate at the junction with Drewton Road at 3.21pm on Saturday after reports of a woman being stabbed by a man, who then fled.

    According to eyewitnesses, the woman was stabbed “four to five times” in the neck while shopping with a friend.

    Geo Khan, 69, who runs a nearby grocery shop, tried to resuscitate the woman, who was one of his customers.

    He said: “I was working on Saturday and I heard screams and ran out of my shop.

    “I saw that the lady was lying face down on the pavement next to a pushchair with her five-month-old baby inside. I turned her over. There was a lot of blood and I checked for a pulse, but couldn’t find one. I could see the knife wounds to her neck, and I tried to do CPR.”

    Brutal attack

    Detectives confirmed that the baby was not injured in the attack which is understood to have been captured on CCTV.

    Police have seized footage from Westgate International Food which is believed to show the attack.

    A shop worker at the store said this morning: “Our CCTV covers the inside of the store and a camera shows outside where the attack happened.”

    The employee said he saw Masum talking with the woman outside the shop before hearing screaming.

    He said that after the attack, the assailant leapt over a nearby fence and fled the scene.

    On Monday morning, West Yorkshire’s deputy mayor for policing and crime, Alison Lowe, said that every police force in the country was looking for Masum.

    Anyone who sees Masum is urged not to approach him and to phone 999 immediately.

    Masum, who is described as Asian and of a slim build, is from the Oldham area and is believed to have links to the Burnley and Chester areas.

    CCTV footage appears to show him wearing a duffle coat with three large horizontal lines of grey, white and black, light blue or grey tracksuit bottoms with a small black emblem on the left pocket and maroon trainers.

    Officers said a knife was recovered from the scene but could not confirm whether Masum was armed.

    The victim has not yet been formally identified but police said her family had been informed and was being supported by officers.

    Detective Chief Inspector Stacey Atkinson, of West Yorkshire Police’s homicide and enquiry team, said: “We have had significant resources following up a number of lines of enquiry to locate Habibur Masum but at this time his whereabouts are unknown.”

    The Home Office and the University of Bedfordshire have been contacted for comment.”

    2. The Home Office and the University of Bedfordshire have been contacted for comment.”
      To be expected, a cover up or denial of any knowledge and shoved under the huge lump under our carpet.

    3. “University of Bedfordshire”

      Formerly Luton College of Higher Education. It wasn’t even a Poly.

    4. Mon 25 March, 2024

      It will be 50 years to the day, from when Sarfraz Manzoor arrived in
      Luton’s Bury Park from Pakistan to when he steps up to give his first
      lecture at the University of Bedfordshire, an institution he was
      appointed Chancellor of last summer.

      It has felt, says the Chancellor, “like a completely impossible journey to have made.”

      At the free-to-attend lecture at the University’s Luton campus
      – open to the public, as well as staff and students of the University –
      Sarfraz will talk about his life growing up in the town, illustrated by
      photos of him and the town. He’ll discuss why he had to leave Luton and
      why he’s now its biggest fan.

      The lecture will also be streamed live.

      Register for your free ticket:

      ‘My Luton story: how I came, why I left and why I’m (sort of) back’

      Thursday 16 May, 6pm to 7pm

      in person or online via a livestream

      Sarfraz – who was born in Pakistan and grew up in Luton – has seen
      critical acclaim for his writing which has often reflected on identity,
      belonging and the challenges and opportunities of multiculturalism. He
      gained international recognition when his memoir ‘Greetings from Bury Park’, which described his childhood growing up in Luton in a British Pakistani family, was adapted into the 2019 feature film ‘Blinded by the Light’.

      At his inaugural lecture, the Chancellor will share his bitter-sweet
      recollections of growing up in the town in the 1980s and detail why he’s
      back and championing Luton.

      The town has a “resilience and a don’t-count-the-underdog-out
      spirit”, Sarfraz said in an interview with the Guardian in 2023. “When I
      was growing up, I was writing Luton off. Now I feel like it’s the next
      big thing.”

      An exhibition in Wardown Park will also mark 50 years since the
      Chancellor arrived in Luton. In collaboration with the Culture Trust, ‘Luton in 50 Objects’ is
      a special exhibition that will show the development of Luton and
      includes several personal objects contributed by the Chancellor,
      including his mum’s Singer sewing machine.

      He said: “I have been reflecting on the journey of my life and of my
      home town. It is this story, the story of Luton that I want to tell.”

      A Q&A session, chaired by the University’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Rebecca Bunting,
      will follow the lecture. After the event concludes, there will be
      complimentary drinks and light refreshments, as well as the opportunity
      for guests to meet with Sarfraz.

    5. “He described Masum as a “normal, friendly student” who enjoyed travelling and liked playing football and cricket”. These people really are unbelievably stupid. There’s also the line that Masum “is from the Oldham area”. No, he effing well isn’t. He’s from Shit-holestan. What was he supposedly studying?

    6. Is the university of bedfordshire now in bradford?

      That seems to be a long way to travel to school each day.

      1. Yes- how can somebody on a student visa to study at the ‘university of Bedfordshire’ (AKA Luton), be ‘from the Oldham area’?

  71. Deluge of hate crime complaints overwhelming Scottish police

    Federation chairman says officers are not prepared for the ‘unsustainable’ task of dealing with thousands of reports

    Daniel Sanderson, SCOTTISH CORRESPONDENT
    8 April 2024 • 9:59am

    Police Scotland “can’t cope” with a deluge of hate crime reports made under the SNP’s new law, frontline officers have claimed.

    David Threadgold, chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, also said that officers remained confused about when charges should be made, because of inadequate training.

    Around 8,000 hate crime reports were made in the first week of the legislation coming into force, with Mr Threadgold warning that the law was being exploited to fuel personal and political vendettas.

    “Police Scotland have gone public and said that on every occasion, reports of hate crime will be investigated,” Mr Threadgold told the BBC. “That creates a situation where we simply cannot cope at the moment.

    “Officers have been brought back in to do overtime shifts, and the management of that is simply unsustainable.

    “When you have vexatious complaints, people who look to weaponise this legislation or who make these complaints for personal gain or political point scoring, then that creates a problem for the police which can affect public satisfaction in my organisation.

    “Now, the First Minister in Scotland can talk about his confidence, and Police Scotland’s ability to deal with vexatious complaints as he has done, but what we have never seen before is the scale of the complaints are coming in around one piece of legislation.”

    Claims also emerged on Monday that police had dismissed a complaint about a relative of an SNP politician, who allegedly posted an anti-Semitic image online because the complainant was not Jewish.

    The new legislation, which was passed by MSPs in 2021 but only came into force this month, makes it an offence to “stir up hatred” against protected groups such as transgender people, the disabled and the elderly.

    ‘We have not prepared our staff properly’
    Ahead of enforcement, the SNP Government and Police Scotland launched a campaign urging the public to report all instances of “hate” but have been taken aback by the volume of complaints.

    Police officers received just two hours of online training which Mr Threadgold said had not been adequate to equip them to make difficult judgements around complex issues such as how to balance freedom of speech.
    *
    *
    *****************************

    Nigel Gowan
    1 HR AGO
    I wonder if there is a time limit, I was misgendered once when I was 13 by an old lady who thought I was female because I had long hair at the time, this has traumatised me for life

    1. @Nigel Gowan. ScotPlod said the new law will not be applied retrospectively.

      Oh dear…they didn’t see that coming did they? lol.

      1. Or intended to tie up Plod with trivia while criminals get on with their chosen profession.

          1. Any criminal profession.
            I think the thing is to put us in the dodgy side of the law so that real gangsters can get on with it.
            So if anyone here needs shutting up it probably wouldn’t be hard to trawl through the posts until they find something objectionable.
            As for TCW…
            Then we’ll be extradited to Glasgow.

    3. GBN reported the deluge of complaints as a deliberate far right campaign. Pattettick, as an old friend (who was Slovak and couldn’t pronounce the Norse “thu” sound) frequently used to say!

  73. The top Tories don’t care, they’ll be looked after by their globalist masters. It’s all a game, a charade, a pretence at democracy. Vote in the Tories, get woke globalist policies. Vote in Labour, get woke globalist policies. Same goes for the Libdems and Greens. Too early to say when it comes to Reform. I’ll vote for them, but they also need to be watched.

    1. 385567+ up ticks,

      Afternoon TA,

      After the 2019 GE revealed their
      pro johnson / tory (ino) party via “nige” stance, they can and will be taken as the
      tory (ino) party MK 2.

        1. Not the mainstream press who masquerade as “journalists” whilst feathering their chichi little retirement villas abroad i exchange for pushing The Narrative. Particularly the perfidious Al Beeb House of Savile

  74. It’s international beaver day today, during the 16th century they were hunted to extinction In this country for their meat and fur. But fortunately these hardly little creatures, so important to our ecosystems moving logs and wood around our rivers.
    They have been introduced to where I am In East Anglia and to Gloucestershire, wonderful little things as are otters but it’s a special day for the beaver .

    1. 🤣 Lord knows what mischief will be brewing in the minds of certai. Nottlers upon reading your last sentence!

          1. Bring it on !

            Not only do i have balls of steel i have the hide of a rhinoceros…etc etc etc.

    3. Wait till the not so little buggers block rivers and streams with their little houses, the flooding and damage they cause is not normally appreciated.

    4. Yes, I used to enjoy munching on a nice beaver back in the day, a bit to ‘woody’ for me so I changed to squirrel.
      Rather nutty though, but at least the hair didn’t get lodged in your teeth….

  76. Putin is preparing to unleash a new wave of terror weapons. Hamish De Crettin-Gordon.. 8 April 2024.

    The revelation that Russian forces have been making widespread use of CS gas – a chemical banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention – should be a horrific wake up call to the West and Nato that no weapons are off limits for Vladimir Putin.

    CS gas has become a Terror Weapon? Perhaps someone should inform the worlds’s Police Forces? These stories are becoming ever more ridiculous. Gordon is obviously unhinged.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/08/ukraine-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-chemical-weapons-putin/

  77. New John Lewis chairman to replace Dame Sharon White
    Partnership appoints former Tesco UK chief Jason Tarry as it doubles down on retail

    John Lewis has appointed a new chairman to replace Dame Sharon White as the partnership battles to revive its fortunes.

    The John Lewis Partnership, which runs the department store chain and Waitrose stores, said Jason Tarry, the former UK boss of Tesco, would be joining as its seventh chairman later this year, following a search which kicked off last October.

    Mr Tarry stepped down as Tesco’s UK and Ireland chief executive last month after more than 33 years at the grocery giant. He had led Tesco’s UK operations for six years and was credited for his critical role in steering the supermarket through the pandemic.

    When he stepped down, Tesco boss Ken Murphy said he had made the supermarket “the most competitive we have ever been”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/08/new-john-lewis-chairman-to-replace-dame-sharon-white/

    Dame Sharon White… excuse me , but I had no idea she was brown ?

    No comments allowed .

    1. They’ve actually appointed someone who has previously worked in a senior position in a retail company. Astounding.

    2. They have NEVER allowed any comments at all on articles about John Lewis since Sharon White took over.

  78. My wife arrived back from her driving test.

    “So,” I asked excitedly, “how did you get on?”

    “Not good,” she replied. “He failed me.”

    “Oh dear!” I said sympathetically. “It can’t be that bad; what did he pull you up on?”

    “A rope,” she replied. “The car’s still in the river.”

    1. Lorry driver phoning from Calais: “Boss, it’s bad news, I missed the ferry to Dover.”
      Boss: “Well just catch the next one!”
      Driver: “You don’t understand, I missed it by about six feet.”

  79. Four people narrowly escaped injury after an e-bike exploded at a London train station. Footage shows the stationary bicycle starting to smoke and then burst into flames, scattering pieces over the platform. Commuters were seen running away from the smoking battery but no one was injured in the explosion which happened in Sutton last month, London Fire Brigade said.

    Posting a video clip of the incident on X, formerly Twitter, the LFB said: “We’re asking businesses, including rail operators, to consider their risk assessments after crews attended an e-bike fire on a Sutton train station platform.

    “Crews were called just as rush hour was underway last month, fortunately, no one was injured.”

    It comes after a series of electric vehicle explosions. Last month an electric-powered tricycle caught fire while parked outside Buckingham Palace. Meanwhile, shocking footage in March also showed a faulty e-bike exploding in a block of flats in Roehampton.

  80. Niall Gooch
    Ian Hislop’s elite blindspot
    8 April 2024, 8:13am

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Screenshot-2024-04-08-at-08.04.07.png

    A common argument against populist politicians such as Nigel Farage or Donald Trump is that their attacks on elites are in some sense inauthentic because they themselves are members of those same elites. Trump is, after all, a billionaire who has been prominent in New York corporate circles for almost half a century. His social milieu has included Wall Street titans, very senior politicians, and key figures in the world of entertainment.

    Our Nige, meanwhile, may not be a billionaire, but he attended Dulwich College, a prominent public school, and made a good living as a commodities trader in the City. He has wealthy allies, such as the pro-Brexit businessman Arron Banks. His recent sixtieth birthday party was held at an upscale restaurant in Canary Wharf.

    How then, goes the argument, can we regard either of these men as genuinely opposed to the establishment? They are mere cynics, exploiting the gullible and resentful masses for their own nefarious purposes. One prominent proponent of this point of view is Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye. Last week he was rehashing it yet again on the News Agents podcast, a bastion of the kind of the kind of weedy, complacent Sensibleism of which Mr Hislop is such an enthusiastic advocate. Hislop stated that Farage’s self-presentation was ‘bogus’ because he acts like a ‘working-class hero’, despite his educational and career background. But this is nonsense.

    For one thing Farage, as far as I am aware, has never claimed to be working-class. What he does claim – like the Donald – is that he is a voice for the unfashionable and neglected parts of British society: those who have experienced what one writer has called ‘existential defeat’, i.e. seeing their values, lifestyle and aspirations derided and marginalised by Official Britain.

    For another, Hislop is totally failing to understand where power lies in Britain today. His concept of the Establishment seems to be stuck in about 1952, with landowners and bishops and retired generals conspiring on the hunting field, or reactionary judges and captains of industry whispering behind the Daily Telegraph in gentlemen’s clubs. Farage might have fitted in quite nicely in some parts of this establishment, although many of its members would have taken a dim view of his occupation. But that it just not what British public life is like in 2024. Real administrative and cultural power is held by a class of obsessive egalitarians: activist lawyers and judges, civil servants, academics, quangocrats, arts administrators, teachers, and broadcast media executives. Only a few weeks back the head of MI6 was forced to resign from his club because it does not admit women. The courts take an enthusiastically political role in reviewing government legislation. Ofcom has the power to punish GB News for the most preposterous of offences against ‘impartiality’, while the BBC pushes social and cultural liberalism incessantly. Schools enable ‘social gender transition’ of confused kids in defiance of government instruction. The equality and diversity agenda is enforced across the entire public sector, including the armed forces, and increasingly in the private sector too. It is this new establishment, much more ruthless and unyielding than the old one, to which Nigel Farage is undeniably and eternally an outsider and an enemy. He was instrumental in Britain leaving the EU. He did not attend university; he likes beer and smokes cigarettes. Everything about him, from his accent to his manner to his preferred style of dress, sets him apart.

    Ian Hislop, by contrast, is very comfortable with this world. He is nearing the end of the his fourth decade in the editor’s chair at Private Eye, a post he assumed when I was three years old and no one had heard of the internet. He produces mildly whimsical documentaries for the BBC, and churns out two series per year of Have I Got News For You, a programme that started when the Soviet Union still existed, and was past its best 15 years ago. He is sympathetically profiled in the press. You will search his public pronouncements in vain for any meaningful dissent from modern pieties about net zero, immigration, drugs, race relations, the EU, abortion, and transgenderism. The Eye grumbles quietly about corruption in Brussels and the vacuity of contemporary architecture, but Hislop has been loudly anti-Brexit and would no doubt enjoy sniping from the sidelines in the unlikely event that a politician tried to insist on more traditional architecture in public buildings.

    Fundamentally, he is far more entangled with, and sympathetic to, our true elites than Nigel Farage. This means that on his own terms, he is very ill-suited to editing a satirical magazine or being a team captain on an allegedly satirical TV show. Hislop claims that populists who are themselves quasi-establishment figures are ipso facto untrustworthy and cynical, and that their antagonism to the governing classes is all for show. But this is surely also true of the satirist who has cosied up to the status quo in so many areas.

    Hislop would doubtless defend himself by saying that he should be judged on his work and his arguments rather than anything else. And this defence is correct – but also completely contradicted by those dismissive insinuations about Farage’s alleged closeness to the establishment. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

    ***********************************

    James Blair
    5 hours ago
    You would think that Hislop would both understand irony and have a level of self awareness. HIGNFY and Private Eye have gone from windmill tilting, iconoclastic, mockers of corruption, political arrogance and hypocrisy morphing into the very entities that they used to satirize, Hislop embodies this and if smugness was an Olympic event he would be a gold medal contender.

    1. Hislop used to be funny once – a very long time ago. Now he is just a smug, self-satisfied Remainiac.

      2. Private Eye under Hislop have kept the PO scandal in the public mind for over a decade. Postmasters are grateful to him for that.

          7. It’s very substantial, I generally just read certain sections, mainly

    2. Successful revolutions against a corrupt ancienne regime tend to be led by dissenters from the elite rather than genuine class based revolutions. Eg Kett’s rebellion against the ECW. Just because someone comes from a privileged background doesn’t mean they don’t lobe their country – the old British aristocracy were incredibly patriotic.

      1. “ the old British aristocracy were incredibly patriotic” – were they? Who were the most patriotic in the First World War – the aristocracy who wanted to preserve their wealth, power and privilege or the tens of thousands of working-class soldiers who died and were maimed in vast numbers because it was their duty.

        1. Don’t forget the very many well educated young officers who also perished in that conflict.

          1. No, I haven’t. My point was that patriotism was not and is not the exclusive or even the predominant characteristic of the aristocracy.

          2. I never said patriotism was limited to the aristocracy, merely that they were as was the broad mass of the population.

        2. Young officers in the Great War understood that with privilege came responsibility; Thousands perished whilst dashing towards machine guns armed only with a pistol. Later their families were hit with death duties.

          1. I do not doubt the sacrifices that the aristocracy made but, to repeat what I said to another poster, my point was that patriotism was not and is not the exclusive or even predominant characteristic of the aristocracy.

          3. True, but they volunteered in their millions and died in their hundreds of thousands.

          4. It was said that the public schoolboy was taught leadership while the elementary schoolboy was taught followship.

        3. I suggest you look at some of the memorials to the dead in some of our public schools.

          1. You are missing the point which is not that the aristocracy did not show patriotism in WW1 but that the non-aristocracy displayed at least equal patriotism. Stating that ‘the old aristocracy were incredibly patriotic” demeans the patriotism of everyone else.

          3. No I’m not – I have this morning paid £49 to renew my Conservative Party membership.

          4. Paid up socialist then 🙁

            Only kidding, hope you are going to attack them from within!

          5. I renewed my membership only because we have a superb constituency MP. Attacking them from within would be like kicking puppies; my hope is that they will stop exploring the frontiers of ineptitude.

    3. Rather sadly, we cancelled our Private Eye subscription about 10 years ago. The sub was bought originally by my late Father, so it was a bit of a wrench, but the magazine had lost any form of satire or iconoclasm, and was, frankly, boring to the extent we often didn’t open the packaging.

      1. Just as Tom Lehrer gave up satire when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize saying satire could no longer compete with reality so HIGNFY stopped being relevant when Hislop changed sides, abandoned satire and started sucking up to the establishment.

        1. Apologies as I have mentioned this before, but there was a retired lady who used to teach a young Ian Hislop at primary or prep school (Ardingly?) and she maintained that he was exactly the same character all those years ago. As you are in the teaching profession, you might be amused. Of course, HIGNFY must pay well and the production team also need a wage.

    4. HIGNFY Was once my favourite TV programme until it lost the plot. I haven’t watched it for around 8 years. Probably ten.

      1. More like 15 for me. As I was saying to a mate the other day, they’ve taken everything good and enjoyable in life away from us.

    5. Just as Farage mocks those who went to Eton when he went to Dulwich so Hislop mocks Farage for going to Dulwich when he went to Ardingly.

      There is a satirical snobbishness and inverted snobbishness in public schools between each other. At Blundell’s Sherborne was considered a bit effete and at a rugby match between the two schools Sherborne supporters on the touchline would say: “Scratch for it, Sherborne,” while Blundell’s supporters in rural Devonian style would bellow: “Scrag ’em Ber..lundell’s.”

    1. Of course it’s not “acceptable” in the U.K. however, HMG is frit of all things Muslim and they are allowed to do as they wish. We hardly need the legislation to make showing pictures of their so called prophet illegal – look what they did to the Batley man.

      It would be interesting see what penalties would be imposed if there was such a law

      1. Nothing too harsh for a first offence – you’d probably get away with a stoning.

        1. Six months in prison. Same for failing to register your chooks with DEFRA.

          They keep this shit going they are going to have to put prisoners up in hotels…oh…

  82. Daily Telegraph Politics
    Nigel Farage has said he’d be willing to work with a Labour Government as ” Britain’s Man in Washington ‘ if Donald Trump becomes President. He said he’d be Starmers ‘ man in Washington ” . Has his fingers in many pies

      1. Stirring Telegraph journalists yes of course, he’s very much a reactionary ‘fox in the henhouse type ‘ . I don’t believe he’ll personally get involved in politics again.

          1. It’s wasn’t too bad thank you , just the injections I don’t like, it went okay, haven’t had anything to eat since then, so I’ve just had some biscuits with tea, pasta tonight which is soft .

    2. If he’d take a prominent position in Reform and lead the party into the election, Reform could actually gain seats and real influence. But he’d rather lounge about in Washington with his mate, the Don.

  83. 385567+ up ticks,

    In a different time zone he would have been found leaving, at a
    quarter to eight, a Berlin bunker.

    Farage: I’d be Starmer’s man in Washington Updated

  85. World at most dangerous moment since Second World War. Jamie Dimon. 8 April 2024

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas conflict and a lack of direction in America’s politics “may very well be creating risks that could eclipse anything since World War II,” he said.

    The US needed to show stronger global leadership, including further backing for Ukraine to stop Russia winning the war, which would be a “disaster for the whole free world,” he said.

    Ahhh! The Whole Free World. I can remember that. Alas it is no more.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/08/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-retail-insolvencies/

    2. The end of the petrodollar draws nigh.

      The Russian Special Military Operation to free oppressed Russian speakers and Orthodox Christians in Ukraine proceeds apace.

      Ukraine is out of manpower and lacks sufficient shells and munitions to continue its war with Russia. The collective West has so neglected their armies and production of fighting materiel as to be impotent viz. unable to supply anything of value to Ukraine.

      In essence the collective West and their intelligence agencies have underestimated the abilities of Russia to both field an effective army and produce sufficient munitions and equipment to wage war. History should have taught the fools in the US EU and UK that in the words of Otto von Bismarck: “The secret of politics is to have a good Treaty with Russia”.

      1. A “good Treaty” is one where the signatories can be relied on to adhere to it. There’s no such thing as a good Treaty with Russia.

        1. I recall the Minsk agreements were abandoned by Ukraine with the connivance of the US and any hope of constructive talks on a settlement were sabotaged by Boris Johnson under instruction from the US.

    1. I have bookmarked for future reference – reviews say better than anything you can buy.

      1. When i tasted it i went…. ooh.
        I also used the bottled peppers because i’m lazy. But the method they suggest does work.
        Works brilliantly as a dip for tortillas or pittas.
        I do have Sumac on my spice shelf though unusual but you can use any spices you like.
        Certainly miles ahead of any shop bought stuff.

          2. Oh, I’d love to, Phizzee, but I’m 100 miles (Cambridge) from Woking; I fear I would need resuscitation on arrival. Thanks so much, if I am ever down your way I will let you know.

          3. I am on the south coast 20 miles from Southampton. Woking is the place some Nottlers have met recently. Geoff is pondering where to do the Nottle Anniversary lunch somewhen around the end of April.. He is mulling East Anglia at the moment. Way too far for me.

  87. Got to laugh. The Daily Telegraph confirms it’s all true…..

    “Lord Adair Turner in alliance with Soros”

    https://wwwDOTtelegraphDOTcoDOTuk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9963050/Lord-Turner-forms-unlikely-alliance-with-Soros.html

    This is the same Lord Adair Turner who was….

    Director of the Confederation of British Industry.
    Chairman of the Financial Services Authority.
    Chairman of the Pensions Commission.
    Chairman of the Climate Change Committee.
    and is now….
    Chairman of the Energy Transition Commission!

    Almost always pushing the same policies as Soros. No wonder he usually gets the top jobs.

    1. That was my thought, too. The NHS needs root and branch reform, not more money thrown at it.

  89. I am glad that canadas economy is strong and not running with a 40 billion deficit..

    Not content with the 25 billion being thrown at housing, dental care, prescriptions, school meals, daycare and anything else that might attract younger voters the defence minister has just announced that later today, he will be announcing 164 billion dollars for the military to buy new toys.

    No word on how it will be paid for.

      1. That is what bothers many of us. In this past week, they have announced over 200 billion dollars in new expenditures without any comment on how we are paying for their largess.

    3. In WW2, Canada gave huge military support to the UK – the RCN to protect the convoys, the RCAF to take the fight to the enemy and, of course, taking one of the three beaches on D-day. Don’t begrudge Canada spending money on its military – it’s a dangerous and unpredictable world out there and we may need Canadian help again.

  90. Well that’s a shame. All day our Radio and TV have been nothing but solar eclipse this and that safety and warnings.

    What they havent planned for is that the weather forecast is for clouds this afternoon..

    2. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/hamas-steve-coogan-tilda-swinton-gaza-charles-dance-b1115165.html

      Steve Coogan condemns ‘horrific’ Hamas attacks as he defends Gaza support letter
      The letter calls for an ‘an immediate ceasefire and the opening of Gaza’s crossings to allow humanitarian aid to enter unhindered’.

      In a statement to X, formerly Twitter, Outlander star Sam Heughan said he “inadvertently” signed the letter and it does not reflect his “beliefs”.

      Heughan added: “I believed it was a simple call for peace… It wasn’t.

      1. It would save Hamas the bother. These people are irrational? Hamas won’t cease firing so they’re effectively just demanding that Israel stops fighting back and at the same time they claim to care about the Jews. Coogan states that, “It is in no way inconsistent”.

        1. Where are the feminists? Where is the Minister for Women? Where is the child protection agency? They all remain silent where muslims are concerned.
          In behaving this way they are spiraling into obscurity.
          All they think they hold dear will become irrelevant with what is coming.

          1. None of these agencies – none of them – are what they say on the tin. Most are the polar opposite. This is how fuct up we have allowed our language to become.

    4. Why do they call these vile people ‘stars’? Because, like slugs, they come out at night?

    5. It would need the whole complement of Hamas ‘freedom fighters’ to lift that lump of lard over the border.

      1. win win, particularly if Hamas tossed a few of the LGBQT++ off what remains of the tall buildings, just to hammer home what these fundamentalist Muslims believe in.

    1. Well that is true (sort of). The WHO did not need to impose any vaccination, mask, or lockdown mandates directly, it was Trudeau and his sycophant administration that did the dirty work.

      Trudeau has denied coercion but if you wanted to travel by air or train, if you wanted to go to a restaurant or even keep your job, you had to be vaccinated.

      1. If Trudeau is being thrown under the WHO bus, there are many would help drive it!

    4. We are getting to that age when those around us dissappear.
      We came back a few days early from our holiday so that we could attend a funeral, one day later we heard that another friend had died.

      As my mother moaned, she had no friends any more. Well at 94, she had outlived them.

      2. Sympathy to your Mum, from a position of experience. Pretty well all gone now. Either croaked, or moved away.

    5. Sorry to hear that, and condolences. It’s not just our advanced age, is it? A huge number of my friends are suddenly discovering rare and advanced cancers that have metastased exponentially. This in a cohort of fit outdoorsy people.

      Not to mention all the weird dropping dead out of the blue amongst sportspeople – particularly young white men

    6. And you think to yourself, “Oh! I wish I’d made the effort to go and see him again.”
      I had a similar shock when I heard that my one time next door neighbour, who also served in the Sappers, had died.

    7. Sorry to hear that. I went to a funeral today, but the deceased was 107! They breed ’em tough in Shropshire!

    1. Even Childish voters were not attracted by this childish doodle.

      Of course the symbolism was meant to convey the green message – but the truth has been Net Zero which will totally destroy all growth in the economy and bankrupt Britain.

      2. Nor I.
        I think it’s just coincidence, although the brand is shutting numerous shops.

  97. A propagating Par Four!

    Wordle 1,024 4/6
    ⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
    🟩🟩⬜🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Hopefully not an instruction :-))

      Wordle 1,024 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜🟩⬜
      ⬜🟩🟨🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

        1. I hope that you have noted my post ages ago which proves that I haven’t been doing the wrong wordle, lacoste 😉

        2. Ah, the reference is to today’s Wordle answer. It isn’t something that I could do at my age!

      3. Wordle 1,024 5/6

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

    2. Three today.
      Wordle 1,024 3/6

      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
      ⬜🟩🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Unusual to get there without a yellow.

      Wordle 1,024 4/6

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

    4. 3 today, could easily have been 4.

      Wordle 1,024 3/6

      ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  98. Any of us could have written this script.
    God, am I SICK of our bloody politicians shoving things under the carpet and lying to us.

    “A mother who was fatally stabbed to death while pushing her baby in a pram along a busy high street has been named as 27-year-old Kulsama Akter.

    The incident happened in Bradford city centre on Saturday afternoon.

    Habibur Masum, who is 25 and from the Oldham area of Greater Manchester, is wanted in connection with the stabbing.

    At a press briefing on Monday, Assistant Chief Constable Damien Miller said a 23-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.”

    1. He is NOT from bloody Oldham.

      He entered the UK on a student visa from Bangladesh.

      1. To which I daresay we will now be unable to deport him because they might not safeguard his human rights to the standard that he and his legal-aid funded lawyer demand.

    2. That’s really upsetting (actually reduced to tears here)… poor lass, and poor little baby too. Is any reason given, or should we just slit all these nasty shits throats, so they can’t prey on young women?
      I assume there is a back story – maybe she disrespected him for being an unutterable shit?
      (BTW, does anyone have any really effective, negative, sweary words that might suit an occasion such as this? I seem to have run out).

          10. That must have been telepathy!

            I very nearly wrote something to that effect, that it would be under your summer truffles..

      2. Yes. I find myself using the c word far more often – a word that, like Ms V Derbyshire I never used to use (except as a nuclear option). Someone posted a list here yesterday of standard armed forces insults, but even they don’t do the trick when it comes to the behaviour of both our deceitful, corrupt politicians and the guests they have invited, against our will, to infest our country and take charge of it.

      1. Spot on. Had I had to do National Service, it would have been in the 2nd btn Coldstream Guards. My heart still misses a beat when I see them on parade.

      2. Spot on. Had I had to do National Service, it would have been in the 2nd btn Coldstream Guards. My heart still misses a beat when I see them on parade.

        1. I’m not au fait with RAF stuff, but I do know that when the oldest regiment of foot guards, The Coldstreams, were relegated to No 2 in the hierarchy (replete with tunic buttons in pairs) behind the upstarts, the Grenadiers, then they left no one in any doubt as to who were the real No 1s.

  101. https://aviation-safety.net/asndb/331877
    BOAC 707 that had a fire departing LHR, landed, and burned up – with 5 fatalities.
    The aircraft was operating Flight BA 712 from London-Heathrow Airport to Zürich and Sydney. A check pilot was on the aircraft for the purpose of carrying out a route check on the pilot-in-command. The aircraft became airborne from runway 28L at 15:27 and 20 seconds later, just before the time for the noise abatement power reduction, the flight crew felt and heard a combined shock and bang. The thrust lever for the No. 2 engine “kicked” towards the closed position and at the same time the instruments showed that the engine was running down. The captain ordered the engine failure drill. Because the undercarriage was retracted, the warning horn sounded when the flight engineer fully retarded the thrust lever; the check pilot and flight-engineer simultaneously went for and pulled the horn cancel switch on the pedestal whilst the co-pilot instinctively but in error pressed the fire bell cancel button. In front of him the flight-engineer went for the engine fire shut-off handle but he did not pull it. The check pilot then reported seeing a serious fire in the No. 2 engine. Having initially started an engine failure drill, the flight engineer changed directly to the engine fire drill. ATC originally offered the pilot-in-command a landing back on runway 28L and alerted the fire services but after a “Mayday” call Flight 712 was offered runway 05R which was accepted as it would result in a shorter flight path. About 1,5 minutes after the start of the fire, No. 2 engine, together with part of its pylon, became detached and fell into a waterfilled gravel pit. At about the time the engine fell away the undercarriage was lowered and full flap selected. The undercarriage locked down normally but the hydraulic pressure and contents were seen to fall and the flaps stopped extending at 47deg, that is 3deg short of their full range. The approach to runway 05R was made from a difficult position, the aircraft being close to the runway and having reached a height of about 3000 feet and a speed of 225 kt. There is no glide slope guidance to this runway but the approach was well judged and touchdown was achieved approximately 400 yards beyond the threshold. The aircraft came to a stop just to the left of the runway centre line, about 1800 yards from the threshold.
    After the aircraft came to rest the flight engineer commenced the engine shut-down drill and closed the start levers. Almost simultaneously the pilot-in-command ordered fire drill on the remaining engines. Before this could be carried out there was an explosion from the port wing which increased the intensity of the fire and blew fragments of the wing over to the starboard side of the aircraft. The pilot-in-command then ordered immediate evacuation of the flight deck. The engine fire shut-off handles were not pulled and the fuel booster pumps and main electrical supply were not switched off. There were more explosions and fuel, which was released from the port tanks, spread underneath the aircraft and greatly enlarged the area of the fire. The cabin crew had made preparations for an emergency landing and as the aircraft came to a stop opened the emergency exits and started rigging the escape chutes. The passengers commenced evacuation from the two starboard overwing exits and shortly afterwards, when the escape chutes had been inflated, from the rear starboard galley door and then the forward starboard galley door. However, because of the spread of the fire under the rear of the fuselage the escape chute at the rear galley door soon burst and, following the first explosion, the overwing escape route also became unusable. The great majority of the survivors left the aircraft via the forward galley door escape chute.

    PROBABLE CAUSE: “The accident resulted from an omission to close the fuel shut off valve when No. 2 engine caught fire following the failure of its No. 5 low pressure compressor wheel. The failure of the wheel was due to fatigue.”

    I remember this one well. Was just at school back then, with parents living at the other end of such flights, in Nigeria.

    1. Reminds of of the BUA(??) crash years ago, when a engine started to misbehave and the co-pilot mistakenly shut down the one that was working….

      Human error is even worse that bloody computer error…

    2. I was an ATCO at Heathrow at this time although not on duty. The ATCO who brilliantly arranged the landing on 05R having alerted the Fire Service and cleared traffic from 05R which was not a runway in use, was awarded an MBE.

      1. I wondered about that. 05R was a runway once and now isn’t – I was about to write “… in my time flying BOAC to Nigeria…”, but that was half a century ago. So, I thought not to reveal my age… Oops!

  102. Daily Telegraph
    ” Herd of Llamas seen on busy road in Cambridgeshire ”
    They were on the A1307 near Hemingford Abbots , causing drivers to do a double take . A lady got out of her car and encouraged them back into a field.
    I bet if this was Drakeford’s Snowdonia they’d run quicker then his 20 mph limit 😁

    1. It was a completely misleading story.

      There was actually a herd of Lamas – sort of Tibetan Jehovah’s Witnesses – handing out leaflets to passing motorists.

      I DO wish the press could get these simple details correct.

        1. I did the Lyke Wake Walk in the mid 60’s before it became a well trodden footpath.

          1. Did it in either ’69 or ’70 when, on leave from Chepstow, I went on Annual Camp with the Army Cadets at Scarborough!

          2. Was it still necessary to do parts of it on compass bearings, because there were no paths?
            We took tents to be able to camp out, but decided the hassle of pitching camp for a few hours wasn’t worth the effort.

            I did it with the scout troop on one of our Easter camps. I was extremely lucky to be part of an excellent troop, attached to our school.

        2. Ooh! The Lyke Wake walk! Did it years ago! Wonderful views and memories!

          1. The original LWW club was closed some time ago.
            I probably still have my badge and membership cards somewhere in the attic.

          2. I did the walk in 1973, and the following summer I worked at a farm/hotel not far from Raven Hall Hotel at the end of the disused railway! Oh my I was sooo young!

          3. 1973?

            HG and I were setting off on the long walk, we’re still walking hand-in-hand…

          4. I left school to start college! Congratulations to you both! Keep rambling!

        4. I had that album. I saw Pentangle live in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh in ’68, I think it was..

          4. That era is a bit of a blur to me, FP (er hmm) but I think I saw them at the Roundhouse? Or one of those London venues. I really did like the folk revival then, particularly the acoustic bands. Tim Hart and Maddy Prior used to sing in our local folk club (before Steeleye Span). Bert Jansch was one of my heroes. I also revered a band called “Pearls Before Swine” – anyone else remember them?

        5. I had that album. I saw Pentangle live in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh in ’68, I think it was..

  103. In Woodbridge Suffolk ( a very lovely place by the river ) a nutcase with a machete was causing havoc, oh surprise surprise he was a Mussie asylum seeker .It’s everywhere now.

      3. “Arrests have been made after three reports of a people being threatened with a machete or large knife in the space of a couple of hours.”

        Would the ‘a people’ be the British?

  104. That’s me for what has been (until now) a very nice day. A 4-mile bike ride this morning. Four hours gardening (in shorts for the first time in 2024) potting on 50 tomato plants and sorting out the greenhouse. An agreeable interlude watching the military do what they do best. A glass of pink medicine in hand – while noting that the blue wisteria (the earliest one) is starting to flower. It should be a belter this year. And infinite pleasure from cats…

    Incidentally, the PBS America documentary about Schindler – the Real Story – was made in 1983. WELL WORTH seeing – it is on YouTube.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain. With luck.

  106. Off topic
    Fred Dibnah on at the moment re railways
    The British were certainly hard working and inventive.
    Marvellous, literally.

    1. He’s been with his maker for twenty years now. Meanwhile, here in Seale, in leafy Surrey, we had the tower clock faces renewed, and the weathervane (plus the rotten wood beneath) sorted, by Peter Harknett, steeplejack. Our then architect, John Deal, had a long association with Peter, which included a bet that he wouldn’t ride his bike around the parapet of Guildford Cathedral tower. John lost the bet…

      1. 20 years ago!?
        It only seems yesterday that he first started to appear on TV.

        I enjoy most of his programmes, although the traction engine tour series got a bit tedious.

        Those guys are crazy.

  107. Back an hour ago from having my left eye cataract surgery. All went well and now 4 weeks recovery.

        1. If not an open goal, slightly ajar:

          And then she could clearly see what you were up to, and keep you in order?

    2. Hello Alf. Our green opens on Saturday, how about yours? You will see the jack very clearly now.
      Something happened last year which I didn’t mention at the time for fear of appearing immodest.
      It is now a piece of history so I can tell you that I became the oldest player to win the singles championship at my club. I was 13-19 down and won 21-19.
      When I defend the title this year I will be 88. The number is unimportant as I am fit and playing well. I thank the Lord for my genes which I did not allow the Covid jabs to alter.
      Best wishes.

    3. Glad to hear it, John. Theoretically, I’m referred for cataract surgery on the left (good eye). But the right eye is of little use. I won’t bore everyone with the details. As a diabetic, there is potential for cataract surgery to go wrong. A vitrectomy on the right eye, following a retinal bleed, was successful. But the synthetic repacement for the vitreous prevents the Lucentis injections from reaching the retina. I’ve been injection-free for around two years.

      But I had a “small bleed” a month ago. It coincided with a routine retinopathy screening.

      Hence, on Thursday, I had several thousand laser blasts to stop the bleeding. Not sure it has worked, but time will tell…

      Meanwhile, the many ‘floaters’ tend to limit my screen time.

      2. Another patient had floaters ‘drained’ from his right eye. Never heard of that before.
        Hopefully your treatment will be successful.

        1. I’ve a follow-up appointment in May. The retinal bleed in the right eye took place yyears ago as I drove from the Good Intent home to Seale. It made things somewhat blurry. but the most disconcerting thing was waking up in the morning, raising my head, and seeing a blob of blood rising through my vision. Defying gravity. The vitrectomy worked, but at a time when retinopathy was still an issue.

          It remains so. but fluctuations in blood glucose seem to be the culprit. Hypos in particular. Lows seem to be worse than highs..

          I haven’t needed an injection for a couple of years. Famous last words…

      3. Ah Geoff! What a time you’re having. Hope all is well and you keep getting better.

      5. Oh dear, sorry to hear that. I had some floaters in one eye once, stress induced apparently and the doc said to just wait a while. I did, and they disappeared in a few days, but they are very disconcerting.

      6. The prospect of cataract surgery frightens me for that reason that I only have one good eye. If it goes wrong, I’m stuffed. I don’t have the diabetes complication though. That’s scary. Floaters come and go. Once opened my eyes and saw a pink cloud but that cleared even as I panicked!

  108. Sticking the boot in to the Grand Mufti of Morningside.

    Humza Yousaf’s contaminated police force goes against everything Robert Peel stood for

    Our former PM envisaged policing as built on public trust. He would have hated everything about Yousaf’s ‘hate crimes’

    PETRONELLA WYATT • 8 April 2024 • 7:00pm

    If Robert Peel were alive today, what a shining mark he would be for men like Humza Yousaf. Indeed, he would probably call for the police force he founded to be defunded.

    I have seldom disliked anyone as much as Mr Yousaf. No doubt my distaste for him, like any other human prejudice, is due to an inner defect of my own. In this case, it is probably my incapacity to tolerate fools, and the flaw I possess when it comes to comprehending petty monocrats. But in this I have a sage companion. The father of modern policing would be horrified by the use to which his force has been put. If Peel were to observe the current state of the police, he would find what he had created so intolerably bleak that it has reduced his original aspiration to a depressing joke.

    So like a man of God, let us return to the old texts. Sir Robert’s vision of policing was characterised by the high ideals of community engagement, consensuality and the prevention of violent crime. These did not include prying into conversations in which a member of the chatterati mocked a minority. On the contrary, his “Peelian Principles” emphasised the salient importance of the civilian nature of the police, maintaining public trust and safeguarding individual freedoms. The idea of a hate crime would be anathema to him.

    It is instructive to remember Peel’s conviction that the effectiveness of his bobbies lay not in their coercive powers but in their ability to work closely with, and for, the people. The 1829 Metropolitan Police Act instructed the new force “to recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect”.

    We often forget that the founding of a police force was a deeply controversial act that met with squawks and censure on all sides of the political spectrum. The first bobbies were forced to contend with rioting on the part of the public, which regarded them as a dangerous and anti-British encroachment on its freedoms.

    In considering the force today, Peel would doubtless appreciate the advancements in technology that have enhanced the efficacy of law enforcement. The use of data-driven strategies and forensic science would tickle his practical mind. But at the heart of his creed was the fundamental idea that bobbies should be seen as the public’s impartial friends rather than as its partial oppressors, and that their legitimacy depended on the trust and co-operation of the citizens they served.

    In the days before the pestilence of official public service, many of the multifarious duties now carried out by social workers, NHS employees, psychiatrists and bogus experts either fell to the police or were not discharged at all. In the late 19th century, an ordinary copper in a quiet residential section might, in a single day, have put out a couple of kitchen fires, arranged for the removal of a dead horse, rescued a dog or baby from a sewer, guarded an epileptic having a fit on the pavement and settled peaceably an argument between a husband and wife. Criminalising opinions would have seemed to him an abomination that would disgrace a race of alley cats.

    I have often said that democracy has a suicidal smack. The 19th-century person may not have enjoyed the benefits of our modern plutocracy, but he was freer than us by far. His politicians had the essential characteristics of honesty, clean tradition and, like Sir Robert, courage.

    Politicians of Yousaf’s sort are forever grasping at straws held out by the blinkered. Thus the police have been gradually and irredeemably contaminated. One needs no pretty logical gymnastics to recognise that, in order to regain public trust, the force must remember that it is civilian and cannot adopt the adversarial approach of a waterfront saloon antagonist. Like democracy itself, it is always inventing social and cultural distinctions despite its theoretical abhorrence of them. The Bobby must stand once more under bond of obligation to the citizenry.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/04/08/robert-peel-humza-yousaf-scotland-police-force/

    1. I suppose we should be grateful that it’s taken 190 years for British policing to reach its inevitable low level.
      Most countries managed that in far shorter time.

      1. It isn’t just that some are bad but that good ones are being asked to do bad things because of bad law.

    1. Not to worry, you can celebrate the end of Ram a damn big bang tomorrow instead.

  110. The EV market in the USA seems to be in real trouble.

    Something big is happening in the US market for battery electric vehicles (EVs), and it isn’t positive for the industry that makes them, or for the Biden administration’s subsidised dreams.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/08/evs-electric-cars-green-energy-transport-failure/

    During the final few months of 2023, the market saw sales slowing, unsold electric vehicles piling up on dealer lots, Tesla struggling to get a handful of its much hyped CyberTrucks onto the market after five long years of promises, pure-play EV companies like Fisker teetering on the financial brink, and traditional automakers like Ford and GM announcing delays in their plans and investments for future EV development.
    Things have not improved across the first quarter of 2024. If anything, the industry appears to be moving into something of a crisis mode now.

    1. Many have forgotten that in the USA, many EVs failed whilst the Model-T Ford led the triumph of ICVs.

      1. The reason the Model-T gained favour over the EV was that you could go further in it before having to refill it and that it was produced in such large quantities that lower classes could afford to buy it.

        The internal combustion engine still has the same benefits over the Tesla even though the latter is made in such large numbers but its price cannot be reduced low enough to be considered as a practical alternative for Tesla’s business model.

  112. To youngest at Heathrow awaiting his flight to Dubai. We will miss you Christopher. Take care matey.
    Me, back in the morning, more medical appointments.
    Night all.

  113. America really is done for, woke, wimpy, woeful, wazzocks.

    Americans already say they’re suffering from ‘eclipse sickness’, including insomnia, headaches and changes to women’s periods – as experts warn cellphone services could go down and pets could act strange

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13284847/Eclipse-sickness-Americans-headaches-insomnia-menstrual-cycle-changes-leading-todays-celestial-event.html
    For God’s sake grow up you silly little bastards

    1. I think the media maniacs are simply making this up for kicks and the idiocracy are following suit.

    2. Please remember the job of a newspaper editor is to sort the wheat from the chaff and to print the chaff…..(that’s why I always take the chaff with a shovelful of salt!)

    4. The Media always exaggerates….you know that!!
      Having said that, just come in from watching the eclipse at 91% totality, with a few wispy clouds, quite something.

    5. Meghan Markle to the rescue…
      “My Hell caring for Eclipse Traumatised Harry…”

      2. Harry on his problems:

        “It’s all Meagain’s fault, she told me Kate had eclipsed her”…

    6. Many schools were closed today do instead of students having a good learning experience in a safe environment, they were free to roam. I wouldn’t be surprised if we start hearing about little Johnie.having eye problems.

      1. I recall one of these events, a partial eclipse, when I was at school. ?1966
        We were all shown how to observe it beforehand and prepared appropriate “glasses” and mirrors and paper.
        We went on to the roof and it happened, and everything was exactly as the teachers had explained.
        End of lesson.

  117. First of all very many congratulations on your triumph in your club Men’s singles championship at your club. I reached the Men’s Final in 2018 at the age of 72, leading 19-15. Final end 20-20 holding shot with 1 opponents bowl to come, controlled weight and I lost by 1 shot. Had to stay on the ManCom to get my name on the Honours Board. Didn’t stand for re-election as President at last AGM.
    Anyway we have our Open Morning on 20th April, the open day of our season. We get between 15 and 30 new bowlers from this. Last Saturday we had our spring clean in preparation and 25-30 members turned up to ready the club.
    vw is a far better bowler than me and has been Ladies Champ on 3 occasions in past 10 years.
    We wish you a successful 2024 season.

    1. I used to enjoy bowling during the lunch hour, when I worked in the City.
      I can’t remember which square.
      I am a brute force sportsman, so it was beyond my skill levels.
      You’re lucky to have found a sport to do competitively for so long.

      1. Would it have been Finsbury Circus? If not where did you work. I was born about 2 miles from there.
        It’s a great game and most of our matches are mixed.

        1. I was going to write Finsbury Park, but when I looked at Google it seemed too far away.

          Now you remind me it was Finsbury Circus.
          From recollection there were four “greens”. It was good fun and much better than spending lunchbreak in the Pub.

          1. Finsbury Park is north London between Holloway and Manor House postcode N4.
            I eas born and brought up in the Borough of Finsbury EC1 about 5 miles from FP but just outside the City.
            Probably 4 rinks on one green. Our club green is 39 metres square with 6 rinks.

      2. Do you – and Alf – mean Finsbury Square, not Circus? MrsL played there back in the 80s.

          1. Just looked up Finsbury Circus and there is indeed a bowls green there too. My apologies.

          2. No need to apologise, there is one at Finsbury Square as well, and given my lunchtime walking I might have easily been thinking of that one.

    1. She deserves everything she gets, TBH. Little tarts who marry utter pr*ts for their money get no sympathy from me.

      1. I tend to agree, but looking at her blanked face in so many situations, I can’t help but wonder if she’s been drugged and coerced over a few years.

    2. Whilst about my business today I had to deal with anti-Semitism. I come back to your post. You might want to rephrase your statement as currently it is racist. No thank you. Play the man not his skin colour.

    3. She “stands by her man”? I thought that was a gorilla standing by her.

        1. I do Boaty McBoatface in church. Which is to say, I sometimes carry the incense boat in procession!

          1. Our poor thurifer tonight (we celebrated the Annunciation because it couldn’t be done in Holy Week) had to carry the boat and the censor.

  126. Well the eclipse event fell flat – it was cloudy!

    We could just about make out the sun through the clouds and could make out the moon moving across the face of the sun but that was about it.
    When we got to the totality bit, instead of a gradual darkening it just went very dark very quickly, then a few minutes later it brightened up just as quickly.

    I probably will not be around for the next eclipse so does anyone want to buy a pair of almost unused eclipse glasses?

    1. It’s your own fault.

      Never buy specialist equipment for a three minute event.

      you can guarantee you’ll be disappointed

      as will she, writes Phizzee

      1. It was two dollars well wasted. I doubt that I could see Phizzees brilliant smile from behind the dark plastic eyewear.

    2. No, but fanx for the offer.

      I am still trying to get rid of a bag that used to have cake in

    3. I had the same experience in 1999. I took my wife and children in the car by ferry from Dover to Calais and drove down into France as it was closer to Kent where I live than Cornwall where the Eclipse was visible in England. The event was almost totally obscured by clouds, so I didn’t get to see the main show, but it did turn dark (and colder) very quickly. I don’t suppose I’ll get the chance to see another one without travelling to somewhere else in the world.

      1. We saw that one in Cornwall, and although it was cloudy, I still found it magical. Someone let off fireworks in the valley below where we were sitting, and we were still soaking up the atmosphere as the first people jumped into their cars and started up the A38 in the direction of London! There was the mother of all traffic jams later that day…

  128. Evening, all. The country will pay a heavy price for the lack of conservatism. We all know Labour’s disastrous history whenever it’s had its mitts on the levers of power.

    1. Labour lite have been in power for the past 14 years, aside from that little glimmer at the end of 2019.

  131. MELANIE PHILLIPS
    Mandarins fail to understand their country
    new
    Calls to abolish the Foreign Office show many within it are bent on talking down UK’s identity
    Melanie Phillips
    Monday April 08 2024, 9.00pm, The Times

    Anew pamphlet recommends that the Foreign Office should be abolished because it’s a relic of Britain’s imperial past. So far, so tediously predictable in this era of mandatory self-flagellation over “white privilege”.

    This is not, however, a report from the department of resentment studies at the University of Penge. The pamphlet has been written by the former cabinet secretary Lord Sedwill, the former No 10 foreign policy adviser Tom Fletcher and the former Foreign Office director-general Moazzam Malik, with a supporting cast of former ministers, national security advisers and other top officials. In other words, pooh-bahs who have been helping shape Britain’s foreign policy for decades.

    You might think that people whose job it has been to project Britain on the world stage would have a keen appreciation of Britain’s historic strengths as a nation. Think again. It’s the historic character of the nation with which they have a problem. They are appalled in particular by the image of Britain’s “greatness”, which seems “anachronistic”.

    The identity of the Foreign Office clearly gives them conniptions. Its very name, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, is “anchored in the past” — the horror! — even though the “Development” bit was only added in 2020.

    They even have a problem with the neoclassical, 19th-century Foreign Office building, which they say hints at an identity that’s “somewhat elitist and rooted in the past” (the double crime of crimes). Modernising the place “with fewer colonial-era pictures on the walls” might send “a clear signal about Britain’s future”.

    So what would their replacement international affairs department actually do that would be different? They want it to attack climate change (of course) and biodiversity loss, support international development and champion “rights and responsibilities”. Motherhood and apple pie recipes are presumably somewhere in there too.

    Beyond that, they want to maximise “soft power” by projecting assets such as the universities, news organisations and Britain’s “formidable military” to “maximise the country’s considerable ‘soft power’”. This is “what Britain is good at”. They appear oblivious to the fact that the universities have become places where open minds go to die, that the BBC is now a dumbed-down conduit for progressive propaganda, and that the once formidable military has been so emasculated it can no longer defend the nation.

    Tellingly, they omit the most valuable of all sources of soft power — the King and the royal family. Indeed, the authors’ wishlist omits everything that makes Britain specifically and culturally British. In the pamphlet’s foreword, Sedwill writes: “For the past decade, we have been wrestling with our national identity.” His pamphlet projects a nation without an identity.

    Downgrading the nation, it also downgrades its security. The National Security Council, it complains, is too much preoccupied with … security. It needs to add other objectives such as economic development and — three guesses — climate change.

    These avatars of Britain’s future place in the world bang the drum for British powerlessness. Even though they acknowledge that the UK is the sixth largest global economy and “a top-5 shareholder in most international financial institutions”, they think Britain no longer has the capacity to be a major economy. It should line itself up instead with Switzerland and Norway, which are “linked to major economic neighbours”.

    Is it any wonder the Foreign Office fought so fanatically to prevent the UK from gaining independence from the EU? Given how they talk Britain down, is it any wonder foreign policy has been so craven in the face of tyrants and fanatics, and been based on such profound misunderstanding and underestimation of the West’s enemies?

    Is it any wonder that Britain has grovelled to Iran, refusing even to acknowledge that the Islamic regime has been at war with the West for more than 40 years, and acting instead as principal cheerleader for the Obama administration’s 2015 nuclear deal, which funnelled billions of dollars in sanctions relief into Tehran’s terrorist war chest?

    Is it any wonder that, when David Cameron was prime minister, his major contribution to foreign policy was his gung-ho participation in the toppling of Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi, a miscalculation that led to the rise of Islamic State?

    Is it any wonder that now he is at his ideological home in the Foreign Office, Cameron is threatening to cut off arms to Israel as it fights the genocidal threat by Hamas — even while Britain continues to genuflect to Hamas’s Islamist patron, Qatar; and after Britain lined up last month with Russia and China against Israel at the UN security council in its call for an immediate and unconditional Ramadan ceasefire in Gaza?

    This pamphlet isn’t saying there’s something wrong with the culture of the Foreign Office. These authors are the culture of the Foreign Office, whose default narrative involves talking down Britain’s historic identity and the achievements of the West. The pamphleteers’ complaint is rather that the values and identity of the country aren’t shaped in the Foreign Office’s own image, as represented by themselves.

    Fletcher says he hopes the report will kick-start a conversation about the reform of UK foreign affairs. What it should kick-start is a conversation about the national self-loathing of the Foreign Office hive mind.

    My modest proposal to cater for the trophy hunt
    GILES COREN | NOTEBOOK

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    michael timothy durkin
    9 MINUTES AGO

    whats happened to this country, im not even proper British, Irish mum ,English dad, all 4 granpies from the emerald isle, but I was born in Barnsley and im proud to be British and a Yorkshireman to boot, I really do detest the readers of this rag, the only reason I read it is because a doctor once told me to channel any negative feelings towards something you hate but wont give you any comeback. and seeing as you lot are all as soft as the proverbial, I picked on you

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    A Lunt
    26 MINUTES AGO

    I don’t think they want to understand Britain. They want to destroy Britain.

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    J Green
    15 MINUTES AGO

    Exactly. Grow a spine and bring back the “Britain is the second most powerful country” poster!

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    Professor H Cochrane
    45 MINUTES AGO

    The trouble is that we want civil servants to do their job – but some civil servants want to be “leaders”.

    “Lead beyond authority”, as Common Purpose tell people.

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    M Tehrani
    17 MINUTES AGO

    Very confused and pro Isreal article with no real connection with issues affecting this country. Cameron was useful when ordered to the Brexit ref but now is anti Isreal. Really!

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    Mo Ali
    29 MINUTES AGO

    How is Tel Aviv these days.

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    T Finucane
    14 MINUTES AGO

    I agree with your opinion on Iran. I visited and worked there long ago in the days of the Shah and was treated very well and better than I deserved. The people were remarkably hospitable and kind and I think of them well, I would assume that they still are good people and that the greater majority want rid of the ‘mad mullahs’. But what can they do? Obama and the EU’s attempts at reconciliation with Iran were worth the effort. It failed but the world is in a worse place because it failed. I have disagreed with you strongly on the Netanyahu government’s actions on Gaza. Gaza is now a wasteland occupied with a population of 2 million people. Israel will have to find a means to talk with them as Obama tried with Iran. It will be a long long process but it has to begin.

    1. The trouble with the FO is, and has been for some time, that they see their job as working for foreigners.

      2. They are as useful as yesterday’s newspaper if you are abroad and need help with anything, but their offices are VERY well guarded with creepy security.

    2. This is how far the resentful rot has spread. Satre and Fanon must be loving this.

    3. Sedwill was the creep who said Brexit would be a disaster, dripped poison in May’s ear and got the boot from Bonjo.

    4. Sedwill was the creep who said Brexit would be a disaster, dripped poison in May’s ear and got the boot from Bonjo.

  132. I’d like to believe so, but whence will our saviour come? Do we look up to the hills? For me it was not so much that I left the conservative party but that the party left me.

  133. Ours too. A nice service but the turnout was a little disappointing. Lady Day is also the anniversary of the founding of Bart’s Priory and hospital so it’s a combined celebration. 901 years.

    1. We only had four in the choir and five in the congregation. Add in the organist, the thurifer, the server and the priest and that’s the sum total. We still managed to sing well, though.

  134. Well, chums, I’m off to bed now. Good Night, sleep well and I hope you all awaken refreshed.

  135. Asylum seeker demands explanation for ankle tag

    The Dunstable asylum seeker, who the BBC is not identifying, said he was originally deported to Trinidad in 2014 having been jailed in the USA for being in receipt of stolen money. He said he was detained for his first 73 days in the UK and has been wearing the tag for the last nine months.

    Wearing the tag made him feel “like a criminal”, he explained…

    2. You’re in no position to make demands. If the tag and the reason for it, fits, wear it!

          1. Can you look forward to renewed zeds after a mug of tea? A lie-in is the epitome of luxury (IMHO), and one you deserve!

    3. “….having been jailed in the USA for being in receipt of stolen money.”

      But he is a criminal so why is he not back in Trinidad?

    1. ‘ Morning, Geoff and thank you for all your efforts to keep us going. Hope the eyes get better soon.

  139. Anyone knows WTF this means?

    “You must authenticate the user or provide author_name and author_email”

    Latest red block to commentating Speccieside.

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