Monday 9 October: Labour’s plan to tax private schools will limit children’s opportunities

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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518 thoughts on “Monday 9 October: Labour’s plan to tax private schools will limit children’s opportunities”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, today’s story

    Suicide Is Painless
    A blonde hurries into A & E late one night with the tip of her index finger shot off.

    The A & E doctor asks her: “How did this happen?”

    “Well I was trying to commit suicide” the blonde replied. “First, I put the gun to my chest, and thought: I just paid £12,000 for these breast implants, I’m not shooting myself in the chest. I put the gun in my mouth, and thought: I just paid £6,000 to get my teeth straightened, I’m not shooting myself in the mouth!”

    “So then?”

    “Then I put the gun to my ear, and I thought: This is going to make a loud noise. So I put my finger in the other ear before I pulled the trigger!”

    1. Another good one, Sir Jasper. (With apologies to all blondes reading Tom’s joke.)

  3. Good morning, chums. Off today to watch Michael Caine and the late Glenda Jackson in THE GREAT ESCAPER. Enjoy your day.

      1. I thoroughly enjoyed it, Annie, as did my two companions. And, better still, there were 18 of us in total in the auditorium.

  4. US to send warships and cruisers to help Israel. 8 October 2023.

    US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said the move was “to bolster regional deterrence efforts” after Hamas militants launched a surprise assault on Israel on Saturday night.

    “Strengthening our joint force posture, in addition to the materiel support that we will rapidly provide to Israel, underscores the United States’ ironclad support for the Israel Defence Forces and the Israeli people,” Mr Austin said.

    The US Air Force is also sending fighter jets to the region while additional ammunition is being sent to Israel immediately and over the next few days.

    What’s going on? First the UK now the US offering assistance! Israel has one of the best equipped and capable militaries on the planet. It doesn’t need any help to deal with a gang of disorganised thugs who couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag. It is looking ominously like BB’s suspicions are correct. None of this is necessary to fight the Gazans who have no aircraft and certainly no navy, but it would come in useful if you were thinking of attacking Iran!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/08/israel-palestine-latest-news-updates-hizbollah-hamas-gaza/

    1. Time Israel tested their Nuclear capabilities, by dropping more than a few on Gaza as a good test of glass-making ability.

    2. I think the real danger is Syria being dragged into the conflict as it would also embroil Russia…. One might be forgiven in thinking that this was planned.

      Morning Minty and all

      1. Some people think Iran is the real targets. Could be both. A pox on all evil war-gaming oligarchs.

      2. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again. There is more than one way to skin the Russian cat.

    3. Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land and sea incursions, the WSJ reported citing its Hamas and Hezbollah sources.
      Details of the operation were refined during several meetings in Beirut attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group and political faction in Lebanon, they said.
      At the same time, officials from the deep state blob – who have been desperate to appease both Iran and Venezuela in recent months in hopes of getting sanctions against the Tehran regime lifted so that it can officially supply extra oil to the US ahead of the 2024 elections (instead of just unofficially shipping oil to China), with Biden terrified what high gas prices may do to his reelection chances – say they haven’t seen evidence of Tehran’s involvement. In an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “We have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack, but there is certainly a long relationship.” This was echoed by an U.S. official of the meetings who said that “We don’t have any information at this time to corroborate this account.”

      A European official and an adviser to the Syrian government, however, both of whom are not bound by the price of oil in Nov 2024, gave the same account of Iran’s involvement in the lead-up to the attack as the senior Hamas and Hezbollah members.

      1. Morning Stephen. I don’t believe a word of this. For a start they are tainted sources and the attack could have been planned by Boy Scouts around the weekend campfire. It does however reinforce my suspicions that this is a put up job to justify an attack on Iran.

    4. I don’t think so Araminta.

      Recently Biden gave Iran $6billion. Doesn’t strike me that he wants to fall out with them.

      1. Morning Janet. Under duress as they say. It might actually have contributed to a decision to attack Iran.

  6. Labour’s plan to tax private schools will limit children’s opportunities

    They are going to have a great time imposing Net Zero.

    1. Imposing Net Zero-

      Means lots of important people wearing peaked caps and threatening citizens.

  7. Labour’s plan to tax private schools will limit children’s opportunities

    They are going to have a great time imposing Net Zero.

  8. Good morning, all. Clear, bright and calm here.

    Despite the hatred of others engendered by some adherents to ancient and divisive belief systems, many humans have moved forward and display the ability to create beauty, show compassion and how to interact peacefully with others, including wild animals.

    https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1710738331133231249
    https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1710974206622515390
    https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1709879976508440763

  9. 477502+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Jonathan
    @DecentFiJC
    💥Spoiler alert💥

    “Foreign policy experience” is the civics version of “Trust TheScience™️”.
    It’s meaningless.
    It’s an unquantifiable platitude recited by talentless, unimpressive midwits, just to trick you into letting them continue leeching off established money laundering rackets a few more years
    So whenever you see a political candidate criticize an opponent’s ‘lack of it’, with no further context given, simply disregard them as a serious candidate. Forever.

    Facts that fall on stony ground in regards to the Brit. voter tis not the “candidate” but the party name (ino) that echos the siren call.

      3. Well, they’ll know where to find most of us; laying wreaths at our local cenotaph/war memorial!

  13. Good morning everyone.
    The Telegraph front page is loaded with Islamophobia, one glance and I am suffering an attack of online harm. Where is my compensation and my Parliamentary anti-stab vest? Edit: waistcoat.

    1. I read that, it’s a good article isn’t it.
      Funny how the horrors have kicked off in Israel just as it’s becoming patently obvious that the West is losing in Ukraine. What a coincidence, eh!

  16. Morning all 🙂😊
    After the brief respite of yesterday’s sunshine back to grey.
    And labour of course don’t give one and have no respect for anyone they know will never vote for them. Tax the big earners to pay for those who have never worked.
    We need a management committee not useless political parties who never get anything right.

    1. Traditionally British Jews have voted Labour but they don’t proselytise and they remain a minority, albeit a successful minority. The intersectional myth of the far left holds that their success makes them the enemy and some are but most aren’t. This attitude must surely cause most to cast their votes elsewhere?

      1. It’s now quite possible that the voting patterns might have turned.
        Especially after kahnts ‘admin error’ when the Jewish comunities didn’t get their ballot papers for that horrible little gits last election.

  17. Just scanned the Daily Mail…this is how the muslim immigrants are being weaponised against the west. Stupid young men waving palestinian flags and cheering on murders that sicken decent people.
    We react accordingly, the jewish minority demands protection and bang! world war 3 is on our streets.
    It’s all so predictable.

    1. The problem the world has is the mindset of the Islamic state.
      It has never been happy even in their home lands where they are, they argue with themselves.
      And are trying again to take over the West. As we have seen from their placards behead those who are unbelievers.
      The west has never taken the trouble to confront them or their murderous policies. But in fact encourage it in so many ways. Kindness is seen by them as a weakness to be exploited.
      Their intentions are to bring everyone to their knees.
      Jewish people although do have some strange habits and beliefs, are no threat they usually just on with their own lives.
      Islam is a threat to the rest of the world.
      It now appears that our media has decided ‘inclusion’ into our own society is a good idea. But they are making a huge mistake.

      1. The muslims supporting rape, torture and murder are just nasty tools being used in the chess game as the elites try to throw sand in the faces of the masses, so that they won’t notice their wealth being stolen.
        At all costs, we must not blame central bankers or the shadowy group of ten(?) richest families when our countries are depopulated, our currency collapses and our wealth is stolen!

        THAT is what this is all about. Follow the money, it never fails.

        1. If you’ve ever watch Blood and Gold by Simon Seebag Montefiore
          It explains exactly how the Muslim behaviour wrecked thousands of lives for various reason when they took over Spain. Nothing has changed since the 9th century.
          They kept captured children for the use of in caves and fed them to the pet lions when they had finished with them. It took 300 years to get rid of them and now they are moving back in.

          1. I didn’t say they weren’t a good army of tools that can be relied upon to rape and pillage on command…

          2. But one thing that had in their favour was building designs. I doubt if they did much, if any of the work themselves.
            Slavery came in handy. Centuries before the whites sent Africans to the Caribbean.

        1. I read our police have been instructed to take action against Hamas support in the UK.
          That’s gonna put them on the spot.

        2. It is never too late. The first thing that must be done is organise, for the enemy is organised.

    2. Braverman on form! Plenty of empty rhetoric but absolutely no action. It’s too bloody late you political ass. Braverman & Co are the problem, not the solution.

      How many more will you welcome in today?

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/82d2265845f5a5d2f69ad4587ed5373795b3acf65fa5586aa235cae39cbde0f0.png
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/966fd86c223d9853db53dc12cac24fcc8d384e12b86770012be354c7fa0b17ec.png
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7067a470ff7b2a8e4e414c50b360cc5de886c8e3190c36b60673a261a0c2bb42.png

      2. Her hands are tied by the civil serpents. She’s expected to condemn anti-semitism, and it’s not expected that the police will anger muslims by doing anything about it.
        This is just reality.

        1. The situation that we have to tolerate the intolerant lest they become violent is absurd.

          They’re guests. Nothing more. They cost a fortune in legal, welfare and social affairs and it’s long past time they were given a damned good kicking and told to vanish r be expelled.

        1. There are large numbers of slammers everywhere; it’s the long march through the institutions.

          2. Civil servants should be able to be sacked almost on demand. This job for life nonsense in the face of what is often abject incompetence is just moronic.

            Rarely you cannot see the problems. More often you don’t want to. Private business doesn’t have the choice. Failure there is going out of business. In the state it’s usually a promotion.

  18. Good morning all.
    A dry, dull overcast with 11°C on the Yard Thermometer.

    Am I the only one looking at National and World Events and wondering what is the point of bothering?

      1. Where’s Darwinism when you need it?
        Even in our nursing days, our sympathies lay with the train drivers.

    1. No. A man who thinks he is a woman is not a lesbian, he is a heterosexual.

      The knots these people tie themselves in is ludicrous.

    1. It’s blacks and arabs who cause all the trouble in this world but it’s apparently whities fault

      1. Good morning FA,

        How are you and have you been affected by the appalling weather we have been reading about , or has the rain just affected the West coast, which in itself must be horrendous.

        1. Morning Maggie, had a bit of rain over the last couple of days but no more than usual. Further south has experienced bad floods though. Loch Ewe seems to escape the worst of the weather. Thanks for asking

          2. I’d like to move to Scotland. A small house miles from anywhere. Views of a mountain side and a valley type lark.

    2. Absolutely right and the ongoing problem is our political classes and now media who take every opportunity to try
      appeasement and befriending.
      It’s part of the take over adgenda.
      They treat kindness as a weakness.

      1. 377502+up ticks,

        Morning TB,

        Every vote for the lab/lib/con/current ukip coalition supports the take over, but then again the majority voter surely knows this.

      1. Considering the vast increase in our population has been muslim and they’ve immediately sat on welfare we’re paying vast amounts of money to keep violent terrorists, rapists, murderers in clover.

      2. But the politicians, the civil service and all those left of centre do want them.

        Enoch Powell was branded as a foul racist for saying:

        “We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant-descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.”

        50,000 is peanuts – we now have ten times that number.

    1. Looks like another ignorant illegal gimmegrunt, fucking with British wildlife. I hope he suffers grievous injury.

      1. Leda and the Swan

        by William Butler Yeats

        A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
        Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
        By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
        He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

        How can those terrified vague fingers push
        The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
        And how can body, laid in that white rush,
        But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

        A shudder in the loins engenders there
        The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
        And Agamemnon dead.
        Being so caught up,
        So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
        Did she put on his knowledge with his power
        Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

      1. Good morning poppiesmum

        Well he certainly doesn’t look like one of us.

        But do we know who we are or what we look like any more?

        For the last 25years our political leaders have all done their best to eliminate our identity as a people.

        As I pointed out yesterday every part of Great Britain except Wales is led by a politician who is not ethnically British. England and the UK – Sunak (Indian parents) who is Britain’s prime minister; Scotland – Hamza Yousaf (Pakistani parents) who is the First Minister of Scotland; Leo Varadkar (one Indian parent) as Taoiseach in Ireland; and an assortment of EU mongrels in Northern Ireland!

      1. Stig is avoiding us. He hasn’t posted since Geoff deleted his nasty comment a week ago.

          1. It concerned a certain incident in Croydon, and implied we should all be celebrating the outcome. I think the implication was that we are all racists. Either that, or that one less person of colour was a good thing. Either way, it was uncalled for.

      2. Stig is avoiding us. He hasn’t posted since Geoff deleted his nasty comment a week ago.

    1. He isn’t likely to be keen on the inevitable riots if he condemned the Hamas attacks.

    2. Oh I don’t know. He wasn’t happy about lighting up town hall in the Israeli flag colours. No doubt he will heavily police any Palestinian mobs parading in London – to protect the Palestinians, of course.

      In reality, we should deploy armed police and when they’re all gathered together, open fire. What are palestinians doing in this country anyway?

          1. The depressing thing is that it looks as if the Israeli security services fell for the ‘brotherhood of man’ carp.

      2. Oh well, that’s the ballot boxes from Barnet and Hendon taking the scenic route to the count again.

          1. Jules Gomes was driven out of the Anglican Church for publicly stating that Moslems are devil worshippers. He was ordained by the Church of North India so the CofE couldn’t actually “de-frock” him – not their call – but they succeeded in driving him out nonetheless.

          5. Even back in my day teachers of specialist subjects were expected to deliver PSE (Personal and Social Education). I hated it; I signed up to teach MFL and nothing else back in the day. Mission creep will have resulted in this diabolical rubbish being foisted on the curriculum.

        2. Actually Rastus, I do. I think it’s no better than National Socialism. It is a nihilistic life denying political movement of oppression that hides behind religion as an excuse for its terrible activities, all of which are aimed at the degradation of human beings and all civilizations.

  24. 377502+ up ticks,

    Keep in mind currently when voting the lab party is a shell party the hard outer case enclosing an islamic chrysalis.
    “the splitting of the chrysalis and the slow unfolding of the wings” wil,l in my book, take place in the near future, ALL the pieces and political players are slithering into place.

    No opposition from the tory (ino) party seeing as they are daily supplying the potential fighting fodder, who are on R/R at the moment resting in 4/5* hotels, where treachery is concerned lab/lib/con/current ukip are a smooth running operation.

  26. There is an article in TCW this morning by Anonymous about the Ukraine War. One of the posters objects to the fact that the author does not give his or her proper name but in the light of what happens to people who go against the accepted PTB or MSM position – or even the Woke position – on many issues today it is not surprising that some people are keen to retain their anonymity.

    BTL

    Putting your head above the parapet and raising points that go against the PTB’s and MSM’s agenda of taboos can be difficult in the autocratic authoritarian state in which we now live.

    Look at what happened to those who questioned the accepted line on Covid and the Covid jabs; look at what happened to Mark Steyn for raising the problem of Muslim rape gangs and those who suffered jab damage; look at what happened to Andrew Bridgen; look at what happens to those who question climate change – in fact there are so many people who have been punished for saying what they said. And look at the case where a woke woman journalist can repeatedly name men she found ‘unshaggable’ but when Laurence Fox said she is ‘unshaggable’ herself because of her contempt for men who commit suicide he got sacked and pursued by the police.

    And look at what happened to people like J.K. Rowling who dared to say that a man is a man and a woman is a woman!

    I agree that it is regrettable that people use pseudonyms – but look what happens to them if they don’t!

    1. The first one is very subtle. It took me a moment to get it.

      BTW; apparently there will be world shortage of Ferraro Rocher.
      Now, unlike the murder of hundreds of youngsters at a music festival, that is really evil and signals the end of civilisation as we know it.
      Me? I loathe them, so I’m safe.

      1. No Feral Roaches, Oh my God!!!
        Never brought or tried one, by the way, I somehow think that buying them somehow puts you into the ‘chav’ category. Does that make me a snob?

        4. My mother used to buy me a box every Christmas. I’ve never eaten one again once I was orphaned!

  28. G’morning all,

    A little late today – been washing floors. Light overcast at the McPhee’s but it should clear up to be sunny. Wind a bit all over the place at first 11℃ going up to 20℃.

    Bread and circuses first: Rugby World Cup quarter finals will ensure that, thanks to a silly draw, two of the best four teams will exit the competition next weekend. The big ones are Ireland v NZ and France v South Africa. Both England and Wales have a chance of reaching the semi-finals which is a pity because Scotland, rated fifth in the World and currently better than either are already homewards bound (if not already home) following their systematic destruction by Ireland. I can’t see either England or Wales getting past the winners of the two ‘big ones’ to reach the final. Stranger things have happened though.

  29. There is nothing civilised in war, not even in the days of cavalry with its colourful uniforms, set-piece tactics and feathered flummery. In the 20th century it became a brutal, industrial, impersonal affair. There’s no looking into the whites of people’s eyes when you’re bombing them from 5,000 feet or shelling them from 5 miles. What kind of ‘soldiers’ kidnap young women from a party, rape them, murder them and toss their bodies aside? It’s little different from the Waffen SS rounding up villagers, herding them into churches and machine-gunning them.

    And yet I hear a distant voice urging the Israelis to carpet-bomb Gaza for the murder of Shani Louk…

    1. When you “let slip the dogs of war” you lose control. Those of us who have served in the armed forces understand that only too well and undisciplined, amoral militaries will commit atrocities. It’s what they do. That’s why most of those of us who have served see war as the ABSOLUTE last resort.

      “There is nothing civilised in war”,

      But one of the many reasons I viewed Blair with horror when he started talking about “humanitarian war” in the late 1990s. There. Is. No. Such. Thing.

      The days when someone such as Lt Cdr “Sharkey” Ward, Sea Harrier pilot, would visit the hospital ship where the man he had just shot down was being treated, bearing a bottle of whiskey are unlikely to be seen again.

      1. A sobering post. I think the atrocities were desired in this case, to stir a western reluctant population up to support war.

        1. I see the globalists behind this, not just Iran. An unstable ME suits them just fine.

  30. Teacher sacked by CofE school after refusing to teach ‘extreme’ LGBT lessons

    Church trust insists it follows official guidelines ‘to promote British values’ after dismissal of Glawdys Leger

    By Louisa Clarence-Smith, EDUCATION EDITOR • 8 October 2023 • 2:49pm

    A Christian teacher faces losing her career after refusing to teach “extreme LGBT ideology” at a Church of England secondary school.

    Glawdys Leger, 43, was a modern foreign languages teacher for 12 years before she was sacked by Bishop Justus CofE School in Bromley, south London, last year. She claims that she was “treated like a dangerous criminal” for refusing to teach “extreme and politically partisan” LGBT lessons which had been incorporated into religious education lessons given to Year 7 and 8 pupils at the school. She says she also expressed her beliefs to pupils during a discussion on LGBT issues that God believes humans are born male and female and that being LGBT is sinful.

    The Aquinas Church of England Education Trust subsequently reported Ms Leger to the Teaching Regulation Agency after she allegedly upset one pupil by sharing her views on LGBT issues and went on to share more views during the trust’s investigation and subsequent hearings. In its referral to the agency, the trust said it was “not certain whether she would continue to share those views with young people”.

    Ms Leger, who is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre, claims that materials for RE lessons, which she also taught, entitled “Who Am I” included introducing children in Year 7 and 8 – aged 11 to 13 – to identities such as pansexual, asexual, and transgender.

    Presentation slides integrated the idea that a condition of friendship and “allyship” at the school would involve defending and promoting any “protected characteristics”, including any gender identities, she says. However, Ms Leger argues that gender identity is not a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, which makes such teaching misleading and partisan.

    Ms Leger says she believed that parents who thought they were sending their children to a Christian school were being deceived. She claims that she decided that she would teach the Christian view on LGBT topics as students were getting only a one-sided narrative.

    During lesson discussions on LGBT issues, she says she explained that she did not believe in transgender ideology, that Christians believe sex outside of marriage is sin and that as a Christian you need to “live your life for God”.

    One parent complained to the school, alleging that Ms Leger had said that being “LGBTQ+ is a sin”, “God will love you if you are not LGBTQ+”, “people will always be seen by God as having their birth gender” and “transgender people are ‘just confused'”.

    Ms Leger says she does believe that being LGBT is a sin. However, she vehemently denies that she has ever said anything such as “God will love you if you are not LGBTQ+.”

    She was sacked for gross misconduct after an investigation and disciplinary hearing. Following her sacking, Ms Leger received a letter from the Teaching Regulation Agency confirming the launch of a case against her.

    The letter stated that her alleged conduct “was contrary to fundamental British values in that it lacked tolerance to those with different beliefs”.
    [I doubt that that’s a problem in the madrassas.]

    Speaking ahead of the agency hearing, which starts on Monday, Ms Leger said: “I have great compassion for LGBT people, especially for those suffering from gender dysphoria. I cannot, however, in good conscience teach or say things I believe are contrary to my faith, for example saying that same sex sexual relationships are good and/or affirming people with gender dysphoria in their gender confusion. I am certain that I have not shown, and never would show, any hatred or lack of love towards LGBT people.”

    A spokesman for the Aquinas Church of England Education Trust said: “Delivering a high-quality education and supporting the wellbeing of students is our top priority. To ensure this is achieved, we promote fundamental British values including mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs, as part of a broad and balanced curriculum. The school teaches in line with statutory requirements to promote British values and follows relevant guidance outlined by the Department for Education.

    “Given the ongoing investigation, and sensitivities involved, it would not be appropriate to comment any further.”

    The Department for Education declined to comment.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/08/teacher-lose-career-for-sharing-christian-values-re-lesson

    2. She sounds like a thoroughly decent woman, and exactly who I would like to be teaching my children!

    3. Clearly a dangerous trouble-maker. The last person who should have contact with children…..

      1. Maybe if her husband borrowed her lippie and donned a sparkly thong, he could take over her job.

  31. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/81ea11a0d2ac5d2d1bc7c7ba4ccfbb9c24781327737e282df3e3f4823b660a25.png

    I think that Nigel Farage has had enough of being a political party leader and is very happy to be a television journalist – a job at which he is very good. But unless Reform finds more people of substance to join its ranks it is unlikely to make any impact and a Labour government will be inevitable after the next general election.

    BTL

    Does Nigel Farage want to lead Reform or is he quite happy to remain a journalist with GB News?

    Richard Tice seems a ‘nice enough bloke’ but he lacks Nigel Farage’s charisma and is not drawing enough support from potential voters.

    Last week on GB News Jacob Rees-Mogg told Nigel Farage it was his ‘patriotic duty’ to join the Conservative Party. Maybe it is Nigel’s patriotic duty to lead the Reform Party and the patriotic duty of Jacob Rees-Mogg to take those MPs on the right wing of the Conservative Party out of Sunak’s Social Democrat Liberal Party and to join Nigel Farage in the Reform Party.

  32. Letter of the week!

    Migration after Brexit

    SIR – Nigel Farage is right about two things: a change of government is coming (and about time), and Rwanda is no solution to immigration (“I cannot support a Tory party in denial about immigration”, October 7).

    Mr Farage seems to take no responsibility for his role in the recent massive increase in migration to this country via irregular routes. Before Brexit, under the Dublin III regulations, British governments had the means to send back irregular migrants. Yes, only a minority were ever sent back, but it was a deterrent. Now new arrivals by boat know that once they reach the UK they can almost certainly stay indefinitely.

    The Rwanda plan, even if it comes to pass, can manage only a few hundred people, and the perceived need for such a cumbersome, expensive and almost certainly illegal solution would not have arisen without Brexit, of which Mr Farage is one of the principal authors.

    As for legal migration from outside the EU, this has, as Mr Farage reminds us, risen enormously, not just because of Hong Kong and Ukraine, but because of the workforce shortage across many sectors – which, again, is a result of Mr Farage’s Brexit.

    Leaving the European Convention on Human Rights is, frankly, a solution in desperate search of a problem. It would make the UK even more of a pariah state, put it in the company of Russia and Belarus as the only significant European countries outside the convention, and would torpedo Britain’s credibility when lecturing other countries about human rights.

    Peter Burke
    Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire

    1. There have been comments suggesting Nominative Determinism.
      Maybe that’s the Oxfordshire spelling.

    3. We could have stopped immigration, Burke – or should that be Berk?, and didn’t. If we’d actually left the EU it would have been even less of a problem.

    1. “ Meanwhile, inside the conference zone a few yards away, Peter Mandelson vouchsafed a honeyed interview to the BBC and a party official, Harry Donaldson, assured delegates ‘everyone has a right to live their lives free of abuse’”

      Oh the irony! Great article by Quentin Letts. Thanks for posting.

    2. Ululation is produced by emitting a high pitched loud voice accompanied with a rapid back and forth movement of the tongue and the uvula.
      It is practised in all parts of Africa, the Middle East, and as far east as Central and South Asia. It is also practiced in a few places in Europe, like Cyprus, and Central London.

    3. I had to look up the meaning of terf and still didn’t understand it.
      Does it mean normal? If so I’ll stick with being normal.

      2. TERF is an acronym that stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. It is a term that refers to feminists who are hostile or opposed to transgender people and their rights. It is a term used by morons to describe normal females.

        1. Normal females who are alive to the threat to women that treating biological men as women poses.

  34. Apropos nothing at all – we have a 50 year old cedar. It is absolutely smothered in cones. So much so that, from the house, the tree looks brown! Never had this happen before. Likewise in my beech wood – planted 39 years ago – the trees are producing huge quantities of beechmast.

    Must signal the end of the world, I imagine….

    Any other NoTTLers have curious plant developments this year?

    1. Good morning Bill,

      The hedgerows are smothered in berries, chestnut trees, both varieties , rowans , hazel, oaks , holly have fruit in abundance .

      Should we be preparing for a harsh long winter?

      1. The berries and fruits are the result of successful blossom in the spring. If the weather was good in the spring and the blossom was not killed off by frost then the result will be plenty of fruits and berries.

        Nature may be preparing for a hard winter but with “global boiling” that may not occur………….

      2. Probably, with the proliferation of fruit, berries & nuts.
        We picked about 20kg of wild cranberries on Sunday (well, mildly peeved cranberries), and we weren’t the first across that section of forest. Someone got a huge weight of them – and left a dead moose… 🙁

      3. More a sign of a wet spring and warm weather. I.e rain and warmth at the optimum time.

    2. There are several ‘wild’ apple trees in the nearby park that are loaded with fruit in a way I’ve not seen before. It’s just a combination of the right weather at the right time throughout spring and summer.

      1. True – oddly, some of our prolific apples are having a rest this year. Funny old thing, nature!!

      2. Same with the road & riverside apple trees here. Looks like Christmas decorations!

    4. My hollies are laden with berries, but that’s nothing particularly new (I have a lot of female bushes in the hedges and some varieties, like Van Tol, are hermaphrodites).

    5. I pinched a couple of cones off the cedar over the road outside the ex-pub and have extracted some seeds that I planted yesterday.

  35. Nike hit back at Adidas in ‘super shoe’ war as Kelvin Kiptum shatters men’s marathon record
    Kenyan knocks more than 30 seconds off previous mark in Nike prototype two weeks after women’s best was smashed in single-use Adidas shoe.

    The DT Puritanical Censorship Squad took down my post as soon as I put it up. Hoodathort that jock-strap is a trigger word!

    Failed BTL

    Professional tennis players use the most advanced rackets, cricketers use high-tech bats – indeed all serious competitors would be mad not to use the best equipment for their particular sport that they can get their hands on.

    And I suspect that World Cup Rugby players in the scrum use the most advanced and best designer state of the art constructed jock-straps!

    1. Hi Belle. Here is an honest and, I think, thoroughly accurate article about the murderous invasion of Hamas onto Israeli territory. I hope that when the Israeli’s put soldiers into Gaza that they will go from building to building and eliminate these animals as one would a rabid dogs. Tolerance and mercy is a waste of time toward these savages. I hope that at the end of it Hamas will only be a memory. Furthermore Israel needs to send out teams to eliminate the cowardly leaders who live lives of luxury in such places as Abu Dhabi because they could not tolerate life in Gaza, live as they do, on the money stolen from the people in order to finance their corrupt lifestyles.

      Regime-change invasion is surely only hours away and with it the end of Hamas – Comment
      By RICHARD FERRER
      https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/1821380/Israel-and-hamas-at-war-israel-music-festival-palestine-surprise-attack

      1. You have to think of the mindset of someone who gets into a hand glider laden with explosive and drops it on other people. These are not rational individuals. They’re psychotic. Fanatics who believe, fervently that they are righteous in their actions.

        Confronting that leaves no alternative but extreme prejudice. They cannot be reasoned with because they’re utterly insane.

      1. Remember, Spikey, that a majority of “peaceful, ordinary” slammers thought that the 7/7 attacks on London were OK.

        1. Islam is the second largest religion in the United Kingdom and its adherents have the lowest average age out of all the major religious groups.[14] Between 2001 and 2009, the Muslim population increased almost 10 times faster than the non-Muslim population.[15]

    3. RE the terrorism, or is it war? in Israel, I’ve been considering if some of the faux Tories in the HoC are starting to develop ‘squeaky bum’ syndrome as they see what’s unfolding. Report of the rabble attacking the Sydney Opera House and mass gatherings in support of Hamas around the World are disturbing. The shower that have deliberately allowed this situation to develop here will have to face the public’s rage if anything kicks off in the UK. Labour are no better but they can claim that they didn’t have their equally dirty fingers holding the door open and laying down the welcome mat.
      The folly of allowing a mass influx of young men of fighting age into this Country and positioning them around the Country where their numbers pose a threat to the people and the police doesn’t appear to be what a sensible, security minded government would do. As for the police protecting the people in the event of an uprising? The numbers do not look good:

      There were 147,430 full-time equivalent ( FTE ) police officers in the 43 police forces as at 31 March 2023 (149,566 in headcount terms).26 Jul 2023

      These fools have put us all up shit creek without a paddle.

      1. We will be in a real mess , millions of them , and only 70,000 troops . many of whom are not here because they are protecting the Balkans again .

        Diversity has murdered the British mindset.

  38. I went to the local store yesterday (ran out of milk) which is run by persons from the North West Indian sub-continent. Unusually there were three of them present (There’s usually one behind the cash register) They were very jumpy! No words were spoken but I gained the impression that they were expecting violence.

      1. Afternoon Oberst. People don’t have to speak for you to know what they are thinking.

  39. The Russia-Iran axis is fomenting war in the Middle East. 9 October 2023.

    It doesn’t take much strategic insight to join the dots between Gaza, Tehran and Moscow. The devastating onslaught against Israel is not the work of terrorists fighting alone. These are not desperate freedom fighters trying to rid their land of imperialist occupiers as the warped anti-Israel narrative – originally dreamt up by the KGB in Moscow – would have you believe. Rather, they are willing tools of an Iran-Russia axis that wants to foment war and chaos in the Middle East in pursuit of their own geopolitical objectives.

    Say the people responsible for Iraq, Libya and Syria.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/09/the-russia-iran-axis-is-fomenting-war-in-the-middle-east/

    1. People who think they need seven jabs for a virus no more than a common cold variety need their heads examining.

      1. Daughter and SIL stayed for the weekend,
        Having worked for several big pharma companies he is now freelance as an international pharma consultant.
        He says the general public are living with a false sense of security post early COVID virus strains and we haven’ t yet establoshed the penetration of the latest strains.
        He did not have the level of vaccinations offered to more vulnerable members of the family and unforunately he had previously collapsed on the floor at home with a high temperature but laterally flow tested negative with existing LFT test. However the ambulance paramedics took him to A&E where he subsequently tested positive after a PCR test.

        A bed bug is however more visible that a COVID virus and if you have good enough eyesight you might br able stamp on it. I don’t know what the NHS is doing to avoid tye French bed bugs this winter but hotels are already displaying the bugs alongside viruses:

        https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/hotels-deploying-pest-control-experts-31134683

    3. Were they told to bring one small suitcase and report to the nice policeman at the station?

    5. Believable.
      I would previously have said unbelievable but the stupidity pandemic marches on uninterrupted.

    6. I had to contact my surgery this morning (mirabile dictu they answered the phone!). The prerecorded preamble said that they weren’t offering any more covid boosters.

      2. He clearly hates anyone with a vehicle who Iives inside boundaries of the M25.
        And let’s be absolutely clear the majority of the people who do didn’t get the option to vote him out.

    2. “Let me be clear” – a politician’s phrase for gross obfuscation.

      “Hate crime in London will not be tolerated.”
      I. E. Hate crime will be tolerated elsewhere.

    2. It’s a silly question but are the steps entirely decorative or are there vehicles that can traverse them to take different routes?

      1. The only craft that I’ve seen going over the weir are Kayaks. There is a Sluice / lock to the left of the weir that could be navigated by larger vessels….

    2. Must be London, the top bridge of the lot on the bottom is Tower Bridge, I suspect.

  46. Israel orders ‘complete siege’ of Gaza to starve Hamas of food, electricity and fuel. 9 October 2023.

    Israel’s defence minister announced a “complete siege” of Gaza on Monday as he vowed to cut off all supplies of food, electricity and fuel in a bid to starve out Hamas.

    “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” said Yoav Gallant, adding that Israel was at war with “human animals”.

    The announcement suggests Israel could be planning to subdue Hamas in Gaza with a long siege and sustained air strikes before sending in ground troops.

    Warsaw Ghetto anyone? At one time I used to harbour hopes that the Jews with their history would follow a different path to the rest of us. Alas they died with Israel.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/09/israel-announce-siege-gaza-yoav-gallant-human-animals/

    1. The Muslims will never accept Israel and that is the problem. They all used to live side by side.

    2. Whoa Minty! The Israelis (I exclude their own religious extremists) have stated many times that if the ‘Stinians want a better life, they simply have to stop attacking Israel.

      1. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Israel was grievously attacked, however the conflict is also present in our streets thanks to the invasion, so we have morally also a say in how it escalates.
        My vote is for no escalation, instead identification and targeted hunting down of the perpetrators.

  49. 377502+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    It is time for Labour to come out of the shadows
    This could be the final conference season before the next general election. Sir Keir Starmer needs to present a bold vision for Britain

    Don’t be daft he’s a through & through surrender monkey
    kneel the kneeler.

    To my mind when lab finally does come out it will have us ALL on the deck five times a day ( mandatory) playing with GREAT GUSTO for change.
    No good looking towards the tory party (ino) for help, they also will be looking towards the kneeler, and being only to glad it is his turn

      2. Back in the 80s I worked with a West Indian woman who had a grown up son given to going walkabout for weeks on end and beating his mother up when he deigned to return home. She insisted that his doctor only diagnosed schizophrenia and wanted to medicate him because he was black.

  52. Tattoo artist Shani Louk, 30, whose naked body was paraded by Hamas terrorists after rave massacre was a peace campaigner and conscientious objector to military service in Israel. D Fail

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/10/09/13/76331629-12610107-image-m-27_1696854611931.jpg

    Her naked body was seen splayed in the back of a truck, with one leg at an unnatural angle, while being surrounded by four Hamas terrorists who were shouting ‘Allahu akbar’ in a sickening video. Jeering supporters of the gunmen, including children, were filmed running alongside the truck and spitting on her motionless body.

    Peace campaigner and conscientious objector – congenitally stupid!

    1. I would like to hear an outcry from Moslems condemning this behaviour as barbaric, uncivilised and bestial.

      But will we hear it ?

      Our civilisation is so degenerate that I almost expect the Archpilloc of Canterbury to say that he thinks that Hamas’s actions are acceptable and justifiable.

      1. No word from Trudeau about this. We had a government statement in keeping with the initial group outrage from western countries, but since then nothing.

        It is only two weeks since he publicly chastised Muslim campaigners who held rallies against children being able to transition at school without parental consent but there. Is not a word against the screaming, hate filled demonstrations supporting the Hamas slaughter.

        Maybe he is scared of alienating his Muslim voter base.

      2. Why on earth would they condemn it? It’s what their Perfect Man would have done (and women are only goods and chattels anyway).

    2. Pacifism only works when everyone is a pacifist – as this poor girl found out to her cost.

        2. I don’t care what he is. Despite rumours, we don’t want him replacing Trudeau. Enough issues with him playing at climate expert.

  54. Big man speak with forked tongue…

    Britain will start ‘dating’ the EU when Labour gains power, says David Lammy

    Shadow foreign secretary describes Brexit as ‘very, very bitter divorce’ and promises closer ties and formal pacts with Brussels

    By Nick Gutteridge, WHITEHALL CORRESPONDENT • 8 October 2023 • 7:06pm

    Britain would start “dating” the EU under Labour’s plans to secure closer economic and defence ties with the bloc, David Lammy has suggested.

    The shadow foreign secretary said his party would look to rebuild relations with Europe after the “very, very bitter divorce” overseen by the Tories. In his most open remarks yet on Brexit policy he also described plans to upgrade Boris Johnson’s trade deal as the “starting point” for a wider reset.

    Sir Keir Starmer has repeatedly ruled out Britain rejoining the EU, the Single Market or the Customs Union under his watch if he wins the next general election.

    Mr Lammy, who was one of the most passionate Remain campaigners in his party, made his latest remarks at a conference fringe event hosted by the Tony Blair Institute. Asked about Labour’s plans for closer ties, he said: “We had a very, very bitter divorce with the EU. It’s a divorce that went on for years and years and years. You could argue that it only came to an end effectively with the Windsor Framework. It took us a long time to even get around to the custody of the children.

    “No one in this room in all seriousness would suggest you can have a divorce and … that you could get married again without even going on a date. “The starting point for a Labour government is let’s get back to the strong partners that we have always traditionally been with our friends and colleagues in Europe.

    “Let us get back to structured dialogue, let us build on what we have, and that starts with the trade agreement that we have and the review in 2025.”

    Mr Lammy said he would also pursue a formal defence pact with the EU, an idea which was considered and ultimately rejected by Mr Johnson.

    He said relations with the bloc had “reached such a low” that the Government “barely mentioned” Europe in its long-term security plans.

    “We have no structured dialogue with the EU, we do not sit down with them on a biannual or quarterly basis to discuss important issues that concern both of us,” he said.

    “And we also reached a point where Liz Truss described Emmanuel Macron as she sought to become leader of the Conservative Party as an enemy not as a friend. We’ve been clear that whilst we will remain outside of the Single Market and the Customs Union we absolutely believe we should review the trade deal in 2025. There’s much to do we think. The paper-thin deal that Boris Johnson struck is not the right balance and we want to approach that seriously.”

    The trade deal struck by Mr Johnson, which secured tariff free access to the EU for British goods, contains a clause saying it should be reviewed after five years. Labour has said it will use the opportunity to seek a fundamental overhaul of the post-Brexit relationship, reducing red tape on businesses and forging closer ties.

    It wants to strike a veterinary agreement with the bloc to eliminate border checks on food products, plus a pact to reduce visa constraints on professionals. Brussels has privately expressed scepticism about those plans and says the review is just a technical exercise to check how both sides are implementing the deal.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/10/08/britain-will-start-dating-the-eu-under-labour-plans-suggest

    2. Looking for a cartoon I googled dating a corpse but what comes up is gross. Fashionable apparently.

    4. If we’d got out, really OUT, and traded under WTO rules there would have been none of this “border checks” malarkey.

  55. Has the fightback really commenced?
    https://theindependentalliance.org/

    I’m writing to let you know that from now on we’ll be emailing you as the Independent Alliance instead of Not Our Future. Our new website was launched today. You can see it here.

    Today’s launch was low-key while we fix bugs and add more text and images. We are also still finishing our “action” sub-site for volunteers to create and manage the campaigns for 650 parliamentary constituencies.

    Your comments would be very useful so please let us know if our message is clear and whether there are any problems using the website.

      1. Formerly known as “Not our Future”.
        They are setting up a new political party and propose to put up candidates in all 650 constituencies.

    5. Just reading through ‘The Plan’.
      “STEP 1
      We must take control of the United Kingdom Government and make the changes needed to end the influence of the oligarchy.

      The United Kingdom will become the first “Independent Alliance Nation” (IN) and will act as a beachhead to help other countries do the same. ”

      Should that not be (IAN)? Just a small thing but they should proof read what they send.

      1. One of their comments is that if readers spot anything that should be corrected/altered they should respond.
        It’s a good point on two counts,
        1 It’s correct
        2 IN suggests a return to the EU.
        Write in, they might select you as a candidate!

          1. It’s an odd one, this.
            Of all the fringe movements for the UK to do an Ogga1, I can’t help wondering if this might, just might, be the new breakthrough of a kind when the Labour parry suddenly became a force to be reckoned with, many many decades ago.

          1. As a “word” or in their policies?
            I did not get the impression from past emails that they were keen on the EU except from the perspective of trade, which the EU has made much more difficult.
            They don’t appear to want to rejoin.

      2. My immediate thought when I read that. Sloppy information doesn’t encourage me to trust their competence.

          3. I’ve not heard of that but I worked for Tanqueray Gordon when I first left school and became a distiller with them 3 years later.

          5. I believe it was the play that the aunt in Hillaire Belloc’s “Matilda” went to see when Matilda had her unfortunate burning.

          6. That’s right. It was a play that featured “a woman with a past” and so was considered a bit racy when Pinero wrote it.

  60. The prisons crisis is a danger to Britain – and liberals are stoking it. 9 October 2023.

    The Minister of Justice has a dismal job these days, and prison overcrowding is probably the most dispiriting issue to land in his in-tray. Yesterday the screw was turned: the leader of the Prison Governors’ Association warned Alex Chalk that the men’s prison estate was essentially full, and that women’s prisons were not far behind.

    This is just another part of the failing system due to the chronic mismanagement of the country. They can rake up a few billions to send to Ukraine at the drop of a hat but can’t keep the country running.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/09/the-prisons-crisis-is-a-danger-to-britain-and-liberals-are/

    1. The answer is blindingly obvious – those prisoners claiming to be trans-women should be shipped over to women’s prisons toute suite!

  61. Humza Yousaf’s in-laws are trapped in Gaza, leaving the first minister worried whether “they will make it through the night”.

    The parents of Nadia El-Nakla, Yousaf’s wife, were visiting relatives in the region when Hamas launched an assault on southern Israel on Saturday morning.

    Officials estimate that more than 1,000 people have been killed since the attacks began.

    Yousaf’s in-laws, who live in Dundee, had been visiting his father-in-law’s 92-year-old mother, he said on Monday.

    The first minister said that he and his wife “cannot sleep” due to worry for their family.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/humza-yousafs-in-laws-trapped-in-gaza-after-hamas-attack-on-israel-79v3xc86x

  63. Excellent news:

    “Humza Yousaf’s in-laws trapped in Gaza after Hamas attack on Israel”

  65. Has been 23c today.. Moh has cut laurel and bay bit of the hedge .. has been to the tip once , and at 15.30 wanted to take another load , but tip has altered closing times to 1600 !!

    Tomorrow will be a busy day , veterans group lunch ( Suez Canal zoner veterans ) and I have also invited Aden vets to swell our numbers , may be a one off , but the age group will be slightly different , but I know they will have a lot to chatter about . Last year we lost 2 elderly members who had served in Jordan and Palestine in earlier incursions .

    When I was a small child , a Shorts Sunderland flying boat evacuated my mother sister and I, and other British expat women and children from the Bitter Lakes , Egypt in 1956 when the Suez Canal Crisis erupted and got nasty.

  67. A lovely day today and spent the morning trimming the small patch of grass, 10’x7′, I have on the Upper Level and digging out some of the brambles threatening to encroach upon it.
    Then got the dinner made, a sausage stew using a pack of pre-cooked buffet sausages that have been in the freezer for a few months. Very tasty.
    Just finishing off a mug of tea then going up to do another hour or so.

    1. I’ve been outside most of the afternoon – lovely and sunny here, and warm. Walked down the much wider path to the post van – the weekend working party did a good job. When I got back I dismantled the tomato plants and then cut back the buddleia. Now finishing off a mug of tea, before I go and get the dinner ready.

    3. Yer, right, Khanni Boy.
      Do you have any London Bridges for sale? Hammersmith springs to mind.

  70. Night All

    Very Late medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/59d1826ade1cc2c93b802ee880a8607393916a22802c742c104702582e8c1513.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e5e13cb549edb383506ef0d34894b1c281479ecf3867f627e8dbec283816cfbe.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d4cf631fc391bd16d9d9af10b45a8939555adfb0a31a268dc32c964f4e6c7b29.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/098737067e7392f4f1d8e87519e3ab602cc4afcf62c0431fedc1475929a12a6d.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2b2bde3c8377cf04e6de80531558a76b3e27aa99213119eefb9698e457275d61.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ac97d6e6187a1a692f32fb0f1b9fcdd5fd33e71152c77eb0c3dc24591badbc19.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4585933c3a371225399e347d54b202a2776fb2263cf88d3c00631d13714f6ebe.gif

    1. It’s not often I take issue with the medleys but this was a particularly unpleasant bunch.

      The problem is not your medley it’s the underlying and very accurate hatred.

    2. The Garrison cartoon is not so much offensive as utterly ill-informed. The EU is allowing in millions of people. Of course, not many of them are refugees, except for some of the Ukrainians.

      1. Garrison has a real skill in his ability to offend.

        By and large I find his cartoons far too self explanatory in the written bits.
        For me, a cartoon should not need as much written explanation as he generally provides.

        1. Who or what is his kneeling woman supposed to represent? Is the headwear a clue?

          3. “Palestine” presumably, but any slammer state will do – most treat their women abominably.

          4. My question was “Who does Garrison see as the poor refugee who cannot get into Europe?”

          5. I don’t think it’s so much can’t get into Europe as trying to portray any attempt to control borders as nasty, racist, Jewish cruelty.

          1. And Adams and Davey and Thompson and Blower and almost any “speckie” cartoonist.

            It’s a great pity Stig has been chased off, as he is good on cartoons.
            (not quite as good as me, I think I won one or two more of the daily Adams’ originals than he did, but it was a close run thing)

          2. Stig hasn’t been ‘chased off’ but he posted an unpleasant comment over a week ago, which Geoff deleted, and he hasn’t posted here since then.

            He did delete his account back in the summer, but came back. He’s usually very level- headed although he doesn’t agree with some of the more right-wing comments here, but he’s always welcome here.

          3. OK, chased off might have been too strong, I didn’t see the exchange.

            What I do know is that Nottle allows (and actually I believe that that is correct) some very unpleasant exchanges to take place and nothing is done.

            I will declare an interest here:
            When Nottle was in the very early days Geoff was seeking moderators.
            I excused myself on two counts,
            I had had a very vicious exchange with another poster recently and I would tend always to leave any post up and let other posters judge for themselves.

          4. Stig upvoted me yesterday so, as well as having exquisite taste, he’s still around.

          5. I do tend to leave posts up, but I was asked to remove Sir J’s post today. The only ones which are not allowed are insults to other posters, but if people are upset we will take action.
            At the time you describe, there were several rather unpleasant people, who eventually got tired of bating us and went away.

          6. I shall be departing now, for that very reason.
            I am resisting the temptation to be singularly unpleasant.

          8. I often disagree with him – but not always. I think I am rather more light-hearted and less touchy than he is but surely it is a good thing to challenge other people’s views and have one’s own views challenged. How boring it would be if everyone agreed on everything.

          9. Absolutely! And while he is probably somewhat less right-wing than most here, I do value his usually well balanced comments. I was surprised by his unpleasant comment and Geoff took exception to it and deleted it. I hope Stig is not ill and will be back.

          10. I often disagree with him – but not always. I think I am rather more light-hearted and less touchy than he is but surely it is a good thing to challenge other people’s views and have one’s own views challenged. How boring it would be if everyone agreed on everything.

        1. Pardon me, Bill and everyone else, but my eye was drawn to the depiction of the refugee as much as that of the Jew. Perhaps I should have written ‘offensive as well as utterly ill-informed’. The reappearance of the hook-nosed Jew is not surprising but Garrison clearly has no idea of what is happening in Europe.

    3. But many of the population of Israel are anti war and defence. they will learn the hard way. History tells you just hiw ruthless Muslims are.

      1. Apparently 300,000 Israeli reservists have dropped sticks and joined up immediately.
        Pro rata, that is roughly 2.75 million vs the UK.

        I know this is a very silly comparison, but it puts the numbers into perspective:

        Can you really see that many of our population signing up that quickly if the Scots nationalists acted as Hamas have?

          2. Don’t forget, they all do military service in Israel. Almost nobody does in the UK.

          3. Unless there had been a general mobilisation at the time, I got the impression that these people just dropped everything and reported for service.

        2. The UK doesn’t have a policy of national service. The last terrorist threat we faced was the IRA (or the other side). I imagine if the muslim started getting uppity I imagine plod would be totally overwhelmed fighting against militants trying to resist the bombings, knifings, rapes than to ever dare flicker against the muslim.

    4. Why would Mossad suspect men with hang gliders would bombs Israel? Our lot didn’t even know about the July the 7th bombers, or the Ariana Grandee bomber. Or the tube bomber. Right I’m bored now.

      It’s sodding obvious that muslim cannot live peacefully and must be heavily vetted and placed on a watch list. Heck, the state wastes so much time inventing ‘far right’ activity that it deliberately ignores the real enemy.

      1. The reason Israeli intelligence didn’t pick up the invasion was that Hamas reverted to word of mouth and meetings rather than communicate through social media and mobile phones knowing that they weren’t secure

  72. That’s me gone for what has been a glorious day. Sunshine from mid-morning onwards – just a T-shirt and shorts. Chilly now – though the glass of warming medicine helps! Will light the stove after supper.

    In addition to useful garden work – including (yawn) picking even more raspberries….have planned and book half the summer holiday. Second half to be in Normandy to see the new British Memorial and remind ourselves of places – cemeteries – not visited for 50 years. So looking out for a nice self-catering place 50 yards from a beach (Achtung Minen).

    The place booked – would you believe – is EXACTLY on the edge of two maps!! Funny how often that happens..

    Anyway, have a jolly evening trying not to think about being bombed (been there, done that – 1941-44).

    A demain

    2. Ain’t that the…par four for me.

      Wordle 842 4/6

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    3. A bloody 5 here and I was having a good run.

      Wordle 842 5/6

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      ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟨
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      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. My normal, covering the bases before solving it

      Wordle 842 4/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
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      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. There was suggestion to send the queers to Palestine. I doubt they’d go. Much easier to rant and whinge here that face the bigotry, intolerance and sheer spite of the muslim in person.

  75. Evening, all. Global boiling has reached North Salop. It was 23 degrees C. After I’d seen the physio about my shoulder, done some shopping that I couldn’t do yesterday because there was no morning service, so I was too late to catch the shops on my way back, I spent the rest of the time in the garden. I am now completely shattered, but you can, at last, see that I have apples on my Cox’s Orange Pippin and my friend has a potful of golden rod which she asked for ready to collect when she’s free. All in all, a good day. If it’s fine tomorrow I may get around to clearing the rest of the orchard. I’ve also done some re-arranging of pictures, but I have one largeish one that I can’t fit in anywhere at the moment. I shall have to get creative, I think!

    1. So that is where our good weather went to. Mid twenties seemingly forever over here but today a maximum of 10C, rain and strong winds.

      Golf did not happen for me today.

      1. My apologies, richard 🙂 It was warm yesterday as well. Still, console yourself; it’s supposed to be back to normal here on Wednesday.

        2. Whereas, just to be contrary, I’d love to have a beer with him. But there again I am a fellow Scot.

        3. I disagree – I like him though he could be a bit less gloomy and more jolly.

          1. Given the subject matter, I was thinking he did a decent job of remembering to smile from time to time! 🤣

            I found him warm and sincere in person; I am always interested in what he has to say now. (I’d never heard of him before all this.)

    2. Neil is spot on as ever. If just 10% of us can hold firm against the politicians and their wish to control by corruption our daily lives we will overcome.

      I noticed an article earlier today showing long queues outside a Health Centre of poor deluded Welsh people seeking the latest Covid booster and Flu jab. Some way to go with that rump of sheep. Doubtless many of those innocents will succumb to some cancer or blood clotting even though we now understand the Covid jabs can prove lethal.

  78. There was a huge pro-Palestine March assembling in Knightsbridge/Hyde Park on my way home from work earlier. I challenged some of them, politely, as to how they could possibly go on such a march given the events over the weekend. One man got very aggressive and I thought be would punch me. He actually spat in my face. About 5 minutes afterwards I started shaking uncontrollably and I went all weak. I had no idea I could react like that. This happened about 4 hours ago and Ive only just stopped shaking.

      1. Yes, thank you. I couldn’t not say anything. It’s the Islington Useful Idiots that especially get to me. Did they not see what the terrorists did? How can they contemplate joining a march right now? Bad taste just doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.

        1. I think their visceral hatred of Israel makes them immune to any basic human feelings.

    3. You are experiencing an adrenaline kick, fear / fright / or exhilaration … the fear and fright factor has kicked in . Please relax , have a bath / shower and let it ride . You have suffered a terrible shock .

      An incident happened that I responded to over a month ago when an elderly lady collapsed on a beach , there was sheer panic all round , I leapt into action and gave her CPR.. kiss of life , and saved her life . An ambulance appeared nearly an hour later .

      I have a wonky right hip and a dodgy left knee, but I have no idea how I knelt down over her to do what I did , and how on earth did I spring back onto my feet .. When she recovered her colour and started breathing , and opened her eyes etc .. I couldn’t stop shaking , and I was still shaking 24 hours later .. an adrenaline kick .

    4. Lots of bacteria in the teeth of large reptiles. The creature could have poisoned you, especially if its oral hygiene is poor. Use alcoholic mouthwash to banish any trace of its evil essence.
      Edit: it wasn’t a pro-Palestine march. It was a case of ‘Let’s show our enthusiasm for raping and slaughtering the Jews’.

      1. Yep – it’s deranged. They genuinely want to destroy the Jewish people. The Left have never stopped fighting WW2.

    5. You have my sympathy.
      I had a similar problem here, when I was called a Nazi for asking a woke how many gimmegrants the UK should accept; at the time 50,000 was a huge number. I asked if 500,000 or 5 million was OK.

      1. Yes, they cannot be rational. They want you to say ‘as many as want to come here. I would say that, but follow up with ‘as long as you personally pay for them and take the punishments of their crimes.’

        They don’t like that.

    7. They’re insane, evil fanatics. You cannot approach them with logic or reason. They have nothing but hate in them.

      As disgusting as their actions were, I am glad you didn’t get physically hurt. Whenever the Left behave like this the eradication of their entire philosophy of life must be erased.

    10. Good on you for standing up to the shite. If more people did, then there might be a chance for civilisation.
      Hope you’re feeling better.
      By the way, being spat on is an assault.

    1. If it’s within a mile of Parliament the police have the power to stop it.
      We know they won’t/wouldn’t.

        1. It makes you wonder what will sate these fanatics. Extermination of the Jewish people? And they keep thinking they’re the good guys?

          1. They wouldn’t stop at the Jews; elimination (or subjugation) of the kuffar is their aim. They are, frankly, dangerous.

          2. These Arabs are savages, nothing more, nothing less. No human being kills women and children indiscriminately in cold blood, rupture and rape young women, torture those captured and hold them to ransom.

            We are dealing with pure evil. Our government needs to wake up otherwise the deliberate importation of such people will come back to bite the people, causing the same atrocious and unfathomably despicable scenes to be enacted on our shores.

      1. Funnily enough, one of the hymns (Give me love in my heart) had as the last verse, “Give me oil in my lamp keep me burning!” I thought of JSO as I belted it out 🙂

    3. No, demos should be allowed, but those promoting the criminal terrorist islamists should be fired upon.

      Barely any of those people support palestine or even know who hamas are. They’re just for muslim and fervently anti Jew – as most Lefties are. It is a sad indictment of society that they’ve not been removed by now.

    4. No demos allowed? That would be the control freaks’ wet dream! Especially if it were only certain demos that were not allowed.

      1. Just freeze bank accounts of protesters that don’t follow the official line. It worked over here in Canada, people are very wary about demonstrating.

    5. Our governments of all stripes have shown no awareness of the dangers posed by radical Muslims to our well-being.

      We have been importing fighting age men from countries and with religions hostile to us for years. The supposed radical Muslims responsible for the atrocities in Israel are not religious in any sense that we recognise in the west. These men are savages taking children and women as hostages whilst raping, pillaging and shooting innocent young people using automatic weapons in cold blood.

      Trump brought peace to the Middle East. Biden has reversed each and every Trump policy with the catastrophic results both political and physical and destabilisation we see all over the world.

  80. Concern grows over bedbugs on London’s trains and buses
    Sadiq Khan addresses fears that outbreak bedeviling Paris will spread to the capital’s transport network

    By
    Joe Pinkstone,
    SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT
    9 October 2023 • 7:13pm

    The Mayor of London has said that the possibility of bedbugs on the capital’s public transport is “a real source of concern”.

    Paris has been overwhelmed by outbreaks of bedbugs, with videos showing them swarming on seats of trains and buses.

    Officials at Transport for London (TfL) are said to be monitoring the situation and have a cleaning protocol that involves daily seat cleaning.

    However, a viral video emerged online at the weekend of what was claimed to be a bedbug on a passenger’s leg on the Victoria underground line.

    The video, which has been viewed more than one million times, shows a small bug on a person’s trouser leg. The insect appears red in colour and is not moving.

    Asked about the threat of bedbugs, Sadiq Khan told the PoliticsJoe website: “This is a real source of concern. People are worried about these bugs in Paris causing a problem in London.”

    “As far as we know, bedbugs do not carry any human disease and their bite is painless but can leave an itchy red mark. Bites often show up as a straight row of three or four,” he said.

    “Bedbugs mostly feed at night and hang out in cracks and crevices during the day. I no longer use drawers in hotels to avoid picking up bedbugs as they can quite easily hitch a ride in luggage.

    “Hence, they can travel between countries in luggage and are widespread. So I wouldn’t worry about them but would advise avoiding unpacking clothes as far as possible in hotels. Some people even advise storing your suitcase in the bathtub, though I don’t go that far.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/09/bed-bugs-mayor-video-victoria-line-underground-paris/

    1. They used to be prevalent in mediaeval and Tudor times. We have gone backwards thanks to importing the third world.

      1. I surveyed a Chinese restaurant in Brighton a few years ago on behalf of a new occupant (Mexican food).

        There was no lighting in the large basement so I relied on my torches. I dropped a torch on the bedding of the chef’s quarters and activated a hundred or more dead bedbugs.

        I reckon if more people have witnessed what I have in restaurant kitchens of even a few of the London Clubs you would never eat there again.

  84. 377502+ up ticks,

    Sadly, if you are too dumb to believe this you will die in complete ignorance.

    Robin Monotti

    @robinmonotti

    If there is one thing that 9/11 and the Covid19 vaccines should have taught us, it’s that the psychopathic oligarchy will either cause or allow highly visual massacres to occur in order to perpetrate their psychopathic agenda for control, destruction, war, and ultimately for depopulation. Psychopaths like to kill. See “American Psycho” by Brett Easton Ellis for a good portrayal.

  85. I meant to add, when I logged in, that limiting children’s (not their own, of course) is the idea behind Labour’s attack on education. Those who get a good education (as opposed to indoctrination) tend not to vote Labour. It’s one reason why they were so vehement against grammar schools despite (or maybe because of) selective education having been proven (a French study) to aid social mobility.

  89. Given the possibilities that we are all prone to attack from savages arriving on these shores delivered safely by the Border Force and RNLI I would like to be able to arm myself in defence of my wife and property.

    Has any Nottler any idea as to how I might arm myself within the law.

    I am changing my will to exclude the RNLI for what it is worth. Simple enough as the RSPCA now take their place. These people are not rescuing people at sea by assisting in government policy to support the UN and WEF inspired invasion of our formerly safe country.

    1. Morning C. Nottl is not noted for its support of the Central Power. Formulas for chemical weapons and the manufacture of firearms would see Geoff in the slammer and the site shut down. It would in fact provide the perfect excuse for doing something they would like to do anyway. As to your personal security, you are I understand an architect; you should make your home as safe as modern technology and the art of fortification can devise.

    2. Corim, here’s some information on what the law on self defence and confronting burglars entails. It’s basically an advert but looks useful.

      Westminster Security

      Government website:

      You can use reasonable force to protect yourself or others if a crime is taking place inside your home.

      This means you can:

      protect yourself ‘in the heat of the moment’ – this includes using an object as a weapon

      Not sure if the ‘object’, in my case a long piece of hickory from a sledge hammer handle beside my bed, is legal: premeditation, and all that…

      Sadly, traps of any kind appear to be illegal.

  90. Good morning fellow insomniacs!
    Once again woke up to pump bilges and couldn’t get settled again so have come downstairs so I don;t disturb the DT.

    An early look at the letters provided this gem:-

    Boosting rail capacity
    SIR – Capacity on our railways (Letters, October 7) would increase if we used double-decker trains, of the kind found all over Europe.

    If any bridges or tunnels were not high enough, we could lower the track – relatively easy, quick and inexpensive.

    George Bristow
    Brading, Isle of Wight

    How to say “I’m not a railway engineer” without saying “I’m not a railway engineer”!

    4. We’re nearly there already thanks to the Shunk debacle. One of our installers who we’ve continually given work to has closed doors simply saying they can’t make ends meet without radically putting up prices – some 10-15%.

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