Saturday 10 May: The water dispute that goes to the heart of the tensions between India and Pakistan

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

565 thoughts on “Saturday 10 May: The water dispute that goes to the heart of the tensions between India and Pakistan”

  5. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new page.

    Wordle 1,421 6/6

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    1. Killer's in the wrong place, should be sedated and in an asylum. Prison officers have enough to deal with.

    2. Yo B o B

      A (good) few years ago,in the 70's, I was in the Museum there, and got chatting to an American visitor.

      He was standing by a Flying Fortress and said that he flew them in WWII

      We had a good natter

      1. The MacMillan Government cancelled TSR2 whilst 'rationalising' and wrecking the British aircraft industries.

        1. It was cancelled by the Labour government in 1964 allegedly due to cost, in favour of the F-111. One theory is that the UK needed a load from the IMF and this was the price.

    2. Whoever floats your boat, Starmer? Not a good look with the majority of people who are decent and honest folk.

      I am firmly of the opinion that many of both Starmer's and his government's decisions are deliberately contentious in nature.

    1. 405270+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      What we tend to forget is the fact that there is ALWAYS a hatchet man, always.

      The BIG FELLA could always pull the FINAL curtain, ANYTIME.

  17. 405270+ upticks,

    Good question,

    My honest belief is the answer will be finally found , even though they may be of a patriotic design & hue,
    in the underpants.

    The five secrets of Peter Mandelson’s unrivalled political genius
    He resigned from Cabinet twice, but there the ‘Prince of Darkness’ was this week, centre stage in the Oval Office. How does he do it?

        1. He won’t divine it on his own, Mr G…my usual fave is the CS who want to keep him there. Lovely weatherwise here today, hope sun shining for you too x

          1. Morning, Kate.

            It's a grey day here, but dry. Busy this afternoon stuffing 2,500g of sausages. Half are British breakfast bangers; half are Midlands' pork-and-tomato (my favourite). 😘

          5. Some with an English breakfast, Kate, and some on sandwiches with onions! xxx

          8. My mum always used lard, I ate a lot of fried eggs on toast or with chips 70 years ago 😊 hope the sun’s shining for you today Grizz, as it is for me.

          9. It is, Kate, but it’s still cool here.
            My mum used to fry the eggs in the chip pan. I thought it was strange at the time but much later I discovered that was the favoured way of the Roux brothers.😊

    6. He knows, you know, as he taps his nose.

      He has the excretia on them all

  18. New Poll Puts Reform 10 Points Ahead of Labour

    UK Legislation
    15h
    so tories and labour set up a quango on £850mill per annum to dim the sun and force solar on homeowners…. and you wonder why Reform will win the next election …jeeeesh!

    Sir Jimmy Savile OBE
    14h
    If Reform can maintain roughly a 30% share of the vote in the polls, they'll win the next general election with a majority. They'll get another big publicity boost next May, thanks to Angela Rayner postponing several of ths council elections we should have had last week. That was good thinking there, Ang.

    1. By next year, the government will decide the whole country needs "unitary authorities".
      Bingo; local elections "postponed" for another year.

        1. The central problem with Reform seems to be NF's dislike of any other tall poppies.

      2. What's the difference between "Unitary Authorities" and "Public Convenience"? They sound much the same to me.

  19. Good morning all ,

    Fine May morning , still and the green contrasting colours look amazing in the sunlight .

    The lawn is covered in elm seeds , little brown /green flat seeds that have almost carpeted everywhere , the first time we have seen such an extensive fluttering , yesterday there was a slight breeze and the seeds are everywhere including being trodden in side by the dog cat and us adults .. the casings are so thin , it was as if it was snowing .

    The blossoms everywhere are more intense and extensive than in previous years , including the May blossom .

    2. I cannot recall a spring in which dandelions, daisies and buttercups have bloomed in such profusion. Verges, parks, gardens, playing fields and other patches of grass are smothered with them. I take shortcuts across some in my town and my shoes acquire a yellow dusting of their pollen.

      1. I noticed that yesterday when i walked Dolly. There were so many dandies you couldn't see the grass.

        My hayfever is epic.

  20. SIR – Rising tensions and the prospect of war between India and Pakistan highlight the indispensable nature of the British Indian Ocean Territory, which gives Britain a strategic presence in a region of global interest.

    In light of the changing situation, will the Government finally suspend the giveaway of the Chagos Islands?

    Robert Frazer
    Salford, Lancashire

    1. 405270+ up ticks,

      Morning TB,

      " Rising tensions and the prospect of war between India and Pakistan"

      Hold up,

      I do believe that war betwixt the decent indigenous peoples of these Isles and the current political overseers, that is somewhat imminent to be of more importance .

    2. 405270+ up ticks,

      Morning TB,

      " Rising tensions and the prospect of war between India and Pakistan"

      Hold up,

      I do believe that war betwixt the decent indigenous peoples of these Isles and the current political overseers, that is somewhat imminent to be of more importance .

    3. Morning, Maggie.
      Leave 'em to it.
      p.s. I'm rooting for the Hindus as much as I can be bothered to fret about the matter.
      Fortunately, I have no reason to visit Leicester or any other alien enclave.

      2. Fun fact: By 1936 Leicester was recognised as the second richest in Europe thanks to its booming textile industry. However, by the 60s it was on its last legs, then..

        In August 1972, Ugandan president Idi Amin announced that Uganda’s entire Asian population had 90 days to leave the country. Nearly a quarter of Ugandan refugees who came to Britain in 1972 settled in Leicester.. The Ugandan Asians were attributed with singlehandedly making Leicester the only major textile manufacturing centre left in Britain, with the knock-on effect of making Leicester Polytechnic the go to place for textile students from around the world.

        (Not so fast. Meanwhile, Saeed Khilji, chair of the Textile Manufacturers Association of Leicestershire, believes the city has lost around 80% of factories since 2020).

      3. Fun fact: By 1936 Leicester was recognised as the second richest in Europe thanks to its booming textile industry. However, by the 60s it was on its last legs, then..

        In August 1972, Ugandan president Idi Amin announced that Uganda’s entire Asian population had 90 days to leave the country. Nearly a quarter of Ugandan refugees who came to Britain in 1972 settled in Leicester.. The Ugandan Asians were attributed with singlehandedly making Leicester the only major textile manufacturing centre left in Britain, with the knock-on effect of making Leicester Polytechnic the go to place for textile students from around the world.

        (Not so fast. Meanwhile, Saeed Khilji, chair of the Textile Manufacturers Association of Leicestershire, believes the city has lost around 80% of factories since 2020).

    4. And what would the UK do to intervene in this matter, I wonder? Perhaps the Chagos Islands could host a peace summit between the protagonists.

    5. And what would the UK do to intervene in this matter, I wonder? Perhaps the Chagos Islands could host a peace summit between the protagonists.

    1. Well, that's today's factoid; I didn't know about the time factor on leases.
      The corrupt arrangement between Serco and the government is a given.

    3. It is
      Like watching
      A nation
      Building
      Its
      Own
      Funeral pyre

      (C) Powell, E

    2. Very annoying that Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, whatwashername, Johnson, Sunak, and Starmer will also have 85th anniversaries.

      1. Done with the food from 2030 onwards Chemicals, supplied by WEF, NWO etc

      1. The species will soon reach a point where it will implode, Del.

        Humans are quickly losing the ability to think rationally and in the next few generations they will go the way of the dinosaurs and the dodo.

    6. We can all be self sufficient by growing food in our gardens and allotments and by foraging nature's bounty . Obvious, inni'?

  24. Morning All 🙂😊
    Lovely and sunny a little breezy but we will cope.
    A water dispute that leads to such strong violence ?
    It's hard to imagine that could soon be something that might happen in our poorly managed group of islands. We have always been fortunate enough to have plenty of water, enough to serve the population. I wonder what went wrong this time ? What have the know all political idiots effed up now ?

    1. The Chaos (Gerard Nolst Trenité)

      Dearest creature in creation
      Studying English pronunciation,
      
I will teach you in my verse
      Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.
      I will keep you, Susy, busy,
      Make your head with heat grow dizzy;

      Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
      Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

      Pray, console your loving poet,
      Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!

      Just compare heart, beard and heard,
      Dies and diet, lord and word.
      Sword and sward, retain and Britain
      (Mind the latter, how it's written).

      Made has not the sound of bade,
      Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

      Now I surely will not plague you
      With such words as plaque and ague,

      But be careful how you speak:
      Say break and steak, but bleak and streak.
      Previous, precious, fuchsia, via;
      Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;

      Cloven, oven, how and low,
      Script, receipt, show, poem, toe.

      Here me say, devoid of trickery:
      Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,

      Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
      Exiles, similes, and reviles.
      Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
      Same, examining, but mining,

      Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
      Solar, mica, war and far.

      From desire: desirable; admirable from admire,
      Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,

      Topsham, Brougham, renown, but known,
      Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone.
      One, anemone, Balmoral,
      Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.

      Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
      Scene, Melopomene, mankind.

      Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
      Reading, reading, heathen, heather.

      This phonetic labyrinth
      Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth and plinth.
      Have you ever yet endeavoured
      To pronounce revered and severed,

      Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
      Peter, petrol and patrol?

      Billet does not rhyme with ballet;
      Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
      
Blood and flood are not like food,
      Nor is mould like should and would.
      Banquet is not nearly parquet,
      Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
      
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
      Toward, to forward, to reward.

      Ricocheted, crocheting, and croquet?
      Your pronunciation is OK.

      Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
      Friend and fiend, alive and live.
      Is your r correct in higher?
      Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.

      Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
      Buoyant, minute, but minute.

      Say abscission with precision,
      Now: position and transition;

      Would it tally with my rhyme
      If I mentioned paradigm?
      Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
      But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
      
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
      Rabies, but lullabies.

      Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
      Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,

      You'll envelop lists, I hope,
      In a linen envelope.
      Would you like some more? You'll have it!
      Affidavit, David, davit.

      To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
      Does not sound like Czech but ache.

      Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
      Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

      We say hallowed, but allowed,
      People, leopard, towed but vowed.
      Mark the difference, moreover,
      Between mover, cover, Dover.

      Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
      Chalice, but police and lice.

      Camel, constable, unstable,
      Principle, disciple, label.

      Petal, penal, panel, canal,
      Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal,
      Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
      Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
      
But it is not hard to tell
      Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

      Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
      Timber, climber, bullion, lion,

      Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
      Senator, spectator, mayor,
      Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
      And enamour rhyme with hammer.

      Pussy, hussy and possess,
      Desert, but desert, address.

      Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
      Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
      
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
      Doll and roll and some and home.
      "Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
      Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",

      Making, it is sad but true,
      In bravado, much ado.

      Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
      Neither does devour with clangour.

      Souls but foul, haunt, but aunt,
      Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.
      Arsenic, specific, scenic,
      Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.

      Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
      Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

      Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
      Make the latter rhyme with eagle.

      Mind! Meandering but mean,
      Valentine and magazine.
      And I bet you, dear, a penny,
      You say mani-(fold) like many,

      Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
      Tier (one who ties), but tier.

      Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
      Rhyme with herring or with stirring?

      Prison, bison, treasure trove,
      Treason, hover, cover, cove,
      Perseverance, severance. Ribald
      Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.

      Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
      Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

      Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
      And distinguish buffet, buffet;

      Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
      Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.
      Say in sounds correct and sterling
      Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.

      Evil, devil, mezzotint,
      Mind the z! (A gentle hint).

      Now you need not pay attention
      To such sounds as I don't mention,
      
Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
      Rhyming with the pronoun yours;
      Nor are proper names included,
      Though I often heard, as you did,

      Funny rhymes to unicorn,
      Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

      No, my maiden, coy and comely,
      I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.

      No. Yet Froude compared with proud
      Is no better than McLeod.
      But mind trivial and vial,
      Tripod, menial, denial,

      Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
      Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

      Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
      May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,

      But you're not supposed to say
      Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.
      Had this invalid invalid
      Worthless documents? How pallid,

      How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
      When for Portsmouth I had booked!

      Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
      Paramour, enamoured, flighty,

      Episodes, antipodes,
      Acquiesce, and obsequies.
      Please don't monkey with the geyser,
      Don't peel 'taters with my razor,

      Rather say in accents pure:
      Nature, stature and mature.

      Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
      Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,

      Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
      Wan, sedan and artisan.
      The th will surely trouble you
      More than r, ch or w.
Say then these phonetic gems:
      Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

      Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
      There are more but I forget 'em-

      Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
      Lighten your anxiety.
      The archaic word albeit
      Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;

      With and forthwith, one has voice,
      One has not, you make your choice.

      Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger;
      Then say: singer, ginger, linger.

      Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
      Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,
      Hero, heron, query, very,
      Parry, tarry fury, bury,

      Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
      Job, job, blossom, bosom, oath.

      Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
      Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners

      Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
      Puisne, truism, use, to use?
      Though the difference seems little,
      We say actual, but victual,

      Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
      Put, nut, granite, and unite.

      Refer does not rhyme with deafer,
      Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
      
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
      Mint, pint, senate, but sedate.
      Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
      Science, conscience, scientific;

      Tour, but our, and succour, four,
      Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

      Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
      Next omit, which differs from it

      Bona fide, alibi
      Gyrate, dowry and awry.
      Sea, idea, Korea, area,
      Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

      Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
      Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

      Compare alien with Italian,
      Dandelion and battalion,

      Sally with ally; yea, ye,
      Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
      Say aver, but ever, fever,
      Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.

      Never guess-it is not safe,
      We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

      Starry, granary, canary,
      Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
      
Face, but preface, not efface
      Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
      Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
      Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
      
Ear, but earn; and wear and tear
      Do not rhyme with here but heir.

      Mind the o of off and often
      Which may be pronounced as orphan,

      With the sound of saw and sauce;
      Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.
      Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
      Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.

      Respite, spite, consent, resent.
      Liable, but Parliament.

      Seven is right, but so is even,
      Hyphen, roughen, nephew,
      Stephen,
 monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
      Asp, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
      A of valour, vapid vapour,
      S of news (compare newspaper),

      G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
      I of antichrist and grist.

      Differ like diverse and divers,
      Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.

      Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
      Polish, Polish, poll and poll.
      Pronunciation: think of Psyche!
      Is a paling, stout and spiky?

      Won't it make you lose your wits
      Writing groats and saying "grits"?

      It's a dark abyss or tunnel
      Strewn with stones, stowed solace, gunwale
      ,
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
      Housewife, verdict and indict.
      Don't you think so, reader, rather,
      Saying lather, bather, father?
      Query does not rhyme with very, 

      Nor does fury sound like bury.

      Finally, which rhymes with enough,
      Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough?
      Hiccough has the sound of cup
      My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

      Nine different pronunciations of 'ough':

      "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of
      Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

      1. That must have been a labour of love, but it's illustrative, with its numerous examples, of just how eccentric English pronunciation and spelling can be. The one consolation for students of the English language is that its grammar is, on the whole, much simpler. I'm reminded of having to study German and learn the tables of how articles – definite and indefinite, singular and plural – as well as possessives, are affected by the three genders of masculine, feminine and neuter and four cases of nominative, accusative, genitive and dative. You then had to remember which gender each noun belonged to, by no means obvious in many instances.

  27. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/90dc634f34987edf56a77a6de964ff78bdec4a0f8bf30a783cc9aa878fb82c7f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/91373548054476cdafe078d5199348477178745259b32cb60e49dfab091f648e.png Advice urgently required from fellow cat-lackeys.

    How do you advise the lord-of-the-manor that it is quite inconvenient when he decides to lie across one's keyboard when one is avidly reading the online Daily Telegraph attempting to catch up with the morning's sports news?

    I had already provided Sir with his nourishing breakfast of fresh haddock. This is now a daily occurrence.🙄🐈

      1. I would … but I don't have one … I'm a trackpad man (right, bottom photo).

        He's got a few toy squeaky mice, but when he decides it's time to doss down, it's a case of "wherever I lay my hat".

    3. Yo mr Grizz

      Been there, seen it done it (times Three)

      The biggest problem is how much you will miss it/them when they are no longer there

    4. ‘Morning Mr. Grizz man pet! Just pretend you don’t really want to use the keyboard! He’ll get bored and look for something else with which to annoy you! That’ll do champion!

      1. Why-aye, Hinny. I just grasped the nettle, Pet. I picked him up, lay him down on the adjacent sofa, and he simply curled up and dropped off again.👍🏻

          1. Yesterday was fun. We've bought him a harness and an extending dog-lead. I took him outside with it yesterday afternoon and he was very wary exploring his new surroundings out there. He was startled by the sound of cars passing by at the front of the house but I didn't take him there, just allowed him to sniff around the shrubbery and get his bearings on the lawn.

            It will be quite some time — if at all — that we let him out alone.

    5. ‘Morning Mr. Grizz man pet! Just pretend you don’t really want to use the keyboard! He’ll get bored and look for something else with which to annoy you! That’ll do champion!

    7. He wants you to know how much he cares for you….(not much).

      G & P do not do that keyboard malarkey, but they will seize any chair that I have risen from and install themselves.

      1. A cat's attitude towards a relationship with a human is like Mildred's relationship with Philip Carey in Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage.

          2. I use washable plush self adhesive strips that are made for the job. Can't stand a cold seat !

        2. The other day, I rose from my armchair for a second to put a log in the stove – and “woomph” Gus was seated!

    8. We don't allow our cats on the tables or worktops. We have a water-sprayer with loosened nozzle, so it sprays a jet and not a mist, that we spray them with when they transgress. Only took 2 or 3 sprays for them to get the idea. If necessary, we wave the sprayer at them and they jump off.
      No keyboard problem.

    9. I expect you've already told this forum about how you gave Findus his name. If so, I'm afraid I missed it. Is it that when Find-us adopted you, he Found-you?

      1. I think the story was that Findus had belonged to Grizz’s late mother-in-law and he’d have liked to rename him but Findus responds to that name.

      2. 'Findus' is apparently a common name for pets here. I wanted to call him Norm but I was outvoted.

        In my 74 years I have never met anyone with a dog named 'Fido' or 'Rover'. Only in cartoons.

        1. My brother-in-law is a boxing fan. It accounts for names some of his dogs have had, such as Lennox [Lewis] and Frank [Bruno].

          1. Frank is a good name for a dog. Tough and solid.

            Dolly and Harry are named after gangsters. (Widows by Lynda la Plant)

        2. When I was very young my family had a dog named after a cartoon character. He was a mutt named Tramp because the latest Disney release that year (remember when that was an event) was Lady and the Tramp. .

    10. Ours don't much like fish.
      It used to make Magnificat fart like a bastard, too.

    11. Little Cat, also ginger, tries to get in my space on the sofa before I do, running to be there first. I think it's to show affection for the food provider (matfar, in Norwegian, although I don't know how to speak in italics.)

      1. See my answer to Harry Kobeans, below.

        I don't use inferior 20th century technology.

          1. I can only get on with a trackpad. I find a rat unintuitive and awkward to use.

  29. A friend who was a bus driver told me that pensioners with bus passes were known as "Twirlies"

    As in trying to get on a bus before 9.30 in the morning and asking "Am I too early?"

    I think that 'twirlie' was first used, when the The Three Wise men got to their destination on Christmas Eve.

    1. My brother-in-law was a bus driver for a while. He also told me about the Twirlies.

    2. Legitimately boarding a bus using a Pass or payment card in the correct manner.
      How quaint.

    3. Surely the 3 Wise Men, or Kings, arrived when the Christ child was several days or months old?

      1. Picky, picky

        I was with them: it was Christmas Eve, before they went to the Carol Service in the local British Legion.

        The actually travelled there on a Routemaster Bus, on loan fron Sad Dick Khant

    4. Kadi always starts asking for his tea at least an hour before he's due to be fed. I keep telling him, "you're twirly!"

  30. The Establishment Blob/ Leftie Globalist Psycho-Elites/ Activists in power.. will be smirking and relieved at Nigel Farage's list of policies to "reform" Britain.

    NIGEL FARAGE: Our victory was seismic and the Reform era is just starting. Here's everything my government would do – from ditching Net Zero to finally tackling immigration

    One of two things, either..
    Farage is playing the game, and keeping his cards close to the chest.. just as revolutionary Trotskyists Blair & Starmer did on their roads to victory.
    or,
    He's just a clueless conformist dud.. that will be neutered and stymied at every turn by civil service Blob.

    1. I think that Elon Musk got the measure of Farage and Farage immediately set out to prove him right by his treatment of Rupert Lowe.

  31. If I put out tinned cat food (meat-based) in one dish and then some fresh cod or haddock in another, he runs to the fish and devours it all. We shall try him with some fresh herring later today.

    No farts from him … yet!

      1. No rolled-up herrings pickled in sharp vinegar here.

        We may have 79 varieties of flavoured pickled herring, most of them delicious, but no 'rollmops'.

  32. The job of taking back control aint gonna happen with a conformist political lite-weight.
    Dominic Cummings said.. "You need to move in fast preferably over-night on a Sunday, and take each & every civil service executive office and relocate them to a safe house.. with the military behind you."

    And like Starkey says.. "you need a Catherine The Great or Oliver Cromwell. They are called Great..because they are rare."
    Day One, push through the great Repeal Act of Undoing Tony Blair through to 2TK.. no discussion, no debate, no private secretaries.

    To attempt otherwise is like peeing in the wind.

    1. Yup.
      What it's called is a coup. Before the opposition can even mobilise.

    2. Move a military unit into Downing Street. IT experts as well as armed guards. Take over the Civil Service IT systems and lock them all out. Pointless to lock the office doors. Most of them are not there anyway.

    1. How is that such violent prisoners are within reach of boiling water? Is he allowed to work in kitchens? If so, why? The Telegraph report reminds us of how the Manchester Arena bomber's brother threw hot cooking oil at prison guards and attacked them with weapons. He should never have had access to them.

      1. Working in the kitchens was regarded as a privilege. Why these newly imprisoned murderers are getting these privileges is beyond belief.

        This piece of filth in particular should be in solitary confinement and drugged up to the eyeballs.

      2. A reporter on GBN earlier stated that he threw the water through an opening in his cell door. That suggests that kettles are provided in prison cells? A la hotel rooms. One hopes not, but…?

      3. Apparently, most prisoners are provided with kettles to save carrying hot drinks around the prison. There is a simple solution to that, cold water is perfectly adequate to maintain life.

        1. Certainly for violent and dangerous prisoners. Many others, of course, are imprisoned for other offences without a history of violence, such as financial crimes.

          2. I would agree with you other than the fact we know there are people fast-tracked into prison who shouldn’t be there. If you believe in our justice system, i have a bridge to sell you. Be careful – it could happen to you.

      4. Yooman rights.
        There should be remote switch off for electrical sockets in cells x minutes before doors are unlocked.

    2. He should be kept chained in a dungeon and thrown a piece of mouldy bread and a a cup of water per day.

  34. Islamist sectarianism is the most frightening force in British politics and will only grow stronger

    Extremism has found a powerful democratic voice, bolstered by mass immigration and cowardly politicians from the mainstream parties

    Camilla Tominey, Associate Editor • 9th May 2025, 3:18pm BST

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a927667d7c4d157ee9c459b2050c1ed269a7a204b9ee121d14880de2a9746d01.jpg Adnan Hussain, the independent MP for Blackburn, has criticised free speech because "it means protecting the right to offend Muslims"
    [Credit: Newsquest, SWNS]

    The growing tensions between India and Pakistan have prompted repeated warnings that "sectarianism threatens to spill onto the streets of Britain". But it's a bit too late for that. Sectarianism isn't just rife at the protests in London or even the rhetoric being spouted in the mosques and madrassas of the UK.

    It is fast infecting our local councils, Parliament itself and many of our great institutions. So much so, in fact, that a senior Labour source told me recently that its MPs were unlikely to get re-elected in some parts of the country. "Leicester is lost, as are parts of Birmingham and Bradford," he conceded. "We won't get elected in some of these areas again."

    As the focus understandably turned to the rise of Reform, few noticed that the local elections once again witnessed the elevation of a number of Islamist candidates. In years gone by, they would have stood for Labour, but the growth of Britain's nearly four million strong Muslim population means they are now able to be elected in their own right – without being tied to a national party.

    In Burnley Central East, Maheen Kamran was elected as an independent in the formerly Labour-held ward after campaigning in favour of segregation between the sexes. The pro-Gaza candidate, 18, won 38 per cent of the vote, surpassing Reform UK's 30 per cent and leaving Labour trailing in third place on 14 per cent. The victory came after Ms Kamran said she had been motivated to enter politics by the "genocide" taking place in Gaza, and called for the end of "free mixing" between Muslim men and women. Progressive stuff.

    In nearby Brierfield and Nelson West, Mohammed Iqbal beat Labour to win his seat as an independent with a 2,396 majority. Formerly the Labour leader of Pendle Council, the 63-year-old was suspended by the party after the Jewish Chronicle revealed that during a debate on flying the Palestinian flag above Nelson Town Hall, he said: "The fact is that what's going on in Ukraine, Palestine, and other areas I've mentioned, reminds me, I barely passed my GCSE history at school, but many people in this room will remember what justification Hitler had for what he did to the Jews in the Second World War."

    Mr Iqbal later insisted: "I wish to publicly state I am not anti-Semitic and have campaigned all my life against all forms of racism and sexism and will continue to do so."

    Another suspended Labour candidate, Azhar Ali, won the neighbouring seat of Nelson East despite being dumped by the party as its parliamentary contender for the Rochdale by-election. He was dropped after apologising "unreservedly" following reports he had told a meeting that Israel "allowed" Hamas's attack on October 7 in order to get a "green light to do whatever they bloody want".

    Other pro-Palestine politicians to win council seats last week include pro-Gaza Sohail Asghar for the Greens in Accrington West and Oswaldtwistle Central. Just days after the October 7 attacks, Asghar reposted a message on X which read: "Israel = Isis". He has promoted the posts of people associated with Holocaust denial.

    None of this should come as any surprise, not least when Labour's vote share in highly Muslim-populated areas dropped by 29 percentage points at the last general election, from 65 per cent in 2019 to 36 per cent in 2024.

    And still Labour panders to the Islamists. As the Conservative MP Nick Timothy has raised in the House of Commons, Labour pretends not to engage with groups like the European Islamic Centre (EIC) which is associated with the Islamist ideologues Jamaat-e-Islami and Abul A'la al-Maududi. And yet, Jim McMahon, the minister for Local Government and English Devolution, attended an iftar hosted by the EIC during Ramadan. The Government also insists it has a "non-engagement policy" with the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), and yet Stephen Timms, the minister for Social Security and Disability, attended the MCB's annual dinner in January.

    Some are less subtle. Last November, the Labour MP Tahir Ali called on Sir Keir Starmer to introduce measures to prohibit "desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of Abrahamic religions". The Prime Minister did not rule it out, instead insisting that we must tackle "Islamophobia in all its forms".

    In February, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner appointed Dominic Grieve, the former Conservative attorney general, to lead a review into creating a new definition of Islamophobia, despite repeated warnings it could curb free speech. Ever the wetty, Grieve appeared to pre-empt the outcome by saying he hoped the review would "help support positive change in our country".

    And we have Lucy Powell, Leader of the House of Commons, suggesting that anyone who mentions the grooming rape gangs scandal is blowing a "dog whistle".

    Last month, a group of 20 Labour MPs petitioned the prime minister of Pakistan to build a new airport in Mirpur, the ancestral homeland of a majority of Britain's Pakistani population.

    Factor in the regular contributions of the four "pro-Gaza" independent MPs in Parliament and you can't easily escape sectarianism. Iqbal Mohamed, the MP for Dewsbury and Batley, has spoken out against a ban on first cousin marriage in the Commons, suggesting that "ordinary people see family inter-marriage overall as something that is very positive". This week, Adnan Hussain, the independent MP for Blackburn, criticised free speech because "it means protecting the right to offend Muslims".

    It came after Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, highlighted the case of Hamit Coskun, 50, who was initially charged with intent to cause distress "against the religious institution of Islam" after allegedly burning a Quran. As Jenrick rightly pointed out, blasphemy was abolished as a common law offence in England and Wales in 2008. The Crown Prosecution Service has now acknowledged the charge was "incorrectly worded" and has amended it.

    Even some Tories have been indulging the Islamists in their midst by this week signing a letter demanding that the UK "recognises Palestine" in a move that would only embolden the murderous death cult that is Hamas.

    Meanwhile, Indhu Rubasingham, who refused to host the UK Jewish Film Festival when she was head of the Kiln Theatre in Kilburn (then known as the Tricycle) in 2014, has just been appointed to lead the National Theatre, while Minouche Shafik has been picked as the new head of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Baroness Shafik, you may remember, was president of Columbia University in the US during the outbreak of the worst anti-Semitism the campus has seen in recent times, before she resigned last year.

    After years of turning a blind eye to sectarianism, it is now everywhere you look.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/09/islamist-sectarianism-most-frightening-force-in-britain

      2. What about am mun ition? Would it be free?
        (only half joking; once I heard of a person whose s h ot g u ns were confiscated by the police, because of hurty words* but they let him keep all his cart ridges. )
        *possibly a prudent decision by the men in blue

    3. I said years ago that muslims will use the Labour party as a flag on convenience until they reach a critical mass, when they will ditch labour and form their own parties. After I left the Army, I was still living in Yorkshire. I heard on the news that there were disturbances in Small Heath, Birmingham involving a Kashmir Party and postal votes. I phoned my sister who told me that the disturbances were right outside our family home. This was in 1998.

    1. Yeah yeah.. blame the Ad agency.. blame the LBGTQ+ actors.. blame the CEO.
      Point the finger at the guy who appointed the gay man Adrian Mardell.

      “Do you sell cars?” Musk asked. LOL

    2. The "creatives" who come up with these ideas and the "managements" who approve them have the notion that you can safely target a very different audience without in any way alienating your traditional customer base. The failure of the Bud Light advertising campaign – in which a prominent transsexual was featured – is another example of this kind of error.

    3. There's an old adage in the manufacturing business:

      "There are the people who make the product.

      There are the people who sell the product.

      Everone else is an overhead".

    3. If the Chinese 'win' WWIII, to whom will they sell all the things that they make for export.

      Their economy will collapse

  37. Back on line. no network for a month. Had to get fibre installed. Miles from nearest village.
    Good start with Wordle:
    Wordle 1,421 3/6

    🟨🟨⬜⬜🟨
    🟨🟨⬜🟨🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Welcome back. My phone had to be wiped and rebuilt the other day and my phone contacts list was gone but the NYT still had my Wordle stats. Well done! I got a par four today.

          1. Depends on the area i suppose.

            It was well know many years ago that ice cream vans were also supplying drugs in Liverpool.

            I doubt much has changed.

          2. We had/have one round here. When the girls were at school I was on the PTA and having spoken to Scotplod about it being outside the high school at lunchtime and the end of the day, they denied all knowledge of it!

  39. 405270+ up ticks,

    Bosses to face court for mixing up recycling under net zero rules
    Requirements for washing and sorting waste hit firms with more ‘nanny state red tape’

    Could we not kill two birds with one stone whilst in court could we not question council bosses on the nation wide paedophile MASS rape & abuse of the countries children ?
    and any pro DEI cover-ups their council took part in, if any.

    1. It makes me wonder why households are expected to sort their waste into various bins, bags and boxes when, if mistakes are made, it will now be incumbent on waste management companies to go through the contents a second time to find the erroneous – and unclean – items and either reallocate or wash them. They might just as well take our unsorted and dirty waste and do the whole lot from scratch.

      1. My neighbour avoids all packaging. She buys from shops that do refills, goes to butchers and fishmongers with her own containers. She also washes out any tins she may use.

        She hardly ever puts her bins out because she has no need to.

        All very laudable and in my opinion an utter waste of time.

        Though i do retain any boxes i have from a delivery and email a friend who sells on Ebay to pick them up.

        1. I'm with her. I try to buy as little unnecessary packaging as I can, and reuse if possible. I don't want to add to the horrific mountain of plastic polluting the world.

          In Germany, one could discard useless boxes etc at the supermarket, leaving them to dispose of it and hopefully come up with refills etc of enough people did it. I liked that.

          1. There is a shop locally that sells things to fill your own containers. Seems popular. I went to the butcher this afternoon and my sausages came on a plastic tray, film wrapped, and the lamb steaks in a foil container, film wrapped. Only the bacon came wrapped in greaseproof paper (but that was in a plastic bag).

      2. At bottle banks, separate containers are provided for clear, green and brown bottles. At the Council tip, all bottles of all colours go into the one skip.

        1. It's all about control – the more pointless the thing they tell you do do the better they like it.

        2. And when the bottle banks are emptied the clear, green, and brown containers are all emptied into the same back of the truck. Been there, seen it done.

      3. There's merit in separating wet and dry waste. The complication comes with the latter, whereby some councils have separate bins for different types of dry waste. Mechanical sorting of mixed dry waste is now well developed but not all authorities use it.

      4. 405270+ up ticks,

        Afternoon DW
        You do come across as wanting to cut out a possible layer of inspecting inspectors.

    1. The article is nonsense. There are no immediate benefits from the deal with India unless you consider allowing thousands of Indian workers to reside here free from National Insurance contributions for three years a benefit.

      Likewise Starmer has achieved nothing of benefit in the US deal unless you consider a reduction in trade tariffs from £12.5 billion to £9.5 billion a good deal where prior to Starmer’s election to office the gap was zero pounds.

  43. About to go out an do some serious gardening. It is nice and warm and sunny. Shia delight.

    Back later.

    1. Don't rush on my account. I will be on the chaise drinking cocktails while watching the gardener do all the greenie stuff.

    4. Put the wool blanket in. The delicates wash didn't. So put it in again on cotton wash at 30'c and 600 spin rather than 1400. Says 3 hours.

      But, if the weather holds we might get it out in time for some drying.

    2. Apparently all the innuendos on Captain Pugwash (Master Bates, Seaman Staines etc) are an urban legend and were never there. Still, an amusing urban legend.

      2. "In 1991, the Pugwash cartoonist John Ryan successfully sued the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian newspapers for inaccurately claiming that some Pugwash character names were double entendres."

    3. "I've just brought up your dinner Cap'n"
      "Good job I didn't eat it then!"

  48. President Trump has announced that India and Pakistan have agreed to an immediate ceasefire.

      1. Being fair, he is president and has significantly more individual power. The UK's political system is hamstrung by centuries of tradition, Upper house blocking, court blocking.

        The only people who lose in the UK is the electorate.

    3. I thought you must be joking but it seems not. I wonder what’s really going on.

    4. Oh dear , drat, I had hoped in a malevolent way that all our problems would end , and that there would be a dramatic shift of loyalty and these people would rally to their countries requirements .

      1. If you mean they would all go back to their own countries in response to a call to the colours – you must be joking! They would fight against each other in the cities of the UK (they still might).

        1. For many of them, Aeneas…the UK is their own country, part of the problem. Only return to holiday, or pick up a bride. Then the cycle continues.

    5. Starmer will be disappointed. He won't be able to order the arrest of white people on the streets with their banners saying: "Indians and Pakistanis – please don't fight your war on our streets."

        1. Well, it’s a point of view!

          My point is that Starmer would probably object to the peace, love and brotherly understanding camp that would, in many other ways, be on the same side as his cabinet of cretins.

  49. During the filming of the award-winning papal thriller Conclave in Rome, the actor Stanley Tucci had an almost divine experience. Not the religious sort but a culinary one. While shooting in the city he ate what he described as the “most delicious sandwich of his life”. Between two thin, crisp slices of bread were slivers of smoked cow’s tongue, romaine lettuce and homemade mayo. “This creation has redefined my idea of what a sandwich is.”

    Tucci was ahead of the curve. Last week it was reported that Italian snacks have gone viral as demand by customers seeking to recreate their favourite Italian sandwiches has soared. At Tesco sales of panini, ciabatta and piadini are up 40 per cent and sales of premium mozzarella by almost 400 per cent, while recipe videos of Italian snacks such as burrata caprese sandwiches are getting millions of views on TikTok.

    Tucci’s sandwich was one of the more authentic sort, which you can learn all about on his new show, Tucci in Italy, which starts on Disney+ this month. “Slow-cooked beef tongue sounds gross but it was incredible. It melted in your mouth,” he tells me over Zoom ahead of the show’s launch.

    And…. your favourite sandwich / toastie is?

        1. There's a small freshwater fish called a pope, never tried to eat one though.

          6. I've got jars of anchovies I use in sauces and pizzas and such, but it's the spreadable one I miss.

          8. I mash 'em for sauces. I suppose I could try to make a paste of some sort but I would need a filler of some kind to dilute the taste.

          9. Google for recipes. I'm sure there are lots.

            Also i wouldn't use a blender for small quantities. Pestle and mortar.

          12. Maybe, but I'm now thinking along the lines of blending them into the garlic butter I make.

          17. Eeek too salty for me. Did you have time/chance to look into high fibre/low fat diet, Maggie? Worked for my diverticulitis.

          19. The only freshwater fish that I really enjoy is the fillet of a perch from clear clean water, delicious.

          20. I once cooked some sea bream for my visiting brother, a former course fisherman. When he asked what was for supper I told him it was tench.

            For some reason he didn’t believe me.

          21. I don't blame him. I think I once saw a recipe for tench where the fish was disposed of in the compost halfway through the process. BTW, he's a former coarse fisherman.

    4. Yuk cows tounge ???!!!🤔😵‍💫
      My favourite would be Mature English cheddar and piccalilli in home made Bloomer.

      1. You won't be going for oxtail anytime soon then, Eddy 😆 sarnie sounds good x

        1. I've just melted some frozen cubes of oxtail gravy (made in January when I cooked some oxtail for pasties). I shall reduce that gravy to a demi glace and then smear it on my barbecued rib-eye steak.

    5. We do the thin bread as I can't eat that much as it makes me ill, but the ciabatta lark is really nice.

      I make the Warqueen a ciabatta roll with pancetta, salami and buratta most days. I didn't realise it was cool. She just likes it.

    7. My grandparents all used to serve up tongue in the 70s. I used to lile it, til i realised what it was and then i wouldn’t eat it.

      4. Years ago we were having tongue at Sunday teatime, My sister asked where tongue actually came from. I told her it was a cow's tongue and traced the shape with my finger over the tongue on my plate. I thought she was going to throw up.

    8. Classic from Les Dawson and Roy Barraclough as 'Cissie and Ada'…

      Cissie: Would you like a bit of tongue?
      Ada: Oh no, I couldnt eat anything that's come out of an animal's mouth.
      Cissie: Well what would you like?
      Ada: I'll have an egg……

      1. "After tasting the meat pies, Samantha said she liked Mr Dewhurst's beef in ale, although she preferred his tongue in cider.'.

        Humphrey Littleton RIP

    9. I've made some home-made mayonnaise today and — with some of it — some home-made remoulade sauce.

      Favourite sandwiches?

      1. White bread cob with pork dripping, salt, slices of roast pork, sage-and-onion stuffing, pork crackling, apple sauce, Colman's mustard.
      2. Bacon and pickled beetroot.
      3. Ham salad.

      Note: all heavily piggy-based.

      1. 405270 + ticks,

        Afternoon Mo,
        Sometimes if the wind is right and after
        a heavy day of threatening SHITE from the current overseers, you can hear the refrain BULALA wafting on the breeze, and I believe it is getting bloody LOUDER.

    1. I hope there's the same comedy conflict between them, as that makes Clarkson's farm work. I find Kaleb's ignorance both refreshing and worrying. He's a decent man wanting to do the right thing but doesn't seem to realise the abomination of the state that is intentionally destroying his entire way of life.

  52. 405270+ up ticks,

    PHWuuuuu,close call,
    I take it we can be assured of ALL QUITE ON THE LONDISTARN FRONT THEN.

    Live Trump: India and Pakistan have agreed full ceasefire

    1. Seen on a forum post:

      "There are so many Somalians in Birmingham nowadays that it doesn’t feel like Pakistan anymore."

      2. Similar here in South Wales. Soon even the sovereignty of the "travelling community" will be challenged.

    2. Good news, if it lasts. Khan still in prison, I think? Military owns most everything in Pakistan, seem to remember reading most Taliban fled to Pakistan….or was it the other way round…..hmmm…….

      1. The wild tribal land along some 500 miles of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is ungovernable. The terror groups hide there.

        1. Exactly, Bin-Laden there a good while. Far as I can make out, they don’t tangle with the PSP, a sort of uneasy alliance.

      1. They need the dark satanic mills/other heavy industry, three x 8hr shifts. That might knock 'em back a bit.

        1. Given that muslim employment is barely 20% having them work at all would be a good thing.

          I see nothing wrong with endentured labour. Make them clear the rubbish they're creating, have chain gangs clearing graffiti, sweeping streets, cutting trees – don't bother with the safety equipment, they're disposable.

          Have them dig ditches then fill them in again. Anything to make them do something beyond fart on a bit of carpet all day to an invented fiction.

          3. Thanks, can’t always tell the diff online…many think I’m a man. Baron still sometimes calls me ‘young sir’ even tho I’m neither. Thanks for correction, opo x

          7. Good question, was it My Fair Lady – ‘why can’t a woman be more like a man’?

      2. Their custom is to claim the achievements of the nations they conquer. Annoys the hell out of an Iranian I know. The Persians achieved a great deal but all of it before the Arab/Moslem takeover.

        1. Yes, sadly. The Arabic world discovered many things – chemistry, physics, heck, htere's rumour they considered the zero for mathematics.

          But it's vital that muslim did none of that. muslim is a barbaric, savage religion. It's why they've not progressed – and in many ways, regressed.

    1. Starmer won't admit that though, and would happily force us back in to achieve his goal.

        1. Tusk's about face is all the more interesting. Maybe the EU stiffed him of a trougher job?

  55. From Coffee House the Spectator

    10 May 2025

    Coffee House
    Christopher Akers
    Pope Leo’s papal economics
    10 May 2025, 6:00am

    The Catholic Church now has its first American pope, but Robert Francis Prevost’s papal name of Leo XIV is perhaps far more significant than his national origins.

    The name gives a heavy hint about how the new pontiff might address our contemporary economic and social ills. The use of Leo points back to the reforming 19th-century Pope Leo XIII who, like Prevost, was faced with steering the Church through a world in ideological flux.

    That the new pope has chosen to emphasise the legacy of Leo XII suggests he is aware of the revolutionary nature of the current economic age

    Leo XIII was pontiff from 1878 to 1903. He is best known for his great 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which tackled the challenges of capital and labour at a time of rapid industrial change and revolutionary politics. There are parallels with our own age, as unchecked AI barons transform the world and political extremes fester.

    Rerum Novarum provided the foundation for what is known as Catholic Social Teaching, which contains the Church’s tenets on modern economic and social systems. This navigates a pragmatic course through the ideas of left and right toward the common good, via the key concept of subsidiarity which supports decision-making at the local and individual level and opposes centralisation where possible. The Church rejects the misguided view of human nature expressed in both totalitarian left-wing ideologies and unfettered free market capitalism.

    On the one hand, Leo XIII’s encyclical condemned socialism, confirmed the rights of private property and supported trade unions. On the other, it attacked ‘the greed of unchecked competition’ and complained that ‘a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the labouring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself.’

    That the new pope has chosen to emphasise this legacy suggests he is aware of the revolutionary nature of the current economic age. This is the context in which his comments, currently being pored over by the world’s media, should be viewed.

    His reference to confronting the domination of ‘technology, money, success [and] power’ in a sermon during his first mass as pope in the Sistine Chapel should not be surprising. Nor should his retweet more than a decade ago of a cartoon in which Pope Francis tells three figures characterised as Wall Street, banks, and big business to avoid being ‘seduced by money’. Nor should his recent disagreement with US vice president J.D. Vance’s take on how Christian love properly relates to US immigration policy.

    Of course, the Church has much more than material conditions in mind. Leo XIII: ‘if human society is to be healed now, in no other way can it be healed save by a return to Christian life’. Leo XIV: Christ has been ‘reduced only to a kind of charismatic leader or superman’, and Christians now risk living in ‘de facto atheism’.

    Misunderstandings about the Catholic approach to economics and markets have led to some absurd comments after Prevost was confirmed as the new pope. Sometime Trump advisor Laura Loomer announced that a ‘WOKE MARXIST POPE’ had been raised to the throne of St Peter.

    Such pronouncements were unfortunately common during the Francis pontificate. There was much erroneous analysis of the late pope’s comments on social issues, but also of his teachings on economics and modern markets. Francis was cast in some quarters as some sort of left-wing Vatican infiltrator when he made statements like the environment being ‘defenceless before the interests of a deified market’.

    It was somehow ignored that Benedict XVI, dubbed as an arch-traditionalist by the liberal media, was spoken of as ‘the Green Pope’. Then there is the continuity with the teaching of John Paul II, that great Polish opponent of communism, when he got to the heart of the matter 100 years after Rerum Novarum in his encyclical Centesimus Annus.

    That encyclical spoke positively of the central role of business, the market and private property in modern economics as well as the connected freedom of human creativity in the economic sphere. But it confirmed that what we know as modern capitalism must be ‘circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious.’

    The fact is that the early comments of Leo XIV highlight consistency with his immediate predecessors rather than discord and are squarely in the tradition of Catholic Social Teaching.

    With his choice of name, Pope Leo XIV connects the upheavals of 19th-century society with our own challenges. As the new pope’s words on economic-related questions – from the environment and AI to stark wealth disparities and unions – emerge in the months and years ahead, the wider context and long history of the Church’s teaching should be kept in mind.

    Written by
    Christopher Akers

  56. An interesting podcast on the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act, which Bridget Phillipson cancelled when Labour were elected last year (though they have rowed back a little bit on it – but not much, it’s still essentially scrapped).

    “…“civil servants had been laying the groundwork to pause the act long before labor took office. As early as the 24th of May, just two days after the general election was called, a senior DFE official had already been tasked by her director with finding a way to block the act's implementation. By the 24th of June, the same official was instructed to have the legal instruments ready to suspend the act on day one of a new government, and to be prepared to advise incoming ministers on repeal.

    I also learned that on the 30th of July, civil servants presented Bridget Phillipson with a ministerial submission outlying options for the act's future. Option one was repealing the act in full. If any part of it were to be kept, they proposed three packages, all of which involved scrapping the statutory tort, and two of which also involved scrapping the complaint scheme.”

    From Quillette Narrated: The Fight for Academic Freedom in the UK, 5 May 2025
    https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/quillette-narrated/id1459697620?i=1000706446828&r=3246
    This material may be protected by copyright.

      1. Thank you. It is very slow to come into full flower – often the blooms are hidden by the rapidly growing now foliage.

    2. Is falling asleep in public now illegal? I did it yesterday down the shore line. Came to with three wet dogs looking at me.

  59. Rupert Lowe is right: we must be free to offend anyone… including Muslims

    The ex-Reform man says Britain ‘must not have blasphemy laws’. Yet it feels as if we’ve already got them

    Michael Deacon
    10 May 2025 6:00am BST

    The MP Rupert Lowe, formerly of Reform, wrote this week that in Britain, “We do not have blasphemy laws, and we must not have blasphemy laws. Burning the Quran is not a crime.” Is he sure?

    Put it like this. If Mr Lowe were to set fire to a copy of the Bible, I very much doubt he would be arrested. I do not recommend, however, that he tries the same experiment with the Quran. In all likelihood, being arrested would be the least of his problems.

    Still, good to see an MP standing up for free speech. But disturbing to see another MP immediately take him to task for it. On social media, Adnan Hussain – an independent who celebrated his election last July by declaring, “This is for Gaza” – claimed that Mr Lowe really just wants to protect “the right to offend Muslims”. He then called Mr Lowe’s attitude “deeply worrying”, and told him: “Free speech comes with limitations and protections.”

    Not when it comes to religious beliefs, it shouldn’t. If we aren’t free to criticise what other people think, we aren’t free to criticise anything. Increasingly, though, it feels as if we’re living in Mr Hussain’s world, rather than Mr Lowe’s.

    In a successful multi-ethnic society, newcomers integrate with their hosts. In Britain, however, it seems to be the other way around. The hosts are expected to integrate with the newcomers. To revere their holy books, bow to their customs, and at all costs avoid blaspheming against their prophets.

    Mr Lowe responded to Mr Hussain by writing: “Yes, I do believe the right to offend Muslims must be protected. The right to offend anyone must be protected.”

    He’s right. I just wish that our Government had the guts to agree.

    Trump’s oddest move yet
    As usual, American liberals are getting Donald Trump all wrong. They’re constantly wailing that the people he’s appointed to high office are nutters and cranks.

    Well, yes. But that’s the brilliance of his strategy. He’s cleverly surrounding himself with shrieking crackpots so that, in comparison, he looks perfectly sane.

    At any rate, this theory would surely explain his controversial new pick for the role of Surgeon General. Because she’s got to be his most eccentric appointee yet.

    Casey Means is a “wellness influencer” who, in a newsletter to her followers last year, revealed the list of steps she had taken, at the age of 35, to help herself find a romantic partner. She “set up a small meditation shrine in my house and prayed to photos of my ancestors asking for support in my personal journey”. She “worked with a spiritual medium who helped me try to connect with my spirit guides for support and guidance”. And she “did full moon ceremonies with grounded, powerful women” during which they all “amplified each other’s dreams”.

    Perhaps her most memorable move, however, was to start talking, “literally out loud”, to trees – “letting them know I was ready for partnership, and asking them if they could help”.

    Frustratingly, she did not disclose what the trees said to her in reply. This is a great pity, as I would have been fascinated to know. I tried asking the oak in my garden whether it could enlighten me, but it maintained a strict silence. Perhaps, like doctors, trees are sworn to patient confidentiality.

    Still, whatever advice the trees gave her, it must have been sound, because, shortly afterwards, “my dream man walked into my life”. This is wonderful to hear. Then again, if trees really do make such excellent advisers, Trump may be tempted to ditch Casey Means, and appoint a tree, instead.

    The next big celebrity trend
    How many people in Britain are “neurodivergent”? That is, have a neurological condition such as ADHD? Unfortunately, it’s impossible to say. Not least because so many people nowadays simply “self-identify” as neurodivergent – without seeking a diagnosis. And, according to Francesca Happé – a professor of cognitive neuroscience at King’s College London – this has become so common that, in her view, “We may well already be at a point where there are more neurodivergent self-identified people than neurotypical people.”

    Of course, we can’t know for sure whether all these self-diagnoses are accurate. If they are, however, this is seismic news. After all, a majority is, by definition, the norm. So if a majority of British people are neurodivergent, that means they’re actually neurotypical. Meanwhile, the people hitherto regarded as neurotypical are actually neurodivergent.

    I’ll be particularly interested to see how this news is received by celebrities. Over the past couple of years, countless TV presenters, pop stars, actors and comedians have announced to the world that they’re neurodivergent. But if being neurodivergent is the norm, there’s no longer any reason to tell everyone. These celebrities might as well announce that they’ve got two legs, or come out as heterosexual.

    From now on, therefore, all the attention will go to those celebrities who don’t have a neurological condition. I for one can’t wait to read their exclusive tell-all interviews.

    “Yes, it’s true: I’ve just been diagnosed as not having ADHD. I must admit, I was shocked at first. But when I thought about it, it made so much sense. I always knew I was different…”

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

    Luc LeSurf
    7 hrs ago
    Definition of Colonisation:

    "the action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area".

    The UK is being 'colonised'. Can we 'De-Colonise' OUR country please?

    If these people dont like our values, they should move to another country.

    1. First Amendment to the US Constitution:

      Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

      So you can worship who and what you like, and say what you want and meet up with who you like. Which is how it should be.

      Unfortunately the concept of "hate speech" has been allowed to moderate the absolutism in the Consitution. Thanks to the Supreme Court who delight in meddling with it.

    2. "…to start talking, “literally out loud”, to trees"

      I talk to the trees,
      That's why they put me away…

      – the late, great Spike Milligan.

      1. "I talk to the trees, but they don't listen to me", sang Clint Eastwood in Paint Your Wagon.

        1. 🎵Why do you whisper, green grass?
          Why tell the tress what ain't so?
          Whispering Grass, the trees don't have to know🎵

  60. 27 loo rolls delivered. Should last use a couple of weeks, mostly because I'm so full of [beeeeepppp].

    Oh you naughty pixie! Did you fill in the word? I bet you did! Shame on you!

  61. Comment of the day..

    A Democrat judge will be along soon to order them to resume fighting.

  62. Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana has allegedly launched an attack on a prison officer with boiling hot water.

    Hint: Surefire vote winner = Offer ref on death penalty.

  63. Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana has allegedly launched an attack on a prison officer with boiling hot water.

    Hint: Surefire vote winner = Offer ref on death penalty.

      1. First came across one of those I think on Bryher , in the pub drinking a beer, went to the ladies, almost jumped out of my skin

  65. Afternoon, all. Lovely day here. Am managing to do a few necessary jobs, but very slowly and having to rest between whiles. Had coffee with my neighbours at tea time and caught up on the gossip.

    So it was all about water; silly me; I thought it was about religion.

        1. Seems a big discovery by the bbc, as if human footprints were discoverd, together with a pink flipflop, on Mars.

    2. What worries me is climate change brought on by Net Zero measures.

      Ifa large anticyclone hangs over a continent for months in summer, with no wind to blow it around, eventually the ensuing drought would dry everything to a crisp. Hollywood knows all too well what comes next.

  68. I've just sat down to a well earned very cold Peroni. I've spent two hours clearing oak tree catkins from one of my shed roofs and the guttering. When it does finally rain the roof guttering and down pipes are arranged to keep the wildlife pond topped up.
    The state of play causes by our neighbours tree was about to cause a few problems. The green house guttering also feeds water butt's and all that was all filled with catkins as well. I have never seen so much debris come from the tree in the 33 years we have lived there.

  69. Houston.. we have a problem. A big problem.

    Pakistani J10 (Eurofighter knock-off) & JF17B with PL15 missiles shoot down..
    ..three to five French made Rafale fighters equipped with Bae Meteor missiles.

    Oh friggin dear.

      1. “Inclusion of Meteor onto the Lightning II will bring this formidable air combat capability to the UK and to the burgeoning F-35 community, significantly enhancing security among allies.” The Meteor BVRAAM, which is already integrated onto the RAF's Eurofighter Typhoon.

    2. The French were also heavily involved in the aircraft and weapon supply in the UK Falklands Argentina conflict.
      I wonder how they all enjoyed the VE day celebrations that more than saved them from total Nazi occupation.

        1. They've never really forgiven us for saving them, though. They like to believe that le Grand Charles did it all (from Criftins) and not those nasty Canadians or British (who liberated the areas of Normandy I'm familiar with).

          1. The thing about France is that they’re always there when they need you.

          2. I agree 98%, Conwy. However, to be fair to the people of Normandy, they put on a substantial and genuine "grand merci" to the Allies last June. The MR and I were overwhelmed by the show of gratitude.

          3. On 6 June 1944, Operation Overlord launched the first wave of Allied forces onto the Normandy coast to free Western Europe from the Nazi yoke. Only 209 Frenchmen took part as infantrymen – 177 commandos and 32 paratroopers – along with some one hundred fighter and bomber pilots and several hundred sailors from warships.

            It shows how very few managed to escape occupied Europe.

          4. More than 100,000 Free French troops fought in the Anglo-American campaign in Italy in 1943, and, by the time of the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the Free French forces had swelled to more than 300,000 regular troops. They were almost wholly American-equipped and supplied.

            Just saying…. Not that they were up to much, except for liberating Paris, of course.

          5. It was the small number who escaped to fight again that I was observing.
            Presumably the FFF were recruited from unoccupied areas closer to Italy?

          6. Those that weren't making the paras show their papers, that is! I agree on the whole. I spend a lot of time in Normandy (I'm off again, possibly for the last time, in June).

          7. Again, I agree. I thought that was an appalling slight – especially as the UK and (defeated) France are in NATO.

            There was just one village where there was NOTHING. Not a flag, a photo…nothing. Clearly the Maire et conseil were anglophobes.

          8. When the MR and I lived in Cap d'Ail for two years, we went to the 3 September commemoration in 2009 (and other years). (The village was liberated on that day in 1944.) The Mairie put on a splendid event, culminating in a six course meal for all residents. As we tottered away, I accosted the Maire (an old-fashioned Gaullist) in my français particulier to thank him. He replied – in English – "It is I, monsieur, who should thank you because of what your father did – and, madame, your grand-father did – to liberate us."

          9. I think that "ordinary" French are fully aware, it's their senior politicians who pretend otherwise.
            When Macron's disgraceful letter was read out on the 100th of WW1 several French people came across to us to apologise.
            The mayor thanked his "English friends" at this years 80th of VE day

          10. I have had the same reaction from l'homme dans la rue, particularly in Normandy. When we honoured the dead on November 11th, the English in the cemetery were included with the rest of the commemorations. It's just the upper echelons that don't really like us.

  70. The International Marching League (it really does exist) sponsors the Waendel Walk, which is organised by Wellingborough Town Council and is taking place this weekend. I can see them, less than 100 yards from the front window, marching through the park, many of them heads down, sticks swinging, forging steadfastly onwards.

    Off I went to Sainsbury's, through the park, in the opposite direction (a lifetime's practice of striking against the stream, I suppose). It was the 'professionals' who didn't give way. The family groups, whom you might expect to be a bit less disciplined, generally went into single file. On the way back, I stopped a couple of times to admire the marvellous hawthorns by the lake. I know it's hardly a theatened species but not one walker stopped for a moment. "What's 'e starin' at? They're just hawthorns," appeared to be the attitude. It's not always the showy that is special.

    PS There were some nice pins getting a sunning…

  71. Wordle No. 1,421 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 10 May 2025

    Leaven for Birdie Three?

    1. I didn't rise to the occasion

      Wordle 1,421 5/6

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

      1. #metoo.
        Wordle 1,421 5/6

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

    2. #MeToo – I had three options and guessed the right one – I was due a bit of luck!

      Wordle 1,421 3/6

      🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜
      🟨🟨🟩⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Well done. Par for me.

      Wordle 1,421 4/6

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

      1. Made a silly error but got there in the end.
        Wordle 1,421 5/6

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

    4. On a bit of a roll here.

      Wordle 1,421 2/6

      🟨⬜⬜🟩🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    5. Birdie here. Later realised I was lucky with choice of first letter.

      Wordle 1,421 3/6

      🟨⬜🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Why do I get the feeling from that post that Donald J Trump enjoyed a peaceful night's sleep?

  73. That's me for today. A warm and pleasant day. Lots done in the garden – Cobra beans planted out (under fleece) Tomatoes to be hardened off in the coming week.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain – if I am spared

    1. Ooooo but that's lovely, Ndovu…what's the white flowers ..a hebe? (hope you have your feet up, btw…)

        1. Not sure which one but it's quite perfumed. It was here when we bought the house over 30 years ago now. The wisteria was just a small whip at that time. It's survived two major storm batterings that brought the pergola down. It put out new wood each time and is now as good as ever after the last battering in February '22.

        1. Thanks – think Conway said the same. It’s very beautiful. Hope you’re having a rest x

          1. Yes – had a long sit down – then a rewarm of last night’s dinner leftovers as I couldn’t be bothered cooking anything else. We now have seven swifts home.

          2. I must rewarm a couple times pw, if I cook at all has to be something quick – omelette etc…I see the swifts daily, haven’t found their nesting place yet…suspect an old hut overgrown part of garden…seven a lucky number 😊

    1. I take it he lives in California. I'm not seeing the advantage such a disruptive move would confer.

  76. Ten degrees colder here in Poland than in BImmingham and that goes for all of next week. But taking a walk around 6 pm, suddenly a swallow swooped over the nearby field …. then quickly we had about 10 to 15 swallows doing their low dives. Well, I've never seen that here in such numbers and so early in the year. BTW, the Poles have a saying "One swallow does not a Spring make".

    4. The Uberstarmerfuhrer is such a tubby little titch. Why is more not made of this?

  78. I keep coming back to this, for which I apologise, but the music and voices really say something to me.
    I hate the way that the West seems determined to fight Russia, who should be our friends in the fight against Islam that is coming, As they werein the fight against Nazism.
    https://youtu.be/_zUxGSM5H9U?si=n-5ptI9a_Hb_uZoJ
    Apologies for naïvete.

    2. Hard to calibrate Russia these days, with Putin basically running a kleptocracy (apparently with the support of the citizenry), and defenestrating those who don't conform. Maybe it's proof once again that one person can do a lot of damage when they have too much power.

      1. Whereas TTK is running a kleptocracy without the support of the people and defenestrating those who challenge the narrative.

          1. I don't know why everyone has it in for Putin in particular, Lots of bad people in the world. Putin is no doubt doing his best by his own lights. Anyway, there was a time when he was loved by the West:

            https://youtu.be/ekeq4szDmJo
            It could be like this again.

    5. That basso profundo is deeply spiritual. It is beautiful beyond belief. Thank you for posting that!

  79. Well, got back from a good day out at Cosford to find the road blocked!
    Pillock Feature's, who's bought the Bungalow a tad down towards Cromford, had decided to have a fire and ended up setting the hillside on fire!! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fdb78dd9db9894f05fc60a7cf661c7075f8150bd03286b82be85d54405d2d5e9.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/83fc7e63c57662877bb8d89c395abe024d6a649126fb4383736ce264b7b03910.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e4c27940c998ccd6af3849591faa3903f4c927b380b205fbf261429d62954680.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/54aa7a8da6a935b9fb9ea531bccd9867498c1b94e80a4ecfd229aa89c27e276c.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8efa1b040d275b3471576660e37891165576bef3a979e620a2cac95c71dc6f93.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/91128cc3819f95178a4dfce32077d81dfcf9a7c38e6fb16a0cbf705b76151ac6.jpg

      1. Given that we live a couple of hundred yards on the Bonsall side of the bungalow, yes!

        1. Did you see the Lanc at Cosford? Was it crowded? We had something fly over here, but it definitely wasn't the Lanc.

          2. Great stuff! I have been inside (on the ground) V-RA in Canada. Amazing machine.

          3. I went further and paid for the flight on VRA.
            Just over an hour from Hamilton down to Niagara Falls then up to Toronto before returning to base.
            I expected uncomfortable and cramped but what got me was how noisy the plane was.

          4. I would have done that if I had had the opportunity while I was there. Four Merlins make a racket. I was at East Kirkby when Just Jane’s engines were run up. The backwash was impressive too.

          5. Time to watch The Dambusters again.

            Makes me miss my uncle, who was a Lanc pilot in the latter part of the war – he started in Wellingtons.

    4. I need to burn some garden rubbish, but I'm putting it off. I don't want a scenario like that one!

          1. I forgot about that position. I was thinking of Knight Templar Priests who all wear them.

      1. It must have been all that smoke that caused them to change their clothes.

  82. Massive thunderstorms on the way here. Thunder arriving from all points of the compass.

    I hope we don't suffer any electrical damage, the last similar ones blew lots of bits.

    1. There are thunderstorm warnings out for us, too. Mind you, any sort of weather that isn't absolutely bog standard has a colour warning attached to it.

    3. Do you have a "built in" generator? Just something nice about the lights going out. followed by the classic sound of a starter motor as the generator takes over.

  83. During the Dunkirk evacuation, approximately 139,000 French troops were evacuated along with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF)

    1. How many British fought, and were lost in the rear guard, so that they could?

        1. It already is, sos. Been here half a century or more, breeding all the time. And now all the rest.

          1. Douglas Murray and Rupert Lowe are only too aware of the danger posed by Islam and the absurdity of not dealing with it now.

            However when the Reform Party – pretending to be at the head of those who oppose the Islamic invasion – has a Muslim as its Chairman what hope is there?

          2. Yusuf is the Anglicised version or so I’m told…and very wealthy. I personally think it may already be too late.

          3. Sri Lankan muslims are different from Pakistani ones, who come with seriously vile cultural baggage, So there is some hope. He says all the right things, yet I find him hard to trust – but then I have the same problem with Farage.

          4. I agree. having listened to both Ben Habib and Katie Hopkins (I remember you recommended one of Habib’s videos). Always follow the money. Huge number of people let down if they turn out to have feet of clay.

  85. VERY last post – good for a Saturday evening larf:

    "Sir Keir Starmer has joined European leaders in urging Vladimir Putin to agree to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire from this Monday in his war against Ukraine, with “no more ifs and buts”."

  88. Given that this site is borne out of Telegraph letters, I’m surprised that this contribution in today's letters went unnoticed!

    Trump and trade

    SIR – It is reported that, under the terms of the trade deal with the United States (report, May 9), Donald Trump will be able to object to Chinese investment in the UK.

    This is to be welcomed as, despite misgivings in other areas, I would trust Mr Trump’s judgment on this subject more than that of our Labour Government. Let’s hope he starts with the proposed monstrous Chinese Embassy development on the historically sensitive site of the old Royal Mint.

    Max Ingram
    Emneth, Norfolk

  89. Goodnight, all. Feel shattered. I have tried to do too much and it's caught up with me.

      1. I was just reading a review of Nicotine patches and gum very good for relieving aching feet and legs……

          1. Thanks ‘mum, exactly why I’ll try them. Had a number of messages from people asking where they can buy Turmeric paste, which I give to one of my dogs for arthritis and seems to help her just as much as the vet prescription (and much less expensive). Vet costs and meds are very high now. I first read about Turmeric paste being given to children in hot milk before bed, in India, to help them sleep. Maybe I’ll try the turmeric first 😊 !

          2. Also, Kate (is it Kate, or Katie? I can’t remember!) see John Campbell recently on Youtube regarding NAC (N-Acetyl Cysteine) – it is a food supplement which supports the immune system and assists in attacking the spike proteins. It was very difficult to get hold of in the US during the ‘covid’ years, the US govt attempted to wipe it from the shelves. It has been in use for decades. It might help! 😊

          3. Thanks ‘mum (I get both those and KJ, your choice 😍). Other half follows JC, I’ll ask him for the link..will definitely look into it. I’ve ordered seven days of nicotine patches, or perhaps I could just start smoking again…after decades…my mum a chain smoker first person to offer me one, I was 14 at the time!).

      2. Have had a hot bath (immersion has started working again) and am now in bed reading this on my mobile phone.

    4. Good night, Conners – and Kadi and Winston. I hope you sleep better tonight and awaken feeling much less shattered.

  90. At our Trustees' meeting this morning – one of the offerings for nibbles with tea or coffee – was a Victoria sponge,,,,,,,I couldn't bring myself to bite into 2TK's wife…….. so I had some of the lemon cake instead.

      1. Hi Stig, Victoria is her first name, and 'sponge' refers to the Starmer propensity for freebies.

    1. Don’t worry about agriculture – HMG is busy covering it over with solar panels! Doing their best to ruin it.

  94. Well chums, I'm off to bed now. Good Night all, sleep well, and see you all tomorrow morning.

  95. Back from the end of season dinner dance. Late this year (the dance); cannot believe I’m up past midnight.

  97. That sounds really good, Grizz, no more wobbly whites…in Scotland I can buy deep fried Mars Bars at the chippy (yum)…also deep fried haggis (yuk)…….

    1. Sorry, Kate, but you’ve got your ‘yum’ and your ‘yuk’ the wrong way round.😊

Comments are closed.