Saturday 15 August: Years of battling epilepsy to succeed at school undone by an algorithm

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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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:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/08/13/lettersany-teacher-could-see-algorithmic-a-levels-would-let/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/08/14/letters-years-battling-epilepsy-succeed-school-undone-algorithm/

661 thoughts on “Saturday 15 August: Years of battling epilepsy to succeed at school undone by an algorithm”

  2. I see the exam whinger warriors are out in full, doesn’t seem all that much different from other years really.
    This would be a great opportunity for a Lefty government to overthrow the old order and get all the not so bright but the right hue and class background into all the top universities and finally finish them off for good.

    1. There’ll be a knock on effect for the next 10 years. Little Johnny, who missed out on 6 months of infant school, will be crying from the same sob sheet in 2030.

      2. In 1970, when I was 14, I missed out on a term of school because fate delivered me a rather nice job working as an actor for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

        Fifty years on, should I regret this lapse in my education? More often, I regret making the decision to go back to school to sit my GCEs, rather than to aim for a career in the theatre.

        It was ironic since the reason I did this was over a flippant comment I made in the theatre restaurant when I ordered some pineapple juice, which came from a tin marked with a well-known brand name. I said in a loud theatrical voice (needed to be heard at the back of that auditorium with its notoriously dreadful acoustics) “I see we’re back on the Dole again”. The reaction from fellow thespians could have come out of a Bateman cartoon. “Never, ever say that again!” came the instant reprimand from my chaperone, who then explained how actors are very touchy about what they call “resting”.

        When the season ended, the bottom fell out of my world, and I could not stomach a lifetime of that sort of insecurity. However, going back to school delivered that very thing, and I never really had a steady career all my adult life, and have now given up.

          1. £7 a week, board, lodging and tuition. I saved nearly all of it, which I put into shares after a lesson on capitalism at school, which I still have.

    2. tch tch Bob, you’re such a cynic. You must stop believing the evidence of your lying eyes and trust the BBC instead.

      1. SNP fixed the exams in Scotland – everyone get a pass- a rise of some 15%, in some cases, over previous years. Devalues every pass at every level BUT it is OK every little Johnny & Holly all passed.

        The E&W algorithm, like Scotland, is wrong as it treated manipulated averages of marks, school history, etc it did not look at the boy/girl. Many of the schools & teachers over egged the pudding with their forecasts of passes.

        Statisticians & teachers are both to blame for mess in A level results.

    1. I don’t like that cartoon at all. Our desperate story is that our country is being invaded as we’re being laughed at.

      2. And the non-white occupants of the boat actually have women and children in their numbers, unlike in most photographs.

      3. 322561+ up ticks,
        Morning BB2,
        Be like dad, keep mum, remember “the party” first
        & foremost regardless of consequence.

        That mindset has got us so far as a Country has it not ?

  5. Today’s letters…so much moaning, moaning, moaning,….and they have nothing to do with ‘allo, ‘allo.

    1. ‘Morning, C1. Once upon a time the DT letters column was admired (by me, anyway) for its wit and humour. Now, it is just a never-ending run of miserable letters devoid of any such content. They are now at least as stuffy as those in the Murdoch Rag.

      1. Very much agree, HJ. The DT letters column used to be worth reading on its own merits. I only bother with it nowadays so as to be able to understand what it is that the herein reprobates of NoTTLdom are prattling on about. (Love ya all) {:^))

    2. What else is there? The Government approach to the pandemic that was, and yet to come, is much akin to a “Spin the Wheel Of Fortune” game show.
      Spin day, “Relax Rules”. Spin tomorrow “Impose Quarantine”. All the while we, the people, become more miserable and disconnected. We are right to feel unhappy as not only is the Government approach incoherent, it is also more oppressive than any ever imposed in our history. Moreover, the vagueness of the Government”s forecasts suggests that not only is there no end in sight, but that the Government will never bring it to an end.

  6. The Unprecedented Gun and Ammo Shortage by Larry C Johnson. SST. 15 August 2020.

    There is a quiet revolution underway across the United States that signals how the average American is reacting to the Democrat campaign of supporting rioting and chaos in major cities. American citizens are arming themselves to the teeth and this includes many who previously supported gun control measures.
    If you doubt me, go on-line and try to buy a box of 9mm, 380, 45 or 300 blackout ammunition. If you can find it you will be paying a premium that is without precedent. Around the first of July, you could buy a box of 9mm cartridges for about $12 a box. That works out to .24 cents a cartridge. Today, you are going to pay around a $1 a bullet if you can find it.

    I was describing the shortage in Florida the other day to a great friend who lives in Iowa. He thought I was crazy and assured me he could get me 9mm ammo. I egged him on and asked him to buy everything he could and ship it to me. He was certain he could get the .24 cents a bullet price. One hour later he texted me that the local gun stores were sold out. That’s Iowa. Same applies across the country. Ammunition is scarce.

    Morning everyone. The Globalist takeover of the UK which is almost complete is actually a sideshow; the real battle is being fought in the United States and it is there that it will be decided. We can see from this article that ordinary Americans are preparing for a battle which will probably begin after the Presidential Election, regardless of who wins the votes. It will almost certainly end in violence since Americans cannot be made into Marxists by laws or propaganda. It is against their history and everything they believe.

    https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2020/08/the-unprecedented-gun-and-ammo-shortage-by-larry-c-johnson.html#more

      1. Seventeenth day, consecutively, of clear blue skies and hot sunshine here in the CaribbeanBaltic.

  9. SIR – It has long been recognised that there is a shortage of smaller properties suitable for older people.

    What needs addressing is that the whole business operates in a swamp where housing developers, lawyers, estate agents, removal firms and house clearance specialists seek to maximise their take of any money accrued.

    I believe that many older people would welcome a scheme that acts on their behalf to insulate them from this.

    David Donati
    Crickhowell, Breconshire

    Why can I see a plague of locusts in my mind…

  10. BTL@DTletters

    Incognito D W
    15 Aug 2020 3:44AM

    Congratulations to the smartest generation ever, with the the highest grades (again) seen in education in Britain, all despite the grade reductions…

    They should have no problem getting jobs, when compared to the idiots we apparently churned out in my day (1995 graduation).

    Real world: Poor spelling/grammar/work ethic, attention span (nil), ability to articulate concepts (poor), (lack of) professionalism…. my evidence… 100s of CVs and interviews in the past month for new hires all around 18-24 years of age.

    1. We’ve got young people working in our building. Their office is kitted out from IKEA, with a big TV, a fridge and a sofa. A few stand-up desks for when the poor little things have to do some actual work in the office. Kitchen is full of leftovers from vegan meals. Any space used by them has motivational slogans and brightly coloured signs reminding them to sign in etc. All their projects are tracked in bright colours on the walls, which is not supposed to happen due to data protection and confidentiality. We call their office the Kindergarten.

      1. What is it about schools and children’s TV that childcare experts believe children can only see in primary colours, loud music and buzzspeak?

        1. The same can be said of anyone in respect of modern websites, in which data items are in 24pt type and links are clunking great buttons in IKEA colours. Where only ten years ago a sizeable chunk of info, with links to drill down further, would be displayed neatly on a single page, now there will be barely a dozen untidy lines, separated by great chunks of white space.

          They are, of course, designed for mobiles and other hand-held devices for the fat-fingered and not for the desktop PC.

          1. It’s why I refused to update my mac from 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard). Apple inflicted the iOS mail interface on all versions from Lion onwards, making it unusable for Mail. I don’t think there is a single decent email app produced today.

            I was also a fan of Outlook Express before Microsoft “upgraded” it away.

    2. I endorse that based on my experience of 18-25 year olds on my art degree course. Sentences? Punctuation? Paragraphs? Whazzat?

  11. Morning all

    SIR – The decision to reintroduce quarantine for travellers from France (report, August 14) will create yet more economic misery for the country for arguably negligible health benefits, and highlights the inadequacies of the current quarantine scheme.

    Britain seems to have a rigid limit of a cumulative 20 cases per 100,000 people over 14 days, beyond which a country would be considered a candidate for quarantine. We also know that the infection-rate figures are very imprecise and relate to the volume of testing.

    Surely what is required is a more nuanced approach, with restrictions imposed as a last resort, on a regional basis, in areas where the infection rate far outstrips the nationwide rate. This should be coupled with a more sustainable approach to travel and the introduction of testing for arrivals from higher-risk destinations.

    Neil Cottrell

    Maidenhead, Berkshire

    1. She’s right though. Why do we give them every incentive to come here? The French don’t want them so they push them over here.

  13. 322561+ up ticks,
    I’m inclined to think johnson would agree, saying it should be legal,plus taking into account Dover & keeping in mind his views on amnesties.

    Calais Mayor Tells Boris to ‘Calm Down’, Claims Illegal Migration Is UK’s Fault.

    1. Keep ’em in concrete-floored cells with a bread and water diet and tell them they can be free as soon as they want to go back whence they came but with an irremovable tattoo on their foreheads so that they can never come back again.

      1. 322561+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        I do totally agree with your sentiments regarding the lab/lib/con coalition,I take it you do mean them, as for the immigrants controlled immigration would do the trick .

      3. Assume they are potential terrorists and stick them in a floating prison hulk moored ten miles off the coast while their asylum claims are processed.

      1. We should warn France that they have a limited time to stop the influx, say 48 hours, otherwise migrants picked up mid-channel will be returned directly to French waters and dumped on the nearest beach with their boat holed.

    1. I would email back saying ” I will not be attending because, although you want to speak to me, I do not wish to speak to you”.

        1. Your approach might cause the police to think that you have either not received the letter, or forgotten to attend. My response would show contempt for the communication.

    2. The ‘Prevent Team’ ????
      What have they set out to prevent ?
      A misnomer if ever there was one.

    3. “This is a non criminal matter therefore you do not require legal representation”.

      Oh yes he does !

      2. If you look at what the internet says about speaking the police, you will find that there is total unanimity amongst lawyers, “do not speak to the police”. Unless you have lawyer present. Ever. “Well, lawyers would say that, but it is entirely sensible. The police may not have the criminal, but they do have you, and if it can be made to fit…

      3. I note that also they don’t mention the fact that he doesn’t need to attend anyway. Sneaky beggars!

    4. I’d ask for more information about what it was that I had written that caused concern and an explanation of who was offended and why. Then, I might decide to attend to set THEM straight.

    1. The authorities or police farce can’t even control a crowd on on the streets or a beach, let alone impose fines on people who are evading lock down, again.

    1. The cold blooded murder of that innocent little boy is the most outrageous single thing that has happened so far to the minority this century.

      1. My brother won a fancy dress competition during the local Coronation fete. There then followed a row between my parents and the parents of the runner up because they claimed the judge had got in a muddle.

    1. It has to be Britain; it’s full of tinteds. You don’t seem to get that in French or German orchestras, for some reason.

  23. SIR – Today is the 75th anniversary of VJ Day. Although there is no mention in the RAF’s online timeline of the Far East and Pacific war, the RAF’s website states elsewhere that a “key contributor to the eventual Allied victory in the Far East war was the use of air power”.

    On land, the war in south-east Asia was hard-fought against the odds, with the Army supported by RAF aircraft. However, across the whole Far East, it is disingenuous not to acknowledge that the decisive elements in the defeat of Japan were the US Navy’s carrier-based aircraft, and the amphibious assaults by US Marines, that enabled island-hopping across the mid- and south Pacific. These sea-based capabilities, in turn, enabled the complementary contribution made by the US Army Air Forces from island airfields, especially the strategic bombing, minelaying and atomic-bomb deliveries that helped bring Japan to its knees.

    Only after the Battle of the Atlantic had been won and victory in Europe enabled by the Normandy landings – the biggest amphibious operation in history – could a Royal Navy carrier force and merchant fleet train, the British Pacific Fleet, be sent to fight alongside the Americans. The fleet’s air-arm attack on the Palembang oil refineries was a notable contribution.

    Consequently, when the Red Arrows fly today, we hope Britons will remember the many soldiers, sailors and marines – especially the British “Forgotten Army” of south-east Asia and the similarly “forgotten” British Pacific Fleet – who fought for victory.

    Rear Admiral Jeremy Larken
    Rear Admiral Terry Loughran
    Rear Admiral Bob Love
    Rear Admiral Chris Parry
    Major General Julian Thompson
    Commodore Michael Clapp
    Captain Malcolm Farrow
    Captain Peter Hore
    Lieutenant Colonel Ewen Southby-Tailyour
    Commander Sue Eagles
    Commander Graham Edmonds
    Commander Mike Evans
    Commander Paul Fisher
    Commander David Hobbs
    Commander Sharkey Ward
    Commander Anthony Wells
    Lieutenant Colonel Ian Berchem
    Lieutenant Commander Lester May
    Richard Shuttleworth

    It is sometimes forgotten that HRH The Duke of Edinburgh was on duty floating around in Tokyo bay at the time of surrender. Thank you, Sir.

      1. Morning mola

        Did you know that there was a flight of three Lancasters sent to the Far East on stand-by to drop the A-bombs? The B-29 bomb bays were not big enough to accommodate the munitions. The American military PTB insisted that it be an all-Yank operation and the B-29s selected for the mission underwent major modifications. That was a blessing for the Lancasters because their maximum operational height was some 7,000ft less than the B-29s and their crews might not have had time to get out of the critical blast zone and survive.

    2. Dear Multi-Sigs,

      We don’t have any “marines”. What we do have are Royal Marines.

  25. SIR – My granddaughter had a provisional place at a medical school, and has worked very hard towards achieving the required grades, while also volunteering as a healthcare assistant in her spare time. She received excellent grades at GCSE and her predicted grades based on the mock exams should have seen her achieve her goals.

    However, her predicted B for Physics was downgraded to a U, thus wrecking her chances of taking up her place. This has been done purely on the basis of the algorithm, without any reference to her work. My granddaughter and her family are distraught. Her school will appeal and she could resit, but like all students she has had no teacher contact for months, and there is none on offer for resits – so she would have just a few weeks to prepare, totally unsupported.

    The system has failed my granddaughter and many others. It is a disgrace.

    Pamela Woffindin
    Ilkley, West Yorkshire

    It certainly is, Pamela Woffindin. Frank Spencer, our (alleged) Secretary of State for Education, is also a disgrace, and the fact that this idiot is still in post must be the eighth Wonder of the World. Having had since March to plan for this eventuality – and failed miserably – it is only right that his career should suffer in the same way that he has inflicted on thousands of youngsters. What an utterly shameful state of affairs, and the fact that he is still there should inflict considerable political damage on a spineless Johnson for not dismissing him immediately. He presides over a world class shitshow and acts like a rabbit in the headlights. His government will be forever known as incompetent and cowardly.

      1. SIR – Having battled with epilepsy and the terrible side-effects of the medication for several years, my granddaughter fought hard during her education and, based on school performance and conditional upon A-level results, had been accepted to study at the University of York with the aim of becoming a barrister.

        However, the Government had other ideas. Having been given grades of AAB by her teachers, the school moderators downgraded this to BBB. Then came Ofqual, which downgraded her further to BCC. Yet Boris Johnson claims this is “a robust set of grades”.

        Yes, my granddaughter could revert to her mock results, though they reflect her battle with epilepsy; yes, she could sit the exams again, but she has not had any education since March. Yes, she will now appeal, but who knows what the outcome will be?

        This has an impact on the rest of her life. What would ministers think if it were their children?

        Jacqueline Daniel

        Southampton

      2. It does in Scotland. All the teacher and work history estimates were regraded by their made-up algorithm. This was done on the basis of the student post-code. I’m not sure how they knew the post-code, possibly that of the school. The details of the algorithm have not been shared and cannot be checked by anyone, impartial or otherwise. Pupils from “deprived” areas had their marks downgraded. Pupils from “affluent” areas had their marks upgraded. The variations covered a range of about 20%, poor -15%, rich +6%. I forget the exact figures.
        After a public outcry the algorithm adjustments were rescinded and the outcomes went with teacher school suggestions.
        An upsetting mess. Possibly an indication of what governments would like to get away with, and the shape of things to come. The Education Minister survived a no confidence vote in the Scottish Parliament.

    2. Just re-sit and stop complaining. Teacher contact? You’ve got the internet, and anyway British A levels are nowhere near as difficult as for example, the German Abitur.

    3. 322561+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      Very sad to say Pam but your granddaughters future is of little or no consequence currently, her replacement likely came in yesterday, will be in today, or tomorrow via Dover rest assured.
      These governance parties can no longer get away with being tagged inept & cowardly when they are portraying
      orchestrated treachery.

    4. Letters on that subject are often written by grandparents who come from a generation for whom education really gave them a chance in life. That is the generation that votes.

    5. I could expect a i-level change, so A to B or something like that, but B to Ungraded? The system should have flagged that as needing manual checking, it’s too big a change just to blame on Teachers enthusiasm.

      1. Here was a clear case of students guilty of unconscious failure, and also guilty of stupidity denial. If they fall into certain categories, then social theory dictates what result they should get. Don’t forget to make corrections too for social privilege, according to the directives of the “appropriate” policy unit.

    6. I actually googled to see if a ‘Frank Spencer’ was Secretary of State for Education. Very good.

    7. I was having a pint on Friday evening with my teacher nephew and my brother as we often do. Nephew has been running around all through the lockdown, delivering school laptops to pupils with limited home IT resources, even calling in homes for some ad hoc tuition. All in his own car at his own expense.

      We both came to the conclusion months ago that exams could have been held in schools by dispersing candidates over multiple classrooms as there would have been sufficient staff to cover any supervisory duties.

      To say he is frustrated with the department and the unions is an understatement.

  26. 322561+ up ticks,
    The priti johnson I would say he / she is fully IN control of mass uncontrolled immigration as was mayday & the wretch cameron,their party supporters have fully lost control of their senses.

    Migration Watch UK: Boris Johnson Has ‘Lost Control’ of Illegal Immigration.

  29. Extreme caution……………
    Do NOT let shops take your temperature by scanning your forehead, it actually erases your memory. I went to Tesco for lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber and came out with crate of Stella and very large bag of Doritos

  30. From Guido;

    “Quote of the Day

    Quote of the Day is from a Home Office source on Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream’s tweets to Priti Patel.

    “Priti is working day and night to bring an end to
    these small boat crossings, which are facilitated by international
    criminal gangs and are of serious concern. If that means upsetting the
    social media team for a brand of overpriced junk food then so be it.”

    2. “Priti is working day and night to bring an end to these small boat crossings” – -she wants to use bigger ones that can get more in at one go and are far safer for the invaders.

        1. Next step – a submarine version – with sharp knives along the top surface – to be trialled in the Channel?

  31. SIR – Recently my wife and I decided to venture out, hoping to have lunch and take advantage of Rishi Sunak’s “Eat Out to Help Out” discount scheme.

    We do not drive, so planned to go on the bus. When the bus arrived the driver did not open the doors, but we could see that he was counting the passengers; he then opened the doors and said that he would only take one of us. The bus looked less than half full.

    If the Government wishes to give people the confidence to resume their lives, it is going about it very badly.

    Patrick Hargreaves

    Blackpool

  32. Disgraceful behaviour by doctors.

    SIR – Last Saturday my mother developed an infection in her foot. As a GP, I am well aware that such infections can spread rapidly. I advised my father to ring 111, expecting that a prescription could be sent to the pharmacy 200 yards from his house.

    Instead the first call was followed several hours later by a further call offering her an appointment at an urgent-care centre many miles away. This was based at Royal Preston Hospital, which has been at the centre of a lockdown in a bid to halt the spread of Covid-19.

    My father, who is in his late 80s, dutifully drove my mother to her appointment, where they had to wait for several hours – my mother, who has dementia, conversing with all and sundry. Eventually they were seen and my father was then left to drive home in the dark, arriving back after midnight. They were not actually given the antibiotic needed but a prescription requiring them to travel out again on Sunday to find a pharmacy.

    Having advised my parents for months of the importance of staying at home and protecting the NHS, it has managed to mess them around and to put them both at unnecessary risk. We should expect better.

    Dr John Ashcroft

    Preston, Lancashire

    1. If you are a GP, John, why didn’t you issue a prescription, or one of your partners?

      1. Someone called A Allan on the BTL comments says that doctors aren’t allowed to treat members of their family.

          1. Which I think is what GPs do.
            You can understand the ban; too much emotional and financial involvement can skew judgement.

        3. What’s the point of bringing up a child to become a doctor, all that exam support and financial support for years and years if they can’t treat you?

          3. I always use the blanket rules my mother taught me: Use blankets in winter, discard them from your bed in summer. :-))

          5. tch tch Elsie, as a good citizen you should be ignoring what your mother tells you, and obeying the Government’s rules. The Government always knows best.

          7. The point is that your relationship with your spouse and children (good or bad) could influence your medical actions, although I imagine that is to prevent serious mis-practice. In reality, I doubt whether GPs refuse to give a child of theirs a simple medication such as anti-histamine from their “little black bag” if the child is suffering badly from a bout of hay fever, just as a sensible parent might give a young child a small glass of sherry at Christmas to accustom them to alcohol despite that being technically illegal.

          9. I’d never heard of the chap. Surprised that the Wikipedia entry didn’t contain a reference to a change in the law after matters came to light.

      2. Morning, Peddy. We don’t know the circumstances, but maybe he could at least have run them around. As I understand it, doctors are not allowed to treat their own families.

    2. By a coincidence, my foot also went septic after some dirt got into athlete’s foot when I was wearing crocs in the garden.

      I brave the NHS with great reluctance, so decided instead of attempting to fight my way through, it would be quicker and safer after cleaning out the pus, to wash the foot thoroughly with carbolic then to soak it in salt water, and then marinade the wound in TCP before dressing it with Savlon and a plaster soaked in TCP, held on with bit of extra tape.

      It seems to be healing slowly, not spreading and not swollen, so I can probably escape the PFI unit this time. Reminds me, I’d better change the dressing now.

      I expect I’ll have to book myself into Triage if I want a death certificate.

      1. I suffer badly from nail infections, Jeremy. Can you recommend anything to revert them to the beautiful pinkies I was born with? Or can any other NoTTLer help. (No, Geoff, not you. I think your advice might be a tad severe! :-)) )

        1. I’m not quite so skilful at amateur chiropody though. I dig away with the nail scissors, but to no avail. How I regret that rite of passage, at about the same age one realises the true identity of Father Christmas, when I could no longer bend enough to nibble my toenails.

          1. What?!?!? Are you telling me that Santa’s real name is The Tooth Fairy? Who’da thunk!

          3. The Pushy Nurse has emailed me and pointed me in the right (local) direction. A suitable practitioner will visit me in around ten days’ time. Many thanks to you and all NoTTLers who took pity on my plight.

          4. As if they’ll see you without one as you suffer panic attack/shortness of breath. I have seen nurse and doctor at surgery without one and hospital consultant who took his off, with my permission, once the door was closed.

            This is Alf using vw’s iPad.

          5. Alf(a Romeo), VolksWagen, Citroen? I thought this was the NoTTL site, nor the Motor Show! :-))

      2. OW! Sounds sore, Jeremy.
        The whole sorry tale sounds like the NHS – Nigerian Health Service.

      3. A small drum of Morrison’s paste is always in the cupboard (AKA Magnesium Sulphate).
        Poisoned finger / cut that goes septic – apply a little, cover with a plaster and the following day it will be clean – allow the air to get to the wound/cut and it will heal.
        Late pharmacist neighbour tip from 1970. Boots 50g £3.40. Other pharmacies are available.

      4. I prefer Germoline, which is also an antiseptic, and is excellent at wound healing. The active ingredient is phenol, which really does work.

        That aside, you were probably right. Keep it thoroughly clean, and I hope it heals up soon.

        1. I normally use that. It’s antiseptic and has a local anaesthetic in it. The new stuff (probably thanks to an EU diktat) isn’t a patch on the old, though.

    3. This is not just unacceptable it is grossly negligent of the NHS and particularly the poor man’s surgery. Dr John Ashcroft should put in a complaint Seems the NHS is run for the benefit of its staff not the patients. The fact that he is a Doctor himself amazes me. Why has he not created Merry hell on behalf of his parents.

  33. This depiction powerfully indicates just how far down the sewer the PTB and its propagandists, the MSM, have travelled. Fake news, failing to report news that doesn’t fit the agenda and literally promoting criminality e.g. the stupid Sky reporter giving the thumbs up and egging on the illegals in their dinghy. Journalist is fast becoming an occupation that attracts the same level of opprobrium as that of an opportunist Member of Parliament.

    https://twitter.com/DarrenPlymouth/status/1294281512171511808

    1. Good morning, Korky. I have always said that what a proper Government’s priorities should be after full Brexit (to that must be now added the Covid-19 pandemic) is:

      (i) Drain the swamp (MSM, Civil Service and Quangos) who manipulate and bully the nation with a “voice” out of all proportion to their size.
      (ii) Solve the problems of Islam by confronting them ruthlessly full on regardless of any squealing from the woke.

        1. I wrote “what a proper Government’s priorities should be” not what the current Government’s priorities will be, Herr Oberst.

      3. ‘Morning, Elsie. Given that Dodgy Dave’s ‘bonfire of the quangos’ was never more than a minor scorching before it went out, I think it highly unlikely that your wish will be granted, despite my guess that there even more of the parasites now.

        1. Morning, Hugh. I agree with your guess; however I have to remind you that the current occupant of No. 10 is no longer Dodgy Dave, the well-known “Babbling Poltroon” (© Bill Thomas).

    2. ‘Morning, Korky. Anyone who can remember Drop the Dead Donkey may be forgiven for thinking that it’s back…

      1. I’ve just acquired the complete set as a birthday gift and although the series is 30 years old it makes both amusing and uncomfortable watching, fashions change but the venal ,egregious and amoral Damien Days still infest the MSM.

  34. 322561+ up ticks,
    Will there be a multitude of Japanese flags on parade today in keeping with the new world as seen through the eyes of dangerous idiots ?

      1. 322561+ up ticks,
        Morning M,
        Maybe for you to take the bus to the rising sun nippon & orf.

    1. Who are the bigger clowns? The clowns in power or the clowns who voted them in?

      Cue: Oggy and his déjà vu, Groundhog Day claptrap!

      1. 322561+ up ticks.
        G
        You join the long , long queue that of those that
        would wish to keep the truth concealed there are many who would never admit to having been wrong in forever putting the party before the Country even after fully recognising the treachery
        their party had dealt them as political rubber stampers & purveyors of mass illegal immigrants.
        If I type claptrap so be it but it will always be
        honest heartfelt claptrap.

    2. Afternoon Rik

      I was just browsing around and found this ..

      “Communism might not be the most accurate shorthand for Labour’s manifesto but it is a useful tool to achieve something else: it narrows what people think is possible in social democracy and taints the project of hope with fear. It also brings to mind unaccountable regimes, wars and the looming threat of spies and foreign interference. It makes people imagine strict controls on the type of life a person can have, based on arbitrary things like their parents’ position in the regime, and a life defined by gruelling working conditions, where people starve and freeze to death. It brings to mind a leader who refuses to submit to any scrutiny. And aren’t we all glad we aren’t living through that.”

      Now , hang on a moment .. sounds very familiar doesn’t it . Think about what we are going through at the moment ..

      A wicked thought of mine is .. Have politics been turned upside down , and have the Tories and Labour metamorphosed into each other?

      1. Hi Belle. I wrote exactly that to our MP weeks ago in great disgust. The Cons have done labour’s work for them. Furlough – universal wage, closure of businesses – destruction of capitalism, Parliament – Little or no scrutiny. Doesn’t really bear thinking about. Unfortunately the public has gone along happily with wearing masks, staying in for months on end, not straying too close to other people, generally being dehumanised.

        2. Afternoon vw

          How many others have come to the same conclusion. Did you get a reply back from your MP.

          I wrote to mine weeks ago, I used someone elses template , I think it might have been Bill T’s .

          No reply whatsoever.

          These MP’s should hide their shameful faces .. they are not doing anything but draw a huge salary and perks .

          We need so many answers , not going to happen is it?

          1. Just looked up when I emailed our MP, it was 4th June, and he replied more or less straight away. It was a long email and he was gracious enough to “read it very carefully “ and agreed with the thrust of most of it. It made me feel better sending it although I know nothing will come of it. But then, if in didn’t Email him absolutely certainly nothing will come of it. At least it lets him (and maybe the Conservatives overall) know that some people are entirely dissatisfied with what’s going on in the U.K. Actually make that bloody furious!

      2. 322561+ up ticks,
        Afternoon TB
        As I have been saying for years a coalition party.
        Someone probably will shortly be saying I post claptrap, if so it is for a great many hard to face factual claptrap.

        1. Ogga1. You post a great deal of interesting stuff. I’ve been a member of UKIP, and stood for election on their behalf. They were infiltrated – there’s no question about this. My local branch fizzled out. Mainly because the key players were old and infirm, and have mostly died.

          Nigel (boo, hiss) chose not to contest Guildford. I would have voted BXP regardless, if I’d had the choice. But that wasn’t offered, so I held my nose and voted Tory whilst realising that the party has few, if any, true conservatives.

          1. 322561+ up ticks,
            GG,
            The opportunity was given the peoples on the 17th Feb 2018 Gerard Batten took the leadership from bolton & bolten was a farage conduit, I was at that EGM in Birmingham the sense of relief was
            palatable when Batten was elected.
            He proved us right in no uncertain manner lifting the party into the black financially 13000 new members with others joining daily the making once again of a credible party.
            His ( Battens) showing triggered treachery from the Nec with an input from farage whom I consider dangerous & a manipulator in the pursuit of forever building an ego.
            UKIP under Batten had to be stopped by the coalition & manipulators, and it was.

            In my book GG I don’t agree to taking political petrol into the polling booth, I’d rather vote for an independent that has the protection & welfare of hedgehogs as a platform than any of the toxic trio.

      3. A wicked thought of mine is .. Have politics been turned upside down , and have the Tories and Labour metamorphosed into each other?

        Yes.

        In the late 1990s I was talking to a friend about the Trotskyite Derek Hatton, Militant Tendency saga of the 1980s. I remember saying to him something like “I don’t know why they bother with entryism into Labour. Surely it would be better to do it to the Tories?”

        But who’s to say that hasn’t happened? After all, back then I hadn’t yet heard of neo-conservatives.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militant_(Trotskyist_group)

    3. Rik…I’m reading the Salvation sequence by Peter F Hamilton. A trilogy. The third book comes out later in the year and you can reserve a first edition signed by the author. Might be worth a bob or two in the future. https://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/books/science-fiction/title/the-saints-of-salvation-signed-by-peter-f-hamilton-first-edition/#:~:text=Humanity%20rises%20to%20meet%20a%20powerful%20alien%20threat%2C,Humanity%20welcomed%20the%20Olyix%20and%20their%20utopian%20technology.

        1. #MeToo. I particularly like the Nights Dawn Trilogy. 1.2 million words and i’ve read it three times.

      2. Good stuff, I’ve read most of his.

        At some point I had a sudden revelation about how he resolves some of his stories which was slightly disappointing, though I still enjoy them.

        At the end of the Night’s Dawn trilogy our heroes use the sleeping god toreset the universe.

        At the end of the Void trilogy our hero uses his powers toreset the universe.

        At the end of Fallen Dragon our hero uses the dragon toreset the universe.

        At the end of Great North Road the alien uses it’s powers toreset the universe.

        Other minor niggles:

        #1 The stereotypical sci-fi butt-kicking babes in the first Commonwealth trilogy and Great North Road.

        #2 An African woman is the greatest ever physicist in human history in the first Commonwealth trilogy.

        #3 Multi-racial, multikult yoof are part of the right-wing resistance to the leftist regime in the Greg Mandel trilogy. Yeah right, sure I believe you Pete.

        Otoh props to Hamilton because in the Night’s Dawn trilogy it’s explicitly stated that multikult (Star Trek) style settlement of new planets was a failure and it was better done along racial lines i.e. segregated. Hence the greatest physicist of all time hails from an African settled planet. I guess Pete can get away with this sort of thought crime because it’s a book. The Agenda™ would never tolerate such a heresy to be depicted on TV or in a film.

        1. Normalmente descanso y no hago mucho en el weekend, amigo mío, pero como hice casi nada con las insoportables altas temperaturas esta semana pasada quizás trabajare un poco en el jardín. Y tu? (Apart from shopping at Waitrose, that is.)

          4. “Si, es verdad”; or, more simply “Verdad”. Compare with “Yes, true” or more simply “True”. (One would say “True” in English, and not “Truthfully”.)

    1. Wow. Well worth watching all the way through and a rather surprising twist at the end!

      2. I’m rather surprised that PP hasn’t posted this already.

        Full disclosure – I have a neighbour whose daughter is a friend of someone who is an intern to Christopher Steele. Don’t know whether this affords me some protection, or I’m more liable to be disappeared…

      2. The trouble is that decent cops are not given the support of politicians. I do feel sorry for Priti Patel who clearly would like to sort out the mess but Johnson has proved to be both weak and fraudulent and has done less than nothing to help.

        Many of us here warned before the election that Johnson was all mouth and trousers with an unzipped fly and so we are not at all surprised that the only thing he does which produces results is bonking. Mind you he probably even cocked that up and put his condoms in the wrong place and got his womenfolk to take their oral contraceptive pills as pessaries.

      3. There weren’t sufficient police there in Manchester and they weren’t properly protected. The Pakistanis are a dangerous mob when stirred up and realise now that the authorities are not prepared to face up to them and put them in their place. There are patches of No Go Pakistani areas in the UK and growing in numbers gradually. If the government doesn’t tackle this problem the military will be required with the real possibility of bloodshed.
        Andy Burnham probably ordered the police to disperse.

      1. 322561+ up ticks,
        Afternoon VW,
        They have probably been back twice on holiday
        just how many holidays can you fit in…..on welfare.

        1. I recall one couple, both claiming disability, all 3 adult children claiming as “carers” – and all claims were fraud. They all took flights back home several times a year – no problem with their “disability” once at the airport for the flight out and no problems while there – where they had a large house – all built on our benefits system.

          1. 322561+ up ticks,
            W,
            When individual pakistanis meet daily the greeting
            is always goodearinnit.

      1. Just downloaded Salvation,also Fallen Dragon,let you know how I get on
        Fines?? Oh how we laffed

        1. Fallen Dragon is good. But then i like all his books. Salvation has two timelines running which confused me a bit at first.

    1. Clean clothes, well fed, hair neat – living rough in Calais must be terrible. No wonder they prefer being in a hotel paid for by us.

      1. 322561+ up ticks,
        Morning W,
        How long has mass uncontrolled immigration been OKd by the lab/lib/con party politico hierarchy, all the time it has been in play even with the wretch cameron upping the intake numbers after pledging to reduce them, has it changed the voting pattern, NOT one bloody iota.

        So according to the ballot booth there is NO problem in regards to mass uncontrolled immigration which is in turn the main destructive force for the destruction of these Isles.

        How many GE has the country been through since
        Mass uncontrolled immigration was treacherously
        triggered, maybe not enough to bring about change.

    2. Good morning, ogga

      As you know I often agree with you and with your idol, Gerard Batten.

      However, he and you would do better to leave UKIP and join a more united organisation which is capable of breaking the Con/Lab/Lib.Dem stranglehold has on the electorate.

      1. 322561+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        I have no truck with idols and see Batten as a very capable leader of merit.
        In the case of farage I no hatred of anyone as you
        posted yesterday but in his case a very strong dislike of a very tarnished treacherous idol, one that peoples will still reach for out of desperation.

        As for Gerard Batten, myself & UKip you really must update.

        1. We’d join such an organisation in a shot if it existed. Problem is, we’re only about 12% of the electorate, and FPTP will do for us every time.

          1. 322561+ up ticks,
            BB2,
            I can tell you when such a happening took the first step in building a decent viable party
            the date was the 17th Feb 2018 at a EGM
            in Birmingham the party the party was UKIP the new leader one Gerard Batten.

            To much of a success ongoing and morphing into a real threat to the toxic trio.
            Peoples continue to say “start another party” whilst still supporting lab/lib/con.

            Real UKIP fell foul of a treacherous NEc
            and was brought down, it is all on record.

          2. And how would such an organisation stop itself from being infiltrated by undesirable elements from the PTB?

          3. Don’t be defeatist. The problem is that most of the undesirable elements love talking and politicking, whereas we tend to be the sort of people who prefer getting things done.
            Therefore, we will never be represented in Parliament.
            But sometimes we must make the effort and get out of our comfort zone.

      1. The cartoonist will already have a van load of armed riot cops heading to batter his door off, to take him away for a little bit of “re-education”.

        1. Sorry, Peddy, don’t forget I don’t have a TV set. I was waiting until I was 75 to get one. Drat and double-drat!

        1. Well I can understand the husband watching, but his wife watching just baffles me.

        1. Good morning, Garlands. I quite agree that Mr Lime should behave himself but so far I can’t find him to pass on your message. Must look in the fridge again.

          :-))

          2. And here’s me thinking it was that haunting zither music which brought him out into the open!

            :-))

      5. Only one pair, and it’s actually a repeat of yesterday’s photograph of a barechested Putin after he’d taken some Russian medicine.

        1. Thanks, Jeremy. I have now looked and at last I understand the many reactions to my post.

  45. I was watching an old episode on youtube with Ade Edmonson travelling around the UK. It was interesting. He stopped at Dymock Farm in Gloucestershire where they make Stinking Bishop Cheese.

    I went online and ordered some. Not cheap. £30 for 500gms.

    I had an email from the man himself, Charles Martell thanking me for my order and when he will be sending it.

    It became more widely known after featuring in one of the Wallace and Gromit films. He was offered huge amounts of money to upscale the business. He refused. Good man.

    1. That’s a ridiculous price. I used to buy Stinking Bishop for a fraction of that.

      1. Its supply and demand. He refused to expand as he wants to keep the quality, and his customers must agree with him.

          3. “Oh strongly adorable tennis girl’s hand!”

            (John Betjeman: A Subaltern’s Love Song)

    2. I went to the local M&S Foodhall yesterday to get a few provisions. One item was a tin of corned beef pleasingly made with British Beef. I later read the small print. The beef was actually processed and packed in Poland………and then shipped back to the UK!

      1. Funny you should say that – I opened a box of Olay face cream this morning – made in Poland.

    1. We were wondering about the same thing.
      I was afraid it would be intrusive to send an email, but we would like to know.

      1. My aunt once knitted a swimsuit out of wool. She was so proud of it – until she tried going into the sea with it. Oops!

        1. My dear friend made a crochet bikini when we went abroad for the first time together! Cue mucho hilarity when she emerged from the sea!

      2. #Me Too, but not 1945. There must have been a lot of September babies who had the same conception.

    1. See my post a couple of minutes ago.

      I don’t think the virus was a hoax, but what governments have done about it is.

      It’s about using big data and fake news via the mainstream media to control people globally

      1. In a nutshell.

        Extra-parliamentary committee (ACU) set up to investigate the corona virus issue. Members of the public from all walks of life, whether qualified or not, are invited to attend & give their views*.
        Heiko Schöning (who is a doctor) announced the opening of the (unofficial) committee on 31/05/2020 in Stuttgart with, “We are not going to allow ourselves to be duped any longer. We, the people, have the power to do this & we’ll do it.”

        *This is also a summary of the first video, in which the same is said under a load of waffle.

        In the 2nd video the youngster spends a whole hour telling us why he thinks the various measures like lockdown were pointless.

        I’m not giving my own views; I’m merely translating.

    1. If ever there was an advert for always wearing a tie with a suit and collared shirt (or just wearing a smart crew-necked shirt with the suit) then this is it.

      The most abominably scruffy male “fashion” ever. They look like three pisshead chav louts (as do all males following this idiotic trend).

          1. LOLs. I thought i might look a throwback to the 70’s. I have a tailored suit in maroon. Pointy shoes and a roll neck light weight sweater. Wearing it to Lunch with a Nottler.

    3. I see they all got the memo.

      Vlad could have got one over on the scruffbags if he had worn a tie.

  52. More than 1,000 migrants crossed the Channel to arrive in Britain in last 10 days bringing total to 4,511 this year – more than DOUBLE amount in 2019
    1,004 migrants were brought ashore by Border Force between August 4 and 13
    On Thursday 89 migrants were brought to UK , the Home Office confirmed
    Today, some 16 migrants were pictured arriving in Dover in Border Force vessels

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8630473/Migrants-make-desperate-Channel-dash-dinghy-caught-Border-Force.html?ito=push-notification&ci=28263&si=7271111

    2. The Bonking Bullshitting Buffoon assured us that illegal immigrants would be sent back immediately. He also assured us that his EU WA agreement was brilliant and it now turns out that it was even worse than May’s Surrender WA.

      He is dishonest and dishonourable and is a liar with no integrity at all.

      From time to time I grumble that thanks to Blair’s chicanery I have lost the right to vote in Britain and, because I am not French I do not have the right to vote in France.

      But am I any more or less disenfranchised than most of the Nottlers who have votes but nobody worth voting for?

      1. Frankly, Richard, votes are overrated. If they changed anything, they wouldn’t be allowed. Come 2024, unless a serious alternative appears on the scene, I won’t bother to make the journey to the polling station.

        1. 322561+ up ticks,
          Afternoon GG,
          The way things are shaping currently come 2024 your local imam will tell you what you are voting.
          It’s on the parliamentry menu.

          1. I’m learning the Adhan, and growing a beard. And setting up a consultancy for converting churches to mosques. Hopefully. I’ll be spared. One can’t be too careful. Inshallah…

            PS: This is bullshit. obviously…

          2. 322561+ up ticks,
            Evening GG,
            As it currently shows there are many will be doing just that, neighbour grassing on neighbour, divide
            & conquer, no one can convince me many of these issues are not orchestrated and the politico get bolder by the day, they give a strong impression
            that they don’t give a sh!te what the electorate think, they have served their purpose.

  53. The word ‘deport’ doesn’t appear in this article. Deport the lot, the criminals and their victims.

    And the principles of asylum and sanctuary are all but dead, thanks to the criminals and the soft-headed liberals who have encouraged their activities.

    It’s not just the migrant boats that we need to go after – Coronavirus has exposed extent of slavery in UK

    The gangs don’t just go away when the migrants land in the UK. Many are then forced into slavery.

    IAIN DUNCAN SMITH

    In the last week, the sight of boats filled with migrants trying to cross the Channel has dominated the media, as have the Home Secretary’s legitimate efforts to stop them. Of course, she is right to want to ensure the rules are upheld and that migrants ask for asylum in the first country they arrive in. That is the clear position signed up to by France and other countries. But whatever the outcome of discussions with France, we are only scratching the surface of a much deeper and more troubling problem.

    There is an enormous criminal sub-society thriving in the UK. A significant and well-organised network of gangs brings people into this country by different methods, including illegal passports.

    But the gangs don’t just go away when the migrants land in the UK. Many migrants are then forced into slavery. From exploitation and abuse to benefit fraud and prostitution, around 100,000 people are estimated to be trapped in this dark world.

    There are consequences for us all. It took a spike in Covid infections in Leicester, for example, to shine a light on the garment factories there. Factories continued to operate during lockdown to supply primarily online fashion retailers whose sales of often cheap, almost disposable, garments have increased dramatically.

    People in these factories often live in squalid conditions, with anywhere from 10 to 30 people in one house, in some cases “hot bedding” while others are working in the factories.

    Ironically, the fear of contracting Covid-19 briefly became bigger than the fear of reprisals from speaking out, and as some factory workers spoke to journalists and researchers, the scale of the problem became apparent. As the Centre for Social Justice’s special report – Parallel societies: slavery, exploitation and criminal subculture in Leicester – released today, shows, what has been created is a lawless state with corruption at every level – getting passports, immigration status, even false driving licences. Far too little has been done – and alongside these are benefit fraud, VAT evasion and money laundering, all opening the door to voter fraud.

    Leicester is not unique – such abuse, exploitation and criminal behaviour are happening elsewhere here too.

    The CSJ’s recent report, It Still Happens Here, uncovered a case in Leeds. West Yorkshire Trading Standards had begun an operation into illegal tobacco smuggling and sales. But behind the smuggling was a criminal network trafficking people. Human beings are simply another commodity for these criminals.

    This criminal network is creating one of the pull factors that bring migrants to our shores. They used to smuggle drugs and alcohol, but now smuggle and exploit vulnerable migrants – a much lower risk. After all, a journey from Vietnam, for example, would cost a migrant £10,000 to £35,000 and, managed via social media channels, these trafficked individuals end up in this sub-society, in illegal factories, the sex trade and even growing cannabis.

    We must act now. The scale of this is enormous and won’t be solved just by stopping the boats. We have to go after the criminals, no matter who they are and despite any cultural sensitivities, while rooting out corruption in official circles wherever it exists. Businesses that benefit must be held to account for their supply chains, too.

    Yet perhaps the most difficult but important thing is for us to understand where the public demand for cheaper and cheaper garments and services is leading. It shouldn’t take a surge in Covid 19 to alert us to what has been going on. From now on, ignorance must no longer be an excuse.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/08/14/not-just-migrant-boats-need-go-coronavirus-has-exposed-extent/

    1. The Tories have had years to sort this one out .

      Mrs May should be ashamed of herself. She has aided and abetted the arrival of these people .

      Silly woman should have listened and put the wishes of the electorate who vote UKIP/ Or Tory first .

      1. I cannot help thinking that May was in favour of it and that her ‘hostile environment’ was deliberately badly managed to ensure its failure, hence the Windrush fiasco.

  54. Be on the look out for this guy………


    A builder reportedly sparked a security alert this week when he left important plans in a Greggs bakery.

    Bakers contacted police on Wednesday to hand over the Parliament papers after discovering them inside the Westminster branch.

    The paperwork included detailed maps of the Palace of Westminster, which are restricted for security reasons, according to The Sun.

    A source said: “As soon as they realised what it was they handed it in – luckily no member of the public saw what was inside.”

    Contractors realised the mistake the following morning, only to be told by staff at the branch that the plans were now with police.

    a large body of water with a city in the background: The Houses of Parliament in London© Getty Images The Houses of Parliament in London
    A House of Commons spokesperson said: “Documents were left by a contractor outside of the parliamentary estate but have now been returned.

    “The House of Commons takes the matter seriously and is currently investigating this incident.”

    The Houses of Parliament are currently undergoing building work and upgrades.

    Greggs reportedly declined to comment when approached by The Sun.

    The Met Police said: “On 12 August, a police officer at the Palace of Westminster took receipt of documents found by a member of public.

    “These were passed to staff at the Palace of Westminster who are investigating the incident.”

          1. I recon their steak bakes are probably just about good for vegans given the amount of meat they contain.

  55. Covid has exposed the political pygmies governing our politics

    With economies crashing and coronavirus still very much active across the world, our leaders are still making ill-informed token gestures

    CHRISTOPHER SNOWDON

    We are governed by little men and women. If it were not already obvious, the coronavirus has showed that unserious people are ill-equipped to deal with serious problems. Six months into the pandemic and the political pygmies continue to behave as if we still live in trivial times. Here are three recent examples.

    This week, the Canary Islands and the Spanish region of Galicia announced that they would be responding to an uptick in Covid-19 cases by banning smoking outdoors. The justification offered for this draconian legislation revealed such a staggering level of ignorance about germ theory that one can only hope they were joking.

    The President of the Canary Islands, Angel Victor Torres, said a ban was needed because ‘infected smokers could blow droplets carrying the virus when they exhale’. This is true so far as it goes, but it makes you wonder how he thinks non-smokers breathe.

    Trying to defeat an infectious disease with outdoor smoking restrictions would be silly at any time. It is particularly perverse when smokers seem to be less likely to ‘blow droplets carrying the virus’ than non-smokers. Studies suggesting that smokers are surprisingly resistant to Covid-19 have been around since April and, although it has received minimal media attention, the evidence has been growing stronger every week. A study in the Lancet last month found that countries with more smokers had less Covid-19.

    A study of over 20,000 Covid cases published last week found that smokers are less likely to test positive for the virus and much less likely to be admitted to intensive care with it. This week’s widely reported antibody study from Imperial College included the less widely reported finding that smokers are 36 per cent less likely to have had the virus. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

    While I don’t expect to public health officials to actively encourage people to smoke, there is no reason to think that a renewed clampdown on smoking is going to do a lick of good in the public health crisis that has engulfed the world. It may well make things worse, but when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

    Contrast the way in which the large body of evidence showing smokers at less risk of Covid-19 has been disregarded with the warm embrace given to a dubious study of vaping this week.

    Written by three Californian academics, one of whom is the founder and director of an anti-vaping organisation, the study produced the unlikely finding that e-cigarette users are five times more likely to test positive for Covid-19. There is, to put it mildly, no obvious biological mechanism for this and the explanations offered by the researchers were risible.

    They suggested that vapers were at greater risk of contracting Covid-19 because they touch their mouth and face more (they don’t), or because vaping causes the same damage to lungs as smoking (it doesn’t), or because vapers share devices with one another (even the authors admit that this was unlikely to happen much under lockdown).

    The study’s methodology left a lot to be desired. It was based entirely on an anonymous online survey of 13-24 year olds. None of the information could be verified and we do not know how the respondents were recruited. The number of self-reported vapers who self-reported a positive Covid-19 test was so small (50) that it would have been easy for anti-vaping activists to game the system with fake responses.

    Moreover, the association between vaping and Covid-19 only existed for people who had used an e-cigarette in the past. Inexplicably, there was no such association for people who had used an e-cigarette in the past 30 days (nor, indeed, for people who smoked).

    Despite the study’s flaws, its almost unbelievable findings were reported around the world on Tuesday. Tellingly, the authors described their results as ‘timely evidence’ and concluded with an appeal to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to further regulate e-cigarettes. Senator Raja Krishnamoorthi took the bait and immediately wrote to the FDA, praising the ‘seminal study’ and declaring that the ‘the science is now in’. He called on the FDA to ‘clear the market of all e-cigarettes for the duration of the coronavirus crisis’, i.e. full prohibition. As the chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy. Krishnamoorthi’s opinion presumably carries weight.

    Finally, consider the Mexican state of Oaxaca which recently banned the sale of sugary drinks and so-called junk food to children, thereby putting crisps and sweets in the same category as tobacco and alcohol. As the Guardian noted, the politician who proposed the ban had previously ‘equivocated on recommending mask use and pursued a policy of not testing or contact tracing’.

    A giveaway detail was that she had first tabled the bill last year, but seized the Covid-19 crisis as an excuse to push it through as an emergency measure on the pretext that obese people – although not obese children – are more likely to die from the virus if they contract it.

    There are obvious parallels with our own government which last month responded to the ongoing epidemic by resurrecting a set of food regulations that the almost comically inept Public Health England had long campaigned for. A government that failed to develop a mobile phone app expects us to believe that banning two-for-one pizzas will help prevent a second wave. The small men and women are fighting a house fire with a water pistol.

    None of these policies, not the ban on smoking outdoors, nor the ban on the sale of e-cigarettes, nor the restrictions on food sales, will have the slightest impact on Covid-19 (except, perhaps, negatively). The only thing they have in common is that political pygmies have always quite liked the sound of them.

    Faced with a serious public health problem, unserious people have retreated to their comfort zone of trivial lifestyle regulation. They cannot change the record. They were not made for these times.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/15/covid-has-exposed-political-pygmies-governing-politics/

    1. Nothing is going to change, when is the last time a politician said “Oops sorry”.
      They are all going to stick together with the pseudo scientific justification for controlling the peasantry. Pollys conspiracy will be nothing compared to the avoid blame cover up going on.

    2. Certainly not a reason to vote for the Democrats. If ever a party needed to break from the old school, they do.
      God bless the BLM chanting youth, they will look at Biden and Clinton and wonder why they are voting for such dinosaurs.

  57. Keep deriding Trump and he might just win. 15 August 2020.

    It was Donald Trump’s “disaster” interview. “Shocking,” declared The Guardian. “Weak and flailing,” said CNN. “The president has a bad brain,” proclaimed one late-night talk show host, apparently without irony. So, after a few days, I sat down to watch this “car crash”. By the end of 40 minutes, I was, frankly, confused. Had I been watching the wrong video? Was there some segment I had missed? Did he fall off his chair after the cameras stopped?
    Yes, the president made a number of preposterous claims. When he boasted about the brilliance of his pandemic travel bans, I felt irritated. When he cast doubt on South Korea’s Covid data, without any evidence, I sighed. When he claimed that he had done more for African Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln, I snorted.

    And yes, the journalist asking the questions, Jonathan Swan of the website Axios, employed a more effective style than most Trump interviewers. He neither barraged the president with aggression nor fawned over him. He interjected useful follow-up questions and used facts. Many of Mr Trump’s answers sounded poor, but mostly in the usual politician way – “it never crossed my desk”, for instance, is almost Clinton-esque.

    But where was the killer blow, the knock-out humiliation all these clever commentators were crowing about? I started watching, convinced that the US’s Covid record was dire. I came out of it still thinking so, but also surprised to hear that the country is conducting one of the world’s most extensive testing programmes (yes, this claim of Mr Trump’s does stack up). I began the tape thinking that Mr Trump’s stance against postal voting was pure cynicism and ended up conceding that he does also have a point: postal voting on the scale being suggested for November sounds like mayhem. In short, I pressed “play” expecting all-out crisis denialism and instead heard the president concede things are difficult.

    There wasn’t much there to convince an average viewer, who probably doesn’t follow Covid statistics or debates on intelligence briefings, that this was a man with “scrambled egg” for brains, as one leftie “comedian” put it. Based on his character and his incompetence, he should be toast in November. But if the American Left is too busy sharing “hilarious” memes to understand how most of their fellow voters see the world, they may end up seeing an awful lot more of Mr Trump.

    I have not yet written off Mr Trump! When thinking about his chances it is wise to bear in mind the opposition. A 77 year old White Man with senility problems and a Black Woman with Equality issues. Trump beat far better than this in his first election!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/15/keep-deriding-trump-might-just-win/

    1. Anyone writing off Trump is a delusional Democrat, Trump has power, he hasn’t got much opposition and it would just take another foreign policy win like this weeks middle east agreement to get people thinking that all is not bad.

      As for the postal vote, what a cynical barsteward he is – registering to vote by mail then doing his utmost to disrupt the postal service and impede ballots being cast that way. Must be expecting more Democrats to vote by mail.

    2. I have just watched the start of the English news on that Trump-hating channel, France24.

      The first news item was about unrest in Belarus. Alexander Lukashenko, a ruthless communist, who has been the president for the last 26 years, leads an authoritarian regime. He has been praised by people like Hugo Chavez.

      Their correspondent, one Douglas Herbert, then came on to say how alike Lukashenko and Donald Trump are! Fortunately the off switch on the remote was near my finger!

  59. Extreme caution……………
    Do NOT let shops take your temperature by scanning your forehead, it actually erases your memory. I went to Tesco for lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber and came out with crate of Stella and very large bag of Doritos

  61. The Smithsonian channel is showing “Pacific War in Colour”
    Every bleating bedwetter who whines about the use of Atomic arms to end the war should be forced (Alex style eyelids taped open) to watch every episode,listen to the casualty counts (on both sides) they may finally grow up…………

    1. The BBC, who didn’t show the Portillo rail trip in Germany last Wednesday, haven’t shown it again tonight when it was once again scheduled!

  63. “Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has made

    sixteen new grooming gang arrests in Rotherham and Leeds as part of an

    investigation into historic sex crimes.

    The NCA, roughly equivalent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States, announced that

    ten people aged between 35 and 53 had been arrested in Rotherham “on

    suspicion of offences relating to the abuse of girls who would have been

    between aged between 11 and 16 at the time [of the abuse].”

    This followed the arrest of five men in Rotherham and Leeds between

    July 28th and July 30th, with another suspect being detained last week —

    all as part of the Operation Stovewood investigation into grooming

    offences which took place between 1997 and 2013, launched in response to

    the Alex Jay inquiry into the mismanagement of such crimes by the

    authorities.”

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/08/15/british-fbi-makes-16-new-grooming-gang-arrests-rotherham-leeds/
    Now about that report,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
    No,thought not

  64. VJ anniversary you say?

    Not a mention in our media, nor in the regular US media. I thought that the US had been deeply involved in the far east, surely that deserves at least a passing mention.

      1. Well it was a long time ago and something had to go before they could add BLM struggles.

    2. I did see Charles at one effort. The first person to lay a wreath was an old Sikh gentleman!

    3. Wiki: “Although September 2 is the designated “V-J Day” in the entire United States, the event is recognized as an official holiday only in the U.S. state of Rhode Island, where the holiday’s official name is “Victory Day”, and it is observed on the second Monday of August.”

  65. The bastards have done it again.
    During the week the Portillo journey though Germany, which i was keen to see, was postponed to Saturday (today) at 18.15. Fair enough. But now they have bumped it off to Christ knows when, again for a yap about the snooker.

  67. British universities have become indoctrination camps. A reckoning is long overdue

    The Covid-induced demise of our third-rate institutions is no loss to higher education

    DOUGLAS MURRAY – 15 August 2020 • 6:00pm

    The Institute for Fiscal Studies recently announced that 13 universities in the UK face “a very real prospect” of going bust. Like all such announcements in the higher education sector the news was clearly meant to be received with a gasp of fear. Worse, the IFS warned that it is our least prestigious universities that are most at risk.

    I don’t know about you, but on reading this news I immediately put my head in my hands and cried, “Oh no. Not our least prestigious universities. Take anything but that.”

    There are many oddities about our higher education system. Oddest is the presumption that the more universities there are and the more people go to them, the better our country will be.

    Tony Blair was merely the most notorious proponent of this idea. His target of 50 per cent of young people going to university was achieved last year. Is our country noticeably smarter or more successful as a result? Many would say not. In some ways I would say it is noticeably stupider.

    One clue as to why lies in the old truth identified by Kingsley Amis. Which is that in certain areas – and universities are the most pronounced – more means worse. You may expand the sector, certainly, but at some liminal point everything you get is worse.

    Visit the universities at the bottom of the league tables and you will see this for yourself. Universities in towns you knew had a cathedral but are surprised to learn also have a campus. These are full of students being charged top-dollar to learn ‘international relations’ or ‘journalism’ at best. That is to be trained in non-disciplines for careers that barely exist.

    There might be some excuse if they were, as a by-product, being trained to be open-minded, perceptive and creative individuals. But for many people university is an indoctrination-camp, not a place for mental stimulation.

    Those who attend them are being factory-farmed to have the same boring and malevolent views. For example, you have to have been educated at a British university to go home and inform your parents that “gender is a social construct”. Or that the whole curriculum is “colonial” and needs to be “decolonised”.

    Rather than improve British societies, the automatons churned out by our universities are merely clogging up our country with bad thinking which becomes (when the graduates are employed) massive bureaucratic distraction-techniques. That British universities expand and make money out of this venture does not endear them to all of us.

    And that is before you get to the racket of ‘international students’. The loss of foreign students in the coming academic year is one of the threats to certain universities that the IFS has identified. But those who warn of this fail to acknowledge what this ‘threat’ reveals.

    Certainly there are some universities and courses where the presence of international students is a recognisable boon. Historically it has been a magnificent form of ‘soft-power’ among other things.

    Of course the unions and other spokespeople for the university sector rarely talk of it in such terms nowadays. They suggest that their love of foreign students is simply an expression of their personal liberal internationalism.

    In fact, for most universities foreign students are a piggy-bank. Their eyes grow beady at the opportunity to charge fees above the cap imposed by the government on British students.

    Nor is this avarice limited to the universities at the bottom of the league tables. Look at the experience given to many postgraduate students at universities like Cambridge and you will hear a familiar story.

    Sky-high fees, and the expectation of a full immersion in university life translates into a foreign student being rinsed for cash with the rarest imaginable meetings with a supervisor.

    Behind the scenes many university staff are embarrassed by this. But the finance departments and overpaid vice-Chancellors love to use the resulting charts to prove that their university is growing.

    Many could do with contracting, or simply disappearing altogether. And the era of Covid has put some of this into a newly imaginable perspective. Just as the likely diminishment of foreign students in 2020 has exposed UK universities’ over-reliance on this as an income stream, so the necessity to go online reveals a deep question about the nature of the modern university experience.

    Today if you have access to the internet you can follow a university course at any of the great universities of the world. Many of these – including from American Ivy League schools – are free online. Many other lectures – often far more cutting-edge and free-thinking than those found on our increasingly doctrinaire campuses – are free at the click of a button.

    Once students begin shelling out fees for a virtual university experience, questions will be raised. “Is this really the best education I can buy?” and “Is such an education worth ‘buying’ in the first place?” Traditionally the greatest universities have given an experience which is about so much more than just lectures.

    As one retired academic friend said to me recently, the real secret of university education is that the students educate each other. That is one of the ideals of the true, genuinely liberal university system. The lecturers provide the impetus, and the students cogitate amongst themselves.

    But as the universities have become greedy they have also become more cautious. Not just more cautious – indeed reluctant – about academic freedom (see the seemingly endless restrictions on this at Cambridge). They have also become more cautious in every other way about protecting themselves, certain of their employees and specifically their freedom from litigation.

    So in their precautionary Covid-aversion they are organising virtual freshers’ weeks, support bubbles and more to try to pretend that the class of 2020 will be a normal one. But it won’t be in any of them. And for some it may be the last.

    If that is so then we should not mourn the fact. The problem would not have been that 2020 was the year when the students dried up. The problem would be that 2020 was the year that the students saw through the universities and wondered – like everyone else – whether what they get for the down-payment is returned in any currency of value.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/15/britains-universities-have-become-indoctrination-camps-reckoning/

    1. Tony Blair was merely the most notorious proponent of this idea.

      This man is the opposite of King Midas. Everything he touches is corrupted! There is nothing that he has done that has not brought misery in its wake!

    2. The Institute of Fiscal Studies?

      Some years ago, I had a letter published in the DT as follows:

      Dear Sir:

      In your report today “Sir Menzies faces taxing time on two fronts”, you refer to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

      On the home page of the Institute’s website, there is a list of Recent Publications and Research, including the following:

      “While the literature on nonclassical measurement error traditionally relies on the availability of an auxiliary dataset containing correctly measured observations, this paper establishes that the availability of instruments enables the identification of a large class of nonclassical nonlinear errors-in-variables models with continuously distributed variables.”

      I hope the Institute is not asked to advise on simplification of the tax system.

      I am still waiting for a translation!

  68. You’ve never heard of Millie Weaver. She’s a journalist who has been producing a lengthy documentary about Artificial Intelligence, data collection, corruption of the deep state, their attempts to discredit Trump, corruption of the Obama administration, media collusion and fake news.
    Using data collection and algorithms, they can pick a jury to provide a specific result, e.g. the Roger Stone trial with a jury forewoman who was a Democrat activist, who hated Trump and was guaranteed to bring a guilty verdict…

    This documentary was released today by a friend, just after Millie and her husband were arrested.

    Quick summary of the documentary:
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bRJItU0YJ7I

    Full documentary (1hr 22mins)
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ENK5RCW5hug
    Shadowgate.

    Please watch it before it’s removed, as I’m sure it will be.
    Towards the end they talk about the George Floyd riots, that they’re very likely being promoted by deep state actors, including the defund the police movement, to bring in AI policing, the plans for which are already in the pipeline, backed by the UN and Interpol.
    Think: it can’t be reasoned with. It can’t be bargained with. And it absolutely will not stop.
    It will be controlled by algorithms and a massive, massive amount of data, including person data.

    If you thought that the government reaction around the world to CV19 didn’t make sense, maybe this is behind it.

    1. That is seriously scary. I know that sometimes we sound like tin-foil hat wearers but this sort of thing gets a bit close to being the logical conclusion.

      1. You feel western civilisation is sailing between the Scylla and Charybdis of this AI shadow state and Islam. Which one would you prefer to be destroyed by?

        1. Do you think we’ll get a choice? Unless the invaders destroy each other..but the fallout appals me.

          1. No, no choice for us plebs. It all makes one feel entirely helpless. If the two were to destroy each other, it may be best for mankind and the planet generally, if not for us personally. A bit like Noah’s flood making a clean sweep.

    3. I thought that jury selection was a long established art in the US.
      Lawyers, phsychistrists and various investigators screen potential jurors in an attempt to sway the jury towards their client. They are just automating the proces.

      1. But the automation of the jury selection is to ensure a foregone conclusion of those in charge not for the benefit of the client. It would mean for example Tommy Robinson would always be found guilty no matter how much his layer vetted the jury.

      2. The documentary implies that the Jury pool from which the jurors are selected is already biased so no matter how many jurors the defence rejects the remaining jurors will still be biased.

  70. Evening, all. I have cut one of my lawns today. I would have cut both, but the mower was recalcitrant and took a while to fire up. then it spewed grass cuttings everywhere. As sweeping them up and grovelling in the borders to pick them out caused me pain in my arthritic joints, I thought I’d dig out the blower vac, only to find that the bag had disintegrated since I last used it. I thought I could still use it to blow the stuff into a heap, though, so dragged it up to the house. When I went to plug it in, the lead was so short it wouldn’t come anywhere near the lawn! Could I find the extension lead? Of course not, so I ended up having to sweep and weed anyway. To add to my happy mood, next door’s grandchildren were yelling and shrieking in their garden and their two dogs were worked up into a frenzy by it all. I came in and downed a couple of glasses of red as there was no chance of relaxing outside. To add to my bad mood, I forgot to fly the flag for VJ Day and only remembered when it was too late. Bah! Humbug!

    2. What a day. Thank heavens for a soothing glass of red wine. Sunshine and solace a glass at the end of a day.

        1. Perhaps if any news comes through you could pin it at the top of the page so we don’t miss it.

    2. They keep brilliantly if you allow them to grow to full size.

      You can cut off the amount of the thinner end that you need and they then seem to self heal and re-skin the cut. Then next time you wan some you merely cut off the healed bit and enough to eat and they will heal again. Excellent in roasted ratatouille.

  72. The Independent reporting that the government has no current plans to deploy Navy ships in the Channel to stop migrants crossing. The UN Refugee Agency [UN-HCR] and the International Organisation for Migration issued a joint statement said the foreseen deployment of large naval vessels to deter such crossings and block small, flimsy dinghies may result in hurtful and fatal incidents” I don’t think they will be using our aircraft carrier or destroyers for the job. The Channel is full of large ships going in all directions which are dangerous for these flimsy crafts – should we close the Channel to all large ships?
    The MoD now intends to provide more military surveillance aircraft and personnel to assist the Border Force. More waste of taxpayers money. I despair.

    1. The UN has been corrupted by Africans. We should leave the UN Organization. The same applies to its various Agencies such as the World Health Organization.

    2. “…the foreseen deployment of large naval vessels to deter such crossings…may result in hurtful and fatal incidents…”

      We’ll remind them of that when ‘hurtful and fatal incidents’ involving the boat people take place in our cities.

      1. Most of our state of the art Daring Class ships have been alongside since they were launched. One of them has only had six days at sea since 2018. The rest aren’t much better.

        Now our latest Warship HMS Trent £100,000,000, had after trials, had only a few days at sea before being towed back to Gibraltar. WAFJ.

    3. I don’t understand why the French Personnel escorting these dinghies aren’t arrested and charged with trafficking….

      2. Think Vichy and you have the answer. The only half decent thing to come from there was Vichy water.

        The French always were and remain self interested. Many in their political elite retain an innate hatred of the English. The French are one of the most nationalistic of nations.

    4. When will the PM/ Govt/ Home Office/ Border Force take effective action?

      A major tragedy with substantial loss of life – caused by weather or collision in the English Channel – is inevitable …

    1. Dont expect she forgot her claim for disability and mobility benefits along with the rest of the benees. Islam can see that we are a weak and deeply flawed society and an easy target for domination.

      1. 322561+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Kp,
        The islam followers share the same mindset as the lab/lib/con coalition politico hierarchy then ?

    1. Pity the BBC stopped a poem by Kippling from being read. Many were upset by the BBC doing this..

      1. I thought it was the guy who was supposed to be reading the poem who backed out.

        1. He didn’t back out. He refused to read it. Of course, any organisation other than the Bbc would have brought in someone else.

    2. The BBC can still do some things well and this was one of them. Perhaps a touch too woke but still very moving.

      1. White port is a port made in the usual way as tawny or ruby, but from white grapes. It varies on colour from gin-clear to amber.

          1. Try it Jill! Over ice it’s a great aperitif! Did you have good family birthday?

          2. Wonderful, although must confess to not social distancing!! But daughter had knee surgery this week and they had been tested prior to her surgery so we were fine with that.

        2. Setubal was my favourite. I bought it from Oddbins in Cambridge throughout the eighties. From memory you could buy 8 year old or 12 year old differentiated with either orange or blue labels.

    1. We saw all that 2 or 3 days ago. Charlieboy gave a helping hand with the purchase. Meanwhile they are paying off their debt on Frogmore Cottage at a peanuts rate, showing that they take us for fools.

    2. Got to say Minty, I’m ecstatic….! Just as long as I never have to see that horrible woman ever again!

    3. Ellen Degenerate lives nearby. Meghan can go round for coffee mornings and they can both bitch about how stupid men are.

        1. Oprah ””you can’t clean your bottom properly with toilet tissue’ Winfrey and Gwyneth ‘i’m off my rocker ‘Paltrow. Those two?

          5. Bzzzzz with a menthol douche is a preferred method.

            So i am told……………………….

    8. To be honest I would rather be stuck up a rockie (mountain) than live near LA.

      Especially now that couple have lowered the tone of the area.

      1. The area looks very nice! I’ve googled it and toured the roads under the California sunshine! Mind you when the brush fires come over those hills in the Winter it might look very different!

        1. I have worked in Santa Barbara which is just down the road and it is a nice area – during the week.

          Brush fires, electricity blackouts at the moment, water shortages all make for the California experience.

          1. I have wondered about the water supplies to these houses, they being built on what are in effect hills. Do they tanker it in?

          2. Unlikely to have tankers bringing water in except during a drought. Nearby Santa Barbara has a utility that uses a series of reservoirs to deliver water to the city, I bet the push end of town has a pipeline or three (doesn’t the dreaded couples house have something like nine bathrooms, you don’t do that when water is delivered.
            Thet maybe have wells but that is another problem with CA, the inland farms depend on Wells to irrigate their crops and they have been sucking the aquifer dry recently.

          3. I have wondered about the water supplies to these houses, they being built on what are in effect hills. Do they tanker it in?

        2. Over manicured for my taste. Just like the plastic people that live there.

          Ellen paid $27,000,000 for her overextended bungalow. Obviously she is paid far too much. Queen of woke insincerity.

          1. On those rare occasions that I have met them Phizzee the Rich have always struck me as slightly odd!

          2. I prefer the Aristocracy to the Rich. They are also odd but they tend to like this country.

            Take Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath. As eccentric as one could be. No wonder his family pulled the plug.

          11. How do you feel about polygamy? You can do the cooking and cleaning while Garlands tends the goats.

          16. Yup. I recall some Scottish aristocrat was descended from a chap who hauled a cannon across a field to be rewarded with the gift of a hundred thousand acres of Scotland.

            Edit: I got your bath plug joke by the way.

          17. Yup. I recall some Scottish aristocrat was descended from a chap who hauled a cannon across a field to be rewarded with the gift of a hundred thousand acres of Scotland.

            Edit: I got your bath plug joke by the way.

          18. Didn’t the Westminsters get their money by locking one poor woman in Bedlam for twenty years?

          20. Yes I recently saw a movie about the Kidnapping of Getty’s son, in the seventies I think it was. It brought out their rather strange world view. From my own experience they seem to be more possessed by their money than possessing. They whittle about the smallest amounts!

    9. What, not down-town wiv the bros and sisters. Anyway, It will be a great ivory tower from which to lecture the rest of us, gawd help..

    10. As usual, we have rich, wealthy, arrogant young kids living off someone else’s money, isolated from the realities of life for millions while they pontificate from on high about how those people should live.

      The idea of this preachy, spoiled woman whinging about how we should save the planet by paying more tax to a couple working three jobs between them in a cramped council flat is repugnant.

    11. She (Meghan) is quoted as saying that she is glad to be back in her home country. And yet when she left the UK with her husband and son she declared that she was going to Canada because she would never ever return to the USA until Trump was no longer President. When the US virus lockdown was about to be imposed she rapidly changed her mind.

  79. 322561+ up ticks,
    The biggest treacherous ripoff that will never ever be topped, some still bare witness,

    Veteran on VJ Day: ‘We Were Fighting for the Globe, for Peace and Democracy’

      1. I’m not a fan either but the blame for this fiasco lies with the ringmaster and his advisers. At least Boris seems prepared to accept responsibility for his actions and the incompetence of his ministers

  81. 322561+ up ricks,

    Now showing on 81,
    PQ17 was that the one where they painted the ships white after scattering and entering the iceflow, this should be shown in Uni’s daily

    1. The PQ17 convoy consisted of 36 ships mostly American. They were carrying 594 tanks, 4246 vehicles, 297 aircraft and over 150000 tonnes of equipment and stores. The convoy left Iceland on 27 June 1942. The British knew that the Germans planned a major effort against the convoy codenamed Rosselsprung – “Knight’s Move”. The Admiralty assumed operational direction of PQ17 and its supporting units because it had access to the latest Ultra intelligence. On 3 July the Admiralty, believing the large German ships were at sea ordered the convoy’s cruiser screen to leave the convoy and sail west towards the German Capital ships.on the evening of 4 July a disbelieving Captain Broome commanding the close escort received a signal from London “Secret and immediate . Owing to threat from surface ships convoy is to disperse and proceed to Russian ports.” Minutes later a brief signal confirmed ” Convoy is to scatter” The convoy was left to fend for itself. 24 of the Merchantmen were sunk and 153 crew were killed. The RN had no casualties. The shame of the Royal Navy was plain to behold. The Tirpitz did sortie briefly on 6 July but was ordered to return to Norway. I don’t know if the convoy ships were painted white but if they were I suspect they would have been painted before they set off.

      1. 322561+ up ticks,
        Evening C,
        I had heard about it some time back but this account showed them as stationary in thick ice
        then painted the ships white to blend in.

  82. Thankyou Nottlers, for your good wishes for my birthday, yesterday. Our daughter and family arrived and number 2 grandson cooked the most amazing dinner for all of us, individual beef wellingtons from scratch (apart from frozen puff pastry) after buying all the ingredients himself. It was a pleasure to watch him!! And no, he is not training to be a chef, his main love is cars and is currently training to be a specialist mechanic, cooking is his hobby.

    1. A belated happy birthday to you, Jill !

      i hope the beef wellingtons were well tuned and greased …

    4. Specialist mechanic – as in he only works on Porsches, Audis, Jags, and the like – plus his boss’s racing cars. Not bad for a 19 year old.

    10. Wonderful. Belated Happy Birthday to you. Glad you had a nice time.

      A grease monkey and a dough puncher. Unusual combo.

    11. Snap! Firstborn exactly the same! Is now a specialist technician, works with diagnostics at a garage deals in Opel & Nissan.

  85. Smithsonian Channel
    Okinawa episode,50,000 allied casualties,100,000 Japanese military dead,100,000 civilian dead
    Estimate for invasion of the Home Islands upgraded to 1,000,000 allied casualties,untold Japanese casualties
    We’ve already had the Tokyo raids 120,000 dead with no sign of surrender 67 more fire raids killing 500,000 no sign of surrender,tell me again Atomic arms were an atrocity………..

    1. I was a small child when my father and my uncles were demobbed. I remember my father telling me that had the bombs not been dropped, they would all have been sent to the Pacific to help the Americans.

      Iwo Jima was indicative of what might happen – the Japanese troops refused to surrender even when faced with American troops at close range, so out of 18,000 Japanese troops 200 or so were alive at the end. A similar invasion of the home islands would have all but eliminated the Japanese as a people – like Iwo, they would never have surrendered.

      1. There were also plans for all the Allied POWs to be killed should Japan be invaded. It wouldn’t have been a bluff.

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