Saturday 2 September: Political posturing by RSPB leaders will alienate its members and staff

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

382 thoughts on “Saturday 2 September: Political posturing by RSPB leaders will alienate its members and staff”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Tell Its Age
    A guy walks into a bar and tells the bartender, “Hey, I want a shot of 15 year old scotch, and don’t give me any of that cheap shit either, because I can tell the difference.”

    The bartender decides to test him and pours a shot of three-year-old scotch. The guy drinks it and says, “I told you I wanted fifteen-year-old scotch, not this three-year-old stuff. Try again.”

    Amazed, the bartended pours the fifteen-year-old scotch. The guy drinks his shot and says, “That’s what I wanted, thank you!”

    A drunk at the end of the bar, who was intrigued by the guy’s knowledge, walks up and gives the guy a drink. The guy takes a sip and spits it out exclaiming, “That tastes like piss!”

    The drunk replies, “Any dumb-ass would know that. I want you to tell me how old I am!”

  4. Good morning all.
    A dull start with a very low overcast and 11°C outside.

    £50 off ERNIE for me today and £100 for the DT.

    1. I take it you won £50 on the PBs – congratulations. Mines a pint.

      Is there a DT lottery type too? The only competitions I see on its pages are usually to win holidays.

      1. When I refer to the DT I mean the Dearly Tolerant who has tolerated me for the past 37y.

  5. Secretive Covid disinformation unit worked with security services. 2 September 2023.

    A government unit accused of seeking to suppress free speech during the pandemic worked with Britain’s intelligence agencies, senior civil servants have confirmed.

    Documents submitted to the Covid inquiry and marked “official sensitive” reveal that the “UK intelligence community” has been involved in the Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) since it was founded in 2019.

    The unit was set up by ministers to tackle disinformation – false information that is deliberately spread – and initially focused on foreign interference in the European elections.

    However, in 2020 it turned its attention to the pandemic and collected social media posts by members of the British public.

    This would mean by trolls countering the legitimate views of the population. At present you can see this most obviously on public threads in relation to anything to do with the Ukraine War. The Spectator has a dedicated team for this purpose.

    The full article is worth reading for the insight it gives into the nature of the CDU. Despite its claims, it is essentially a political organisation dedicated to promoting its views and dissing anything that opposes them. This is of course all redolent of any Police State. The denial that Dossiers on offenders are kept is almost certainly false. I’ve seen my own posting history put up that would be beyond the reach of memory.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/01/secretive-covid-disinformation-unit-security-services/

      1. Indeed. I always have to remember when I see mis/disinformation in the mainstream media that they are not talking about the garbage spewed by government.

      2. Indications are that the government will attempt to re-enact the 2020 scenario but with ‘safe and effective’ medications immediately available this time round.

        Yesterday I received a text from my medical practice reminding me to book my early flu jab: this after last week’s appointment when I told the asthma nurse that I was not interested in the flu or any other injectable that they may have to offer, now or in the future.

        1. I ignored a text from the surgery about flu jabs.
          As I ignore all the others.
          Next up, the clot shot.

      1. Me too Anne. I always assume that GCHQ is recording and reading everything that I type into this computer.

  6. I mentioned yesterday that shopping lists were replacing Triumph Heralds et al on the Letters Page. Today’s offerings:-

    List of Christmas past
    SIR – Always throw away old lists (Letters, September 1).

    I once came home with items from a short supplementary Christmas list in June.

    Adrian Talbot
    St Jean du Gard, Gard, France

    SIR – The husband of my aunt’s neighbour once returned from shopping with a massive bag of mushrooms, having mistaken his wife’s request for 1oz mushrooms on a list for 102.

    Robert Cox
    Gillingham, Kent

    SIR – I put “loo rolls” on the shopping list. My husband phoned from Sainsbury’s wanting to know if he should get 100 assorted bread rolls or if they all had to be the same.

    Lynda Cox
    Southampton

    SIR – My daughter makes a lot of lists, but one thing she has taught me is that when I make a list I should start off with several things I’ve already done. Ticking them off makes me feel so much better.

    Charles Pugh
    London SW10

    SIR – Many years ago, my husband regularly got an earful when he arrived home with too many bananas, which then went to waste. I continued to harangue my poor husband until a wise friend asked me whether I really wanted to end my marriage over a bunch of bananas.

    I am happy to say that we have just celebrated our 44th anniversary.

    Clare Byam-Cook
    London SW15

    SIR – My wife and I have separate lists and, once in the supermarket, go about our business. I draw up my list on a grid so that items in each section correspond to their approximate location in the store.

    There are at least two advantages to this. One is that, as I reach each aisle, I only need to refer to a small section of my list. The other is that, as I am often unable to decipher my own writing, by knowing I am in the correct area I might be able to decode my words.

    Keith Macpherson
    Clevedon, Somerset

    1. Charles Pugh has it all wrong! The first item on your list should be “Write list.” Then you can tick it off without cheating!

  7. A multi-sig letter that appears to meet with BTL approval:-

    Pronouns in the press
    SIR – In your report (August 31) on the sentencing hearing of the convicted paedophile Dominic Carter, you initially called him “she”. We note the reference to “she” was removed from a later version of this story, following hundreds of disapproving comments by your readers.

    It is frankly disgraceful that it was ever allowed. The crime was committed by a man, not a woman. The use of she to refer to this man is incredibly offensive to women, and illustrates the problem of accepting that anyone can be any sex they feel they are.

    Crucial debates on policy have gone unreported as newspapers and other media failed to address these issues for fear of causing offence and of incurring the wrath of activist lobby groups or even regulators.

    Referring to this man, and other male criminals, as women both demeans women and gives credence to the delusion that applying pink nail varnish and a headband makes one a woman.

    Your readers deserve better. Journalists must report the truth, without fear or favour.

    Baroness Deech KC (Crossbench)
    Lord Sandhurst KC (Con)
    Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
    Baroness Thornhill (Lib Dem)

    Plus another 20 signatories.

      2. Ought it to be bravi, the plural form for all male or mixed male and female? Bravi a tutti, for example, means well done everyone.

  8. And a two sig. MRD contestant that gets torn to shreads BTL:-

    SIR – It is clearly laid out within regulations that campaigning and political activity are legitimate and valuable activities for charities to undertake, and it is a legal requirement that political campaigning or political activity must be undertaken by a charity only in the context of supporting the delivery of its charitable purposes.

    Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, claims that charities campaigning on refugee and migration issues are acting against the interests of the British public, are “masquerading as humanitarians” (report, August 24), and are part of a “multitude of forces” that wish to thwart government policy. These claims are insulting to the committed professionals and volunteers in our sector, and suggest an intention to encroach on and limit the sector’s legally defined rights and legitimate role in public discourse.

    Robust public discourse is a marker of a healthy, effective and vibrant body politic, and the expertise, insight and integrity that charities bring should be valued as part of effective public policy making in a democratic society.

    It is unfortunate that the Home Secretary has chosen instead to focus on a narrative that fosters a hostile climate and actively seeks to undermine public trust in charities going about their legitimate and essential business.

    Jane Ide
    CEO, Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations
    Sarah Vibert
    CEO, National Council of Volunteer Organisations

    1. It is unfortunate that the Home Secretary has chosen instead to focus on a narrative that fosters a hostile climate and actively seeks to undermine public trust in charities going about their legitimate and essential business.

      It is not the business of Charities to meddle in politics. Morning Bob.

  9. Swedish lawmakers to boycott Nobel ceremony following Russia invitation – as it happened. 2 September 2023.

    Several Swedish lawmakers said Friday they will boycott this year’s Nobel Prize ceremonies after the private foundation that administers the prestigious awards changed its policy and invited Russia, Belarus and Iran who had previously been barred from attending.

    The Nobel Foundation said that invitations for the 2023 events were extended to all countries with diplomatic missions in Sweden and Norway as that “promotes opportunities to convey the important messages of the Nobel Prize to everyone.”

    I’m afraid I fell out of love with the Nobel Committee when it awarded Obama the Peace Prize without him actually yet even being President!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/sep/01/russia-ukraine-war-live-updates-moscow-stages-elections-ukraine

    1. Torbjørn Jagland, failed Labour prime minister of Norway, was the committee chairman for that piece of arselikhan. The man is obsessed with everything Merkin, and pushed it through. Did a lot of damage to the Nobel Piss prize, to the extent that nobody I know can be bothered to give a shit any more.

  10. Morning all,

    Just used my WiFi app to scan the number of locals gridlocking the 2.4GHz WiFi band.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c6729c5a352942fb236ec3dcc570aacd36273d6371c4b4b20e51cddf6b5c9f9.jpg

    It’s all very well having a fibre connection that allows a download speed of over 400 Mbps but WiFi congestion on the final radio link on the congested radio spectrum is like terminating a high speed motorway in the centre of town with both a ULEZ and Congestion charge.

    1. WiFi Channels (Techie Warning)
      Angie, this is almost certainly preaching to the choir, but if you are using Wi-Fi analysing software you must be aware that most modern Wi-Fi hubs* can operate on any of 11 different channels on the 2.4 GHz band. Intel (manufacturer of most Computer CPUs) recommend using channels 1, 6 or 11 (link: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000058989/wireless/intel-killer-wi-fi-products.html ). There’s useful stuff here for the technically-minded).

      I guess most people don’t know that, like choosing which radio channel to listen to, you can choose which WiFi channel your hub is using.

      More than ten years ago my neighbours were all buying BTinternet WiFi routers (the only show in town) and the local Wi-Fi environment got very cluttered, so I changed Wi-Fi channels on my own router to escape.

      Nowadays, most modern routers can also operate on the 5 GHz Band, so if your other equipment will stand it, that’s a good idea. I discovered that my new domestic CCTV cameras only operate on 2.4 GHz so I had to downgrade again.

      *Yes, I know the difference between Modems, Routers and Terminal Connection Units. In 1994-1999 I was managing a Wide Area Network of 18 Cisco Routers distributed all over East Kent for the NHS. Nowadays everyone seems to call the units in their homes ” hubs”.

      1. Many years ago the river adjacent to my office was frozen over and I watched as two geese came into land in a similar fashion to the Loon. I’m still not sure if geese can express surprise on their faces.

  12. ‘Morning, Peeps. Dry, warm and sunny day is due, just right for dog walk along the prom followed by some leisurely gardening and coffee with friends. Am making the most of it now that we are in Autumn (not)…

    Chilling headline in the DT:

    “Property owners who don’t comply with new energy rules may face prison

    Ministers want to grant powers to create new criminal offences and increase penalties as part of efforts to hit net zero targets”

    Presumably this was the work of Shatts the Rat before he was moved on to yet another cabinet job – and one where he can do even more damage. What a nasty little non-Tory prat he is. If Not Zero was such a good idea people would support it. It is, of course, anything but. A bit like EVs and all the other carp.

  13. I changed to Boots online Pharmacy because my Pharmacist kept swapping my meds for cheaper generics. I have now run out of Ramipril because the schmucks use Royal Mail. It took over 3 weeks to deliver my previous order.

    1. I’m not a fan, but DT knows who all the crooks are and that’s the only reason the ‘They’ want him locked up.
      I hope he wins through.

    2. But the whole point of the WEF is to destroy the Western world. Anyone who might try and save it must be stopped by fair means or – preferably – foul.

      1. One of my favourite tunes of that era. It is smoothness, flares and dancefloor seduction at its best.

  19. A question for Grizz (or anyone else who has had letters published):

    I thought about writing a letter to the DT and saw that they ask for address, ‘phone number, work number etc. Do they contact you before publishing your letter?

    1. No. They haven’t published any of mine since I was shadow-banned in the comments sections.

    2. Not at all. I was once emailed by Christopher Howse, when he kindly explained why he was not going to publish a particular letter of mine. When I send a comment I place my full name, followed by my full address, followed by my telephone number, followed by my email address. They tend not to like it in any other configuration.

      1. Thanks Grizz. Next time I feel like I have something to add to the debate, I’ll write in.

    3. David Twyston Davies once phoned me asking me to lengthen a letter. But that’s nothing – a friend of mine had two letters published on the same day.

    4. They usually send an e-mail by return to show that they have received your letter. After that you have to wait and see if it will appear.

      As Grizzly will confirm, the DT letters editors sometimes take liberties and mess about something rotten with with what you have written.

      1. Most of the letters I send to the DT are things I have put up here. Gone are the days when my letters were frequently published in the DT.

        Here is an example.

        ** ***** *****,
        ** *****,
        ********,
        France

        Tel: 00 33 (0)**** **********

        Sir,

        Mr Grant Shapps has just been appointed to replace Mr Ben Wallace as defence secretary but In political terms Mr Rishi Sunak’s ministerial appointments are now irrelevant.

        Even with a new dynamic, conservative Conservative party leader the Conservatives will still lose the next election but at least if they have a new leader now they will be able to start rebuilding now; come the election, if Mr Sunak is still leader, the party will not just be eliminated it will have reached a point where it will be dead beyond all future resuscitation.

        In the country’s interest Mr Sunak must resign now: and if he fails to do so then he must be removed from office by his own party. There is no time to waste.

        Rastus C Tastey *

        Having said that they do not like pseudonyms

      2. Most of the letters I send to the DT are things I have put up here. Gone are the days when my letters were frequently published in the DT.

        Here is an example.

        Le Grand Osier,
        St Hélen,
        22100 Dinan,
        France

        Tel: 00 33 (0)296 833779

        Sir,

        Mr Grant Shapps has just been appointed to replace Mr Ben Wallace as defence secretary but In political terms Mr Rishi Sunak’s ministerial appointments are now irrelevant.

        Even with a new dynamic, conservative Conservative party leader the Conservatives will still lose the next election but at least if they have a new leader now they will be able to start rebuilding now; come the election, if Mr Sunak is still leader, the party will not just be eliminated it will have reached a point where it will be dead beyond all future resuscitation.

        In the country’s interest Mr Sunak must resign now: and if he fails to do so then he must be removed from office by his own party. There is no time to waste.

        Richard Tracey

  20. Good morning all,

    Slightly misty start here in Wolfscastle, Pembrokeshire. Wind in the Nor-‘East going North, 15C rising to 20C. It’s going to be a lovely day again, just like yesterday.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bb55ee5d91673096ce9edb7cb055241b174c54ded1bdb1b64a9627f55bf587b1.jpg

    Pwll Deri on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, just round the corner from Strumble Head. Ramsey Island off St David’s Head in the distance.

    Sadly we have to set off home to McPhee Towers today.

    1. Looks nice!
      Here’s a couple of my week away last month:-
      Hythe Beach:-
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/df167e5ce86bbf15c215e99d9d158d6f0f76d5bfde0047f3d6177a269367af9f.jpg

      A couple of views of Dungeness:-
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ac9ee92382df6bfaa232b3a99c93b808af23cbf34fd0e96ddb174723f41e07ef.jpg

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ac9ee92382df6bfaa232b3a99c93b808af23cbf34fd0e96ddb174723f41e07ef.jpg

      Evening at Pevensey Bay:-
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0e530a01bfd2ce20c2767922d10af5f79d9f6c15c604cc0fba8fd70057147de8.jpg

      Beachey Head on a VERY dull, wet day:-
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/25df32d8c1d9bb01b9451f067cb6ddb00e7e11b2a177147f3ae55444ba69b72f.jpg

      The next morning after the rain stopped:-
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1c4414e6496d091f181fea7301bc9ff1c3d9e40d776242a7c1b89a0345fad00d.jpg

      1. Been there. I love Beachy Head. Here’s another couple from Pembrokeshire yesterday.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0c866fc344f04a095e5083f482e00ae0e2bdb46abc0edc83ce086666f63ba58f.jpg

        Ramsey Island from Newgale Beach looking West. Green Scar to the right in the foreground.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0191ba4678bb39f92d0147477e181c18cb04212fbd71d014eb7606e26b7e3cfc.jpg

        Newgale Beach at low tide looking South towards Broad Haven and Little Haven.

      2. Been there. I love Beachy Head. Here’s another couple from Pembrokeshire yesterday.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0c866fc344f04a095e5083f482e00ae0e2bdb46abc0edc83ce086666f63ba58f.jpg

        Ramsey Island from Newgale Beach looking West. Green Scar to the right in the foreground.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0191ba4678bb39f92d0147477e181c18cb04212fbd71d014eb7606e26b7e3cfc.jpg

        Newgale Beach at low tide looking South towards Broad Haven and Little Haven.

      3. Did my OPTAG training there before deploying to Afgaf. Many days spent on the ranges at Hythe and Lidd

    2. Last job I worked in the UK was down that way – LNG storage & regasification plant at South Hook. Stands out in my mind as one of the best contracts ever. Client valued our services and spent time creating a team, we had a great gang from Aberdeen, and Cient was so impressed he was happy for us to bring a trainee from Norway to do some on-the-job training – mostly at Client’s expense (mind you, trainee was something special, so it was an easy decision)

    3. There was a murder on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path a few years ago. Maybe you’ve had a lucky escape 🙂

  22. Morning all 🙂😊
    Not much sun about yet 😉
    But in the coming week 🎶 We’re having a heat wave a tropical heat wave 🎶 and no rain forecast for a week…….rivers drying up ?
    Hose pipe ban ? Hottest day ever in September ? The ‘plot thickens’.
    And political posturing is what is slowley but surely killing our country as we all knew it.
    In a discussion with our youngest son over a late dinner last evening it seems that at just a little over thirty years he and his lady could be joing her sister in Dubai. As we all know a wonderful example of net zero at work.
    Air con, desalination. Etc.
    But even though they both have good jobs they are feeling the strain of home ownership.
    They’ll only be doing what my wife and I did in 1976, emigrating to Australia.

  23. 12ft.io Not Working?
    Has anybody else who uses 12ft.io to bypass the Telegraph’s paywall noticed that they (the Graff) have managed to defeat it now?

    2. Yes, I noticed that yesterday. It still seems to work for The Times, so maybe the DT have blocked it.

    4. Odd how people who probably despise shoplifting and petty theft are happy to use such things.

      I plead guilty as charged, although I plead mitigation because I tend to be following posted links which use it.

    4. Happy clappy arty farty head in the clouds limp wristed airy fairy poofters…to quote Sir Les Patterson

      Edit – I left out ‘limp wristed’

    6. It isn’t actually. What you don’t see are the millions of normal, well-adjusted men and women who are just quietly going about their daily lives, maybe noting the insanity, and biding their time.

    1. Not really a larfing matter; a large (admittedly provincial) police service was unable to organise the removal of a motor vehicle to the verge.

      1. Apparently, with traction battery empty, the brakes are automatically applied and can’t be released, so shifting the car would be difficult without a big truck to drag it along.

  26. Disturbing report on what is going on after the firestorm on Maui. The damaged area is being hidden behind a 6 feet high ‘dust screen’, drones are banned from overflying the area, people/journalists are being moved on by police/national guard and strange ‘security’ vehicles and personnel have appeared on the island.
    Oh, and by the way, the numbers of dead and missing, including many children, don’t add up.

    Redacted – Strange Goings-On in Maui

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/97d84e7cd153bd60926735ed7a6952078ebdd38f84fa2cd129db8303262fcb05.png

    3. Undiscovered human remains, public health risk and possibly a crime scene. Sadly I would surmise that most of the inhabitants of Lahaina were well to the left of the curve, if not completely SEN.

  27. ‘Morning All

    Start with cats and dogs

    https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/146/853/769/original/8da8cdbf2f862f00.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0fc1cb609d9d6f666970b70252f4bae147ce16c2d1128728633b45b0e4cdf38c.gif

    Rest

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dc2c3e74f18be4e096ebfed6810568797f2202f7ef37d450e88eff0330ee83f6.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/873defdc506aa1b0d7c5ab5191b8bb38d6275a9b778e379f0cf0b8efa0d27cd0.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cc1cc46e185b656898e0afc207efb83739872cebf6d89f63d5fb6596a3a75f0a.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d032ff7b1c991fb3e565baa30ac0d2e14a9aec9cdde9b67009df1136845e371d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/35b5a1176f506a16f8a3c02af9f4818e5978246e9789962ea6f2e3b5ea27c468.jpg

        1. Yes, thanks. Trip to the vet for cleaning of the bite, injection with antibiotic, and home pretty quickly with a week’s supply of antibiotics. The limp has gone, and he’s outside patrolling, as is his wont.
          I might have found a successful way of administering antibiotic pills, too. Crush, and stir into his cat biscuits, and they get eaten – and I keep my fingers.

          1. We had to give our cat Chaucer pills from time to time but never once did he bite us even when our fingers were in his mouth.

            The one time he scratched Caroline was when we tried to take him to a vet he did not want to visit – he was very frightened and scratched Caroline severely as soon as we approached the vet’s surgery; this was clearly due to the smell of the place which terrified him so we had to find another vet.

            We did find another vet whom both our animals, Chaucer and Rumpole, loved and we never again had any trouble taking them to visit him and they did not object to him messing them about. His surgery obviously did not stink of fear which was undoubtedly the problem with the first vet’s place we visited.

          2. Cats are very sensitive creatures – ours have rarely had to visit the vet, but we’ve generally seen a female vet, and they have all been very kind and the cats quite relaxed.

  28. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/01/bma-doctors-union-admits-targeting-conservative-conference/
    We are targeting Tory conference, admits doctors’ union
    British Medical Association calls on those striking to join rally outside Conservative gathering in Manchester on Oct 3

    Dr Vivek Trivedi, the co-chairman of the BMA’s junior doctor committee, told Sky News: “We would be striking against whichever government was in power. We are currently in the position where the Conservatives are in power, so we’re striking on their doorstep.

    “Any government, the Conservatives or another, it’s not them that’s a roadblock to ending the dispute, it’s a credible offer.”

    Junior doctors have demanded a 35 per cent pay rise and consultants, who are in the top two per cent of earners, claim their incomes have fallen by 35 per cent in real terms over 15 years.

    Don’t like the pay – go work somewhere else.

    1. “Don’t like the pay – go work somewhere else’

      Unfortunately, that’s what they’re doing and we end up with the doctors who come here because the pay is better than in their countries.

    2. “Don’t like the pay – go work somewhere else’

      Unfortunately, that’s what they’re doing and we end up with the doctors who come here because the pay is better in their countries.

      1. Moaning, Stormy.
        Overslept.
        Didn’t know a thing until MB shimmered in with a mug of rocket fuel at about 8.30.

        1. When that happens it’s plain to see that you needed the sleep. How lovely to have been in such a deep sleep the normal morning ‘s routines didn’t disturb you

  31. I watched a Story ville documentary yesterday evening about the inevitable takeover of humans by AI.

    The main contributor was a Jurgen Schmidtgruber. Now there’s a comedy German name if ever I heard one.

  32. Bladerunners

    I’ve got a nasty suspicion that the punishments will be draconian when they catch some of these guys,domestic terror legislation??

    TPTB really really don’t like having the mickey taken out of them

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d1660181d47372c7de2e4ad0dd5366fdfac214e783352e720d0a57d57403bf56.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a0a6333fbda633917da355aed97014cbd111d32d4e60ec1e8c72f139f4a39599.jpg

    https://twitter.com/Risemelbourne/status/1697820308273787152?s=20
    https://twitter.com/jakecross1977/status/1697845689974128697

    1. Yes, that worries me too. If there’s a crowd-funder, will they play the same dirty tricks as the Canadian govt did last year?

        1. There is no danger of me driving to London. If enough people simply don’t pay the charge, the courts would be swamped.
          If there’s a crowd funder for campaigning against it, I’d certainly donate.

    1. EDF now insist that I submit a meter reading every month instead of just March and September. Punishment for declining their Big Brother device. No matter. I’ll submit the readings.

      1. Same as, a monthly admission of guilt.
        We had a water bill today with accusations that we two of us are using too much water. We don’t waste any and anything else in our lives, or have any leaks.
        I know what their game is, in our area there are plans to build 15 thousand new homes. I think our useless government should come up with a different slogan than Net Zero.
        They don’t have a clue what they are doing or trying to achieve. The targets they have set are absolutely impossible.

      1. There was a statue of himself in a kilt and all the gear in his restaurant at the Falls of Shin in Sutherland, you often saw small boys lifting his kilt up. He owned an estate up there.

        1. He was one dodgy geezer who made Arthur Daley look saintly. In denying him and his brother British passports we actually got something right for once.

  37. Antoinette Sandbach’s relatives owned slaves – and so did mine. We have to atone for that as best we can. 2 September 2023.

    Sandbach, a former Tory MP, has threatened to sue Cambridge University over the work of the historian Malik Al Nasir, who has named her in his research on British enslavement in what is now Guyana, where he has heritage. Sandbach has said she is appalled by the actions of her ancestors, and that she is supportive of Al Nasir’s work – but there is no public interest in identifying her as a descendent of Samuel Sandbach, who died in 1851. This is about a right to privacy, she contends – the right not to be held publicly accountable for acts in which she played no part.

    Sandbach’s complaint is a symptom of a national affliction. Britain is viciously in conflict with its colonial history. We are pathologically unable to come to terms with the less comfortable aspects of the past – such as the crime against humanity that was the enslavement of more than three million Africans and their descendants, and the centuries-long looting of Asian and African nations. Even if these histories are accepted – and that is not happening – we cannot reach any consensus on how, or whether, to address their continuing consequences. Other nations have done better.

    I must be an oddity. I feel no angst whatsoever about the Atlantic Slave Trade. This is not simply because I am unaware of any historical guilt my ancestors may have acquired during their existence but because the very idea is ludicrous. No one alive today is responsible for anything that happened in the past. If this were so the entire population of the Earth would be labouring under oceans of remorse. Leaving aside the extermination of the Neanderthals the Italians would owe a fortune for the depredations of the Roman legions that dwarf anything that took place in the Sixteenth Century and The Syrians would be up for the War Crimes that Sennacherib committed in the Sixth Century BC. Such a process is of course beyond reason. In its way this neurotic revelling in guilt is as repellent as glorying in the deeds themselves.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/01/antoinette-sandbach-relatives-slaves-ancestors

    1. If Alex Renton feels guilt about his ancestors’ involvement in the slave trade, then he can expunge his guilt by paying large amounts of his own money to West Indian governments or individuals. Even if my ancestors were involved in the trade (and I have no knowledge of that), I would feel no guilt about something which happened hundreds of years before I was born. My response to Alex Renton would be, to quote Sam Goldwyn (allegedly), “Include me out”.

    2. Chances are that had the slaves not been enslaved in N & S America they would have been left as slaves in Africa or killed and none of them would have descendants.
      If anything, the descendants of slaves should be paying us.

      1. My argument, too. Negative reparations, for all the civilisation they had, as opposed to the shiteholes in Africa.

      1. I feel no guilt either – a considerable number of Royal Navy personnel died opposing the slave trade, which operations cost Britain a fortune. Any debt well and truly paid, and then some – perhaps the descendants of the slaves saved should pay us?

    4. She was two faced as an MP. She pretended to be a leaver (Eddisbury voted majority leave) but did everything she could to overturn the result and keep us in. She jumped ship to the LDs at the next election (and lost).

    1. If I thought that there was any chance of getting Vlad in as Prime Minister of the UK I would pay his air fare myself!

    2. It’s fashionable to pretend that Vladimir Putin admires Joseph Stalin but that’s nonsense. David Starkey is, I think, much closer to the mark when he states that Putin’s heroes are Peter I and Catherine II. Peter and Catherine were ruthless autocrats but they weren’t the bad guys. Catherine especially was right to end the Crimean Khanate and Vlad must not relinquish Crimea.

    3. Swine are wonderful animals – clean, intelligent, tasty.
      You mean cockroaches. They infest, are dirty, horrible, and vile. Much more appropriate.

  39. What with the hospital strikes, the train strikes, the airport chaos, the schools and other public buildings set to close, the war on motorists and now reports of the return of covid
    Are we having lockdown imposed by stealth?
    Are the powers that be trying to put the public off returning to the old pre-pandemic way of life?

  40. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6ede597e59aaeaa3184a0a9d62001ea6a44b1d24c96375e9163de8dd838ff5da.png In the review of this bitch’s book, in today’s Daily Telegraph, it reveals that the author has castigated individuals in government, as well as various collectives, for ‘abusing’ their power. Strangely she does not criticise her own behaviour when she held high governmental office.

    Anyone I find buying this book will be visited by me and soundly thrashed with a leopard-skin low heeled shoe!

    3. Surely a more accurate title would be “My knack of going missing when the shit hit the fan”.

    4. Most PMs are just incompetent – Blair was evil; May was evil but incompetent with it.

      The rumours of her father’s accidental car crash and his involvement with paedophilia have not gone away.

      Most rumours are just rumours – but recently rather a lot of them have turned out to be true.

    2. Who allowed that little git power over the area inside the whole of the M25 ?
      It’s not London.
      Keep up the good work wreckers.

  44. “”Eye-watering” sums of money are being spent on mitigating the risks of aerated concrete in hospitals, the chair of the public accounts committee says”

    I suppose the Government could halt HS2 in its tracks, redeploying both the construction industry and the funds to solve this new problem?

  45. The worlds changing – we must get off our bums and do something about it!

    …in the words of a seasoned Australian car driver who takes the 2022 Hyundai 64kW Kona for a long drive to assess its road performance, drivability, comfort and practicality as EV range anxiety becomes a thing of the past with increasing charging infrastructure in his country.

    This is a thorough presentation and thus is quite long but it is one of the best produced reviews I’ve seen of the capability of this vehicle. He has some amusing remarks on other drivers’ behaviour with appropriate classifications.

    I have yet to explore the full features of my own UK Kona Ultimate which has the same features:

    https://youtu.be/P75lkeFiBII?si=ecScembRfWDHZ0Lm

    2. I have some friends in Canada and they are not happy. Trudue is obviously another idiot planted and controlled by the ‘THEY’.

        2. Promises of free stuff, bought media (you think the BBC is bad) , an ineffective opposition leader and the Liberals divisive election campaigns helped Trudeau retain power.

          It is several years until the next election and short of rebellion, there is no way to dislodge Trudeau from power. MPs might complain in private but there seems to be no one ready to risk the vengeance of Trudeau. Not that there are any Liberal MPsworth promoting, most of the cabinet have been involved in some scandal or another.

          What escapes me is why the Liberal power brokers behind the throne are not working to get him removed from office, most polls nowadays show him as a liability rather than an asset to the brand.

          There are still idiots though that believe in his sunny ways, they believe the lies told about the Tories and their hidden agendas.

          1. Send the Clintons an anonymous email that he’s got the dirt and is about to publish.

            Voila, no Trudeau.

  47. I’m going to love and leave y’all for the next few days, so behave yourselves!! I shall enjoy being away from all the news media et al!! but I will miss all of you here.

  48. Militant trans activists are doomed, but the battle is still far from over. 2 September 2023.

    I think I know how the militant trans campaign is going to end. In a couple of years’ time, a considerable number of those who opted for irreversible mutilation and sterilisation at a point in their lives when they were confused and anxious about sexuality (as is very common around puberty), will be appalled at the life-changing interventions they accepted on the advice of those they regarded as experts.

    In the United States, which is the pace-setter in these things, they will go public with their outrage and – in the great American legal tradition – they will bring a class action which will be joined by thousands of others who feel similarly aggrieved, against the clinicians and professional advisors who carried out these procedures.

    Their stories and the accounts of how they became convinced that this course of action would bring them personal fulfilment will have tumultuous implications in American medical history. Millions, if not billions, of dollars in damages will be paid out to those deemed to be victims of this extraordinary movement. Many medical careers will be destroyed and no clinician in his right mind will consider venturing into the accursed field again. And that will be the end of the extreme trans lobby.

    This has the ring of truth but I suspect that Janet is too enthusiastic about the time frame!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/02/militant-trans-activists-are-doomed-but-the-battle-is-still/

    1. I neither watch nor listen to anyone preaching, religious or not. Life is too short and too precious to listen to the ramblings of others. I do not subscribe to any form of ‘belief system’.

      I keep my own thoughts on such matters and simply get on with life, trying to utilise common sense, while enjoying good art, good music, good literature and excellent food.

      1. Good religion is on a par with good literature, which often creates fictional characters in order to tell a story and convey a message or a series of them. Unless one suspends reality for a time and gets drawn into the world by the author, one cannot really enjoy the story. Escapism is often very comforting though, which is why so many folk enjoy fiction.

        Is religion so very different?

        Where it breaks down is when people confuse fact with fable, truth with faith.

        Charlatans can and do take advantage though. You like good food. Do you remember ‘nouvelle cuisine’ when one is conned by the experts that a pea and a squiqqle of ketchup on a square plate is a sustaining meal?

        2. I thought the arguments presented interesting, but he seems to assume the Bible stories, and those related to Jesus, were accurate and truthful. If they were, so good, but I reckon they were stories, fables, to try to keep the propaganda going. Thus, his argument crumbles.

          1. Comparing the “messages” of Christ and Mohammed I know which I prefer, and they aren’t those of the warmongering paedophile.

    2. How does he account for the Earth being 4½ billion years old and a Johnny-come-lately in the cosmic scheme of things at that?

  51. China and Russia are using the UN to censor the world. 2 September. 2023.

    Over his more than two decades in power, Putin has asserted greater and greater control over Russia’s domestic information space.

    The state has seized control of mainstream media outlets and social media platforms while persecuting independent journalists. Moscow has also deployed increasingly sophisticated tools to monitor and filter internet traffic, aiming eventually to unhook the Russian internet from global networks.

    Given Russia’s disregard for international law, as demonstrated by its brutal invasion of Ukraine, Moscow’s involvement in regulating cyber norms in the UN may seem strange. But Putin is a cynic and he is using the UN strategically. The Kremlin, in partnership with Beijing and other authoritarian regimes, aims to shape international norms to further its revisionist objectives and legitimise a crack-down on free expression.

    Is this a joke? Does Vlad run the MSM? Did he create the Digital Services Act? The Online Harms Bill? Sack Katie Hopkins? Prosecute Julian Assange? Despite the War in Ukraine all the measures impacting on the freedom of the people of the UK and Europe are the work of Westminster and Brussels!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/01/china-xi-jinping-vladimir-putin-united-nations/

    1. The whole point of RT is that it’s global. They’d be on Youtube and X-Twitter if those platforms would host them. Rumble and Odysee do. Likewise Gab Social. Didn’t Goebbels say that one of the tools of propaganda was to accuse your enemy of what you’re doing?

  52. The sun has disappeared and it’s spitting with rain – good job I got the gutter cleaning finished by 1pm. 4 buckets of dirt from those at the front of the bungalow, none from the rear.
    One blocked downpipe cleared with pressure washer lance, should be good for a couple of years now.

    2. When I lived in Thetford, the front gutter collected good old fen soil, whereas the rear gutter filled with sand.

      I have a drain cleaning hose attachment for my Karcher pressure washer, but haven’t needed to use it since moving…

      1. I have one of those too Geoff but the lance moved the blockage – I bought the drain cleaning attachment in case my land drains blocked up (they are perforated pipes)

    4. The sexual life of the camel
      Is sadder than anyone thinks
      At the height of the mating season
      He tries to bugger the Sphinx
      But the Sphinx’s anal passage
      Is choked by the sands of the Nile
      Which explains the hump on the camel
      And the Sphinx’s inscrutable smile.

      1. The sexual life of the bullfrog
        Is hard to comprehend
        At the height of the mating season
        He tries to bugger a friend
        But his friend’s anterior passage
        Is full of both mucus and slime
        Which accounts for the snout of the bullfrog
        And why it goes “croak” all the time

    2. Brought tears to my eyes.

      Wordle 805 5/6

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

    3. Par today.
      Wordle 805 4/6

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

  56. If any one has access to DT on Line would they kindly post Dr Peterson’s article in today’s edition (for the purposes of research) thank you.

    1. Canada is at the forefront of the woke assault on our essential human liberties

      Justin Trudeau’s government – like his father’s – is dismantling my God-given right to freedom of speech

      Jordan Peterson

      2 September 2023 • 1:19pm

      As a professional, practicing clinical psychologist, I never thought I would fall foul of Canada’s increasingly censorial state.
      Yet, like so many others – including teachers, nurses, and other
      professionals – that is precisely what has happened. In my case, a court
      has upheld an order from the College of Psychologists of Ontario that I
      undergo social media training or lose my licence to practice a
      profession I have served for most of my adult life.

      Their reason? Because of a handful of tweets on my social media, apparently. Yes: I am at risk of losing my licence to practice as a mental health professional because of the complaints of a tiny number of people about the utterly unproven “harm” done by my political opinions.

      These
      complainers – most of whom did not even live in Canada, none of whom
      were my clients or even knew any of them, nor had any contact whatsoever
      with the persons hypothetically harmed by my views – submitted
      complaints to the College of Psychologists of Ontario about what I had
      said using a handy online form. That supposedly august body had the
      option not to pursue these complaints, but seemingly decided some months
      ago that my behaviour did not meet with their approval. I had to agree
      to their demands to undergo training with one of their self-declared
      “social media experts” – sessions of indeterminate length, cost and
      content – and it seems that if I did not I would be dragged in front of a
      formal disciplinary hearing and, if it concurred in the judgment of
      wrongdoing, stripped of my licence.

      The right of the College to do
      so has now been upheld by a provincial court, despite their apparent
      admission that it could infringe on my fundamental rights.

      My transgressions? Two tweets criticising Justin Trudeau;
      one criticising his former chief of staff, who resigned in the
      aftermath of scandal some years ago; one ironically commenting on the
      identity of a city councillor in Ottawa, who in my view acted in a
      particularly unforgivable manner during the famous trucker convoy
      protest; and one objecting to the actions of the physicians performing
      mastectomies on perfectly healthy women – often minors – alongside a
      criticism of a famous actress who received such “treatment” and then
      advertised its benefits to her unwitting fans. In conjunction, the
      entire transcript of a podcast I did with Joe Rogan where I expressed
      doubts, fully justified in my view, about the validity of the idiotic
      models that economists stack carelessly upon the doom-mongering climate
      predictions used by eco-zealots and wannabe tyrants to justify extreme policies
      which will harm millions. Finally, there was a tweet that apparently
      hurt the feelings of a plus-sized model (according to complainants she
      did not know) parading herself on the cover of a magazine hypothetically
      devoted to the celebration of athleticism and health.

      Every
      single opinion was a political or psychological statement; every one
      devoid of genuinely documentable “harm”– except perhaps to the tender
      sensibility of certain Canadian moralists in whose mouths butter
      wouldn’t melt, in a country of fatal niceness and complacency.

      Politicisation of regulated professions

      For
      context, there are many “regulated professions” in Western countries,
      including Canada; professions whose conduct is held to be crucial to the
      public interest, and whose practitioners must therefore uphold certain
      standards to protect the public. That idea worked for years. In Canada,
      as elsewhere, these professional colleges, with authority delegated from
      the government, limited their actions to situations of obvious
      professional misconduct.

      In the last few years, however, such
      bodies – with their wide and untrammeled potential regulatory and
      punitive ability – have been weaponised by the same ideological radicals
      of the Left that have infiltrated and undermined higher education,
      media, judiciary, law, science and government. Any radical anywhere can
      submit the kind of complaint that can bring a professional’s life to a
      halt, and can increasingly rely on these captured colleges and other
      professional regulatory bodies to uphold and pursue their vexatious,
      vengeful, petty, spiteful and ideological motivated “complaints.” And
      this is regardless of how much good the target of their complaint has
      done – independent of the training, reputation or standing of the
      target, and accompanied by the deep pockets and infinite amount of time
      available for the accusers and adversaries, abetted by the resources of
      the government itself.

      Suffice it to say: I appealed the decision
      of my professional college. But the court has rejected my appeal, ruling
      that although I had my Charter rights – my constitutional right to
      freedom of speech – the professional regulatory body essentially has
      indefinite sway over the determination of what limits they felt fit to
      impose in their professional context, in whatever retroactive manner
      they felt fit to impose them. This is a court, by the way, headed by
      appointees from the very administration I was criticising (and which has
      been criticised very recently and independently from me for the
      inappropriate relationships it has established with the judiciary).

      Canadians
      now need to wake up to the fact that the right to freedom of speech in
      Canada is subject to limitations placed by any level of government, for
      any reason.

      I know perfectly well that many professionals in
      Canada are cowed to the point where they are forced to lie; they tell me
      so repeatedly in private. And when professionals have to lie, they can
      no longer do their job properly, and the public suffers. I know, too,
      that this is increasingly true across the West. Hence the increasing
      international interest in the dangerous social experiment taking place
      in Canada, as we ride the forefront of the wave of woke lunacy
      threatening to swamp the entire Western world.

      The decline and fall of Canada

      Why
      does the situation appear particularly grim, here in Maple Leaf
      Country? We were, for most of my country’s history, miraculously and
      thankfully dull: our constitution, ensconced safely under British
      authority until 1982, enshrined “peace, order and good government” as
      the most basic principles of our dominion. This was not the clarion call
      ringing out to rally our good friends south of the border, who aimed at
      the much more dramatic and libertarian “life, liberty and the pursuit
      of happiness.” It was good enough, however, to produce a reliable, safe,
      secure and free state, conservative in the classic small-c sense, with
      institutions both predictable and honest, and an economy both productive
      and generous.

      That all started to change in the 1980s. Our dashing prime minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau
      – father of the current Prime Minister, our current clown prince – was
      searching desperately for a legacy and for a solution to the chronic
      problem posed by the Quebec separatists, who were genuinely threatening
      the integrity of the country. Quebec was the last feudal country in the
      West: extremely traditional and dominated by a very small, tight,
      essentially hereditary elite right until the end of the 1950s. Quebec
      dumped all that in a few short years in a fit of 1960s freedom, also
      dropping its birth and marriage rate with exceptional rapidity (both are
      now among the lowest in the world) and abandoning the Catholic church
      in favour of a crude nationalism and a more-or-less socialist utopia
      favoured by those who pushed to also tear apart the country.

      Trudeau
      senior, constitutionally displeased with the fundamental derivation of
      Canada from Britain, seized upon this opportunity to make his mark in
      history, and began to agitate to “bring the constitution home.” He did
      so, rewriting our primary legal agreement, and appending to it his
      much-vaunted Charter of Rights and Freedoms, paraded before Canadians as
      the ultimate guarantee of the freedoms we had enjoyed anyway under the
      much more reliable aegis of British Common Law. But Quebec put up its
      middle finger, refusing to become a signatory to the new agreement –
      even after Trudeau’s government abandoned both its spine and its
      principles to include a poison pill in the very Charter that
      hypothetically protected our citizens: the clause in Section 33 of that
      document, indicating that those very constitutional rights can be
      abridged more or less at will by any government in Canada, federal or
      provincial, if inclined to do so.

      The Canadian government, in its
      own documentation, notes with unconsciously ironic understatement that
      “Section 33 is unique among the constitutions of countries with
      constitutional democracies.” It is unique because it essentially guts
      the Charter – and it was designed to do so, to appease the very Quebec
      that it never did appease and which has never in the 40 years subsequent
      to the “repatriation” formally signed on to the agreement.

      And
      that is not all. Canada was a very early adopter of the idea of ‘group
      rights’. The Quebecois, again, began to obsess about the potential
      threat posed by English Canada (really, the English West, led by the
      culturally-dominant Americans) to the language and culture of their
      province. They had some reason for this: the ascendant US was and is a
      cultural force to be reckoned with, and even English Canadians were
      uneasy about the elephant to the south, capable of rolling over at any
      time, careless of its much smaller northern neighbour, and
      simultaneously much noisier and more effectively theatrical. To keep the
      country together, Canada began to prioritise the rights of its
      so-called founding peoples (the British, the French and the original
      inhabitants of this land, the native Canadians) and to insist that the
      groups they composed had rights equivalent to or superseding those of
      individual citizens. This was a very bad idea then, and it has become a
      worse idea in the subsequent decades. Canada parades itself as a
      “multicultural” society, pretending that a brainless tolerance – really,
      a spineless niceness – constitutes the way forward to peace and
      tranquility, forgetting entirely that too much multiculturalism often
      stokes unrest.

      This bad situation is made worse by the naïve
      virtue-signalling of, ironically enough, Pierre Trudeau’s son: an
      unqualified part-time drama teacher who in a recent poll was found to be
      the country’s least-popular prime minister of the past 55 years. It was
      that same Justin Trudeau who famously proclaimed that “there is no core
      identity, no mainstream in Canada’’ in 2015, insisting that the country
      has little uniting it except its embrace of cultural diversity and its
      putative values of openness and respect.

      But what is a country
      without a central identity? Aimless, and therefore both anxious and
      hopeless; worse, prone to domination by the fractionated ideas that will
      fight necessarily for central place in the absence of the centre that
      must by one means or another be established. That is the shadow-side of
      the naïve “multiculturalism” that has doomed the world to continuous fractionalism and all its accompanying horrors.

      Canada’s
      idiotic pandering and cowardly insistence on group rights set us up for
      dominance by the meta-Marxists who insist that the collective take
      priority over the individual. Canada’s inclusion of the notwithstanding
      clause to unsuccessfully satisfy separatists gutted the protection of
      the rights that might otherwise have protected the individual against
      group-think. Justin Trudeau’s insistence that Canada has no central
      identity has allowed the ideologically-possessed fools who know nothing
      of the great British Common Law tradition and who have contempt for the
      Western tradition to make their postmodern ideas the central axis around
      which this once-reliable country now by law is required to rotate.

      In
      principle, Canadians enjoy the right to free speech, but the Charter of
      Rights and Freedoms is severely and fatally limited by the
      notwithstanding clause, and leaves our rights endangered.

      The battles to come

      I
      have been expressing my Charter Rights – though really I view them as
      God-given, and rooted more in British Common Law – by writing,
      lecturing, and using social media. Consequently, I have run afoul of the
      petty authorities in Canada, including at my former place of
      employment, the University of Toronto, where my opposition to an
      infamous bill, C-16, made it impossible for me, eventually, to continue
      as a professor at that cowardly institution, though it also brought my
      opinions and work to broad public attention. Since then, I have
      continued to voice my opposition to the current administration in
      Ottawa, and the destructive ideological idiocy that is threatening my
      country and the West itself.

      As such, I will fight this idiocy all
      the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. I have instructed my
      lawyers, in the aftermath of the rejection of my appeal, to inform the
      College that I will not comply with their forced re-education mandate,
      and to proceed with the disciplinary hearing they have promised will
      occur. In the past, such hearings have been videotaped and made public. I
      doubt the College will have the stomach to do the same in my case,
      although I will make every effort, reasonable and unreasonable, to
      ensure that every element of these proceedings is open to widespread
      international scrutiny. I have already posted the relevant documents
      online, as I am perfectly happy to have everything that I have done
      assessed in full.

      But I know few people are in a position to
      conduct such a fight: I have the resources necessary to wage a
      multi-year court battle, ruinously expensive (tens of thousands of
      dollars a month) though it is. I also have the means of communication at
      hand to publicise exactly what is going on. I do so on the behalf of
      those who are unable to do so.

      Regardless of the outcome, I have
      made arrangements with other jurisdictions – Canadian and elsewhere – to
      re-establish my licence, in a heartbeat, if the authorities in Ontario
      succeed in purloining it from me.

      I’ll leave it to Telegraph readers
      to think through what that would mean for free speech in Canada – and,
      for that matter, in the rest of the increasingly benighted Western
      world.

      Oh Canada, indeed.

      You can watch The Telegraph’s exclusive interview with Jordan Peterson on Canada above, or via this link.

      More from Jordan Peterson exclusively for The Telegraph:

      – ‘Justin Trudeau, Canada’s clown prince, is the future of the woke West’

      – ‘We are sacrificing our children on the altar of a brutal, far-Left ideology’

      – ‘Trans activism is sexist and delusional’

      – ‘Why I love Great Britain’

      – ‘Peddlers of environmental doom have shown their true totalitarian colours’

      – ‘Twitter is turning us all insane’

      1784

      The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts
      are on topic, constructive and respectful. Please review our

      commenting policy.

      More stories

    2. Canada is at the forefront of the woke assault on our essential human liberties

      Justin Trudeau’s government – like his father’s – is dismantling my God-given right to freedom of speech

      JORDAN PETERSON
      2 September 2023 • 1:19pm

      As a professional, practicing clinical psychologist, I never thought I would fall foul of Canada’s increasingly censorial state. Yet, like so many others – including teachers, nurses, and other professionals – that is precisely what has happened. In my case, a court has upheld an order from the College of Psychologists of Ontario that I undergo social media training or lose my licence to practice a profession I have served for most of my adult life.

      Their reason? Because of a handful of tweets on my social media, apparently. Yes: I am at risk of losing my licence to practice as a mental health professional because of the complaints of a tiny number of people about the utterly unproven “harm” done by my political opinions.

      These complainers – most of whom did not even live in Canada, none of whom were my clients or even knew any of them, nor had any contact whatsoever with the persons hypothetically harmed by my views – submitted complaints to the College of Psychologists of Ontario about what I had said using a handy online form. That supposedly august body had the option not to pursue these complaints, but seemingly decided some months ago that my behaviour did not meet with their approval. I had to agree to their demands to undergo training with one of their self-declared “social media experts” – sessions of indeterminate length, cost and content – and it seems that if I did not I would be dragged in front of a formal disciplinary hearing and, if it concurred in the judgment of wrongdoing, stripped of my licence.

      The right of the College to do so has now been upheld by a provincial court, despite their apparent admission that it could infringe on my fundamental rights.

      My transgressions? Two tweets criticising Justin Trudeau; one criticising his former chief of staff, who resigned in the aftermath of scandal some years ago; one ironically commenting on the identity of a city councillor in Ottawa, who in my view acted in a particularly unforgivable manner during the famous trucker convoy protest; and one objecting to the actions of the physicians performing mastectomies on perfectly healthy women – often minors – alongside a criticism of a famous actress who received such “treatment” and then advertised its benefits to her unwitting fans. In conjunction, the entire transcript of a podcast I did with Joe Rogan where I expressed doubts, fully justified in my view, about the validity of the idiotic models that economists stack carelessly upon the doom-mongering climate predictions used by eco-zealots and wannabe tyrants to justify extreme policies which will harm millions. Finally, there was a tweet that apparently hurt the feelings of a plus-sized model (according to complainants she did not know) parading herself on the cover of a magazine hypothetically devoted to the celebration of athleticism and health.

      Every single opinion was a political or psychological statement; every one devoid of genuinely documentable “harm”– except perhaps to the tender sensibility of certain Canadian moralists in whose mouths butter wouldn’t melt, in a country of fatal niceness and complacency.

      Politicisation of regulated professions

      For context, there are many “regulated professions” in Western countries, including Canada; professions whose conduct is held to be crucial to the public interest, and whose practitioners must therefore uphold certain standards to protect the public. That idea worked for years. In Canada, as elsewhere, these professional colleges, with authority delegated from the government, limited their actions to situations of obvious professional misconduct.

      In the last few years, however, such bodies – with their wide and untrammeled potential regulatory and punitive ability – have been weaponised by the same ideological radicals of the Left that have infiltrated and undermined higher education, media, judiciary, law, science and government. Any radical anywhere can submit the kind of complaint that can bring a professional’s life to a halt, and can increasingly rely on these captured colleges and other professional regulatory bodies to uphold and pursue their vexatious, vengeful, petty, spiteful and ideological motivated “complaints.” And this is regardless of how much good the target of their complaint has done – independent of the training, reputation or standing of the target, and accompanied by the deep pockets and infinite amount of time available for the accusers and adversaries, abetted by the resources of the government itself.

      Suffice it to say: I appealed the decision of my professional college. But the court has rejected my appeal, ruling that although I had my Charter rights – my constitutional right to freedom of speech – the professional regulatory body essentially has indefinite sway over the determination of what limits they felt fit to impose in their professional context, in whatever retroactive manner they felt fit to impose them. This is a court, by the way, headed by appointees from the very administration I was criticising (and which has been criticised very recently and independently from me for the inappropriate relationships it has established with the judiciary).

      Canadians now need to wake up to the fact that the right to freedom of speech in Canada is subject to limitations placed by any level of government, for any reason.

      I know perfectly well that many professionals in Canada are cowed to the point where they are forced to lie; they tell me so repeatedly in private. And when professionals have to lie, they can no longer do their job properly, and the public suffers. I know, too, that this is increasingly true across the West. Hence the increasing international interest in the dangerous social experiment taking place in Canada, as we ride the forefront of the wave of woke lunacy threatening to swamp the entire Western world.

      The decline and fall of Canada

      Why does the situation appear particularly grim, here in Maple Leaf Country? We were, for most of my country’s history, miraculously and thankfully dull: our constitution, ensconced safely under British authority until 1982, enshrined “peace, order and good government” as the most basic principles of our dominion. This was not the clarion call ringing out to rally our good friends south of the border, who aimed at the much more dramatic and libertarian “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It was good enough, however, to produce a reliable, safe, secure and free state, conservative in the classic small-c sense, with institutions both predictable and honest, and an economy both productive and generous.

      That all started to change in the 1980s. Our dashing prime minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau – father of the current Prime Minister, our current clown prince – was searching desperately for a legacy and for a solution to the chronic problem posed by the Quebec separatists, who were genuinely threatening the integrity of the country. Quebec was the last feudal country in the West: extremely traditional and dominated by a very small, tight, essentially hereditary elite right until the end of the 1950s. Quebec dumped all that in a few short years in a fit of 1960s freedom, also dropping its birth and marriage rate with exceptional rapidity (both are now among the lowest in the world) and abandoning the Catholic church in favour of a crude nationalism and a more-or-less socialist utopia favoured by those who pushed to also tear apart the country.

      Trudeau senior, constitutionally displeased with the fundamental derivation of Canada from Britain, seized upon this opportunity to make his mark in history, and began to agitate to “bring the constitution home.” He did so, rewriting our primary legal agreement, and appending to it his much-vaunted Charter of Rights and Freedoms, paraded before Canadians as the ultimate guarantee of the freedoms we had enjoyed anyway under the much more reliable aegis of British Common Law. But Quebec put up its middle finger, refusing to become a signatory to the new agreement – even after Trudeau’s government abandoned both its spine and its principles to include a poison pill in the very Charter that hypothetically protected our citizens: the clause in Section 33 of that document, indicating that those very constitutional rights can be abridged more or less at will by any government in Canada, federal or provincial, if inclined to do so.

      The Canadian government, in its own documentation, notes with unconsciously ironic understatement that “Section 33 is unique among the constitutions of countries with constitutional democracies.” It is unique because it essentially guts the Charter – and it was designed to do so, to appease the very Quebec that it never did appease and which has never in the 40 years subsequent to the “repatriation” formally signed on to the agreement.

      And that is not all. Canada was a very early adopter of the idea of ‘group rights’. The Quebecois, again, began to obsess about the potential threat posed by English Canada (really, the English West, led by the culturally-dominant Americans) to the language and culture of their province. They had some reason for this: the ascendant US was and is a cultural force to be reckoned with, and even English Canadians were uneasy about the elephant to the south, capable of rolling over at any time, careless of its much smaller northern neighbour, and simultaneously much noisier and more effectively theatrical. To keep the country together, Canada began to prioritise the rights of its so-called founding peoples (the British, the French and the original inhabitants of this land, the native Canadians) and to insist that the groups they composed had rights equivalent to or superseding those of individual citizens. This was a very bad idea then, and it has become a worse idea in the subsequent decades. Canada parades itself as a “multicultural” society, pretending that a brainless tolerance – really, a spineless niceness – constitutes the way forward to peace and tranquility, forgetting entirely that too much multiculturalism often stokes unrest.

      This bad situation is made worse by the naïve virtue-signalling of, ironically enough, Pierre Trudeau’s son: an unqualified part-time drama teacher who in a recent poll was found to be the country’s least-popular prime minister of the past 55 years. It was that same Justin Trudeau who famously proclaimed that “there is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada’’ in 2015, insisting that the country has little uniting it except its embrace of cultural diversity and its putative values of openness and respect.

      But what is a country without a central identity? Aimless, and therefore both anxious and hopeless; worse, prone to domination by the fractionated ideas that will fight necessarily for central place in the absence of the centre that must by one means or another be established. That is the shadow-side of the naïve “multiculturalism” that has doomed the world to continuous fractionalism and all its accompanying horrors.

      Canada’s idiotic pandering and cowardly insistence on group rights set us up for dominance by the meta-Marxists who insist that the collective take priority over the individual. Canada’s inclusion of the notwithstanding clause to unsuccessfully satisfy separatists gutted the protection of the rights that might otherwise have protected the individual against group-think. Justin Trudeau’s insistence that Canada has no central identity has allowed the ideologically-possessed fools who know nothing of the great British Common Law tradition and who have contempt for the Western tradition to make their postmodern ideas the central axis around which this once-reliable country now by law is required to rotate.

      In principle, Canadians enjoy the right to free speech, but the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is severely and fatally limited by the notwithstanding clause, and leaves our rights endangered.

      The battles to come

      I have been expressing my Charter Rights – though really I view them as God-given, and rooted more in British Common Law – by writing, lecturing, and using social media. Consequently, I have run afoul of the petty authorities in Canada, including at my former place of employment, the University of Toronto, where my opposition to an infamous bill, C-16, made it impossible for me, eventually, to continue as a professor at that cowardly institution, though it also brought my opinions and work to broad public attention. Since then, I have continued to voice my opposition to the current administration in Ottawa, and the destructive ideological idiocy that is threatening my country and the West itself.

      As such, I will fight this idiocy all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. I have instructed my lawyers, in the aftermath of the rejection of my appeal, to inform the College that I will not comply with their forced re-education mandate, and to proceed with the disciplinary hearing they have promised will occur. In the past, such hearings have been videotaped and made public. I doubt the College will have the stomach to do the same in my case, although I will make every effort, reasonable and unreasonable, to ensure that every element of these proceedings is open to widespread international scrutiny. I have already posted the relevant documents online, as I am perfectly happy to have everything that I have done assessed in full.

      But I know few people are in a position to conduct such a fight: I have the resources necessary to wage a multi-year court battle, ruinously expensive (tens of thousands of dollars a month) though it is. I also have the means of communication at hand to publicise exactly what is going on. I do so on the behalf of those who are unable to do so.

      Regardless of the outcome, I have made arrangements with other jurisdictions – Canadian and elsewhere – to re-establish my licence, in a heartbeat, if the authorities in Ontario succeed in purloining it from me.

      I’ll leave it to Telegraph readers to think through what that would mean for free speech in Canada – and, for that matter, in the rest of the increasingly benighted Western world.

      Oh Canada, indeed.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/01/jordan-peterson-podcast-canada-decline-twitter-free-speech/

      1. Thanks it’s a repeat of the interview he did with his daughter which I posted here a day or two ago….

  58. Evening, all. Just looking in. Had first 1 km paddle. Sea chilly (19C) Sun = 25C. Brilliant!

    Guess I have missed nothing.

    I thought Peter Brookes yesterday was outstanding in his portrayal of Shitts as a gaudy dangerous joker. Has there been ANY comment ANYHERE
    saying what an outstanding choice he is? Thought not…

    See you all another day..

    1. Glad you’ve arrived safely and that the natives haven’t attacked.
      Has the MR recovered from your lack of assistance?

  59. Photos taken on a walk in Long Melford today. The wild flower meadow was seeded, I believe as part of the Hyde Parker lands, about five years ago. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6d5c59c3069f079df67b73aae12f4183b2eeb4829f73e77bce5e961a0b6c0114.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/adbae0f33ee5537a1d0f59ad5b17523089b4c127b9b80958257decb0dbcf7364.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9b4d8859aeaafe1c8cfdfbfe3e64be3eaf1a14d1c5335f48605ed922ddacbeae.jpg

    1. Whereabouts in Long Melford?
      We could have a look next time we visit my niece.
      I can see the church in the background.

      3. You might also glimpse Melford Hall in one of the photos.

        There is a small car park on the opposite side of the main road and just below the gated entrance to Melford Hall. The car park is adjacent to the Old Schoolhouse, a Victorian building with a circular stone monument at its front, celebrating a manufacturer in Liston from memory.

        From the car park you take a narrow bridle way path and after a small distance you come to a fork with country walk signposts and to the second left it is possible to traverse the magical field. It has to be experienced to be believed.

        There are many delightful walks in Long Melford especially to the water meadows of the River Stour and many of which are linked up. Needless to say some are a tad overgrown specially by nettles at this time of year. We take a stick.

        In recent years there has been a proliferation of Tea Rooms especially nice for refreshments after your walk.

    2. Is that Kentwell Hall I see in the last photograph? We used to go to their Tudor recreations during the month of July years ago – they were delightful.

      Beautiful meadows there.

      1. The house in the distance is Melford Hall, seat of The Hyde Parker’s and run by the National Trust.

        Kentwell is privately owned and is located behind the church which is visible in another photograph. The owner is I believe Patrick Phillips KC. As you say they have popular recreational events, lambing days, Tudor days and so on.

        Lovely for children but not historically accurate in any way. I know because having worked at Hampton Court Palace and necessarily studied historical records and accounts, you may be assured that life for the peasantry was anything but joyful.

        1. I am sure it wasn’t. Unimaginably awful. I did from time to time get a whiff of the awfulness.

          1. It’s a beautiful part of the world.
            We lived in Bradford in the early 1980’s just after the time of the panther rapist and during the reign of the Yorkshire ripper.

          2. You must have been in Cambridge at the same time as the Cambridge rapist as well? (Peter Cooke?)

          3. Unfortunately so.
            I recall walking back from the centre late one evening, across midsummer common, when a tree suddenly started speaking.
            There was a policeman hiding in it and his radio suddenly came to life.

  61. These are the maximum, minimum and average temperatures for each of the most recent 14 Julys at my nearest official weather station – Luton Airport, about 10 miles to my west. Someone posted a claim yesterday that July 2023 was rather warmer than the long term average, which was met with some quite scornful replies. By my reckoning, July 2023 was cooler than most of the previous 13 at Luton Airport – only those of 2011, 2012 and 2020 were cooler. Certain caveats apply, however. Luton Airport’s average isn’t the same as the national one and the long term average used for official comparison purposes are in 30-year blocks, the current one being that of 1991-2020. Even so, the Julys of 1991-2009 would have had to be substantially cooler than those shown here for 2023 to have been significantly warmer than the long term average and I find it unlikely that Luton Airport’s figures for July 2023 would have been significantly below those of the nation as a whole to make it an outlier. I conclude, therefore, that the claim made about July 2023 is not at all trustworthy.

    July 2023

    High 82 °F (7 Jul, 15:50)
    Low 48 °F (5 Jul, 05:20)
    Average 62 °F

    https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/stevenage/historic?month=7&year=2023

    July 2022

    High 102 °F (19 Jul, 14:50)
    Low 48 °F (5 Jul, 04:20)
    Average 67 °F

    https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/stevenage/historic?month=7&year=2022

    July 2021

    High 86 °F (20 Jul, 13:50)
    Low 50 °F (1 Jul, 04:50)
    Average 64 °F

    https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/stevenage/historic?month=7&year=2021

    July 2020

    High 93 °F (31 Jul, 14:50)
    Low 46 °F (7 Jul, 02:20)
    Average 61 °F

    https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/stevenage/historic?month=7&year=2020

    July 2019

    High 99 °F (25 Jul, 14:50)
    Low 48 °F (4 Jul, 03:20)
    Average 65 °F

    https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/stevenage/historic?month=7&year=2019

    July 2018

    High 91 °F (26 Jul, 16:50)
    Low 50 °F (3 Jul, 03:20)
    Average 69 °F

    https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/stevenage/historic?month=7&year=2018

    July 2017

    High 84 °F (6 Jul, 14:50)
    Low 52 °F (12 Jul, 23:20)
    Average 63 °F

    https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/stevenage/historic?month=7&year=2017

    July 2016

    High 88 °F (19 Jul, 13:50)
    Low 48 °F (2 Jul, 02:50)
    Average 64 °F

    https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/stevenage/historic?month=7&year=2016

    July 2015

    High 91 °F (1 Jul, 12:20)
    Low 46 °F (31 Jul, 05:50)
    Average 62 °F

    https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/stevenage/historic?month=7&year=2015

    July 2014

    High 86 °F (18 Jul, 15:20)
    Low 48 °F (2 Jul, 02:20)
    Average 65 °F

    https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/stevenage/historic?month=7&year=2014

    July 2013

    High 88 °F (22 Jul, 14:50)
    Low 46 °F (12 Jul, 04:50)
    Average 65 °F

    https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/stevenage/historic?month=7&year=2013

    July 2012

    High 82 °F (24 Jul, 17:50)
    Low 46 °F (30 Jul, 02:50)
    Average 60 °F

    https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/stevenage/historic?month=7&year=2012

    July 2011

    High 77 °F (5 Jul, 13:20)
    Low 46 °F (1 Jul, 04:20)
    Average 60 °F

    https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/stevenage/historic?month=7&year=2011

    July 2010

    High 86 °F (9 Jul, 15:20)
    Low 50 °F (18 Jul, 02:50)
    Average 65 °F

    https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/stevenage/historic?month=7&year=2010

    1. Who said it was warmer than average? I think we all know that July this year in this country was miserable and cold.

        1. Averages eh? Here in our part of Northants, 8 of the last 12 months had well below average rainfall. The other four made it up for it.

  62. Six of the 150 photos I took at Exbury Gardens this afternoon. Offspring #1 bought me a ticket for my birthday:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dfdcac201258dcddd9c20d9121bd31cd94b6399e2c8676009bd82aa35c8c91dd.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/69587e2d34d16948b27bc5d1fcc95455394b8f238d959187d69833d73dd2edf7.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/52119906b3a2649cf7777a7ec3ff8f72af226fb8d1c906c4c33798710e2d72f6.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f9cb9fd3ff87095f6f7f6f029780f1780374bad7b77168621c8027ad8f467db9.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f9cb9fd3ff87095f6f7f6f029780f1780374bad7b77168621c8027ad8f467db9.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d417c015cc9b9e01f9a728ba9ca6ee87cbd4f55c999512bed6e437315deb863b.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ac7f00cc3e1c52a47a4ec9307a7482f9ea67649369b664da1fa0bb163803215b.jpg

    2. Nick de Rothschild’s estate. His gardens are lovely. The house appears to be an unremarkable, if large, family home kept closed to the public?

  63. Supermarket giants searching shoppers who use self-scan amid shoplifting epidemic

    Sainsbury’s and Morrisons staff are stopping people at the barriers and performing spot checks on the contents of their carrier bags

    By Daniel Jones
    2 September 2023 • 3:01pm

    Honest shoppers are increasingly having their bags checked at supermarkets amid a fast-growing epidemic of shoplifting.

    Sainsbury’s and Morrisons have both introduced gates after the self-scan tills at some of their stores.

    While customers usually scan receipts to exit, staff are also conducting random bag inspections to verify purchases.

    Customers have complained they are having their bags – and even their sun hat – checked more often in recent months.

    The move coincides with a continued rise in shoplifting, linked to the cost of living crisis.

    A source at Sainsbury’s said: “These gates are not new. We first introduced them last year, and have been rolling them out slowly since.

    “But staff in stores who monitor them have been instructed to scrutinise a bigger number of customers going through them. There were fears some shoppers might miss an item or two when scanning.

    “They were introduced in the first place because often these stores have low staff levels, and shoplifters felt they could just walk through the self-scan area and out the store without even buying anything.”

    Sainsbury’s customers have taken to social media – to highlight the increased checks.

    On neighbourhood social media site Nextdoor, Mary Burrows, from Kingston upon Thames, posted: “I’ve used self scan since it started and have had my bags checked maybe twice in all that time until this week.

    “The last three shops I’ve done at Sainsbury’s in Surbiton Basin have been checked, including a close inspection of my bag and sun hat.

    “I know this is random – well, I assume it is random – but is shoplifting on the rise at Sainsbury’s and other shops? Their staff are helpful, products are good, my nearest shop too so this isn’t a rant. I just wondered if there is a problem?”

    Others replied to say they had experienced the same.

    Theft on the rise

    Shoplifting has risen by 27 per cent across ten of the UK’s largest cities in a year – and is up by 68 per cent in some, the British Retail Consortium said.

    Separate figures show all but four of the 43 police forces in England and Wales have seen callouts to supermarkets for shoplifting increase over the past year.

    The rise in thefts was 75 per cent in Dyfed-Powys in Wales, 70 per cent in West Midlands and 60 per cent in Avon & Somerset, freedom of information data shows (The Daily Mirror reported in July).

    Change of behavour

    PwC senior retail adviser Kien Tan: “As a result of the increase in shoplifting, many retailers have looked at ways of discouraging theft, not just because of the financial cost, but also because of the risks to their own staff.

    “Exit barriers and receipt scanning on exit are one way of discouraging theft, and one that is commonplace in Europe and other countries – many of us will have encountered them when we’re on holiday abroad.

    “Scanning a receipt on exit does require a change to customers’ usual behaviour, but everybody benefits if a store can minimise theft, because ultimately the cost will have to be passed on in terms of the prices we pay at the till.

    “Some of the in-store signage and communication around the implementation of exit barriers has been quite brusque, which I suspect has precipitated complaints online. Stores also need staff to help customers who may not know how to work the scanners, or when, for example, receipt printers have malfunctioned or run out of paper – sod’s law means this will always happen when the store is busiest.

    “But customers will get used to them over time as they become more common – they’re no different to ticket barriers at stations.”

    A Sainsbury’s spokesperson said: “This is just one of a range of security measures. It is used in a small number of our stores at our self-service checkout areas.”

    A Morrisons spokesperson said: “We have recently introduced electronic gates into some stores. Any customers who haven’t made a purchase simply need to ask the Morrisons customer assistant manning the self-service tills to open the gate for them.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/02/supermarket-giants-search-honest-shoppers-bags-shoplifters/

    I’m not surprised by the increase in shoplifting. Self-scanning checkouts are an open invitation to do so. I thought supermarkets would also have anticipated it and even priced it in to their calculations on the basis that increased shoplifting would be more than offset by savings on fewer checkout staff. Nonetheless, it’s clearly proving too much for them. Personally, I like and prefer to use them, but the advantage of a faster checkout, which I’ve found to be the norm, will be eroded if I’m subject to more bag searches. They are also an inconvenience if, having bagged your purchases, you are obliged to unpack them for a random check and then re-bag them before leaving. I may end up returning to staffed checkouts.

    1. It’s a shame, that having been searched and found to be honest, that the shopper can’t demand their money back on the spot and leave the groceries behind.

      Inconvenient?

      Yes, but if the shop is doing it there should be comeback.

      I’ll bet my pound to your brass farthing that they are not stopping and searching the bags of many of the aggressive looking big black guys.

        1. Snap. Judging by the queues at manned tills – and it is NOT just bolshie old farts – we are not alone in our stand

          1. In order to exercise my bolshieness I am quite prepared to wait, propping myself up against my trolley, as long as it takes.

        2. I don’t work for pubs, but they won’t give me table service, unless I download a Wetherspoon’s app, but my phone is too old to recognise one and I’m too bone idle to learn how to use it, even if I had the technology to use it.

    2. We use self scan all the time. We are checked very rarly and its just so much easier. We do not have to unload our trolly then reload it again. We save about 50% of the timewe we used to spend. No nosey customers viewing what you have purchased. They can check it as often as they like.

      1. There may not be nosey customers viewing what you have purchased using the self-scan, but there may well be an even nosier government further down the line in the not-too-far distant future telling you what you can and cannot buy.

        1. Govt agencies already have access to store loyalty card information. Even in the late 1990s they could examine the data, for example, to look for unusual expenditure by people who were claiming benefits. The late Carlos Criado Perez refused to snitch on his customers at Safeway, and so he had to avoid introducing a loyalty card.

        2. I have little self control, therefore I welcome Big Brother assisting me in living a little longer. How else will I cease eating bagfuls of crisps every day?

          1. You can avoid the crisp over load and other temptations by not putting them in your basket in the first place. It’s why i prefer online shopping. Easier to stick to a list.

      3. I use scan-as-you-go whenever possible. It’s better than scanning at the checkout. You can verify the prices before you get there.

        I’m not fussed about nosey customers. They can tut-tut at my lifestyle as much as they like, not that I’ve ever heard any do so.

        I do occasionally notice what others have in their trollies and make judgments about them, but I keep them to myself. How many trays of carbonated drinks does that home need, I might wonder, but I correct myself by thinking they might be having a party. You never know what lies behind the purchases of others, and I’m too reserved to ask about their explanation for what looks like an excessive purchase.

        I make all sorts of judgments about other people based on very little. It passes the time and causes no harm if you keep it to yourself.

  64. I see India has just launched a satellite to study the Sun.
    In unrelated news, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), which distributes aid, sent India £33.4 million in aid cash in 2022/23. But the FCDO’s annual report, published this week, reveals that the total is set to rise to £57 million in 2024/25.

    5. I was under the impression that bilateral aid to India had ceased and that only multilateral agreements signed up to by previous British governments continue to impose an obligation on the UK to India.

  65. Phew!
    An enjoyable day had by self, ex-Student Son and the Dearly Tolerant, but bloody knackering!
    DT drove to Cromford and parked up, then we caught the bus to Duffield and walked to the Turnditch & Windley show that was on today.
    A delightful little event.
    We then walked back to Duffield and had a meal in one of the pub/bistros before catching the train to Wirksworth, then bus back to Cromford and car home.
    A few piccies:-
    Land Rovers:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11448006d1a37a7463c541060b11687ffeadd4e9ede2a0764963a9a2f4a5911a.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/436cf361d3ce0082aa3cd23ec1117bf2657d3330a9ff0e654256286d6bfaf5d2.jpg

    A TVO Fergie:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5cb9c1c10f9c5201c7e2d615ec1bbe68c062305affd775a97fdcf53b70d7a832.jpg

    An AEC Matador modified for lumber duties:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/015bc7638a5ec12d7332fbc69876a19c9311a6149437ae32aca32d622c01fd39.jpg

    And on the Ecclesbourne Railway:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8d32ada556e40000e1374a32bbe5fac11e5e7502a960227b28168c910d44520a.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4c3220291b9f24370d94a1f85b410a44518f4ccf2d48cb162a39fe4eb01c0a76.jpg

    2. Lovey to see the elderly vehicles.
      I worked with an Italian chap in Qld whose short Wheel base had achieved 250 thousand miles.
      When we had our long wheel base in Oz SFL 908 I had a friend who worked at Jaguar as an upholsterer. He refitted the seating, sun on black plastic made it pretty uncomfortable and we changed the inside rear layout. A cot/bed behind the seats.
      For our toddler son. Now 43.
      It had an extra 65 litre petrol tank and a 65 litre water tank opposite.
      It had duel batteries so we always had power in our caravan. The spare wheel was on the roof rack and I made a deflector to send the airflow over the roof of our towed home behind.
      It drank fuel anything between 10 and 20 mpg.
      But I loved and lived every single moment of it all.

      1. A friend had (possibly still has) a Series 2 Landy. I attended his wife’s funeral in Suffolk last week, so cars weren’t exactly the main subject of conversation.

        I had a Discovery II Td5 for a couple of years. An eBay purchase, supposedly needing a new engine. So i fitted one, also from eBay. Turned out that the original engine was fine, but the injector loom was soaked in oil. A common problem. Sold that engine on eBay,with an honest description. Before which, I joined the A3 on a very short acceleration lane, none of yer Surrey types gave an inch, so I floored the accelerator. On the way home, I was followed by a white cloud… One buggered turbo…

        Evwntually I sold the Disco to WBAC dot com, despite the failing air suspension, for rather more than I paid for it.

        It was great fun in a couple of very snowy winters. I lost count of the folk I towed out of trouble. In normal circumstances, they undoubtedly hated me… In the snow, not so much…

        1. Interesting Geoff. 🙂
          When I bought ours the brakes were shot and I had the garage to replace the worn out parts. It turned out that I knew the son of the previous owner who had spent many years in the Bush as a land surveyor. He had used a camper trailer. Hence water petrol and duel battery set up.
          Sand had ruined his brakes. But he retired after he had found a huge gold nugget.
          I should have taken advice from others and put a Crysler or Holden V8
          engine in to replace the 2.25 litre slug under the bonnet. It was a struggle towing the 16 ft x 8ft caravan. Our home for over 6 months.

  66. Evening, all. The hills were alive to the sound of “one man went to mow, went to mow a meadow, one man and his dog went to mow a meadow …” this afternoon. It had been a dry day, but not really dry enough for the pathetic mower, which ground to a halt several times with grass twisted round the blade. The grass box must have been emptied a score of times and each time the lid fell off and needed to be put back in place. I’ve had a long soak in a Radox bath and quaffed a G&T. I think I am just about regaining my equanimity!

    As with go woke go broke, go outside your remit you’ll lose supporters.

    1. Since mowing I mean moving to a retirement bungalow in late 2020, I only have a small lawn, which I relaid two years ago. I now think I shouldn’t have gone for the cheapest turf, since mine has “issues”. I have an 18V cordless Bosch mower, which in my opinion doesn’t cut sufficiently short. I still have ‘Mowhammed’, the robotic mower, but he seems like overkill for my tiny patch of lawn. Main problem here, notwithstanding heavy clay soil, is bloody Creeping Cinquefoil (Potentilla reptans).

        1. Maybe. Turf Express. It was cheap for a reason. It has an embedded plastic grid, There are patches of coarse grass. I’ll do a ‘lawn feed and weed’ soon. The coarse stuff will survive that, so I have a weedkiller to hand which will deal with it, without poisioning the soil. Will re-seed the inevitable bare patches.

      1. I had a young, male gardener, but unfortunately, he moved away. I don’t think he went to Albania (he was English).

    1. His recent offerings have been rather half-hearted, as though he’s run out of ways to spend another 10 minutes on variations of the same theme. This is different. This is angry.

      1. Well he did meet Sue M a couple of days ago – so I’m not at all surprised he has ‘stiffened his sinews’! (or should that be Gbnews?)

    2. Excellent rant and spot on as ever.

      My own personal advice to everyone is to buy some gold and silver, stash a quantity of cash, pay off all debts and refuse all medical inducements to take any vaccine injection whatsoever, whether for the common cold, seasonal flu or Covid.

      I suspect all jabs are by now reorientated and manipulated to mRNA spike protein types and designed to harm and kill you whilst making billionaires of oiks such as Sunak and the rest.

      I almost choked when I read that Grant Shapps, Bill Gates’ chum, was appointed as Defence Secretary. The previous occupant of that office was an ambitious fool but Shapps is a bonafide Circus Clown.

      I have never in my life ever felt such hatred as I retain for our politicians and the political class. This will not end well for them. We are Englishmen and not designed to be trifled with for much longer.

      1. Oh, I don’t know! I think Englishmen will suck it up for a good many years yet until there are too few to overthrow their masters. If it comes about in my lifetime, I shall be too old and gaga to know. When prompted, I shall say “God Save The Queen”, having forgotten that she died in 2022.

  68. Right, I’m bathed, have taken some aspirin and paracetamol for the day’s aches and pains and I’m off to bed.

    Goodnight all.

    1. Selfridges food hall sells mayo made with only natural ingredients. Avocado oil instead of rapeseed oil. It costs £6.90 for a small jar. I figured it was worth it to wean me off junk. It tasted disgusting. Most of it went in the bin. I’m used to mayo being creamy in taste and texture and that’s what I like, whatever the ingredients.

      1. I tried making my own, Sue. It took ages, ages, and tasted very much of egg (I used Burford Browns, the ones with the orange yolks and sun-tanned shells). I won’t be doing that again. And I will steer clear of the avocado oil-based mayonnaise. Hellmann’s does seem to have deteriorated over the years since I first tried it, over 50 years ago.

      2. I’ve given up buying mayonnaise, as I can’t find any that is acceptable. Don’t have time to make my own. It’s a fake kind of food anyway, that didn’t form part of my diet as a child, so I can give it up without too many pangs!

    2. It contains GMO. I think this is found in US Hellmann’s, not Hellmann’s destined for the UK – yet.

      1. And from the phrase “WEST OF THE ROCKIES” and the post code “NJ [New Jersey] 07632”, Alec.

    4. This is from greenamerica.org. It’s 9 years old, so treat with caution.

      Avoiding GMO Foods? Bad News for Hellmann’s

      Submitted by GMO Inside on August 4, 2014

      Health-conscious people avoid it and few people admit to using it, but it always turns up at a summertime cookout, picnic, or potluck…mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is a staple in dishes like potato salad, coleslaw, and the beloved deviled egg. Some people even mix it with ketchup and put it on hot dogs, or use it alone on French fries. Made mostly of oil, eggs, and vinegar, mayo is the ever-present guest at your summertime gathering. With 31 percent market share in the US (and 52% in Canada), Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise is the likely brand in your potato salad. Other similar culprits may include Duke’s, Miracle Whip, Kraft, and Heinz. But there’s a special ingredient lurking in your Hellmann’s mayo that you should know about…GMOs.

      Hellmann’s, acquired by Unilever in 2000, just celebrated its 100th anniversary as America’s most popular mayonnaise. Its main competitor, Miracle Whip (owned by Kraft), was introduced as a cheaper alternative during the Depression Era. Because Miracle Whip used powdered eggs instead of whole eggs, it lost the “real” appeal to consumers, since “real” mayonnaise could only contain whole eggs, vinegar, and olive oil. Hellmann’s used this as a key marketing tactic against Miracle Whip for a long time, promoting its own truly “real” mayonnaise and getting a leg up on the competition.

      As the years have gone by, we have seen a growing separation between the ingredients used in Hellmann’s mayo and its marketed image of their “real” product. The company’s latest advertising campaign co-opts the sustainable food movement by asking customers to consider supporting local farmers, and starting a home garden rather than focus on the product itself. Alison Leung, Unilever’s foods marketing director, said, “We gave [consumers] an idea to buy into.” The reality of Hellmann’s is clearly far from its clever marketing campaign.

      What is the “Real” Problem with Hellmann’s?

      Hellmann’s used to take great pride in its “real” ingredients. Now, Hellmann’s mayonnaise is made with less-than wholesome ingredients produced in ways that put people, animals, pollinators, and the planet at risk. Half of the ingredients are likely produced from genetically modified (GMO) crops. The eggs are also sourced from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), commonly referred to as factory farms.

      The actual list of ingredients in Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise are (those that are likely directly or indirectly GMOs are bold): soybean oil, water, whole eggs and egg yolks, vinegar, salt, sugar, lemon juice, calcium disodium EDTA (used to protect quality), natural flavors.

      Concerns about GMOs

      The reality: Hellmann’s “Real” Mayonnaise is nothing like the product offered 100 years ago, and the current version is bad for people and the planet. GMOs and growing herbicide resistance have increased the use of toxic chemicals on crops, polluting our soil and water and posing a significant negative environmental impact. Corporate control of GMOs hurts small farmers. The biotech and chemical corporations spend millions to support anti-labeling efforts and keep consumers in the dark about their food. There are also health risks. GMOs are not yet proven safe for human health—the FDA does not require independent testing of GE foods, allowing for many of the studies on GMOs to be industry-funded and heavily biased.

      Among the list of ingredients in Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise, the following products are of particular concern:

      Soybean oil: 93 percent of soy in the US is GMO
      Sugar: 54 percent of sugar sold in the US is from sugar beets, of which over 90 percent are GMO
      Vinegar: Made from corn, of which 89 percent is GMO
      Eggs: Laying hens (egg-producing chickens) are fed GMO corn and soy
      Natural flavors: A nebulous term that includes many ingredients that people don’t consider to be natural

      Concerns about Eggs and CAFOs

      Corporate and Geographic Consolidation

      Gone are the days of pastures, barns, field crops, and farm animals. Eggs are produced in industrial operations with hundreds of thousands of laying hens in each facility, growing by nearly 25 percent from 1997 to 2007. Nearly half of egg production is concentrated in five states: Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, California, and Pennsylvania. Egg operations have grown in size by 50 percent in the same ten-year period, averaging 750,000 hens per factory farm. Though headquartered in Mississippi, Cal-Maine is the largest egg producer in the United States, selling 685 million dozen eggs in 2007 with a flock of 23 million hens.

      Animal Welfare

      The manner in which laying hens are raised directly affects their wellbeing and health. Egg-laying hens are subjected to mutilation, confinement, and deprivation of the ability to live their lives as the active, social beings they are. More than 90 percent of eggs in the US are produced in confinement conditions. Welfare abuses run rampant in egg CAFOs including: killing male chicks upon hatching because they have no value to the egg industry, debeaking young female chicks causing severe pain, living in battery cages with the equivalent of less than a sheet of paper of floor size, being subjected to a process called “forced molting” where hens are starved and deprived of food for up to two weeks to shock their bodies into the next egg-laying cycle, and slaughtering them after their egg production declines in 1-2 years even though the lifespan of an industry chicken would be 5-8 years.

      There is growing concern about the living conditions in which food animals are raised; however, there is little oversight when it comes to product labels, as we have recently seen in the news regarding the label “natural”.The majority of egg labels have no official standards or oversight or enforcement mechanisms, nor much relevance to animal welfare. Labels include: cage-free, free-range, free-roaming, pasture-raised, certified organic, vegetarian-fed, and more. The highest-welfare eggs come pasture-raised with certification from Animal Welfare Approved. Unfortunately, few farms are certified to this standard. Check out the organization’s mobile app to find products near you.

      Even certified organic is not without flaws. According to a report by Cornucopia, industrial-scale organic egg producers, with facilities holding as many as 85,000 hens each, provide 80 percent of the organic eggs on the market. This means that less than half of a percent of egg-laying hens in this country are on pasture-based farms. Therefore, it is important to dig deeper and do research into the company. Local producers offer a shorter supply chain and more transparency.

      Hellmann’s claims to be committed to using cage-free eggs in its products, with a portion of their eggs currently cage-free and a mission to use 100 percent cage-free eggs by 2020. Rather than using Animal Welfare Approved certification, the company opted for American Humane Certified where forced molting through starvation is prohibited, but beak cutting is allowed. To qualify as “cage-free”, the birds must be kept uncaged inside barns–but may still be kept indoors at all times.

      Public and Environmental Health

      Poor living conditions directly impact public and environmental health. Large-scale factory farm operations produce more than just that little white orb used in baking recipes and for brunch dishes; they are also breeding grounds for disease and pollution.

      Large hen facilities house hundreds of thousands of animals in each structure and result in Salmonella poisoning of eggs. Due to a Salmonella outbreak in 2010 where close to 2,000 cases in three months were reported, the US experienced the largest shell egg recall in history—half a billion eggs. While Salmonella rates are higher in battery cage systems, it is still a problem for cage-free facilities due to the sheer number of hens living in such close quarters.

      As seen in other factory farm operations for pigs and cows, chicken CAFOs produce higher levels of waste than can be disposed of in a timely and environmentally responsible manner. The imbalance of a large number of animals in an increasingly smaller space causes mountains of fecal matter to pile up. Ammonia levels increase, negatively impacting air quality by creating particles inhaled by animals and people and producing unpleasant odors. Elevated ammonia levels also negatively impact water quality, running off into local streams and rivers. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), ammonia can be carried more than 300 miles through the air before returning to the ground and then into waterways. The nutrients in runoff from animal waste can then cause algal blooms, which use up the water’s oxygen supply killing all aquatic life, leading to “dead zones.” Dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico are growing larger every year, in addition to those along the East Coast.

      In addition to having a devastating impact on aquatic life, industrial egg production also contributes to climate change. After assessing the lifecycle of eggs from “cradle-to-grave” production, the Environmental Working Group reported that consuming two extra-large eggs is equivalent to driving a car more than one mile.

      Unilever and the Grocery Manufacturers Association

      Not only is Hellmann’s mayonnaise made of bad ingredients, but its parent company, Unilever, has its own tainted history. Unilever gave $467,100 dollars to GMO anti-labeling forces in California in 2012. Though the company stepped back from the fight against labeling by not contributing directly to “No on 522” in Washington in 2013, the company is still a dues-paying member of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA). Currently, the GMA, Snack Food Association, International Dairy Foods Association, and the National Association of Manufacturers are suing the state of Vermont for recently passing a mandatory GMO labeling law.

      Additional Resources

      In the coming week, GMO Inside will release a mayonnaise scorecard showing how various brands measure up in terms of GMO ingredients, prevalence of eggs from CAFOs, and sustainability. Within the scorecard we will offer better alternatives and highlight which brands to avoid. We will also post recipes for making homemade mayonnaise (vegan and non-vegan) to give consumers the ultimate ability to control the quality of ingredients used to make the ever-present spread. Stay tuned!

      https://www.greenamerica.org/blog/bring-out-hellmanns-and-bring-out-gmos

      1. Thanks. Well that was a depressing read! I’m not a malthusian, but neither do I believe that people have a right to cheap food produced at the expense of animal welfare. Battery farming is reducing in Europe, hopefully in the US too.

  76. King Charles is at Balmoral for the Highland Games and sporting his latest invented tartan clothes for stupid folk. Could somebody, anybody, persuade this oaf to stay there. I am sick of the sight of the vain fool.

    1. He matters little to me. His conduct is a trivial concern in my life. Do you have any news about Baby Spice?

      1. About twenty five years ago a man I worked for, 6’8” gay millionaire fond of night life in exclusive venues both in London and New York (Warhol was an acquaintance) announced a possible new project. When I enquired I was told it was a secret client: Baby Spice.

        I believe Baby Spice met him at some nightclub and wanted an estate in Hertfordshire, an area where my boss, a developer of sorts, specialised.

        Nyn Park was on the cards for a Saudi billionaire at that time, proximity to London and Stansted where you can land a personal Jumbo Jet were factors.

        If I find anything else to report you will be the first to know.

          1. No problem. Nyn Park was eventually acquired by France’s richest man Bernard Arnauld. For the same reason that the Arab was keen on it.

            Nyn Park was a Royal Hunting ground and will once have had a hunting lodge, I imagine a prefabricated version similar to Nonsuch. There had been an Elizabethan house in the grounds and subsequently, after its demolition, an ordinary Victorian house eventually utilised by Cheshire Homes.

            At one end of the Nyn Park estate but across the road was a magnificent Queen Anne house owned by Thatcher’s favourite Cecil Parkinson.

            I take no offence nowadays and seek only to inform based on my own acumen. My principal problem is memory in particular of names and places which sometimes take a few hours to recover. Other events are easily recoverable if not vivid.

          3. No problem. Nyn Park was eventually acquired by France’s richest man Bernard Arnauld. For the same reason that the Arab was keen on it.

            Nyn Park was a Royal Hunting ground and will once have had a hunting lodge, I imagine a prefabricated version similar to Nonsuch. There had been an Elizabethan house in the grounds and subsequently, after its demolition, an ordinary Victorian house eventually utilised by Cheshire Homes.

            At one end of the Nyn Park estate but across the road was a magnificent Queen Anne house owned by Thatcher’s favourite Cecil Parkinson.

            I take no offence nowadays and seek only to inform based on my own acumen. My principal problem is memory in particular of names and places which sometimes take a few hours to recover. Other events are easily recoverable if not vivid.

          4. No problem. Nyn Park was eventually acquired by France’s richest man Bernard Arnauld. For the same reason that the Arab was keen on it.

            Nyn Park was a Royal Hunting ground and will once have had a hunting lodge, I imagine a prefabricated version similar to Nonsuch. There had been an Elizabethan house in the grounds and subsequently, after its demolition, an ordinary Victorian house eventually utilised by Cheshire Homes.

            At one end of the Nyn Park estate but across the road was a magnificent Queen Anne house owned by Thatcher’s favourite Cecil Parkinson.

            I take no offence nowadays and seek only to inform based on my own acumen. My principal problem is memory in particular of names and places which sometimes take a few hours to recover. Other events are easily recoverable if not vivid.

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