Saturday 23 May: We don’t need permission to get out, go back to work and avoid ruin

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as 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 blacklisted.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/05/22/letters-dont-need-permission-get-go-back-work-avoid-ruin/

718 thoughts on “Saturday 23 May: We don’t need permission to get out, go back to work and avoid ruin”

    1. Don’t recognise the moniker, ImtDJ – are you a reincarnation?
      EDIT: Manners, Timothy – good morning!

      1. Good morning Oberst. I don’t post very often as I can never remember passwords. Love this blog as I learn so much from you all.

        1. Lastpass is your friend. It’ll generate and remember and autofill almost all passwords – even those truly annoying ones that only expose one element at a time.

          You can edit the entries to include extra info such as bank ‘numbers’.

  2. For some reason I can see all the letters this morning – hanging baskets 🧺! My goodness

    1. Good morning.
      That’s one of the saddest, if not THE saddest cartoon from Bob I have seen….

  4. I agree with Kevin Bell – I have felt I am in a parallel universe for some time

  6. Dominic Cummings under fire for travelling to Durham to live in a part of his parent’s house whilst having symptoms of corona virus. He wanted to have his child cared for by his parents whilst he and his wife self isolated. Opposition leaders are up in arms and saying he should resign or be sacked. There is no evidence, as far as I know, that he affected anyone else.

    1. Just more of the socialist media (i.e. all of them) hoping to bring the government down.

      1. ‘Morning, Jody, more likely socialist fear of what he might get the PM to do, so let’s castigate him (the unkindest cut of all. ©The Goon show)

    2. A difficult situation that was not really catered for under the ‘rules’, but a Heaven-sent opportunity for the anti-right brigade to indulge in a spot of holier-than-thou grandstanding.

      ‘Morning, Clyde.

  7. Good morning, all. Bright and sunny – clear skies but a very strong south-westerly wind which will last until Monday. Grrr.

    I gather Priti Awful lived up to her name, demonstrating her lack of grip on reality.

  8. A line from Juliet Samuel’s DT article about the UK’s finances and particularly the budget deficit:

    “Meanwhile, the national debt burden ……….. becomes more and more expensive to service.”

    Do these economic Xperts ever consider the actual debt we’re accumulating and where the money is to come from to pay it back?

    Or is it me?

    1. I wouldn’t worry about it. The national debt has existed since 1684 it’s not going to be repaid ever. It’s just an accounting statistic and nothing worth getting your knickers in a twist for. It’s just a record of the amount of money pushed into the private sector since 1684 that hasn’t yet been recalled. We don’t necessarily need for it to be recalled.
      As for debt service we are paying the lowest interest rate on gilts ever, they are even selling at negative yield.Gilts never fail to sell, there’s plenty of demand so more expensive debt can be rolled over to a cheaper rate. We don’t pay a penny on anything the BoE holds which is going to increase again as the MPC will certainly QE another 100-250B soon.
      The national debt is not a burden, it’s a gift. Where would the private sector be now if it was missing two trillion quid?
      You can also ignore the headline debt service amount as half of it is returned to the treasury immediately thanks to all the gilts bought by QE.

      1. Thanks Thayaric but as you know, I don’t share your optimism.

        As one who remembers double-digit interest rates, inflation off the scale and the 1976 financial crisis, I am bothered (not worried). Not for myself but for the young people who may discover that MMT is only a theory and not a reality when the black swan arrives.

        1. That was a time of turmoil in economics.

          We’d had fixed exchange rates for 25 years, it’s all central bankers knew, then Nixon ended Bretton-Woods and we had floating currencies. There was the Yom Kippur war in late ’73 where our support of Israel was punished by oil-producing arab nations and the North Sea oil was yet to come online in any real amount.

          Now we’ve had 50 years experience almost of free-floating fully fiat currencies ( we did peg during the ERM but Soros showed us what can happen if you peg). Central bankers now know what they are doing. Things are very different now. Inflation isn’t the problem, deflation is, and that’ll be coming if we can’t keep unemployment down and that requires hefty deficit spending.

          MMT is not a theory, it’s a description of how monetary systems really work. Chartalism and functional finance are theories based on the mechanics of MMT but don’t mix them up.

          1. Re “Central bankers now know what they are doing.”

            I think the jury’s still out on that one. To quote from the BBC, “Market analysts quoted by Reuters say the ruling (by Germany’s top court earlier this month) raises fresh doubts about the ECB’s massive bond-buying programme, also known as “quantitative easing”.”

          2. The ECB is a special case because it’s not a central bank backed by a government, it’s a central bank for a future federal government that doesn’t exist, that only exists to maintain the Euro, a currency that shouldn’t exist until said federal government exists.
            Ignore the Eurozone, they’ve done everything ass about face 😀

      2. The debt won’t be paid back, but it is being eroded by inflation. Higher prices, lower returns on savings all reduce the value of money we have.

        That people don’t appreciate this is the real con. Debt isn’t a gift. It’s robbing the future of property, the basis of capitalism.

        1. What inflation?

          We’re expecting unemployment levels of 15 to 25% after this crisis is over, you won’t see inflation for a long time.

          Look at any graph of inflation plotted against unemployment and you’ll see as unemployment goes down, inflation goes up, and as unemployment goes up, inflation comes down.

          How did Thatcher beat inflation? 12%+ unemployment!

    2. ‘Morning, Eddy. By a strange coincidence I have just this minute finished reading her piece in last Saturday’s Maily Torygraph about the refusal of the teachers’ unions to reopen schools. She writes well and sensibly. How I wish the unions could, for once, act in the interests of children, and the nation, instead of their own selfish political ends.

      1. Morning Hugh.

        I’m staying well clear of the current Covid arguments (by more than 2 yards, I may add).

        My hobby horse is the UK’s finances and where the money comes from to pay for all that the government spends. Unlike many, I’m not so relaxed about living on tick forever. Perhaps it’s my age.

        1. I agree. Somehow such profligacy will have to be paid for, and the cost will be exceedingly painful.

          1. Why must “such profligacy will have to be paid for”?

            You’re still of the mindset that the government only has the money we give it. NEWSFLASH The government doesn’t use a single penny that you give it, it just destroys it. We don’t pay taxes to fund services, if we did government cheques would bounce but they are as good as holding wads of currency.

            Government creates money – Government pays wages and pensions, buys goods and services ( hello money circulation, one man’s spending becomes another man’s wages) – We all receive pieces of this money in varying amounts – inflation starts to rise once we near the NAIRU figure – Tax removes some money from the economy to keep inflation and growth around their target levels, to alter people’s behaviour, and above all else to ensure we all work for pounds and don’t barter so cutting the government out – Finally to keep accountants happy and to create a safe savings vehicle we ‘borrow’ the difference so the books add up and so the real interest rate doesn’t fall to zero.

        2. “where the money comes from to pay for all that the government spends”

          It literally comes from thin air. It is created at the moment it’s spent. Exactly the same place bank loans come from. However banks have to maintain capital and reserve requirements ( well capital requirements in the UK) and the government doesn’t, the government is more worried about employment, people’s happiness, quality of services, behaviour. Where the money comes from is the last thing on its mind, it can always find pounds if it wants to and they deem the trade-offs acceptable.

          You must understand we are not constrained by solvency we are constrained by acceptable rates of inflation and foreign exchange.

          1. “we are constrained by acceptable rates of inflation”

            Point taken.

            Whilst 1970s soaring inflation chipped away at our national debt at the time, hot on its heels were wages. The latter made many of our exports more expensive and allowed others, especially the Japanese, to capitalise on this.

            Whilst I understand where you’re coming from with the points you make, like many of my age I’m uneasy about our debt situation.

            Although we had a similar-sized debt pile after the war, we also had rationing until 1954 and many of our population were enduring living conditions far worse than those, particularly the US, which were lending us the money. In other words, being heavily in debt had a social cost. The 1946 US/Canadian loan to keep the UK economy afloat was eventually paid off in 2006, six years late.

          2. Again you are talking about different times, a period of rebuilding after a near global war when one minute many countries were on the gold standard, and went fiat for the war then some went back on the gold standard again before realising that was a huge mistake.

            Times are different now. There’s not a single country left on a Gold Standard and probably less than 10% of nations peg their currency. The world, at least all of the West and most of our trade partners (except China) have free floating fiat currencies. The Renminbi doesn’t free float really, it’s exchange rate is manipulated by the CCP/Bank of China.

            With fiat currencies and the way banking systems are set up, all money is debt, every penny of it. It’s either created by government or it’s created by commercial banks through the act of making loans. Without debt there is no money. Debt is inherent to the system in getting it to work right.

            You were brought up to believe if you haven’t got the money you can’t buy the thing you want. That’s great. But what if the whole economy did that? Who would buy things? If things aren’t in demand, who would make things? What business would expand if it couldn’t borrow the necessary fund for expansion. Bye bye dividends and pension growth as that money would be held back for expansion on a once in a blue moon basis. What if you had to save half a million quid from a 25k a year salary before you could buy a house? Debt makes the world go round, without it there wouldn’t have been a technological revolution. There would be no internet. Most people wouldn’t own a computer. We’d likely have 3-6 TV channels. There’d be no mobiles. And so on… They all exist because of debt.

          3. “You were brought up to believe if you haven’t got the money you can’t buy the thing you want.”

            Not so much a belief, more a necessity for the majority before Hire Purchase arrived. Also understood, by our parents but not us youngsters, was that debt is a commitment and not a gift. Unless you renege on that commitment, financial or otherwise, it has to be fulfilled.

            I’m not against debt, just the impression that many have that it’s a free ride. If debt is the bees knees that we’re told it is, we’d still have the hundreds of famous business names that it’s taken down.

          4. I borrow from you it’s a commitment. The government creates money out of thin air and distributes it amongst its citizens, it’s a gift. Government borrowing isn’t really borrowing and we could pay back 75% of our debt tomorrow if we wanted to if we accept what that will do to pension funds.

          5. Our debt is roughly give or take a few percent about 95% of GDP. After WW2 we had a debt level of 250% of GDP. Even with such high debt the Boomers are the richest generation of the 20th century.

  11. 319536+up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    What is the weather like in the English channel today
    will it make for a smooth crossing for potential coronavirus, paedophila activist, welfare abusers.

    If the crossing is proving rough the escorting french / UK vessels can always put down a path of oil to calm the waters.

    May one ask why are these governance parties F/E in collusion regarding the mass transporting of peoples during a lockdown period.

    What are priti’s views, does she know what has been going on, is she disappointed with the revealing ?

      1. 319536+ up ticks,
        Morning Ktk,
        The incoming guest’s,have you no consideration for those brave peoples who have left the shores of a safe haven to come and help you out, shame on you.

  12. For God’s sake get back to work…….

    SIR – In English law, everything that is not illegal is lawful, in contrast with European law, wherein everything that is not expressly permitted is forbidden.

    We have, as a nation, always mistrusted the top-down permissions and certainties in law and society beloved of the EU. Indeed, we tend to tolerate uncertainty with a native stoicism that I believe arises from faith in our Common Law – that the law of the land will see us right in the end.

    On this basis, I repudiate some unions’ demands for predictive certainties in the midst of the present coronavirus crisis. Who can say what will happen next? Some things are entirely predictable, such as the economic catastrophe that awaits us if we don’t get back to work.

    The progress of the epidemic is much less certain, and potentially manageable if we all observe the advice about hand-washing and social distancing, along with the things we have learnt in the past 10 weeks.

    Let us stop messing about. It’s time for us to be as stoical and as sane as our forebears!

    Julia Alexander

    London W1

    Advertisement

    SIR – Gerard Lyons and Paul Ormerod (Comment, May 17) hit the spot exactly in saying that it is the psychological state of individuals that will be the key to economic recovery.

    The thing most likely to bring back individual confidence is restoration of normally functioning health and dental services. I can live with the fact that my dog can get a haircut this week even though my husband can’t – it’s quite funny. But my dog could also have dental work or cancer surgery…

    Jane O’Nions

    Sevenoaks, Kent

    SIR – The Government has successfully petrified a large proportion of the population into thinking that if they leave their front door, they will catch coronavirus and die of it.

    Further, the futile demands of the teaching unions only to return to work in a risk-free environment echo the feelings of many, who believe they can create a sterile home or workplace. This is impossible, which is fortunate, as our immune systems require stimuli to be effective.

    The sooner the nation returns to normal the better. The majority will develop at least partial immunity – probably the best one can hope for.

    David Nunn FRCS

    West Malling, Kent

    SIR – When the lockdown eases, some public and private toilets will still not be open, in shops, bars and public buildings. Surely this needs addressing urgently.

    For a start, these are places to wash our hands, which we are told to do regularly. Moreover, many mothers with toddlers, older people and the disabled need these facilities, frequently in some cases.

    By all means allow fewer people in at a time, but not none at all.

    Chris Hunt

    Swanley, Kent

    1. ‘Morning, Epi. Julia Alexander is right. Coincidentally, there was an item on the World Service last night which included how some other countries are handling the reopening of schools. For instance, Denmark apparently embarked upon this task a month ago, and apparently the sky shows no sign of falling in. Perhaps our cowardly, self-serving teachers’ unions should organise a fact-finding trip to Denmark?

      1. Norway has had the kindergartens open a while now, and bigger kids have been back the last week or two. No big deal.

  13. Morning all

    SIR – A teachers’ union asserts that school exercise books will have to be “sanitised”, and marking them “will not be safe” (report, May 22).

    As a consultant pathologist in a large NHS hospital, I have to read medical records of patients who have died from Covid-19. Initially these records were “quarantined” for two weeks after death. Then we started to receive them after 24 hours.

    When I questioned this change, the hospital’s consultant virologist leading on Covid cited new scientific evidence showing that the virus survives for no more than a few hours on paper and cardboard. He referred me to scientific papers in reputable medical journals. I trusted him and so far have not caught the virus. So I believe he is right.

    If medical records probably exposed to an aerosol of virus particles are safe to handle after 24 hours, then marking schoolbooks is surely safe. (The same applies to the Church of England’s startling prohibition of the handling of bibles, prayer books and bell ropes.)

    Following the scientific evidence should mean changing your opinion when new evidence emerges. Of all people, teachers should know that.

    Professor Peter Furness

    Whissendine, Rutland

    SIR – A colleague and I have modelled Covid-19 cases and deaths in 20 European countries, including the UK, against about 20 factors such as heart disease, obesity, smoking, exercise, pollution and latitude, as well as vitamin D levels.

    For Covid-19 cases, the main factors are cardiovascular disease, vitamin D levels (which increase immune response, as pointed out in the Telegraph), latitude (as the virus prefers cold) and the proportion of African/Afro-Caribbean people in a population (also pointed out in the Telegraph).

    For Covid-19 deaths, the main factors are population density (related to distancing), the proportion of vegetarians and the proportion of African/Afro-Caribbean people.

    These factors account for about 80 per cent of the variation in cases and deaths in these 20 European countries.

    Errors made by the Government (as by numerous other governments) may have affected the disease’s progress, but our results show that demographic factors outside the Government’s immediate control play a major part.

    Professor John Dearden

    Helsby, Cheshire

    1. Stoking the Furness.

      I seem to remember that early on in lockdown we were told that the virus could survive only a few hours on paper & cardboard. Hence I have left all packages containing books from A. & any other post a few days before opening.

  14. SIR – On my daily walk I count the people returning my greeting, “Good morning”. Yesterday’s score was nine out of 15.

    Mary Yeoman

    Horsham, West Sussex

    1. Most people say good morning around here, even when it is afternoon.

      It’s weird though how the odd person avoids eye contact and makes it obvious that the wont be any pleasantries.
      They are usually covered up and masked

      1. And usually hurridly pass you with a gap of at leat 6 yards instead of 6 feet.

        1. A bit like TV ‘news’ interviewers, who seem to be many yards away from their victims. More virtue-signalling I suppose…

          1. I saw the morning studio on BBC with the two presenters sitting at opposite ends of the couch. I thought about it briefly. Firstly, they are breathing the same air. Secondly, if they have an air conditioning system, as is highly likely in a studio, the AC will recirculate the virus, although the levels with will drop with distance travelled through the trunking. (That’s one of the ways that Legionnaire’s disease (a bacterium) is spread. Warnings have been issued that buildings that have not been occupied for some time because of lockdown will need to have the water and air conditioning systems cleaned up before being repopulated as a measure against Legionnaire’s disease.)

      2. The only time i wore a mask was when i had to go A & E recently. None of the other patients were, but every single member of staff had them. I don’t know the efficacy of the masks but i thought it prudent. It came off as soon as i got outside.

      3. The person who doesn’t respond to a greeting is far and few between here. Most people. particularly fellow dog walkers, seem keen to stop for a chat. It helps to break the monotony of isolation, I suppose.

    2. The highlight of my vitamin D gathering the other day was when I stood still while three youngsters on bicycles went past on a narrowish path. All three said thank you.

      Morning Epi.

      1. This politeness only really happens in small towns and villages. Almost never in the city.

      2. Morning Eddy – Yesterday I stopped and got off my bike to get some postage stamps from the local hybrid Post Office. I was walking along the pavement pushing my bike when a rental white van came up behind me partly on the pavement and just avoided me as it parked on the pavement and a double yellow line outside the PO. The passenger got out of the van and walked closely past me as I was securing my bike [ they are hard to get at the moment] There was no word of apology as he went into the shop. I kept my mouth shut.

        1. Morning clydesider.

          You’d obviously drawn the short straw.

          As for riding a bike on today’s roads, I doff my cap to you.

  15. Good Morning Folks

    Lovely sunny start earlier, clouding over a bit now and wind picking up

  16. Morning again

    So many businesses ruined by mass hysteria….

    SIR – My son and I operate a family business in passenger transport. Until the present crisis, it was small but successful. It is now teetering on the brink of extinction.

    We applied for a Bounce Back Loan on May 7 but received nothing except error messages from the Barclays website. We were told that the bank needed to update its records on our company, yet – despite supplying everything requested – we are still awaiting an outcome.

    With the assistance of my MP, the matter has now been raised at a high level in Barclays. I get regular updates from the bank, but nobody can tell me when or if this can be resolved. I can manage for the next seven to 10 days. Then I shall have to close for good.

    John Bridge

    Southend-on-Sea, Essex

      1. I tried it with Sainsbury’s in the past. Worked fine.
        Not this time. I wrote to complain that I could not get a delivery. Their website had a message saying the they were working with the Scottish Government regarding who was vulnerable etc. Still waiting for a reply.

    2. Ah yes, Barclays – my bête noire! The bank that took 4 times longer to transfer money to me from my late mother’s accounts than the Probate Registry took to issue a grant of probate. Only after I contacted my MP, who wrote to the CEO on my behalf, did the money eventually appear – no letter or apology though. When the closing statements for the accounts arrived I found that Barclays had made two payments from a supposedly closed account months after my mother’s death – I informed them of that at once and asked for the money to be returned – I’m still waiting and feel another letter to my MP coming on. They are an absolute, incompetent disgrace.

      1. I would happily set fire to every Barclays branch, me. Go on the attack immediately.
        Try the link I posted – http://www.ceoemail.com to contact the right CEO or COO directly. But be wary – you have only a few free searches!

      3. Just look at the multi-ethnic, incompetent, stupid-looking personnel the banks parade on their television advertisements and you will better understand the whys and wherefores of their inability to do anything right.

        .

    3. Ah yes, Barclays – my bête noire! The bank that took 4 times longer to transfer money to me from my late mother’s accounts than the Probate Registry took to issue a grant of probate. Only after I contacted my MP, who wrote to the CEO on my behalf, did the money eventually appear – no letter or apology though. When the closing statements for the accounts arrived I found that Barclays had made two payments from a supposedly closed account months after my mother’s death – I informed them of that at once and asked for the money to be returned – I’m still waiting and feel another letter to my MP coming on. They are an absolute, incompetent disgrace.

  17. SIR – For over 50 years of my working life, I contributed towards the cost of the NHS. This amounted to many tens of thousands of pounds, and was mandatory. The NHS is not “free”.

    John Bloor

    Doncaster, South Yorkshire

    1. It is only free to those who arrive from elsewhere and have never paid a penny for it.

  18. BBC Breakfast telling tales and slowly demolishing all the credibility of the government .

    I wonder who does that Naga woman’s hair , it hasn’t grown since lockdown! Da dah didah da. :0)

    1. A number of people have commentated on the fact that many presenters seem to remain free from tonsorial neglect despite lockdown! One can only assume that they have found some mysterious way of getting haircuts and other essentials while still isolating and not getting within 2 metres of anyone – no wonder they are paid so handsomely!!

      1. Detacheable hairpiece? Even an eejit can shave their head at home, with an electric razor.
        Morning, SB.

          1. Reminds me of the first time the MR used the hair clippers on my hair. As she started, the guard fell off – and there was a furrow of almost bare skin up one side of my head.

            “Fear not, ” she said, “It’ll grow again…” And she was right.

          2. I have not had a professional haircut for over 32 years – Caroline does the job for me. However, she does not allow me anywhere near the scissors when she wants a trim.

          5. Didn’t think you were supposed to do selfies on here. 😂😂😂😂😂

    1. He’s a punk…………………..the guy on the right.

      The other one is a sad remnant of a pathetic ‘look at me’ movement.

      2. Not so, Phizzee.

        Due to the cost of the congestion charge, the one on the left needs a second job. His is to stand on a stepladder and brush the light fittings.

      1. Put your barber’s sign up Alec, and I’ll up like a flash (to join the queue stretching back over the border).

        1. I’ve got clippers Eddy and use them with a No.1 comb to cut my own hair. I can cut anyone’s hair to the same style and the company would be welcomed

          5. I know. That’s how mine looked when I got an electric shock (opened my leccy bill).

    7. You have to ask, what does he do for a living?

      Fair enough, he’s presenting himself as he chooses and as long as he’s doing that with his own effort, fine.

      The bloke on the right is a troughing parasite who has no value or use whatsoever and would screw up mopping a floor.

  21. The Government must stop kowtowing to China and side with our true allies

    Why aren’t we forming tech partnerships with Japan, South Korea, Finland and Sweden, instead of fattening the Chinese cuckoo in our nest?

    CHARLES MOORE

    When Boris Johnson was ill with Covid-19, Dominic Raab deputised for him. Some feared he would make a power grab, but in fact he behaved with becoming modesty. The problem with Mr Raab is a different one – the way he does his normal job as Foreign Secretary.

    The consequence – and part of the aim – of Brexit, for which Mr Raab campaigned bravely, was to let Britain take an independent course in the world. We Brexited, but the Foreign Office, under him, has been at great pains to avoid the consequent independence. We have continued to sign up to numerous EU projects, plans and targets. We have clung uncritically to the Paris Climate Agreement and the JCPOA with Iran, both of which are structured against Western interests. Our international development aid still takes pride in the fact that its work is forbidden to assist wider British strategy. And when the Government reviewed our 5G deal with Huawei, it squashed widespread anxieties about cybersecurity and the objections of our closest allies, and pressed ahead.

    Before he was a Member of Parliament, Mr Raab was a lawyer at the Foreign Office. That is how he still behaves as Foreign Secretary, reading everything carefully and then signing it off once he is satisfied it rocks no boats. The idea that he should think strategically about Britain’s role in the world seems not to have crossed his mind.

    Just after the Huawei review came the virus, from China. The decision to stick with Huawei left us, like Singapore in 1942, with our guns facing the wrong way. Here we are, technologically dependent on and frightened by the second biggest military power in the world. China’s incompetence, cover-ups and selfishness have spread an illness caught by more than five million people across the world, which has finished off nearly 40,000 of our citizens.

    Taking advantage of the global focus on the virus – and the fact that crowds dare not demonstrate during a plague – the Chinese Communist Party has gone on to repress the supposedly autonomous Hong Kong. This week, its National People’s Congress imposed a new security law whether or not the territory’s Legislative Council wants it. The law will allow ordinary protesters who defend existing civil rights to be locked up as “subversives”, “secessionists”, “terrorists” and “traitors”.

    Beijing will have noted with pleasure that there has been much less front-page coverage of its latest action than there was of its crushing of huge Hong Kong demonstrations last year. It will have been less pleased by the condemnation put out by Mr Raab yesterday, especially because it was published jointly with the foreign ministers of Australia and Canada, but their expression of “deep concern” is in itself no great deterrent. Their invocation of China’s obligations under the Sino-British Agreement, a treaty lodged at the United Nations, is a move in the right direction. This is an issue where freedom and international order combine, one on which we should build alliances.

    Free, open cities, such as London and New York, have suffered badly under Covid; and so – though not chiefly for medical reasons – has the once-free and open city of Hong Kong. It is disappointing that Boris Johnson himself, once the mayor and champion of our great open city, has avoided the subject. The old Chinese order, “Tremble and obey”, is working well. Indeed, China seems to think its model of governance is vindicated by Covid, in contrast to the weediness of the West.

    The Government’s stance towards China has been so inadequate that, despite its large and fresh majority in the Commons, it finds its party in revolt. Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the parliamentary party’s new China Research Group, is trying to supply the strategic thinking which the Government shies away from.

    Mr Tugendhat unpicks the idea that, because China is such a mighty economic force, we must accept its trade on the terms it dictates. No, he says, the benefits of free trade are real only when the trading parties actually believe in the rules rather than hijacking them. When the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) was reached in 1947, he points out, it created genuine economic partnerships between free-trading nations. Over the years, its successor, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), has set the bar to entry so low that it has become ineffective. In 2001, China was admitted. Instead of being a friendly stablemate, it has become, under Xi Jinping, a Trojan horse.

    The founders of the GATT, like those of other new post-war institutions such as the UN Security Council, Nato and – to do them justice – the European Economic Community, saw them as means of sharing common standards and encouraging other nations to do the same. In recent years, these common standards have lapsed, and China has known how to exploit the weakness. How was it, for example, that Britain and America, who paid much higher dues to the World Health Organisation (WHO) than did China, still let China buy influence over the poorer member states of the organisation, thus corrupting its work?

    One of the strongest post-war alliances of the like-minded is the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing system between the US, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Although profoundly practical, it is cultural and strategic too – an expression of a mutual trust which wants to defend a shared vision of the world. Huawei’s intrusion upon that trust, with British permission, is shocking, and is already straining our best alliances. After Covid, it is even more clearly intolerable. We need what Mr Tugendhat calls “a path to zero” from Huawei. Why aren’t we forming cybersecurity and technology partnerships with friendly powers with know-how, – Japan, South Korea, Finland, Sweden, as well as the Five Eyes – instead of fattening the Chinese cuckoo in our nest?

    The small stirrings this week suggest the Government is waking up to these dangers; but it does not look good that it is being led by its party rather than the other way round. Moves are afoot to edge away from the “Golden Era” of Sino-British relations under George Osborne and David Cameron and the dangers of what some call “authoritarian tech”. But such edging is slowed by the simple, basic fear that the Chinese will stop supplying us with enough PPE if we offend them.

    The Government now realises that the promised Telecoms Security Bill to entrench the percentage of Huawei’s involvement seems unlikely to get through Parliament. Even the Labour Party is in danger of looking stronger against China than Her Majesty’s Government. Its spokesman, Stephen Kinnock, is eloquent on the subject.

    Our Government rightly wants good, open, trading relations with China, and to accord it the cultural respect which President Xi, by angrily demanding it, forfeits. Real gains have accrued since, 40 years ago, China slipped away from the madness of Maoism. It is also reasonable for Britain to want to avoid getting involved on either side in Donald Trump’s lurid campaign for re-election. So words need picking carefully.

    But it is an illusion of our traditional policy elites, still heartbroken over Brexit, to think that Britain’s independence from the EU means we should be “non-aligned” in the world, neutral between the great powers. As trade becomes ever more global and the cyber-world makes surveillance, spying and intellectual property theft more prevalent, it becomes ever more important to distinguish between like-minded friends and wolf-warriors in sheep’s clothing. Work with the former; keep the latter outside the fold.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/22/government-must-stop-kowtowing-china-side-true-allies/

    2. Probably because everything from Japan, South Korea, Finland and Sweden is manufactured from Chinese parts in China now.

      1. I suspect that. The ‘factories’ are assembly plants for Chinese components.
        As the world wakes up, China will be acquiring even more property outside its borders.

        1. I was told by a neighbour who had been checking that the Chinese have bought up a very large number of British businesses in the last couple of months – can’t remember the figure but I think it was in the 1000s.

    3. “But such edging is slowed by the simple, basic fear that the Chinese will stop supplying us with enough PPE if we offend them.”
      PPE is made from plastic. I was a buyer of plastic packaging, vacuum bags for fish. The material was not a single simple material. It was composed of three layers, one tough layer to give strength, a layer that contained the printing and a very thin layer that was a barrier to air and everything airborne.
      The plastic came on very big reels, like newspaper reels, back when they printed newspapers. The material was printed and cut on seven machines each the size of a bus, in a row over a hundred yards long.
      All this was done in the UK and in Italy and Switzerland. But we cannot any longer make plastic aprons and gowns in Europe?

      1. Does nobody play Monopoly anymore?

        1) Mr John Prescott, now his Lordship, scion of the workers’ movement, signed a treaty that restricted carbon gas emissions.
        2)Parliament legislated for a minimum wage, ignoring all those workers with minimal abilities and fewer skills.
        3) Capital left the West and headed for South East Asia.
        4) China began to laugh, quietly.

        1. There is one simple question our leaders never ask, it seems: “Is this in the best interests of the people of the United Kingdom?”

    4. Don’t worry, your vaccinator globalist billionaire Bill Gates was telling his London manager, Boros, what to do yesterday, and he even spoke to Prince William.

      So everything will be fine.

      Roll up your sleeve when Bill says..

    5. The thing is, as regards “…
      new security law whether or not the territory’s Legislative Council
      wants it. The law will allow ordinary protesters who defend existing
      civil rights to be locked up as “subversives”, “secessionists”,
      “terrorists” and “traitors”….”

      The UK has had that for some time. In many ways we’re far more oppressive, we just change the names. We use it to prevent dissent against things the state likes – like Muslims.

      The race relations and terrorism acts are utterly brutal in their range and scope.

      As for going to Huawei for 5G, that’s obvious corruption. Mandelson and his ilk are paid very well and literally buy consent from those deciding here. It’s fraud against the tax payer that the simplest investigation would uncover.

      As regards the nonsense of climate change – who knows? The whole thing is an insanity that is economically and ecologically destructive but because all this is hidden – where our plastic goes under the WEEE, for example – the public are kept in the dark.

      It’s business as usual: fraud, corruption, theft and waste and the tax payer foots the bill. Worse these fools want to put taxes up. Tax hikes stall the economy. This is basic economics. The statists can’t see beyond their own petty big government interests and think they are the masters, not the servant.

  22. Morning all 😊

    A sign of the future, last night the tough northeast GET IT DONE NOW, cop, Vera.
    On her knees, shoes off, head covered, in front of the local immam.
    She pulls everyone else into the station for a question and answer session.
    Not a good place to be eh.
    Wadda loada bolero. 😕

    2. 319536+ up ticks.
      Re,
      The sad thing is that is a glaring pointer
      to the truth which will precede a very, very, late ” Beginning” when the English ………..

  23. Good morning. The deeply cynical amongst us can’t help but wonder why this important news was published at 6:00pm on the Friday before a long holiday weekend:

    “The Remdesivir Study Is Finally Out: Drug Only Helped Those On Oxygen, Finds Mortality Too High For Standalone Treatment

    No marked benefit seen for those who were healthier and didn’t need oxygen or those who were sicker; “Given high mortality despite the use of Remdesivir, it is clear that treatment with an antiviral drug alone is not likely to be sufficient.”

    More here: https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/remdesivir-study-finally-out-drug-only-helped-those-oxygen-finds-mortality-too-high

    & Here: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2007764

    1. If time is of the essence to withdraw the use of any drug I could see the point of getting the report out as soon as they could. This doesn’t appear to meet that test.

      Another reason might be it being market sensitive information so they would publish after stock markets were closed.

      Given Trump’s support of the drug, it might even be to ensure th weekend newspapers and magazines could make the most of the timing.

      1. I thought it was his good Chief Medical Officer Dr Fuxi who was all for this drug….

  24. Four men and one woman are taking a trip by plane when the engine stalls out and they crash on a deserted island.

    They all survive, but they’re stranded. Lucky for them, the island has all kinds of wild fruit growing on it, and the girl turns out to be a nymphomaniac, so none of the guys have to go without sex for too long.

    The men take turns, with a different guy being designated husband each week. This arrangement works out great for years, satisfying all four of the men as well as the nymphomaniac. One day, however, their beloved shared wife falls ill and dies…

    The first month goes by, it was awful. The second month is really bad, too. The third month is unbearable, and when the fourth month finally rolls around, the guys can’t handle it anymore…

    So they bury her.

    1. and it goes on Tom – 3 months later they are disgusted with what they are doing so they dig her up again

  25. Covid proves we urgently need a new quango bonfire, starting with Public Health England

    Slimming down our bloated quangocracy will help us fix recent great errors of the state and get the country back on the road to thrift

    TOM HARWOOD

    The last year in politics has exposed unaccountable public bodies as woefully ill-prepared to deal with current events and challenges.

    The Electoral Commission, despite twice finding Leave campaigners innocent of any wrongdoing, opened a third investigation into Brexiteers following increased political pressure from pro-Remain activists, only to be humiliatingly proved wrong yet again earlier this month. Similarly, Public Health England attempted a centralised anti-market command and control testing system that saw coronavirus spread far and wide under the nose of the body tasked with controlling it.

    It is understandable that Tory MPs are now more openly talking about the fitness for purpose of these organisations. The political stars appear to be aligning in order to finally complete the promise of David Cameron’s enticing soundbite: a real bonfire of the quangos.

    The rhetoric of this new government, until coronavirus struck, was clear in its aims. To level up the whole UK and enable people to take back control over their own lives. That means taking control away from Westminster, and especially away from unaccountable central bodies. The time for politicians hiding behind bureaucrats when it comes to key decision making is over.

    The case for this democratic renewal has only strengthened as time has gone on. Whilst the Electoral Commission’s track record for doomed investigations is well established, the argument that Public Health England has been an utter disaster has now started gathering steam.

    The Electoral Commission seemingly fell hook line and sinker for the arguments of well-funded pro-Remain political campaigners. The ironically named Good Law Project (run by Twitter celebrity QC and arch Remainer Jolyon Maugham) kicked off an investigation into Leave campaigners that stretched for years before being finally defeated in the courts and thrown out by the police. Truth and justice won out, but at a huge financial, emotional, and personal cost to those involved.

    No serious investigations were opened into Remain campaigners despite credible evidence of potential rule bending like the £1 million funnelled into five new campaigns that appeared to many of us to act in a co-ordinated way, and were all set up less than a month before the vote. The Electoral Commission batted away Priti Patel’s dossier outlining the possible rule breaking. Official records even show that on some measures the Remain side outspent Leave by almost two to one. At Prime Minister’s Questions last week, Peter Bone spoke for many on the Tory benches when he said it was time for this quango to go.

    Similarly, a feeling is growing among a growing band of MPs that Public Health England was asleep at the wheel. Earlier this week the science and technology committee published a scathing letter slamming PHE’s lack of testing and centralised in-house approach. Chair of the committee Greg Clark went further, saying it was surprising that the current mass testing initiate was not at the behest of PHE, but a “Secretary of State imposed” target.

    The body is yet to answer MPs’ calls to explain why they abandoned mass testing to instead concentrate on testing tiny numbers exclusively in its state-owned laboratories.

    PHE has shown itself up to be fundamentally unfit for purpose. Initially obsessed with centralising testing in Government facilities, the quango rejected the successful German model of involving private sector labs. It took political intervention from Matt Hancock in the shape of an enormous and public testing target to force PHE to concede the private sector can help.

    Like the Electoral Commission, this supposedly independent body has appeared more ideological than truth-seeking. PHE is known primarily for nanny state policies rather than pandemic preparedness. Obsessed with taxing our drinks, attacking smokers, and a new war on sugar, it is clear it was utterly unprepared for a real public health emergency when it came along. Public Health England is a stained, distracted and ideological institution and the government would likely have been better off dealing with Coronavirus without it.

    There is an obvious immediate lesson to be learned from the UK’s handling of the pandemic. We have witnessed an enormous failing of the quangocracy, and the cowardly decision of successive generations of politicians to shift power not down to individuals but up to quangocrats.

    Added to these very public disasters, other quangos continue to quietly pinch from taxpayer pockets. A barmy 62pc of the Arts Council’s music fund goes to subsidising the elitist pursuit of opera. For some reason the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is a wholly separate body from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, costing the taxpayer £445 million and £354 million respectively every year. Meanwhile, Health Education England remains an entirely separate body to Public Health England, costing three billion pounds a year between them.

    There is enormous scope for scrapings and savings, especially as we enter the 2020s saddled with an unprecedently rapidly engorged level of public debt. Slimming down our bloated quango state is an obvious place to start, not only to fix great errors of the state in recent years, but also to get the country back on the road to thrift. A new bonfire of the quangos is needed, and abolishing PHE along with the Electoral Commission must be the place to start.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/22/covid-proves-urgently-need-new-quango-bonfire-starting-public

    1. There will be no bonfire. There will be no changes whatsoever. The state is quite happy soaking up money and returning nothing.

      The CS is split in two: at the bottom there’s a group desperately trying to achieve a goal, to do things. At the top there’s a gigantic collective of dead weight who speak a language no one understands to disguise complete irrelevance. These people are untouchable. If they do resign they attack for the temerity of being asked to do their job.

    2. “A new bonfire of the quangos is needed…”

      I’m still waiting for someone to light the old one.

      ‘Morning, WS.

      1. Quotes, well known and otherwise.

        David Cameron 2009 “a bonfire of quangos”

        Jay Gee 2020 “sucker, waiting for a politician to make good on a promise”

        Morning to you BTW.

      1. I don’t dispute that Maggie. It appears to produce blood clots leading to cardiac arrests and strokes. However, the fact remains the total number of deaths to date is no worse than in a virulent Flu season.

        1. Perhaps there’s no drop in no Covid flu or respiratory deaths because they’ve all been counted as Covid 19 deaths?
          Morning all BTW. Really windy today, a few clouds, it doesn’t look like raining today.

    3. It’s not surprising considering that for nearly 3 months the roads have been empty, no one’s been out drinking and due to no shops being open for DIY fewer home accidents.

      It is – fairly obviously – only May.

      If people could actually think for themselves and knew that roads kill more people, that we’re surrounded by germs and bacteria the hysteria would be far less but no. After all, an intelligent aware population is not easily controlled.

      And people are dumb beyond belief.

  27. Curious thing. Yesterday the Pakistan Airbus crashed on a “heavily populated” suburb of Karachi.

    Reports today say that there were two survivors of the 98 on board.

    Not a word – not one – about how many people living in the “heavily populated” suburb might have been killed. They don’t count, I suppose.

    1. London1972

      @London19721
      ·
      1h

      Replying to
      @MigrationWatch
      Torys and Big Biz love to import an OVER supply of cheap labour, but it’s a race to the bottom for the working class. The Torys will use Brexit to increase immigration from OUTSIDE the EU.

      The Tories ? A bit of a plonker eh, AH Blair opened to door to the present form of modern day slavery.
      I guess at 25 he was too young in 1997 to notice what the labour party were up to.

    2. If Labour hadn’t smashed the doors off and invited the third world here, the population would be below 50million, not above 70 as it is now.

      Thanks, Labour. You’ve wrecked everything not just during your time in office, but for centuries.

  29. Folk got used to being told what to do.

    Now the state is telling them to think for themselves theose same people are still looking to be told what to do.

      1. Yes.

        Sadly while it was meant as a comedy the state’s usual response is ‘do nothing’ – blatant denial. No investigation, no thinking, no research. If such is commissioned then it’s by a group who find what the state wants – which is usually to do nothing. Something means work and the state machine does not like to do work.

        Apathy, disinterest and eventually incompetence are rife in the state. So awash with money it has forgotten it’s purpose.

    2. Just like the East Germans after the Wall came down. It was unbelievable how robotic they were.

  30. 319536+m up ticks,
    Instead of trying to sort out the nationwide muckingfuddle the lab/lib/con anti UK coalition are fighting internally as to whether cummings should be goings with NO important doings being done.
    Going to be hard at the next GE to judge a future governance party.

      1. No. Aaa etc…. carefully chosen. I was relishing being a slob; not regretting it.

      1. And a lot of first hand ones as well.
        The death of western civilisation like a slowish train crash.

  33. Beautiful morning everyone. As is becoming increasingly common I can find nothing (no sighs of relief please) of interest to comment on; a situation that I’m certain will become worse since you cannot criticise what you do not know. Napoleon during his tenure as leader of the then EU abolished most of the newspapers and resorted to Bulletins that simply extolled the virtues of the Empire (and Himself) and from which the French invented the colloquialism to “Lie like a Bulletin”.

    Tyrannies from time immemorial have sought to conceal their crimes both in the Present and from History. They have never succeeded!

    2. Excellent, that is how a hostile media should be treated. BoJo, please note…

      ‘Morning, Rik.

    3. Excellent, that is how a hostile media should be treated. BoJo, please note…

      ‘Morning, Rik.

    1. We had a few spots this morning – OH was a couple of miles away and got drenched waiting for the village shop to open the door.

        1. When at RNAS Lossiemouth, if you could not see the lighthouse. it was raining

          If you could see it, it was about to rain

          2. It never rained when it was RAF Lossiemouth – bunch of wimps, you anchor klankers!

          3. My proudest moment at HMS Fulmar (Lossie) was one cold, dark winter’s night in 1965, single handedly protecting an *RAF V bomber, which was parked on dispersal slot, whilst I was only armed with a pick halve.

            The Queen wrote to me personally’ for guarding it

            *(we think it had got lost lost, when pottering around Lincolnshire)

          4. We knew the Crabs were going to take over Lossie, they built new accommodation blocks, and we moved out of the Nissen huts,

            Then the Cuckoos came

          5. It was a good job that the RAF didn’t replace the runway, peri-tracks and hangar floors – that was always the kiss of death for a station.

      4. We are having a prolonged heavy shower at this very moment. Preceded by violent blustery gusts.

    3. Yo Alf! We have horizontal gale-driven rain and 9 degrees north of the border! It looks as though it has been snowing with the apple blossom and Montana petals all over the lawn! Don’t give me “Yippee”!

        1. Honest guvn’r! I wasn’t! Just a bit soggy for May! Oh! So was she…..

      3. We’re in the deep sarf and haven’t had rain for ages. Lawn going brown, new plants needing more and more water.

        Oh! It’s stopped raining and blue sky is ‘flooding’ in from the west.

        1. There was a large black cloud coming this way – then it veered south and missed us by a mile. Dagnabbit.
          Wretched gale blowing – drying the garden out as you watch.

          1. That must be the one that dropped it on us. Quite a lap from Norfolk to surrey.

          2. Passed over Allan Towers and dropped all of ten seconds’ worth of rain.

        2. I know I shouldn’t complain as we’ve had wonderful weather for about 6 weeks, but it was a bit of a shock today! It’s dreich and cold enough to light the fire!

  38. Today’s Ponder

    He has said poshly, what I have been saying for ages
    As wrote by Professor Dearden

    SIR – A colleague and I have modelled Covid-19 cases and deaths in
    20 European countries, including the UK, against about 20 factors such
    as heart disease, obesity, smoking, exercise, pollution and latitude, as
    well as vitamin D levels.

    For Covid-19 cases, the main factors are cardiovascular disease,
    vitamin D levels (which increase immune response, as pointed out in the
    Telegraph), latitude (as the virus prefers cold) and the proportion of
    African/Afro-Caribbean people in a population (also pointed out in
    the Telegraph).

    For Covid-19 deaths, the main factors are population density (related
    to distancing), the proportion of vegetarians and the proportion of
    African/Afro-Caribbean people.

    These factors account for about 80 per cent of the variation in cases and deaths
    in these 20 European countries.

    Errors made by the Government (as by numerous other governments) may
    have affected the disease’s progress, but our results show that demographic f
    actors outside the Government’s immediate control play a major part.

    Professor John Dearden
    Helsby, Cheshire

  39. Never underestimate the wacky SIFs and permanently offended’s ability to find ever new and more offensive horrors,

    From the SWP

    “The differential impact of Covid-19 on BAME communities has been widely reported but little attention has been given to the issue of women and the pandemic.
    In March the Fawcett Society urged women aged 18 to 75 to fill in an online survey.
    Now, as lockdown is wound down, the report is emphatic—Covid-19 is a feminist issue.
    Although men are more likely to die, 61 percent of women report severe anxiety and feeling hopeless about the future compared to 47 percent of men. ”

    So there you have it , it’s worse for 14% more women than men to be frit than a man to die.

    2. As a rule, women are always more risk-averse than men. So why would COVID make a difference?

    4. I read that and thought it was one of No To Nanny’s jokes.

      What a great laugh.

  41. Both my R. alba, R. alba maxima floreplena & Rosa ‘Alba Semi-plena’, 2 giant shrubs, are opening, as is the honeysuckle “Graham Thomas in the far hedge.

  42. In an attempt to discover what the future holds after “lockdown”, I had booked an online consultation with the renowned Romany clairvoyant, Gypsy Ròs MacPhee.

    Just had word that the consultation has been cancelled, due to unforeseen circumstances.
    :¬(

    3. She’s currently using teabags as loose tea is unavailable during the lockdown.

      1. Marxists like Corbyn and McDonnell always use teabags, since they believe that proper tea is theft.

        1. I don’t think so, I imagine some information would be lost as it filters through.

          1. That’s what I thought. We need to find some way to stop that information being wasted (or drunk) by irresponsible tea drinkers.

  43. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/48c1e3e243bdec465b435e0d18812c18ef8a574db81ce00f47efbe4b24cdfacc.png

    Hi everyone. I’m just conducting an experiment here. The screenshot above is of Spiked’s Home Page as accessed by this link…

    https://www.spiked-online.com/author/brendan-oneill/

    Could any obliging person try it and if you know how to take a screenshot post a similar one, or if not tell me the articles that are shown to the left of “The lockdown has done untold damage to this country.”

      1. That wouldn’t work.

        Follow link, take screenshot via clipboard, open new app, overwrite clipboard with nothing ( methinks you meant Ctrl + V (paste) ).

        FWIW I use paint to save a screenshot rather than powerpoint.

        You’ve also given your email address ( and perhaps full name ) away in that screenshot.

        1. Thayaric, Why do you think that you are the oracle? You bumptiously exclaim “That wouldn’t work.” when the proof is in front of not only your eyes but the eyes of every NoTTLer here today, to know you for the charlatan you seem to want to be.seen as.

          As for the e-mail address, mine is well known throughout several communities and they know me and know I have nothing to hide.

          Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they’re not out to get you.

          1. It won’t work because ctrl c is copy not paste which as I told you is ctrl v. One of the instructions in your list is wrong.
            You take a screenshot with prntscr and then you need to PASTE it into another app to save as a jpeg. You gave instructions to use COPY which takes a copy of an embeddable and puts it on the clipboard rather than pasting it into PowerPoint. So yes as written it won’t work.

      2. Thank you for that Nan. I just wanted to confirm my suspicions that i’m being denied access to Brendan’s articles though I note there is one missing from yours. Rik posted “After Manchester: it’s time for anger. 23rd May 2017. yesterday and I thought it strange that I had missed it and even stranger that I couldn’t find it after. Whether it’s Spiked blocking me (unlikely) or GCHQ (probably) is a moot point. It does make me wonder however with the recent dearth of articles whether even more are being blocked!

          1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a827266923bcc14769792a773522049f96d3feab468ce60c936b9897cd5e50b5.png

            Of course Google will find the article if you put it in search but to do this you have to know it exists. If you Google Brendan O’Neill you get no mention of the Article we are talking about but if you go to Muckrack there it is. (see above) If you, or at least some of us go to the Spiked website and search under Brendans name. it is not there. Therefore access to it is being blocked to some users. The nature of the article is interesting in itself. Just the sort of thing the PTB dislike! Brendan is being censored!

      3. You can use paintbrush – start, run pbrush.

        Windows 10 has a different method but it’s print screen is still clumsy. Why do you have to manually save it? The Mac one is so much better. CMD Shift 4, select, done. No faffing with saving. If you want to edit it you’ve 5 seconds to click on a big thumbnail or else find the file on desktop.

        1. Good Morning, Wibbles, Disqus has only now delivered your post to my inbox

          I don’t (and won’t) have an Apple Macintosh, so the method I identified works for Windows 7 (I won’t have W10 either) despite Thayaric flying in the face of what his eyes should tell him. It works.

          Yes, I’m being resistant to change because the technology of W10 has proved to be cumbersome and inefficient. If I’m spared, I might look at W11 if Microsoft ever produce a working model but like a lot of things produced today, they are slap-dash and barely work, yet neophiliacs embrace them, simply because they are new.

    2. I got the same as NoToN – are you sure your page just hadn’t refreshed to the latest version. I find on some sites if I’ve left the page open in my browser when I start the computer again the page hasn’t automatically refreshed with the most recent version.

      1. No C. I cross checked with another computer and “After Manchester: it’s time for anger. 23rd May 2017.” Is still missing from both versions! Unless you can find it of course.

          1. I cannot see any comments. These are maybe reserved to those who are signed up?

          2. Thanks for that Duncan. I can find it myself by using google and going around the houses but I cannot access it on the Spiked Home Page which implies that I’m being blocked!

          3. How would you you normally access it from the home page? I searched

            After Manchester: it’s time for anger. 23rd May 2017
            and nothing came up. apart from

            “you searched for: After Manchester: it’s time for anger. 23rd May 2017”

            No article

          4. Then you are in the same fix as myself Sos. The only way I knew it existed was by Rik’s post and the rest of the story is in the above posts.

          5. Then you are in the same fix as myself Sos. The only way I knew it existed was by Rik’s post and the rest of the story is in the above posts.

          1. Yes. I can’t find it myself anywhere on the website. If I go to Brendan O’Neill articles on google. I can find it there but otherwise it doesn’t exist. It’s probably a GCHQ program to hinder selected individual posters at random!

          2. Yes. I can’t find it myself anywhere on the website. If I go to Brendan O’Neill articles on google. I can find it there but otherwise it doesn’t exist. It’s probably a GCHQ program to hinder selected individual posters at random!

  44. OT Doncha just lurve the new technology?

    Today I have to submit my solar panel meter readings. Online.

    I log in – and follow the instructions – and insert today’s figure. Up comes a message in red to the effect that the figures don’t tally with what they expected and I have to phone a number. Available 8 am to 6 pm. I phone it – listen to a short menu, choose the right number – and am told that no one can take calls – “click…brrrrr”. Tried twice. Same thing. Third time – a recording tells me that I should “simply” go online and log in and insert the figures….

    In the end, I had a”chat” online with Ranveer. He took the figures and said he would pass them on to the “team”. He suggested that I phoned on Monday. I said that was a bank holiday. Tuesday, then, he said. Nearly an hour of my rapidly ending life was wasted – just trying to submit 5 digits to an energy company.

    I’ll go and have a long lie down – in a box.

    1. Morning Bill, I’m with SSE and never had a problem with them, my FiT always paid promptly and they are easily contactable by phone or email

      1. Good morning, Spikey.

        Lucky you! I only joined the online malarky because I was having such trouble with the e-mail system. One step forward, three steps back.

      2. SSE retail side is now OVO – 2600 losing jobs overall, mostly SSE ……………
        report back in a few months. OVO use foreign call centres I believe.

    2. Welcome back to the UK uncle Bill. Where absolutely everything is designed, set up and administered to be as absolutely annoying and as awkward as it possible can be.

      Our neighbours decided to stay in France on lockdown because if they do come home after being locked down for more than 8 weeks. They will been forced into lock down for 2 weeks, or else. And probably starve to death, as they won’t be able to leave home to shop and it’s impossible to get a delivery slot, because all of the slots are taken up by persons who can’t be bothered to queue because they either feel too important, or too busy, being locked down. 😆

      1. Well, in yer France, the phone company cut off the phone a week before the agreed date; the insurance company has just collected a regular direct debit payment in May (we left on 20 March); the water supplier is insisting that we pay a bill even though they concede that a refund is due…..

    3. ‘Morning, Bill. My scheme is with EDF. Although they can be rather obtuse at times, there is an email address as well as the webpage, so there is an alternative when the latter isn’t working. They had a spell (for some months) of telling me that my readings were not within what they expected and a meter reader would be sent to verify. He never appeared, but in the meantime they suspended my agreement. After further emails informing me that their reader had been unable to gain entry (rubbish) they asked for a photo of the meter. That was sufficient, so I now send in a photo by email as well as entering the reading online. More work for them (how sad) but at least they now pay up without finding reasons not to.

    4. You are very lucky Mr.T to have an energy supplier to enrage you. The folk who in theory are said to be buying our house told my energy supplier who, without reference to me, promptly closed my account. There is no way I can log in on line with my old details as the account is “closed”. I’ve absolutely no desire to ask about the weather in Bangalore……

        1. In 1912, Captain McClintock of the British Army of Bengal in India (in Bangalore, very precisely) developed this device: he imagined a metal cylindrical tube several metres long that could fit into other tubes in order Increase the area of ​​the explosion. Filled with explosives, these cylinders are introduced through the network of barbed wire: explosion, the metal casing breaks down into multiple fragments that destroy the wires and open a way of about three metres wide.

          The US military re-used this process in the early 1940s and produced a large-scale torpedo M1A1, known as bangalore, from the name of the city where the tube was designed by Captain McClintock. This torpedo consists of several cylinders (connectable to each other) 1.5 metres long and 5 centimetres in diameter each consisting of 3.85 kilograms of TNT.

          Used on 6 June 1944 by the engineers’ units on the beaches and near the German defensive installations in order to create breaches in the numerous barbed wire networks set up by the Germans, the bangalore is immortalised by the two films The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan.

        2. In 1912, Captain McClintock of the British Army of Bengal in India (in Bangalore, very precisely) developed this device: he imagined a metal cylindrical tube several metres long that could fit into other tubes in order Increase the area of ​​the explosion. Filled with explosives, these cylinders are introduced through the network of barbed wire: explosion, the metal casing breaks down into multiple fragments that destroy the wires and open a way of about three metres wide.

          The US military re-used this process in the early 1940s and produced a large-scale torpedo M1A1, known as bangalore, from the name of the city where the tube was designed by Captain McClintock. This torpedo consists of several cylinders (connectable to each other) 1.5 metres long and 5 centimetres in diameter each consisting of 3.85 kilograms of TNT.

          Used on 6 June 1944 by the engineers’ units on the beaches and near the German defensive installations in order to create breaches in the numerous barbed wire networks set up by the Germans, the bangalore is immortalised by the two films The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan.

          1. Bangalore Torpedoes were very much still in use in the RAF in the 1970s. A series of torpedoes inserted into lateral tunnels across runways would have been part of the plan to deny use of the airfield in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion.

          2. I used one, in training. Blew barbed wire to buggery, the best place for that nasty stuff.

      2. It sounds as though your buyer will have to pick up the shortfall whenever he/she opens a new account somewhere.

        2. Ah India’s complicated communications systems.
          No wonder it’s so difficult to get through to a UK call centre.

  45. This will cheer Soros up (allegedly)

    Specialist Leisure Group collapses into administration

    Specialist Leisure Group collapses into administration

    About 2,500 jobs have been lost and 64,000 bookings cancelled with the collapse into administration of Specialist Leisure Group.

    The hotel and travel company included well-known coach holiday brands Shearings and National Holidays.

    Trade organisation Abta said the company, which specialised in products for the over-50s, was “significantly impacted” by the coronavirus pandemic.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-52776657

    1. 🙁 I think it’s a Shearings coach that regularly stops overnight in the town where I live.

    1. 319536+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      The only political party that could be said in all honesty to be 101% pro UK.
      Controlled immigration, free speech, decency could no longer be tolerated on today’s political stage hence triggering the treachery weevils within
      the ersatz NEc a party with integrity had to be suppressed hence the ersatz
      NEc become active on the
      smear/castigate the true party hierarchy, the rest is there to be seen.

  47. SIR — On my daily walk I count the people returning my greeting, “Good morning”. Yesterday’s score was nine out of 15.

    Mary Yeoman
    Horsham, West Sussex

    Na then, Mary, lass. That’s ‘cos tha’ lives down in Sussex tha’ knows, owd love. Same thing allus ‘appens ter me when I’m abroad in weird places like yer Kent, like. T’locals are frittened t’death when I walks up to ’em, saying, “Ayup, me duck!”. Fair shit themselves, they do.

    Back oop in Yorkshire, I’ll ‘ave thee know, me score is 17 out of 15 whenever I give me usual cheery greeting of “How do?” t’locals. No shrinking violets oop there tha’ knows, Flower.

    1. I get a full score when out for a walk in our little corner of Wiltshire. Mind you the other evening I said Good Morning to someone, but they didn’t seem to mind.

    2. The one thing I don’t say when people leap out into the road to avoid me is “Look out for the lorry”.
      Other forms of vehicular killing machines are available.

    4. I passed a good half dozen and all said Hi. The number of leapers (those scrabbling to get away) was also down which is especially odd as I must have looked a right state.

  48. The other day I wrote to my MP, Will Quince, asking him to use his position to ask a question in the House re the invasion of the illegals. I didn’t expect much in the way of a reply but the following was unexpected. I suspect the ‘relevant authority’ is the HO whose civil servants who will have a stock answer to all those concerned voters’ questions.
    My original email contained my address, so why they needed confirmation is a mystery to me. It’s not as if I haven’t raised questions with him before.

    Dear Mr XXXXXXX

    Thank you for emailing Will Quince MP.

    Please note that in such a case as this, the correspondence of the constituent is usually forwarded onto the relevant authority. I would therefore be grateful if you will confirm that you are happy for your details to be shared. A short email is sufficient.

    Due to strict parliamentary protocol, Members of Parliament can only represent their own constituents, even if your issue is regarding Colchester. I would therefore be most grateful if you will confirm your address.

    As soon as we have received confirmation from you, Will, will contact the relevant authorities on your behalf.

    With kind regards

    Office of Will Quince MP
    Member of Parliament for Colchester

  49. A query.

    Has anyone changed electric provider to Octopus?

    If so are they any good

      1. I have looked at that…… however, just wondered if any Nottler used them

        3. I ended up with Octopus after I went from British Gas to GB Energy, which promptly went bust. Octopus essentially inherited me. Quite happy with the service and costs.

    4. I’ve been with Octopus for the last three years for electricity and gas. No complaints at all.

    5. Yo, OLT. I’ve been with Co-operative Energy for a few years, and they’ve sort of merged with Octopus. My dealings are now with the latter. I’ve been quite impressed – their website is a great improvement on the old Co-op effort; they email me for meter readings on the first of each month (I declined a smart meter), and I’ve no cause for complaint. Yet…

      1. We moved to Shell after a spell with Sainsbury’s energy.
        They are becoming difficult.
        Increasing our costs.
        I’ll be swapping to octopus soon.

  50. Afternoon all.

    Le Tit For Le Tat …

    People arriving in France from the UK will have to self-isolate for 14 days from 8 June, the French government has announced

  51. Inflamed brains, toe rashes, strokes: Why COVID-19’s weirdest symptoms are only emerging now. Amy McKeever – National Geographic – 21 May 2020.

    One of the most recently discovered—and most inexplicable—signs of COVID-19 is a broad range of inflammatory symptoms that it seems to be provoking in the skin, including rashes, the painful red lesions that have come to be known as COVID toe, and the collection of symptoms in children that’s been labeled a “Kawasaki-like” syndrome.

    COVID Toe?The horror!

    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/kawasaki-stroke-why-coronavirus-weirdest-symptoms-are-only-emerging-now-cvd/

    2. In fact, it will soon be announced that any symptom at all is covid-related. Better not scratch my elbow…who knows what it might mean?

      1. Never try to put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear! That’s what I was told!

      2. Yesterday, as I stood in a queue for the bank, I had a sickly throat cough (I verge on hay fever when the weather is this dry). To my annoyance, not only was the darn thing genuine, but nobody let me go in ahead to avoid contamination.

        1. I was beckoned by the marshals up to the front of the queue outside w/rose yes’day., for which I was extremely grateful.

    5. Inflamed brains,…… perhaps a symptom of being a British (BBC) journalist ?

  52. Am I the only one to notice that Cur Keel Hauler has been having his hair cut regularly durung Lockdown

    He should be reported to the Perlice

        1. Could do with a shave. This fashion for stubble make men look unkempt.

          1. This “knight of the realm” (such an amusing title for a far leftie, doncha think?) is a great danger. The so-called Tory press are falling for his “forensic” skills at PMQs.

            They have swiftly forgottn=en what a complete disaster he was as DPP; how, while in the Shadow Cabinet – he picked up tens of thousands in “consultancy fees” while attacking others for doing the same. (All reference t which on Google has conveniently “disappeared”….

            The man is a charlatan – but if Johnson and his half-baked crew of no-hopers don’t get us out of the chaos which THEY created very pronto, this barsteward will be the next great leader.

          2. Agreed Bill but could you just remind me who or what the Tory press is/are?

          4. He may be a charlatan – but unlike Corbyn he is an electable charlatan. We should all be very worried as Johnson seems to be making a un grande testicule total en haut of everything he touches at the moment.

        2. He has probably got one of those cut-as-you-brush thingies that you see advertised in the little booklets that come through the letterbox.. Has anyone ever tried one?

          1. My father tried one on my brother. It cut out great chunks of hair and the result was dreadful.

    3. I’d like to keelhaul the entire population of the Palace of Westminster.

      [Walking the plank is also an option for those with a barnacle allergy]

  54. Heavy rain clouds appearing at last.

    Rambler “Rambling Rector” opening on the north wall.

    2. Has it taken over your garden yet peddy. It all depends what root stock it has been grafted on to.

      1. I have 2, Johnny.
        The first stretches right along the north wall of he house & also fills the potentially vulnerable gap between house & garage.

        The 2nd, which opened 3 – 4 days ago, has climbed the sycamore behind the garage, along with Paul’s Himalayan musk. Both photos are 2 years old; they are even taller now. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5ea20f9296aa68d724ab76dfb2b3ebb2bbca1b8f92ea193ffcbaf9ec7e2c7fed.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6b8c2cf5ddee4ec19801faabf989c964170fed04fa248db414dd8856842e40e2.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8295ab615a837835783479e2710d39a5e840640e3d32797b823a80f484803db2.jpg

    3. We have a similar rose that flowers all year virtually, really glossy green leaves , starts off creamy looking then opens up to white , with a lovely scent , and it runs alng part of the hedge . My new roses are Emily Gray , very pretty small flowerered white creamy headeded rambler , and Dublin bay , which is a velvety looking deep red rose , and Seagull , not flowering yet .. experiment for replacement telegraph pole .., we shall see!

    4. Our RR has joined the choir invisible.
      We have a curate training up the garden wall.

  55. Beijing is set to impose new national security legislation on Hong Kong after a sustained campaign of pro-democracy protests last year in the city, which enjoys many freedoms not allowed on mainland China.

    “The Hong Kong people have been betrayed by China,” Patten was quoted as saying by The Times newspaper. Britain, he said, had a “moral, economic and legal” duty to stand up for Hong Kong.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-china-parliament-hongkong-britain-idUKKBN22Z0BF?taid=5ec93944fb44e00001b15cd0&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

    1. Afternoon Belle. Well he’s the to££er that negotiated the agreement so maybe he should go out there and try again! There is nothing we can do for the people of Hong Kong or anywhere else for that matter. We cannot even save ourselves!

    2. “The Hong Kong people have been betrayed by China,”. Gosh, who would ever have thought it!

      1. “Betrayed by China”
        Only after they were betrayed by us…………..
        Just think,if we HAD to have mass immigration we could have filled our boots with wealth creating,hard working,tax paying Hong Kong Chinese,but no,we refused them and the brightest and best went to Canada,Aus,USA etc etc
        What did we import instead??
        Low IQ semi literate peasants from the most backward regions on earth infected with a foul ideology that hates everything we stand for
        Great job guys…………………..

        1. It seems the very last thing either Major or Blair wanted was an influx of “wealth creating, hard working, tax paying Hong Kong Chinese”. Much better to have malleable benefits dependent idlers.

          As for the other lot, their immigration was well underway for many years previous to 1997. And woe betide anyone who got up and pointed out the likely outcome of blood in the streets, as Powell did in 1968.

          p.s. a couple of guys at my old employer had wanted to come to Britain, but as you pointed out, they ended up in the US. One was so PO’d over the whole thing, that once he got his American passport, he ceremonially flushed his old blue passport page by page, down the toilet..

          1. Well they’ve well and truly “rubbed our noses in diversity”
            See Manchester Woolwich and the Tube for details

          2. Yes, we have been following all those incidents. I really don’t understand who someone in government in Britain never looked across the Atlantic and wondered about the wisdom of importing millions of “different” people, given the still parlous state of race relations here. One side sees themselves as perpetual victims, the other side sees them as potential criminals.

            Our worst incident was 9/11. Apart from that the biggest risk we have here is from various home grown ultra right groups, like the American Nazis, et al. Like the guys who blew up the office block in Oklahoma, killing 168 including young children in the building’s creche.

          3. Yes, we have been following all those incidents. I really don’t understand who someone in government in Britain never looked across the Atlantic and wondered about the wisdom of importing millions of “different” people, given the still parlous state of race relations here. One side sees themselves as perpetual victims, the other side sees them as potential criminals.

            Our worst incident was 9/11. Apart from that the biggest risk we have here is from various home grown ultra right groups, like the American Nazis, et al. Like the guys who blew up the office block in Oklahoma, killing 168 including young children in the building’s creche.

  56. Afternoon, all. It’s been cold, windy and dull here today, very conducive to the CBA syndrome 🙁 I have planted a few things in the garden and tied up stuff that the wind had blown down, but I gave up and came in before I got anything worthwhile accomplished.

    1. We watered this morning , everything was bone dry and wilting .. even though we watered last night .. Will be watering again presently . The wind is rather cruel , blowing in from the west , and feels very chilly .

      1. I took my dog for a walk in the wooded area this morning because it had been so dry. I’m normally wary in case of Alabama Rot lurking in muddy conditions in woodland, but with everywhere being parched, I reckoned that the risk, if there was indeed one, was minimal.

    1. There were plenty at our local centre. They have large greenhouses where they grow their own bedding plants, and there haven’t been any large numbers of people when we went. They had whole long aisles of geraniums, fuchsias, etc, etc.
      I’ve bought 8 “black and bloom” salvias, all but one planted. Two small trays of dahlias, and a couple of dark red/mauve salvias, plus a yellow bush rose.

    1. I wonder when we’ll learn that during the plague, far fewer people died of natural causes than in the average year?

      1. It was reported that when Doctors went on strike in Italy a decade or so ago, the country’s death rate went down (that may not be true but perhaps possible?)

  59. OT – Notice to NoTTLers.

    We are having to rationalise our books. I know that some people (such as I) collect maps, guide books etc. Because of lack of space, I am throwing out Michelin Red and Green guides; Michelin maps of France, Spain, Italy and Portugal*- and large quantities of tourist information for those three countries accumulated over the last 30+ years. (*Other countries may be available…!)

    If anyone is interested – just let me know. Otherwise, next week, most of it will go to the tip. If it is open.

    1. Are there no charity shops/thrift shops in your area, Bill? It seems a shame to throw books away.

      1. Far too many, Conwy. In Fakenham, every other shop seems to be one.

        But as VERY good idea, though.

        1. Ah, Fakenham. When I was trying to get to the racecourse it epitomised “the back of beyond”! 🙂

          2. Hexham was pretty cold – and very, very wet. At least it was dry at Fakenham. The Rowley Mile in Newmarket has been extremely chilly, too. The wind came straight from Siberia.

        2. Suggest you telephone them first – prior to lockdown we found a number of Charity shops were being very picky about items they would or wouldn’t take….

          1. Quite – that was my first fear…. I’ll shout through the door…distance, y’know…

    2. Why not put an ‘England’ sticker over the country and sell them to the illegals arriving here? By the time they find out they’re back in France, you’ll be up the road and counting your lolly.

    3. Look to see if there is a road map to get out of lock-down. I know a Boris who is looking for one.

    4. eBay. You’d be surprised what people collect and what sells readily.

        1. Surreptitiously leave it (in small batches) on the magazine table in the doctor’s waiting room.

          1. Me go anywhere near a GP’s surgery?? Are you MAD or suffin’? I go there as little as possible – twice a year max. And only then because they nag me to attend for a blood test – invariably just after I have done the damned thing!

      2. Having said what I said below, I looked at ebay.fr – a great deal more interest!

        I may get round to having a bash at that site. When we ae feeling stronger….

        1. It’s worth having a go.

          When we moved we shifted all sorts of things. Sometimes for next to nothing but often for a lot more than one might have expected.

          Make damned sure either buyer collects, or buyer pays your “reasonable” shipping costs. Being a lawyer I’m sure you know the pitfalls, but it is quite easy to find that the article is in a higher delivery charge when wrapped than one thought and you end up paying.

          1. Were we still in France, I’d use Leboncoin.

            With e-bay – the punter pays the price PLUS postage before the package is despatched.

          2. True, and it may have changed since we did it, (over 10 years ago) but the postage was estimated at the deal stage. One couldn’t go back if itwa more than the estimate.

          5. I plead age, infirmity, unfamiliarity with the interwebby, failure to understand money.

            Works a treat – you should try it. The MR is genius with the internet and IT generally.

          6. If I tried that I’d be given very short shrift.
            You’ve done well to train in 25 years what’s still lacking in nearly 50.
            (Runs away and hides)

    5. Since one person’s junk is another’s gold mine, why not try some of the nearby charity shops, schools or colleges?

      I realise most will be shut but one or two may have the means of storing them – collecting them even.

  60. From football to plastic surgery: my foolproof plan to end the lockdown

    Michael Deacon

    Until the discovery of a vaccine, attempts to return to normal life will remain deeply challenging. Businesses, sporting authorities and
    organisers of cultural events will continue to face profound difficulties and restrictions.

    Thankfully, the guidance below – announced exclusively in today’s column – should help the country take its first steps on the road to
    economic recovery, and gradually end the lockdown.

    Football

    At corners and free kicks, each defender must maintain a distance of at least two metres from the nearest attacking player. Premier
    League authorities have urged players at all clubs to follow the example set by Aston Villa, whose defenders have been demonstrating
    this approach all season.

    Hairdressing

    Barbershops and salons will be permitted to reopen, as long as each hairdresser uses scissors with two-metre-long handles. The customer’s
    hair should be washed using either a hose or a bucket of soapy water, flung from the opposite end of the salon. All chat between barber and
    customer should be conducted through loudhailers, while traditional topics of conversation should be updated to reflect currentcircumstances:

    e.g., “Going anywhere nice this summer, sir? Front garden, maybe? Or are you more of a shed man?”

    Stand-up comedy

    As members of the audience will be forced to wear face-masks at all times, comedians will be required to laugh at their own jokes, and to
    supply their own heckles. In the absence of audience interaction, comedians will also be encouraged to engage in amusing off-the-cuff
    banter with themselves, asking themselves their name, inquiring what they do for a living, and making a humorous remark at the expense of
    their home town or physical appearance.

    Transport

    To reflect the two-metre rule, all taxis must be replaced by stretch limos.

    Cosmetic surgery

    Although it will not be possible for surgeons to operate on clients, they will be permitted to continue their business via mail-order.
    Clients will be posted a parcel containing the appropriate quantities of silicone, a bottle of horse tranquiliser, and a Swiss army knife.

    Hooray! The party’s over

    Amid all the doom and gloom, some good news. The party conferences are off.

    Labour and the Lib Dems have both cancelled theirs, in favour of online policy discussions – and although the Tory conference is still
    scheduled to go ahead, it would be no surprise if it ended up being cancelled too.

    They’re such peculiar events, conferences. The mood in the main hall is always faintly unsettling.

    At Labour conference, the air seethes with furious intensity and factional resentment.

    The Tory conference, meanwhile,trudges along in an atmosphere of near-comatose boredom, the silence
    broken only by a lethargic dribble of applause, or the occasional cough.

    Although come to think of it, this year a cough would cause some excitement. Perhaps even a stampede.

    Evening events aren’t much fun either. Hot, sweaty little rooms crammed with journalists, MPs and advisers holding the same dreary
    conversations they have all the time in Westminster. And no matter how much of the terrible warm white wine you drink, you never get drunk.
    Instead, you just start to feel strangely heavy. Saturated. Wine-logged.

    The only good things about party conferences are the souvenir stalls.

    One year at Labour conference I bought a tea towel with Lenin’s face on. It continues to provide excellent service to this day.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/23/football-plastic-surgery-foolproof-plan-end-lockdown/

    2. As for comedians, do you think that Jeff Dunham will be wearing a face mask when he practices his ventriloquism?

  62. Reading an article about the new quarantine rules I was amused to see Raffaele Trombetta being the Italian ambassador to the UK.

    He smuggles BT’s seeds in the diplomatic bag…

  63. The shocking scandal of patients infected with Covid-19 being transferred from NHS hospitals into care homes needs investigated. The excuse that they were transferred to free-up beds for the expected tsunami of Covid-19 cases makes no sense whatsoever. You do not clear out sick people to free-up beds for other sick people suffering from the same illness.

    Many elderly people have died as a direct result of this insane policy, which was forced on care homes under the threat of sanctions if they did not comply, and staff in care homes have been wilfully placed in far greater danger than NHS hospital staff.

    I don’t know who bears the ultimate responsibility – politicians and their scientific advisors, public health authorities or the box-ticking administrators of individual hospitals – but I do know that this policy has resulted in nothing short of the mass-murder of the weak and vulnerable, the like of which hasn’t been seen in the West since the infamous T4 programme instigated under the Nazi regime in pre-war Germany.

    And that’s not even counting patients – such as cancer patients – who have died/will die because they have been refused life-saving treatment by our “amazing” NHS.

    Somebody has to answer for it, and those found to be responsible should be charged with murder and crimes against humanity and put on trial. When convicted, they should be sentenced to life-imprisonment under the strictest prison regime and without the possibility of parole.

    2. The NHS has behaved like Doctor Shipman , and that is why I WILL not clap for them , and God only knows what they are doing now , and who they are selecting to die, sorry to be hysterical , but that is how I feel, are they prioritising younger patients over those over 60 years of age?

      To chuck elderly people out to nursing homes where they will have suffered in pain , lack of oxygen equipment to cope with breathing difficulties , really sounds unbearable .

    3. Any self respecting Hospital management team and that includes the Medical Director, Director of Nursing Services and the Physician in charge of Control of Infection should have adopted a policy of barrier nursing care for all the elderly patients awaiting discharge, checking that patients were symptom free (according to the best information available at the time) and then advising the receiving care home to isolate the patient for a week to 10 days on arrival to reduce any remaining risks of transmission. As it happens a number of nursing homes restricted visiting as soon as lockdown was advised.

    4. Any self respecting Hospital management team and that includes the Medical Director, Director of Nursing Services and the Physician in charge of Control of Infection should have adopted a policy of barrier nursing care for all the elderly patients awaiting discharge, checking that patients were symptom free (according to the best information available at the time) and then advising the receiving care home to isolate the patient for a week to 10 days on arrival to reduce any remaining risks of transmission. As it happens a number of nursing homes restricted visiting as soon as lockdown was advised.

    5. It wasn’t sanctions and it was a postcode lottery.

      It was uplifts in council fees during the CV scare. It’s like the temporary 19 quid per week extra on welfare. A little extra money for the risk of taking CV into a home from a council sponsored resident.

      In my mind if they didn’t take anyone with CV/suspected CV then they didn’t need that extra money anyway.

      It’s up to the care home who they take and this decision should be financial. Care home managers should be asking themselves can we run at X beds down and maintain a profitable status over the tax year. Greedy ones saw an opportunity for extra money and took it.

      We are currently 2 beds down which is massive for a 16 bed home yet we have soldiered on as we believe that as long as this ends fairly soon we won’t have too bad a loss this year. We’re not going to risk the other 14 for the sake of £800 per week.

      The ultimate responsibility rests with care managers, they are the ones that say yes we’ll take this resident or no you need to find somewhere else.

      1. There have been reports of councils threatening to withdraw funding from care homes that refused to comply, T.

        1. They can’t.

          There are contracts involved.

          They could only withhold uplift payments.

          2. Contracts last for the lifetime of the resident, they don’t need renewing. Once a bed is negotiated and a price and a yearly limit on fee rises that’s it jobs done, home gets a resident for as long as that resident needs a bed in that home and the council can move on and deal with someone else that needs placing.
            Councils pay us roughly £800 per week per resident. If they are really really desperate and the assessment is that the individual concerned needs a high level of care we can get them to go to £840 per week but they will never go above that, they walk away and look for a new home to place in, or the resident pays a top-up fee on top of the council money for their home of choice.

          3. But surely councils could refuse to place new residents with the care home once beds became vacant through an existing patient’s death.

          4. Yes they can do that, but won’t. They need us more than we need them. There are no council homes any more so they have to make a deal with private providers.

          5. Assuming you turned down several patients, it will be interesting to see, when this is over, whether your supply from the council dries up.

          6. Demand is endless, there’s only so many free beds in the area. We pretty much straddle two councils, we are right on the border.

          7. I hope so for your sake, but petty-minded council officials have a long memory and a vicious streak.

          8. We don’t take much from councils these days. Camden place a lot of residents with us as we are cheaper than Camden homes and not so far away resident’s families can’t visit often. The home is in Enfield borough but about 200 yards from the border with Barnet borough. We are nowhere near as dependent on them as they are on us. They sold off their homes to become flats for footballers.

          10. They were nevertheless threatened. 60-70% of care home managers say they were pressurized to take in patients from hospitals, with and without CV19.

            https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-deaths-more-than-a-quarter-of-fatalities-among-care-home-residents-linked-to-covid-19-11988724
            “Coronavirus: Care home residents make up more than a third of deaths linked to COVID-19
            It comes after some care homes said they felt “almost compelled” to take in residents who have not been tested for the disease”

            https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/04/21/the-anti-lockdown-strategy/
            21st April 2020

            Unfortunately, it seems that COVID-19 has infected everyone involved in healthcare management and turned their brains into useless mush.

            Lockdown has two main purposes. One, to limit the spread of the virus. Two, and most important, to protect the elderly and infirm from infection – as these are the people most likely to become very ill, end up in hospital, and often die. [In my view, if we had any sense, we would lockdown/protect the elderly, and let everyone else get on with their lives].
            However, the hospitals themselves have another policy. Which is to discharge the elderly unwell patients with COVID directly back into the community, and care homes. Where they can spread the virus widely amongst the most vulnerable.
            This, believe it or not, is NHS policy. Still.
            Yes, you did just read that. COVID-19 patients, even those with symptoms, are still to be discharged back home, or into care homes – unless unwell enough to require hospital care e.g. oxygen, fluids and suchlike. If this is not national policy, then the managers are telling me lies.

            Dr.Malcolm Kendrick 21/4/20

            And it’s not just this country. It’s happened in a number of US states, including New York, where the governor, Andrew Cuomo, mandated that nursing homes take in CV19 patients, threatening to close them if they didn’t. 5,000 have died of CV19 as a result.

            https://edition.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/05/22/new-york-nursing-homes-coronavirus-patients-carroll-dnt-ebof-vpx.cnn
            AP: Gov. Cuomo sent recovering virus patients to nursing homes

            And not just New York, but other states as well, all Democrat run.

          11. Care home managers are always pressurised by councils, it’s nothing new. Remember for ten years councils have suffered drastic funding cuts and frozen council taxation.

            That is a Scottish doctor, one must presume he works for NHS Scotland. Do try to remember health is devolved. His information comes from his hospital managers, that’s one trust not the whole of NHS Scotland. It’s anecdotal evidence at best.

            If as a healthcare manager you are expecting a rising tsunami of patients then you too would be trying to free beds as quickly as possible.

          12. But not of the very people who are the most vulnerable, i.e. the elderly with other conditions.
            They were still clearing the wards of the very same people they were expecting to treat for CV19.
            They could have been discharged back to care homes if they’d been confirmed to be negative, or fully recovered, otherwise it was merely spreading the disease you were supposed to be stopping.

          13. I agree, but there’s little evidence that was the case.

            Care home outbreaks have largely been brought into the homes by staff or asymptomatic untested cases.

            Care homes don’t have the right PPE or amounts of it to deal with barrier care without ample warning these things will be needed. We’ve had no warning from the DoH or any associated quango.

            Our outbreak was caused by my father who was asymptomatic for a while. He probably picked it up from a GP surgery or from a supermarket as they are the only places he went other than home or the care home.

          14. Take a step back there.

            If his evidence is anecdotal at best, why isn’t yours?

          15. It is, I can only comment on what I know and that’s what’s going on policy wise nationally and what’s going on locally in our area because we keep in regular touch with other care home owners from the area.

          17. Of course, but he’s saying national policy is blah blah blah but at best that’s Scotland’s policy not the entire UK. He also says his information comes from his managers and that he hopes they aren’t lying to him. They could well be, this maybe trust policy being disguised as national policy if questions are asked.
            He’s not in a position to say it’s NHS policy to discharge ill people to care homes.

          18. Again, how do you know that?

            Are you honestly suggesting he doesn’t contact people South of the border?

    6. It appears to have happened in many countries, one might wonder if it was deliberate.

      1. I suspect the thinking was along the lines that if we are going to be receiving dozens and dozens of Covid cases, it would be better for elderly patients in hospital but awaiting a planned discharge to a care or nursing home to move asap, lest Covid runs riot throughout the hospital like the Winter vomiting bug

        1. You are more charitable than I.

          Covid cases were being taken into the hospitals in increasing numbers and the health sevices knew from Chinese, Italian and other countries’ experience that it ran rampant. Discharging potentially ill patients to care homes where isolation would be equally, if not more difficult, was irresponsible. If they had the disease they would, in theory, be returned to the hospitals in short order anyway. Of course they wern’t taken back, they were left to die in inadequately equipped homes and to spread it far and wide.

          Putting pressure on care homes to take these patients in was inexcusable.

          1. There are seemingly a lot of anomalies in this very strange and extremely unusual incident.

    7. The responsibility for taking sick people into care homes rests with the manager who, I think, would be answerable to the CQC who would/may downgrade the rating of the home. I know the care home my sister was in would have refused as they did when my sister was too ill for a care home but I found a place for her in a private nursing home. She was transferred there for end of life palliative care. The NHS picked up the whole of the bill as she was discharged on that basis.

      Were the alleged homes run by Councils who caved in to NHS pressure? I think it was reported that most of those cases were in Scotland but stand to be corrected.

      1. I would add that what was the purpose of all these hospital beds if it wasn’t for Covid-19 patients therefore it must have been NHS applying pressure that should have been resisted.

        1. Good evening, Alf.

          Any one with half a brain would realise that NCC is in
          deep shite,
          ….But!!!!!!!
          Yet again they have been saved by the bell……Dear God!
          please preserve us from other Conservative organisations
          who believe they are invincible!!!

          i.e. H.M.G.

          4. Lei = Garland doesn’t it. Me trying to be funny! Backfired didn’t it.
            Meant in the kindest possible way.

          6. ‘Evening, little g, NCC, is that Nottingham County Council or NCC Home Learning?

    8. I so agree with you. I know that managers of care homes have the ultimate say as to whether a Covid patient is accepted or not but what is the point of clearing out the hospitals, putting up temporary Nightingale hospitals, and then shunting out the patients with the virus, when that’s what the preparations were for? It is ridiculous to the point of insane.

      However you can bet your bottom dollar there will be no one person responsible for the decision. The whole situation has been a complete mess from start to finish.

      My advice is – stay clear of hospital!

    9. ‘Evening, Duncan, may I have your permission to put that up on Ar$ebook, as it is so true and needs a wider audience?

  64. Good afternoon from the Saxon daughter of Alfred of Wessex with Longbòw and Axe in handbag .

    A cold and breezy afternoon in erernal lockdown

    People should be allowed to decide for themselves depending upon where they live, their heath issues
    and various other things. Lock down for everyone regardless of circumstances is imprisonment,

    1. It always has been imprisonment IMO. Virus is dissipating in London, the most affected, the “science” was outdated and useless, the economy is being trashed and the social effect is going to prove dreadful. I believe the government was panicked into the lockdown and now has no way of getting out of it. It should be ended now. And it’s given the unions a new lease of life. Let us out of prison now . Ironic that they are releasing prisoners but keeping us all in!

      Furlough pay should also be stopped mid-June to “persuade” people back to work.

      1. Furlough pay is madness.
        And what are the Cons going to say at the next election?
        “Don’t vote Labour, they’ll trash the economy?”
        For the first time in my lifetime, the Conservative party has given up any moral right to claim that it is better than Labour in any way whatsoever.

        1. I agree with you. But, in mitigation, they will defend themselves by saying “if we hadn’t… more would have died”. And that is unarguable because we will never know. And by the same token Labour can’t attack them for it for the same reason.

          The real situation will not be properly clear until deaths for the year stats come out from the ONS in2021 together with numbers of new cancer sufferers, heart attacks, strokes, et. etc, not forgetting suicides, depressions sufferers, those who died because elective ops were cancelled – I wouldn’t mind betting the numbers will be higher than the alleged Covid 19 deaths.

          1. I think in time we will have a pretty accurate idea of how many would have died if we had done the same as Sweden and Brazil. This is going to be analysed and argued over for years, especially as left wing academics will stick their own political slant on it, and the governments will be desperate to try and defend their policies.
            I also suspect that when recession deaths are taken into account, the death toll will be worse.
            Not so sure about cancer patients though – there are too many stories of people catching the bat flu in hospitals while they were in for other treatments. The convalescent hospital where my daughter works had no corona patients, but they still had the virus running through the hospital.
            It could be that this is just a tragically unlucky time to have got cancer.

    2. ‘ullo Ethel.

      I had the roast skate last night. It was very good. To my horror I discovered that I had no more capers left, so I finely chopped some black & green olives instead.
      Followed by stewed rhubarb.

      Chinese tonight.

      2. Hello Mr Viking , Ah, a shame about the capers ,
        I hope it was equally enjoyable with the olives.
        Oh i love stewed rhubarb with cream, not had that in years.
        I’ve got a lasagne and salad tonight, my husband has got an
        Inflamed toe and cannot walk on it, so I just give him his
        food in bed. He’s got lots of books to read so will be fine .

        Also love Thai food very much.

    3. Hi Aethel,

      I just misread your last sentence as “Lock down for everyone regardless of circumcisions is imprisonment.” Time for bed, I think!

    1. “Cough once for room service, cough twice to be transferred to our wonderful free NHS”

    3. No mention of free access to the NHS.
      I wonder where they left the rubber boat.

    4. “Diseases to catch, takeaways with the best chance of interesting diarrhea and vomiting results.

      Have a nice stay…”

    5. Well gee, lady; why do you think we booked a room with a view of the London Eye?

  66. Cheerio for now. I’m away to finish my book and contemplate what I’m going to concoct for my evening meal. I may pop back in later, depending on how things go.

    1. Who’s the publisher, and will you sign the hardback first editions for Nottlers?

  67. I hope that when we do this crisis idiocy again, and be sure we will, that the politicians will have learned that daily briefings with score charts and inane questions from the MSM are totally counter-productive.

    1. “… daily briefings with score charts and inane questions from the MSM are”
      ineffectual – and utterly boring !

        1. Why waste valuable drinking time watching hem? I have never seen any of them. And feel much the better for it.

          1. I can multi-task.

            I don’t watch them, HG does and I can hear them in the background.

            You’re deaf , so better placed to ignore them.

    2. It’s not always the questions which are inane, but certainly most of the answers are.

  68. That’s me for the day – not a nice one; gales, drying the garden; bringing down debris – ad more of the same tomorrow, apparently.

    Have sorted half the CDs – so far. About another 300 left…{:¬((( Amazing the stuff you had forgotten you ever had…

    A demain.

    PS We watched on catch-up the blind chap climbing the Old Man of Hoy. Amazing. Moving. Totally nuts, of course. But respect to him and his wife.

  69. We had a phone call this morning from the wife of a work colleague, who we’d heard from just a month ago after not being in contact since we’d retired. We knew him quite well, especially MOH, who’d worked with him a lot on fire safety issues in the hospital where we’d all worked for years.
    We’d had an hour long conversation on that phone call a month ago, catching up on news, we exchanged details, email addresses, etc, and had planned for them both to come and visit us in Norfolk once the virus scare had gone away, and we were allowed to resume our lives as before.
    Unfortunately, that’s not to be.
    His wife had called to let us know he’d died on Tuesday, in hospital, and from CV19.
    He’d developed a nasty chest infection about a week or so after we’d spoken, and had gone into hospital to be put on an antibiotic IV drip. He was tested there for CV19 and was found to be negative. He was discharged back home, having recovered reasonably well, but became ill again about a week later. He was taken back to hospital, ended up in the ICU, put onto oxygen but not a ventilator. He was also tested again for CV19 and found to be positive.
    He deteriorated, and unfortunately died. He’d been a heavy smoker in the past, and had suffered from chest infections, but the virus had attacked his kidneys and brain as well.

    This is very sobering news. He and his wife had been observing the lockdown, social distancing, etc, hadn’t been out or met other people. The only place that he could have caught it was when he was first in hospital, despite being treated in a supposed “clean” area.
    If he didn’t catch it there, it’s a mystery as to where he did get it.

      1. Indeed.
        And his poor wife wasn’t allowed to visit and see him at all. That’s the brutal bit, and she will probably regret that forever. I certainly would.
        I don’t get why a spouse couldn’t be gowned up with masks, etc, just to visit once at least.

        I spoke with one of my friends earlier today, to pass on the news, and she’s really frightened by it all. Her OH works in Colchester hospital, on wards and A/E, seeing CV19 patients there. Some of the CV19 patients are developing neurological symptoms as well. I’m guessing possibly that it might be related to the small blood clots that block small blood vessels around the body, including the brain.
        This virus is a nasty beast in susceptible people, not like other viruses. No one’s officially admitting it, but it seems to me to be a manipulated virus, that’s come out of that virology lab. It’s too unusual in the way it behaves.

    1. After the event, David Cameron, made the following statement:
      “This country will be absolutely resolute in its stand against extremism and terror. This action was a betrayal of Islam and the Muslim communities that give so much to our country. We will defeat violent extremism by standing together.”
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lee_Rigby

      1. Islam and the Muslim Communities have betrayed themselves not only by the jihadi’s actions but by shielding and sheltering them and not standing up for their adopted country.

        Time for them ALL to go home and rid us of any threats.

      2. 319536+up ticks,
        Evening M,
        The wretch cameron is after the b liar title, king rat.

    2. 319536+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      This governance party is actually sending employees out mid English channel to meet with the french and return with potential enemas of the state, could this be viewed as an act of
      moral treason at the very least ?
      Will it damage the party’s reputation &
      good name ?

  73. To further your knowledge base

    This is quite an interesting tale.

    Railroad tracks.

    The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.

    That’s an exceedingly odd number.Why was that gauge used ?
    Because that’s the way they built them in Scotland, and Scottish expatriates designed the US railroads.
    Why did the Scottish build them like that?

    Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used.
    Why did ‘they’ use that gauge then ?
    Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had
    used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

    Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing ?
    Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in Scotland,
    because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts.

    So who built those old rutted roads?
    Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including Scotland) for their legions.
    Those roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads?
    Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, Which everyone else had to match
    for fear of destroying their wagon wheels..

    Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
    Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications
    for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever….
    So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder ‘What horse’s ass came up with this?’,
    you may be exactly right.
    Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses.

    Now, the twist to the story:

    When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two bigbooster rockets

    attached to the sides of the main fuel tank.
    These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah.

    The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs

    had to be shipped By train from the factory to the launch site.
    The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains,
    and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track,
    and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.

    So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system
    was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of two horses’ asses.
    And you thought being a horse’s ass wasn’t important !
    Ancient horses’ asses control almost everything…
    And current Horses’ Asses in government are controlling everything else.

    AND HERE ENDETH THE LESSON!

    1. Hi OLT

      Talking about things that fly, Moh reckons that Pakistan Airbus that crashed ran out of fuel , probably because it was flying into strong head winds , what do you think?

      1. It hit the runway during its first approach and rubbed the underside of both engines (where there are fuel, oil and electrical Components. Either the landing gear was not down or they raised it too early in the go-around and the aircraft sank. After going around for another approach the engines lost power. The whole event started when they were far to high to land, but pressed on anyway. (FR 24 refers). Link here if you want pages of speculation! https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/632693-pia-a320-crash-karachi-15.html#post10791243

      2. The pilot had emergency access to TWO runways; his decision to ‘have another turn’ – over a densely-populated area – was clearly ill-judged …

      4. I have not studied it. sorry

        Normally, if you have a strong head wind (and lotsa fuel, you should be able land with a lower Ground speed, in relation to your Airspeed

    2. And tragically, we Brits were not smart enough later on to adopt Brunel’s 7′ broad gauge. Modern trains would be a lot more stable.

      p.s. American railroad tunnels are a LOT bigger than British ones, both height and widthwise; that’s how they accommodate those big double deck coaches and freight wagons.

      1. Track gauge is not loading gauge. I believe the US loading gauge is noticeably larger than the UK (and the latter is rather variable, too), so the story about boosters is hooey.

    3. Nice story OLT but the 4’8½” is not the the wheel track of a Roman Chariot but rather the width required for the two horses that pulled it.

      1. Nor does it explain why William Dargan’s 5’3″ gauge rail used throughout the Island of Ireland …

        Perhaps Irish draft mares are broader in the beam than their English counterparts ?

    5. But apart from making the ruts in our roads, what did the Romans ever do for Scotland?

    2. Fascinating. Note that in the first photo, American troops are in British landing craft (LCAs). Royal Navy landing craft were used to land US troops on both Utah and Omaha beaches. My father was an AB on an LCA landing troops on Omaha beach.

  76. Portillo in Malaya , superb … why isn’t Britain clean everywhere, with decent trains and trams that are not overcrowded .

    2. They’ve far more police officers per capita and those officers are respected – mostly because they use force.

      Then there’s cultural differences of respect for authority and self. When you look at the litter it’s all the same sort of thing – junk food eaten by chavs. Thus the dregs of society are the ones who litter.

      Find them, beat them until they are purple and then do it again for good measure. Make it public so others learn from it.

    4. Michael Portillo as charming as he is…is just remaining employed.

      Malaysia is about to be fully muslim regardless of what the Beeb might say. Another country lost to Islam t hey showed a prog where a school was fully integrated between the three competing religions to show how diversified it all was.

      This is the country where the Buddhist monk was beating a muslim with a cane for his appalling behaviour to women.

      When have we seen a Buddhist Monk do such a thing?

      2. He may have been a Shaolin Buddhist.

        They can be rough handfuls when they’re crossed.

    6. Ditto (especially) Singapore. Walked down a road and saw this guy in a jumpsuit sitting in the gutter with a big can of paint, My local colleague explained that typically that was the punishment for littering – or using chewing gum.

        1. You know the saying then

          Man who uses Tiger Balm to ease pain washes hands 42 times, before he go to pee

        2. I was on the last RN ship to leave Sembawang Dockyard, after it had a mini refit in 1975, before the base was taken over completely by Singapore Armed Forces.

  77. Blackburn shooting ….

    Five people have been charged with the murder of a law student in a drive-by shooting in Blackburn.

    Aya Hachem, 19, died when shots were fired from a passing car on Sunday.

    Feroz Suleman, 39, Abubakir Satia, 31, Uthman Satia, 28, Judy Chapman, 26, and Kashif Manzoor, 24, appeared at Preston Magistrates’ Court, sitting
    at Sessions House Crown Court.

    They have also been charged with the attempted murder of their intended target Pashar Khan, the court heard.

    1. Terrible misunderstanding; cultural differences; best put on probation for three months…

        1. Obviously the ring leader. The innocents slammers of colour fell under her spell. Jezibel.

    1. Good night, Peddy. I am off myself in a minute or two. I’ve just finished watching a B & W 1960 thriller on YouTube called Circle of Deception, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

  80. Rightio!!….. All you clever Clogs!!

    Please explain to me why trays of
    ‘organic chestnut mushrooms’ have
    more Vitamin D. content than other mushrooms.

    xx Love you all for your answers!!

    Or is it, as I suspect, a marketing ploy?

    1. The fungi contain a substance called ergosterol by exposing them to prolonged ultraviolet light you can increase levels of vitamin D.

        1. It’s sunlight. I hope thats organic. Is food grown in a greenhoue organic?
          I don’t know, i don’t really care. I get my mushrooms from the local wood and they’re free.

        2. “In a 100-gram serving, raw white mushrooms provide 93 kilojoules (22 kilocalories) of food energy and are an excellent source (> 19% of the Daily Value, DV) of the B vitamins, riboflavin, niacin, and pantothenic acid (table). Fresh mushrooms are also a good source (10–19% DV) of the dietary mineral phosphorus (table).

          While fresh A. bisporus only contains 0.2 micrograms (8 IU) of vitamin D as ergocalciferol (vitamin D2), the ergocalciferol content increases substantially after exposure to UV light.[21][22]”

          Not much Vitamin D whichever way you look at it.

    3. My guess is that they are cultivated naturally in daylight, whereas yer regular white mushrooms are grown in the dark. Apparently if you expose white mushrooms to sunlight they take on Vit D. but not to the extent of organic chestnut.

      ‘Evenin G!

  82. Very Many Happy Returns to NoToNanny, our very own Tom. Have a good day!

    1. I didn’t know that, so a belated Happy Birthday to NoToNanny from Elsie. And since it is now 1 am and I am off to bed, may I say “Good Night, Mr Tom”.

  83. Here is one of my favourite pieces transcribed for the organ. The composer was Peter Warlock, real name Peter Heseltine (no relation to Thicko Tarzan), father of Brian Sewell the art critic who was a close friend, student and disciple of the brilliant spy Anthony Blunt (Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures).

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vMUOKbr4l9g

    1. Is there a follow-up where he realises he’s painted it in the wrong place and has to burn it off?

    2. Yo, Mags. It beats the white lining gang at Sainsbury’s, Pound Lane, Norwich, just before the store opening. They carefully, and indelibly, painted the word BICYCYCLES on the tarmac by the bike stands.

      2. So….are ordinary people who don’t identify with all that nonsense allowed to use them or will we get a fine if we don’t sashay into the store?

    3. A sign to be totally ignored by lycraed loons, who will still ride on the pavement, until somebody pushes them off.

  86. David Goodhart might not get many upvotes for this but he does make one worrying observation (underlined) which has been expressed on here before.

    It is in the national interest for Dominic Cummings to stay

    Our society asks a lot of political leaders and their advisers. We should try to cut them some slack

    DAVID GOODHART

    It is hardly a revelation that Dominic Cummings has many enemies who believe he should be sacked for his alleged infringement of the lockdown rules. He has become a lightning conductor for the anger of a good slice of progressive Britain. They want revenge, above all for Brexit.

    But the Cummings question raises another interesting question about what, if any, special privileges should be enjoyed by the people running the country on our behalf. There is a kind of hyper-democratic rancour abroad that refuses to contemplate that our rulers, at least while they are ruling, deserve some special treatment.

    I do not know Mr Cummings personally (and voted Remain in the referendum). Even his fans concede that he can be erratic, and it is reassuring to see, in several decisions that the Government made before the crisis, that his influence is not as great as his enemies imagine.

    But he is obviously highly capable, science and data literate, and understands many of the failings of the government machine that have been revealed by the crisis (see his 2014 IPPR lecture, “The Hollow Men”). I think it is in the national interest that he stays.

    And his case surely sits in a defensible grey zone. Both he and his wife were ill with the virus, placing their child in a vulnerable position. Short of handing the child to social services, it is hard to see what course of action they could have taken but to fall back on family in Durham. And they were, according to reports, fortunate to have the space in Durham to isolate away from Mr Cummings’s parents in a separate cottage, safe in the knowledge they could now rely on family help.

    They applied human common sense, and their case is in a completely different category to Professor Neil Ferguson’s romantic liaison, or Catherine Calderwood, the former Scottish chief medical officer, who decided to visit her second home. Both of those breaches of lockdown were completely unforced.

    In general, of course, the law should apply equally to all, and members of the ruling elite should avoid saying one thing and doing another. But there is also widespread agreement that our rulers, and by extension their closest advisers, are entitled to some special treatment. They are, after all, special people, even in democracies – perhaps especially in democracies – and have a very unusual and demanding job, which we want them to perform to the best of their abilities.

    Boris Johnson clearly did not get normal treatment at St Thomas’ Hospital. Politicians have bodyguards and, to cite a more trivial example, their cars often have police escorts and sail through red lights to get ministers and their advisers to meetings on time. We do, and should, bend the rules for them. The question is, which actions sit legitimately in that ruler privilege zone and which do not? We decided, for example, a few years back, that awarding yourself overgenerous expenses did not (without telling them).

    There is an anti-elitist piety, often expressed by the academic or media branch of the same broad elite, that refuses to accept the specialness of rulers. I sometimes think that the combination of mass higher education and social media threatens to make society ungovernable. The broad elite is in revolt against the narrow elite. Everyone thinks they know better.

    We have seen this in freedom of information rules that make it difficult for ministers and officials to have honest conversations, pushing key decisions into private rabbit-holes. (Though it’s a shame the rules were not applied to the scientific advice being given to ministers, where open critique of the science from other scientists would have been useful.)

    We want transparent, open government, but it has negative unintended consequences that need to be constrained. The transparency requirements of modern institutions encourage a performative, virtue-signalling political culture that makes it harder for people to identify as establishment insiders and come to reasonable compromises.

    So it’s important that Mr Cummings stays. Even if his actions were technically outside the letter of the law – which is far from clear – there is, surely, an extreme circumstances loophole, and more broadly we need to cut our rulers (and their top advisers) some slack.

    David Goodhart is author of ‘The Road to Somewhere’ (Penguin)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/23/national-interest-dominic-cummings-stay/

    1. BBC Hippocrits get to have haircuts, the masses cannot do this

      All transgressions must be treated equally, or ignored equally

      No room for ‘a little bit pregnant’ attitude

Comments are closed.