Saturday 24 September: The mini-Budget marks a refreshing return to core Conservative principles

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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463 thoughts on “Saturday 24 September: The mini-Budget marks a refreshing return to core Conservative principles”

  2. Good Moaning.
    I will kick off with an article by the ever excellent Douglas Murray in the Spekkie:

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/leicester-the-downside-of-diversity

    “Leicester and the downside with diversity

    As I have said many times in recent years, if you import the world’s people you import the world’s problems. Which is not to say that you do not also get some upsides. The upsides of ‘diversity’ are focused on all the time. But we have a curious habit of downplaying the downsides. Just one of which erupted in the city of Leicester last week.

    The origins of the disturbances are disputed, but what is agreed on is that they initially broke out between local Muslims and Hindus in the last days of August. During the India-Pakistan cricket match on the 28th, local fans of the Indian side began shouting ‘Pakistan Murdabad’ (‘Death to Pakistan’). A Sikh man was attacked and before long both sides were chanting slogans against the other on the streets of the city. This escalated into attacks on property and Muslim gangs tearing down religious flags in Hindu areas. Before long it was being claimed on social media that a mosque had been attacked, which turned out to be untrue but which got the Muslim gangs even more mobilised.

    Hindu and Muslim groups across social media started to call for their men to come out on the streets – which they did. The Hindus chanted ‘Jai Shree Ram’ (‘Praise Lord Ram’) and some were filmed carrying weapons. Muslims retaliated in kind and in one video were seen setting light to a Hindu flag. This inflamed tensions further and became a political scandal in the Indian media.

    Soon charming people like Mohammed Hijab, who rotates between presenting himself as a reasoned interlocutor and a street agitator, arrived on the scene. Hijab made a slight name for himself last year by whipping up a mob on the streets of London. At one anti-Israel protest addressed by Hijab in inflammatory terms, a masked man was filmed chanting ‘We’ll find some Jews. We want their blood’, though Hijab says he had left the protest by that time and later tried to calm things down. Of course the police did nothing much about the crowd itself, for the belief of the British police these days is that as long as a mob can be dispersed at some point, it counts as a great victory for the force.

    Trickle-down economics

    This week Hijab cropped up in Leicester to whip up his followers. Among other things he told them that Hindus are ridiculous people, not least because of their belief in reincarnation. Hijab claimed that the Hindus must live in fear because they have been reincarnated as such ‘pathetic, weak cowardly people’. ‘I’d rather be an animal,’ he went on.

    Soon both sides were accusing the other of attacking their places of worship. Crowds of hundreds faced off in the streets with a thin line of police officers between them. Some in the mobs came armed with knives and other weapons. The British police force – notably filled with women, because diversity targets must be met – stood between the mobs armed with small sticks. I didn’t see any trans officers, or gay ones dancing the macarena, but I trust that there were some there in order to make the whole thing truly diverse.

    By Monday the High Commission of India in London announced that it had taken the matter up with the UK authorities and was calling on them ‘to provide protection to the affected people’. The affected people being the Indian community in Leicester whose Hindu religion was being attacked.

    Ancient enmities do not die out because they are transplanted to the East Midlands

    It is quite something for the Indian government to be calling for a cessation of intra-religious violence on the streets of Britain. That is the sort of thing the North Koreans and Chinese Communist party sometimes do for the lols. But not something that would have been expected from an allied state.

    Still, there are a number of responses that you might have to the disturbances in Leicester. One is to do what most of the mainstream media have done and effectively draw a veil over it. These are excitable chappies in one of our nation’s less important cities. It isn’t like this happened in Islington, after all.

    Another is to do the knowing-cynic thing, the infinitely clever fifth-form response that we always hear in the pages of certain left-wing journals and from novelists. Don’t you know that we used to rule India? Didn’t you know that Pakistan’s independence was not handled perfectly? Well then, what do you expect? And besides, the diversity that Britain is experiencing is merely an appropriate payback for the sins of empire. This ‘empire strikes back’ theory is not only conceited but contradictory. For it sees migrants from the Indian subcontinent as both a blessing for Britain and a just punishment.

    But sadly the most common response is simply to shrug and hope for the best. We have had situations like this before, most notably in Oldham in 2001. Meanwhile, the government commissioned many reports, most notably the Cantle report and the Casey Review. All were welcomed by the governments of the day and then put in a drawer.

    Because after all, what are you going to do? Northern Ireland is still riven by ethnic tensions going back to the settlement of Protestants in the early 17th century. Things may have calmed down a bit today. But Ulster politics is still dominated by the central question of whether or not it is right to torture and murder people and plant car-bombs in public places in order to make your point of view heard. The province’s jury is still very much out on the matter.

    So why would anyone expect it to be different with the planting of Muslim, Hindu and other minorities in Britain? Ancient enmities do not die out because they are transplanted to the East Midlands. Nor can they be solved by the introduction of the occasional youth centre where people may play a bit of ping-pong.

    There are all sorts of advantages to a multi-cultural society. But the downside is that we are only one internet rumour, flag-attack or ethnic chant away from civil unrest. Not my own preferred state for the country, but then I didn’t make the rules, and it’s hardly surprising that at such moments the people who did choose to keep their heads down.”

      1. Morning, Ararminta.
        You’re not thinking hard enough, it’s clear that…

        I’ll get back to you, maybe.

    2. In the unlikely event of Britain being involved in a war, the top priority will be using most of the Army to hold down the insurrection on our streets.

    4. Thanks for posting, Anne, for those of us sans Spekkie sub. Douglas must be hopping at the ‘downside with’, presumably applied by a sub-editor; he’s fastidious in his use of English.

        1. One by one they succumb. If The Spectator has gone that way, it is simply following other former banner-holders of the erstwhile Right-wing establishment. The Judiciary, The National Health Service, Educational Establishments, The Police, The BBC, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Financial Times, and many other bastions of the Right have been infiltrated and inveigled by a silent but deadly microcosm of cancerous and malign Left-wing invidiousness.

    5. How can any forgive the so called educated who allowed this to happen.
      And after the total ignorance since Blair and the others who left the proverbial door open.
      What next ? There are countless thousands of people that have been let into the UK and nobody had a clue who they are and where they came from.
      And what their purpose might be.
      Or even why they are here.
      This political period will be known as the spread of the Leicestershire riots. It’s never going to stop.

    6. These people are 1000 years behind us in social development, in observing laws, in human relations, in civil mores. Their religions encourage military conquest not spiritual persuasion. That is not something that can be bridged just by arriving here.

  5. Dame Vera Baird: ‘I’m resigning – victims are being completely failed’

    Many of Dame Vera’s criticisms of the criminal justice system chime with what ministers and police now acknowledge: that charging rates for crimes like burglary are “shamefully low”; that more back-to-basics policing and bobbies on the beat are needed; that the system is currently failing rape victims; and that the court backlogs are adding to victims’ anguish.

    One only wonders why it took her so long! The Criminal Justice system is just one more Department of State that is now completely useless. Cultural Marxism has destroyed it from within!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/23/dame-vera-baird-resigning-victims-completely-failed/

    1. I’ve been retired for 11 years having worked in the courts for 10 years.
      The rot seemed to start when Kier Starmer became DPP.

      1. Political classes setting up more and more, sustainability in future eff ups. Before our very eyes.
        Or have they already done as much damage as possible over the past 20 years ?

      2. Interesting. It is based on a completely false premise. The notion that we need more people to support the economy is palpable nonsense.
        When we had factories and industries that required lots of labour, we flourished although the population of thr UK was much smaller than it is now. In 1900 the UK population was about 40m, Now without factories and shipyards, with automated farming and so on why would we need more than that? We do not need to have 67m as we have now.
        This chap is talking flannel.

      1. 356487+ up ticks,

        Morning KtK,
        Reason for it ? future grateful party members, maybe, more likely a cheap work unit, as in
        slavery in velvet.

        1. Some group(s) is/are promoting the invasions here, in Europe and the USA for a reason, so, how about a militia to wreak havoc on the population? Remember, the mass arriving consists in the main of young, fit men.

          1. 356487+ up ticks,

            KtK,
            I posted same some while back, a secret army awaiting in hotels for the call, that, I believe will not be long in coming.

            Will also double as a political protection force…… for a while.

    3. Can you imagine having been a life long doner to the RNLI and finding a family
      of 6 from gawd knows where being moved in next door. And can’t speak English, never going to work and surviving entirely on benefits, for everything they have.
      Well done Cameron, May and Bore-us.
      And now another one who doesn’t want to pay any attention to what the public are saying. Enough is enough.

      1. 356487+ up ticks,

        Morning RE,
        Yes, I can also see it in reality,
        Initially it was one anthony charlie lynton ( his chosen name for court appearances)
        who lifted the latch, the wretch cameron pledged to reduce the number then promptly raised it.

        I find it very difficult to imagine is why peoples continue to support these political reptiles as they have these past four decades of treachery.

      2. I am a Shoreline Member of the RNLI which means I pay an annual sub and receive a quarterly magazine which gives accounts of the heroic rescues some very brave lifeboatmen and lifeboatwomen have made in dangerously stormy weather.

        However recently all the other RNLI’s rescues have, in numerical terms, been dwarfed by the vast numbers of illegal immigrants they have “rescued” in the English Channel but, for some inexplicable reason, there are no accounts at all in the magazine about these “rescues”.

        1. Nor in the TV adverts begging for our money. All the “real life rescues” featured white people (some of whom needed rescuing through their own stupidity, I may say).

      3. They must be getting desperate now contributions are drying up; when I watched the racing the RNLI kept putting up adverts begging for £3 a month.

        1. You’re right Conners.
          With the help of our political classes they seem to have shot themselves in the foot.
          I hope the government stop this immediately.

  10. Good morning all…

    SIR – If we’ve just heard a mini-Budget, I can’t wait to hear the main one.

    Nigel Lines
    Ferndown, Dorset

  11. Morning all 😉
    Lovely sunrise across the tree tops.
    I might take a day off after my gargantuan efforts of the past two days…….I’m an old geezer now. And it’s beginning to show.
    Cuppa tea firstly…….

          1. I’ve a hand tailor made marroon leather jacket with bel, hanging in another wardrobe. Made to measure in London 1972. I can’t bare to part with it. But can’t even get my arms in the sleeves 😕

          2. I have two pairs of shoes I bought in the early 70s. In good condition, I still wear them. My office suits ( hink Jacob Rees-Mogg*) made in the 80s are showing signs of wear. I am now less conservative in dress** than I was 30 years ago.

            * You don’t have to if it upsets you.
            ** For the avoidance of doubt that is “outer apparel” and not “dresses”

      2. That would compliment my Oxford Bags which hung in the wardrobe for many a year beautifully.

  13. ‘Morning, Peeps.  Many hours of rain yesterday and overnight will improve the garden no end.  All we have to do now is to remove the reinvigorated weeds…

    SIR – The proposed Welsh tourism tax, linked to accommodation (report, September 21), would only penalise those who would spend more money in a destination as a result of staying there for longer than a day.

    It would increase the cost of a visit, and the last thing the hospitality industry in any region of Britain needs is an increase in prices, which will act as a deterrent to visitors and ultimately benefit competitor destinations and activities.

    David Curtis-Brignell
    Former chair, Tourism Society
    Cuckfield, West Sussex

    Yes, a typical socialist policy; tax everything and never mind the consequences!

      1. And very much the BBC line last night. Reporter to KK: “So the the last 12 years were a mistake, then?” His response was OK but he didn’t have the courage to say: “12 years of Tory Blairism but nobody in High Command listened to the soldiers.”

        1. I remember writing to my MP when Johnson came in and he had made all those ‘promises’. His reply was ‘He’s made a good start’ I responded “It’s not the start that counts it’s how it finishes”.
          I must write and remind him.

  15. No DT delivered this morning, “Problem at the printers”…. according to our very reliable newsagents (who normally deliver between 6.30 and 7 am).

    The mind boggles.

  17. I don’t know much about Kwateng nor “his” budget. A Punch and Judy Show now reflects more of reality than the antics in Whitehall and Westminster.
    But one thing did stir me, briefly: the removing of limits on bankers’ bonuses.
    Note, I do not object to rewarding productivity – but the productivity of banks should be measured by their stewardship of our money by its investment in sectors that create wealth – manufacturing, farming, and infrastructure which services the economy and facilitates wealth creation. This is capitalism and it is natural and healthy that money should be distributed by banks according to the realistic anticipated creation of wealth.
    But I know I am being naive. That sort of capitalism is long gone. Where is the investment in industry? On the contrary work and food production have been ruined. What on earth could generate wealth to justify their bonuses?

    The obscene amounts they were paying themselves because they improved the immediate profit margins by buying and selling debt is what is rotting capitalism. We are now riding a raft of debt. It is a Ponzi scheme.
    And these bankers should put their own wealth on the line when they burn our money.
    Bonuses for what?

    1. Bankers get the flack but aren’t all CEOs receiving huge bonuses, often for mediocre results. I remember the CEO of Thomas Cook who left when the company was bankrupted the first time around, managed a payoff of £1m.

  18. I don’t know much about Kwateng nor “his” budget. A Punch and Judy Show now reflects more of reality than the antics in Whitehall and Westminster.
    But one thing did stir me, briefly: the removing of limits on bankers’ bonuses.
    Note, I do not object to rewarding productivity – but the productivity of banks should be measured by their stewardship of our money by its investment in sectors that create wealth – manufacturing, farming, and infrastructure which services the economy and facilitates wealth creation. This is capitalism and it is natural and healthy that money should be distributed by banks according to the realistic anticipated creation of wealth.
    But I know I am being naive. That sort of capitalism is long gone. Where is the investment in industry? On the contrary work and food production have been ruined. What on earth could generate wealth to justify their bonuses?

    The obscene amounts they were paying themselves because they improved the immediate profit margins by buying and selling debt is what is rotting capitalism. We are now riding a raft of debt. It is a Ponzi scheme.
    And these bankers should put their own wealth on the line when they burn our money.
    Bonuses for what?

  19. I don’t know much about Kwateng nor “his” budget. A Punch and Judy Show now reflects more of reality than the antics in Whitehall and Westminster.
    But one thing did stir me, briefly: the removing of limits on bankers’ bonuses.
    Note, I do not object to rewarding productivity – but the productivity of banks should be measured by their stewardship of our money by its investment in sectors that create wealth – manufacturing, farming, and infrastructure which services the economy and facilitates wealth creation. This is capitalism and it is natural and healthy that money should be distributed by banks according to the realistic anticipated creation of wealth.
    But I know I am being naive. That sort of capitalism is long gone. Where is the investment in industry? On the contrary work and food production have been ruined. What on earth could generate wealth to justify their bonuses?

    The obscene amounts they were paying themselves because they improved the immediate profit margins by buying and selling debt is what is rotting capitalism. We are now riding a raft of debt. It is a Ponzi scheme.
    And these bankers should put their own wealth on the line when they burn our money.
    Bonuses for what?

  20. 356487+ up ticks,

    Facts,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    16h
    Tyranny is as old as civilisation. Communism is a relatively new take on tyranny.

    The elements of both are similar & both end up in the same place.

    Those with sceptical minds can always see it coming.

    I_Know_Best
    @I_Know_Best
    https://gettr.com/post/p1rwd226fe7

    ·
    18h
    ⚫️⚫️⚫️🤮⚫️⚫️⚫️
    Happening
    N O W

  21. Martin Selves (BTL) on fine form again:

    Martin Selves
    4 HRS AGO
    Who would have thought Liz Truss has a Tiger in her Tank? This is the sort of Tiger I thought Boris had, but he turned into a Green Pussy Cat. The EU know they have a challenge now, and not a talking shop. I believe the Can is being crushed.
    We can only hope so, because more of the WOKE, Net Zero, unmotivated Civil Service, and much else is now being challenged and it never got us anywhere. Did it? The desire for self harm is everywhere as well, from the Railway Strike to our “multi cultural” society in isolation and disarray. It is time our Police Force stopped watching from the side lines and helping those with coffee and biscuits as they glue themselves to our motorways. Our Armed Forces are an example to everyone, and our Monarchy as well. This is the UK I believe in.
    Truss has not tackled the ECHR. I am certain she has a Folder with Cnx on it, but we will have to wait and see.
    Labour are howling with rage. They did not expect the whirlwind of change that came with Liz Truss. How will the Ginger Growler respond to this Lady. We can expect a Cat Fight for sure. And we need to fight as a Nation to recover from those dormant and ineffective Conservative Governments from as far back as “post” Maggie Thatcher who was also a conviction politician. Nigel Farage likes this Tiger. I expect her work ethic will continue because time is short, and it brings hope as TM once said.

    1. To what is Selves replying? The budget? If it was good, cutting govt spending and balancing it with reduced tax, the pound would not be tanking.

        1. We had our presentation evening yesterday followed by candlelight bowls. Started at 6.30 finished about 8.30 and had soup and roll for supper and a good old chinwag.

  24. BTL comment on the police shooting in London:-

    Finian Manson
    10 MIN AGO
    Yet the incoming Commissioner pre-judges everything and suspends him as I understand it in response to populist lobbying.

    One would expect an officer involved in a shooting to be immediately placed on administrative leave whilst investigations take place, but the way the new Met Chief announced this did seem to suggest that this was as a result of the furore raised by the usual suspects.

      1. Yep, US crime figures show only 3% of violent crimes are white on black. Ten times that are black on white and the overwhelming majority are black on black, yet they’re just 13% of the population. UK figures aren’t published by ethnicity but it would be surprising if they were very different? Yet only the 3% make The News.

      2. Tribal Rite of Passage.
        It would be very rude of Whitey to barge in and stop a centuries’ old custom.

    2. The family and friends have already reached the conclusion without even being near the scene of the crime. They have jointly decided that fire Arms officer ‘is guilty of murder’.
      Obviously because of all the noise these self proclaimed ‘experts’ are making. The officer doesn’t stand a chance.
      Why and how the media has been allowing all this build up of pressure on the police is disgusting.
      I may be mistaken but with one single shot drivers head high through the windscreen of the car suggests the person behind the wheel was aiming for the officer.

      1. Apparently the family have watched the bodycam video and agreed to take a step back from the campaign.
        Perhaps they have woken up to the reality of the situation created by their son?

        2. I found their loud we know best rhetoric quite annoying. The media should apologise for that serious error.

    3. The “aspiring architect” had form for firearms offences,beating up his woman and was driving a car with a firearm incident marker on it
      He refused to stop rammed police cars endangering life,yet another black thug who got exactly what he deserved
      “Dindu Nothing” my arse
      Edit
      There is a specific offence in the US “Vehicular Homicide” recognising a car is a lethal weapon, watching a few traffic cop shows from the UK ramming the police is becoming more common perhaps we should recognise the seriousness of this offence and introduce something similar
      Re-edit the Speccie has a good article on the race hustlers
      https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-shameful-exploitation-of-chris-kaba-s-death

    4. If it had not already begun I would have said this is the beginning of the end but the end is now almost upon us.

      I hope this leads to mass resignations from the police force.

      1. Good morning, Rastus.

        “I hope this leads to mass resignations from the police force.”

        Be careful of what you wish for. I understand the sentiment, but who will have to clear up after the ensuing rioting and looting that inevitably takes place when there are no police present.

        1. Of course I agree with you – but how can the Police express their total disillusionment with the PTB?

          One of the first rules of command is to stick up for those in your command and not to stab them in the back.

          This episode reminds me of the worm-like headteacher in Batley who sacked a teacher in his school for offending Muslims by teachinng them Religious Studies which was on the school curriculum. This teacher has had to go into hiding because he faces death threats and has lost his career.

          And what do the politicians do?

          SWEET FA

          1. The big problem is, as I illustrated on this forum the other day, that the Police Act, 1919 prohibits — on threat of imprisonment — any police officer from taking industrial action to withhold their labour.

            The police are the only section of society that has this imposition placed upon them. The Police Federation (which looks after the rights of officers up to and including Chief Inspector rank) has tried for decades to do something about it but their hands are tied. Any change in the law, perversely, gives succour to the criminal elements. What the answer is, I simply do not know.

        3. The family have viewed the body cam footage, and have now backed off. It seems that the little darling wasn’t quite the angel he’s made out to be! Quelle surprise!!

        2. Steady on, Bill! The difficult we can do at once (given the will), the impossible takes a lot longer! 🙂

      2. If you earned 30k per year and suddenly the government decided it would spend absolutely nothing, what would your wage drop to?

        You’d lose some 30% at least, perhaps 40%. No way could your employer continue to pay you 30k.

        Government spending finds its way into all of our pay packets. It’s economic stimulus. Studies have shown the ‘crowding out’ effect is unnoticeable. The state spends where the private sector wouldn’t even consider spending. The only thing the two sectors compete over is the labour pool.

        1. You make it sound as though nothing was ever built unless the government spent our money on everything. I do expect them to spend my money on certain things the private sector would not spend on. However, government spending tends to be extremely wasteful because they have nothing personal invested in it. If it loses money they take more in taxes. It’s a bottomless pit to them. If private investment fails investors sell their shares and or lose money.
          It was private investment that built the railways and if they didn’t show a potential for profit people wouldn’t have invested in them. They built railways where people wanted to go and flourished. Now take the example of HS2 that nobody except the politicians, it seems, wants. Costing, if it fully goes ahead, probably £250 billion and will be used by the few rich who can afford it. If HS2 was a viable prospect people would have been queuing up to invest in it.
          Your assertion that the money government spends finds its way back into peoples pockets is not true except for vast numbers of people receiving all sorts of benefits. Mostly the people who benefit are the rich i.e. they rent out their land to have inefficient wind turbines on, then get paid vast sums in subsidies while those at the bottom of the pile pay green tax on their electricity.
          These are some examples.

          1. They don’t spend your money, they are money creators. Taxes simply destroy a portion of the money created so that inflation doesn’t go wild and so that we all need to work for, or sell for pounds.

            The railways were built 150 years ago. Things were very different then. Many people lived on the streets. There was no welfare except charities. There were no pensions except for government service. Many people died before the age of fifty. Crime was rampant.

            Of course government spending finds its way into our pay packets. One person’s spending is another person’s income.

        2. Therefore if we all didn’t work the government would provide all our needs. Nobody to collect tax from but there’d be plenty of printing money.
          That’s the WEF policy isn’t it? You will own nothing but you’ll be happy. You wouldn’t need money as all will be provided by the state.
          You are welcome to your world but thankfully I’m in the autumn of my life.

          1. No it’s realism.

            Everything a bank loans out is ‘printed’. They don’t act as intermediaries between savers and borrowers, they are money creators. Everything the government spends is also ‘printed’. They don’t amass tax receipts and borrowings and spend that, they create what’s needed when it’s needed.

            The economy doesn’t function the way most people think it does. If it did the state pension would occasionally bounce, wages wouldn’t get paid to public sector workers, spending couldn’t happen in the way that it does. In actual fact government cheques can’t bounce, they are as good as cash.

            I don’t subscribe to the WEF bulls droppings. The only thing they talk about that I do support is a universal income to replace the welfare and pension system. This would incentivise taking any amount of work you can get rather than discourage taking work or more hours like the current system does. It would also be far cheaper to administrate but more expensive to pay out but who cares, it’s the effects you should care about.

    1. Morning Richard.
      Plus having gas and electricity cut off because you can’t afford to pay the bills.

  29. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5db453e86fbb0c8b9fd7afdd721454d6320d684d13e6304fe8a84be557c4ac89.png Just wondering.

    If HM The King intends to retain the name Windsor for the Royal House; he might consider learning how to tie a Windsor knot (or, even better, a half-Windsor) when he knots his tie. After all it was invented by his great uncle [I personally find the half-Windsor neater, more concentric, and less bulky than the full version].

    If he insists in keeping on using the small ‘four-in-hand’ knot that seems his wont (pictured here), maybe he would consider changing the name of it to the ‘Mountbatten knot’. Especially if — as was once thought — he decides to change the name of the Royal House to suit.

          2. In the trade they are known an Gongozzlers*
            So I guess those that spit are Gonegrolliers!

            *A gongoozler is a person who enjoys watching activity on the canals of the United Kingdom. The term is also used more generally to describe those who harbour an interest in canals and canal life, but do not actively participate.

          3. Does that make a gonguzzler a civil servant who harbours an interest in honours but does not actively participate in its job?

    5. What’s wrong with a four-in-hand? I use it when I’m riding (about the only time I wear a tie these days).

      1. A former work colleague of mine, a retired artillery warrant officer, always insisted on the four-in-hand. He told me that anything else was ‘too fussy and fat’.

  30. EU ‘must take seriously’ Putin nuclear threats – Borrell. 24 September 2022.

    In a rare address to the nation earlier this week, Mr Putin said his country had “various weapons of destruction” and would “use all the means available to us”, adding: “I’m not bluffing”.

    This is a particularly clear example of the use of Judicious Editing in reported speech that is carried out by the MSM; in this case the BBC. to slant the news. What Vlad really said was:

    I am referring to the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia. To those who allow themselves such statements regarding Russia I want to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction and for separate components, more modern than those of NATO countries and when the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use means at our disposal. It’s not a bluff.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63016675

  32. Brendan O’Neil on wicked form

    “The trouble with ‘bourgeois’ environmentalism

    The GMB union has exposed the aloof, elitist tendencies of green activists”

    “It is not a coincidence that environmentalism is the favoured political

    pursuit of the upper middle classes, posh influencers, privately

    educated columnists and even our new King (God save him). Because this

    anti-industrial worldview, this ideology that looks with such horror

    upon our mass consumer society, and the masses who partake in it, is the

    perfect vehicle for the expression of an older aristocratic disdain for

    modernity.

    Environmentalism

    is a modern manifestation of the 19th-century Romantic reaction against

    the Industrial Revolution. Only back then it was more honest – it was

    all puffy-collared rich folk shocked that the serfs who once worked

    their lands were now headed into teeming new cities to work in

    factories. Today, the misanthropic scorn for modernity tends to be more

    deceitfully dressed up. It’s less ‘Who will toil my farmland now?!’ and

    more ‘What will happen to the air I breathe if millions of gammon are

    driving to Aldi every day?’.”

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-trouble-with-bourgeois-environmentalism

    1. They don’t need serfs to till the land. One man and a giant tractor (plus lots of attachments) can do it.

  33. Listening to Radio 3, as is my habit and the content reminds me more and more of the old Light Programme but without the well spoken presenters. I don’t want to hear what Radio 2 has to offer. Hardcore rap and “house”? I expect Radio 1 plays computer sounds and 1Extra is probably subliminal propaganda transmitted on a frequency only audible to brain dead zombies?

    2. I have R3 on in the car, and as I don’t go far these days it’s just short snatches of what’s on at the time. Sometimes good, sometimes rubbish or just not to my taste. Never bother with the radio at all indoors.

    3. I heard some of a classical station (not sure which) on someone else’s radio recently. It was a new composition, by a young composer whose talent and qualifications were so heavily praised by the radio station that he must be black. After all that build up, they played what sounded like random plinking on the piano.
      I am completely unmusical, and that’s probably about the standard I would produce if asked to compose music!

      1. The words “World Premier” and “BBC Commission” are guaranteed to have me reaching for the off switch.

        1. It’s not been mentioned. I’ll ask my sons if they fancy it. And get back to you.
          The problem is most of my old pint sharing friends are either unwell, too old or passed on.

      1. Certainly not! Seeded. I had to wait weeks for some rain to moisten the soil – the lawn at the side of the house was seeded just a few days ago so I’m hoping it was sprout before the leaves drop off the mature Apple tress and smother it….Again there has been very little rain here over the past week and not much forecast so I will have to resort to using the hose 🙁

        1. I was pulling your leg! We added a new section to the “lawn” (moss and weeds with odd bits of grass) in May – just before the drought started. I watered it very occasionally – ad to me great surprise – it has all taken and is lush and green. Funny thing, nature!

          1. I guessed! Our ‘economy’ top soil (all 14 tons of it) came with a free gift – tens of thousands of weed seeds which given the warm weather have decided o make an appearance. I shall be out in the garden this afternoon with a table knife picking out the little bs (a knife is the only implement delicate enough to extract the weeds without disturbing too many new grass shoots….)

    2. My lawn is like me – large, untidy and unruly. Your beautifully manicured turf reminds me of Kenny Everett: Small – but perfectly formed.

  36. They interviewed the British representative of Peta along with a vegan freak and a female lawyer who mocked the other two with glee on GB News a couple of night s ago. The vegan freak was trying to argue the case that a vegan diet gives a man far better sexual stamina and erectile sustainability and that when veganism is adopted throughout the land women will ditch their inadequate carnivorous men in favour of the more Vigorous Vegan.

    Here is Michael Deacon’s take on the matter from today’s DT:

    Another week, another radical new plan to save the planet. This one comes from the German branch of Peta, the hardline animal rights activists. They’re urging women across the world to stop sleeping with their husbands – until the husbands agree to stop eating meat.

    No doubt the plan is well-meaning. For wives, though, it carries an obvious risk. It’s not that your husband will start sleeping with other women behind your back. It’s that he’ll start eating meat behind your back.

    After all, men can be weak when it comes to resisting temptation. He may make a solemn vow never to look at another bacon sandwich again. But what if, while he’s at work, his roving eye is caught by a Cornish pasty or a Greggs Steak Bake? What if your closest friend reports that she’s seen him in a restaurant, enjoying an illicit Pepperoni Feast or Meatball Marinara?

    If you confront him when he gets home, he’ll hotly deny it. But then, on his collar, you spot the telltale traces of Nando’s Peri-Peri Sauce. And then you find his phone is full of secret texts. All from Deliveroo, telling him his KFC Hot Wings will arrive in 25 minutes.

    The truth is, a man has appetites. You’ll think your husband has happily embraced his new meat-free diet – but then one day, under his side of the bed, you’re shocked to discover his secret stash of Peperami.

    He’s hiding the sausages. Just so he can hide the sausage.

    2. As I pointed out a day or two ago, this is a fatuous suggestion. Why would women want to give up sex?

      1. Wish I knew.

        It’s over eighteen months since my missus came anywhere near me. She says it’s because I’m fat but that’s a poor excuse from a woman I’ve spent 25 years with.

        I’m working in a FedEx warehouse so the weight is dropping off me. About a stone and a half loss in a month but I’m still north of sixteen stone.

        1. Work yourself fit – what’s not to like?
          Reminds me of an old joke: Lost my virginity at 17, then a few years later I married and I found it again…

          1. That reminds me of a very funny line I heard in a TV drama some years ago. In the play a gormless young Welsh lad was clumsily attempting to seduce a young English single mother who was desperate for a relationship, but not that desperate.

            She thwarted the lad by uttering: “Piss off, Boyo. I’ve got to look after what’s left of me virginity!”

    1. It’s important to keep abreast of the news. In this case it takes two to tango. If he is the C21st greatest troll. He deserves to have a George/Georgina Cross pinned on his chest!

    2. We have been warned that we could be prosecuted for hate speech if we call that big tit a big tit.

      Whatever he is, he should be offered a job in some middle eastern country that treats such perverts in the manner they deserve. He can also take the school board and teachers that offered support with him.

      2. But is he really a pervert? Or is he simply a bloke who has had enough of the gender crap that is being forced down teachers’ throats and has to take that crap to the nth degree to show how ridiculous it is?

    3. As soon as I saw the first article about him I thought he was taking the piss to make the school’s gender policy look the ridiculous bullshit it is.

  38. Meghan was shocked not to be paid for royal walkabouts, new book claims.
    The exposé has made a series of claims about tensions behind the scenes between the Sussexes and their staff

    Gordon Rayner : DT https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2022/09/24/meghan-shocked-not-paid-royal-walkabouts-new-book-claims/

    The BTLiners are up in arms about this and say that the Queen should have exercised her authority and forbidden Harry to marry such a slut. I think she would not have thought of doing so but, the BTLiners argue that if Migraine was not going to receive any money or titles or a lavish wedding she would have pushed off and tried her luck elsewhere.

    I“A young man married is a man that’s marred.”

    (All’s Well That Ends Well)

    This is certainly true of Harry who has been metaphorically castrated, neutered and made completely impotent.

    [However Caroline tells me that I must add that this adage of Shakespeare’s may apply to Harry but not to me because marriage was the making of me and I would not dare to contradict her!]

      1. I was 41 when I married – several years older than Harry was when he married but in those vital years, Caroline assures me, my maturity, wisdom and judgement developed tremendously.

    2. Clarkson…

      Let’s cast our minds back to the funeral of Princess Diana. We’d never seen anything so enormous or so unexpected or so moving.

      The Queen’s funeral dwarfed everything anyone, anywhere in the world, had ever seen. It dwarfed our wildest expectations.
       There were so many crushingly sad moments that I sat there for hours, crying my eyes out. 

      The hearse driving through a blizzard of flowers as it headed up the M1 to Althorp.

       The princes Harry and William following the coffin, which was adorned with a floral display and a card that said, simply, “Mummy”.

       And, of course, Elton John singing “Goodbye England’s Rose”.

      I was in bits. 

      But I was also a little nervous because I kept thinking, how can a funeral ever be more gut-wrenchingly magnificent than this?

       And if it can’t, what will happen when the Queen dies?

       Will we all just think that an old lady has passed away and not pay much attention?

      And if we did, would her send-off be smaller than Diana’s as a result? 

      Well, we all know the answer to that now.

       The Queen’s funeral dwarfed everything anyone, anywhere in the world, had ever seen. It dwarfed our wildest expectations.

       This was a primary-coloured, five-mile-long disturbance in the force.

      That scene when her coffin came down The Mall, with all those people watching and all those flags and all that soldiery in their Sunday best, was more exciting and more emotional than anything I could have even imagined.

       I was gasted with flabber. 

      I wasn’t sobbing though, because I was too busy reeling with joy and gratefulness at the sheer size of it all and the majesty and the brilliance of absolutely everyone involved.

      I was also breathing a massive sigh of relief because if the crowds had been patchy, that would have sent out a worrying signal — that us lot, the nation’s ordinary people wanted a Diana style of royalty more than we wanted the version built over 70 years by the Queen.

      Those two are unhinged

       That we wanted pretty girls and low-cut frocks more than we wanted hard work and sensible shoes. 

      Which would have turbocharged the drive systems and ambition of Meghan Markle and her ****struck husband Harry.

      I don’t want to sound like Piers Morgan, who’s obsessed with the Markles, because I never want to sound like Piers Morgan.

      But I’m afraid there’s no way round it. He’s right. And I am going to sound like him when I say, “Those two are unhinged”. 

      Here are some questions Meghan might like to answer.

      On the day the Queen died, why did William and his party wait in London for such a long time that they arrived in Scotland — we are told — after the Queen had died?

       And why did Harry then arrive on his own? And then leave on his own early the next day?

      Were you being a nuisance somehow?

      Or were you too upset to go?

       Sure, we were shown pictures of you crying at the funeral but you’re an actor, for crying out loud. Not a very good one, I admit, but an actor nevertheless.

       And actors can cry on demand. Even I can. And, on a number of occasions, have.

      I very much doubt those tears were real. Because why would you cry at the funeral of someone who fronted an organisation that you very obviously despise.

       It’d be like me crying when Piers is taken to that great larder in the sky.

      And Harry? Well, when it came to a choice between singing God Save The King, which would have pleased his family and about four billion people around the world, and NOT singing, which would please no one but his wife, he chose not to sing. 

      That could be because he has giant balls.

       But it’s more likely that Meghan’s got them attached to a bomb in a chest of drawers in their hideous house in California.

       Maybe that’s what all those suspicious bulges were under her tight-fitting dress. The detonator.

      For the past few months, the Markles have felt like their drive to become The New Royal Family was going pretty well.

       He was clowning around on a bus with that halfwit, James Corden, and she was getting quite a bit of traction among a small gang of teenage feminists who think that The Old Royal Family may be racist meat-eaters.

      This is what’s been spurring her on. A sense that because the Queen “never complained and never explained”, Meghan could rampage around the place, spewing poison, telling “her truths” and, in so doing, winning the hearts and minds of the stupid and the socially disabled.

      But then she got to the Queen’s funeral and in her scheming head, she must have thought, “Oh s**t”, this royalty business is bigger than I thought.

      You’re damn right it is, love.

      The Royal Family in this country has lasted for more than a thousand years and is massively respected, as you’ve seen, by billions of people across the globe.

       Whereas you are a divorced and mostly friendless two-bit actress who’s thrown away her own family, and asked your husband to do the same thing.

      And for what? A bit of money?

      I used to know Harry a bit. We played tennis together (I won) and he once came and drove as The Stig on Top Gear. He was a good lad. But you, Meghan, have filled his head with woke American nonsense and ruined him.

      God knows what he gets in return. Actually, scrub that — because of course God does know. 

      What we know, down here on Earth, is that he wanted to wear a uniform at the funeral.

       He wanted to salute at The Cenotaph. He wanted to be there for his family at his grandmother’s funeral and because of you, Meghan, he couldn’t. 

      As a result, we are not interested in you or your podcasts, or your “foundations”, and we are certainly not interested in your husband’s forthcoming tell-all book. 

      If you can call something written in crayon “a book”. 

      I am longing with all my heart to not read it.

       I do not wish Meghan any harm. I hope that after she has been photographed sitting by herself on the back of a playboy’s superyacht and outside the Taj Mahal, she goes on to lead a long and happy life.

      But she should know this.

       When she dies, hopefully many years from now, she will not be carried in front of millions by stoic men with good hearts and strong arms. If it’s a slow news day, the best she’ll get is a small obituary in The Times on Page 27. 

      Because her whole being is based on nothing at all, and we prefer people with a bit more stuff going on.

       That’s why we liked the Queen and it’s why we like Charles and it’s why, many years from now, after he’s been through a blizzard of roses, we will like William too and then, way on down the road, George.

      So, Meghan, my dear, to use the sort of language you Americans understand: “You’re gonna lose this war with our Royal Family. And you’re gonna lose it big”.

        2. I was travelling around NZ and Oz for a year thst year. I’m glad I wasn’t here, it sounded awful.

  39. Miserable par four today. Let’s see how Quordle goes.
    Wordle 462 4/6

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    1. Failed 🙁

      Daily Quordle 243
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    2. Wordle 462 5/6

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      Daily Quordle 243
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      quordle.com
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      ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩 🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
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      1. Bogey Five for me.

        Wordle 462 5/6
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  41. GET THIS oldies………..

    The “Green Thing” – Back in My Day

    At the check-out at the shop, the young cashier suggested to the older woman that she should bring her own shopping bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.

    The woman apologised and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.”

    The cashier responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”

    She was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.

    Back then, we returned milk bottles, pop bottles and beer bottles to the shop. The shop sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilised and refilled, so we could use the same bottles over and over again. So they

    really were recycled.

    We refilled writing pens with ink, instead of buying a new pen and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor, just because the blade got blunt.

    But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

    We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every shop and office building. We walked to the grocery shop and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two hundred yards.

    But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

    Back then, we washed the baby’s nappies, because we didn’t have the disposable kind. We dried clothes on a washing line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 240 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our
    clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

    But that young lady is right. We didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

    Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room and the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief — remember them? Not a screen the size of the county.

    In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us.

    When we packaged a fragile item to send in the post, we used old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

    Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working, so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

    But she’s right. We didn’t have the green thing back then.

    We drank water from a fountain, or a tap, when we were thirsty instead of demanding a plastic bottle flown in from another country. We accepted that a lot of food was seasonal and didn’t expect it to be flown in from
    other parts of the world, thousands of miles away.

    We actually cooked food that didn’t come out of a packet, tin or plastic wrap and we could even wash our own vegetables and chop our own salad.

    But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

    Back then, people took the Underground or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school, or walked instead of turning their mothers into a 24-hour taxi service.

    We had one electrical power point in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances – and we didn’t need a computerised gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites in space in order to find the nearest fish and chip shop.

    But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were, just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?

    ——————-

    Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person.

    We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to piss us off… especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced, smart ass – who can’t give you your change without the cash register telling them how much.

    —————-

    1. I haven’t really changed my habits very much – we still have glass bottles from the milkman, which are washed and returned for reuse; I still cook fresh food; we only have one telly, and it’s not a huge screen; I don’t buy bottled water; I use the same shopping bags each week; I don’t have a microwave or an electric mixer; but then I remember when all the things listed above were normal behaviour.

      2. I do have a microwave. It uses less electricity than firing up the electric oven. When the Rayburn is lit, it’s unlikely to be used, ditto the electric kettle.

    2. The greengrocer put loose veg in paper bags and the butcher wrapped meat in paper too. No polystyrene trays and plastic shrink wrap.

        1. When Ocado M+S deliver they take their bags back and credit you 10p per bag. It does mean they don’t go in the bin then to landfill. They will also take any other store carrier bags but they don’t credit you for those.

  42. There’s the weekly shop done, now a bite of lunch and then two cars to change to winter tyres. This year, we’re a bit ahead of the weather… Yaay! Gotta be a first time for everything.

      1. Can get winter in October – normally change tyres for week 40, as we take a vacation and drive over the mountain passes.

        1. We can get ‘winter’ in October but with the Swedes being Swedes, nothing is thought through! Winter tyres have to be used between December 1 and March 31. We inevitably have snow in November and rarely in March!

  43. Palace aides take revenge on the ‘Difficult Duchess’: Insiders claim Meghan ‘moaned she wasn’t getting PAID for royal tours, agreed to Oprah interview SIX months before Megxit and reduced staff to tears with bullying and tantrums’ – in bombshell new book
    Explosive extracts of Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown by Valentine Low were published today
    Meghan did not understand why she had to shake people’s hands during a tour of Australia, they revealed
    Sources claim Meghan bullied her staff who were ‘terrified’, ‘broken’ and ‘destroyed’ by her treatment of them
    The book details a meeting where Meghan allegedly criticised a young female member in front of colleagues

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11244021/Palace-aides-revenge-Insiders-claim-Meghan-moaned-wasnt-getting-PAID-royal-tours.html?ito=social-twitter_mailonline

        1. Poor old Harry. Not street wise and not much solid down to earth worldly experience.
          I expect the same as has happened to most of the royals, it’ll end in divorce.

  44. Well – that was fun. Took the MR in for her 11.45 jab. Approaching the town – traffic queues. She got out and walked to the GPs. It took me 10 mins to get to Morrisons carpark (next to GPs). Started the shopping – only to be joied by the MR. That’s quick…! Oh no, she said – the queue is an hour long. She packed it in. Checking out – the lady behind us in the queue had taken half an hour to drive 400 yards….

    Apparently the wunderbar NHS (clap) computer had given all 500 people the SAME time….

    And to make things worse, the perlice had been called in to deal with (ie – make much worse) the traffic……

        1. A cousin of mine posted on Facebook this morning that she and her husband are just back from the GP, having each had a flu jab in one arm and a covid jab in the other. She added, “Hooray for the NHS”. They’re lovely people, really. I’m not going to respond. It does no good and only creates bad feeling.

    2. They used to say : At the centre of any jam you will find a policeman directing the traffic.

    3. Possibly intentional. When I had a 9.30 am appointment at the Western Eye Hospital, I got there to find that they have just two appointment times. 9.30 am and 12.30 pm. The morning people and the afternoon people.

      1. We suffered the same Who cares about the punters appointment system with our eye clinic. They tried to justify it by telling us that the doctors could not estimate treatment times accurately so they had to go for the mass appointment system to help their utilization.

        Can you imagine a car dealer booking all service appointments for 9AM?

    4. No…NO. I was telling a LIE.

      It wasn’t the “same appointment” trick.

      They had invited 500 people to attend but – instead of the usual 8 or 10 jabbers – there were just the TWO. The traffic buggerment started at 8,30 am. And is STILL going strong….

      And it is raining on the hundreds still queuing in the carpark.

      2. It raineth on the just and the unjust. So it rains on the people who have just joined the queue as well as those who have been queuing for an hour.

  45. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/da924f4daabdc9e517aab14d07cb6ed189577de657771fe36fe83b79aea30a30.png Apropos our earlier discussion about the police being prohibited, by Act of Parliament, from withdrawing their labour and going out on strike; I wonder what the BBC’s latest Commie darling, Mick Lynch, would have to say on the topic.

    After all, here he is being seen as a (Lefty, natch) guest of honour on HIGNFY, where he is demanding that his members have “a basic human right to withdraw their labour”. I wonder how this cretin would feel if the police exercised their “basic human right” and withdrew their labour? Once that he and his “members” had had their houses ransacked, looted, and set fire to (after their mothers, wives and daughters had been raped); I wonder if that would galvanise his entrenched opinion of inciting anarchy.

    1. The graphic on the right is not unattractive. It just seems rather pointless and meaningless. What is its relevance to Oxford University and its published output? Oh right, there are two Os in Oxford. Is that the level our top universities operate at now?

      2. We’ve gone from “Dominus illuminatio mea” to “Oxford begins with an O”

        If there is a scrap of resistance to the great dumbing down left in the University, this logo deserves to be known as “the a**hole”

      3. The relevance, perhaps, is that it’s an empty space surrounded by a joined up circle (we’re going round in circles about nothing).

  49. 356487+ up ticks.

    Going on past evidence and WEF members
    hovering in the wings can this
    “The mini-Budget marks a refreshing return to core Conservative principles” be also regarded as a flash in the pan

    Been 18 days, and if anything the foreign incursion numbers grow daily, to my mind a “flash in the pan is clearly evident. .

    1. In two weeks we’ve had some solid Conservative prinicples. The Home office is the next to be dealt with.

      Frankly, every single one of the dross must be returned immediately to France. If lawyers get uppity, send them as well.

      1. I’ll believe that when I see it.
        I still see no evidence that inflation is being tackled. It’s yet more “conservative” stuff being waved in front of voters, while the big issues remain firmly in the control of WEF policy makers.

    1. 356487+ up ticks,

      Afternoon TB,
      Keep in mind at ALL times You gotta vote tory (ino) to keep out lab (ino)
      You gotta vote lab(ino) to keep out tory (ino)
      The biggest scam mantra ever & a day.

      They are a COALITION.

    2. Folk don’t seem to understand the scale. 12 billion is 3 days spending. 2.5bn/day tax revenue, 1.5bn/day borrowing.

      The problem we have with Ukraine is… we caused it. Well, the EU did. However, Ukraine is a bit like Ireland. A bit that’s Russian and a bit that isn’t. The bit that isn’t has treated the bit that is appallingly, including shelling it.

      When the EU provoked Russia by trying to bring Ukraine into it’s ever expanding cancerous fold Putin took the opportunity to attack and the weak, utterly dependent, economically fragile, lazy, workshy and Left wing West could do nothing.

      Only now, months later having realised our fragility we start doing the wrong thing in arming Ukraine. The right thing would be for a strong, Western leader representating a coalition of nations – not the irrelvant, totalitarian, communist EU – to bring Putin to the table and force him to negotiate under threat of destruction. Thing is, we can’t afford that and the last time we tried, Biden screwed it up completely.

        1. Nah. If I were a diplomat the UK would be in real trouble.

          I’m also likely wrong, as I’m not at all biased in my attitudes toward communist, fascist Left wing groups such as the EU.

      2. What’s happened has happened, we can’t change that.
        Now, it looks like a good time to offer Russia a face-saving way out, before things go too far, and Russia (most likely) decides to use tactical nukes. The way back from that situation will be very difficult, so better start before it gets too tense.
        Here’s one for you: Maybe Sleezy Joe could ask Donald Trump to lead the negotiation, or whatever you want to call it.

        1. Considering Biden abandoned ‘Trump’s’ (as if he personally wrote it) plan to evacuate Afghanistan the man is so dementedly obsessed he couldn’t, even if good sense suggested to.

      1. And having been tutored and nurtured in the best well meaning fashion, they’ll be ever so surprised when he does it again,

    2. Yes. I posted that below. I am fairly sure that there is a secret note of advice to judges from the Scottish government to keep the sentences as short as possible. The prisons are full up.

    3. How can anyone respect the legal system?

      This sort of thing will lead to mob rule and kangaroo courts.

        2. The last time the paedophile hunters set about uncovering and delivering a paedophile – of the usual variety – the police told them they couldn’t do this as it was entrapment, all the while the usual suspect was squealing about racism – because of course he would.

      2. It already has and people don’t. The Left squeal that high taxes pay for a legal system but the legal system doesn’t work.

  53. Well, despite my insomniac activities in the small hours, I’ve done a bit of tidying up of the logs waiting to be sawn and chopped for next winter, including actually chopping a dozen or so that were short enough for chopping without sawing.
    Also done a bit of tidying up of the front of the “garden” alongside the road, including getting rid of brambles roots.

    I now feel knackered, so am off for a lie down!
    See you all later.

  54. In the name of promoting “diversity,” ruling Greens in the German the city of Hanover plan to ban a third of native citizens from applying for government jobs so they can be given to migrants.

    Yes, really.

    “A green mayor makes the difference!” wrote Turkish-born Filiz Polat, managing director of the Greens parliamentary group.

    Polat was referring to Hanover Mayor Belit Onay, who came to power in November 2019, and is also of Turkish heritage.

    “By the end of 2026, a third of all newly advertised positions in the city should be filled by applicants with a migration background,” wrote Polat.

    In an effort to vastly increase the number of foreign-origin migrants in positions of local authority, a draft resolution brought by the city’s integration committee will ensure that the “target figure for all new hires is 30 percent.”
    P J Watson

    2. Wow, so the Germans will be checking people’s ancestry when they apply for jobs…that didn’t work out too well last time round…

  55. Just watched HIGNFY a Boris special. It was shocking. How the lying duplicitous weasel ever became PM is a mystery to me.

    The next episode is hosted by Richard Ayowade who i do think is funny. The bit that made Mick Lynch and others burst out laughing was when Richard started talking about the queue.

    He said one of the more unusual things confiscated by a Policeman was a ‘pleasantry’. A pleasantry being a euphemism for a dildo.
    He said the Policeman removed the batteries and handed it back. He then went on to say…As if the day couldn’t get any worse for Philip Schofield !

      2. We had fun in the office when one of the wines for which we had the agency carried out promotion. That company also owned Durex. Our minds boggled at the promotional possibilities that they did not carry out.

        1. Some newish condoms we have at work to give out to patients are like cling film. The heat from your skin makes them shrink to a snug fit (comments gentlemen?)

          A delivery boy came in tother day and had to wait for someone to sign his forms. A couple of us started talking to him and gave him a free bag of these and he said he didn’t wear condoms. NOT the thing to say in front of clap clinic staff. As he said he didnt have a steady gf we persuaded him to at least take a test kit home

      1. It has got better recently.

        Boris being asked if he had ever taken cocaine was a good one. Wiffwaff, blather, nonsense, and brouhaho.

        Notice my use of the Oxford comma? :@)

  56. Just back from taking Second Son to the local sports supermarket for some lifting equipment. First time I’ve been there for a while. It’s grubby and tatty and shabby, and completely filled with wogs of all shades. Not a word of Norwegian to be heard – it’s like Sports R Us in Karachi.

  58. Dear God, what a balls-up Kwarteng has made. £1 = $1. Good one!
    Bad enough he increases the borrowing by a huge amount, but what about the cloth-eared politics that gives it away to the richest end of the spectrum? Why not raise the income tax threshold all round, so everybody gets some – the same, too. That would have played a lot better to the gallery.

      2. Just watch inflation and the price of imports rise dramatically – and the price of gasoline & diesel, since oil is priced in USD!

        2. Inflation! I bought a block of unsalted butter this morning, amongst other items, it is 30p more than a week or so ago. That’s in Lidl.

    2. Just to cheer you up:
      With £ so low vs the $ US companies are going to find British assets relatively cheap.
      Guess which group of bankers will be getting huge bonuses for doing the sales?

      1. Me !

        Gold Prices Sink in Dollars, Soar in Sterling as Fed Rate Hike Crushes Stocks, Bonds, Crude

        23 Sept 2022, 14:56:55

        GOLD PRICES sank against a surging Dollar on Friday,
        dropping to new 2.5-year lows as this week’s raft of central-bank
        interest rate hikes saw stock markets, bond prices, commodities and
        crypto all tumble while the US currency set fresh 2-decade highs on the
        FX market amid a bloodbath for the …
        Read on

        BullionVault Ltd © 2022 – Set price alert

        Live silver price chart
        Live platinum price chart
        Live palladium price chart

        1. On the face of it that seems a little odd.

          How have you done when you take into account the bid/offer from what it cost and what you can now get, assuming you can buy and sell in sterling?

          1. I bought in Sterling from a British company. I have possession. Don’t forget i am not a trader. I am not playing the markets. I will wait and sell when the price suits me. Or….you can all bid on a map where X marks the spot.

          3. Odd that.
            Considering that their energy supplies are more secure than most.
            Presumably their sovereign wealth fund is also very well spread.

            Perhaps it might be a good time to go long the Krone.

    4. Its removing the government off our backs. its the leftie slaves that do not like it. When tax goes up the rich that pay the most. When tax is reduced its the rich that gain the most. Whats wrong with that. is it just the politics of envy. ?

      1. If, like Labour, one taxes the rich, “Until the pips squeak…” they just up and leave the country. No gain for socialists.

        1. If they don’t leave the country, their wealth does. The folk at the Guardian are squealing about taxing the rich while their rag is funded from an offshore trust.

        2. Its not about actually getting the money for the Left. It’s about the public assault on other people’s wealth for their weak minded, idiotic voters.

          Everyone – even Lefties – know if you want to raise money, you cut taxes. They keep pushing taxes up solely for appearances. They raise nothing – in fact socialist policies always cost more but it’s about spite, envy and greed. The politics of the Left.

      2. Thing is, the Left want ‘da wich’ to pay more tax as that’s ‘fair’. How they work out that logic I’ve no idea. Equally how they can not see that those high tax and waste policies have in fact widened the wealth gap and reduced any sense of wealth distribution whatsoever.

        They are simply, spiteful, envious, hateful little twerps. It’s my bloody money, not the state’s. If someone suggested robbing them blind theyy’d be very grumpy about it, yet they want the state to do it.

        Folk argue that the tax cut ‘costs’ would pay for child care. Why should it? It’s not my child. Why should I be forced to pay for someone else’s choices? Because that’s ‘fair’? Because that’s good? No, it isn’t. It’s simply forcing someone else to pay for your life choices.

    1. Re the bear one…. in the small town in which I lived in CT, there was a “pub” which did food. Went occasionally for a drink and grub and the manager told us that one night he’d been taking the trash out to the bin, like the one in the clip, and surprised a black bear who was having a grand rummage. The bloke retreated back indoors.
      Black bears are small in the ursine world but they are still bloody big.

  60. Just received from Brother:
    Hi Paul ,not a problem, just amusing.
    Payed 3 cheques into my account at HSBC bank on their cheque pay in machine.
    Then walked to Barclay’s bank to pay in Mother’s scot power refund cheque but it was rejected by the machine as had been folded gently by me plus a tiny bit of left hand corner was missing. The assistant told me to come back on a weekday when the ‘desk’ will deal with it easily. As you said recently- why is everything so complicated?. Why have cheque pay in machines that can’t accept a gently folded cheque with 2mms of corner missing?!!
    Will pay in on weds next using a human being.
    Gee…

  61. Taki is not an individual that I think I would like, but not a bad article.

    Unburdening their sins of being privileged is the latest craze in the land of the mentally deformed, a place where everyone with a mobile telephone has turned into an Oprah Winfrey, which brings me, yes, to Harry and Meghan. In the by-now-famous walkabout with the prince and princess of Wales outside Windsor Castle, I thought the Montecito duo looked like a football couple, all dolled up for a court appearance in a libel case or one of domestic violence. His suits are tight and look tighter as he swaggers like a footballer. She, on her part, don’t look so good no more at 41, the spindly ankles, the waist that has disappeared, the no-longer-cherubic countenance. Any reasonable person in possession of their senses should realize that zebras tend to change their stripes during the time of mourning, but revert to type afterward.

    Never mind. Harry has been for some time now a marionette, moved around and exploited by antiwhite, anti-Brit and pro-woke forces. Embittered nonentities and crawling parasites like the Nigerian-born Uju Anya and others have finally had their day with their depraved insults of the dead Queen. Just remember if anyone from The New York Times ever approaches you. The paper is one big lie, insufferably windy and dedicated to the overthrow of everything that normal and healthy people believe in. It is anti-Christian, anti-family, antiwhite, anti-police, anti–armed forces, anti–law and order, anti–man-and-woman marriage, and on the side of everything criminal, subversive, and perverse.

    https://www.takimag.com/

    1. I think he is appalling – though he does say quite a lot of things with which I agree. So perhaps I am as bad!

      1. I wouldn’t go quite so far as “appalling”, but I’m certainly on your side of the middle.
        My recollection is that he wrote for many years for the Spectator and I found him good and bad in equal measure.
        I’m surprised they still tolerate him now that they are becoming more and more woke.

  62. That’s me for this dreary day – Rained on and off throughout. Tomorrow is supposed to be better. Monday – the day when the builder comes (at long last) to deal with the garage roof – rain is forecast…..

    Have a jolly evening doing something nice. I have just started a new book. Translated from yer German. I can’t remember the name but will report to bibliophiles in due course.

    A demain.

  63. Iran – women cut their hair and remove face cover – 700+ arrested, 35 shot dead..

    Leicester – weeks of religious rioting, looting and wanton damage – seven arrested, several warned of future action. That’ll teach ’em to respect the law and not to mess with the British Police Farce.

    1. Ah but…
      Think how bad Leicester would have been if the British sorry, alien women, had done that!

  64. 356487+ up ticks,

    May one ask,
    Although not expecting many answers, how an indigenous person feels knowingly supporting / voting for a party that is selling out their Country from under their feet.

    Migrant Armada: English Channel Boat Migrant Numbers Cross 30,000

    It is surely quite clear to see that every illegal that lands is a danger to an indigenous persons health / safety / social standing.
    Peoples must self assess, with the question
    for instance, am I for the child victims of rotherham etc, or the foreign paedophile activist, that is reality.

      1. The only rational solution is to round every single one of these criminals up and to deport them.

        Should any more attempt it, warning shots then have them fired upon. The tidal flood of filth has got to stop and the dross here removed. We cannot just take the entire world. They’ve got to go back.

        1. …and that is back to France, Wibbles, whence they came. But France cannot be ar5ed, they just want rid of them, to the detriment of the UK.

  65. I’m watching a recording of her maj’s funeral (I missed it).

    Three thousand troops on parade…wearing at least five hundred different uniforms. (Proves it’s a noun not an adjective)

    2. “Three thousand troops on parade…wearing at least five hundred different uniforms.”

      But not necessarily at the same time?

        1. They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace
          Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
          Alice is marrying one of the guard,
          A soldier’s life is terrible hard…..says Alice.

          And etc

          1. Little boy lies on the edge of his bed
            Lily white hands are now stroking his head
            Oh! My! Couldn’t be worse
            Christopher Robin is shagging his nurse.

          4. You mean:-

            Little boy sitting at foot of the stairs,
            In his hand a bundle of hairs,
            Oh my! Fancy that!
            Christopher Robin Castrated the cat!

          7. Go and join Sos on his chateau haunting.
            I have a wicked sense of humour but AA Milne’s poems are innocent and sweet.

    4. I understand all the horses had new shoes for the occasion – Farriers working around the clock….

      1. You jest but once you factor in all the stealth taxes that’s pretty close to the real rate. Tax freedom day creeps toward mid August every year.

    3. Yes, and these are good things, as the highest earners pay the most tax. They also create all the jobs.

      Let’s ask Toynbee and the boy Jones if they’re giving their tax cut back.

        1. To Hell with the politics.

          We need something that looks to the long term, for a change.

          It might or it might not work; sure as Hell more of the same won’t.

          1. If you want a significant number of people onside, so you get what you are trying to achieve, you nned the politics to be right as well. And being seen to be giving only to the rich (regardless of the reality of the situation) is bad politics and risks resisstance to the whole.
            So, yes, the politics matters.

          2. I disagree.
            Pandering to the “all must be equal” edge of the spectrum doesn’t get you any more votes from the takers, they take whatever they can and always vote for more.
            Take too much from the producers (and that has been the problem for at least 30 years) and they stop producing or leave to produce elsewhere.
            Why are you in Norway?

          3. I’m in Norway because in 1997 I could no longer bear the utter uselessness and incompetence that is the UK. So, recognising one person could not change the the 55 million, we buggered off.
            Finally triggered by Brown screwing up my pension arragements.

          5. It’s not all a bed of roses here, Tom, but better than the UK. Government still uses taxpayers money for useful stuff, things normally work, but it’s deteriorating here, too.

          13. I can’t agree. The economy is in an utter mess because of appeasement and ‘optics’. People have become used to getting what they want at other people’s expense. That’s got to change and yes, people are going to be upset and annoyed that for once they aren’t getting a free ride in someoen else’s car.

        2. Bad politics is good government, good politics (spending, largesse, waste, green) is bad government.

          It’s about time we had some good government. The Left are frightened. That’s why they’re bleating. They now the tax cuts will make hte real difference they should. Of course, it would have been nice to scrap fuel duty and pay for it by closing the department for transport and climate change rather than borrowing. That regressive tax is horrific for the low paid and would make a real difference, as would cutting VAT.

          However, we’ve made a start toward sound government. It isn’t popular, but popular is stupid. Government isn’t our friend. It’s job is not to make life fair. It’s to provide infrastructure. Nothing else. The rest must come from effort.

  67. Types of mortgages in each country.
    The implication is that the housing markets are more vulnerable to crashing in the countries where a lot of people have variable rate loans. Don’t know if that’s true or not.
    I have a long term fixed deal, taken out when rates were peanuts, for which I am profoundly thankful.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d279d59cc2d2598847e73122d11e458a6e1fe603a6f9bd2a5e0f49ff25e68162.jpg

    Edit: actually, thinking about it, the market could crash either way, becuase people wouldn’t be able to afford new long term loans at high interest rates in the US. But there’s more risk of defaults in the countries with more variable rates. So these countries might be the first to crumble and start lowering interest rates again.

          1. Stop putting words into my mouth. I’m perfectly well aware of manipulated crashes and the ultra rich hoovering up assets.

    2. We’ve somewhat scuppered by government both fixing supply, demand and price, properly breaking the market.

      If government stopped buying houses for welfare and stopped using taxation to house people who couldn’t afford a home then prices would fall to affordable levels – as demand would plummet. The state also then forces ver higher supply through funding breeding.

      In fact, the increased hours for welfare is an attempt to reduce welfare fraud – fraud so high if we stopped it we could scrap the basic rate of tax. Lefties never think of that. They much prefer to keep people dependent.

    3. We’ve somewhat scuppered by government both fixing supply, demand and price, properly breaking the market.

      If government stopped buying houses for welfare and stopped using taxation to house people who couldn’t afford a home then prices would fall to affordable levels – as demand would plummet. The state also then forces ver higher supply through funding breeding.

      In fact, the increased hours for welfare is an attempt to reduce welfare fraud – fraud so high if we stopped it we could scrap the basic rate of tax. Lefties never think of that. They much prefer to keep people dependent.

    4. Could that chart be out of date? Variable rate mortgages were very popular in Canada during the time that interest rates were going down. Surprisingly they were also popular when rates started to rise because the initial monthly payments were lower.

    1. Hush! Hush, whisper who dares,
      Lady of the Lake is going upstairs.

      (With Apols to A A Milne)

      Night Ann…

    2. No intention, Ann, I respect our literature, as I think you understand. Good night and God bless us all.

  69. Goodnight, Gentlefolk, time to take my heart-aches to bed and dream of peace. Luvya’all. and God bless.

  71. I’m en vacances in Devon. A busy, tedious and tiring journey here, much queuing. Some vehicle burst into flames (an ev?) in the Boscombe Down area of the A303. Fortunately we were just approaching a side road left, so on seeing the billowing black smoke we took that regardless, followed the sun and miraculously popped back out on to the A303 five miles further south, no traffic fore or aft for some time. We arrived at our destination about 5.30pm and having sorted ourselves out we nipped off to a local hostelry. Several miles through the narrowest of back roads, the sort that has grass growing up the middle. Despite the SN we couldn’t find the Inn, up and down and round we went – and then we just happened on it. Wonky SN. No fear of cv there, the noise could be heard from 100 yards away, everyone having a jolly good time, full to bursting. No masks to be seen. It is cold here (near Totnes), the wind is coming from the north now.

    1. Enjoy your freedom, Mum, I’m along with you – if’s all well with the world, that’ll do me. Have fun my dear, and enjoy every moment.

      1. Thank you, Tom. Look after yourself, take it easy. Heartache takes a long time to settle, it doesn’t get any easier.

    2. Nice place. Totnes is a bit weird but not bad. Have a great stay. Let us know if you venture into Cornwall. Off early on a friend’s boat the AM to steam down the Tamar to Plymouth Sound to try to catch some fish.

      1. Beautiful, lush country. So green it hurts the eyes…. Yes, will let you know if we cross the Tamar. Enjoy your trip, I hope your lines are busy!

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