542 thoughts on “Saturday 28 December: Second-hand yachts can’t guard the Channel against people-smugglers”

  1. “The head

    of Scotland Yard has said she understands why people want to “see heads

    roll” in the wake of the force’s catastrophic investigation into an

    alleged Westminster paedophile ring.

    Dame Cressida Dick acknowledged that members of the public wanted to

    see “punishment” for those involved in the botched inquiry which

    tarnished the reputations of senior politicians.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/12/27/dame-cressida-dick-understands-public-want-see-heads-roll-botched/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget
    Now I wonder who’s head is top of the list……………………
    As an aside I presume the huge number of deleted comments are mostly for the use of her name,time the DT sorted its moderation

    2. All together now ….. ah, diddums.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/12/27/tom-watson-reveals-quit-labour-due-brutality-hostility-within/

      Tom Watson reveals he quit Labour due to ‘brutality and hostility’ within party
      Harry Yorke, Political Correspondent

      “Tom Watson, Labour’s former deputy leader, has revealed for the first time that he was driven out of Parliament due to the “brutality and hostility” he was subjected to by the hard-Left.

      Speaking in the wake of Labour’s crushing election defeat, Mr Watson admitted that the “day to day” abuse he was subjected to had contributed to his decision to quit as an MP.

      Highlighting the extent of the abuse faced by MPs, he claimed that at one point police had informed him that a Labour supporter had been arrested for making a death threat against him, but that party officials had failed to inform him.

      He also dismissed as “political idiocy” and “collective self-harm” the botched attempt by several of Jeremy Corbyn’s allies to oust him as deputy leader on the eve of this year’s Labour annual conference.

      And whilst he did not personally criticise Mr Corbyn, Mr Watson hit out at the growing animosity within the party and admitted that in 2016 he had voted for leadership rival Owen Smith.

      Discussing the reasons for his departure, Mr Watson told the Guardian: “The point is that the brutality and hostility is real and it’s day to day.

      “So I just thought: now’s the time to take a leap, do something different. You’ve had a good innings. You’ve done good stuff. Go now.”

      Citing a combination of social media attacks and criticism from union leaders loyal to Mr Corbyn, he continued: “On their own, you deal with them and they’re a normal part of life.

      “Combine them, and you’re carrying a very heavy load. And sometimes you’ve got to realise when that balance of life shifts and there are other things that are more rewarding.”

      The ex-West Bromwich MP, whose seat was lost to the Conservatives two weeks ago, also savaged Jeremy Corbyn’s election strategy and claimed he did not know what Labour’s central message to voters was.

      “I don’t even know what the message of our campaign was,” he said.

      “There were announcements everywhere, but none of them got through because there were so many. You knew what Boris Johnson’s was: Get Brexit done. What was the Labour strapline?”

      In a warning to Labour MPs now vying to replace him and Mr Corbyn as Labour leader and deputy, Mr Watson said that their successors needed to address whether they “actually want power.”

      “Does the Labour party in its current form actually want power? The ultimate betrayal of working-class people is not to take power when you can, and if you are a party that believes in power through elections, then that requires pragmatism, prioritisation, compromise and collaboration.”

    3. Here’s a BTL comment that might not survive either – “This woman is the very epitome of what is wrong with public services. Having been in charge of the shooting of Jean Charles Menezes after an identification blunder she was promoted would you believe. Now her fingerprints are all over another grossly mismanaged operation. Just what do you have to do before it is considered that you aren’t up to the job.“

    4. Robert Spowart 28 Dec 2019 12:07PM
      It seems references to Cressida Penis’s real name may be being subject to Californian style moderation.

      However, is it not time this grossly incompetent bumps to the front, diversity box ticker was sacked?

    5. She needs also to explain the spending of £1.5 million on electric cars that are useless for law enforcement activities…. unless, I suppose, they play them in to the USB ports of their computers while “legitimately” surfing the net…..

    2. Good to see that the British authorities are rigorously checking migrants from our European friends.

  5. Do keep up Wikileaks NTTL was here months before you

    27 December, 2019

    Today WikiLeaks releases more internal documents from the

    OPCW regarding the investigation into the alleged chemical attack in

    Douma in April 2018.

    One of the documents is an e-mail exchange dated 27 and 28 February

    between members of the fact finding mission (FFM) deployed to Douma and

    the senior officials of the OPCW. It includes an e-mail from Sebastien

    Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW, where he instructs that an

    engineering report from Ian Henderson should be removed from the secure

    registry of the organisation:

    “Please get this document out of DRA [Documents Registry

    Archive]… And please remove all traces, if any, of its

    delivery/storage/whatever in DRA”.

    The main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma and

    two cylinders that were found on the site of the alleged attack, was

    that they were more likely manually placed there than dropped from a

    plane or helicopter from considerable heights. His findings were omitted

    from the official final OPCW report on the Douma incident.

    https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/releases/
    Has anyone seen Minty about lately??

  7. Morning all

    SIR – Lieutenant Commander David Wright (Letters, December 27) has a very good idea in suggesting the Ministry of Defence buy half a dozen second-hand motor yachts to patrol the Channel to prevent people-smugglers from using the sea route from France.

    But, if the experience with HMS Wakeful is anything to go by, it would soon suffer from “mission creep”. Wakeful was a Swedish tug bought as a tender to submarines operating from the Clyde. It did not help that all its documentation was in Swedish. It acted as part of the Fishery Protection Squadron for some years, but in the final analysis it cost a fortune and was replaced by a purpose-built ship, HMS Sentinel.

    With civilian yachts, the very adequate marine engines would need to be ruggedised. The boats’ sides would need to be reinforced, as well as the foredeck, to support the armament. The internals would need to be ripped out to provide mess-decks. New communications and navigation equipment would need to be fitted. The paperwork would need to be navalised. Space prevents further expansion, but you get my drift.

    Commander Bill Nimmo-Scott

    Pewsey, Wiltshire

    1. SIR – Reports indicate that just short of 2,000 migrants have endangered their lives by crossing the Channel in small overloaded boats in 2019. In 2018, the recorded number of 562 migrants made the same crossing.

      Time and again we are told that the best way of frustrating the criminal gangs who endanger the lives of migrants, including women and children, is to deploy more patrol boats, backed up with more warships, more helicopters, more drones and an increase in the number of foot patrols.

      All of these search platforms have a part to play, but is there the danger of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut?

      The one search vehicle that has been overlooked is the simple spotter-plane flown by a pilot, with an observer armed with a radio and digital camera. These patrols would be flown on both sides of the Channel to deter migrants still in France and to detect those who had already set sail. At a relatively low speed, a search of the French coast, together with its isolated beaches, between Dunkirk and Boulogne would take 30 minutes.

      Squadron Leader James A Cowan

      Durham

      SIR – A force of second-hand patrol boats sounds too much like common sense for government implementation. However, it does raise the question of how Britain is going to safeguard her fishing waters after Brexit.

      No one would want the return of the Cod Wars of the Seventies, but some EU fishermen will doubtless challenge the new limits. This presents a training opportunity for the Royal Navy, using vessels already in service backed up by an air warning system, allowing valuable lessons in co-operation between the two services.

      David Taylor

      Lymington, Hampshire

      2. Squadron Leader Cowan presupposes that the will to deter and/or return the illegals exists within the Government. It is clear from the actions of the Border Force that that unit is running, on behalf of the Government, a taxi service to bring the illegals into the UK. Deterrence and return do not appear to be a part of the remit of the Border Force.
        The people smuggling organisations, and they are sufficiently well organised to almost quadruple the recorded traffic this year, will never be defeated by the current actions of the Border Force: the latter’s actions are a form of at best appeasement of, or at worst abject surrender to, the actions of the smugglers. Patel has made statements of intent, as did her immediate predecessor, to curb this trade but as usual the action required to achieve the stated aims is sadly lacking.
        If the current situation is taking back control of our borders then what confidence can we have in the statements of taking back control of our fish, money etc.?

  8. Morning again

    SIR – The suggestion by someone looking after a Royal Horticultural Society garden to scrub trees beggars belief.

    Especially in Devon, the rich moss and lichen flora on trees provide camouflage, nest materials and insect food for bird life.

    Dr Tim King

    Oxford

    SIR – I am appalled that anyone is promoting the washing of trees. This, apparently, is to make them look better!

    Washing trees with soap and water is an abomination.

    S  C Webb

    Loddon, Norfolk

    1. The things we do and don’t to trees. Cut them down to ship overseas to power stations next to coal mines, cut them down to make space for hideous wind mills, plant them and fail to manage them so they burn spectacularly when lit by eco fascists……

  9. Morning again. Problem is that Christians are murdered by the favoured faith and merit no attention from the racist media,

    SIR – The persecution of some 250 million Christians around the world is abhorrent and shameful.

    In a report earlier this year, the Bishop of Truro warned that it is “at near genocide levels”. The Genocide Convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. The convention was adopted by the UN in 1948 after a vigorous campaign masterminded by the Polish Jewish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin.

    The British government at the time was unenthusiastic, worried that events in the colonies would find it in breach of the convention. It dragged its feet, but eventually supported the convention under pressure from the US government, when the momentum for its introduction was irresistible.

    Just over 70 years later, we need the British Government to summon moral purpose and resolve in addressing the global persecution of Christians.

    Zaki Cooper

    Trustee, Council of Christians and Jews

    London SW1

    1. This is an excerpt of how the Home Office treats Christian asylum seekers.
      “In another case, Britain’s Home Office not only denied entry to three
      Christian leaders — archbishops celebrated for their heroic efforts to
      aid persecuted Christians in Syria and Iraq who had been invited to
      attend the consecration of the UK’s first Syriac Orthodox Cathedral, an
      event attended by Prince Charles — but also mockingly told them there
      was “no room at the inn.”
      It’s an excerpt from the Gatestone article – I’ll post the link again for any who missed it yesterday.
      https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15311/persecuted-christians-enemies
      Reading that really makes you proud to be British (/sarc)

      1. The persecution of Christians and Christianity defies belief.

        The Christian ethic is the basis of Western civilisation and if we do not nurture and protect it the moral, political and cultural vacuum will be filled by something very much worse.

        1. Quite so. But it also requires people to actively support Christianity in the west and shopping on a Sunday appears to be the preferred option over attending church.

          3. I used to be quite devout when I was a child but I am very much less so now.

            Caroline’s parents were convinced atheists but she converted to Catholicism at the age of 22* and her Christian faith is very important to her. Not only does she play the organ in church, she also does the parish accounts and gets involved in helping the lame ducks that are often drawn towards her church.

            I have to remind her of Evelyn Waugh’s observation in Decline and Fall that an overenthusiastic interest in ecclesiastic matters is often a prelude to insanity.

            (* Caroline was 24 when we met and fell in love)

          4. In part this is because the church leaders are more concerned for the welfare and treatment of the invaders of another faith than they are about the wants and needs of the indigenous population.

      2. If, by home office, you mean places like Lunatic House in Croydon, then the reason is obvious…. its diversity hiring again.

    2. Er, UI think the Washington rag has twigged to this and is bleating about Christians in Africa…..they are not worried about Christians nearer home, of course, but as a start it is encouraging.If only the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury were to realise this is a problem… and they wonder why church attendance is falling…. it is, in part, because the Christians are a fallimn population both falling away for the lack of relevance and those that remain being eaten by the others….

    1. As I commented on this site when The Queen’s Christmas Day Speech was extensively reported by the MSM on December the 24th.

    2. Exacto. If I remember correctly they were published on NY’s Day. Like Budgets & Brenda’s speech they seem to be leaked ahead of time these days.

      1. Unles this is just a taster for the real thing when Bercow after all gets something for his trouble…..the trouble he caused…. too many people, as alison above, seem to be rewarded for failure, not success.

  11. SIR – I received a pair of M&S slippers for Christmas and luckily I spotted the warning label “suitable for vegans” just as I was about to eat them.

    But there was no apology label to eco-warriors for the fact they had been constructed from fossil-fuel materials and had been transported 10,000 miles or so by boat and road.

    They are very comfy, though.

    Derek Long

    Sheffield, South Yorkshire

  12. For the avoidance of doubt, the “William Thomas” wot ‘as bin nighted (sic) is NOT me!

    2. Being awarded a gong or medal is fast becoming an insult.
      It means the state views you as a crook, a crony or a failure.

      1. Quite so, Alec. I am sure that the Most Recent would have loved to have been called Lady Thomas – then Uncle Bill could have regularly said “Please bring me the anaesthetic, M’Lady”.

    2. Why can’t they at least be honest about it and say:

      The following ‘honours’ are awarded to people in recognition of their non-white ethnicity?

  14. Disaster for Brussels as study predicts EU’s share of world trade to collapse

    The EU’s share of World trade has been falling for decades. It sounds now as if that decline will accelerate The EU trade is becoming increasingly less important to the UK

    THE SHARE of world trade occupied by EU member states is to collapse in the coming decades according to a new study in a dramatic blow to Brussels.

    Currently the 28 EU member states make up a little over 22 percent of world gross domestic product (GDP). This is down on the over 36 percent the same nations possessed in 1960. However according to a new survey this will fall further, to just 9.9 percent in 2100.

    The real figure is likely to be even lower as the study doesn’t incorporate the UK upcoming withdrawal from the EU.

  15. Brexit to turbocharge UK fishing and farming says EU law expert – ‘No question about it’

    The law expert said that the biggest “positives” from Brexit would be for the fishing and farming industries.
    He said: “The first is substitution.

    “That is, by stopping imports of EU food and fish then UK fishermen and farmers theoretically could replace that demand by UK stock.
    “It’s called substitution economics so that’s one potential positive. No question about that.”

    The second thing is specifically with regards to fish. “I think this is something worth while pointing out. “A vast majority of the fish we catch in UK waters is not eaten in the UK, it’s sold abroad. “And the vast majority of the fish that we eat in the UK is imported.”

    1. Let’s hope that means we get to eat our own spider crabs instead of sending them to Spain.

      2. Love spider crab, but they are a bugger to peel. The shell on the legs is too rubbery to crack, but the spines are sharp enough to make a mess of your fingers if you’re careless.

          1. I sit not the American Crayfish which is wreaking havoc in our waterways? Eat all you can manage but as for crab… I don’t see the atraction… but maybe my sense of taste is off.

          2. The American (signal) crayfish was introduced here in 1976 as a food source to supplement our native species, which was in decline. Unfortunately the newcomer brought a parasitic fungal disease with it. Both are edible, but very fiddly & have very sharp spines. I used to eat them every summer in Sweden, but I would not bother to chase them up here.

          3. You’d think that after so many well-intentioned initiatives surrounding the introduction of alien species or the reintroduction previously extinct species in a country it would have been a lesson learned and not repeated. Sadly people will keep doing this and then wondering why it all goes wrong.

      3. And what about our wood pigeons? We don’t eat them but the French do and every year coachloads come to gather mushrooms and fungi in our green and pleasant land because we dare not eat anything except from the supermarket.

        1. I shot & ate a wood pigeon when I was a student. First & last time I ever used a shotgun. That was 50 years ago. My host was amazed, since he had missed several. Later on he was my partner for Bridge & I showed him how to make 7 hearts doubled.

  16. Crisis-hit Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow broke the law

    I have heard of Hospitals being put into special measures but not a Health Board

    HEALTH chiefs at a ­troubled super-hospital broke health and safety law by failing to protect patients from harmful bugs, it was revealed last night. Watchdogs said authorities “failed to ensure” that the ventilation system at part of the £842million Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow was “suitable and efficient”.

    The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has issued NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) with an Improvement Notice after the death of a 10-year-old boy patient who contracted Cryptococcus from bird droppings. Failure to make the necessary improvements on Ward 4C, for kidney transplant and cancer patients, could result in fines or jail terms for bosses. The HSE said it had written to NHSGGC chief executive, Jane Grant, saying it had identified “contraventions of health and safety law in relation to the standards of ventilation in some wards”.

    It said: “You have failed to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the ventilation system within ward 4C is suitable and sufficient to ensure that high-risk patients who are vulnerable to infection are protected from exposure to potentially harmful airborne microbiological organisms.”

    The health board has also been placed on “special measures” over the problems at the hospital.

        2. Morning, Anne. You asked for info on our Christmas stay in Devon and I have given a description to poppiesmum just above if you are on ‘newest first’. The hotel is The Three Crowns in Chagford. The only downside is that there are only 8 parking spaces. They can be reserved by people in ‘superior rooms’ but not those in ‘classic rooms’. They have to park in the village car park for £2.50 per day.

    1. Good morning Mr Db. We have just returned home from our stay at Beck Hall. Wonderful location – the arrival in the darkness was a bit of a surprise (the bridge… ! although it was well lit). We saw a kingfisher, whilst we were having breakfast, only three metres away perched on a post, it stayed for about a minute before flying off in a flash of electric blue. We had a lovely time, all the staff were so helpful and we are planning another visit for September. I wish these new premises here would let me add photographs, it may be something to do with the fact that I use an iPad. The journey home yesterday, however, was the stuff of nightmares down the A1 and the newly opened, not quite completed, A14. I hope you enjoyed your new location and that it lived up to expectations. Thank you for the recommendation.

      1. I’m pleased that you enjoyed Beck Hall. We would have been there but for the journey home. As you discovered, our road system cannot cope at certain times of the year.
        Christmas in Devon was very good. Parts of the hotel dated from the 13th Century. Food was good. Boxing Day morning the Hunt assembled in the village square for the traditional drinks. I counted 17 riders. The hounds were very friendly but our Springer was very nervous when four of them took an interest in her.
        During dinner on Boxing night a Murder/Mystery play was performed with much interaction with the diners. Journey home yesterday was not terrific.

        1. Yes, it is! My apologies for delay in replying, not so good with fluey-type bug we brought back with us. Not the fault of Beck Hall I should add. It was a-brewing before we departed from home, but Vick’s First Defence held it at bay long enough for us to enjoy Christmas ……. and then it swooped in to get us, to catch up when we arrived home.

          I can highly recommend, it is a lovely place.

  20. Good morning all. Heres the old smoothie ….

    James Bond’s New Watch

    A very confident James Bond walks into a bar and takes a seat next to a very attractive woman.
    He gives her a quick glance, then casually looks at his watch for a moment.
    The women notices this and asks, ”Is your date running late?”
    ”No,” he replies, ”Q has just given me this state-of-the-art watch. I was just testing it.”
    The intrigued woman says, ”A state-of-the-art watch? What’s so special about it?”
    Bond explains, ” It uses alpha waves to talk to me telepathically.”
    The lady says, ”What’s it telling you now?”
    ”Well,it says you’re not wearing any panties….” The woman giggles and replies, ”Well it must be broken because I am wearing panties.”
    [….and she lifts her skirt and shows him.]

    Bond smirks, taps his watch and says, ”Bloody thing must be an hour fast.”

  21. The Labour Party’s patriotism problem goes back much further than Jeremy Corbyn
    DOUGLAS MURRAY – 27 DECEMBER 2019 • 8:30PM

    Until the Left can learn to like its own country, it stands very little chance of winning another election

    The smarter Labour MPs are on a mission at the moment. Not a lecture tour, but a listening tour. Just before Christmas Lisa Nandy was in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, to hear why people in this previously safe Labour seat had chosen to abandon her party and return a Conservative as their MP.

    As with all such listening exercises, the same phrases keep recurring. The sense that voters in such places had been taken for granted by a Labour party obsessed with London and hyper-liberal university graduates. Also foremost, of course, was the Labour Party’s organised betrayal over Brexit. But there were other cultural components, aspects of which Labour has struggled with from long before the disaster of Corbynism.

    The problem which Labour faces on cultural and identity issues is not easy to solve. It cannot be addressed simply by listening to people’s complaints. It is deep-rooted: so deep that perhaps Labour simply cannot solve it.

    As various psephologists have pointed out since the election, there are two tectonic shifts that could fundamentally alter the British political landscape for the next generation. The first is if the Conservatives are able to hold and strengthen their present position of power by moving to the Left on economics. Among other things, this will necessitate an increase in public spending, especially on infrastructure projects outside of London. This election proves the need to give back to those regions where people have felt forgotten.

    The other move that could occur is for the traditional party of the Left to try to bring itself back into the centre ground of politics. Although the Labour Party cannot go much further left on economics than the plans put forward by John McDonnell, it seems unwilling to abandon this prospectus. In which case, their complimentary move to that of the Conservatives is to tack to the Right on issues of culture.

    Yet the truth is that the Conservatives turning on the money-hose is positively simple compared with Labour pulling off this trick.

    The sense that the Labour Party is not fond of Britain long predates the arguments of recent years. The party’s inability to respond fairly to the Brexit vote has merely chipped off a further chunk of people who had been its supporters. Some (now former) northern MPs like Caroline Flint long warned their London counterparts about the danger of ignoring the electorate on the Brexit issue. But such wise heads were not listened to for another reason. The decision wasn’t strategic. It was essentially – if unwisely – moral. A demonstration of a whole Left-wing world view.

    The Corbyn Labour Party and those who had paved the way for it are suspicious of the quiet patriotism of the public, including their own traditional voters. They see the desire of the British people to have pride in their country as deeply suspect. It runs, among other things, against the liberal internationalist, open-borders world view that Left-wing parties across the developed world have adopted as their own.

    Having grown used to exaggerating or inventing the iniquity of everybody with any contrary viewpoint, the new Left were unprepared for their meeting-point with an older Left which might agree with them on spending but wanted to spend to keep their country, not to fundamentally alter it.

    Where traditional Labour voters saw an issue of sovereignty, the Corbynites professed to see only nascent fascism. And there was something increasingly not just unfair but defamatory about the way in which these Labour MPs started talking about the country. When MPs like David Lammy claimed to see racism everywhere, the British electorate outside of a few university cities did not see a fair representation of their country. They saw one of the most fair and tolerant countries on earth being wildly and unfairly defamed.

    When it came to this latest election many of the voters did not like or love the Conservative Party. But they knew that the Conservative Party was on their side. And that in deep as well as frivolous ways the Labour Party no longer was. They did not arrive at the conclusion overnight.

    Much has rightly been made of Corbyn and McDonnell’s support for the IRA while it was murdering British soldiers and citizens. In the same vein, much has been written about Corbyn’s support for every variety of anti-Semite. But there was an episode that occurred last year that in some ways should have been an even greater warning shot for anyone in his party who wanted it to survive.

    In February 2018 the British press reported that a former agent of Czech intelligence, Jan Sarkocy, had claimed that Jeremy Corbyn had passed information to him and the communist regime during the Cold War. In the resulting fall-out and denials from Corbyn and his supporters one thing stood out above all. Nothing about the allegations was remotely surprising. The allegations melted into the category of things we wouldn’t be at all shocked to find out about the leader of the Labour Party.

    Imagine, by contrast, if an allegation had emerged around the same time that Boris Johnson or Theresa May had previously acted as an agent of a foreign power. Pinochet’s Chile, for instance, to cite one of the Left’s idée fixe. It is very unlikely that the affair would have blown over so swiftly. Yet here was the leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition facing the most serious charges and nobody being either surprised or much shocked. In such circumstances, you may have a problem at the head of your party.

    However, a new Telegraph investigation this week has reminded us that such problems for the Labour Party do not start or end with Corbyn and Corbynism. Indeed, compromise of this kind has been something of a fixture in Labour Party history.

    As this paper reported yesterday, in the late Sixties senior Labour politicians, including a Cabinet minister, passed information to communist spies. It is reported that Stan Orme, who served as a minister in the government of James Callaghan, met with agents of Czechoslovak intelligence on a monthly basis and passed on information about foreign policy decisions. Other Labour MPs who were compromised included Dennis Hobden, the Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown and a former officer in the Union of Post Office Workers, and James Dickens, the Labour MP who led the Tribune Group in 1968.

    Again, all of this fits a pattern. Only this past May it was claimed that Geoffrey Robinson had passed secrets to Czech intelligence and was an asset of theirs during the Cold War. The former owner of the Left-wing New Statesman magazine and paymaster general under Tony Blair’s government denies the charges.

    And then there is Michael Foot. While he was alive the former Labour Party leader also strenuously denied accusations made by the KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky that Foot himself had been an agent of the KGB who had been in receipt of Russian money. But Gordievsky stands by the claims and it will be interesting to see what the archives end up revealing if they are ever opened.

    So why has the British Left been so riddled with such scandal? Why has it been so commonplace for figures at the very top of the Labour Party to be accused of conspiring with foreign powers? During the Cold War there was a specific ideological threat and many Left-wing activists inevitably found some degree of sympathy and enthusiasm with the other side.

    But there is something else, too. For more than a century and a half the Left-wing dream has essentially resided in a form of internationalism which sees nation states and expressions of loyalty to – and even fondness for – them to be enemies of this creed. The habit has lingered even after the Iron Curtain (and the nightmare dream it symbolised) fell down.

    If the Left is going to succeed in tacking to the Right on culture it will start with listening. But it will finish with a few very simple but crucial acknowledgements. That the nation state is the best guarantor of stability, not its enemy. That the public are better than politicians at recognising what change is tolerable and what is not. And that a quiet and solemn pride in your country is not some expression of extremism, but the best imaginable tool to ward it off.

    Will the Labour Party manage this shift? Nothing less than its future depends on it. And if it fails? Well, we shall just have to find a way to struggle on without them.

  22. All well and good…but futile if Common Purpose cannot be identified and destroyed.

    The new Government can restore and revive some of our beloved traditions
    CHARLES MOORE – 27 DECEMBER 2019 • 9:30PM

    ‘Modernisers’ ignorant of our history have gradually chipped away at Britain’s customs and institutions

    In the days when British people knew their own history, they would hotly debate who was a Cavalier and who a Roundhead. The truth is probably that most of us are a bit of both. We dislike the idea of absolute monarchy on the one hand and puritan dictatorship on the other.

    For many, therefore – perhaps for most – the word “restoration” has a good ring – much better than “revolution”. It brings back the old, but somehow improves it. As it says in The Nursery History of England, a book with which I spent many hours as a boy: “In Cromwell’s time people had been dull and sad, but Charles was so lively that he was called the ‘merry’ king.” The exact respects in which the amorous Charles II had proved “lively” were not disclosed to us children, but we had a general feeling that things got happier. The abolition of Christmas was revoked and everyone danced round maypoles once again.

    Read Charles Moore’s latest column on telegraph.co.uk every Friday night from 9.30pm
    I very much hope that the post-Brexit Britain of 2020 and beyond will prove a sort of restoration, with Boris Johnson well cast as the democratic equivalent of the merry monarch. The years in which we failed to enact the 2016 Brexit vote have been dull (though often unpleasantly exciting at the same time) and sad. I would argue that the more than 45 years of our EEC/EU membership have also had a cumulatively depressing effect, making us feel that we are gradually becoming less free to be ourselves and do what we want. Once we become freer, we can become more hopeful.

    Some will see such a change as a growth of nationalism, and some will fear it for that reason. Supporters of Brexit would do well not to embrace that word. For historical reasons, “nationalism” tends to be a zero-sum-game word in which the greatness of one country has always to be expressed at the expense of another. Thus Scottish and Irish nationalism, rather than improving love and understanding of their own countries, tend to be cloaks for anti-Englishness (or anti-Britishness).

    A recrudescent English nationalism could have a similar mean-spirited character the other way round. Besides, being British is a bigger thing than a single nationalism. A better way to look at it is to understand more deeply from our own history how we have learnt to do things and why those things have often worked.

    Take the development of our own measurements. Weights and measures in this country grew organically out of common usage – feet to express height and length, hands to express the distance from the ground to a horse’s withers. Over the years, law codified them to prevent cheating, but few in Britain thought that all should be made to conform to some universal abstract standard. That continental idea, born of the French Revolution, was metrication. It was imposed, killing off national and local differences, and the attractive names that went with them. Thus, for example, foolscap paper was eventually replaced by dreary old A4.

    Our “imperial” measures, because they clude so many differences – 16oz in a pound, 14lb in a stone; eight pints to the gallon; 1,760 yards in a mile, etc – were very good for improving schoolchildren’s skills of memory and mental arithmetic. In the Sixties, when there was a mania for uniformity in the name of modernity, the British government, pre-EEC entry, began to impose a metrication programme. This was unpopular, and moved slowly, but it was institutionalised and accelerated by our joining the EEC in 1973. From then on, we had to obey European laws and rules: these included metric measurements.

    The British public have fought a long rearguard action – holding on to pints, miles, feet, inches, pounds and stones in daily usage, while not much minding metric measurements in industrial and technical applications. As is often the case in revolutionary attempts at standardisation, the supposed modernisation quickly became out of date. In the computer age, it is the work of a nanosecond to convert one measurement into another, hardly impeding normal life at all. (And to those who say that it is absurdly isolating to use measures different from those of foreign countries, it is worth pointing out that the biggest economy in the world, the United States, does exactly that.)

    In Brexited Britain, metrication rules should be relaxed, and no one should feel the need to go the extra kilometre for anybody. The BBC can stop imposing style rules on bulletins which force reporters to say things like “a few metres from the border”. Maybe Fahrenheit can creep back, it being so much better to say, “The temperature hit 100”, rather than “37.7 degrees centigrade”.

    There is a more general point here about custom and tradition. Custom and tradition are posh words for what people have done and intend to go on doing. When they are jettisoned, nine times out of ten it is not by popular demand, but because of the whim of those who fancy themselves as radical reformers. When, for example, did liturgical modernisation ever start filling churches, as opposed to pleasing bishops?

    Absolutely typical was the decision of John Bercow to discard the traditional wig once he became Speaker. He seemed to believe that if the public could see all of him, we would love him more. It turned out that we much preferred the office to its holder. When Mr Bercow’s successor, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, recently announced he would be wigging up, there was almost universal rejoicing.

    Similarly, when Tony Blair decided to do away with the Lord Chancellorship, the oldest secular office in the country, he was shocked to find that it actually meant something in the management of Church, monarchy, law and government and the relationship between them. He did not have the power to abolish it. He had to content himself with downgrading the role so that the post could be held by people ignorant of the law. For the first time, the Lord Chancellor was kicked off the Woolsack, and rules of order were introduced in the House of Lords. As a result, because its conventions of courtesy had been broken, it became disorderly and fractious.

    When you look back at modernising changes, it is sometimes almost impossible to work out why they happened. To what benefit, under Edward Heath, did we get rid of our traditional counties? Why, under the same baleful influence, did we abolish the assizes, by which judges, visiting provincial towns in great state to hear cases, impressed their populations with the majesty of the law? Why, under Blair, did we get rid of the Royal Yacht, when it was the most prestigious moving object in the armoury of monarchy? There is nothing more dated than pointless change, nothing more cobwebby than Lady Hale’s spider.

    I have no idea whether Mr Johnson’s government has given any serious thought to such matters. Most politicos regard these things as irrelevancies. But in fact the rediscovery of our traditions is a creative process, not a merely antiquarian one. In the Gothic revival which produced, among other things, our present Houses of Parliament, we used something old to invent something new. When the West returned to the traditions of the Classical world, everyone called it a renaissance – a rebirth.

    By the paradox of history, Britain has the great good fortune to be such an old country that it can be born again.

    1. Dictionaries have been in Chimbo Stockings

      recrudescent:

      breaking out afresh or into renewed activity; revival or reappearance in active existence.

      psephologists:

      the study of elections. (not for the Chinese, I hope)

    1. Had trouble taking him seriously solely because of his name.

      Every time I heard it I had a mental image of an old Ford Transit with a tattered and stained mattress in the back – a bit like the hippo when Reginald Perrin thought of his mother-in-law, but seedier.

        1. The 1970s.

          Average music: a pale pastiche of the far better 1960s’ music.

          Gruesome times; Labour government, high inflation, poor wages, constant strikes, too much union power, idiotic hairstyles and fashions, crap food, useless England football team …

          2. With time, everything has changed except the football team, though some are indulging in a little recidivism.

      2. His brother

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        1. I recall seeing a photograph of Sarah Miles’s rear:

          It was entitled, “Miles behind”….

  24. Awkward ©Rik.

    Scientists Caught Adjusting Sea Level Data

    A scientific paper published by a team of Australian researchers has revealed a startling find: Scientists at the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) have been “adjusting” historical data regarding tide levels in the Indian Ocean. Their “highly questionable” activities have depicted rapidly rising seas – but the truth is that there is no reason to be alarmed at all. Scientists have found that sea levels are stable – and have been for the entirety of the 20th century…

    …To put it simply, these PSMSL “scientists” have been arbitrarily changing their data in order to create the illusion of a problem that doesn’t actually exist…

    According to the Australian research team, sea levels in the Indian ocean have remained stable for decades. Dr. Albert Parker and Dr. Clifford Ollier recently published their astounding research in the journal Earth Systems and Environment; their extensive research gives an in-depth look at how this massive deception was undertaken.

    What are more dangerous are the corrections recently introduced to the past to magnify the sea-level trend or the acceleration. As shown in the prior section, the adjustments introduced by PSMSL to make the RLR [revised local reference, or adjusted data] are arbitrary in Aden, Karachi, and Mumbai.

    In one instance, Parker and Ollier referenced a 1991 study which showed that sea levels in Mumbai were falling by an average of 0.3 millimeters per year between the years of 1930 and 1980. The duo states that in PSMSL’s latest report, they declare that sea levels in Mumbai were rising by 0.52 millimeters per year during the same time period.

    SOTT – Scientists Caught Adjusting Sea Level Data

    3. Stop Press

      Dr. Albert Parker and Dr. Clifford Ollier imprisoned for crimes against

      PCism
      Doubting Climate Change
      Doubting Global Warming
      Letting the Cat out of the Bag
      Offending Greta the Bleata
      Causing the sacking of 1,206,823 Climate change proponents

    4. And 43% of Tuvalu islands, coral islands in general, are stable and 43% are actually increasing in size, not losing out to fictitious sea level rises.

          1. That sounds like an Igonikon Jack remark. Will I go down in your book of Pedestrian Bloggers?

      2. Ah! the civil service interpretation of the acronym…..
        the military were good at this too… RAMC (Royal Army Medical Corp) Rob all my comrades…..

  26. Rail franchises should be scrapped to end ‘nightmare journeys’

    Rail franchises such as Northern and South Western should be scrapped and cities given control of commuter services, transport campaigners have urged, to bring an end to years of “nightmare rail journeys”.

    This though i n my view will solve nothing and could even cause more chaos as the track are shared. Network Rail is the real problem

    The problem with the TOC’s is poor management, strikes., Not enough Rolling stock and not enough staff. That’s either a problem with the contracts or the failure of the government to ensure the TOC’s comply with the contract

    2. Well, I can tell you that the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (as well as the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway) has been closed.

      The first closure bring in 1897, which preceded Beeching by a long way.

  27. Morning Each,
    The answer lies not so much as in the English Channel as inland & every welfare office in the land.
    In the channel a return to leaving point on the eu side
    campaign.
    Remind the johnson chap that protection of the indigenous peoples of this country, although never applied over the eu governing years is NOW the order of the day.
    Quit viewing the PC / Appeasement of which thick coatings are given to certain issues, ban rose tinted glasses.
    People power works, on Feb 1st trigger a KaK against
    the politico’s ( kick Arse kampaign).
    1, Border / Channel force true to the peoples of this country, first & foremost.
    2, Social housing for the indigenous on the housing waiting list until list is obliterated.
    3, Fishing protection vessels to protect OUR fishing grounds.
    On Sat, 1 Feb, stop all forms of welfare payments / gifts to incoming “guest’s.
    Proper security in future of any allowed in, because the present non existing system has been the cause of many deaths, much rape & abuse etc,etc.
    Then we can start on the 2nd Febs list………….

  28. Can some-one please explain why some people find it neccessary to copy and paste huge sections from the Daily Telegraph ? ?

    3. I bet you had a good Christmas…!

      It’s because some of us poor b*ggers can’t afford the premium.

      Don’t let the door hit your @rse on the way out…

    6. Like the letters themselves they tend to be premium articles from columnists that Nottle followers find informative.
      Most on here don’t pay for the DT subscription so would miss the pearls of wisdom.

      Most Nottlers were regular contributors to the letters and other BTL forums on the DT, before it went paywall for most articles.

    8. This is the third time you have effectively made that point/asked that question. What was wrong with the replies you received before, that you have to keep asking?

        1. Good afternoon, Peddy

          Reading the above comments about Stupendus I am glad to see that you have a target other than me to aim at!

          1. Oh, Rastus. You were only a target while you kept repeating the same drivel about May & Boris day in, day out.

    9. You’ve asked that question many times already, received the same (basic) answer each time and it doesn’t improve with repetition.

      Any more and I shall have to think your pseudonym is mis-spelled from Stupidus.

    10. Trolling

      Trolling only works because the troll needs make no intellectual effort, while the rebuttal of the trolling does!

      Trolls have no intellectual integrity – they have put no effort into forming their “opinions”. Therefore they need be given no intellectual credence.

      1. That way of commenting has been a standard tactic for pointless left-wing trolls for many years. It brings great joy to their empty lives to get people who actually know what they are talking about to waste time answering pointless remarks. They will, as standard, end every reply that they make with a question. Which leads the unwary into further comments.

        Those doing this know before they start that what they are saying is wrong. They have no interest in learning anything or understanding the issue, because they do not believe the words that they are typing in the first place.

        I was on one site 5 years ago and was leaving for lunch when I witnessed a well known time-wasting troll ask someone a question. I came back an hour later and read the 7 replies from the user who knew what he was talking about, trying to explain the subject. The poor chap was getting increasingly mystified about why the troll could not understand what he was saying. So I put him out of his misery and said that he was obviously correct in his words, but that it was pointless talking to that one person.

        What an internalised little world some of these trolls live in. Fortunately most people are not like that in my experience.

        1. Yes indeed, Merry Mac; your perception of trollism matches mine and it is certainly fortunate that there are not many on this forum.

          There is though, sadly, one notable exception in the guise of an intensely irritating individual that seems to rejoice in being a one-trick-pony; posting the same old, same old, tired, dire bilge, day-after-day, year-after-interminable-year!

          It cannot even spell standard English words correctly, instead insisting on using the pidgin-English favoured by those across the Atlantic.

          Its idiotic and banal propaganda is reminiscent of the gormless outpourings spouted during WWII by Lord Haw Haw. In William Joyce’s case, fortunately, the rope came to put paid to his tiresome utterings. Where is that damn rope when one needs it most?

    11. Some people want to see the articles but they are behind a pay wall so those who subscribe sometimes help them out.

  29. The “nige” has said that the johnson chap is taking the country to the right place, surely that we already know, it is what his final actions are when we arrive that are a tad
    misty.
    As “nige” also conceded that brexiteers will not get all they desired out of a post brexit deal with the eu, that is the bit that will cause worry.
    What deal is needed ? why is a deal needed other that a latchlifter for future re-entry ?
    Why is total severance NOT being employed ?

    1. Aaah. First LP I ever bought…I wasn’t very old, about 10 I think.

      Morning, Plum – hope you had a lovely Christmas.

      1. The first LP album that I bought was one that I saw in a shop at a similar age. It had around 14 songs on it, but I only really liked the opening theme music at that age. If you are into “Blues music” that young, then your life may be short and eventful. One of the comments made beneath it sums up the TV shows of that time:

        “Drake Santiago 4 years ago.
        Ahhh…the 80s! When even the intro music for many TV shows had more artistry than the collective works of all the top 40 hits on the radio today.”

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je2fGzKiqRM

          2. Except for the regurgitated comedies that are being shown on BBC 1/2 atm. I laughed at a lot of them back in the day, but these days they’re just not funny.

      2. The first LP my elder daughter (aged about twelve) bought was The Nutcracker Suite. I was impressed.

        1. Diana was Paul Anka’s first big hit which was recorded when he was only 15. Even so I thought that the eponymous heroine of the song might not have been best pleased with the opening line:

          I’m so young and you’re so old
          This my darling I’ve been told.

          Mind you, my Caroline has always looked far younger than her chronological age – so much so that when she arrived to teach French and Spanish at the school where I was an English master the boys all thought she was a new girl in the Sixth Form. When we announced our engagement all my contemporary friends said: “Isn’t she terribly young?”. The only thing is that on meeting us people think she must be my daughter,

          3. Was but a bairn in the infant school at the time, maybe the first year of junior school and the ice cream shop nearby got one of the first juke boxes in the town, maybe the first. We were freer to roam as kids in those days and I was always on the cadge for 3d to play a record on it while feeling grown up sitting in a booth. Diana was my favourite and got the most plays, followed by A White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation.

          4. I can’t remember for sure what the price was but 6/8d comes to mind. Although it got played on a wind-up gramophone whose needles only seemed to last five minutes, it was a leap into the future for me (the Brexit of its day, you might say).

            No time for obesity, mind, as you had to get out of the chair every couple of minutes to put the arm back to the start of the record.

            Here’s what we had……

            https://www.sellingantiques.co.uk/photosnew/dealer_tharrison/dealer_tharrison_full_1343339664797-5740489651.jpg

  33. Good morning, all. Late on parade this Holy Innocents Day.

    Your task is to imagine you are King Herod “guest editing” the Toady programme – and justifying to Rick Nobinson your novel population reduction scheme!

  34. Yo all

    Trolling throught the ‘Honours List’ I came across the from a Met Police briefing document’

    Queen’s Police Medal (QPM) Deborah Akinlawon (Detective Constable, Central Specialist Crime-Major Inquiries)

    The focus of Deborah’s career has been working on major investigations, as a family liaison officer (FLO) specialist.

    Her first deployment to a critical incident was the Brixton Nail Bombing in 1999, one of a series of bomb explosions over three successive

    weekends targeting London’s Black, South Asian and gay communities. The Brixton bomb contained up to 1,500 four-inch nails and was left in a

    holdall in Brixton Market, injuring 48 people. She was hospital liaison at St Thomas’s Hospital for a number of days, working with victims and

    their families alongside Counter Terrorism investigators.

    Back in 1999, the Met were way ahead of the rest of UK in their concern for London’s Black, South Asian and gay communities

    Of course, not a word about the bombs being a danger to us WASPs back then

    http://news.met.police.uk/news/met-celebrates-queens-new-year-honours-390784

    2. Presumably that ugly idiotic woman Theresa May chose these monkeys for honours. Hopefully the last vengeful act on the British public by the silly cow.

      1. Afternoon C,
        I have a nasty feeling that the
        ex pro eu lab/lib/con coalition party will still find support / votes for more of the same in the near future,

    3. From ITV News – this is the award that really got my blood pressure up (despite serious competition)! Ms Saunders was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath for services to criminal justice despite quitting the post last year after several controversies.These included overseeing the infamous disclosure scandal, in which dozens of rape trials collapsed due to the late disclosure of evidence, leading to a review of every rape case in the country. Dame Alison also attracted criticism for the handling of other sex crime allegations and investigations during her term, including claims made against the late Lord Janner and broadcaster Paul Gambaccini, who was paid a settlement over his wrongful arrest as part of Operation Yewtree. Despite usual practice, Dame Alison did not receive an honour after quitting as head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in October last year. Her award was believed to have been withheld after then Prime Minister Theresa May demanded an end to automatic honours for civil servants accused of failing in their roles. Criminal QC Daniel Janner, son of the late Labour peer Lord Janner who faced child abuse allegations, last night called Dame Alison “the worst DPP in living memory” and called her damehood “appalling”.

      1. If there is sufficient public outrage, & there seems to be, can’t her award be revoked?

        1. Probably not – I have to wonder which totally out of touch moron decided it was a good idea, though!

  36. Police Briefing

    “Right Lads it’s a tough call about police priorities and use of resources so what shall it be??”
    “We can either go mob handed after the middle aged woman who called Soubry a traitor or we can try and take down an Albanian druglord and his associates who may be armed with automatic weapons”
    “Probably best if we tick box 1 Sarge,we’ve got the magistrate sorted for a conviction there…………………

    2. One of the few things I miss now that I no longer subscribe to Private Eye, is the Neasden police logs!

      1. Yo Bleausard

        ,,,, and The Inspector Gadget Blog of long ago

        Inspector Gadget is the pseudonym used by an anonymous British police officer, reportedly an inspector in a rural constabulary in the south of England,[1] who wrote an influential blog called Police Inspector Blog, between 2006 and 2013.

        The blog was discontinued in March 2013, in response to pressure from senior officers to identify and discourage anonymous police bloggers.[3] As of 2016, its author continues to post under the Inspector Gadget pseudonym on Twitter.[11]

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_Gadget_(blogger)

      2. You too, B? I ditched PE earlier this year because in my opinion it had lost its bite, and its anti-Brexit stance had become extremely irksome. Not an easy decision after 50-ish years but time has proved it to be the right one.

  37. No comments allowed on the Alison Saunders fiasco. Can’t imagine why….{:¬))

    Her neck, too: “I don’t know why I didn’t get an honour when I left office…..”

    1. Morning Bill, it seems to me that the powers to be take every opportunity to send out the message that we look after our own no matter what.
      Alison Saunders is one of them, there is no fiasco as far as they are concerned.
      What the plebs think is of no concern to them.
      The Honours system should go the way of the House of Lords, pared down to an absolute minimum of worthy recipients.

    2. They had them out like confetti for any daft reason. Just appearing om TV or in a film or just turning up for work will get you one in many cases

    3. Good morning, Bill

      Her fanatical hatred of men made her a very strange person – perhaps she was actually evil – a word I usually only apply to people like Tony Blair and Theresa May.

      The honours system has become a sick joke.

          3. I cannot in all honesty uptick this photograph, PT, it is a face of evil. But thank you for reminding us what a joke the honours system has become.

          6. ‘Morning, J and thank you – I thought Alison Saunders was a columnist for the DT. Not enough coffee this morning.

          7. That’s the lovely Allison (with two lls) Pearson.

            Good morning to you too, J – I hope your Christmas was happy and your New Year will be better than the last.

            Edit: I obviously can’t see straight this morning – I addressed you as J instead of T.

  38. Daily Brexit Betrayal

    “She also warned

    again that there would be “barriers” to UK/EU trade at the end of the

    transition period unless Mr Johnson walked away from his pledge not to

    follow European regulations after Brexit. […] “It’s not only about

    negotiating a free trade deal but many other subjects,” she said.” (link, paywalled)

    ‘Barriers’, and these ‘many other subjects’!

    She’s not naming one of them – perhaps she and M Barnier haven’t quite

    got round to finding suitable new ones? Is she not aware that there have

    been many negotiations going on in the last year alone, on ‘side

    deals’? This last quote is also illuminating:

    “Should an agreement

    not be reached by the end of next year, Britain would trade with the EU

    on World Trade Organisation terms — with some of the potential

    disruption likely in a no-deal scenario. […] Asked what the response

    would be if London moved away from European standards, the Commission

    president said disruption was likely. “If we want to benefit from the

    prosperity of the single market, to access it without barriers or

    customs duties, we must all accept its common principles and values,”

    she said. “Otherwise, the two parties must agree on the barriers to be

    put in place.” (link, paywalled)

    These are the new ‘horror words’ to watch out for:

    ‘disruption’ and ‘barriers’. The ubiquitous ‘cliff edge’ has so far

    only been alluded to – perhaps the MSM have cottoned on to the fact that

    we peasants now think it’s funny rather than scary.

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-brexit-betrayal-saturday-28th-december-2019/

      1. She is sixty-one years old and has been photo-shopped. She is a bit thinner than Angela Markel though.

      2. She is the former German Defence Minister mired in scandal. Ideal material for an EUSSR Commissar Commissioner.

      3. Afternoon MM

        We watched 2 films on Netflix last night .. One of them, a recent film about protection rackets and people smuggling in Mexico, the other was also newish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHXxVmeGQUc with the usual crowd , Robert de Niro, Al Pacino , Jo Pesci etc etc , all about protection rackets etc… pretty gruesome really, but the backing music was nostalgic and memorable .

        I have come to the late conclusion that the EU is similar to a protection racket ,its inner workings, rivalries and connections to mainstream politics seem almost criminal!

        2. German TV viewing is interesting, especially over Xmas… the sig other likes to watch on satellite…. we had “Triple Cross” with Christopher Plummer, Yul Brinner and all the usual Germans playing Germans. and all dubbed into German… (i wonder if the Germans got to dub their own voices?) but not “The Great Escape” nor a Christmas Carol. Fortunately very few “Xmas Specials…. I am just waiting for Hello hello or Dad’s Army to come up. They did “The Battle of Britain” a while ago as I think I have mentioned and being dubbed into German doesn’t improve it I’m afraid.

      1. Yo Ol

        I doubt if the EU realise that Product Quality is a nebulous, personal, variable description of a requirement

        Conformance to the Specification, coupled with cost is the required output, where the Specification includes the leagal requirements for the item, ie Electrical Safety, Exhaust Emissions,

        A Rolls Royce is not a Quality Car, it is an expensive one, with high specifications

        These are quality cars

        Fit for purpose, at lowest possible price, Pay more you get more gadaets

        Dacia Sandero – From £6,995.

        Suzuki Celerio – From £7,499.

        Dacia Logan MCV – From £8,495.

        Skoda Citigo – From £8,860.

        Citroen C1 – From £9,185.

        Peugeot 108 – From £9,225.

        Toyota Aygo – From £9,295.

          1. Those ‘requirements’ would be part of the specification.

            The same as when things are sent for export to the USA

            The dimensions have to be in Imperial, not metruc, which is why we still use feet & inches etc

        2. Having sat in a Bentley continental it is a quality car. In fact, it’s bloomin beautiful.

          Compared to my Fiesta, it’s a league away. I very nearly bought it just for the speakers alone. Playing Moonlight Sonata in that cabin, test driving along quiet roads was like being bathed in sound. Changing that to Bach was another level. There was no road noise. It was near silent inside. The stitched leather was soft, not hard. The air conditioning didn’t come from four vents at the front but everywhere.

          Accelerating wasn’t a matter of waiting six months and hoping but gently putting the foot on the go pedal and caressing it, rather than dropping a gear, building revs and waiting for the 1 litre engine to respond.

          It had no boot space, it was impractical, it drank fuel like my mother in law drinks tequila but it was a truly astonishing vehicle to drive. It doesn’t have the raging rumble of the 78 Vantage V8 I owned, it’s a tame, modern car but it is, unquestionably a quality product – but a product nonetheless. No one will fall in love with it. No one will call it Biggles the Bentley or Colin the Continental.

  39. Just back from a three mile walk in gorgeous sunshine though with a breeze that was chilly in the shade).

    I am not being maudlin – but we will miss being able to walk out of the front door and in five minutes be in the wild garrigue – among vines and lines and holm oaks and olive trees, with views for 50 miles to the Pyrenees, and down towards the sea. And not a soul in sight.

    Time for a cup of English tea…

    1. How long have you lived where you are in France , Bill.

      Are you sure you are making the right decision to move..

      Turn again , Gunga Din, turn back . Don’t do something you will bitterly regret.

      1. The MR bought the house in 1984; I started going there in 1992.

        We are absolutely certain that the decision to sell is the right one. We have no regrets at all. But we will miss some things – and people.

        I shall miss cheap wine when I see that the UK Customs personal duty free allowance for still wine is FOUR litres…..

    2. When first married, and repeated at suitable intervals, I declared “No cats, no dogs.”
      Then one day she who must be obeyed aka ‘er indoors, aka Significant other brought home a cute white puppy and then added another fromt he same litter.
      As you might imagine I was not foolish enough to say “It’s me or the dogs” because we all know where that leads but it is rather touching that they insist on taking their favourite human for long walks 2 or 3 times a day…. i say favourite but in reality SWMBO does feed them and may actually be their favourite, but on the rare occassions they take her for a walk she insists on going not to the moat at doggy [play time when all the town dogs gatheer for meet and greet but shopping and I suspect they aver shopping with sig other as much as I do. Especially if there are show shops, not warned of her coming that are still opne or anyshop with a perfume counter and “testers”.

      Those little bits of [paper they provide rarely meet her needs and soon enough every inch of exposed skin, mine (and presumably the dogs) is redolent of some noxious perfume or another and one begins to smell like a tarts boudoir. I can only suppose sig other has a clandestine peripatetic QA role and is testing for quality. I imagine she can accurately identify the date and batch number for any particular perfume. How else to explain why she has to smell the same perfumes everytime she goes near such establishments. Of course, the tasters have another role which is to provide free dollops of smell and lip colour for “going out”.

      Hence they focus on taking me out.
      Of course, the honour thus bestowed is rather less appreciated when they insist on this even when the weather so bad that even golf fanatics hsitate to go except to the 19th hole.

      By the way,. from my observations, Pavlov has it all wrong.
      He is the opne who everytime he fed his dogs would ring a bell and soon found that they salivated even when not fed if he rang the bell. I suspect he did not tell the whole story as , without the food they quickly revert to normal and this requires the whole process is repeated. But instead of this being Pavlov conditioning the dog behaviour it is the other way round, the dogs had conditioned Pavlov and had much amusement wathcing him ringing his bell at all hours for no apparent reason. I know this from my own observations that the dogs willc ome when called when there is a treat in store for them (they love the Lydl doggie treats). But call them and they come and there are no treats and they quickly revert to ignoring me. So now they have me conditioned to carry pockets full of treat everywhere. And pockets full because when they get a treat all the other dogs at doggy meets also want some. It is surprising that you can, treatless, shout and call in vain from a few feet away and not even get an ear twitch but russle the wrapper and 100 yards away they will hear and come running before i have even managed to call them.
      No Pavlov was easily mislead by his dogs.
      Sorry, but I just got back frozen (wher’s al this bloody global warming when you need it? You’d think they could manage it on a Mediterranean island, but no. Between torrential rain (it is the monsoon season here, or what does a passable impression of one) and thunderstorms I am fully expecting that this year, once again, it will snow. This was once a very rare event on the island but it happened last year and might again this.
      I am going to have to faign some dire illness, confine myself to bed and make sig other do a dog walk, even if it is only to the shops.

      1. Ta ever so! He’s mainly right. The French voting system is completely nuts – that’s why Toy Boy got in – to keep Marine Le Pen out. No other reason.

  40. ” Domestic violence kills 15 times as many as terrorism in Britain”
    This won’t do. They will just have to try harder.

    1. Statements like that are used by the PTB to minimise the issue of terrorism. However, one incident of domestic violence is unlikely to result in the deaths of more than a very small number of people; one incident of terrorism could easily result in the deaths of hundreds, and life-changing injuries to even more.

          2. Of course not; just a straight-forward way of sorting out family problems. Do keep up…{:¬))

      1. I wonder how many Somali Muslims we now have in the UK and whether any of them might be “sleepers” waiting for an opportunity to do similarly here.

        1. The Daily Mail pictures are pretty good, and must be a great incentive to our sleepers to have a go at something like it over here,
          What were the Turks doing over there ? What is Erdogan up to ?

    2. If the award to Alison Saunders is any measure, the sawn-off cuckold may only have to wait until the system thinks the public have moved on from his failings before rewarding Bercow with a gong.

    5. Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.
      Good morning all. Hope your Christmas went well, as ours did. Although gg’s aunt is in hospital receiving care at the end of her life. Very sad.
      On a lighter note we’ve had a video of an Irish 6year old that is hilarious. It’s on YouTube I’m afraid I don’t know how to put the link on.
      Try:
      https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=so10q3CBliE
      Have a laugh.
      Video won’t play apparently. Try looking for 6year old Irish girl who wants to go to the pub on YouTube.

          1. We used to take the kids to the pub on a Sunday lunchtime – in the days of 2pm closing.
            Their Granny once asked them what they had for lunch that day – “We had a liquid lunch” they replied !

        2. Oh lord…. if she is like this at 6 heaven help the rest of the population when she is older and has honed her skills…..

          1. Already? Bugger me, it was only posted yesterday!
            Enjoy! Tilbehør recommendations on’t Web.

        2. Thanks for your kind words, OL. She is not eating much at all, drinking a little orange juice and water, and sleeping a lot. Thankfully she is not in any pain just now. The staff are very caring, although it’s been a struggle to speak to the right people. “The palliative care nurse is very busy”. Perhaps ungraciously i thought well, that is the job. But the hardest part is trying to get her daughter to accept that mum will not be coming home.

  42. To be Ordinary Members of the Military Division of the Third Class, or Companions, of the said Most Honourable Order:

    Lieutenant General Richard Edward NUGEE, C.V.O., C.B.E., 515778.

    From Wiki

    Relations: Sir Christopher Nugee (brother)

    Again from Wiki for Sir Chris

    Spouse: Emily Thornberry (m. 1991)

    Wiki for White Van Lady

    Thornberry was born in Guildford, Surrey on 27 June 1960. Her parents were Sallie Thornberry, a teacher, and Cedric Thornberry, at the time teaching international law at the London School of Economics, and later a United Nations Assistant Secretary-General.

    When Thornberry was seven, her parents divorced and she had to leave their home with her mother and two brothers. After this, she relied on
    free school meals and food parcels, and their cats were euthanised to save money.     Her mother later became a Labour councillor and mayor, and her father stood as the Labour candidate for Guildford in the 1966 general election.

    She failed the eleven-plus exam, so attended a secondary modern school. She left to live with her father when she was fifteen until he left without warning to work for the United Nations when she was seventeen. She worked as a cleaner and a barmaid in London alongside resitting her O-Levels and taking her A-Levels. She went on to study law at the University of Kent in Canterbury, graduating in 1982. She was called to the Bar at Gray’s Inn and practised as a barrister specialising in human rights law from 1985 to 2005 under Michael Mansfield at Tooks Chambers.

    Thornberry joined the Transport and General Workers’ Union in 1985.[9] In the late 1980s, she became a friend of Waheed Alli, and persuaded him to join the Labour Party.

    So she is brighter than Corbyn

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Thornberry

      1. Indeed. I discovered that on Rhodes, in the aftermath of the war and with lots of Italian POWs and very little food for anyone, they were reduced to eating any cats and digs, and not just strays. Given the superabundance of stray cats and dogs these days i wonder if there is any merit to bringing back the POws….. but i suspect the animal lovers would object.

          1. Perhaps she didn’t distinguish herself at Tooks Chambers…….. maybe decided she could do better strutting on the stage of bigoted Labour.

  43. Senior Judge Claims UK Supreme Court Colleagues Are Not Political Activists
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/12/28/senior-judge-claims-uk-supreme-court-colleagues-are-not-political-activists/

    BTL:

    Bane of the Left • an hour ago
    Utter b0110cks! Just days after the prorogation ruling, Hale was bragging about “crushing the PM”, on a slide accompanying her lecture to the Association of State Girls’ Schools.

    If that’s not a politically motivated statement, then I don’t know what is. It also proves that Hale and her cronies sitting on the bench of the Supreme Court were biased and had predetermined the outcome of the case.

    Avatar
    SuffolkBoy Bane of the Left • an hour ago • edited
    Here is the slide: https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/139/590x/secondary/brexit-news-2093027.jpg?r=1570291343545

    The important thing to remember when you have just clubbed to near-death a foxy Prime Minister with a judicial baseball bat while wearing your husband’s Spiderman badge is not to brag about it on social media.

    2. Spiderwoman, I believe at the same event, also coined the phrase “Let’s hear it for girly swots!” This was taken from an initially redacted comment, referring to David Cameron, in a memo written by Boris given as evidence by the Gina Miller mob at the judicial review hearing.

      We all recognise that the Supreme Court is stuffed with pro-EU judges.

      I wish to see the Supreme Court abolished and the reinstatement of the supremacy of the Law Lords. I also wish to see Middlesex Guildhall stripped of the hideous carpets and veneered MDF ‘joinery’ and returned to its original magnificent state viz. restored.

  44. I must admit to being in a bit of a quandary with which politico’s who are in with a shout to follow, in regards that is, to anti PC / Appeasement / islamic ideology issues.
    A great many as it goes seem quite content with the status quo, with just the odd few Christians being bumped off occasionally, no more than say a hungry pride of lions would eat at a sitting.
    Will this mode of viewing things through the eyes of the three monkeys continue when we kick off the brave new world era ?

  45. Another Government Mess Up

    They managed to publish the new years honours list complete with their home addresses

    2. I’ve sent a lot of them my left over Christmas cards with a present from Dolly squidged inside.

      2. How many lives would have been saved and how much misery averted if the West had backed Assad rather than the terrorists who opposed him?

        1. They did back Assad. They refused to intervene at the start, realising that he was the best of a bad lot.

    4. How times have changed. In the past those who were overseas would tune into the BBC World Service to hear information that they could not get in their own countries. Today, we in the UK are more likely to find stories with the ring of truth to them by listening to overseas media, instead of our mainstream channels here.

      1. PressTV covered all the bombings of Islamic Terrorists and the riots across France over the years. We hear nothing from the BBC. PressTV is Iranian.

    3. That Chopin took me back 30 years to watching “Another Country” for the first time with other students when I was still at University. A melancholic little piece of music. It is strange how a few notes can bring back such powerful memories, down to the room you were in and the conversation you were having so long ago.

    1. The first film I saw in colour and one of the first I saw at a cinema. My mother and father took me and I was blown away by the tunes and the colours – particularly the dream sequence.

      I watched it (for only the second time0 about 4 or 5 years ago on a rainy afternoon in Spain and it all came flooding back.

      That song chokes me.

      (and I say this as no fan at all of musicals)

          2. B,
            Do you mean that I have been going through life believing that 3 & a bit, 22/7, PI, continued into infinity.
            I feel distraught & flabbered to my core.
            “recurring a bad choice of words” I do stand corrected.

          3. So you should, here’s a bit more;
            3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679
            8214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196……..

          7. Evening M,
            I was right on the infinity bit but recurring was in the wrong department, my penance must be another 3 pints of Guinness to drowned the feelings of woe.

          9. It continues to infinity, but it’s not a recurring number. It’s an irrational number.

            3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582

            The page I got that from claims to contain the first one million digits.

            https://www.piday.org/million/

    2. No rain, no sunshine or none of both? Another fevered claim being programmed into the automaton by her controllers?

    5. A nice song that brings back the innocence of youth, if there was some innocence that can be remembered. That link is part of a playlist and the next song (in my version) is sung by a large Hawaiian called “Israel Kamakawiwoʻole” who sadly died at the age of 38, due to multiple health problems down to his weight. His version of that song has appeared in a surprisingly large number of films and TV series.

      With Hollywood so lacking in original ideas, and their current desire to make all women highly skilled ninja killing-machines that can take out a battalion of marines twice their size, you can see the posters for a remake of the Wizard of Oz:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d70a80071773488310eee03a34249de7ed18d4d1ac08119292ce5293d3f3bd6a.jpg

    1. The only way to a satisfactory deal is to treat the EU as the enemy and rub their noses in it. They have their back to the wall now.

      1. T,
        Two ways,
        31st Jan, lock,stock& barrel, total severance.
        Negotiating facilities on hold for three months
        then replace the phone link only between brussels and the real UKIP hierarchy.
        ALL other politico’s have made a complete & treacherous, self interest balls up of the whole issue from the outset.

      2. T,
        In some cases an enemy can be considered to have honour & integrity, not so the eu,
        In their case enema would be more suited.

  62. I read that “New Year Honours: 1,000 addresses published in error”.

    Putting to one side that it might not have been an error, does anyone still believe the yarn that “Your information is safe with us”? Not to mention “Nothing to hide, nothing to fear”.

    Even MI6 isn’t immune.

    I’m looking forward to the day when the public can access such information so I can find out a bit more about myself.

  63. Christmas Viewing figure

    1) Gavin & Stacy 11.4M
    2) Queens Christmas Broadcast 6.4M
    3) Strictly Come Dancing 5.5M
    4) East Enders 5.5M
    5) Michael McIntyre 5.1M
    6) Call The Midwife 5.2M
    7) Mrs Browns Boys 4.6M
    8) Coronation St 4.5M
    9) Emerdale 4.1M
    10) Finding Dory 4M

        1. The four I’ve seen need a bit further explanation.

          I know I’ve seen a Queen’s Broadcast, but I’d hate to say when it was. More than 30 years ago at least.

          The last time I saw an episode of Eastenders was about 1998

          I saw Michael McIntire a couple of times about 5 years ago

          The last time I saw Coronation Street, it must have been raining because I was there to see it and the year was about 1968

          6. Saw the Queen thing once but I’ve never seen Eastenders or Coronation St. And I can’t stand McIntire.

      1. We watched ‘Bridge on the River Kwai” It doesn’t matter how many times we see it, the closing scenes always have us holding our breath.

    5. Doesn’t exactly compare with Eric and Ernie or Mike Yarwood’s Christmas specials – audiences in the high 20M’s for both. Or the low 20M’s for Only Fools and Horses.

      1. It is hard to imagine how we managed with out it.

        Whilst the TV companies seem to regard the figures as gospel it is likely they will be out by at least + or – 5%. It is a bit like politics when there were only two parties the polls were pretty accurate but now with multi parties they can be a good way out. It is the same with TV when there was only 2 channels it could be quite accurate but with multiple channels the accuracy goes

    1. ” Detectives investigating a double homicide following the discovery of two bodies in Barnet and Elstree Hertfordshire have named the two victims as Arber Fesko, 30, & Shkelqim Paja, 31.”
      What lousy names the detectives chose. Surely the victims’ parents would have chosen better ones ?

          1. Dear, oh dear …. haven’t you heard of those noble English families? The Shropshire Feskos and Hertfordshire Pajas?

          3. From my perspective Hertfordshire’s a bit close, perhaps Herefordshire would have been a better choice?

          4. Allegedly, lots of rich furriners have bought houses in Herefordshire, believing it was Hertfordshire

          6. Yer spellin ‘ent ‘alf goin down ‘ill Tryers.

            yer bin spendin too much time in Urup?

            Yo!!

          8. They no longer run a taxi service but their Garage/Servicing/MOT Dept.
            is doing extremely well, they have gone Global!!
            ………..They have opened a branch in Wellinbru!! :-))

    2. Good to see that the Border Farce, the Home Office, Plod and various other agencies devoted to snooping on us are keeping us so safe.

    3. Looking as if the politicos have lost control and by extension, so have the police. Politicians decided to flood this country with the detritus of the World e.g. people from tribal areas where their culture is centuries out of step with ours and from bandit country in the Balkans. Looking at our weak-kneed political class and the people they shoe-horn into the top jobs the UK is going to suffer bad times as criminal and culture wars erupt.
      For goodness sake they can’t even keep people away with a 20+ miles wide moat around the Country. What hope when the enemy is within the gates?

      2. Elsie, try and whistle the tune – if tune is what it can be described as.
        Apologies to Eric Morecambe – they’re not playing the right notes and not necessarily in the wrong order. 🙃

      1. Just an alarm call.

        Evening Garlands.

        Just about to set off out – my first pint will be in half an hour.

      1. Thanks Rik but it’ll have to wait till I get back.

        I’m just off into town for bit of decent C-Rap music.

      3. I haven’t heard that one in years. They had lots of their albums on the juke box at my preferred local. I need to be in the right mood to enjoy it as I find it a bit “heavy” for normal days. But you suspect that it was designed for those crowded rooms with lots of alcohol and friends with longer than average hair anyway. 🙂

          4. Honestly, that is a dreadful noisy tuneless mess. I am now going to get my revenge and put up twenty-seven operatic excerpts.

          10. Did you just describe Deep Purple as ‘tuneless mess’?

            That’s a case of ready aim fire. It’s like calling Liz Hurley a frumpy mare.

          11. Her beau preferred a BJ with a street hooker, what might that suggest?

            Apart from the fact that he’s a turd.

  66. This is today’s pro-terrorist piece from the Guardian, about the difficulty of living in an impoverished Gaza.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/28/gaza-strip-202-unliveable-un-report-did-it-turn-out-that-way

    The article does not, unfortunately, give the cost of daily firing rockets over the border or building up its military for its next shot at shooting down an Israeli aircraft over Tel Aviv. I appreciate that the Guardian has its own agenda.

  67. For me personally there has been a golden lining to the last month of the election coverage. I now have a great deal of blissful silence in my day. I had normally kept the news channels on in the background all the time in case anything important happened in the world, but I finally had enough of the unending political polling propaganda that was being pumped out. I heard the argument that Labour were a real threat and that Corbyn could be Prime Minister one too many times and I reached for the off button. I do not watch it anymore apart from on waking up and last thing at night.

    I also won’t need to hear the former Attorney General for England and Wales with his constant opinions on how terrible Brexit will be. He has no seat now and won’t be missed, along with several others.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/959626c54ceff11be3800d13481ab5af10b79e30f60aeb26e8a7c1ccd1252d0b.jpg

    1. Just reminded me of General Grivas and Makarios when I read that caption. Memory is a strange thing. I was just a bairn when they were on the TV news.

      2. I did not know that he existed and needed to look him up. That is another piece of information filed away. I like those channels where you learn things about people that you were not aware of.

        1. I’d never heard of General Grievous. I only saw a couple of Star Wars films when they first appeared and I wasn’t impressed by them, so the remainder of the franchise is a mystery to me.

          1. Well…the plot is…between takes…Princess Organa and Han Solo took copious amounts of charlie and fucked each other senseless. Best part of the franchise IMO but they cut those scenes. :o(

          2. It is generally thought that the 3 “prequel films” are best forgotten. There were one or two powerful scenes in the films, but they are watered down by a tremendous amount of waffle. There is one scene though that stands out in the final prequel “Revenge of the Sith.” The evil political forces are on the rise and the “Galactic Senate” is dissolved to create the organisation that becomes The Empire that we see in the first 3 films. Which leads to the Stormtroopers and the crushing of democracy.

            There is a female Senator who listens to the cheers as this decision is made “for the good of the people” and her words remind some of us of what the EU is trying to do.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9a54c1afb59e8b12403d8a77c2404e18f43959137302f7b45517f14779041fc6.jpg

          3. When they were making the very first Star Wars and the pre-publicity was coming out in the papers and on television I was really looking forward to it – at last a good sci-fi film that took things seriously.

            Then I saw the trailers, so far so good, until it came to a bit where Han Solo and Luke Skywalker were engaged in a battle between spacecraft with those fighters whizzing by a high proportions of light-speed and here were our two heroes trying to shoot them up (and even succeeding) while tracking them with hand operated turrets that were as technical as the waist gun positions on a Boeing B17 bomber, where the gunners were trying and failing to hit stuff travelling at 400mph. Over 30 years before the film was made there were automatic turrets and radar directed weapons in the Second World War, yet here was a civilisation that could design faster than light spacecraft, but anything more technical than a manually operated gun turret was beyond them. My disbelief remained unsuspended from that moment.

            That was enough to burst the bubble for me. I didn’t go to the cinema to see it and it was several years later before I saw it and Return of the Jedi on a friend’s VCR.

          4. I saw the first of the series at the flicks and was suitably unimpressed with it being science fiction; it was good guys versus bad guys with lots of shooting. I’ve never watched any of the sequels or prequels.
            2001 was altogether different and I had to borrow the book from the library to understand the whole meaning, especially the ending. For scary sci-fi, John Carpenter’s The Thing takes some beating.

          6. I was into science fiction since I was a kid, and I have had decades of reading technical manuals and having discussions about the “alternate” physics used. There are people who will spend weeks explaining away inconsistencies, but I’m not one of them. 🙂

            I cut the first films a lot of slack for their pure entertainment value. If I could accept laser beams that travelled slow enough for you to see them coming and get out of the way, I was not going to worry too much about the minor things. With the Millennium Falcon I think they were going for an old tramp tug that had seen better days, and civilians would not have the money to pay for the replacement of advanced combat turrets when they would not need them.

            The chances of a civilian transport engaging military ships of the line would not happen on a regular basis if at all, as you would just surrender if challenged by one. Those old cockpits might never be used unless you met a desperate pirate. I love the ideas behind those stories though as well as the technical details. 🙂

      1. Off topic a bit, but has anyone noticed that the big stores have stopped selling Andrex and are promoting their own brands ?
        Only the hands-free version can be used safely.

  72. Evening all. Just back from three days in Topsham, drilling holes in the ex (and now good friend’s) new place. Washer dryer installed; 6-and-a-bit hooks* on the backs of doors, and TV mounted on the wall. But the highlight was the pub crawl. Well – two pubs. The George and Dragon will have to wait till next time. The Blue Ball was very nice, though geared more towards eating rather than drinking. Great menu, though, so we’ll be back. The real find, however, was The Bridge Inn. “A museum with beer”. I can’t improve on the description in this DT article from eleven years ago, but – given the age of the place – I doubt whether it has changed in the meantime.

    *I lost a critical grub screw (hangs head in shame)…

      1. Is that the primary school in Orchard Way?

        The DT reckoned Topsham was one of the best places to live in the UK. It didn’t mention white flight, but…

        I went house hunting with Dianne in July. We viewed several houses, mostly in the old part of the town. Some needed lots of work. Some were fully refurbished. All had a problem. Parking. There isn’t any.

        In the end, she bought a brand new ‘zero-carbon eco home’. It’s 140 yards from the M5, but with the triple glazing, it’s quieter than my place in rural Surrey. Solar panels, Tesla Powerwall, heat recovery ventilation. It has the lot. Apart from the bits that I’ve drilled out…

        1. The school was near the station. I remember the architecture, grand houses mainly
          influenced by the Dutch….and the sweet shop on the corner selling gobstoppers for
          one penny….

          2. We always avoid the rush. I’m not prepared to do those journeys at the best of times. We played ‘Gin Media’ and ‘ Cards against humanity’…besides all the other stuff.
            Surprisingly the nicest people won the worst games in first place. Dark Horses !

      1. The apostrophe ‘s’ was in the parentheses. Whatever… :-))

        Amazing place, though. Proper beer drinker’s pub. Lager only in bottles.

        Also the first pub ever visited by HMQ. Bet she didn’t have a pint in the poky little room we were in…

    5. I used to drink (and stay) in The Globe at Topsham. An hotel with a bar which had a ‘pubby’ feel and decent beer. The Bridge Inn is a real museum piece, apparently the only pub to whichThe Queen has made an official visit. I managed a couple of visits there years ago. Did you see the ‘inner sanctum’? Don’t know The Blue Ball. Have you tried The Double Locks? It’s worth a visit, if you can find it!

      1. Yo Harry. We ate in the Globe on Boxing Day. Excellent. We discovered the “Inner Sanctum” of The Bridge, only because someone came out of it as Dianne left the Ladies’ loo.

        Don’t know the Double Locks, but I’m back there for two weeks in January. Will investigate. Some years ago, we cycled from Exeter as far as the Turf, but the left side of the estuary requires further exploration.

        1. A couple of years ago we walked from Exeter to The Double Locks, as you say, on the left side of the estuary. We’ve known the Double Locks for years, in the past having driven there along the towpath. It used to be a really good freehouse but is now owned by Youngs/Wells and it ain’t quite the same, but still ok.

          Driving to The Double Locks means leaving the main road at Countess Wear by the city incinerator, as I recall.

          2. You’ll drive up the track and think ‘this can’t be right’! Over a narrow wooden bridge crossing the water and along the towpath. Stick with it,

          4. Found it on a map. About a mile and a half further inland from her place, and on the wrong side of the river, but will investigate when I’m back in mid-January…

          5. ‘Tis on the canal*, not the river, Harry.

            *Trivia: Exeter ship canal was built following the Countess of Devon’s installation of a weir, preventing ships reaching Exeter on the Exe.

  74. Well,well,well

    Tony Blair was bidding for contracts with the European Union for his “institute for global change” as he publicly campaigned to overturn Brexit, The Telegraph can disclose.

    Documents obtained by this newspaper show that the former prime

    ­minister held talks with officials about striking a funding agreement

    between the European Commission and the not-for-profit Tony Blair

    Institute (TBI).

    The officials included Ana Gallo-Alvarez, who was previously seconded

    to Mr Blair’s Middle East envoy office as deputy head of mission.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/12/28/tony-blair-sought-eu-funding-trying-stop-brexit/
    Troughing Bastard

    1. I wonder how much money he wants. How many institutions he wishes to corrupt and how many deaths will satisfy him.

    2. Not for profit….

      Blair probably sucks so much out in fees that Google wouldn’t make a profit…

    1. The programme’s host, Nick Robinson, defended his colleague Mr Harrabin saying he was “a journalist” who “reports what he thinks is true”.

      I think he’s wrong…

    1. First thing to do therefore is environmental protection legislation, whereas any violating ships can rightly be sunk by the Royal Navy. This is independent and paramount over any trade arrangements existing during the Brexit Transition Period.

      These ships are no better than those who poach endangered rhinos in Africa, and are worse criminals than those engaging in genocide. There should be no mercy. The EU police themselves should be joining in with ridding the European seas of this menace.

      I have just written to my MP, Harriett Baldwin.

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