Saturday 3 June: Inheritance tax is no reward for a life of hard work and prudent planning

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

376 thoughts on “Saturday 3 June: Inheritance tax is no reward for a life of hard work and prudent planning”

  2. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Full Speed Ahead

    A retired sailor puts on his old uniform and goes down to the docks once more for old time’s sake.

    He hires a prostitute and takes her up to the room. He’s going at it as best as he can for a guy his age and asks, “How am I doing?”

    The prostitute says, “Well, sailor, you’re doing about three knots.”

    “What’s that?” he asks.

    She says, “You’re knot hard, you’re knot in, and you’re knot getting your money back.”

  3. Good Morning folks,

    Another cloudy cold start, this north easterly air stream is getting a bit tiresome now,

  4. Inheritance tax is no reward for a life of hard work and prudent planning

    I guess we are worrying over nothing, we’ll all have nothing and be happy very soon anyway.

  9. Good morning, chums. My weather forecast for this weekend is lovely and sunny, so I intend to enjoy it. I hope you do too.

  10. Good morning all.
    A bright but cloudy start with 6½°C outside, but a sunny day forecast.

  11. Morning all. Extract from one of today’s letters, on IHT.
    “… It is accepted that our tax regime is a mess that needs sorting, and inheritance tax is especially disliked. However, the bulk of inheritance tax paid on individual estates comes from property values. There is no capital gains tax on one’s own residence, and the vast increase in house value stems from society rather than individual effort or achievement.

    It does not seem unreasonable that society rather than the individual should have some benefit from this fact.”

    Questions:
    – if you were to tax capital gains, how would you measure it? Brown abolished indexation allowance. I spend a lot of money keeping my house up to scratch; how would this be accounted for? Would we all be required to keep detailed records? Sounds already like the law of unintended consequences will be that nobody bothers maintaining their properties
    – property prices have rocketed due to supply/demand (including people who aren’t even citizens being allowed to acquire as much as they like) and (previous) low interest rates (caused by deliberate Govt. policies of globalisation). It’s not like anyone likes high prices. They don’t help anyone.

    I hate IHT. But as someone said in the letters the other day, maybe it’s just the rate. Maybe we could swallow 10% as a rate. It’s the 40% that sticks in the craw.

    1. Norway taxes profit on investments – and gives you allowance for loss on investment.

      1. That’s how it should be, but the tax should be low. No more than 5%, for example. The state should be encouraging people to take risks and if that succeeds, great! Have el casho. If it fails, they go – bad luck mate…

        That is how you make rich people poorer – by giving them the opportunity to get richer.

    2. It’s not just that – as there’s no just one tax (of course there isn’t! This is Britain!) there about 5, all designed to claw in from different things as most folk only look at one element – the home. The state split that out into multiples. A savings account with money in it, for example is taxed differently to the whole estate.

      The simplest thing to do would be to scrap it all. The entire tax code and start again with a page of A4. The Warqueen does this sort of thing for fun. Worked out a tax system that would generate similar revenues but with a 10% rate of income tax. She spouted a 70 word sentence at me the other day and fell apart laughing at it. After she’d stopped apparently it was a tax code that was easy to evade and could be used to pour other owed taxes into.

      The state likes complexity. It keeps it in work. And, I assume , appallingly written tax law provides endless comedy for tax accountants when they get together.

      1. Agree. Flat tax should be the way forward. Obvious. But too many vested interests (inc. mine with a background in tax).

      2. Complexity for humans makes AI chuckle.

        Whoever controls AI will dominate the world.
        The Warqueen could be that person.

    3. IHT hits single people like me more than couples. I have few of the normal means of avoiding it apart from naming various charities in my will – and most of the ones I had originally highlighted as possibilites I have since fallen out with, eg NT. I have no spouse to share it with. My house was bought for peanuts in 1977 and now is above the IHT threshold – plus savings.
      They could do a lot to remove it from the middle classes – increase the threshold to £1 million and remove your primary residence from the equation. Together with reducing the rate, at least down to the basic rate. It seems very unfair that the first time I pay higher rate tax will be after I am gone.

      My principle worry is that those who sort out my affairs after I have gone will be hit with all the palaver and expense to sort out the IHT side. It seems very unfair.

      1. Marry someone on your death bed, and remember to immediately sign a new will. Sorted.

  12. Good morning, all. Bluish skies – some sunshine – but STILL a bitter easterly gale.

  13. 372884+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Saturday 3 June: Inheritance tax is no reward for a life of hard work and prudent planning

    If Inheritance tax were to take on a physical form surely it would be a large white bouncing ball reminiscent of “the prisoner”and highly active among the minions.

    Owing to the peoples continuing majority vote and the continuing lab/lib/con coalition political overseers treachery, today’s political evil actions take on a great many aspects of that series.

    1. I think the Telegraph have been forewarned that this is a likely tax to scrap because while most don’t pay it, those who do are typically Conservatives. It’s an evil tax (well, more evil than all the others), makes life easier for the state if it isn’t there, doesn’t raise a lot – 7bn, barely 3 days state waste – and would allow the Tories to go into the election saying how great they are for scrapping taxes.

      Of course, the actual removal of the tax from statute will be well in the future – 2050 or something, after a long, expensive, drawn out ‘consulatation’ where it is concluded they can’t actually do it at all.

      1. It would be a great elephant trap for incoming Liebour, like Brown’s 50p tax rate.

      2. No. IHT is not an “evil tax”, but the bad parts are a) the relatively low threshold and b) the high rate of 40%. Human biology makes it a tax mainly affecting widows, many of whom do not need to possess millions of pounds in assets at an advanced age.

      3. Glancing at a German language newspaper the other day, I noticed that inheritance tax is a hot theme over there too.
        I get very suspicious when the same campaigns pop up simultaneously in different countries.
        Why did the current round of questioning around IHT suddenly start? It’s been monstrously unfair for years!

  14. The spectre of Stalin still haunts Europe – Ukraine is fighting to exorcise it. 3 June 2023.

    Putin is probably not a communist. He certainly has no objection to the private appropriation of the fruits of mass labour by a privileged few. But he is Stalin’s heir. He sees Mikhail Gorbachev’s dissolution of the Soviet empire in 1991 as the great catastrophe for Russia. In his mind, it is what the defeat of Germany in 1918 was in Hitler’s – the humiliation which must be avenged.

    Jailed in the 1920s, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, setting out his race theories and territorial ambitions with a frankness that most people, strangely, ignored. Locked down by his own Covid restrictions, Putin wrote his essay “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, claiming there is no such country as Ukraine. Hitler stuck to his twisted version of his country’s destiny. Putin shows every sign of doing the same.

    This attempt to parallel Vlad with both Stalin and Hitler shows the propaganda nature of this article. Putin possesses the political convictions of neither. If Stalin’s spectre does indeed haunt Europe it is the EU that represents it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/02/spectre-of-stalin-still-haunts-europe-ukraine-is-fighting/

      1. What Oberst said. The lies spinning around the Crimean conflict are too stupid to bother with.

    3. I’m surprised by CM on this. He doesn’t mention the coup of 2014 or the war in the Donbas that followed, events which led to Putin’s invasions. There’s just this:

      When, in 2014, the allies first began to focus seriously on Ukraine’s problems, they misjudged his invasion of Crimea. They deplored it, of course, but they also felt that the place was, sort of – and despite previous agreements – Russia’s anyway. Concede that tacitly, they thought, and perhaps things will calm down. Even today, they probably still regard Crimea as the one place Russia might be allowed to retain when peace comes.

      With their superior grasp of Putin’s logic, the Ukrainians see it differently. They know he considers Crimea his greatest triumph so far and his best strategic Ukrainian possession, because it lets him control the Black Sea. He dispossessed existing home-owners to install Russian pensioners and build villas for the Russian rich in Crimea’s pleasant climate. He declared: “Sevastopol is a Russian city.” He reasserted imperial Russia.

      So the Ukrainians want to take Crimea back even more, I sense, than they want the Donbas. They well know how much Putin has achieved through advancing bit by bit. Entrench his gains, and he will just try to grab more. Reverse his main one, and the rest might collapse.

      1. More historically illiterate twaddle of course. If anyone were to, “take Crimea back” it would be Turkey. The people who had it for 300 years, not the ones who’ve claimed it for the past 30.

  15. Morning, all Y’all.
    Sunny, and quite still. Marmite on toast for brekker, and good coffee, Bliss!

  16. Bedlinen in, towels and bath mats awaiting. Spot of hoovering and dusting. Oh, my life is a never ending roller coaster of excitement, passion and joy.

    1. Blimey. Are you taking in refugees from Pimlico?
      Two bunk beds per room, I hope.
      Oh …. and check their passports.

      2. If we were forced to house gimmigrants then I’d convert Mongo’s ‘pen’ (a fenced off bit of the garden to stop him wandering off) , put barbed wire all around it and cram them in there, in the open. I wouldn’t feed them and they’d have ot live off rain water.

        I’d then encourage the archery club to target practice.

    2. I let my cleaner go 3 months ago. Time to get the hoover out. The dust can look after itself.

  17. Quote of the day: “Does experience help? NO! Not if we are doing the wrong things.”
    W. Edwards Deming.

    1. I asked a greeniac loon the other day if he thought government would care about the green scam if it couldn’t tax it. He tried answering with a bunch of word salad, so eventually I pinned him metaphorically against a wall and got a ‘no’.

      Thus, ‘climate change’ is weather. Anthropological climate change is just a tax scam.

      2. I stopped believing anything to do with greenism when I saw the taxes and fees that people were delighted to pay that went with it.

        1. The Idiot King’s support of it assured many of us that it was complete baloney.

      3. As I mentioned above, to try and cover all their mistakes.
        But it doesn’t effect any of them, they claim their losses back on expenses.

    2. ‘Morning Grizz,thoughts??

      “A scheme offering high flying graduates a fast-track route to
      becoming detectives has been expanded to include counter-terror policing
      in an effort to increase diversity in the unit.

      Police Now
      allows candidates with a degree to qualify as detectives within 14
      weeks and means they do not have to spend the traditional two years as
      uniformed bobbies on the beat.

      It has seen around 500
      recruits join CID units in forces across England and Wales, helping to
      investigate crimes such as fraud, robbery and theft.

      But
      now for the first time Police Now is recruiting people to join SO15,
      Scotland Yard’s highly specialised counter-terror unit.”

      1. ‘Morning, Rik.

        It is simply another hare-brained scheme thought up by the clueless who are in charge. They have simply not learned the lessons that the failed graduate-entry scheme (from 1978) brought about. The standard of candidate for the police has dropped exponentially and continues to do so.

        What these chumps do not realise is that possession of a degree does not guarantee intelligence. It simply shows that you can successfully follow a course of study in a chosen discipline. Most of those brandishing degrees have no experience of mingling with, dealing with, and interchanging with the public they serve. Street skills are not taught and they do not possess enough common sense to acquire them.

        As I’ve said repeatedly, on here, in the past, this does not mean that I am against graduates per se. On the contrary, I admire most of them for their ability to assimilate arcane subject matter and I number many friends among them. Graduates should be channelled into taking jobs that support their skill set. Policing is not one of them.

        It is simply a matter of horses-for-courses.

        1. Peter Loughborough?
          Of course he would be the exception to prove the rule; the structural problem is that there used to be a pool of experienced men* who had served in the Armed Forces, and who were still young enough to re-train as police constables. (edit: *and women)

          1. Ex-forces personnel have always provided the backbone to the force. There were, indeed, a good number of them on the course when I joined. I learnt how to ‘bull’ my boots and press my uniform from them.

            They were, though, treated no differently from any other recruit and they undertook the same initial training, and two-year probationary period, as every other constable recruit.

          2. My former CO showed me a newspaper clipping featuring an old Army friend of his who had been a Lt Colonel, CO of a signals regiment. He had joined the police as a constable and underwent the full training programme including two years on the beat. His own PC daughter in the same force was senior to him!

        2. There is a form of working class inverted snobbery which I disdain in that qualifications and common sense are inversely proportionate. “All the certificates in the world but no common sense” and so on. Whereas those who left school at 16 with no quals are magically imbued with lots of common sense…

          My nephew came out of university with an engineering degree and was promptly snapped up by my employers to carry out the sort of tech work I did on pipelines. He was very succuessful but later chose the take a teaching qual and is now a maths teacher.

        3. …and the same applies to Nursing. Forget this degree entry. How does that qualify you to nurse somebody desperately ill?

          There was nothing wrong with the previous method of learn-on-the-job, under the instruction of Sister-Tutor.

          The same with the police. Learn-on-the-job with an experienced sergeant as your mentor and guide.

      1. @MetPol is a spoof id, the actual Metropolitan Police id on Tw@ter is @MetpoliceUK

    2. It is all very well plod arguing that there’s a balance between law enforcement and protest, but that’s utter tosh. They are there to enforce the law. That means removing people blocking the highway.

      If the police won’t do that, the public must. If that means separating the police from each other and removing their communcations – their only advantage over the public – then so be it. Otherwise they’re aiding and abetting a crime.

  21. Morning all 🙂😉
    Clouds…..did some one sing a song about clouds ?
    A brief appearance and off to Norfolk for a week. Some were flat where I might be able to get around.
    And yes our over zealous government needs to back off with the inheritance tax. Home Ownership was a lifetime effort for many people. Let’s be honest most of the tax we pay is all about trying to cover up all the costly mistakes made by politicians and Whitehall.

  22. I’m reminded of the monks of Glastonbury conveniently finding the tombs of Arthur and Guinevere just as pilgrimages for the masses really too off.
    Fortunate she is black, isn’t it?
    This extract is from the Tellygraff. There are problems accessing this story in the DM; maybe the reaction was at variance what is deemed acceptable by our lords and masters.

    “Thousands of people have queued up over the last week to see and touch the apparently incorrupt body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster, who died in 2019 aged 95.

    She looked as she had done in life, like Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act, clad in a full black habit with white wimple. Her career was very different from the film’s publicity-mad pseudo-nun. Sister Wilhelmina had founded the Benedictine convent of Mary Queen of Apostles in rural Missouri as a strictly contemplative order, and she died in the odour of sanctity, as the phrase is.

    After her death, her sisters in religion shovelled earth on to her coffin with long-handled shovels, though dressed in full-length nuns’ habits, white headdresses and black veils. It was part of their foundress’s charism to express inner faithfulness to their vocation through the external sign of a religious habit.

    When Sister Wilhelmina’s body was exhumed to allow building work, there was no odour and her body had not decayed. One radio station declared: “Religious experts say the lack of decay is a sign of holiness in Catholicism.” But is that true?”

        1. The Yanks will believe anything if it comes with a religious text.

          They’ll be telling us next that Arthur’s Guinevere was black as well!

        2. “Ma’am, there are 147 different faiths in the US of A, and every single one of them makes a profit.”

        4. There have been other recorded instances of exhumed bodies not showing signs of decay.
          The one that comes to mind is James Radcliffe, Third Earl of Derwentwater and executed after the 1715 Jacobite Rising.

    1. Reminds me of what the Duke of Dunstable said about The Empress of Blandings;

      “There’s only one word for than animal: gross!”

      1. I think it’s rather lovely.
        There used to be a friendly seal that hung around the pontoon in West Mersea, scoffing all the bait (usually tired bacon) that dropped off the children’s crab lines.

  25. I posted a link this late last night but its seems worth posting the article in full.

    Exclusive: Ministers had ‘chilling’ secret unit to curb lockdown dissent
    Critics of Covid restrictions targeted by counter-disinformation team at the heart of the Government

    Prof Carl Heneghan, Molly Kingsley and Dr Alexandre de Figueiredo were monitored by government disinformation units
    Prof Carl Heneghan, Molly Kingsley and Dr Alexandre de Figueiredo were monitored by government disinformation units
    A secretive government unit worked with social media companies in an attempt to curtail discussion of controversial lockdown policies during the pandemic, The Telegraph can reveal.

    The Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) was set up by ministers to tackle supposed domestic “threats”, and was used to target those critical of lockdown and questioning the mass vaccination of children.

    Critics of lockdown had posts removed from social media. There is growing suspicion that social media firms used technology to stop the posts being promoted, circulated or widely shared after being flagged by the CDU or its counterpart in the Cabinet Office.

    Documents revealed under Freedom of Information (FoI) and data protection requests showed that the activities of prominent critics of the Government’s Covid policies were secretly monitored.

    An artificial intelligence firm (AI) was used by the Government to scour social media sites. The company flagged discussions opposing vaccine passports.

    Many of the issues being raised were valid at the time and have since been proven to be well-founded.

    The BBC also took part in secretive meetings of a government policy forum to address the so-called disinformation.

    On Friday, MPs and freedom of speech campaigners condemned the disclosures as “truly chilling” and “a tool for censoring British citizens” akin to those of the Chinese Communist Party.

    Much of the Government’s wider work on disinformation is shrouded in secrecy for “national security” reasons. Large parts of official documents are still redacted.

    In America, Twitter has released similar information showing how the US government also introduced a secretive programme to curtail discussion of Covid lockdowns.

    It can now be revealed that the activities of Prof Carl Heneghan, the Oxford epidemiologist who has advised Boris Johnson, and Dr Alexandre de Figueiredo, a research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), were monitored by government disinformation units.

    Molly Kingsley, who set up a campaign to keep schools open during the pandemic, also had her social activity monitored.

    As well as the CDU, the Government operated a Rapid Response Unit (RRU) in the Cabinet Office that hunted online for content it considered disinformation.

    The CDU, which is still operating, was embedded in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

    The department has “trusted flagger” status at social media companies including Facebook and Twitter, which means that requests for content to be removed are fast-tracked for consideration.

    In some cases, individuals whose social media posts were recorded by the units have subsequently faced sanctions by Twitter and Facebook. Ministers denied asking for posts by Prof Heneghan, Dr de Figueiredo or Ms Kingsley to be removed.

    The Government has said that the CDU “is focused on helping the Government understand online disinformation narratives and understand attempts to artificially manipulate the information environment”.

    The Government also ran a Counter-Disinformation Policy Forum, which brought together civil servants from the DCMS and technology giants – including Facebook and Google – as well as the BBC to discuss how to limit the spread of what was considered Covid-19 disinformation.

    This forum and the two units were not the only way the Government tried to apply pressure on social media companies during the pandemic.

    The Lockdown Files, published by The Telegraph earlier this year, revealed that Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, repeatedly lobbied Sir Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister and now a Facebook executive, about vaccine misinformation.

    Facebook has been open about its efforts to tackle misinformation about Covid. During the pandemic, it removed posts and in April 2020 alone put warning labels on about 50 million pieces of content.

    The CDU was established in 2019 and was focused on the European elections before turning to focus on the pandemic.

    During Covid, the unit worked closely with the Cabinet Office’s now defunct RRU, whose responsibilities included tackling “purported ‘experts’ issuing dangerous misinformation”.

    The RRU has admitted in an FoI obtained by Big Brother Watch and passed to The Telegraph that it made requests for social media posts to be taken down.

    As part of its work, the Cabinet Office also passed the CDU “media monitoring” reports.

    Documents revealed that the material flagged to the CDU included articles published by The Telegraph.

    One of these was a piece by Ms Kingsley published in February 2022, arguing that it was “indefensible” that children’s lives were still not back to normal when the rest of society was. She urged ministers to make a clear statement that children’s extracurricular activities should not be subject to additional curbs.

    One of Ms Kingsley’s tweets from December 2020, in which she said it would be “unforgivable to close schools”, was also passed to the CDU.

    Sir Gavin Williamson, then the education secretary, closed schools days later. However, he has since admitted that the decision caused a major row with Mr Hancock and that he considered resigning.

    When the dispute was exposed by The Telegraph’s Lockdown Files investigation, Sir Gavin said the closure “wasn’t done for the right reasons” and that he regretted agreeing to it.

    The RRU also logged articles by Prof Heneghan published in The Telegraph and The Spectator.

    One of these questioned the science behind the rule of six – later abandoned by Government – and discredited the data used by the Government to justify the second lockdown.

    He had social media posts about face masks and the accuracy of coronavirus death data removed after the technology giants raised concerns about Covid disinformation.

    The CDU has also commissioned reports from an external artificial intelligence firm, Logically, which uses AI to trawl the internet.

    The company has been paid more than £1.2 million by the DCMS since January 2021 for work that included helping to “build a comprehensive picture of potentially harmful misinformation and disinformation”.

    In one of the firm’s reports for the CDU, a post by Dr De Figueiredo, the LSHTM researcher who also works for the Vaccine Confidence Project, was flagged.

    He wrote: “People who think we should be mass vaccinating children against Covid-19 poorly understand at least one of the following: (a) risk, especially absolute risk (b) ethics (c) natural immunity (d) vaccine confidence (e) long Covid.”

    When Dr De Figueiredo made the comment, the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation had opted not to recommend mass vaccinations for children.

    Nadhim Zahawi, the former minister for Covid vaccines deployment, said he believed the Government included Dr De Figuerido’s tweet because of “c–k-up rather than conspiracy”.

    He added in an interview for The Telegraph’s forthcoming podcast, The Lockdown Files, that the CDU was there to combat “clearly completely wrong or false information”.

    Miriam Cates, a Conservative MP, said: “Any attempt by governments to shut down legitimate debate is hugely concerning, but to discover that DCMS actively sought to censor the views of those who were speaking up for children’s welfare is truly chilling.

    “It is becoming increasingly clear that many of the foundations of our democracy – such as free speech and parliamentary scrutiny – were completely disregarded during the pandemic.”

    Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, said: “The very concept of ‘wrong information’ dictated by a central authority is open to abuse and should be considered far more critically, lest we mirror Chinese-style censorship.

    “Whilst everyone would expect the Government and tech giants to act against foreign hostile disinformation campaigns, we should be incredibly cautious about these powers being turned inwards to scan, suppress and censor the lawful speech of Brits for wrongthink, as is shockingly the case right now.”

    A Whitehall source said the comparison with China was “just plain wrong”.

    The source added: “On the contrary, the unit was set up to counter the threats disinformation poses to, among other things, UK national security, much of which is spread by hostile states.”

    Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former Cabinet minister, called for the Covid inquiry to investigate government disinformation units.

    “The inquiry clearly ought to investigate the oppressive methods used to override dissent,” he said.

    “It is clear from Hancock’s messages that steps were taken to manipulate public opinion and now it appears underhand methods may have been employed to stop free speech.

    “This is not what ought to happen in a free country.”

    A government spokesman said: “The unit’s purpose is to track narratives and trends using publicly available information online to protect public health and national security.

    “It has never tracked the activity of individuals and has a blanket ban on referring journalists and MPs to social media platforms.

    “None of the people named in this report were ever referred to social media platforms by the Government and any claim otherwise is objectively false.

    “The RRU, which closed in July 2022, tracked government policies and important issues – not individuals. It used publicly available information, including material shared on social media, to assess UK disinformation trends and narratives.”

    A BBC spokesman said the broadcaster attended the Counter-Disinformation Policy Forum in an observer-only capacity.

    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    We knew all this already but at least the DT is printing the story. And of course Net Zero and the great climate cons must not be debated and discussed properly just as Covid jab damage and rape gangs of foreign ethnicity are off the agenda for proper consideration.

    A Percival Wrattstarngler BTL:

    We must not criticise Sunak because he is not white. Indeed, one of the principal reasons the globalists put him in place was because they knew that criticism of him could be dismissed as racism.

    1. Quite simply if anyone didn’t expect the state to have these things they’re comically naive.

      Look at the desperate authoritarianism big government keeps forcing on us. Look at the propaganda in the media and press. the rapidity with which factual – that is, anti big state – articles gain a mass of dogpile comments, all from single post commenters to ‘refute’ – without any evidence – the article.

      Note articles on Truss’ tax policies attract a veritable swarm of people pushing the same big state good! High tax good! lies. These accounts never reply, never appear anywhere else. It’s always the same mantra. The same people whinge about ‘profiteering’ supermarkets and energy companies when it’s obvious the problem is big government.

      The state lies habitually. It cannot let the truth out because the extent of it’s manipulations to make us poorer and miserable would come out.

    3. Prof Carl Heneghan, Molly Kingsley and Dr Alexandre de Figueiredo were monitored by government disinformation units
      Prof Carl Heneghan, Molly Kingsley and Dr Alexandre de Figueiredo were monitored by government disinformation units

      So dangerous were these people they were monitored twice.

  26. 372884+ up ticks,

    To the majority voter this would be like stabbing their party, be it lab/lib/con/current ukip in the back, very similar as to what their party leaders have been doing to them for decades,

    Stockholm syndrome plays a big part
    regarding members / political parties,
    currently it is playing a big part in putting peoples in a premature grave.

    https://twitter.com/ParrhesiaNous/status/1664752720194990083?s=20

    1. Theresa May is evil and wants to get her own back on the world for the rumoured sins of her father.

        1. Nothing, Ogga. They are not given a choice in state policy. Nor are ministers, most of the time!

          1. 372884+ up ticks,

            Morning W,

            But they play a major part in putting those policy makers in political power, in power.

            Thus by doing so again & again they are stating they are happy with the status quo.

          2. Right. Who do you think people should vote for?
            Write their granny’s name on the ballot paper? The favoured runner in the 4.30 at Doncaster?
            People can only vote (or not) for the listed names.

          3. 372884+ up ticks,

            Afternoon Anne,

            Right, the majority voter is giving that question NO thought at all.
            They are locked into the party first before country syndrome
            regardless of evil consequences, child mass rape and abuse, mass killings, mass daily entrants of evil foreign units containing everything anti English,
            etc,etc,etc.

            Boycott lab/lib/con/current ukip, inclusive of granny and the jockeys club mass join a credible fringe party, you asked me so I nominate RECLAIM.
            By the by IMO anyone now still supporting the toxic foursome are truly mentally unstable a proven danger to children, grannies, jockeys and a multitude of decent peoples, right?

      2. I think it’s far simpler. A civil servant pootled along and said ‘there’s this little bit of legislation that’ll give you a legacy no one will ever forget. It’s about protecting the poor and starving refugees of war and preventing slavery…’

        Words were likely used like humanitarian, award, nobel, peace, freedom, greatness and May, being a plonker signed up and the civil servant went away crowing that they’d happily destroyed the country and all it stood for, just with a bit of flattery.

        1. Still over-estimating the situation, I reckon.

          Civil servant: We’ve booked your flight to go and sign the refugee treaty.
          May: The nasty bigots won’t like that.
          Civil servant: Who cares?

        1. Grizzly complained that he prefers his women au naturel and not airbrushed into some fake blandness.

          2. They probably look much more cuddly and desirable in their unairbrushed state.

          4. Yes, but Randy Edelman is a good musician. I love Uptown Uptempo Woman

            https://www.google.com/search?q=randy+edelman+uptown+uptempo+woman+live&ei=VPp6ZJS_LbOskdUPhuCV6Ac&oq=uptown+uptempo+woman&gs_lcp=Cgxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAQARgEMgoILhCKBRCwAxBDMgkIABAHEB4QsAMyCQgAEAcQHhCwAzIJCAAQBxAeELADMgkIABAHEB4QsAMyCQgAEAcQHhCwAzILCAAQBxAeEA8QsAMyCwgAEAcQHhAPELADMggIABCABBCwAzIICAAQgAQQsANKBAhBGAFQAFgAYN8xaAFwAHgAgAEAiAEAkgEAmAEAwAEByAEK&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:1902cf85,vid:PpLc7a8S584

          3. My Uncle Basil was a surgeon who also served as the Norwich Prison doctor but this would have been before you were in that part of the world.

            He became very immersed in Norfolk life. He sang in the Cathedral choir, was commodore of the Norfolk Punt Club at Barton Broad, married into the Lawrence Scott engineering firm and in retirement he was a ‘friend’ of the Cathedral who showed people around.

            He always wore a smart three piece suit and a bow tie and always had a bloater for breakfast.

    2. That is beautiful. A picture you can immerse yourself in.
      Have a lovely time.

    3. Tranquil and beautiful . Can I repeat the poem to you?

      The Brook

      I come from haunts of coot and hern,
      I make a sudden sally,
      And sparkle out among the fern,
      To bicker down a valley.

      By thirty hills I hurry down,
      Or slip between the ridges,
      By twenty thorps, a little town,
      And half a hundred bridges.

      Till last by Philip’s farm I flow
      To join the brimming river,
      For men may come and men may go,
      But I go on forever.

      I chatter over stony ways,
      In little sharps and trebles,
      I bubble into eddying bays,
      I babble on the pebbles.

      With many a curve my banks I fret
      by many a field and fallow,
      And many a fairy foreland set
      With willow-weed and mallow.

      I chatter, chatter, as I flow
      To join the brimming river,
      For men may come and men may go,
      But I go on forever.

      I wind about, and in and out,
      with here a blossom sailing,
      And here and there a lusty trout,
      And here and there a grayling,

      And here and there a foamy flake
      Upon me, as I travel
      With many a silver water-break
      Above the golden gravel,

      And draw them all along, and flow
      To join the brimming river,
      For men may come and men may go,
      But I go on forever.

      I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
      I slide by hazel covers;
      I move the sweet forget-me-nots
      That grow for happy lovers.

      I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
      Among my skimming swallows;
      I make the netted sunbeam dance
      Against my sandy shallows.

      I murmur under moon and stars
      In brambly wildernesses;
      I linger by my shingly bars;
      I loiter round my cresses;

      And out again I curve and flow
      To join the brimming river,
      For men may come and men may go,
      But I go on forever.

      Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  31. Good morning, all. Overcast and windy early on, now sunny and windy.

    Climate Changers’ wet dream, hot spots in Antarctica.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3f6d6552ce0dd61cfe6a653ec8a7296fb3ae398609f8fc9726115f12cb31c249.png

    The hot spots are underneath the land mass and look remarkably like volcanic (lava) plumes. “Settled Science” isn’t Science in any meaningful sense.

    Emphasis is mine.

    The above graph from the recent Singh and Polvani paper shows recent warming only in the west of the continent. Of course, it begs the question for those who attribute all climate change to humans burning fossil fuel – why would a well-mixed atmospheric gas like carbon dioxide produce just one warming spot in Antarctica, and have no effect over the rest of the ice-covered continent? A more plausible explanation for the localised warming is the presence of volcanoes, particularly in the light of the recent discovery of an additional 91 of them in the region. In total, there are 138 identified volcanoes in the West Antarctica Rift System, with heights ranging from 300 to 12,600 ft.

    Daily Sceptic – Climate Change Doomsters & Gloomsters

  32. OT – interesting problem. Last week, the MR renewed the car insurance New policy starts 18 June. All docs received, including the all-important “Certificate of Insurance”. Vital to have to show foreign police.

    I discovered that – with great skill – I had thrown away the CURRENT year’s C of I. The MR went online to the insurers and “My Insurance Docs” – to find that on renewal, the previous year’s docs (ie the CURRENT year) had been updated and replaced with next years. It has taken us 24 hours of phone calls and e-mails to get a copy of the current C of I. Just come through – printed two copies….

    Insurance people baffled by the “update + removal”. Computers, eh?

    Anyway – heart attack just avoided.

      1. Over 25 years ago, my sons and I and a couple of their friends decided to do an away day to London .. nice cheap tickets , when trains ran on time ..

        We travelled on the underground after the faffle of reaching Waterloo , and the tube train was jam packed to the gunnels ..

        I made the mistake wearing my Barbour jacket , because the weather was bad .. the heat of the underground was unbearable . We had to stand for about ten minutes clinging on to the overhead straps ..

        Some one started rub themselves on my back against my jacket.. the boys couldn’t move and neither could I. I used my elbow , and nearly fell over .. I smelt the grunting breath , he stank, and was probably either from the sub continent or Asia Minor .

        I sent my jacket away to be cleaned when I got home .. I managed to give my Barbour first aid in a public loo first and foremost .

        In those days , Barbour had a repair facility .. they would rebind coat cuffs and rewax etc, so mine was returned as good as new , but I hardly wore it again .. I bought a new one ..

        There is so much filth out there .

  34. India train crash: at least 280 killed and 900 injured in Odisha state. 3 June 2023.

    At least 280 people have been killed and about 900 injured after two passenger trains collided in the eastern Indian state of Odisha – the country’s deadliest rail disaster in almost 20 years.

    The Coromandel Express, which runs from Kolkata in West Bengal to Chennai in Tamil Nadu, was going about 80mph (130km/h) when it collided with a stationary freight train at about 7pm on Friday, causing it to derail.

    Carriages from the freight train then hit two coaches from the Howrah Superfast Express train, which was travelling in the opposite direction, according to South Eastern Railway, resulting in the deadly pile-up.

    They need Bob to sort this out!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/02/dozens-killed-in-train-crash-in-eastern-india

    2. Shades of Quintinshill and Harrow & Wealdstone, with the wreckage of one collision struck by a third train.

  35. Read this posting in Unherd.
    We’re getting there.

    https://unherd.com/2023/05/what-xi-can-learn-from-tsar-nicholas/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=f3a5bf4c68&mc_eid=3b0897cf14

    “I came across this quote by Borges the other day – “dictatorships breed idiocy”:

    “One of the most vocal critics of Peronism was the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. After Perón ascended to the presidency in 1946, Borges spoke before the Argentine Society of Writers (SADE) by saying:

    Dictatorships breed oppression, dictatorships breed servility, dictatorships breed cruelty; more loathsome still is the fact that they breed idiocy. Bellboys babbling orders, portraits of caudillos, prearranged cheers or insults, walls covered with names, unanimous ceremonies, mere discipline usurping the place of clear thinking […] Fighting these sad monotonies is one of the duties of a writer. Need I remind readers of Martín Fierro or Don Segundo that individualism is an old Argentine virtue.”
    They all self-destruct in the end. Simply a question of how long it takes. Xi Jinping will be no different.

    2. Xi had better watch his step ‘cos civil unrest will unseat both him and his party.

      Too many people for his army and police to unseat.

  36. 372884+ up ticks,

    May one ask,
    Will the indigenous peoples ever tire of currently, allegedly, being killed off, incarcerated, daily shit on by the political ruling politico’s.

    How about we make this offer to this nations homeless ain folk & veterans.

    Migrants threatened with loss of rights if they refuse to share hotel rooms
    Ultimatum after 40 asylum seekers stage Pimlico pavement protest against being told to share four to a room

  37. 372884+ up ticks,

    May one ask,
    Will the indigenous peoples ever tire of currently, allegedly, being killed off, incarcerated, daily shit on by the political ruling politico’s.

    How about we make this offer to this nations homeless ain folk & veterans.

    Migrants threatened with loss of rights if they refuse to share hotel rooms
    Ultimatum after 40 asylum seekers stage Pimlico pavement protest against being told to share four to a room

  38. Scrapping IHT breathed new life into Sweden

    The abolition of a once eye-wateringly high rate of inheritance tax allowed the nation’s economy to flourish

    Britain’s bloated tax system is raking in more money than ever from inheritance tax. The Government brought in a record £7.1billion last year, and the proportion of deaths hit by a bill has approximately doubled since the Tories came to power. For 14 years, the government has failed to fix a levy that has been condemned as fundamentally un-Conservative and abandoned by much of the Western world. Sweden said goodbye to inheritance tax almost two decades ago, making it the first country to kill off the levy under a social democrat government.

    The Daily Telegraph’s campaign is calling on the Government to follow in Sweden’s footsteps and abolish the tax that has been wreaking havoc on readers’ lives.

    Anders Ydstedt, of the Svenskt Näringsliv, a body that represents Swedish businesses, said the abolition of its inheritance tax was a reform that attracted rare cross-party support. “The situation in Britain looks very much like Sweden before we scrapped the tax,” he said. “It is hitting people who are not really wealthy and it is creating anger in broader groups.”

    Britain’s basic allowance for inheritance tax has been frozen at £325,000 since 2009. This, combined with a boom in house prices over the past decade, has dragged a rising number of ordinary families into paying the tax. “This is when it starts to get more attention politically,” Mr Ydstedt added. “In Sweden, when it got to this point, all parties, from the communists to the Conservatives, voted to abolish our inheritance tax.”

    How Swedish IHT met its end

    Inheritance tax had existed in Sweden, in various shapes, since around the 17th century. The tax rate was progressive and varied according to the beneficiary – but reached a record high in 1983, when grieving families were forced to pay as much as 70 per cent on their inheritance. This eye-wateringly high rate triggered its gradual decline – and by 2004, the year it was abolished, the rate had fallen to around 30 per cent. Still, as in Britain, the threshold for triggering an inheritance tax bill remained very low for immediate family, at just 70,000 Swedish krona, or around 101,210 krona (£7,462) in today’s money.

    Daniel Waldenström, a professor of economics at the Swedish Institute for Business Research, said this meant around a third of families in Sweden had to pay the tax. “That is a very high number if you compare it with other countries,” he said. Mr Ydstedt added that in thousands of cases widows and widowers were forced to abandon their family homes, with little wealth outside of their property able to foot the bill.

    Despite the pain this inflicted on thousands of Swedish families, inheritance tax was by no means a significant revenue raiser for the government. Receipts from inheritance and gift taxes peaked in the 1930s, when they accounted for less than 1 per cent of gross domestic product.

    Unlike in Britain, Sweden offered no inheritance tax relief for family-owned businesses. This was disastrous for Swedish enterprise, where around nine in 10 companies were owned by people related to each other in 2004. Prof Waldenström added: “Entrepreneurs left Sweden and in the worst case, businesses did not grow as much as they wanted to. Well-known large business families moved abroad in the 60s, 70s and 80s.”

    Ruben Rausing, the TetraPak founder, Ingvar Kamprad, the Ikea founder, and Fredrik Lundberg, an industrialist, all chose to emigrate before the tax was abolished – taking their fortunes and businesses with them. Mr Kamprad returned to the country after the levy was scrapped.

    Stefan Ränk, head of the family-owned real estate group Einar Mattsson, told the Svenskt Näringsliv employers’ organisation in 2021: “We were probably the last ones to, out of dignity, pay any significant inheritance tax in the country. The tax influenced risk-taking and capital structure, and had a limiting effect on the business. The 200 million [krona] we paid in inheritance tax would, have been enough capital to build 1,000 new apartments.”

    Business roars back

    With powerful families so close to the heart of the Swedish economy, it is little wonder the abolition of inheritance tax helped the nations’ entrepreneurship to bounce back. Mr Ydstedt said: “There was a boom in ownership transfers. Not only between families, but trying to find better external owners for the business. It led to more wealthy people moving back to Sweden, and that ultimately has been a positive.”

    Meanwhile, the Swedish tax authority found the removal of the tax had encouraged the return of capital back into the country. It received almost eight thousand “self-corrections” from individuals who chose to report wealth previously kept abroad from 2010 to 2014. Mr Ydstedt added that the abolition of the tax had massively reduced the administrative burden on the Swedish tax authority.

    With each day that passes, I consider my resolution to move permanently to Sweden as the best life decision I have ever made.

    1. Nevertheless, the Swedish tax to GDP ratio was 43% in 2021, somewhat higher than ours.

      1. And you will not find a single Swede complaining about that. It’s nothing to do with socialism either; Sweden ditched their four-decade experiment with that failed ideology long ago. Sweden enjoys a free-market economy and the population considers that the high taxes, which provide cradle-to-grave care for their citizens, to be a worthwhile price to pay. Few Swedes are on the breadline.

        1. Indeed. I believe that Sweden founded its welfare state in 1910 – hasn’t done it much harm, but swerving two world wars has probably helped.

    3. I suggest that whatever was injected into the cattle was NOT an anti-covid vaccine. Euthanasia, more likely. Part of the EUSSR rush to destroy farms, farming, food and food producers.

    1. Yuk. I cannot stand the smell of that so called food let alone the taste. There was a bloke in US who claimed to have lost pounds by only eating Subway sandwiches.
      Personally, I am on a drinking diet- I’m hungry but I don’t care 😉

    2. My dietician, after I imagine getting tired of my joking said ‘for a week, eat nothing but sausage rolls. As many as you want.’

      I did, and I’ll be honest, after day 3 I wanted fruit, nuts, eggs, salad and chicken but fruit more than anything else.

      1. That is your secondary brain which resides behind the stomach telling you.

        I went on a low carb diet then started dreaming of big bowls of mashed potatoes.

        1. I don’t know. I started to feel tired all the time. I had no energy. I was sluggish in my thinking. My reflexes were off. I was grump (ier) and twitchy.

        2. Laurie Lee of Cider with Rosie wrote that as one of a very large family, often got less to eat at dinner than he would have liked. He said that as an adult, he often woke up shouting for bowls* of hot stew.

          *Or as one of my less than good spellers wrote in a Lit exam- he woke up shouting for bowels of hot stew. True story

        3. I get cravings for boiled sweets and Allsorts. Both of which are forbidden.

          1. Toffee and anything chewy is a no no for me. I want my expensive crowns to stay put.

            One boiled sweet a day wouldn’t hurt you. Just make sure it is fruit flavoured and call it one of your 5 a day.

        4. That happened to me when I tried going veggie. Started dreaming of sausages. Real ones.

      2. At the risk of doing a Peddy, it’s ‘dietitian’. I only know this since – when building the Borders General Horse Spittle, we were instructed to change the nameplates, spelt as your comment. The battle to be paid for this variation easily cost 10x more than the cost of the bloody nameplates…

        1. Which Horse Piddle around here would that be? I trust none. It’s NHS Scotland innit?

          1. As I said, the Borders General Hospital – which is just outside Melrose. It replaced a collection of Nissen huts, out in the sticks beyond Galashiels. It was the largest construction project in the Borders since Floors Castle.

          2. Er.. the one I named in the comment. The Borders General Hospital, Melrose. Obviously it’s NHS Scotland now, but my dealings were with the Borders Health Board.

  41. British higher education is now a worthless debt trap
    Things have gone from bad to worse for the country’s beleaguered students
    Charlotte Lytton : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/03/british-higher-education-is-now-a-worthless-debt-trap/

    I started banging on about this when my boys were at university over ten years ago and I don’t need much of an excuse to put this BTL under articles such as these:

    The problem is not the student loan but the interest charged upon it – at one time this was more than ten times the BoE base rate.

    For many years I have argued:

    It is not unreasonable to expect students or their parents to contribute to the cost of their education. BUT it is very unreasonable to punish them with rates of interest that mean many of them will remain in debt for the majority of their working lives with enormous and ever rising debts around their necks.

    We need to encourage students to get themselves free of debt as soon as possible and to this end:

    i) Student loans should be interest free – as they are in some more civilised countries;

    ii) Repayment of capital should be a direct charge against income. i.e. if a student repays £5,000 of his debt in a year then that will reduce his taxable income by £5,000 in that year.

    iii) Employers should be allowed to contribute to their employees’ repayment of their student loans and their repayments should be tax deductible.

    iv) Those working in essential state employment such as the NHS or in state schools should have their loans wiped out for them but only after at least 8 – 10 years in that state employment.

    1. Not sure about interest free, but certainly front loaded and fixed. Yes, it should be pre-tax as well. Yes again for employer contributions.

      The problem is, Blair used education as a way to rig the unemployment statistics. University then stopped being an education and became a business. Brown also wanted to normalise debt. They won’t change the tax arrangements nor th einterest returned because that’s not the intent or purpose of student loans. Repaying them is not intended. The practice of being indebted is all that matters.

      1. I am afraid you are right.

        Why do revolutions have to be left wing? We need a right wing revolution.

    2. Why is he grinning? Why is he looking at the camera? Why has he no bruises on his face from the deserved beating or chains around his wrists and ankles?

  43. Getting away from the routine, day-to-day stuff of the collapsing economy, rampant inflation, impending blackouts, breakdown of society, race war, world war, burning skies and boiling seas, I have a big question to ask: what’s happened to toothpaste? When did it go from a paste, white and, well, paste-like, to a dribbly, watery, gloopy chemical substance that burns the throat?

    I suspect an environmental or H&S directive, EU or home-grown. Any answers, anyone?

    2. I bought a non-fluoride pasty paste-like toothpaste and found that I’ve actually adjusted to mint flavoured gloop and don’t like the bicarb alternative. I rinse three or four times with plenty of water and don’t swallow.

      1. I don’t swallow! It’s the rinsing-out that causes the burning.

        If you know of a toothpaste that’s white, sits on the brush rather than dribbling anaemically down through the bristles and doesn’t smell like a flammable chemical solvent, name it!

      2. Good old Macleans suits me fine and has done for years. As I do not have a degree in dentistry I am unable to deal with Colgate, more like Scamgate

  44. I read these articles about dangerous dogs and I’m reminded of a time when, as a puppy Mongo raised hell and nudged Junior from falling down the stairs. I remember when Wiggy walked beside an elderly lady along a street so she had a clear path – and lovely as he was, when a big dog lumbers toward you you get out of it’s way.

    Maybe I am just an amazing owner. Maybe I’ve been horribly lucky in my dogs. Maybe it’s the breed. Maybe it’s years of training, socialising, positive reinforcement, kindness and the respect for the termperament and not wanting a vicious attack dog, barely trained and deliberately poorly socialised that’s got these wonderful pets.

    1. And you know who will get the longer prison sentence and who will become the hero…

    2. And you know who will get the longer prison sentence and who will become the hero…

    3. Eejit. Come wandering randomly in my house, you’ll be surfing the stairs on your face

  46. Zelenskiy says Ukraine ready to launch counteroffensive. 3 June 2023.

    Ukraine’s president has declared his country’s military is ready to launch a long-awaited counteroffensive and hinted at concern about the possibility of Donald Trump retaking the White House.

    Volodymyr Zelenskiy, giving an interview to the Wall Street Journal, suggested that a significant attack could come soon and said he hoped a change in the US presidency would not impact military aid to Kyiv.

    “We strongly believe that we will succeed,” Zelenskiy told the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper, although he acknowledged he did not know how long the counteroffensive would take or how well it would go.

    Where is it? This is hardly a ringing endorsement. There is much talk and little action. I’m beginning to doubt that they actually have the intention let alone the means.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/03/zelenskiy-says-ukraine-ready-to-launch-counteroffensive

    1. From what I can make from my international sources The Ukraine is very much on the back foot. In the end lies do not win wars. If only Nato had not pushed for Ukraine to join. crazy move.

          1. A bit harsh. The American concept is noble.
            They, like us, need to jettison their leadership.
            I do not see this happening without bloodshed, but I hope to be wrong.

    2. There is no counter offensive because Ukraine has insufficient ammunition to launch and a depleted army following tactical blunders. By contrast Russia is on the offensive and already talking of a change in regime in Kiev. Zelensky will be replaced with a legitimate government.

      I would not believe a single word of any utterance by Zelensky. He is a clown and bad actor, has terrorised the Russian speakers for the past eight years and continues to preside over the deaths of tens of thousands of his countrymen in a lop sided war he could never win.

      I am ashamed that Sunak and Bunter before him chose to join this war on the wrong side of history. Galicia will likely be returned to Poland and Russia will take back Kiev. NATO has outlived its original defensive purpose and is now irrelevant depending almost entirely on US backing and unable to muster any significant military force.

        1. Maybe not, but I don’t believe most of what Zelensky, Biden and Sunak, backed up by various MSM outlets say either!

          3. Let me put it another way. I do not believe a WORD that any political outfit in any country puts out.

    1. As the weather where i live has been so balmy i planted mine out 2 weeks ago. Race you to the first harvest !

          1. Oh. Where did you find “other” trombetti seeds? Beware of imitations….

    1. One day this nonsense will end. The backlash will be – pun intended – monumental.

      Put it this way: white men built everything, we fix everything, we pay for everything. We also own most of everything. When we are erased the state will find suddenly, that those permanent, uneducated welfare addict ethnics won’t be interested in paying – or working for anything.

    2. Turn your government out, beste mevrouw.

      I bet the Farmers Party won’t have any truck with this bollox…..

    3. Is there any indication of who the statue commemorates, or why she is/was worthy of the honour????

      Edit – one of the Twatterers who disagrees with Eva said “As a Dutch [sic] our nation wasn’t constructed on genocide, mass kidnapping and the enslavement of an entire race.” – Do some research dear – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_colonial_empire for a start!

  49. 372884+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    British higher education is now a worthless debt trap
    Things have gone from bad to worse for the country’s beleaguered students

    Much of it self inflicted.

  50. The Masterchef Champion 2023 lives just up the road from me. She is also a master coffee roaster. I think i will pop in and buy a bag.

  51. Not much going on here this morning, I guess y’all are watching the Manchester Derby!! (May the best team win)

    2. I have been doing some chores and framing some of our granddaughter’s art which is now on the wall. Also a photo of my husband and his granddaughter after she put his toy panda on his head. Brilliant photo and her face and wicked grin- priceless.

  52. From: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/03/the-blitz-regalvanised-britains-will-the-lockdowns-just-inf/

    “[Johnson] feared that the UK had become infantilised, essentially addicted to government telling them what to do, how to live their lives, who they could see, where they could go, etc – and also, critically, picking up their bills.” Boris has said that he does “not recognise” these comments as his own – which may or not be deliberately ambiguous.

    For me, lockdown exposed how weak and pathetic so many people were. You always imagine your fellow man is cognisant, thinking and self aware, sceptical of the state. To find out the majority are weak and desperate to give up the few freedoms remaining to them, to panic buy thoughtlessly, to be so damned ignorant in their smple unwillingness to ask ‘why can’t I compare one week to the next?’ was bloody terrifying.

    Now you understand why the government is so appalling. The fools deserve it. This is why they cannot be allowed a say in future.

    1. Did Boris share his wotsupdoc messages to the media at the same time he gave them to the enquiry?

      They behave like cannibals on an island where meat is running out.

      2. Saw an elderly shopper in Aldershot a week or so ago with two masks (neither of which covered her nose), a visor and plastic gloves. For some, there’s no hope…

  53. Trombetti and leeks planted out. Potatoes earthed up. Out of the wind, if one can find such a place, it is quite agreeable to sit in the garden.

    Any news this arvo?

    1. I have arrived at my destination after:
      58 miles,
      81 locks
      11 swing bridges
      and 59 hours navigating over 16 days consuming around 45 litres of diesel (that includes heating water, recharging batteries and cooking 15 meals).

      Will post a few photos tomorrow…

      1. Oh and various WWII aircraft flying overhead – a Spitfire and just now a bomber (not certain as I only caught a glimpse for a couple of seconds but the tailplane looked like that of a Halifax or a Lanc….

        1. Must have been a Lancaster. There are not any Halibags flying at the moment and with only 3 survivors in museums, recovered from ditching sites, that is not likely to change.

  54. Bogie Five today.

    Wordle 714 5/6
    🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Same here.

      Wordle 714 5/6

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

    2. A happy guess.

      Wordle 714 4/6

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

  55. King Charles gives up his Welsh home as he downsizes property portfolio
    He bought the farmhouse for £1.2m in 2007 and while he remains ‘passionate’ about the country he will no longer spend as much time there
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/06/03/king-charles-gives-up-wales-home-downsize-portfolio/

    BTL Percival Wrattstrangler

    Give him a Shed; give him a solar panel; give him a small 5 kw domestic wind generator; and let him spend the whole of the winter on the higher reaches of Mount Snowdon.

    In that way he might begin to prove to us that he is sincere about renewable energy.

    1. One of the halfwit Beeboid presenters of Springwatch. t’other day, who was based in Snowdonia, spent the programme explaining that Snowdonia must now be called “Eryri” and that Mt Snowdon must be called “Yr Wyddfa”. The same idiot, Gillian Berk [sic], said, “A few people still call it Snowdonia.”

      Wrong, bitch, everyone still calls it Snowdonia!

      1. Did she really say “… MUST now be called…”? If so, what cheek! Imagine very few will be inclined to use the new name, partly because they’ll be clueless about pronunciation.

    4. Be fair, Richard – the JWK is now in Roumania – where he has several houses and lots of servants.

  56. Paxo is gone and the next series of University Challenge will be presented by a Cambridge graduate with a degree in English yet an inability to speak it proper, like. His consonant-free version of the language will almost certainly have competitors asking him to repeat the questions. Diction ain’t wo’ i’ used ter be. There’s a comic example in this edition of UC from October. Wind forward to 1:20 and the team from Gonville & Caius presenting themselves. I am still transfixed by Zhoey Zoe Zhang. She sounds like a posh version of Pamela Stephenson’s Janet Street-Porter from Not the Nine O’Clock News – and that gives me an excuse to play this again!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vk5K-4PGYQ

      1. The Pamela Stephenson act wouldn’t be allowed today because it would upset people with buck teeth and overshot jaws.

      2. 372884+ up ticks,

        Evening B3,
        Trusting the french period, has never been a good idea.

  60. That’s me for this – marginally warmer – day. Still an easterly gale. But at least I didn’t need two pullovers when in the garden. I note that next week it remains the same – dry, windy and not warm until the weekend – when we are going away for a couple of days – and the temp rises to 28ºC!!! Oh how I larfed….

    Anyway, useful gardening done. Cats happier with the sunshine. Supper being prepared by indoor staff.

    HAve a spiffing evening. We are watching the second of two documentaries about four rather VERY irritating Orstralian “intellectuals”…. I never could stand Greer; Humphries appears always to be talking to a well rehearsed script. C James is just up himself – and that art bloke is a parody (though at times he looks like a character from “Neighbours”). Still, the MR is happy and what is more important than that??

    A demain.

    1. Very cold in the mornings and evenings, going to bed feels like we are back in the 1960s with no central heating

      1. I almost put the CH on this morning. But Alexa assured me that the temperature in the lounge was 19.5 deg C. In fairness, I left a kitchen window open overnight, and that’s where the laptop resides. After a cloudy start, it’s now 20 deg outside, and 24 indoors, purely due to solar heat gain. I have a huge East-facing picture window occupying around 3/4 of that side of the lounge. It saves me a fortune.

        1. Been lovely again today and set to continue. Sat outside for about an hour until the sea breeze picked up, which gets into my very sore face.

          1. Same here. Hardly surprising, since I’m only 60-odd miles away as the crow flies. Sorry to hear about the face, and hope you can find a solution ASAP., Big Sis. KBO…

        3. Frost at Firstborn’s place a couple of days ago. Doesn’t help the seedlings.

    2. The weekly outlook for sunny Argyllshire is 23ºC – 24ºC with light breezes!!

  61. PS The DT today has a double page spread about the dastardly tricks that HMG got up to during the Plague. Matters which WE all knew were true and happening and no one (apart from us) cared. We were called weird and conspiracy theorists (and much worse). And NOW it seems we were RIGHT all along. DT called Parliament “supine”. Yeah, right. But they make NO mention of the collaboration by the MSM of which the DT is, of course, a part….

    Bastards.

  62. Anglo-Saxons aren’t real, Cambridge tells students in effort to fight ‘nationalism’

    University aims to ‘dismantle the myths’ around British and English identities as it seeks to make its teaching more ‘anti-racist’

    By Craig Simpson • 3 June 2023 • 1:47pm

    Cambridge is teaching students that Anglo-Saxons did not exist as a distinct ethnic group as part of efforts to undermine “myths of nationalism”.

    Britain’s early medieval history is taught by the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, but the terms within its own title are being addressed as part of efforts to make teaching more “anti-racist”. Its teaching aims to “dismantle the basis of myths of nationalism” by explaining that the Anglo-Saxons were not a distinct ethnic group, according to information from the department. The department’s approach also aims to show that there were never “coherent” Scottish, Irish and Welsh ethnic identities with ancient roots.

    The increased focus on anti-racism comes amid a broader debate over the continued use of terms like “Anglo-Saxon”, with some in academia alleging that the ethnonym is used to support “racist” ideas of a native English identity.

    Information provided by the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNC) explains its approach to teaching, stating: “Several of the elements discussed above have been expanded to make ASNC teaching more anti-racist. One concern has been to address recent concerns over use of the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and its perceived connection to ethnic/racial English identity.

    “Other aspects of ASNC’s historical modules approach race and ethnicity with reference to the Scandinavian settlement that began in the ninth century. In general, ASNC teaching seeks to dismantle the basis of myths of nationalism – that there ever was a ‘British’, ‘English’, ‘Scottish’, ‘Welsh’ or ‘Irish’ people with a coherent and ancient ethnic identity – by showing students just how constructed and contingent these identities are and always have been.”

    One lecture addresses how the modern use of the term “Anglo-Saxon” has been embroiled in “indigenous race politics”, by questioning the extent of settlement by a distinct ethnic group that could be called Anglo-Saxon.

    The term typically refers to a cultural group which emerged and flourished between the fall of Roman Britain, and the Norman conquest, when Germanic peoples – Angles, Saxons, and Jutes – arrived and forged new kingdoms in what would later become a united England. This was also the period of Old English epics such as Beowulf.

    However, the term Anglo-Saxon has recently become embroiled in controversy, with some academics claiming that the term Anglo-Saxon has been used by racists – particularly in the US – to support the idea of an ancient white English identity, and should therefore be dropped.

    In 2019, the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists voted to change its name to the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England, “in recognition of the problematic connotations that are widely associated with the terms “Anglo-Saxon”.

    This was triggered by the resignation from the society of the Canadian academic Dr Mary Rambaran-Olm, who has since written that the field of Anglo-Saxon studies is one of “inherent whiteness”. She later wrote in the Smithsonian magazine that: “The Anglo-Saxon myth perpetuates a false idea of what it means to be ‘native’ to Britain.”

    While some have argued that a single term like “Anglo-Saxon” is inaccurate as the Dark Ages were a period of population change, including the Viking invasions, others such as Prof Howard William at the university of Chester maintain that the term remains useful historically and archaeologically.

    A statement signed by more than 70 academics in 2020 argued that the furore over the term “Anglo-Saxon” was an American import, with an open letter stating: “The conditions in which the term is encountered, and how it is perceived, are very different in the USA from elsewhere. In the UK the period has been carefully presented and discussed in popular and successful documentaries and exhibitions over many years. The term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ is historically authentic in the sense that from the 8th century it was used externally to refer to a dominant population in southern Britain. Its earliest uses, therefore, embody exactly the significant issues we can expect any general ethnic or national label to represent.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/03/anglo-saxons-arent-real-cambridge-student-fight-nationalism

    In a sense this is good news. Given that the Welsh and Scottish nationalist movements claim that they are the descendants of the ancient Britons driven westwards and northwards by the evil Anglo-Saxons, it’ll shut them up as well.

    Beowulf will have to be pulled from the shelves. A-level English students will breathe a sigh of relief.

    1. When I lived betwixt Norwich and Cambridge, both were good destinations for shopping, etc. I regret that I never managed to attend King’s on any Christmas Eve, purely because I was doing the same sort of thing in Suffolk. Academically, I did block release Institution of Quantity Surveyors professional exam courses at Salford College of Technology. Arguably equivalent to a degree, but I still claim to have graduated from the University of Life.

      Had I known where Cambridge was heading, I’d have avoided it like the plague…

          1. BTL:
            Nick Clarkson
            Who would possibly have thought that Anglo Saxon studies is one of “inherent whiteness”? I imagine studies of sub-Saharan Africa of the same era would be of “inherent blackness. Would that be an issue?

      2. I lived in the centre of Cambridge for ten years and commuted to London. This was 40 years ago but even back then the place was losing yet more of its distinctive face.

        The combination of the ignorance of the Arts faculties and blind promotion of Pharma sciences aided and abetted by investment outfits such as USS (University Superannuation Scheme) hastened the decline.

      2. Cambridge academia went to the dogs decades past. There are no longer men such as those commemorated in the anti chapel to Trinity College Chapel from Sir Isaac Newton down.

        Tolkien, Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes are the obvious sources for seeking an understanding of Beowulf. There is also a trashy Hollywood film.

        Modern academics are mere lightweights and charlatans.

      3. Cambridge academia went to the dogs decades past. There are no longer men such as those commemorated in the anti chapel to Trinity College Chapel from Sir Isaac Newton down.

        Tolkien, Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes are the obvious sources for seeking an understanding of Beowulf. There is also a trashy Hollywood film.

        Modern academics are mere lightweights and charlatans.

    3. More bloody racialist nonsense to remove our heritage. Kick these stupid people out – they know not of what the speak.

    4. Hating on Anglo-Saxons to reduce racism. Yeah, right that sounds really logical.

    5. Beowulf isn’t an English epic. It pre-dates English. It’s written in…er…Anglo-Saxon. Anglo-Saxon+Old Norse+Norman French+bad Latin=English. Eventually.

        1. I have two translations. Seamus Heaney is the one I actually read. But there was a time when I could stare at the British Library copy and actually make some sense of the Anglo Saxon. Can’t do that now.

          1. Agreed- my ability to understand those older writings are gone. I have enough trouble on this page;-)

          3. As I recall, author unknown. I also enjoyed some of Julian of Norwich’s writings, around the same time as Chaucer.
            As I often say, age is not for the faint of heart. I could concentrate more if I wasn’t hurting so much. Maybe soon!

      2. If sirjasper and Grizzly and the other “English” pedants on Nottle were consistent they would still have us using the language of Beowulf because as they are constantly telling us, “English” is immutable, and Beowulf predates the changes brought about by bastardisation of the language.

        1. Do you REALLY want to get into an argument about real and imaginary English? Check your own background in that language, first.

          1. Be consistent and I might agree. But you butt in almost every day on one post or another correcting the writer’s English, punctuation or use thereof.
            Quite frankly, it makes me sick and tired of it.
            English, like every language on the planet, changes over time.
            English probably steals more words from more languages than any other.

          2. English hasn’t “stolen” anything from any other language. Part of our richness of language is the fact that many words describing similar things, have their roots in different languages.

            I do not like what American imports (whether it be BLM, language or anything else) are doing to our language and our society.

          3. Call it whatever you like.

            English, like every language, changes over time.

            Words are adopted/stolen/taken/accepted/introduced etc etc et bloody cetera.
            They were not originally English words, but they have become so, and I would argue that English is the one that has done so above all other languages.
            Probably down to the Empire.

          4. Totally agree, Sos. And I do try to inject a few English sayings into conversation with ‘merkins’ to try to equal the balance!!

          5. Living in France I am constantly reminded how hard the French try to keep their language “pure”. I was very amused by a Frenchman complaining how many of the “officially accepted” new words in the Larousse this year have English/American origins, mainly because there isn’t a remotely close French equivalent so the English word has been adopted as real French.
            We always wish each other a bonne fin de semaine, because bonne week-end isn’t French

          6. Re your edit
            I agree in the main, but whether you and I like it or hate it the fact of the matter is that English as a language is not immutable and changes over time.

          7. I claim to have invented two new English words: The first in 1975 – Fupt.(self explanatory) the second a couple of years ago : Gribbling- the voracious use of a duck’s bill feasting on algae on the hull of a boat!

          8. I use my neologism “scrobnofulent” as an adjective to describe Blair and his ilk.
            It sounds like exactly what he is, foul, scrubby, a knob, and full of it

          9. How do you pronoun people, then? Remember, that is the way our language is changing.

            Like other changes which, IMO are simply wrong. I don’t like words like “innit”. I am sure you don’t think the idea of our having to eat insects is acceptable either. I don’t have to accept either as a “change over time” – it is what causes the change that is the point.

            The bast*rdisation of our language has been largely caused by the influx of cr*p Americanisation , particularly as intoned by imports.

          10. I think these are slightly different issues from those I am referring to.

            The change, or more accurately the demand, for new “pronouning” as a concept is a societal thing, the pronoun itself doesn’t change, the use is probably incorrect.
            Like you, I dislike words such as “innit” and other forms of what I regard as lazy speech. However, a word that I would be told off for using by my parents: “ain’t” is now very commonplace, e.g. ain’t that the truth?

            I agree re the Americanisation, but unfortunately the internet has been driven by the Americans and they are using what is to all intents and purposes the world’s language. The reason I believe English has become the world’s language is that very facility to adopt words and to change over time without losing its essentials.

          11. Of course it does, as any other language. Whether we just sit down and accept the b*rst*rdisation of our language by semi-literate imbeciles with their American-import often bleck rubbish is something else altogether. Language changes by evolution, not revolution.

  64. Got two barrow loads of elm sawn, chopped and stacked, plus a load of ash ready for chopping.
    Then, as the sun moved round, it got too hot.
    Just been up and got the ash chopped & stacked, a darn sight easier to chop than the elm, and still need another load saw to fill the stack. To be done tomorrow after I’ve sharpened the saw.

    1. I think it was Noel Coward who said he read the obits in bed and if he wasn’t in them, he got up.

    3. Reminds me of a sign which I saw in a Boat’s window earlier today – which a lot of folk appear to have taken to heart:

      “It is said that hard work never killed anyone….
      But why take the risk!

      1. Oscar Wilde, I believe, said that work was the curse of the drinking class.

  67. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk. Just hoping that I might emulate last nights sleepful night. God knows I need it.

    1. Good luck. We went to bed at 9.30 last night and I was up pacing the bedroom at 4 and looking out the window, surprised to see a light on in a neighbour’s kitchen. Don’t see the point of going to bed early if I wake up and can’t sleep again… pain and over the counter pills don’t do shit.
      NHS takes so long to get going.
      I am exhausted and sick of it.

  68. Dt,

    Civil servants handed £1.4 million in shopping vouchers to spend at Champneys and Shoe Zone
    Senior civil servants at the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy spent taxpayer’s money on Love2Shop vouchers

    The blatant brass neck actions of these political overseers is openly displayed now, a one party coalition, with the majority consent of the electorate.

    ‘The vouchers are Beis’ method of rewarding high performance,’ the department said in response to a Freedom of Information request
    ‘The vouchers are Beis’ method of rewarding high performance,’ the department said in response to a Freedom of Information request CREDIT: Eddie Mulholland
    Civil servants have given themselves almost £1.4 million in shopping vouchers as a reward for good performance, the Telegraph can reveal.

    An investigation has found that the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (Beis) spent £1,385,035.91 of taxpayer’s money on Love2Shop vouchers between September 2018 and December 31 2022.

    The vouchers can be spent at dozens of high street vendors, including American Golf, Champneys, Robert Dyas, Pontins, Shoe Zone and WH Smith.

    Senior civil servants at Beis spent the money on more than 350 separate transactions, with the largest individual purchase being almost £29,000 worth of vouchers on Feb 1 2019.

    Any purchases more than £500 on the department’s card must be reported for transparency purposes.

    Several government departments, including Defra, the Department of Education and the Department for Health, provide a description for what each purchase is for, but no such information is provided by Beis.

    Data show that of the more than 350 transactions there were six individual transactions of more than £19,000 and 90 transactions of more than £5,000.

    It is understood that junior civil servants within the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) receive gift vouchers of either £25, £50, £75 or £100 after being nominated for good work and these are signed off by a senior civil servant.

    The large department, which was disbanded in February 2023 and replaced with the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as part of a reorganisation by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, was home to almost 6,000 staff in its core department.

    If every staff member received an equal share of the pie that would equate to £237.57 each.

    Non-cash rewards
    UK Shared Business Services Ltd (UK SBS) bought the vouchers for BEIS from Park Retail Limited, the parent company of Love2Shop, with the staff then getting their non-cash rewards to spend.

    “The vouchers are Beis’ method of rewarding high performance,” the department told the Telegraph in response to a Freedom of Information request.

    The initiative first appeared in the financial records in September 2018, with the unofficial bonus scheme going on for four years until the Telegraph uncovered the process.

    A Freedom of Information request was received by the Government on October 25, 2022, and the latest batch of documents to be released show the purchases from Park Retail Ltd stopped the very next day following a trio of transactions totalling £10,904.48 on 26 October.

    But in the four-year period between the scheme starting and October 2022, only the months of September 2019 and a Covid-stricken April 2020 saw no vouchers be purchased by the department.

    However, in May 2020, in the midst of the first lockdown, Beis spent more than £41,000 giving its staff Love2Shop vouchers.

    The department spent around £2.5 million in total on the cards between April 2018 and the end of December 2022, with more than half of that coming from Love2Shop vouchers.

    Families pick up the tab
    John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Incentives for hard work and achievement are all well and good, but the top brass have to remember the families picking up the tab.

    “Times are tough, and with sky high taxes and inflation biting, it’s more important than ever that the civil service delivers value for taxpayers’ money.”

    The most expensive month for vouchers was March 2022 when Kwasi Kwarteng was still the minister for business with more than £77,000 spent on vouchers in 26 different transactions.

    The monthly expenditure from March 2022 alone is enough to pay the annual salary of Grade 6 member of staff, such as another “Office for Life Sciences Manager”, “Space Manager” or “Vaccine Task Force Manager”.

    The total expenditure on shopping coupons in the first five months of 2022 is more than the annual salary of Beis’ top earning civil servant, Sir Patrick Vallance, one of the faces of the Covid pandemic as the government’s chief scientific adviser.

    Sir Patrick’s salary is listed as between £185,000 and £189,999 by the department’s latest organogram, while January through to May 2022 saw Beis spend £193,394.46 on vouchers.

    The Royal College of Nursing estimates the annual NHS nurse has a salary of around £34,000 and there have been 11 occasions where this amount has been exceeded in a single month on gift cards for Beis staffers.

    A Beis spokesperson told the Telegraph: “This expenditure is fully in line with long-standing arrangements in the civil service for rewarding and recognising good performance from members of staff.”

    2. What they define as ‘good performance’ probably isn’t the same as anyone elses

  70. I am going to bed soon- had enough today.
    Sleep well Y’all and wish me the same.

  73. After the Kathleen Stock talk at the Oxford Union, apparently the Union is a bit shy about posting the talk on their website.
    An undergraduate called Oliver Dobbs is organising a motion to try and force them to post it on the website, and he’s asking any Union members to email the Returning Officer to add their names to the petition, by 15:25 pm tomorrow (Sunday).

    This is a good opportunity for the older generation to show their displeasure at the censorship currently in vogue at Universities.
    https://twitter.com/OliverDobbs98/status/1664649285768470529

    Send an email to the RO address given on Twitter, copied to Oliver Dobbs saying something like

    To: RO ut oxford dash union.org
    cc: oliver.dobbs ut ch.ox. ac.uk

    “To whom it may concern

    Please add my name to the motion by Oliver Dobbs (Ch Ch) at the 7th Week Ordinary Public Business Meeting that the House calls upon the President to release for public viewing the full and unedited recording of the Extraordinary Meeting of the Society attended by Dr Kathleen Stock (Exeter College).

    (Name)
    (College)
    (Membership number OR year of joining the Union)”

    It says Membership number on Twitter, but I checked and apparently the year of joining the Union is also OK.

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